How would you like to earn a 3% cash rebate on all your online purchases each month? And how would you also like to help us educate more people about the global population growth crisis? You can enjoy both your 3% rebate and bring an additional 21/4% to World Population Balance by simply registering free at www.wpb.shop4zero.org.

Shop4zero is a special site established to help non-profits receive cash donations from well-known merchants like Target, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Nordstrom, Oshkosh, Sharper Image, Booksamillion, Eddie Bauer, JCPenny, 1-800-flowers, Hallmark, Coldwater Creek, Discovery Channel Store, and over seven hundred more!

Participating for your 3% cash rebate couldn't be easier. You simply go to www.wpb.shop4zero.org and set up a password with your e-mail address. It's fast and simple! Then whenever you shop online, start through this site and enjoy your cash rebate and helping us at the same time!

Also exciting: When you refer your friends, their purchases and services will earn money for you, them, and World Population Balance too. Be sure to look at the many ways to earn additional rebates at the site, as well. It's a win-win (or should we say a win-win-win) program.

Thank you, in advance, for your support!

Generous Grant Awarded by The Minneapolis Foundation

In December we received a fantastic holiday gift. The World Population Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation awarded us a general operating grant of $25,000. This was especially great news, because our funds were running very low at the time. We sincerely appreciate the generous and significant ongoing support of The World Population Fund for the past several years. Their generosity has allowed us to continue educating thousands of Americans about the benefits of humanely stopping population growth on the planet.

"Outgrowing the Earth" -- Well Worth Reading!

"Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures" is Lester Brown's newest book about the mega-challenges we are facing in the world. It's a highly readable book and holds your interest throughout.

Since Brown stays focused on the science and economics of our declining resource problems and away from politics, this is an excellent book to inform elected officials of all points of view - whether they already "get it" or not. The following excerpts are from the Preface.

"Grain harvests that were once rising everywhere are now falling in some countries. Fish catches that were once rising are now falling. Irrigated area, once expanding almost everywhere, is now shrinking in some key food-producing regions. "

"Beyond this, some of the measures that are used to expand food production today, such as overpumping aquifers, almost guarantee a decline in food production tomorrow when the aquifers are depleted and the wells go dry."

"Water tables are now falling in countries that contain more than half the world's people. While there is a broad realization that we are facing a future of water shortages, not everyone has connected the dots to see that a future of water shortages will be a future of food shortages."

"Future food security now depends on the combined efforts of the ministries of agriculture, energy, transportation, health and family planning, and water resources. It also depends on strong leadership - leadership that is far better informed on the complex set of interacting forces affecting food security than most political leaders are today."

We recommend buying several copies and giving them to leaders in your life.

To order copies, go to www.earth-policy.org

Roger Bengston -- A Man of Influence

From the President
By David Paxson

During my life I have met many people who are tremendously concerned about the problems of population growth and the benefits - to all of humanity - of humanely stopping it. Foremost among them are the dedicated members of our Boards of Advisors and Directors, many of whom have coached, taught, and mentored me along the way.

One who was especially influential during early years of World Population Balance was Roger Bengston. Roger was a fascinating person, and a great student of the population issue. He was passionate about striving to stabilize human numbers. He spent his professional life in the marketing field, working for several companies before starting his own consulting business.

As he approached age 60 and retirement, he fulfilled a longtime dream: He returned to school and earned a PhD in American history. We met after he saw a video of a presentation I had done at the University of Minnesota in 1992.

We had stimulating discussions about the population issue and how to best educate people about it. Roger was a great teacher, a voracious reader, and a scholar! He had incredible insight about how to present the issue effectively to the public. No doubt his lifetime in marketing was instrumental in this.

Roger once said: "A primary purpose of population stabilization is to minimize or reduce human misery and suffering in the world. "I confess that the first couple of times he said that, I didn't really take it in. Eventually I realized how profound his observation was. I learned I needed to grab a pen and paper whenever he called so that I would not miss any of his wisdom!

Two recent news items prompted me to recall Roger's wisdom. A special report about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster stated that the land around the cement-entombed nuclear reactor will be uninhabitable for thirty thousand years! People will become sick from those high radiation levels unless they are kept from residing in the high-radiation zone. (The abandoned city near the reactor held 50,000 people at the time of the blast!)

In Indonesia, the government is attempting to prevent people in the tsunami area from rebuilding within a mile of the shoreline. This would reduce misery and suffering during a future tsunami. But will people stay out of these areas? It is doubtful. A primary reason is the overwhelming pressure of increasing human numbers - population growth!

In the Chernobyl area some have returned to live in the high-radiation area, saying they are not going to worry about it! And in Indonesia some are reacting similarly already, saying that is where they need to be. When human numbers are too high for the available land and resources, people will live in areas no matter how dangerous.

There is no question that the world can hold billions of humans . . . at least for some period of time. (It's doing it right now, of course.) And there is no question that the world cannot hold billions for very long without dramatic increases in human misery and suffering. Why? Because the planet and most resources are finite. Because currently we are consuming and polluting many of these resources far faster than they can be replenished. Therefore, quantities of some of our vital resources are rapidly declining right now! This is not sustainable!

Several years after I met Roger he learned he had leukemia. He battled his illness for many months. He also continued teaching and mentoring me right up to the week he died - early November of 1997. His wisdom lives on and continues to help many people understand why we must humanely slow and stop human population growth.

Your $upport Makes It Happen!

