Population is part of the problem, but apparently not the solution.

Let's say you had a problem (we're sure you have several handy examples); but this particular problem happened to involve your house-plants growing, out of control, through the roof of your home, thereby causing your house to flood every time it rained -- tough plants, obviously, but that's not the point.

Your Zen-master neighbor teeters by with his cane, and stops. He says, "You must repair your roof and keep your plants cut back." Then he vanishes in thin air. Cool neighbor, but again -- not the point.

The point is, to keep the problem from happening, you need to do a couple of things. Just repairing your roof isn't good enough, because by next week the plants will have busted through it again. Just keep your plants cut back, however, and you still have a hole in your roof.

Isn't it a mystery then -- one that probably not even your Zen-master neighbor could explain -- that when the Asia Society releases a report citing population growth as one major driver of an impending water shortage in Asia... that they don't say a thing about stabilizing the population as part of the solution?!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asia may see more conflicts over scarce water resources in the coming years as climate change and population growth threaten access to the most basic natural resource, a report warned on Friday.

Water problems in Asia are already severe, with one in five people, or 700 million, not having access to safe drinking water and half the region's population lacking access to basic sanitation, according to the report produced by the Asia Society, a New York-based think tank.

Population growth, rapid urbanization and climate change are expected to worsen the situation, according to the report, "Asia's Next Challenge: Securing the Region's Water Future."

It noted water disputes between hostile neighbors India and Pakistan and the complex relations governing the vast Mekong River, which is shared by China and its southern neighbors, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The report said while water issues have more often generated cooperation than conflict between nations in the past, demographic pressures and water scarcity would be unprecedented in the coming decades.

"The potential for conflicts sparked by the direct and indirect impacts of an increasingly volatile water supply should not be underestimated, particularly in the light of rising concerns about climate change," it said.

"No matter how we approach water resources -- whether it is on the basis of quality and quantity, or as the most potent manifestation of extreme climatic events -- hydropolitics is likely to be a growing force in Asian security," it said.

While Asia is home to more than half the world's population, it has less fresh water per person than any other populated continent, the report said. Asia's population is expected to rise by nearly 500 million within 10 years.

-- By Claudia Parsons

Erosion

After working in the sustainable population advocacy field, one can't but help at times wonder, "Will the emotional polarity that this issue brings up in people ever be able to be overcome?"

There is a nasty tendency for this issue to register in people's worldview as either the most important, fundamental issue blocking the way to sustainable living scenarios for all scales of human civilization -- or -- as the most insignificant waste-of-time issue imaginable. That's quite a chasm, yet I don't think I am mistaken to say very few people occupy middle ground between these two great extremes.

It's with great struggle and heretofore unknown results that NECSP has been trying to populate (excuse the pun) that middle ground -- to correctly frame population issues as core considerations that any responsible sustainability advocate must make in struggling for an improved future for planet and people.

Not the only considerations one must make (wouldn't that be nice), but certainly one of them.

Is this really so controversial?

No, not really. But the problem is that in the great din and cacophony of each side shouting at each other, moderate voices are imperceptible -- and the balance of our position renders it useless to the partisans, because it undercuts both of their set-in-concrete ideological positions. Who wants to take the time to leave the high perch of your certainty and come down to the middle ground and start motioning for people to lower their voices? To start problem solving like adults?

No matter how narrow of a ledge you must stand on to occupy it, it's much easier to claim the moral high ground (itself conveniently self-defined) than it is to make peace.

The dynamic replicates itself over and over -- global warming vs. global hoax; growth economy vs. steady state; and, yes, Red Sox vs. Yankees. People tend to make decisions based on emotion, and very few issues cut so close to the human experience as the issues of reproduction, progeny and community.

And, in a relative sense, those of us down here on the middle ground looking up at the warring parties are just as convinced of our position as the extremists. We beleive that like a bell curve, there will always be outliers at either end arguing that, "Population is not a problem at all" vs. "Population is the only problem".

Our task then -- at least philosophically -- is to operate on the conviction that though the outlying, highly opinionated folks at the ends of the bell curve may have loud voices, that some critical mass of of our 6.9 billion co-inhabitants of the actually Earth fall within the "reasonable" zone; and, it's our job to find them, empower them, amplify their voices, organize their efforts when neccessary and eventually watch those cliffs of extremism collapse into the sea.

Sir David Attenborough Joins OPT

The broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron of a group seeking to cut the growth in human population.

On joining the Optimum Population Trust, Sir David said growth in human numbers was "frightening".

Sir David has been increasingly vocal about the need to reduce the number of people on Earth to protect wildlife. The Trust, which accuses governments and green groups of observing a taboo on the topic, say they are delighted to have Sir David as a patron.

Sir David, one of the BBC's longest-standing presenters, has been making documentaries on the natural world and conservation for more than half a century. In a statement issued by the Optimum Population Trust he is quoted as saying: "I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more."

The Trust, which was founded in 1991, campaigns for the UK population to decrease voluntarily by not less than 0.25% a year. It has launched a "Stop at Two" online pledge to encourage couples to limit their family's size. Other patrons include Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, and Dame Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall institute.

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said population was a fraught area of debate, with libertarians and some religious groups vehemently opposing measures by governments to influence individual fertility.

