Reply #20: Absolutely. By unfortunate, I suppose you mean higher carbon footprint.

[Gregorian]

It really is a dilemma. I see parallels between the ecology and politics. If only we had been more vigilant and responsible in the past, then today we wouldn't be facing such drastic decisions.

There is nothing wrong with a high standard of living. That has been our goal since we arrived on this planet. But now the curves have crossed. And with these numbers, no amount of trying will achieve a standard that we had in recent days gone by. I've purchased a number of ranches and farms over the years. When I think back on the huge dairy barn I owned, I could see that in 1890 we had electricity and streams full of fish. Civil rights sucked. But we had sustainable living. Ah, the stories I could tell about what was and when it died. Old locals telling their life stories. Just after world war two was when things began to decline.

We can't magically make the population decrease over night. We need to get renewable energy conversion immediately, but we must get people to see the massive power of population. It's deceptive as a mortgage. The old penny a day trick for 30 days. Doubling. If I hadn't spent nearly twenty years searching for beauty and silence and finding only ruination, I'd be less inclined to discuss population. But we've managed to trample every inch of this continent in just a hundred years.