When I was 20 years old, back in 1965, there were people

[Moostache]

54. I am a firm believer that individuals can only achieve symbolic actions in this fight...

The real problem is not just over-population, it is over-consumption, marketing EVERYTHING imaginable and unregulated capitalism as the organizing principle of world economics...

Yes, REGULATED capitalism, with logical and sensible barriers to monopoly and fascism and oligopoly can be a force for lifting masses out of abject poverty and serfdom or slavery...HOWEVER, the core driving purpose of UNREGULATED capitalism is at war with reality - there is simply no way to have eternal, ceaseless, infinite growth inside the confines of a finite system...UNLESS the system was designed around the one thing that is NOT finite on the Earth - conversion of solar radiation into stored and utilized energy to drive economic and agricultural output.

We receive enough energy from the sun DAILY to power civilization for a year...yet we built the entire system of international manufacturing, shipping and trade around fossil fuels and consumption. The native tribes of North and South America had it right hundreds and even thousands of years ago. They lived in harmony with the land, the seasons and the carrying capacity of their environments. The tribes of the plains, and their stewardship and use of the Bison and prairies of the "frontier" as recently as the 1850's were a model of how to live in a finite system. The corruption of that lifestyle with whiskey, beads, guns and deception that led to the genocide of the native peoples of the Americas is a great tragedy of human history.

Can individuals make a difference in modern society via privation or a refusal to partake in the suicide pact of 21st century capitalism? I guess the answer is 'yes' - IF it were done en masse; but the sad fact is too few are now, or will in the near term. It won't be until climate refugees are starving and initiating resource wars for their very survival that people will even begin to consider the problem in numbers great enough to stop it...only by then, say 10 or 20 years from now, there will be no solution outside of mass executions and genocide once more. When a group of men with access to weaponry and nothing to lose are put under pressure, horror is the result.

A culling of the herd mentality already infects the wealthy who are planning for the collapse of civilization with islands in New Zealand and Oceania and protected underground bunkers in the USA and other areas. These people have no inherent value, but they have money and that is giving them false comfort. The day will come when their money has no value beyond the paper it is printed and their "security" teams will no longer accept payment to defend them...that is when the dystopian future will really get rolling and out of control...

Sadly, I am likely to see that start, though unlikely to see the aftermath. I weep for the fact that it doesn't HAVE to be this way, except for the greed and stupidity of the ruling class around the planet.