"and show no signs of stopping or even slowing down." Really? Because last time I checked every year the birth rate has gone down in the US and other developed countries.
"The largest wild population of large mammals besides humans is the wildebeest" We are talking in the last 20 years right? Because buffalo do not seem to factor into your decisions. Or other mammals which failed to over-run the "carrying capacity of the environment". I put that in quotes because that is a theory, never proven that its possible.
"When my nephew was born it was said that there were so many fish that humans would never be able to endanger any common species, now many fisheries have had to be limited or closed to keep them from total collapse." And so we have to start farms for fish so that they do not go extinct, and so we may continue to eat them? Whats your point again?
"When my dad was young he was told that there was so much fresh water that we would never make a dent in the supplies. A few years later the Cuyahoga River caught fire and Lake Erie was declared dead."
One word: Desalination. Since water never leaves our planet, we now have an infinite supply of fresh water. You can thank me by mailing me a check for solving water conservation issues with one word. Now the only problem we have with fresh water, is getting it to where its needed...
"Two years after my teacher told us that the dangers of CFCs to the ozone layer was discovered."
Really, you are going to bring a dead issue up to support your conclusions? Ozone layer is last decade's news. But I will bring it up again later just for you.
"When my grandfather was young he was told that the forests were inexhaustible."
And so they are. Today all of our paper is made from lumber farms which are regrown so that there is basically an infinite supply of lumber. Although, I have no issues with recycling if you want to. Aluminum is very cost-efficient in this regard, and other rares metals might someday become rare and cost-efficient as well. If not, I am sure the owners of land-fills will make a tidy profit when we start mining those. You see, you forget about humanity and our accomplishments when you simply look at the negative. Whenever we reach a difficult point in our history, there are those who cry about how terrible things are, and there are those who face reality and do what is needed to solve the problems.
But let me tell you my story:
I was told by my mother...that the world was supposed to suffer severe hunger, disease, and wars in the late 1980's because of over-population that would make the world's population reach over four billion which would result in calamity.
My teachers in the early 90's told me that the Earth could not sustain five billion and if we reached that magical number our world would suffer hunger, disease and wars which would decimate our world. In the late 90's my high school teachers told me the Earth could not sustain six billion people and if we reached that number humanity would suffer from hunger, disease, wars AND skin cancer because of the ozone layer being destroyed.
Today, I hear from you talking about how the Earth can not sustain any more humans. Why should I believe you?
Your heritage seems to be oh Woe is ME! How terrible humanity is. I for one am proud of my heritage and humanity. We solve our environmental problems as best as we can. Is there any other way to do it? Why aren't you proud of this fact? We have to face our past, learn from those mistakes and move on in order to accomplish anything worthwhile in this life. By calling anyone stupid who disagrees with your beliefs, you are making the same mistakes as your ancestors. They also had their religious beliefs and called anyone who didn't believe like them pagans, witches, or worse. Move past that, and face reality.
