The Loma Prietan
December 2002/January 2003
Letters To The Editor
Dear Editor:
I am writing in regards to Joan Jones Holtz' article, "US Policy Threatens Global Population Stabilization" in the September 2002 issue. While I believe that Ms. Holtz and the Sierra Club's Environment Program Committee have nothing but good intentions in supporting family planning and reproductive health care as a matter of U.S. policy, such policies are largely irrelevant to global population growth.
The one and only cause of population growth is growth of the food supply. As with any living organisms, be it deer in the woods or bacteria in a petri dish, as long as there is a surplus of food, the population will grow. If we produce enough food for 7, 10, or 20 billion people, there will soon be that many people. People are made of food and nothing else.
Given this law of nature, the only way to avoid ecological collapse and a mass die-off of the human population, is a crash program to limit food production and to stop exporting food to regions where the population has outstripped its carrying capacity. This can be done gradually until population falls to sustainable levels.
If the Sierra Club wants to save the world, their members' money is better spent on supporting population legislation centered on agricultural production and exports, rather than family planning.
Jeff Winkler, San Jose
Editor's note
Excessive consumption--food or otherwise--is primarily a problem in the United States and other industrialized countries. To suggest that the solution to the very real problem of over-population is to deny the poorest of the poor in other countries the most basic necessity of life--food--is both inhumane and counterproductive. Population growth in poor countries will taper off when the people in those countries are given the opportunity to overcome the extreme poverty they face every day.
Dear Editor:
The remembrance of Galen Rowell by Chris MacIntosh in the November Loma Prietan prompted my memory of another way in which Galen assisted our Chapter. Emilio Garcia was an early leader of Inner City Outings, our program to introduce underprivileged kids to wilderness and the outdoors. Emilio, who had met Galen on a Sierra Club photographic seminar to our beloved high country, invited him to do a slide presentation at San Jose State to raise club awareness of ICO.
Galen still had his auto repair "day job" at that time, so he removed his greasy coveralls before presenting some slides and discussion about his early adventures. One of his prints was raffled to raise money for some basic backpacking gear for our program. It was a fun-filled and educational evening for a good cause, which endures to this day.
Thank you Sierra Club, and thank you Galen and Barbara. You will be remembered.
Kenneth Lennon, Morgan Hill