My philosophical and spiritual guiding light, Pogo, made the astute observation about 50 years ago. "We have met the enemy and he is us". Admittedly he was talking politics in the strip but I believe that it can be extended to this discussion. 

The human population on earth for many centuries up until 1800 was relatively stable at about 1 billion. It took until 1927 to reach 2 billion. 1946, the year of my birth, it was 2 1/4 billion. In 2011 it was 7 billion and is projected to be 10 billion in 2055. Not only have the total numbers exploded but the per capita consumption of resources has grown even faster. The planet has not grown.

 >Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if you look at the world’s mammals by weight, 96 percent of that biomass is humans and livestock; just 4 percent is wild animals.

>We apply pesticides to only about 1/8 of the habitable land on the planet.
The other 7/8ths of the habitable land supported many insect species that
do not depend upon cropland. 

As Jim points out everywhere is down stream from somewhere. We habituate or cultivate virtually all the land that is fit and extract resources from even that that is not. Our civilization has drastically altered both the atmosphere and the habitable land and sea as well as the life forms of the earth. Eastern WA, my home, is mostly empty of people and becoming noticeably empty of insects. We control them on cropland and destroy much of their habitat on rang land with herbicides. The study of many species decline shows that most often it is not gradual. It goes down slowly until it reaches a tipping point due to breeding population, habitat loss, co-dependency of species, and other factors and then crashes. Not unlike bees and mites. A quote I heard recently on climate change was "blah, blah, blah, boom!"

So we wring our hands and want to find something or someone (else) to blame, but I am convinced that it is me and thee. Population control is still subject taboo and I suspect will remain so until the crash. We are not unique in our drive to reproduce but we have technology that temporarily throats natural limits. The fossil record is worth a look.  When the history of the planet is written, this brief bad case of humanitis will be a short chapter. When the history of the universe is written, earth will most likely not be mentioned. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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