(5/10/2005) The population of the earth is now over 6 billion people. That may not sound like that many people, but when you look at it from the perspective of consumption of the earth's limited resources it is 5 times more people than the earth can sustain. At current consumption levels we would need five more planets, just like the planet earth, to sustain that level of population, but we only have this one.

That is the bad new, but the really terrible news is that the population is projected to grow to 12 billion during the next fifty years.

When you combine this over population problem with the problems we are going to experience from global warming the outlook for all humanity is bleak.

During the past 50 years we have seen skyrocketing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, a thinning ozone layer, a 50% decline in the rain forest, rising atmospheric temperatures, and fewer good quality fresh water supplies. When the population of the earth hits 12 billion there will not be enough water or food to keep all these people alive and healthy. And what about jobs, housing, and health care for all these people?

The bottom line is that over population and over consumption are depleting the earth's finite resources and causing the atmosphere of our planet to heat up. A good analogy to this situation is a person who eats too much and too many of the wrong types of food until they are fat and sick with the numerous illnesses that afflict obese people, and then they get sick and then die before they have lived the full potential of their lives. The earth has become obese with too many people and is now sick from the effects of this over population.

Global warming is not just a environmental term, or a trend, but it is a catastrophic shift in the ecological balance that took the earth billions of years to achieve. It is a snow ball event that will produces compounding effects over time. Global warming is really a global melt down.

Here is what will happen. As the greenhouse effect causes atmospheric temperatures to rise the polar ice caps will melt. As the ice caps melt the sea levels will rise and this will cause flooding in coastal areas and islands. As the seas become warmer thermal expansion will occur and much more land will become flooded. The warmer air and sea temperatures will cause a dramatic shift in weather patterns turning many lush green belts into deserts. The warmer seas will also spawn huge hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunder storms unlike any we have ever seen during our life times. All this activity could also cause some unpredictable shifting in the earth's tectonic plates resulting in earthquakes, volcanoes, and submersion of huge land masses. Theoretically the effects of these events could cause the end of all life on earth.

This situation is similar to how the human body heats up to fight an illness. Perhaps nature, or God, has designed our earth like the human body and the earth is trying to cure itself from the ravages of mankind. And just like the body can cure itself so can the earth, but hopefully not at the cost of all humanity.

What I have been talking about is a depressing subject, and a seeming hopeless burden that people don't want to face. However, if we don't face up to this reality the consequences could be dire.

So what can be done? The answers are really very simple, straightforward, and achievable, but will require a difficult and significant shift in moral beliefs, life styles, laws, and leadership. Making people change how they think and behave is the most difficult part of the solution and may make this particular solution impossible to achieve. Also, time is not on our side so we must begin now.

We must start by educating people about the causes and effects of global warming. Then we must make a number of changes in our believes, life styles, laws, and leadership ideologies. Following is a list of what I believe needs to occur to save our planet for future generations.

1. We must stop the growth of the population, and reduce the population. We can do these things by offering abortion services, family planning services, birth control drugs and devices, sex education, and environmental education. The countries with the fastest growing populations are the poorest, so we must being efforts to relieve their poverty and thus stop their explosive population growth.

2. We must decrease the amount of CO2 we put into our atmosphere. We can do this by limiting the need for transportation by using our technology, by growing our telecommunications infrastructure, and by passing new legislation that encourages conservation and recycling. We need to shift from burning fossil fuels to using solar power, hydrogen, and other alternative forms of energy.

3. We must stop the de-forestation of the rain forest and re-plant new forest.

4. We must protect all our fresh water resources and create new ones. We can do this by passing tougher regulations over commercial and residential emissions.

5. We must pick leaders that are not just puppets of the polluters, oil companies, and conservative religious sects, but who will stand up to these powerful special interest.

I believe that if we act now and act aggressively we can stop global warming and restore the balance in our environment.

But this is just one solution that I consider the most palatable. Another solution is the one Hitler was carrying out before and during W.W.II. Hitler's solution was based on a one world government that is run as a authoritarian fascist dictatorship. Killing hundreds of millions of people based on genetic selection was at the root of Hitler's ideology. Hitler's solutions would have worked, but it would have created a Orwellian nightmarish society based on oppression, killing squads, and draconian laws.

I believe that George W. Bush is a big part of the problem and not any part of the solution. He has rolled back environmental regulations, he has opened up the national forest to logging and oil drilling, he has bent over backwards to help the oil and gas producers while ignoring cleaner and greener alternatives, and he has done everything he can do to outlaw a woman's right to control her own reproductive system. George W. Bush has been the pro-global warming president and his style of leadership is costly and deadly.

After another 4 years of Bush in the White House creating more huge deficits any solutions requiring leadership from the United States may be fiscally unfeasible.