Calendar of Events
World Population Awareness Week
October 20–26
Thursday, October 24, at 7 pm
Annual Membership Meeting
Special Program
Dr. Bruce Bridgeman, UCSC Professor of Psychology & Psychobiology
6 pm potluck and 7 pm meeting/program
Amelia Koenig’s home
260 Koenig Road, Watsonville
The world’s population at 6.2 billion and growing at 80 million per year is straining the earth’s resources. All of our environmental problems are either caused or made worse by population growth through birth rates and immigration. Bruce’s talk will look at overpopulation, immigration effects, and why many of the world’s poor make rational decisions to have large families.
Contact: Linda Brodman 462-4041 and Amelia Koenig 722-8227
Directions to Amelia’s house:
From Santa Cruz, take Highway One south to the Buena Vista exit. At the stop sign, turn left (going under Highway One) heading due east on to Buena Vista Drive. You will pass the airport field on your right side and at approximately 1.5 miles at the convenience store, turn left onto Calabasas Road. Travel approximately 1.4 miles, then turn left onto Koenig Road and follow the road to the top of the 2nd hill. Amelia’s house is the only (adobe) house on the right.
World Population Awareness Week is an intense international educational campaign designed to create public awareness about the startling trends in world population growth, the detrimental effects they have on our planet and its inhabitants, and the urgent need for action. Population Connection along with other population and environmental education groups are striving to create a world community concerned with bringing the world’s population into balance with its resources and environment. Curbing population growth rates not only rests on private individual decisions about family size, but also on the network of educational techniques, economic institutions, and policies influencing these individual decisions.
You can visit The Population Institute who spearheads this yearly event at
www.populationinstitute.org.
Library Display in Santa Cruz
We will have an educational population display at the main library in Santa Cruz. Thanks to Louise Doxtator and Linda Brodman for spearheading this project. Drop in and have a look!
Campus Outreach
Robbin Anderson and Linda Brodman will be tabling at Cabrillo College.
Sunday, October 27, 11 AM
International Peace Day—United Nations Day Parade
Parade starts at Cathcart Street in Santa Cruz. We will walk up Pacific Avenue conveying our population message to the public. A rally will follow at Mission Plaza. Contact Linda Brodman at 462-4041.
Population Fact
The United States is the third most populous country on earth. During the 1990s, the population of the United States grew by some 13 percent. This change is five times the average percentage increase of other industrialized countries during the same time period. During the 1990s, the United States along with India, China, Nigeria and Indonesia accounted for nearly half of all global population increases.
Population Connection Chapter
Meetings Dates
Mark Your Calendar Now
December 5
Elections and holiday potluck
January 23 (2003)
Annual Planning Meeting
Information: Robbin Anderson at 831-423-6293
Chapter Action Since June
June 6: Pro-Choice Public Education Project (PEP) Briefing
Louise Doxtator and Linda Brodman represented Population Connection. PEP is a collaborative effort of leading national pro-choice organizations whose goal is to educate young women about reproductive freedom and choice, thus energizing the next generation of pro-choice leaders. If interested in the research information, contact Linda Brodman at 462-4041.
June 13: Budget Funding of the United Nations Population Fund
On behalf of our Chapter, Royce Fincher sent a letter of support for restoring funding of the UN Population Fund to Senator Feinstein and Representative Lewis.
July 4: Watsonville Parade
Another fun day. We entered the Watsonville Fourth of July Parade with our cardboard cars. They were a big hit and many people cheered for us and some were even cheering for our message. The message was simple: MORE PEOPLE, MORE CARS, MORE TRAFFIC and KEEP FAMILIES SMALL. Pretty Basic! Let’s face it. Our traffic problem is directly related to our population problem.
Dancing in the street!
September 4: Sex Education and Condom Distribution
Amelia Koenig and Robbin Anderson distributed educational information and 1,000 condoms to field workers in Watsonville. Now that’s direct action!
September 5: Governor signs SB 1301
Our Chapter was a major supporter of this bill to codify into law the principles of Roe v. Wade. SB 1301 would keep abortion safe and legal in California even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
September 15: Mexican Independence Day Celebration
Our educational booth on overpopulation focused on teen pregnancy prevention and small families in Watsonville. We had to close our booth early because we had run out of literature! Thanks to Amelia Koenig, Louise Doxtator, and Robbin Anderson for their work at this event.
September 26: Campus Outreach Cabrillo Health and Wellness Fair
Jeannine Cutter and Linda Brodman tabled. Tabling involves packing the display board into the car, driving to the location, setting up the display board and arranging our literature, and then getting people interested.
