Population is the cause of lake problems

George Plumb, executive director of Vermonters for a Sustainable Population, provides his commentary on the cleanup of Lake Champlain and the importance of considering human population in all attempts to protect watersheds.

“Likewise we cannot have infinite growth in a finite watershed. What most of our political and environmental leaders do these days, instead of trying to prevent the problems in the first place, is wait until they get really bad and then portray themselves as heroes and say that they will clean up the mess if we will just give them millions of dollars. This has proven not to work, whether it is reducing the pollution of Lake Champlain, stopping the decline of critical forest cover, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, again, all caused by population growth.”