Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” is documenting what we were warned about way back in the 70’s. What have we done about it?

Back then our college professors were lamenting that the oil lobby was preventing funding for research on non-polluting fuels like hydrogen. It seems like solar, wind, electric (depending on how it is produced), nuclear, and hydrogen are the only fuels that don’t produce greenhouse gases. We haven’t done much to solve the problem.

Another issue the president mentions in the film’s update is what an organization calling itself ZPG back then was warning us about FPW. The undiluted fact is that we have a population problem caused by a copulation problem and historically FPW has been the only solution. ZPG proposed Zero Population Growth as a preferred solution to Famine, Pestilence, and War– FPW. But how do we get it… voluntarily?

Twenty plus years ago Seattle was a nice town. People knew each other. But that’s long gone and the situation is spreading here too. Seattle grew. Now the day doesn’t go by without the news reporting so many violent deaths one wonders why they still have a rush hour traffic problem. Back then the movie “Soylent Green” hit the screens to address congestion indigestion. It didn’t have a nice ending. A fast food chain was selling soylent burgers that had an unsavory taste. It seems the population problem was addressed by euthanasia who were being recycled into soylent burgers, not unlike Hitler’s “Final Solution.”

Educated people of the world are the most concerned and usually the first to initiate voluntary restraints. But what about the rest of the world who run on emotions, hormones, and consider copulation their God ordained privilege and responsibility? Will they overwhelm those who stop to think?

No one wants FPW, well not for themselves anyway. Hey, we’re civilized, aren’t we? But what are we going to do when we find ourselves “screwed” out of a place at the dinner table or overrun by “third world” people? So far we’ve felt comfortable about it. We sit back and watch the news about how the rest of the world is full of calamity, epidemics, genocide, and starvation? Our grocery stores are full. We have the finest military to protect us. We even have global satellites to keep an eye on every nook and cranny of the planet. Surely that sort of thing won’t come here.

Has anyone noticed that the most rapidly ascending nations are those who practice ZPG? China has for quite a while now and it wasn’t long ago they were a “third world” country where our churches sent missionaries. Now they are eclipsing us in nearly every way and even demonstrated that they can shoot down our satellites. There goes GPS. How comfortable are we with that?

Well, it’s a thought. So far, those who have been thinking and trying to do something about it have been ignored while our leaders push for more growth, faster cars, more houses, and less control so that everyone can have an iPod and Humvee. Unless we want FPW, it’s time to think about ZPG. Wouldn’t it be weird if being gay became a remedy for being dead? Recycling is good — well sort of. It’s good to be “green” but not soylent green.

Al Williams lives in Oak Harbor with his wife Barb.