Sun, sand, shore birds and rays swimming onto the beach this morning at Redington Beach ...
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The living Earth is no incidental thing. Humankind really needs to begin thinking in a responsible manner about humankind's relationship to the planet, to Nature, to All-Life, and to the future. Though this is what humankind ought to do there is no chance whatsoever that humans will adopt a more responsible lifestyle before our species has thoroughly trashed the planet and deprived future generations of their existence.
As if to illustrate this point, though more accurate what inspired this statement, there is an article in today's London Times :
Beware what you wish for. Birth control was one of the resounding policy successes of the last quarter of the last century. In the early 1970s, women worldwide were bearing an average of 4.3 children; populations in some of the poorest countries were doubling at breakneck speed and demographers were predicting that the world would contain 16 billion or more people before the demographic express hit the buffers of famine and war.
...
The turnaround has been dramatic. In more than 70 countries, birthrates have fallen below replacement level. The demographic timelag — babies born 30 years ago are now raising families — means that the global total continues gently to rise, but within 40 years should level out at a manageable 9 billion.
For the planet, this is good news; but the downside is a different, never before seen, demographic crunch. When people are not only having fewer babies, but living 30 to 40 years longer than they did a century ago, the result is more pensioners — and fewer workers to look after them. By 2050 two billion people — more than one in five — will be over 60. In rich countries, the proportion will be one in three. The implications are dramatic: labour shortages, slower growth, and higher taxes to pay bills for pensions and long-term care. The West’s problems are, however, nothing compared to the social and economic catastrophe shaping in China.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
I responded in the following fashion:
Anyone who imagines that 9 billion humans are manageable in 2050 [is thinking in an irrational manner]. I wonder where she got this sort of confidence at because it isn't grounded in experience. The human population, presently, is already at evolutionary unprecedented levels. 9,000,000,000 humans isn't necessarily manageable at all.
The economy, though, is built upon a Ponzi scheme which demands perpetual eternal growth. For that reason economists laments a peak human population 9 billion and would prefer to see it continue growing forever, contrary to the laws of physics and biology.
Perpetual growth is impossible, it is forbidden by the laws of Nature.
While some might imagine that 9 billion is manageable, I will point out the obvious:
- The Earth's resources are becoming depleted and exhausted already.
- Radical climate change is already occurring.
- Billions of humans are presently undernourished, impoverished and deprived.
- The infrastructure of modern civilization is crumbling away under our feet at an ever-accelerating pace.
- Thousands of species are headed to extinction and numerous ecosystems are dying as a result of degradation and pollution.
- Nature doesn't guarantee the survival of the H. sapiens should things go really badly on the Earth.
Something horrendous is going to happen to humankind in the 21st century. Just as the real estate bubble collapsed the human population bubble will collapse.
I can illustrate this point by way of analogy:
While a lot of people imagine that they can climb Mt. Everest a significant number of these discover that they cannot by dying on the mountain:
To date, there have been 1,924 ascents of Mount Everest (more than 1,300 different climbers), and 179 people have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 9% (fatality rate is defined as successful summits compared to fatalities). However, since 1990 there has been an explosion of summiteers and fatality statistics have changed. Up to 1990, the Everest fatality rate is a whopping 37%, with 106 deaths and only 284 summits. Yet from 1990 until today, the rate has dropped to 4.4%; 73 people have died, and 1,640 have summited. Thus, the rate decreased to about eight times less than the pre-1990 fatality rate!
http://www.mounteverest.net/...
In the same way that a mountain climber places life and limb at risk in order to summit Mt. Everest and sometimes pays the ultimate price for folly, humankind has gambled with the very survival of our species by overpopulating and trashing the planet and our species will pay the ultimate price for this folly.
Our civilization is dying and the H. Sapiens are headed to extinction.
It is a tragedy but Nature is utterly indifferent to humankind's fate just as Nature is indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate mountain climbers. Nature is under no obligation to protect any person or any species from the consequences of its own folly.
David Mathews
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