Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[Regi Teasley]

Alicia,
   Thank you for this.  Taking the longer view is important.
Also, when I taught Environmental Sociology, we had a shorthand for 
   POPULATION IMPACT:  

**Size of country’s population x Average Resource Use= Impact on 
Environment.**

Of course you could refine this further by economic class or region of the 
country.
But the important point is that  *the extraordinary resource use (and waste) by 
the people of the wealthy nations is WAY out of proportion to our numbers*.

Regi

What good is a house if you don’t have a tolerable planet to put it in?  Henry 
David Thoreau

> On Sep 26, 2019, at 1:54 PM, Alicia  wrote:
> 
> Decrease in children per family: In the 1970's, there were an average of 2.12 
> children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had decreased to an 
> average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease of over 11% . (For 
> more info, check here.)  The percentage of single child families doubled from 
> 11% of all families in 1975 to 22% in 2016.  At this point, the birth rate 
> alone is considerably less than replacement rate and even with the increase 
> in longevity, the only reason the US population size is increasing is 
> immigration.  (That is a factual, not a political, statement - for the 
> record, I am not against immigration!)
> 
> When did the decline in bird population begin? The effect of human population 
> size and, particularly, habitat destruction and the changing chemistry of our 
> soil, air, and water, surely have taken a huge toll on birds.  But in at 
> least aspect of the new bird population study is misleading.  Its baseline is 
> 1970, about 50 years ago, but speaking as someone who was in high school then 
> and who learned from birders who were alive at the beginning of the 20th 
> century, it is clear that at least spring migration already was had suffered 
> a significant decline by 1970.  One very reliable birder I got to know was 
> born in 1905, and he assured me that by 1980, spring migration was a shadow 
> of what it had been in the 1920s & 30s in Tompkins County.  He wondered if 
> migratory routes had changed but said for whatever reason, there were only a 
> fraction of the warblers, vireos, orioles, and tanagers moving through the 
> area in the spring that there were 50 yrs before.  (This was a man who spent 
> pretty much every waking hour of his 93 years being outdoors birding, 
> fishing, or when he was younger hunting.)  Other people who had been around 
> birding in the 1930s before told me much the same.  
> 
> If you check accounts in Birds By Bent you'll find supporting evidence for 
> this in reports made at the time.  For example, a few years ago I had 25 Palm 
> Warblers in one group.  eBird was skeptical, but later when I checked Birds 
> by Bent, there were   several accounts of palm warbler flocks, including 
> one from Wm Brewster (co-founder of the American Ornithologists' Union), 
> writing from Massachusetts in 1906, who noted casually that in spring "one 
> may often meet up with fifteen or twenty in a single flock or forty or fifty 
> in the course of a morning walk."  I don't think any of us thinks of a walk 
> that yields 50 Palm Warbler as a migration event that 'often' happens now.
> 
> So as we think about this, we need to be careful not to assume that 1970 was 
> the beginning of the end, just because few of us around today remember even 
> more plentiful birds before that.  There is plenty of evidence that this 
> started much, much earlier, and as we look for causes and solutions, that 
> needs to be kept in mind.
> 
> Alicia
> 
> 
> 
>> On 9/26/2019 11:55 AM, Deb Grantham wrote:
>> You’re right about population – nobody wants to talk about that anymore.
>>  
>> I do the same with composting but also compost ALL of my food waste. I know 
>> the crows and raccoons and possums and so on help with that, but that’s ok 
>> with me.
>>  
>> Deb
>>  
>>  
>> From: Donna Lee Scott  
>> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:54 AM
>> To: Deb Grantham ; CAYUGABIRDS-L 
>> 
>> Subject: RE: [cayugabirds-l] How to help birds
>>  
>> Compost all you can; I save out most used paper towels and tissues and mix 
>> with my big compost pile leaves, grass, veg garbage etc.
>> Having a few small woodsy plots here, I also make “wildlife hut” piles with 
>> most my downed branches and tree/bush trimmings, rather than send it to the 
>> dump.
>> Town of Lansing on their ONE brush pickup service per year at least makes 
>> mulch out of all they pick up.
>>  
>> But the Other Big Elephant in the room is HUMAN OVERPOPULATION, which 
>> obviously is helping to cause a lot of climate change , habitat loss, rain 
>> forest destruction, etc.
>> A very complex issue for which probably only massive education world-wide 
>> will help. Look at results of China’s previous efforts at “one child per 
>> couple”…
>> Back in the 1970s there was the Zero Population Growth book and publicity. 
>> Haven’t heard much 

RE: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[Magnus Fiskesjo]

As an anthropologist I'd advise to be careful, in public campaigns at least, 
with arguments about overpopulation. 