In turn, the Trust accuses policy makers and environmentalists of conspiring in a "silent lie" that human numbers can grow forever with no ill-effects. In January 2009, Sir David revealed that he had received hate mail from viewers for not crediting God in his nature programmes. His most recent documentary focused on how Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution and why it remained important.

Visit NECSP.ORG to learn more about population issues and take action!

Guest Writer: Frosty Wooldridge

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at http://www.frostywooldridge.com

Below, please find part 1 of Frosty's Book Review of "Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Conner.

With a scant 21 million people on the vast continent of Australia, how could anyone state with any certitude that Oz suffers from human overpopulation? What impudence might that take? How out of touch? How completely absurd? Definitely not ‘fair dinkum’!

China features not much more land mass than Oz but houses 1.3 billion souls. The United States--at least the lower 48 states--equals about the same land mass, but houses 306 million people. Mexico, less than a quarter the size of Australia, features 108 million people.

So what’s the problem? How could there be a snag? Australia encompasses an endless amount of land. It features 2,970,000 square miles of terra firma. How do I know? In 1984 through 1985, I cycled 17,000 kms around Australia including Tasmania. One Aussie, after learning that I intended to cycle the entire perimeter of Australia said, “Well Yank, you must be dead from the neck up!” I answered, “Yes, but it’s a great adventure.” He responded, “Do you know what the Nullabor Plains means?” I said, “No.” He said, “It means treeless for 2,000 kms and 40 degrees C. every day. You’ll fry in the heat!”

None the less, I traveled from Sydney down the Princess Highway to Melbourne; sailed over to Tasmania, up the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles, to Ceduna and across the Nullabor Plains (treeless) and on to Esperance and then to Perth, onward to Port Headlands and upward to Darwin. From there to Cairns and back down to Sydney! What did I see and how did I feel? I fried in the saddle and sweated while I slept at night under the Southern Cross. Withering heat at 120+ degrees F. daily! I stopped at the Great Australian Bite, saw Bondi’s boat that beat the Yanks in the Americas Cup, viewed the Pinnacles of Cervantes, rode past the ant castles, witnessed the ‘prison boab tree’ near Port Headlands and watched the big crocs in Darwin. A frilled lizard scared the daylights out of me near Tenant Creek and I dove on the Great Barrier Reef. I read A.F. Facey’s “A Fortunate Life.” I’m still friends with John Brown in Kiama and Lance Hill in Perth. I’ve backpacked with Lance in Nepal and push-biked across the USA with John. I love Oz and its people.

So why does Australia suffer an overpopulation crisis? From my firsthand experiences, I am here to tell you: desert and sand cover 95 percent of Australia. No water and no arable land! It’s a wasteland with kangaroos, emus, wombats and stray camels eking out their existences in the devil’s horrid heat. When I traveled Oz, it featured 14 million people which it could support. Today, at 21 million, it’s on the edge of its own non-sustainable future. Australians might fool Mother Nature in the short term, but they cannot in the long run. Oz doesn’t possess water or arable land needed to grow food thus to sustain a large human population. That’s a brutal fact!

However, powerful governmental, capitalistic and growth oriented organizations expect to push Australia’s population to 50 million tortured souls. Much the same holds true in the United States and other countries where ‘growthists’ disregard reality and push human populations beyond the ability of the land and water to sustain them. How do they do it? They promote unlimited immigration from other countries that have already exceeded their carrying capacities---and simply exhaust their excess humanity onto the shores of Australia and other countries that possess stable populations. The third world grows by a net gain of 77 million annually, so the line never ends. That alone should give any Oz citizen pause!

The author Mark O’Connor of Overloading Australia, lamented, “I found this book almost impossible to write.” He found the fortitude to finish the project only after teaming with his co-author, conservationist William J. Lines.

With electrifying clarity, O’Connor and Lines spell out a sobering future for Australia. Any kangaroo could figure out what the ‘kangaroo’ government in Canberra cannot seem to grasp! As one man who has seen more of Australia than 95 percent of Australians, I can vouch for the fact that Oz does not possess the farmland or the water to sustain any more population.

“Rightwing growthists demand endless growth of ‘the economy’ backed by endless population growth,” O’Connor said. “Forced since late 2006 to accept a serious public debate about water supplies and about how to maintain ‘growth’ without increasing greenhouse gases, they are nevertheless determined to scotch any discussion about limiting growth.”

I found it exceedingly exasperating that the ‘very’ people in charge of Australia’s future, like Prime Minister Rudd in 2008, did and does not understand the consequences of his/their own actions. He promotes a “Faustian Bargain’ on every citizen in Australia that will force a “Hobson’s Choice.”

“Rudd announced a million news homes would need to be built over the next six years to house the influx [of people] he did not venture to question,” Lines said.

Where might that influx originate? Answer: Australia immigrates roughly 300,000 people annually into its dry and dusty desert country.

Why?

“There is a powerful lobby concerned not with whether human life or that of other species would be better in a ‘larger’ Australia, but with profits!” O’Connor said.

What ‘growthists’ create stems from that “Faustian Bargain” or selling their souls to the devil of growth for the present to place everyone into an environmental and unsustainable ‘hell’ later. Once another five or ten million Australians manifest on that desert continent, everyone suffers “Hobson’s Choice”: if you pick door number A—you walk through and over a cliff. If you pick door number B—you walk through and sink into quicksand. In other words, all your choices lead to death of your civilization.

TO BE CONTINUED...