The SNJ columnist Karen Eberhardt-Shelton was born in California but grew up in England.

She now lives in Stroud and is currently working on an education project called Learn, Think, Act and is hoping to develop an eco-community land trust.

Her thought-provoking columns will focus on how we all have to take responsibility for our actions and for our planet.

Sixth major extinction?

Don’t chuckle, a new location can definitely offer contrasts.

In Nympsfield traffic noise is minimal. No strolling shoppers. Colonies of birds. Neighbourly neighbours.

Wildflowers galore, grazing cows. Awesome sunsets. Trees proud of their greenery. It all adds up to a sense of edging close to the natural world and actually belonging and being part of it.

This then makes me more aware of human intrusiveness, the gigantic suffocating footprint our kind has imprinted on every dimension of the natural world.

I feel a new resolve to never again live in a town or city; in multiple ways they are divorced from what enabled them to come into being, and overflow with examples of indifference to the needs of nature.

Somehow I will find a village that serves as a model for how we need to, and must, live in the future, bearing in mind that if I sought refuge in a beautiful spot with an absence of like-minded individuals to share thoughts, ideas and concerns with, I would die of loneliness and despair.

Is there a rational locality anywhere made up of aware minds that walk their talk; in essence, connect the basic dots to the big picture?

So this brings me to a mental focus I’ve never before experienced so intensely.

It’s about that big picture and how overpopulating humans are devouring and dismantling it with their relentless thirst for growth and more, more, more.

I am truly amazed that virtually nobody, no groups or organisations, not the Green Party or Friends of the Earth, no politicians, no vicars or teachers, or even the media, etc. openly bring up that volatile issue.

Why is that?

If we all made the logical connection between the relentlessly growing numbers of humans continually eating, drinking, using, wasting, consuming, polluting, damaging, building, travelling, demolishing and all the rest (good stuff too, but too slow and not enough) without pausing to consider the pressure and loss our infinite demands place on the finite Earth.

We carelessly persist in paving over, building new houses, robbing more wild space to be used for mono crops and cattle grazing.

We cut the verges at the beginning of summer, keep public transport unaffordable, churn out materials that can’t be recycled.

We haven’t the brains to stop littering.

Fracking is pursued, as are other fossil fuels.

We waste the sun.

We waste the Earth.

We simply don’t connect the dots; they’re left floating aimlessly about without any clear destination.

Global stewardship, true sustainability?

Forget it. We’ll unapologetically emit the next hoard of consumers and put up with consequences regardless of who or what is most affected by them. The first law of sustainability - population growth and/or growth in rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. I dare you to read Life On The Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation, then do a rethink of where you’re coming from, and how it’s likely to wind up if we mindlessly follow the old path. ‘While the worldwide environmental movement has won many victories, overall we are losing the planet.’ Too many people are causing its disintegration.

It’s that basic.