It can easily backfire, because let's face it, most people on the planet care 
more about people than birds or animals or nature. And this is probably one big 
reason why populists like Bolsonaro, etc., who are in favor of careless 
exploitation, can gain so much popular support, and go on to burn down the 
Amazon. Most people have never been to the Amazon, and most of them care more 
about shortterm profits or even basic livelihoods, and they often don't know 
about the global importance of biodiversity. 

So, I think it is more strategic to emphasize that we need the birds for a 
healthy planet, going into the future together. When Fitzpatrick wrote in the 
NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/opinion/crisis-birds-north-america.html 
, that "Natural habitat must not be viewed as an expendable luxury but as a 
crucial system that fosters human health and supports all life on the planet."  
that's more powerful. If they had said, let's work to cut world population, 
then you can be sure that their argument would have failed, in today's bleak 
world. 

They were right also to raise up positive examples of wetlands restored for our 
benefit and for the wetland birds. And similarly one can argue for good 
measures on a bigger scale, such as those raised in this thread, such as also a 
smarter agriculture that can accomodate spaces for birds, airports timing their 
lawn-cutting better, and so on, all of which would fly better than suggesting 
that people are the problem as such, which I think risks needlessly making 
enemies.  It might even bring about a nasty backlash, from the kind of people 
who don't care about the environment, but are eager to exploit these issues 
(witness the ongoing ultra-vicious backlash against Greta Thunberg). 

I also agree the arguments about overpopulation aren't fully convincing, since 
the same trends towards smaller families are in effect around the world (even 
China now, after the end of the 1 child policy, to the point that the 
government is scrambling to persuade or force women to have more babies now 
lest the country starts shrinking like Japan and many other countries already 
is). 

And these trends are for the same basic reason everywhere: Education, 
healthcare and less poverty make people have less children. They have many kids 
as an insurance policy: If they know many kids will die, they naturally think 
that you better get ten, and hope that a few survive. So overpopulation, as a 
problem because it is a strain of resources, is probably best dealth with by 
means of good shared world governance and good economics. I am not hopeful -- 
but, I don't think there are any other ways.

There was a very nice children's book by Sven Wernström, "Resa på okänd planet" 
(Journey to an unknown planet, published in Swedish in 1967), which I read as a 
kid, in which the unknown planet is planet Earth. Two Swedish middle school 
kids accidentally come upon the spaceship of two teenager aliens, who are 
visiting earth. They get to go with them, on their secret mission around Earth, 
which turns out to be about capturing two of every kind of wildlife, as a 
Noah's ark expedition ... to take back to their own alien planet which had 
become barren, no longer lush and rich like Earth still is. I think that 
unfortunately the book was never translated into English or any other 
language... but it was a beautiful message.  
 
--Sincerely,
Magnus Fiskesjö
n...@cornell.edu


From: bounce-123961137-84019...@list.cornell.edu 
[bounce-123961137-84019...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Kevin J. McGowan 
[k...@cornell.edu]
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2019 2:12 PM
To: Alicia; CAYUGABIRDS-L
Subject: RE: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

1970 is used as the starting point because that was when the Breeding Bird 
Survey started taking data. Data on bird populations simply didn’t exist before 
that, with the exception of the Christmas Bird Count. The BBS was started 
partly in response to the perceived decline in birds already occurring.

