January 16, 2024

Dear Jane,

Your speech to the City of Hope in June of 2023 was absolutely on the mark. As well, what you wrote on May 7, 2011 about human overshoot, I 100 percent agree with. I thank you tremendously for bringing the connection of our health to the health of our planet. Thank you for bringing up all these things. I have been fighting for the planet and its remaining species for over 30 years as a marine biologist, whale researcher, naturalist and environmental educator. Yet nothing is getting better and our baseline is adjusting to such poor levels our lives and every other species’ lives are at peril right now.

Thus, your involvement in this movement makes me think you’ll want to know about a presidential candidate who promises to do what our children and grandchildren need for a fighting chance. He’s the only candidate who will change our trajectory away from killing the planet. His name is Dave Gardner and I have included a link to his campaign video below. It is the dramatic shift from business-as-usual that we need. While this will probably end up a symbolic run for president, his message is one that needs to be heard.

You are fully aware that the human population is beyond Earth’s carrying capacity and we are in ecological overshoot. We are chopping our own arms and legs off and blindly thinking we can engineer and electrify our way out of this mess. As I said, I am a marine biologist and have been working on “saving” the planet for over 30 years. I am scared as well. Just one hundred years ago, mammalian biomass on earth was only 30% humans and the livestock they eat. Today, we’re at 96%. The numbers of whales, wolves, elephants and so on are a minuscule fraction of the numbers of people.

Species are being pushed off the planet at an alarming rate, I am bearing witness to it. This massive loss of biodiversity is not only killing species,as you know it will be to our demise too. More pandemics, more wildfires, severe droughts, polluted air and water, more cancers/diseases, resource wars and more famine when already 1 billion PEOPLE on the planet are starving. Of course, you know this.

Most scientists have come to the conclusion that a healthy number of people, that have abundance and live healthy great lives, would be somewhere between 500 million to 3 billion. Right now we have 8 billion people on the planet and we are growing at 80,000,000 per year. As we grow, the planet dies. Dave’s platform supports a very ethical, united, national effort to scale back our voracious consumption, our obsession with economic growth, and our population.

We would love your support on Dave Gardner’s campaign. Would you be willing to give it? I’m volunteering on this national campaign committee and can get you connected with Dave, or otherwise provide answers to any questions you may have.

Kind regards,

Stefanie Hawks-Johnson, M.Sci
stefaniehawksjohnson@gmail.com
206-459-1398

The campaign homepage provides a good introduction to his thinking, as does this video:
Dave the Planet: Wake Up, America

This is also another link to an excellent podcast on the subject:
Camilo Mora | Population: A Threat Multiplier for Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, & Pandemics
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/camilo-mora