Letter: ‘Our resources are being stretched by our numbers’

To the editor,

Does it seem to anyone else that we are on an out of control trajectory towards the future? I meet a lot of people that have misgivings about what we see going on in the world, but no one has any answers on how to change its progress.

It is hard to pinpoint the cause, but it seems to be everywhere. My intuition tells me that its largely due to our population size. Our resources are being stretched by our numbers. Our quiet spaces are shrinking. A few years ago, I was alarmed by rapidly growing housing developments. Often on prime farm land, simply because that's where the money was. Now I'm alarmed by how so much land is put into corn. The fencerows are taken down, and the fields get bigger. All planted to corn. How long can that be sustained? Because that's where the money is. There is tremendous pressure to either sell farm land, or rent it for corn.

Combine population growth with our computer technology and we've got greed on speed. Wisdom is rarely in a hurry. But we are. Grow corn and nothing else and where do the birds go? Where do native plants live? What about insects? All these things taken for granted but once they're gone they're gone for good. And how about the land itself? We're sucking the life out of it for gasoline. It only makes sense in the short term. In the long term its not so good is it?

My point is that we need to be aware of what is going on before we can do anything about it. Unfortunately, it only takes a generation to forget the richness that is now lost. There are kids out there that have never seen the milky way because of light pollution. That is amazing to me. Don't forget history, because that's where much wisdom lies. We're going to need all the help we can get, because we are in unprecedented times. Maybe we're not wise enough to control our own technology. Then I guess, it must be controlling us. And that doesn't sound good at all.

Debbie Jahnke

Hastings

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