Kevin

Kevin McGowan

From: bounce-123961049-3493...@list.cornell.edu 
 On Behalf Of Alicia
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2019 1:54 PM
To: CAYUGABIRDS-L 
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

Decrease in children per family: In the 1970's, there were an average of 2.12 
children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had decreased to an 
average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease of over 11% . (For 
more info, check 
here<https://www.statista.com/statistics/718084/average-number-of-own-children-per-family/>.)
  The percentage of single child families doubled from 11% of all families in 
1975 to 22% in 2016.  At this point, the birth rate alone is considerably less 
than

Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[David Nicosia]

What's even more confusing is that 100 years ago there wasn't nearly the
forest cover locally. Is it possible that the small patches of woods that
were present back then were loaded with forest migrants so the perception
was many more birds(like the central park effect?)? It's hard to believe
that many of our local breeding forest birds were more common 100 years
with such a lack of habitat. Our field birds certainly have declined
tremendously as farmland and fields have reverted back to forest. It is
also confusing that DDT was banned in the early 1970s and numbers of birds
continued to drop. The loss of juncos has me baffled too. They are a very
adaptable species nesting in suburbs close to people now. They also like
openings in forests and forest edges. Maybe the maturation of the forests
has diminished their breeding habitats? Deer browsing understory could be
another cause I suppose. Same could be said for white-throated sparrows.
Forest dwelling birds like red-eyed vireos, blue-headed vireos, and various
warblers that are tree nesters are doing well according to BBS and banding
studies. Maybe its the maturation of our forests that is the cause of some
declines of other species and leading to increases in others. I don't see
how global warming would cause declines locally. Our summers really aren't
any warmer. Its the winters that are a few degrees warmer now which helps
many species like juncos, WT sparrows etc. So many questions and not a lot
of answers.


On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 2:13 PM Kevin J. McGowan  wrote:

> 1970 is used as the starting point because that was when the Breeding Bird
> Survey started taking data. Data on bird populations simply didn’t exist
> before that, with the exception of the Christmas Bird Count. The BBS was
> started partly in response to the perceived decline in birds already
> occurring.
>
>
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> Kevin McGowan
>
>
>
> *From:* bounce-123961049-3493...@list.cornell.edu <
> bounce-123961049-3493...@list.cornell.edu> *On Behalf Of *Alicia
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 26, 2019 1:54 PM
> *To:* CAYUGABIRDS-L 
> *Subject:* Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird
> study
>
>
>
> *Decrease in children per family*: In the 1970's, there were an average
> of 2.12 children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had decreased
> to an average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease of over 11%
> . (For more info, check here
> <https://www.statista.com/statistics/718084/average-number-of-own-children-per-family/>.)
> The percentage of single child families doubled from 11% of all families in
> 1975 to 22% in 2016.  At this point, the birth rate alone is considerably
> less than replacement rate and even with the increase in longevity, the
> only reason the US population size is increasing is immigration.  (That is
> a factual, not a political, statement - for the record, I am not against
> immigration!)
>
> *When did the decline in bird population begin*? The effect of human
> population size and, particularly, habitat destruction and the changing
> chemistry of our soil, air, and water, surely have taken a huge toll on
> birds.  But in at least aspect of the new bird population study is
> misleading.  Its baseline is 1970, about 50 years ago, but speaking as
> someone who was in high school then and who learned from birders who were
> alive at the beginning of the 20th century, it is clear that at least
> spring migration already was had suffered a significant decline by 1970.
> One very reliable birder I got to know was born in 1905, and he assured me
> that by 1980, spring migration was a shadow of what it had been in the
> 1920s & 30s in Tompkins County.  He wondered if migratory routes had
> changed but said for whatever reason, there were only a fraction of the
> warblers, vireos, orioles, and tanagers moving through the area in the
> spring that there were 50 yrs before.  (This was a man who spent pretty
> much every waking hour of his 93 years being outdoors birding, fishing, or
> when he was younger hunting.)  Other people who had been around birding in
> the 1930s before told me much the same.
>
> If you check accounts in Birds By Bent you'll find supporting evidence for
> this in reports made at the time.  For example, a few years ago I had 25
> Palm Warblers in one group.  eBird was skeptical, but later when I checked
> Birds by Bent, there were several accounts of palm warbler flocks,
> including one from Wm Brewster (co-founder of the American
> Ornithologists' Union), writing from Massachusetts in 1906, who noted
> casually that in spring "one may often meet up with fifteen or twenty in a
> single flock or forty or fifty in the course of a morning walk."  I don't
> think any of us thinks of a walk tha

Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[AB Clark]

Just to say—what all of us really know—we don’t want our children to be the 
generation to have no one to come behind them, to care and innovate and compost 
for them as they age and become infirm.  Demography is a complex thing and, as 
we in the west take longer to die on average, we must somehow increase our 
functional lifetimes as well, in order to make up fo the smaller size of 
generations of young, able folks behind us. 

