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A few months ago I attended a two-day conference on energy at Utah Valley University. The speakers represented various industries -- coal (source of 85 percent of Utah's energy), nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind -- pretty much the whole gamut.
Most of the speakers started with a variant of this: "The present population is 6.7 billion people and growing exponentially. To meet the growing demand of the world's increasing population we must ..." Then each plunged into his or her particular industry's solutions for accommodation.
By the end of the second day, I couldn't tolerate it anymore. I raised my hand, stood up and said, "Thank you for such an informative conference. We've learned much about alternative sources of energy. But there is an elephant in the room that no one has mentioned -- the demand side of the equation, our unrestrained and threatening population growth." An audible gasp went up in the room.
I continued: "Most of us regard babies as blessings, but with their first breath of oxygen, they are consumers and, just like the rest of us, with every succeeding exhalation, they are contaminators.
"We know that the Earth's resources are limited. This conference addressed the sorry fact that the world is running out of fossil fuels and explored what alternatives are available. But we are also running out of trees. We are cutting them down at an alarming rate to meet the needs of people for heat, homes, paper.
"Besides that, we humans have contaminated our ever-so-limited water (less than 1 percent of all water is drinkable) and polluted our air and overtaxed our planet by our sheer numbers and increasing demands. Yes, we must find alternatives in energy but, most important, we must control our population growth."
The response of conference participants was deafening, mostly by its silence. One person in the entire auditorium clapped. The others were like zombies with eyes glazed over. The denial was so profound it was as if I had not spoken. The conference continued without any acknowledgement.
What must we do to place this topic onto our mental radar screens so that it is not a threat to be denied but a reality to address? What must we do to make people realize that the ark is sinking under the collective weight of human beings and we could all perish? We, as consumers, are out of balance with our world.
It is not the Earth we must be concerned with. With skin and arteries contaminated, she is fighting for her life and fighting dirty. She will survive. It is us that we need to be concerned about. How long can a parasite feed off its host without ultimately killing itself. For that is what we are doing. We are the danger to ourselves.
Think about it. Every species, with the exception of humans, has a means of self-regulating its population in accordance with the resources of their habitat. With us, it is a decision.
It is time to address the elephant in the room and rethink quantity, recognizing the importance of quality of life sustained for our children, present and future, in what is, after all, their ultimate home, the Earth.
If there is a clarion call for our era it is "fewer people using fewer resources." If there is a sound reflecting the predicted demise of humankind, it is the wail of a newborn.
Elise Lazar has been a co-chair of the Salt Lake Mayors' Green Team for the past eight years.
