What is legacy of our carbon footprint?

Steve Brixen says if the projected population for 2050, 9.5 billion, awarded each person 4 square feet, Bonner County would be half-full and about global warming/over population: “maybe we’re not as crowded as we think,” and “doom and gloom silliness.” We could fit 9.5 billion rocks here, too. It’s not size but “footprint” that matters. How many bird flu cells can fit on a petri dish? One hundred thousand petri dishes might possibly grow 9.5 billion cells. Could you fit that on one truck? Maybe. What would happen if these made their way everywhere humans inhabit? Could this small volume of stuff wreak havoc across the world? You bet.

It doesn’t need to be virulent germs. All it needs to be is any chemical out of balance introduced by humans. Table salt spread around the world in unnatural amounts would end life as we know it. Humans are organisms on one large petri dish, the Earth. A relatively small volume of us could contaminate the entire living system. That’s the real overcrowding issue: The more of us there are the more we tax resources and create waste.

How many hungry/sick babies have to die today to convince people we can’t keep making so many of them? Ethics expert Peter Singer says “Americans represent 5 percent of the world population, yet create 33 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions” and “the U.S. produces more than 5 tons of carbon per person per year.”

I wonder the total garbage each of us makes? What is the legacy of our “footprint?”

BETTY GARDNER

Priest River