Reference: Last call, Bangkok Post, October 30, 2007

There are too many people on this planet and their numbers are growing too fast. They are consuming the world's resources and generating toxic wastes at an alarming rate. We are hurtling toward certain doom. In 30 years time human beings will outstrip all available resources and collapse in an inevitable mess unless Draconian measures are taken to limit growth. If allowed to grow at the current rate "in a few thousand years everything in the visible universe would be converted into people, and the ball of people would be expanding at the speed of light". (Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1968)

The impact of humanity on the planet includes a growth rate of its ecological footprint that is out of control. This planet can no longer sustain us because we have overshot its limits. In 30 years time, the biosphere that sustains us will collapse because we have overshot sustainability unless Draconian measures are taken to reduce our ecological footprint. (Meadows et al, The Limits of Growth, 1972)

The earth's population of human beings is now so large that "the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available". If Draconian measures to limit growth are not taken we will face catastrophe in 40 years and eventual extinction brought on by exhausted resources and climate change. (UNEP Global Environment Outlook, 2007)

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand