Carolyn Taylor

When I turned four years old, my dad bought me a tank with four guppy fish and a ceramic castle. I used to pull a chair all the way from the den, down the hall, and into my little pink room just to sit and watch them dip in and out of the drawbridge. Before long eight new guppy fish appeared, along with three tadpoles and a crawdad I had caught from the creek. Precocious as I was, I marched into my parents's bedroom and declared that we needed to get the guppies fixed.

As I look back on that day, I realize that if a four-year-old can look into a glass tank and grasp that there are simply too many organisms producing too much waste and consuming too much oxygen to be sustainable, competent adults should be able to make similar inferences from a trip to New York City or even their local Wal-Mart.

Whereas the world population is growing at an alarming rate, no nation's population increase poses as much of a threat as that of the United States. Clearly, seeing as much of U.S. consumption depends on imported resources and foreign energy reserves, we are consuming more than our land can efficiently provide. Thus, most activists and progressive thinkers have latched onto the green lifestyle and sustainable development plans while the critical population issue is disregarded or overlooked completely. Also, despite the fact that overpopulation is an essential obstacle to overcome in environmental restoration and is widely recognized as such by theorists and academics, there is little or no mention of the issue in green movements across the country. Without the recognition of overpopulation as a danger to both humanity and the ecosystem, ecological movements are useless. In other words, if the population of the United States reaches 500 million, there won't be enough to go around, no matter how much we reduce, reuse, and recycle.

I don't seek to discount the importance of environmental and resource conservation, but rather to emphasize the fact that population awareness is greatly underrepresented in contemporary social and political movements. With the U.S. population well over 300 million and counting, a consensus population goal should be set and worked towards.

Ideally, the United States' population would be a sustainable 200 million or less. Researchers agree that the US population as it was in the 40's and early 50's would be a realistic goal, both sustainable and optimal for domestic economy; however, the implementation of a plan is difficult without any steps to climb.

In my opinion, strong organizations that can both educate the public and influence policy are essential assets for population awareness. In many cases (such as the opposition of neo free-trade sanctions in Québec) ralliers have been able to call the attention of the state and media by simply congregating. Activism is proven to implement social change, whereas apathetic supporters yield few results.

In conclusion, it takes more than simply the recognition of the problem to reverse the damage. When I was four, I wanted to get my fish fixed. Now, I want to adopt. In the end, individuals are responsible for carrying out the change that they want to see in the world. Overpopulation threatens the security of the United States not only for our children and our children's children, but for our own generation as well.