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Sustainable Society:  A society that balances the environment, other life forms, and human interactions over an indefinite time period.

 

 

 

 

 


 

Toward A U.S. Population Policy


If the U.S. is to advance the goal of becoming sustainable, a comprehensive policy regarding the number of inhabitants, its population level, is a subject of critical importance.

"The time has come to speak more openly of a population policy. By this I mean not just capping the growth when the population hits the wall, as in India and China, but a policy based on a rational solution of this problem: what, in the judgment of its informed citizenry, is the optimal population.... The goal of an optimal population will require addressing, for the first time, the full range of processes that lock together the economy and the environment, the national interest and the global commons, the welfare of the present generation with that of future generations. The matter should be aired not only in think tanks but in public debate."
E.O. Wilson, "The Diversity of Life", p. 329


This section includes two Izaak Walton League population resolutions and two United States population policy proposals:

  • The U.S. Sustainable Population Policy Project (USS3P); and
  • The National Optimum Population Commission (NOPC).
     

The differences between the two U.S. population policy proposals are that USS3P is a multiyear process beginning at the individual and local community level while NOPC promotes individual initiatives whose objective is the establishment of a high level government committee. The purpose of the Federal government committee would be to arrive at an approximation of the optimum or overall best U.S. population level.

The two are independent, but have consistent goals.

Minnesotans For Sustainability encourages all Website visitors to join in these actions.

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