A lot of Californians think they are environmentalists by driving a Pruis, using reusable shopping bags, putting up a solar collector and recycling trash. Not that there's anything wrong with these activities, but if you ignore the elephant in the room all these other efforts are just a delay at best. The elephant in the room is population control.
For those of you who know know any mathematics, if the population growth rate is any positive value at all then there will be a doubling rate. A growth rate is when the number of people being born is larger than the number of people dying. As we all know - the Earth is a fixed size. It's not growing. And the reason we have global warming is there are already way too many people on the planet and we need to reduce the population to around 2 billion people.
If we cut our carbon footprint in half and we double the population what have we gained? Nothing. And if the population doubles every 30 years then we have to cut our usage in half every 30 years. Or picture this. You're driving on 101 and traffic is slow. Imagine twice as many cars. Imagine 4 times as many cars. That's what happens when the population grows.
How will we feed these people? What will life be like? Will science save the day? We can colonize Mars but it's even smaller than Earth. Our children will live on food made from algae. Maybe people will give up their physical existence to live inside computers in a virtual world where space is infinite. Or there will be population control so strict that children will have to be sterilized at birth.
So - instead of focusing on banning plastic bags we should be putting condoms in with the water bill and stressing the importance of not having children. If Morgan Hill, for example were to provide free condoms and birth control to the entire population it would actually make a real difference in making the environment sustainable.
Overpopulation is the first step towards extinction. It is common in evolutionary history where a species overpopulates, eradicates its food supply, and they all starve to death. We're no different and if we allow ourselves to fill up the planet then we will suffer the same fate. So if you love your children and care about the future then stop having babies. If you don't then everything else means nothing. Humanity will cease to exist.
