- December 13, 2022
Hi everyone, and happy holidays a bit early. On November 15, the world’s population hit 8 billion people. As many of you know — thank you so much to everyone who came out — UPEC marked the occasion with an event at Proper Burger and Brewery.
(The gathering was on November 14 — hey, we only missed the mark by a day!). We had the pleasure of sharing the space with several wonderful local groups: Students for the Wasatch (a brand-new organization), Utah Rivers Council, League of Women Voters of SLC, and Save Our Canyons. All these groups offered excellent brief presentations on their current projects/issues — as well as how they think about the connections between population growth and environmental issues here in Utah. Thus, the audience heard about topics ranging from canyon congestion and traffic to the importance of voting and using our political voice, even when, frankly, we are often in the minority.
More than 60 people showed up, and, though we are biased, we think it was a terrific event.
The team at UPEC wants to thank each and every one of you who joined us that night. UPEC would also love to thank Proper Burger for a terrific atmosphere and even better burgers and adult beverages. We hope that you will follow each of the groups who joined us on Social Media.
Reaching 8 billion is sobering — and we’re headed to about 10 and a half billion in the lifetimes of many of the young people who turned out for the event. Meanwhile, Utah is poised to nearly double in the next 35 years. But groups promoting population awareness have already enjoyed great success in nudging birthrates lower; now our task is to keep the boulder rolling downhill, so to speak, and to keep reminding people that we should welcome lower fertility and smaller families. And to get the state of Utah to stop subsiding runaway growth of all kinds! We hope you’ll talk about population with someone today. Thanks again and see you soon.
