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Editor’s note: This commentary is by George Plumb, a long-time volunteer environmental activist and currently serves as executive director of Vermonters for Sustainable Population.

With the U.S. population having grown by over 100 million since 1970 and Vermont’s population by 200,000, the impact on the environment has been profound. We are now facing major destruction of the earth’s ecosystems, and we have clearly exceeded the carrying capacity to sustain future generations.

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This is so well-documented that I won’t go into the details. Instead, I think a very important part of this discussion, and what is often missing, is what constant growth is doing to our quality of life. For me it has had a dramatic impact, and I suspect it has for many others as well, particularly those who have lived in Vermont for more than a few years.

I moved to Washington, Vermont, in 1968. At that time, Washington was a very rural community. There were several dairy farms, with each farm having no more than 50 milking cows. And the farms were economically fairly well off. The farmer across the valley even had his own little airport known as the Carrier Airport that still shows on Vermont atlases. Everyone knew everyone else, and communities were tight-knit.

Since we have moved here the changes are almost unbelievable.

• There are only a couple of dairy farms left and the cows that used to sometimes break out of the fenced pastures and wander onto our land are … no more.

• The one-third mile long road which we live on had only two buildings, our late 1800s farm house and a barn. It now has six homes with a total of 13 buildings. The same thing has happened to just about every road in Vermont. We used to look out across the valley and see just a few other buildings. Now the hillside is dotted with structures. Sense of real ruralness … no more.

• People no longer know everyone else in town and hardly know their neighbors. Attendance at town meeting is no larger than it used to be and probably less. Most of the community organizations that used to exist are gone. Tight-knit community … no more.

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• The night sky used to be totally dark, and we enjoyed seeing the magic of the northern polar lights. Now there is a big glow of light pollution from the sprawl in Central Vermont. Aurora borealis….no more.

• There was a wide variety of birds including barn swallows, cat birds, red wing black birds, kill deer, ruffed grouse, whip-poor-will, woodcock and many others. In their place there are turkeys. The joy of so many beautiful birds … no more.

• None of the land around us was posted and there were no other buildings for long distances. Now much of it is posted and homes and camps are located on the fragmented parcels. Enjoying really long walks and sharing the woods … no more.

But it is not just the surrounding land that has changed; it is all of the Vermont land. The beautiful views driving from Washington to Barre have been greatly diminished or disappeared entirely as home after home has gone up in the fields, on the banks of rivers, and on the hillsides. A low traffic volume intersection of route 110 and 302 became so heavily trafficked, and with so many resulting accidents, that there is now a round-about there that feels urban.

The unfortunate thing about all these losses is that people who came along later don’t know what they are missing. If you have never heard a whip-poor-will, seen the northern lights, or enjoyed that beautiful view, how can you miss it and how can you know that your quality of life, at least in some aspects, would be enhanced if they were still there?

Vermont was a literal paradise when we moved here. It is a paradise that we are losing because of the obsession with growth that is in fact diminishing our quality of life as well as harming the environment. Yes, we have gained some positive things like more and better restaurants, cultural arts and more diversified employment opportunities. Call me-old fashioned if you will….which I readily agree to in some respects….but I’ll take the Vermont paradise that existed before Vermont and the U.S. grew so dramatically in population size.

George Plumb is a long-time volunteer environmental activist and currently serves as executive director of Vermonters for Sustainable Population. He may be reached at [email protected]

February is the second annual Global Population Speak Out month as promoted by the Population Institute based in Washington, D.C. And speak out we certainly should be doing as we environmentalists did so strongly beginning back during the first Earth Day in 1970 when population growth was high on the agenda of the environmental movement. However environmentalists retreated from talking about population growth as told in the PBS program, To The Contrary with Bonnie Erbé. The show tells how the environmental movement dropped population from its agenda and how population growth is affecting the U.S. environment. Watching this is a great way to learn why this incredibly important environmental issue is no longer covered by mainstream U.S. media or discussed by most environmentalists as an issue. To request a free copy of the DVD just e-mail requests to: [email protected] and tell who you are and who else will see the DVD.