Nominating Committee
In September the Governing Board appointed Louise Doxtator, Jeannine Cutter, and Royce Fincher to the nominating committee. They will be soliciting nominations for (2003) officers from the general membership. In November, we will mail our candidate slate to the membership with our December 5th meeting information. It will be a holiday potluck with time to vote for our candidates. If any of you are interested, please send nominations by November 10 to: Population Connection, Monterey Bay Chapter, PO Box 1733, Aptos 95001.
Another Population Fact
The acceleration of human expansion can be seen dramatically in the time it took for each milestone of a billion to be reached.
Our first billion, passed around 1804, took perhaps 200,000 years to reach. The second billion took only 123 years and the third, reached in 1960, a mere 33 years. Since then we have been in overdrive, adding a billion every 13 or 14 years. We passed the 6 billion mark late in 1999.
Think globally on issues
by Robbin Anderson
Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 13, 2002
I read the Sentinel editorials every day. Everyone has their issue. It might be downtown, the homeless, war in Afghanistan, bicycle rights, the widening of Highway 1.
These are all relevant issues that we have real emotions about. I know I do. But for once, let us think more globally. The most important issue facing each and every one of us, each day, is the overpopulation of the earth.
We cannot continue to grow and sustain life as we know it today. We have maxxed out on consumption. According to the United Nations, we are currently overusing our resources by 20 percent. This is no joke. Think about it. It is the most serious issue facing all of us today. It will not go away on its own.
Be informed. Have fewer children. Worship the earth. It may be a very ugly earth in just 50 years, if we don’t all wake up and take action now.
Overpopulation has solutions
by Linda Brodman
Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 20, 2002
July 11 was the annual United Nations’ World Population Day. World Population Day is meant to draw attention to the core of all environmental problems that humans can influence. It took until 1830 for human population to reach 1 billion. Today, it’s well over 6 billion and growing. Yet, planet Earth hasn’t grown. Our water and air continue to become more polluted; farmland, wetlands, forests and biodiversity are all shrinking.
If everyone who wanted family planning had access, population growth would slow as would the pace of our escalating environmental problems. But millions don’t have access. Much more can be done with very little money, by expert local family-planning programs worldwide, empowering families to improve their lives, their children’s futures and their environment.
The Bush administration continues to withhold the $34 million Congress had approved for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for this year.
Anti-abortion groups have pressed the White House for months not to release the funds. U.N. officials deny that the program supports forced abortions or sterilization. They have estimated the loss of U.S. funding could undermine their capacity to prevent 800,000 abortions and the deaths of 4,700 women and 77,000 children under the age of 5. Call or write the White House to voice your support for international family planning programs and the release of U.S.-approved funding.
New Newsletter Name
Thanks to Helen Ogden of Pacific Grove, who suggested a new name for our newsletter, Small World. Other names suggested were: Shoulder to Shoulder, Standing Room Only, Bumper to Bumper, The Crunch, Nose to Nose, Neck to Neck, Elbow Room Only, The Elbow Society, Sardine Society, The Sardine Sheet, Stop Pop, The Population Stopper, The Squeeze, and Jam Packed.
Another Population Fact
The world population will double and reach 9.3 billion by the year 2050, adding tremendous pressure on the environment, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of the World Population 2001 Report.
Pogo, by Walt Kelly; Earth Day 1971
More Population Facts
California Population
In the 6 seconds it takes you to read this sentence, 17 people will be added to the earth’s population. Within an hour, California’s population will grow by 60 people — that’s one person a minute. California’s population in 2001 was nearly 35 million and adding over 611,000 annually. Recent projections predict a population of 50 million people by 2025.
By 1958, California’s World War II population of 7.2 million doubled. By 1988, it had doubled again. And it will double again in 39 years. A poor economy and the scarcity of jobs in the early part of the past decade drove many native Californians to other states, but foreign immigration more than made up for that loss.
Causes of U.S. Overpopulation: Fertility and Immigration
The U.S. average fertility rate is currently 2.1335 births per woman, the U.S.’s highest fertility rate since 1971. (For comparison, the United Kingdom’s fertility rate is 1.7, Canada’s is 1.4, and Germany’s is 1.3.)
Legal and illegal immigration contribute over one and a half million people to the U.S. population annually. The total foreign-born population in the U.S. is now 31.1 million, a record 57 percent increase since 1990. About 8.7 million of those are here illegally — a 4.5 million increase since 1990. Almost one-third of all immigration during the 1990s was illegal.
Source for Population Facts
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS)
805 564-6626, info@capsweb.org
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