The larger faster-growing problem is energy/space/resource requirements per 
person globally.  In the West, we would do better to cut that drastically than 
work on fewer babies.  That includes staying healthier longer; as someone who 
remembers a lot of years before 1970, I bet my use of resources will increase 
massively with any major illness in future.  

Outside the 1st world, fewer babies seems like the answer, but amazingly the 
pattern has repeatedly been that people cut back on having children when their 
children are likely to survive, when the success of the children increases with 
investment/child (investment includes time, energy of parents) and when women 
have economic and polical power.  (Not that women are wiser—they just do the 
baby-carrying.)  So let’s work on health of infants and children globally as 
well, at the same time helping the developing world NOT replicate our 
regrettable overuse of resources, offering routes to economic well being that 
are not ecologically disastrous.  We western nations should be generous with 
any knowledge and pragmatic ways we have in how to live healthy, ecologically 
sound lives.  That is the tragedy of our nation’s current behavior.

This sounds very preachy…sorry, anne


> On Sep 26, 2019, at 1:54 PM, Alicia  wrote:
> 
> Decrease in children per family: In the 1970's, there were an average of 2.12 
> children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had decreased to an 
> average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease of over 11% . (For 
> more info, check here 
> .)
>   The percentage of single child families doubled from 11% of all families in 
> 1975 to 22% in 2016.  At this point, the birth rate alone is considerably 
> less than replacement rate and even with the increase in longevity, the only 
> reason the US population size is increasing is immigration.  (That is a 
> factual, not a political, statement - for the record, I am not against 
> immigration!)
> 
> When did the decline in bird population begin? The effect of human population 
> size and, particularly, habitat destruction and the changing chemistry of our 
> soil, air, and water, surely have taken a huge toll on birds.  But in at 
> least aspect of the new bird population study is misleading.  Its baseline is 
> 1970, about 50 years ago, but speaking as someone who was in high school then 
> and who learned from birders who were alive at the beginning of the 20th 
> century, it is clear that at least spring migration already was had suffered 
> a significant decline by 1970.  One very reliable birder I got to know was 
> born in 1905, and he assured me that by 1980, spring migration was a shadow 
> of what it had been in the 1920s & 30s in Tompkins County.  He wondered if 
> migratory routes had changed but said for whatever reason, there were only a 
> fraction of the warblers, vireos, orioles, and tanagers moving through the 
> area in the spring that there were 50 yrs before.  (This was a man who spent 
> pretty much every waking hour of his 93 years being outdoors birding, 
> fishing, or when he was younger hunting.)  Other people who had been around 
> birding in the 1930s before told me much the same.  
> 
> If you check accounts in Birds By Bent you'll find supporting evidence for 
> this in reports made at the time.  For example, a few years ago I had 25 Palm 
> Warblers in one group.  eBird was skeptical, but later when I checked Birds 
> by Bent, there were several accounts of palm warbler flocks, including one 
> from Wm Brewster (co-founder of the American Ornithologists' Union), writing 
> from Massachusetts in 1906, who noted casually that in spring "one may often 
> meet up with fifteen or twenty in a single flock or forty or fifty in the 
> course of a morning walk."  I don't think any of us thinks of a walk that 
> yields 50 Palm Warbler as a migration event that 'often' happens now.
> 
> So as we think about this, we need to be careful not to assume that 1970 was 
> the beginning of the end, just because few of us around today remember even 
> more plentiful birds before that.  There is plenty of evidence that this 
> started much, much earlier, and as we look for causes and solutions, that 
> needs to be kept in mind.
> 
> Alicia
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/26/2019 11:55 AM, Deb Grantham wrote:
>> You’re right about population – nobody wants to talk about that anymore.
>>  
>> I do the same with composting but also compost ALL of my food waste. I 

RE: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[Kevin J. McGowan]

1970 is used as the starting point because that was when the Breeding Bird 
Survey started taking data. Data on bird populations simply didn't exist before 
that, with the exception of the Christmas Bird Count. The BBS was started 
partly in response to the perceived decline in birds already occurring.

