Ballot Form for Choosing Population Sound Bites Mark your top three choices by placing an X to the left of the entry. Then email this form to Emily Pontarelli at epontarelli@populationinstitute.org for final tabulation. Please send in your ballot no later than June 16, 2010. _____ I want to leave children an earth with better air, food, cleaner water and less disease. Instead it’s more people daily, war & hunger. Help me! _____ As our ever-growing population plunders irreplaceable resources, and methodically dismantles the web of life, what kind of world will we bequeath to future generations? _____ Sustainable means reproducible over a long period of time. This is not possible with a population that keeps growing. _____ Why would you want your grandchildren to fight for survival in an overcrowded world? _____ It’s not how many people the earth can contain; it’s how many people the earth can sustain. _____ How do we add 2.5 billion more people to the planet, eradicate poverty, feed the hungry, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%? Good question. _____ Every existing planetary environmental, social or political problem would be either eliminated or vastly ameliorated by reduction of earth's population to 1 billion or less. _____ List the ways your life would be improved by more people on the planet. List the ways it would be improved by fewer people. Your call _____ There is no sustainability without population stabilization. _____ No ecoregion can maintain its integrity in the face of persistent development, even if it's "smart" development. Ecological health depends on population stabilization. _____ There is simply no social or environmental problem that is not exacerbated by our increasing population! Think about it...our planet...our choice! _____ Our future is limitless, but our planet is not. Achieve long-term global sustainability. Stabilize our human population. _____ There is no sustainable development without stabilized population. _____ Our future is limitless, but our planet is not. Achieve long-term global sustainability. Stabilize our human population. 1 _____ No need for human population restraint - as soon as we find another habitable planet. _____ Human impact is proportional to the number of humans. _____ The world's present population has already far exceeded long term sustainability; our choice: to make the reduction humanely and peacefully or allow great cruelty. _____ All population explosions are followed by a population collapse. Homo sapiens has gone from less than 2 billion to almost 7 billion in one person’s lifetime (mine) _____ Cancer's fright and fatality comes from exponential growth in a closed system; recognition may barely precede death. Current population growth on Earth is exponential. _____ Reduction or Extinction: Our choice _____ The mother of all problems: too many people; too few resources. The solution: fertility choice and access to contraception for everyone. It’s not rocket science. _____ In 1960 a billion people were hungry. Today, after unprecedented farming innovations, a billion people are hungry—no gain, just continued pain. Growth spoils our best efforts. _____ Those generations before us left this Earth in our care. They created, built and delivered. Have we honored them in our stewardship and care…..Well? _____ So many people to feed…much disease to cure…much conflict to resolve. And we answer with more mouths and more conflict….Man’s saddening hubris. _____ If we don't voluntarily slow global population growth, Mother Nature will do it for us. _____ Reductions in population growth result from increases in wellness indicators. Reducing population growth will be a symptom of sustainability not its cure." _____ Better to feed a hungry child than to create another child to feed. _____ The planet is finite. However harshly we tighten our belts, if our numbers keep growing, we will run out of planet. Do the math. _____ Quantity of life or quality of life? Only a sustainable population will improve quality of life for all. _____ Whatever your cause, it’s a lost cause if we don't stop population growth. _____ We have grown our population beyond the Earth's carrying capacity. Growth consequences include global warming, resource shortages, species loss, deforestation. And ever more human suffering. 2 _____ A world with 9 billion humans, but no polar bears, pikas, coral reefs, penguins, orangutans, or millions of other disappearing species would be lonely, indeed. _____ In order to successfully address resource depletion, species extinction, climate change and starvation, we must find a way to humanely stabilize human population levels. _____ Population growth: the elephant in our midst that politicians ignore as oceans rise, food and water supplies shrink: we're choosing unprecedented starvation over birth control! _____ It’s the girl-factor, stupid: invest in the self-confidence of young women to leap-frog human development, radically reduce fertility, and prevent emerging violence and war. _____ Population growth itself is not a problem. It just makes all the other problems harder to solve. _____ Being ''fruitful'' does not just mean ''multiplying.'' 3