Recently Spotted 103-Year-Old Orca Is Bad News For SeaWorld -- Here's Why

[BlancheSplanchnik]

18. it's satisfying to have one distinct culprit to point at.

The underlying problem for habitat, wildlife, ecological systems, and people is---too many people.

Global net human population gain is currently 15 added per day. (I need to check that, I may be
mis-remembering. Might be 15 added per hour, but better to err on the conservative side. Global net population increase of 15 per day is still bad enough.)

EDIT: 15 per day is WAY TOO LOW. My mistake.
It's more like 150-something per minute.

Oh dear.

2010 article:

Visualizations of Population Growth

Three days from now, as a result of today's staggering rates of population growth, earth will be home to more than 684,000 extra people. How can this be? For every person who dies during the next three days, somewhere around the world a baby will be born who will, physically speaking, replace that death. And after all of those replacement births take place, 684,000 additional births will occur. NOTE: 681,000 people would fill the FNB soccer stadium in Johannesburg to capacity over 7 times. (Femmer, What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet, 2010)




Can you visualize 900 jumbo jets landing at your local airport today and each deplaning 250 people? If so, you will have a good grasp of daily, real-time global population growth. Indeed, human numbers increase by over 228,000 every 24 hours (Population Reference Bureau). Every minute, 150+ additional people need energy, water, food, and space to inhabit. By year’s end, that results in a 83 million person increase. Obviously, it also creates demand for a significant amount of new resources the Earth must yield.




If today is Monday, then earth will be home to approximately 912,000 additional people by Friday. In addition to their CO2 and climate impacts and their need for food, water, jobs, health care, and sanitation, these 912,000 new arrivals require completion of additional schools and classrooms every four days – in a world with insufficient schools and classrooms right now. At this pace, how many new classrooms must we provide every four days? Assume that we can accommodate all the replacement births in existing classrooms. Answer: 36,480 new classrooms every four days (if we can house approximately 25 students in a typical classroom, then dividing 912,000 by 25 = 36,480 new classrooms every four days). Keep in mind that these must be funded, built, finished, supplied, and staffed immediately. Are we prepared to accomplish this same task and fund it with billions in taxes repeatedly over every four day period year after year in the decades just ahead? The need to repeatedly complete so many new classrooms in so short a time has corollary questions, such as: What if they are not built? And: Are they being built? (Femmer, What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet, 2010)