Kevin

Kevin McGowan

From: bounce-123961049-3493...@list.cornell.edu 
 On Behalf Of Alicia
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2019 1:54 PM
To: CAYUGABIRDS-L 
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

Decrease in children per family: In the 1970's, there were an average of 2.12 
children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had decreased to an 
average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease of over 11% . (For 
more info, check 
here<https://www.statista.com/statistics/718084/average-number-of-own-children-per-family/>.)
  The percentage of single child families doubled from 11% of all families in 
1975 to 22% in 2016.  At this point, the birth rate alone is considerably less 
than replacement rate and even with the increase in longevity, the only reason 
the US population size is increasing is immigration.  (That is a factual, not a 
political, statement - for the record, I am not against immigration!)

When did the decline in bird population begin? The effect of human population 
size and, particularly, habitat destruction and the changing chemistry of our 
soil, air, and water, surely have taken a huge toll on birds.  But in at least 
aspect of the new bird population study is misleading.  Its baseline is 1970, 
about 50 years ago, but speaking as someone who was in high school then and who 
learned from birders who were alive at the beginning of the 20th century, it is 
clear that at least spring migration already was had suffered a significant 
decline by 1970.  One very reliable birder I got to know was born in 1905, and 
he assured me that by 1980, spring migration was a shadow of what it had been 
in the 1920s & 30s in Tompkins County.  He wondered if migratory routes had 
changed but said for whatever reason, there were only a fraction of the 
warblers, vireos, orioles, and tanagers moving through the area in the spring 
that there were 50 yrs before.  (This was a man who spent pretty much every 
waking hour of his 93 years being outdoors birding, fishing, or when he was 
younger hunting.)  Other people who had been around birding in the 1930s before 
told me much the same.

If you check accounts in Birds By Bent you'll find supporting evidence for this 
in reports made at the time.  For example, a few years ago I had 25 Palm 
Warblers in one group.  eBird was skeptical, but later when I checked Birds by 
Bent, there were several accounts of palm warbler flocks, including one from Wm 
Brewster (co-founder of the American Ornithologists' Union), writing from 
Massachusetts in 1906, who noted casually that in spring "one may often meet up 
with fifteen or twenty in a single flock or forty or fifty in the course of a 
morning walk."  I don't think any of us thinks of a walk that yields 50 Palm 
Warbler as a migration event that 'often' happens now.

So as we think about this, we need to be careful not to assume that 1970 was 
the beginning of the end, just because few of us around today remember even 
more plentiful birds before that.  There is plenty of evidence that this 
started much, much earlier, and as we look for causes and solutions, that needs 
to be kept in mind.

Alicia



On 9/26/2019 11:55 AM, Deb Grantham wrote:

You're right about population - nobody wants to talk about that anymore.

I do the same with composting but also compost ALL of my food waste. I know the 
crows and raccoons and possums and so on help with that, but that's ok with me.

Deb


From: Donna Lee Scott <mailto:d...@cornell.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:54 AM
To: Deb Grantham <mailto:d...@cornell.edu>; CAYUGABIRDS-L 
<mailto:cayugabird...@list.cornell.edu>
Subject: RE: [cayugabirds-l] How to help birds

Compost all you can; I save out most used paper towels and tissues and mix with 
my big compost pile leaves, grass, veg garbage etc.
Having a few small woodsy plots here, I also make "wildlife hut" piles with 
most my downed branches and tree/bush trimmings, rather than send it to the 
dump.
Town of Lansing on their ONE brush pickup service per year at least makes mulch 
out of all they pick up.

But the Other Big Elephant in the room is HUMAN OVERPOPULATION, which obviously 
is helping to cause a lot of climate change , habitat loss, rain forest 
destruction, etc.
A very complex issue for which probably only massive education world-wide will 
help. Look at results of China's previous efforts at "one child per couple"...
Back in the 1970s there was the Zero Population Growth book and publicity. 
Haven't heard much about this lately.

Donna Scott
Lansing

From: 
bounce-123960446-15001...@list.cor

Re: [cayugabirds-l] US population trends; time frame for bird study

[Alicia]

_Decrease in children per family_: In the 1970's, there were an average 
of 2.12 children per family, while from 2009-2018, the number had 
decreased to an average of 1.88 and is holding steady there - a decrease 
of over 11% . (For more info, check here 
.)
 
