We must be aware of overpopulation
According to recent news reports U.S. birthrates are up again. Also, teen pregnancies are up again for the second year in a row.
We now have a birthrate of 4.3 million per year in the U.S. while the planetary population size will reach 7 billion within the next few years.
A couple of months ago our government released new data showing that it will cost $292,000 each to raise the average baby born this year to age 18 (not including college). Many of those 4,333,000 U.S. babies now born every year do not have parents capable of raising them at anywhere near this level, let alone also having the emotional temperament, stabile family home, or mental ability to properly to raise a child. And therefore more and more of these babies will become wards of the state, and, unfortunately, with our economy in the tank, will remain a financial taxpayer burden for decades. (At present approximately 52 percent of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned).
It appears that Americans have completely forgotten about the profoundly dangerous relationships between overpopulation, resource depletion, environmental degradation, and our standard of living. The recent meeting on global warming in Copenhagen ended with nasty arguments between nations, and no verifiable monitoring of promised carbon reductions by nations. Remember, compared to the size of our planet, it has a very, very thin layer of breathable air. And when it comes to action, or inaction, on global warming there are no do-overs.
Jim Peterson
Hoffman Estates