Conservation column: Sustained over 10 years

POPULATION SOLUTION: Polar bears, threatened with extinction, have been known to deal with the elderly.

I have been writing for Conservation Comment now for 10 years from when the articles first started in the Wanganui Chronicle.

So what has happened in the world since 2007?

That was the year that Sustainable Whanganui started. I was present at the first meeting and so were Annette Main, Laurence Boomert, John Milnes and many others - some 20 people in all.

Laurence Boomert rented 38 Taupo Quay and organised people to paint it. It was soon opened and its location gave Sustainable Whanganui a running start.

Some of us were horrified, we thought it much too big a venue - however, it filled up remarkably quickly.

Now the site of the Whanganui Recovery Centre in Maria Place is a thriving busy area seven days a week, with hills of glass, green waste and packaged cardboard and paper, awaiting collection. If you haven't been there, go and have a look.

The office for Sustainable Whanganui is there, with library and collection sites for many recycled items.

Recycling is now internationally established, in just about all countries and the majority of these countries recognise climate change, or climate weirding as many scientists are calling it after the last Paris meeting.

Many countries have suffered extreme weather events - fire, flood, wind and storm - and the human contribution to this since 1850 is now almost universally recognised.

Around the world there are huge wind and solar farms, and in the United States solar is the fastest growing energy source.

New Zealand has 53 per cent of its power from hydro stations, and has four windfarms, with more planned. And some houses (three of them were mine) have solar panels installed on the roof for hot water.

In October 2012, I wrote a Conservation Comment headed: "Population control key to ecological stability." I thought then, and still think, that the world is over-populated with homo sapiens.

Live Science suggests the figure for a sustainable population is two billion and we are at seven billion and rising. But many developed countries have a reduced birth rate, and even countries such as India and China have at least reduced the rate of population increase.

Crowded conditions lead to pollution - 30 per cent of China's gross domestic product is lost to pollution. Many world cities are so badly affected that their residents cannot go outside without a mask, and pollution blows on the wind around the planet.

In many countries much of the increase in population is in people who are over 65 years (yes, that's me, too, and why I am a member of Voluntary Euthanasia - stress "Voluntary").

And no, I am not suggesting that we reduce these figures by disposing of the elderly, though this has been done in the past. The Eskimos used to put old people out in the snow and leave them when they couldn't keep up - death by polar bear was considered a fast and fitting end.

I would like my body to go to the bears as they are threatened by extinction. But cost may be a problem ...

*Sara Dickon is a founder member of Sustainable Whanganui, and committee member of UNANZ and NCWNZ