Kiwanis Club of North Suburban Golden K St. Paul

The weather is more winter-like, our president, LaMar Zollinger, rings the bell and we warm up to the usual “Harris Stretch” – isn’t tradition wonderful!

Just one “circle three” note this week – a thank you note was received thanking us for our memorial gift for Vic Perman’s family. It was noted that the memorial went to youth ministry at St. Michael’s and for the food shelf – one of Vic’s favorite volunteer activities. Carl Johnson reports that Dick Holmsten is doing better and has set some milestones for his walking – his next goal is to retire his three-prong cane and go to a single stick cane. And, a correction from last week – it was Arnie Albrecht and not Arnie Carlson that reported on Art Hedstrom. I actually didn’t hear form either one last week, but I am still hopeful that they both read our blog each week!

Our members continue in our “Happy Dollars” tradition. LaMar starts off with a buck for the good weather – no cancellations of meeting because of snow. John Sweeney marveled at the voice-activated system on his 4F phone – giving directions to Isanti as I-sexy – tickled the heartstrings of the octogenarian in John. Bill Flittie set out some Lakeshore Players flyers from last week’s speaker. Jerry Baumann’s testing for his aorta flow was in line with past measures – so okay for now. Bruce Robb gave out one last thank you to the helpers at the3 recent Holiday luncheon. Don Ausemus had a good news/bad news commentary. His wife fell and broke a bone in her shoulder, but it could have been much worse, but the day she fell Don had reservations to eat out and go to orchestra hall for a concert and they were heading out on a trip – all that was cancelled to happen at a later date.

Bill Flittie introduced our speaker, David Paxson, a national leader on population issues. He presented a very thought provoking session. He pointed out how quickly the planet added the last billion people and emphasized that the current population growth is unsustainable. We deplete our resources faster and faster as the population seems to grow out of control. He presented many statistics – to numerous to cite here – but on of the key thoughts is how we are operating with less and less farm land, fresh water and forests. Conservation can no longer be seen as the solution without first curbing the dramatic population explosion. On the hopeful side he cited how Thailand had cut its population growth from 7 children to 1 ? per family through a countrywide program of condom information and distribution.

He gave us some examples to consider. Haiti has over 10 million inhabitants at 1/8th the size of Minnesota (Minnesota has about 6 million population). That population density is also equally prominent in places like Bangladesh and India. He also was clear about the loss of species as the land use and pollution associated with overpopulation creates. His bottom line was to emphasize the need for actively working to reduce population (lower birth rates). Over consumption continues to need to be curtailed, but we need to realize that reducing population growth is the key to the future – maybe too late for us, but not for our children and grandchildren and future generations. It was a good presentation – eye opening. Our thanks to David and his twenty-one year quest to help people understand the issue more clearly.

Next week we will hear from Joseph Mahon of the Federal Reserve with an update on the bank and comments on the current U.S. and European economic conditions. This promises to be another timely and interesting topic so bring a friend and join us for the next meeting – the social time starts at 1:30 PM and the meeting starts at 2 PM.