The biosphere is ailing, and yet it has no representation on the ballots we are begged to fill out by Get Out the Vote organizations. I don’t think that the reason we have to be cajoled to vote is that we realize that no one is representing the biosphere, but it is my reason.
According to National Geographic, “The biosphere is made up of the parts of Earth where life exists. The biosphere extends from the deepest root systems of trees to the dark environment of ocean trenches, to lush rain forests and high mountaintops.” The mantle, inner core and outer core of our planet are doing just fine and will be here until our sun ends its life billions of years from now as grows into its red giant phase. To say the earth is in trouble is not really accurate, the earth is going to be fine, but the thin layer called the biosphere which offers life support to plants and animals is in deep trouble and has us on its endangered species list.
In a record 11 years we have added another billion to our biosphere. Who is going to raise the issue that growth is cutting us off at the knees? Who will stand up and counter the current growth narratives? On this issue, the two major parties and several minor ones that stare up at me from my pathetic ballot when election year comes around, offer no help at all. They are all pro-growth, pro housing development, pro-business development and oh yes let’s keep adding more lanes to our freeways.
Historically the environment had been a bi-partisan issue. The Democrats can take credit for the establishment of the Wilderness Act under LBJ and the Republicans can take credit for establishing the EPA and the Clean Air Act under Richard M. Nixon. Nixon, a Republican, was very worried about the detrimental effects of population growth and can also be given credit for establishing the Rockefeller commission to look at population growth and its impacts on our nation. This commission wisely recommended that our nation welcome a plan for a stabilized population. We know how that went, but at least he tried. Nixon left office in disgrace. What is more disgraceful is that when he left we had 213.9 million people and now by shelving that plan, we have allowed ourselves to grow to a much more unsustainable 333 million. If it was political suicide to bring that up then, it is radioactive now.
Without doing any homework on this, I know that everyone on the ballot in all states, blue,red or purple is for GNP growth. They seem to think that growth of our cities, population and structures is to be celebrated when the biosphere is screaming to us that it cannot handle our numbers and subsequent demands of its finite resources. Polluted waters and skies are the calling cards of too much growth on a finite planet.
In my area of the country, leaders who were hesitant about putting up more housing were kicked out in favor of those who want to just keep building more and more apartment buildings to accommodate population growth. I guess they have a magic wand to bring them the water we are running out of that I don’t know about. I looked for a measure on my ballot this year that would address growth where it lives in the US today, in our policies toward the eternally unaddressed issue of growth by mass immigration. I found none. It is something we could demand because it doesn’t interfere with choices of family-size and honors Americans and the lives we want to live, free from overcrowding and the problems that come with it.
It seems perfectly constitutional and democratic to me to demand that we take care of our communities first before trying to accommodate more, in a country with less and less to offer newcomers. I am also worried about global overpopulation, but my power is mostly in the ever- weakening power of the voting booth.
When I vote I have to look downstream at social issues that matter to me. Issues like reproductive rights, anti-racist policies, education and health care, but I know that none of that will matter because voting for any of these pro-growth candidates is like making a healthy meal and then lacing it with arsenic. Growth is killing off the biosphere and that is where we live.