Connect

As our nation celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, NPG would like to remind environmentalists of the link between environmental degradation and population growth. 

Since the founding of Earth Day in 1970, U.S. population has increased by an overwhelming 100 million people.  In order to truly protect our environment, population growth must be slowed, halted, and eventually reversed.  Only by achieving a smaller, truly sustainable U.S. and world population can we ever expect to fully protect our environment.  Until we reach that goal, we are simply delaying the inevitable destruction of our environment, resources, and quality of life.

As Earth Day Founder Gaylord Nelson stated in his 2000 NPG Forum paper, The Environmental Future, “We are not just toying with nature; we are compromising the capacity of natural systems to do what they need to do to preserve a livable world.” 

This Earth Day, and for every one after this, please remember that population growth is our most serious environmental problem.