LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 11/26/07
There is a wonderful paved trail a few miles from my house called the Jordan River Parkway. Some 15 miles of completely flat and smooth asphalt winds along the riparian habitat of Utah's Jordan River. It's a great place to go skating or take your dog running or just stroll along and watch wildlife---birds, rabbits, foxes, even fish and beavers.
It's also an important migration stop for big, wing-flapping Canadian geese and various kinds of iridescent-feathered ducks, which land by the hundreds in the waterway. A wild sort of buffer area has been preserved on both sides of the river so that wildlife can live without being frightened away by humans.
Naturally, developers covet this prime natural land. But most cities protect it. Only one has not.
That city allowed a row of mini-mansions to be built in the wild buffer area which borders most of the Jordan River. In front of the houses, mere feet from the trail, is a street. A narrow strip of buffer area, just a yard or so wide, has been left with natural growth between the busy road and the Parkway trail, but the 'natural growth' is mostly symbolic. The buffer zone is so narrow, so open, it leaves animals and birds no place to hide. Wildlife never uses it. That section of the river has essentially been given over to humans.
That row of houses is a microcosm of humanity. And yes, you have heard the plaintive wail before---with more and more humans, where are animals going to live? Still, the truth is that we keep expanding, and moose come into our back yards and deer eat our flower gardens and they tranquilized and moved elsewhere, or killed.
All of which you know, of course. But as much as we try to avoid it, the question must eventually be asked: at what point does it stop?
The obituaries are a scary revelation. Mr Jones and his lovely wife had six kids back in the 1940's. Those kids had kids and their kids had kids, and Mr. Jones dies with 48 grandchildren. And each one will want a house with a yard and a street on which to drive a car. At some point, it will have to stop.
China has already dealt with this problem. Their solution was draconian and punitive. One child was allowed for each couple, period. There were jail terms and forced abortions for those who broke that law. But within a generation after it was enacted, China began a financial dominance that shows no signs of stopping. Parents could concentrate all their care and all their money on the one child they were allowed to have, so the current generation of Chinese are the most educated and skilled in that country's history.
In a country like the U. S., where civil rights are important, no politician would dare to mention the subject of limiting children. No one in this country would ever look upon China's child solution with approval, but no one in America is looking at the eventual end point now, while we still have a choice.
It will certainly be many decades before all the vacant lots are built over and all the easily reachable wilderness areas paved into roads; but think about one simple thing: how much open land that you know of has been turned into human habitat just in the last ten years?
It's too early yet for most people to feel any alarm at the growth of our species in this country. There are still too many buffer zones, too many places where deer can run free. Perhaps, way in the back of our minds, is the vague understanding that at some point, it will have to stop, but it's nothing anyone is forced to face right now.
So it's still too early to ignite public fervor for a solution, but there is obviously a problem looming. If most sensible people realize that, then there is an obvious way to begin thinking about the problem, and it is this: if at some point it has to stop, what, exactly, is that point?
Wina Sturgeon