We are deeply grateful to each of you, our loyal members and friends, who gave generously during 2004 to support our activities. Your combined contributions totaled over $27,000, several thousand greater than in any previous calendar year. Thank you very much!

With your contributions and the generous $25,000 grant from The World Population Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation, we were able to operate a "bare-bones" budget, one that allowed us to continue our basic educational programs. However, we have dreams for significantly expanding our impact by reaching vastly more people! We want to greatly increase grass roots awareness by delivering many messages through the media. And we want to educate more elected officials to understand why it's so important to humanely slow and stop population growth now! Of course, these activities will take greater resources and funding.

We hope you will continue to be a partner with us to accomplish these tremendously important goals. In our lean financial operation, every nickel counts! As non-profits go, we have very low overhead costs, and we constantly work to keep your dollars going into raising awareness.

Again, thank you for your continuing financial support.

Quotes from an Incredible Visionary

We have featured our Advisory Board member, Dr. Albert Bartlett, at two of our conferences. Many of you raved about his powerful, eye-opening talk, "Arithmetic, Population and Energy. "Al has been an incredible visionary on these critical global issues. For over forty years he has sounded the alarm about rising human numbers, declining energy supplies, and the monumental problems that will result. Some excerpts:

Laws Relating to Sustainability

First law: Population growth and/or growth in the rate of consumption of resources can not be sustained.
Second Law: In a society with a growing population, the larger the population, the more difficult it will be to transform the society to a condition of sustainability.
Third Law: The response time of populations to changes in the human fertility rate is the average length of a human life, or about 70 years.
Fourth Law: The size of population that can be sustained and the sustainable average standard of living are inversely related to one another.
Sixth Law: The benefits of population growth and of growth in the rates of consumption of resources accrue to a few; the costs are borne by all of society.
Seventh Law: Growth in the rate of consumption of a non-renewable resource, such as fossil fuel, causes a dramatic decrease in the life expectancy of the resource.
Ninth Law: When large efforts are made to improve the efficiency with which resources are used, the resulting savings are easily and completely wiped out by [a] modest increase in population.
Twelfth Law: (Eric Sevareid's Law, 1970) The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Thirteenth Law: Humans will always be dependent on agriculture.
Fifteenth Law: In every local situation, creating jobs increases the number of people locally who are out of work.
Eighteenth Law: Extinction is forever.

- From an article by Albert Bartlett in "Renewable Resources Journal," 1998

Compromises between the demands of urban/industrial growth and agriculture will always result in the conversion of agricultural land to urban and industrial uses. The reverse conversion never happens.

- From the same article

Watch for more Bartlett wisdom in later issues.

What College Students Are Saying . . .

Here are some comments made by college students after hearing David Paxson at their college:

"This lecture was a real eye-opener for me. I know that it must be true that population must stop growing eventually. But the question is when will it stop and how? Either by famine or disease (inhumanely) or by educating people to stop the population growth (humanely) . . . know that the population of the globe is in trouble, and I also know the globe itself is in trouble."

"Dave Paxson's presentation brought a serious issue to my attention that I was not aware of. We have more people in this world than we have resources for. The number-one issue we need to address now is how to humanely slow down human population growth."

"Population [growth] will stop at one point, whether that point [is reached] humanely by family counseling and one child families, or by drought, famine, or war. The issue of population growth is more important then terrorism and homeland security; it's something that is not going to go away."

"We have too many people in the world who depend on natural resources and they will be depleted if something isn't done about the extreme growth of the world's population."

"Coming from a small town we do not directly see the effects of over population. As the population increases, the resources need to increase also but this is not the case. If our society does not control population and we continue to grow exponentially everyone will suffer."

"We need to stop population growth humanely before too many people deplete the resources we so much depend on, and famine or war will take care of the problem for us."

With Appreciation!

Our impact on population awareness happens because of the tremendous dedication of our committed volunteers. We gratefully thank:

Frank Babka - volunteering thousands of hours enlightening students about the population issue.
Tom Breckenridge and Dale Anderson - retired from our Board after many years of devoted service.
Nancy Stiller, Excelsior Accounting - ever willing to coach us with our bookkeeping and financial software.
John Wahl, Data Control Management - applying his magic to keep our computers working properly.
Dorothy and Fred Waltz - stepping forward with great expertise to publish this newsletter.
Alan Anderson, Pat Gottschalk, Susan Colwell, Steve Hardy and Stacy Morrison -- Board members extraordinaire.

Many, many thanks to them and to all of you whose financial support enables us to fulfill our mission!

Current Population

World: 6,424,548,338 -- doubling time 60 years

U.S.: 295,666,327 -- doubling time 88 years

Minnesota: 5,127,770 -- doubling time 62 years

Extrapolated from U.S. Census and Minnesota Planning data

Our Mission

World Population Balance is committed to educating the general public, policymakers, and the media about current population facts and trends, the consequences of population growth, and the benefits of stabilization.

We are a non-profit organization and present our message through public presentations and conferences, appointments with elected officials, written articles, our newsletter, web site, media interviews, and public service announcements.

MEMBERSHIP AND CHANGE OF ADDRESS FORM

Please print and return with your tax-deductible contribution to our address below.

We welcome your contribution at any level.

Thank you.

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WORLD ^POPULATION BALANCE
P.O. Box 23472 (612) 869-1640
Minneapolis, MN 55423 U.S.A.

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Newsletter, March 2005

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