Next Added 100 Million Americans: Energy And The Silent Lie

Chapter Thirteen…

“The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources. Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool’s game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above.” ~ James Woolsey, US Director of Central Intelligence 1993 – 1995

Can you comprehend what it means to add a massive population load onto the United States population in three decades? How can you intellectually, rationally and emotionally accept that number of people added in a blink of time? Do you have any comprehension of the consequences?

What’s the easiest path for dealing with that next added 100 million people into our country? Short answer: ignore, deny, discount, pretend, reject or refute!

There’s another answer: Lie like a thief. Lie like a politician. If you tell the lie long enough and often enough—people accept it as the truth. It’s called the lie of “sustainable growth.”

Back in 1860, one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain said, “Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them. I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word. For example: It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of emancipation agitation in the North, the agitators got but small help or countenance from anyone. Argue, plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from the pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society–the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion; the silent assertion that there wasn’t anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.

“The universal conspiracy of the silent assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. It is the most timid and shabbiest of all lies…the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.”

In 2007, I sent information packets and graphs to Publisher John Temple of the Rocky Mountain News; Dean Singleton of the Denver Post and 100 other top national newspaper publishers. I sent out similar packets showing our future dilemmas to top ABC, NBC and CBS executives in the Denver area. I said their kids would be victims of 100 million added people. I explained our water crisis. I asked to be interviewed to educate the public. I included self-addressed stamped envelopes for them to respond and give me ideas on how to gain national coverage on this population crisis. I’ve done the same at 60 Minutes, Prime Time and Date Line. I sent letters to Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.

How did they respond? Take a guess! “Silent assertion” to the maximum!

Why? The more papers and shows those guys sell, the bigger their Lear Jets and nicer their luxury cars. They can’t be bothered about the consequences.

If it wasn’t for the Internet, this country would be sold down the river even faster than it is now. Our borders would be dissolved and our sovereignty as a nation would be a thing of the past.

The vast majority of Americans don’t have a clue as to our future. Furthermore, they trust in those same leaders who use “silent assertion” to keep them in the dark.

This book informs and educates while offering solutions through actions. You can’t expect Congress to deal with this national catastrophe accelerating every day. They represent “silent assertion.”

So what is the lie we’re talking about?

Stephen Benka, author of “The Energy Challenge” outlined the magnitude of our energy crisis by citing projects from the US Department of Energy from 1999 to 2020. The world’s total annual energy consumption will rise 59 percent and the annual carbon dioxide emissions will rise 60 percent while the world population increases from 6.5 billion to 7.5 billion.”

Interestingly, few of the top scientists call for population stabilization. Other experts call for unending “sustainable growth.”

The late Julian Simon, compelling economics professor at the University of Illinois, wrote, “Technology exists now to produce in virtually inexhaustible quantities just about all the products made by nature. We have in our hands now the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever growing population for the next seven billion years.”

To that I say Time Editor Richard Stengel and Professor Julian Simon’s spirit should climb into a rowboat together so they can paddle toward LaLa Land. On their journey, stop by China, India, Mexico and Bangladesh for a dose of reality.

What’s that reality? Last year, Denver, Colorado suffered rolling blackouts because we didn’t have enough natural gas to heat our homes. Of natural gas, an expert on gas production, Mr. Moniz wrote that, “U.S. consumption represents half of that for the industrialized world…with China, Central and South America expecting to triple their usage over the next 20 years.”

Where does that leave you and me, average citizens of the United States as our leaders shove this population juggernaut down our throats?

As Dr. Albert Bartlett said, “Population growth is given as a cause of the problems identified, but eliminating the cause is not mentioned as a solution. We are prescribing aspirin for cancer.”

Please consider three definite outcomes by famous economist Kenneth Boulding, who proves a tad sharper than Julian Simon. Boulding offers these three theorems that face our children.

The Dismal Theorem: If the only ultimate check on the growth of populations is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop growth.

The Utterly Dismal Theorem: Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the improvement will enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population, which is to increase the sum total of human misery.

The Moderately Cheerful Form of the Dismal Theorem: If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable or starves; it can enjoy stable prosperity.

We don’t need to create one more Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco, Dallas or Houston with big city traffic and air pollution nightmares. We don’t need to add 100 million Americans now or ever.

It’s time for a “consciousness shift” and action toward a balanced, sustainable and viable United States of America.

Whatever you do, avoid becoming a part of the “shabbiest of all lies…silent assertion.”

Frosty Wooldridge is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.

He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website: www.frostywooldridge.com