Maybe it would help to join some of the brave groups who are tackling these issues: Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters, Fund for Wild Nature, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, Rainforest Action Network, and the World Wildlife Fund. Whether you're an activist member or just an armchair contributor, they can really use your help.
While these folks are doing good and important work, it often seems like they're just chipping away at the edges of the problem. They're paddling upstream against a raging tide of environmental destruction.
So what to do? Maybe if we knew what was causing the problem in the first place, we could attack it at the root.
And what is the root cause? As Walt Kelly paraphrased Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." We, the humans on this planet, are the source of all pollution! All of the other plants and animals live in complete harmony with nature, consuming only what they need to survive and generating no toxic byproducts. It is only us, in our arrogance and greed, who screw up the natural order of things.
That wouldn't be so bad, except that there are an incredibly large number of us. The world's population is rapidly approaching 6 billion, and is projected to double in the next 40 years. That's clearly more than the earth's carrying capacity. As a result, we are overwhelming and destroying the support systems which we (and all other biota) require to live.
Inevitably, the best and brightest hope for a sustainable future is
to curb human population growth. Who is working on this problem? There
are many organizations which focus on population, including Negative
Population Growth and Population
Communications International. But the largest (and, I believe, most
effective) is Population
Connection. If they don't have a chapter
near you, consider starting one!
