Hartland McDonald – $1,000 Winner of the 2014 Foundation for Human Conservation NPG Essay Scholarship

By Hartland McDonald, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL

All American citizens should consider it a matter of pride and national duty to do all they can to educate themselves about the realities of uncontrolled population growth and the effects on our quality of life … now … and for future generations.

We have made great strides, in relatively little time, in educating ourselves about recycling, sustainability and environmental protection.  Only fifty years ago, some of the first legislation for the protection of our resources began to be enacted.  Now, among our younger Americans it has become second nature to recycle, repurpose, reclaim and reuse.  Now, we need to make a concerted effort to teach ourselves to … restrain.

All the attempts made to consider how we use our finite resources will be put to the unavoidable test when the earth reaches an estimated population of 10 billion in 40 years. Already over 40% of the earth’s resources are used by only one species … us!  No one in the scientific community is really sure of the “tipping point” – only that there is one.

While America can’t control the world’s population, we can spearhead the initiative and begin to educate our own people about the coming storm.  Ironically, Iran – one of the world’s least progressive countries – has made a significant effort by providing voluntary, state-funded birth control.  Even their religious leaders are attuned to the fact that, as a nation, they need to cope with controlling their population growth now.

Our leaders, both political and spiritual, need to come to terms with the quality of life that future Americans will have.  Will our leaders be willing to consider the future of citizens who will never vote for them, or hear their sermons?  Who will step up and confront an issue so individually personal – yet so collectively vital?   To refuse to change our way of thinking – that we have a natural or spiritual right to reproduce no matter what the cost – will inevitably work against us.   We must compare our “rights” to our responsibilities.  Responsibility not just to ourselves – but to everyone we share a finite world with.  We must ask ourselves what kind of world we would want our grandchildren to live in.

It may well be up to our youngest American generation – the ones whose children will inherit the problem – to take the initiative.  Their voices need to be heard now.  They have grown up in an era of new thought about how we impact our world.   They have embraced new thinking about how conservation begins with the individual.  Now is the opportune time to build on the thinking that we as Americans are part of a whole – and that we can make a global difference with our decisions.  Good and bad, we set the trends for the world.  Let’s make sure we start a good one.  Let our youngest generation of leaders be the ones to make a difference because ultimately, the threat to the planet is not rising oceans, declining energy supplies, drought or global warming.  The real threat to the planet is … us.