EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Sunrise, Dehra Dun, northern India

Explanation:   An oblate sun has just inched over the foothills of the Himalayas, here in northern India.  The air is already thick with smoke from open fires from local villages, here in a country with a population that has surpassed one billion people and two thousand languages and dialects.  

Here at EPOW we have tried to present mostly positive stories and wondrous images of our natural world to help foster an understanding and appreciation of our natural environment.  But as we enter yet another new year, we must take a moment for a glimpse of a greater reality.  

Our amazing Earth is becoming terribly crowded, and some corners are reaching some thresholds of livability.  An example is India, one of the true wonders of the world for all its astounding cultural and biological diversity.  India is but a third the size of the United States but has three and half times the number of people, so the human density is ten times that in the U.S.  India is a mirror for us all, a look into an alternative future sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrible.  

What does this mean for the future of resources, wildlife, and sustainable ecosystems?  This is not a cry of doom, but we all must become aware of how our individual resource use habits, our family sizes, our choices of habitations, affect quality of life for all of us now and in the near future.

Next week we will explore some of the intricate links between populations, stress, resource use, and incentives for change.  We trust it will be a lesson of hope for this new year.