Pardon my French, but demographic poverty, my butt!

My local daily newspaper, The Gazette, has been on a crusade lately to warn of impending doom from declining population. The latest installment was in a July 15 editorial titled We Have Far Worse Than a Debt Crisis: This is a Dawning of Demographic Poverty. I find the term, Demographic Poverty, as used, quite ridiculous, short-sighted and selfish.

It’s important that growthbusters everywhere challenge this kind of backward thinking in their communities. I did my part, submitting a letter to the editor. It’s been a week since I submitted it, but it has not found its way to the opinion pages. So I share it here: . . .

July 11 is World Population Day, meaning only that today the news media, and perhaps a bigger share of the public, are giving overpopulation the attention it should get every day. Why it doesn’t normally get this attention is one of the subjects explored in my upcoming documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. It is too complex for a quick blog read.

This insightful cartoon by Tim Newcomb cuts to the chase. It is quite clear the scale of the human enterprise has outgrown the planet. Nearly every crisis or challenge we face today is caused or aggravated by population growth. Yet for every crisis and challenge, stabilizing or reducing population is rarely mentioned even as one of the possible solutions. Too few are comfortable bringing it up. Unfortunately, those who do raise the issue all too often follow that up with a statement that population growth is out of our control. Or that demographic inertia means it’s inevitable growth will continue for some time. That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We get what we expect. And it seems we don’t expect much of the human race. We could, voluntarily, bring population growth to a halt tomorrow, if we were all well-informed and believe in the intergenerational golden rule. . . .

Please help us choose the best slogan for these packages of GrowthBusters Condoms.

(Click on the picture to see full-size and to vote.)

Here at GrowthBusters one of our guiding principles is borrowed from the advertising industry. William Kroll, onetime chair of ad agency giant Young & Rubicam, once said,

“Only the unusual in communication can be unusually effective.”

While this drives most of my work on the GrowthBusters documentary, it is extraordinarily apparent in our current escapade. I invite you to join in the fun. Full details of the plan will be revealed shortly.

Please cast your vote here. And if you have a better slogan to suggest, do so in a comment to this post. I’d like to get a broad sample of opinions, so please share this on facebook, Twitter, and email. Invite your friends to participate! . . .

“Oregonians really dislike two things: they dislike sprawl; and they dislike density.”
– Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber

Thank you for supporting GrowthBusters on Kickstarter (click below)!

…and if you remember that famous Pogo cartoon, the enemy is us.

I’d like to introduce you to a smart man, interesting book, fascinating website and worthy movement all rolled into one.

George Trembath is a permaculturalist and lay philosopher residing in Queensland, Australia. We found each other thanks to word of GrowthBusters spreading around the world a little more than usual the last few weeks (thanks to our Kickstarter project to raise final finishing funds for the film – please make your pledge here).

George and a group of like-minded citizens have been building a movement and online community called Pachacuti. The goal is to raise awareness and debate on the intertwined subjects of human footprint, sustainability, social equality, and cultural practicality – on a global basis. And they are making very interesting use of entertainment media for much of this. There is a novel, an album of music, some very cool e-cards, and possibly a feature film in the future. I encourage you to explore the Pachacuti website. . . .