The percentage of single child families doubled from 11% of all families 
in 1975 to 22% in 2016. At this point, the birth rate alone is 
considerably less than replacement rate and even with the increase in 
longevity, the only reason the US population size is increasing is 
immigration.  (That is a factual, not a political, statement - for the 
record, I am not against immigration!)

_When did the decline in bird population begin_? The effect of human 
population size and, particularly, habitat destruction and the changing 
chemistry of our soil, air, and water, surely have taken a huge toll on 
birds.  But in at least aspect of the new bird population study is 
misleading.  Its baseline is 1970, about 50 years ago, but speaking as 
someone who was in high school then and who learned from birders who 
were alive at the beginning of the 20th century, it is clear that at 
least spring migration already was had suffered a significant decline by 
1970.  One very reliable birder I got to know was born in 1905, and he 
assured me that by 1980, spring migration was a shadow of what it had 
been in the 1920s & 30s in Tompkins County.  He wondered if migratory 
routes had changed but said for whatever reason, there were only a 
fraction of the warblers, vireos, orioles, and tanagers moving through 
the area in the spring that there were 50 yrs before. (This was a man 
who spent pretty much every waking hour of his 93 years being outdoors 
birding, fishing, or when he was younger hunting.)  Other people who had 
been around birding in the 1930s before told me much the same.

If you check accounts in Birds By Bent you'll find supporting evidence 
for this in reports made at the time.  For example, a few years ago I 
had 25 Palm Warblers in one group.  eBird was skeptical, but later when 
I checked Birds by Bent, there were several accounts of palm warbler 
flocks, including one from Wm Brewster (co-founder of the American 
Ornithologists' Union), writing from Massachusetts in 1906, who noted 
casually that in spring "one may often meet up with fifteen or twenty in 
a single flock or forty or fifty in the course of a morning walk."  I 
don't think any of us thinks of a walk that yields 50 Palm Warbler as a 
migration event that 'often' happens now.

So as we think about this, we need to be careful not to assume that 1970 
was the beginning of the end, just because few of us around today 
remember even more plentiful birds before that. There is plenty of 
evidence that this started much, much earlier, and as we look for causes 
and solutions, that needs to be kept in mind.

Alicia



On 9/26/2019 11:55 AM, Deb Grantham wrote:
>
> You’re right about population – nobody wants to talk about that anymore.
>
> I do the same with composting but also compost ALL of my food waste. I 
> know the crows and raccoons and possums and so on help with that, but 
> that’s ok with me.
>
> Deb
>
> *From:*Donna Lee Scott 
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:54 AM
> *To:* Deb Grantham ; CAYUGABIRDS-L 
> 
> *Subject:* RE: [cayugabirds-l] How to help birds
>
> Compost all you can; I save out most used paper towels and tissues and 
> mix with my big compost pile leaves, grass, veg garbage etc.
>
> Having a few small woodsy plots here, I also make “wildlife hut” piles 
> with most my downed branches and tree/bush trimmings, rather than send 
> it to the dump.
>
> Town of Lansing on their ONE brush pickup service per year at least 
> makes mulch out of all they pick up.
>
> But the Other Big Elephant in the room is HUMAN OVERPOPULATION, which 
> obviously is helping to cause a lot of climate change , habitat loss, 
> rain forest destruction, etc.
>
> A very complex issue for which probably only massive education 
> world-wide will help. Look at results of China’s previous efforts at 
> “one child per couple”…
>
> Back in the 1970s there was the Zero Population Growth book and 
> publicity. Haven’t heard much about this lately.
>
> Donna Scott
>
> Lansing
>
> *From:*bounce-123960446-15001...@list.cornell.edu 
>  
> [mailto:bounce-123960446-15001...@list.cornell.edu] *On Behalf Of *Deb 
> Grantham
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 26, 2019 11:42 AM
> *To:* CAYUGABIRDS-L  >
> *Subject:* RE: [cayugabirds-l] How to help birds
>
> For reducing impacts of ag, don’t waste food. A very high percentage 
> of food in the US is wasted – spoils or people won’t eat the produce 
> with spots, etc.
>
> Deb
>
> *From:*bounce-123958613-83565...@list.cornell.edu 
>  
>