By Frosty Wooldridge
Part 9: What is our carrying capacity?
Every swimming pool in America features a sign, “Limited to X number of Swimmers.” Every airplane states, “Total capacity is 80 flyers.” Not one single ticket will be sold beyond seating capacity. Every eating establishment states, “Capacity is 50 diners.” Every movie theater sits “X number of seats” and will not sell a single ticket beyond seating capacity.
Which brings the question, “What is the long-term carrying capacity of humans for the United States of America?”
Is it 350 million as it is today? Can we water, feed, warm and provide resources for 350 million people every day for the next 100 years? Can we provide those resources for a population of 450 million? What about 550 million?
At what point does everything break down as to water availability? What about gasoline? What about minerals and metals to maintain our highly sophisticated use of industrial materials?
What happens when the “Quality of Life” factor breaks down? How do we sustain another 100 million people added to America? What’s it going to be like? What if it’s only 50 million? Is anyone asking any questions as to our children’s future “Quality of Life” issues.
As the numbers explode in America, driven by mass legal immigration, our “Quality of Life” degrades dramatically. Even in 2025, you must reserve campgrounds months in advance. If you’re lucky, you might grab one at a national park, state park, or even county park. If you go skiing in the Midwest or Colorado, you will be standing in a line that’s 45 minutes long. Once you get onto the slopes, you’re facing an anthill of irresponsible kids on snowboards blindly racing over jumps and crashing over hills with blind-spots.
Have you ever visited Yosemite or Yellowstone? It’s called, “Wilderness Gridlock Traffic.” Last summer, we drove to Yellowstone, only to sit in three and four mile long car lines to see the boiling pots, and heated pools. It’s a mob of people. And, it’s only going to worsen beyond reason within 25 years, and if you extend it to 50 years, it’s any body’s guess as to visiting any of our national parks. Even if you make it into the national park, you are about as close to Nature as you would be walking through Times Square in New York City.
Then there’s that question of sustainability?! Can we keep burning 100 million barrels of oil 24/7 around the world? Can the Earth keep offering up THAT much oil? If it could, how will we deal with the “acid rain” and the “toxic air pollution” hanging over all our cities? I can tell you this, trying to breathe in China or India is like breathing heavily toxic air with 1.4 billion humans plus another 1.4 billion humans fighting to breathe that air, too.
There is a book, Blip—Humanity’s 300 Year Self-Terminating Experiment with Industrialism by Christopher O. Clugston. We enjoyed unlimited resources from this planet from 1750 to 2050. After 2050, all the world’s oil supplies will be exhausted. There is no chance for the estimated 9.7 billion people on the planet in the next 25 years to be able to enjoy enough fresh water, energy and resources—-to live at the extravagant opulent levels we live today.
But you better understand that once oil has been exhausted, we human beings are in a world of hurt.
“As we go from this happy hydrocarbon bubble we have reached now to a renewable energy resource economy, which we must do in this century, will the “civil” part of civilization survive? As we all know, there is not way that alternative energy sources can supply the amount of per capita energy we enjoy now, much less for the 9.7 billion humans expected by 2050. And energy is what keeps this game going. We are involved in a Faustian Bargain—-selling our economic souls for the luxurious life of the moment, but sooner or later, the price must be paid.” Walter Younquist, Energy
Then, you must ask yourself, does our species have the right to cause the extinction of 80 to 100 species every 24 hours in the year of 2025?
“Estimates for daily animal species extinction vary, but a commonly cited figure is up to 150 species, while some other estimates range from 72 to 200 species per day. These numbers are difficult to determine precisely due to the vast number of unknown species, but scientists agree that current extinction rates are thousands of times higher than the “natural” or “background” rate.”
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Up to 150 species per day: This figure is frequently cited and is a conclusion from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
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Up to 200 species per day go extinct: Another estimate suggests that between 150 and 200 plant and animal species go extinct each day.
What consequences will ensue as we destroy the foundation of the Natural World? What happens when certain species suffer extinction such as the Prairie Dog? Another 60 species depend on that little furry creature in order to maintain their own numbers. Such extinction rates will cause “Cascading Extinction Rates” whereby hundreds of other creatures die out.
Whether you accept or deny “Catastrophic Climate Destabilization”, what might happen with another 100 million people added to America? Every single one of those added persons burns fuel, uses endless water, devours food, and exhausts resources. Can our lower 48 states survive such numbers?
What does that mean for the U.N. population projections by 2050 putting humans at 8.2 billion in 2025 to 9.7 billion by 2050? Is anyone asking any questions about that horrific number? Do you know how fast 25 years slips by? Answer: in a blink.
I ask these questions because I’ve traveled all over the overpopulated world. I’ve seen it firsthand. I can tell you that leaders and mainstream media are suppressing any questions about our viability as a civilization in the next 25 years. There’s no planning, and there is no Plan B. The only thing I see is the big money people cheering the NASDAQ, S & P, and Dow Jones to keep growing their numbers. As those stock numbers rise, the Natural World suffers more depletion of resources 24/7.
This quote should unnerve you if you have children: “At this point, it’s almost certainly too late to manage a transition to sustainability on a global or national scale, even if the political will to attempt it existed, which it clearly does not. Our civilization is in the early stages of the same curve of decline and fall as so many others have followed before it. What likely lies ahead in wait for us is a long, uneven decline into a new Dark Age…from which, centuries from now, the civilizations of the future will gradually emerge.”
Will we change course? Will we stop adding 1.0 million immigrants annually to America? Will the world population stop adding 83 million new babies net gain, annually? Will we stop devouring our natural resources? Will we collectively come to balance with plans for sustainability, quality of life, and rational living? Answer: probably not!
© 2025 Frosty Wooldridge – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Frosty: frostyw@juno.com
