SPA Infosheet

A Near Perfect Creature

June 2000

Population increase matters --

Consider a creature that approaches moral and environmental perfection --

The Rabbit,

• is vegetarian, needing only a few shoots to nibble,
   
• uses no energy other than its own metabolism,
   
• constructs a shelter without using resources
   
• is gentle, never lifting a paw in anger,
   
• lives simply that others may simply live,
   
• makes love not war,
   
• is a devoted spouse and admirable parent.

But,

the rabbit's high fertility can produce numbers large enough to cause destruction of habitat for all species. No individual human can reduce his environmental impact to that of a rabbit even if he reduces, re-uses and re-cycles. Humans see the damage caused by rabbits because their generations are shorter than ours, but from the point of view of Gaia, God or biological evolution our generations are gone in an instant and our population growth has more impact than that of rabbits.

Thus --

Human population increase matters most.