by C.M. Tucker

Created on: February 26, 2012

It’s not the population growth that one needs to worry about. Take a good look at the entire Earth. There are a multitude of places that can be converted into towns and cities. Just look at Las Vegas. It’s a city in the middle of a desert.

The population growth to 7 billion doesn’t threaten planet Earth any more than a pencil causes a person to misspell a word or a gun makes a person shoot another. It’s what people do to the Earth that makes a difference. 

Any environmental threat will definitely affect sustainability to human and other life. But, unless there is something that causes the planet to explode, those affects won’t threaten this rock we live on.

The magnetic field that surrounds our planet might be an exception. It’s what causes our planet to benefit from the influences of the Sun. The one thing we can all count on in our lives is that everything changes. Constantly. We might not be aware of it because our sense of time is tempered by the length of our existence.

There’s been talk lately of an upcoming pole shift and speculations about what that means, as if it were an unexpected occurrence. It has happened on the Earth many times over the guessed age of our planet. NASA. 

It is this writer’s speculation that both human life and the planet will survive a pole shift when and if one happens in our lifetimes. There will be tragedy, no doubt…  But, to whom?  

Tragedy or good fortune is in the eye of the beholder. A disaster to one person can be a speed bump to someone else. It is often the perspective that we choose that determines whether we bend with the wind or break off in it.

A population growth that exceeds the decided norm means that sloppy management of resources can be more readily seen. It means that ordinary people, the masses, must step up and be more responsible with their use of water, pollutants and food production. 

Corporations and the wealthy are responsible for leading people into good management of the environment. They lead by example. Ordinary people are responsible for expecting and reinforcing this type of leadership. What example are our wealthy and corporate leaders giving? Failure in this leads to anarchy.

The number of people alive on the Earth interacts with current environmental aspects and processes. The way we handle such numbers of people and how we interact with the Earth makes all the difference in the quality of life of people and the planet. The Earth will outlast us all, however. The real question is, “how can we survive each other?”

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