Thursday, July 26, 2018

If We Can't Learn to Live With Our Planet, We Can't Continue to Live On It.


We have some serious problems to address. How we respond to those problems will determine how human civilization goes forward or even collapses. So, what's it going to be?

It's finally sinking in that we are confronted by three main existential threats - climate change (and the freshwater crisis), over-consumption and overpopulation. Mankind has massively outgrown our planet and, in the process, has put not only the human species but most other life forms, terrestrial and aquatic, in real jeopardy.

While our odds worsen and the challenges continue to grow year by year, at this point we have one possible remedy - a rapid and engineered decline, what James Lovelock once labeled "sustainable retreat."

Our species has outgrown our planet and we're fresh out of planets. We've got one, just the one. All we've got is Spaceship Earth and we're exhausting its resources, exceeding its ecological carrying capacity by a factor of 1.7. And that excess is growing every year.

We're squeezing out other species - taking their habitat, their food, contaminating their world. Over the past 40 years we have lost more than half of all terrestrial and marine life. We don't leave enough for them to maintain their populations. Just one species, our own, is now putting almost every other species to rout.

We pretend not to notice. Hey, the supermarket shelves are still stocked with food at affordable prices. Yet we have already substantially degraded our global ecosystem.

It is estimated that mankind last lived in harmony with nature in the mid-70s when our population reached three billion. That's when we maxed out the Earth's carrying capacity. In the 40 years since we've swollen our numbers to 7.5 billion, expected to reach 9 billion in another two decades. Meanwhile the Earth's human carrying capacity has declined. It's estimated we're now at two billion. Of course we can ignore it and keep growing our numbers and our global GDP but we've been warned that will trigger collapse and we'll end out this century with a population well under one billion, perhaps just a few hundred million tucked away in the very coolest parts of the planet.

Nine billion down to a few hundred million - that's a lot of people who will have to die and over the span of less than a single human lifetime.

You would think that, armed with all this science and aware of what's already happening around the world, especially severe weather events of increasing frequency, intensity and duration, that we would be racing to act. You would be wrong. We're racing all right but we're heading ever faster toward that oncoming train in the distance.

So, what do you think? Most who read these posts are either centrist or mildly leftist politically. Centrists support the Trudeau Liberal government that pursues perpetual exponential economic growth including the extraction, transmission and export of life-extinguishing high-carbon bitumen. Leftists support the New Democrats who don't seem to be significantly different than the Liberals or the Conservatives on the growth economy business.

I want to know what you think of your preferred political party and its policies on the economy, on the environment. What do you think of their plans, if any, to prepare our country and our people for what is expected to arrive in just the next couple of decades?

Are you among the group who believes "they'll think of something"? Why do you think that? Is it because anything other than a theological-grade belief in salvation is unbearable?

I know this issue makes some people not just anxious but angry.  However the simple fact that you're still reading this suggests you're not one of those.

So, what do you think?

15 comments:

Toby said...

I think our children and grandchildren are screwed. The only political party, here or elsewhere, that takes these problems seriously is Green and it doesn't have a chance at the polls. What worries me more is the attitude of people around me. They write me off as a sort of Chicken Little the sky is falling as they do with David Suzuki or Al Gore or anyone else who tries to warn us what science tells us. Yes, there are lots of "they'll think of something" responses and lots of hope the price of gas doesn't go up because I need my truck. Our Prime and Environment Ministers have succeeded with their it's a problem but not yet dismissal and we gotta keep oil flowing and trade moving babble.

Until the people in the street mob up and storm the ramparts of power our politicians will keep on ignoring them. When they do, of course, the police/military will be called on to suppress any rebellion and the politicians will continue as before. As I said, our children and grandchildren are screwed.

John's Aghast said...

Yup, you got that right Toby, and we've been saying it for some time now. Doesn't seem to be doing any good though - saying it.
I used to worry about the future for my kids and grandkids and it didn't seem to do a damn thing - worrying about it. So I decided to stop worrying and, you know what? It didn't change a thing, except I had less worry/stress. The future keeps motoring along on its relentless path. To destruction? It would seem so. Do we prefer a long painful drawn out extinction or a quick death by asteroid obliviation? Do we have a choice?

carl said...

The bleeding hearts will hate me.
There is no magic solution and as you point out millions a year will die. The best we can do is to reduce loss and maybe save what we can.
1. Food.-As thousands of American farmers are just learning for the first time, supply management is a better system then billions in subsidies, not just for farming but all consumable products. The only way to break the monopoly of half a dozen corporations based in the u.s. and Europe would be for the world to invoke supply management with 200% tariffs on all foods they grow in their own countries to eliminate dumping cheap surplus wiping out their farmers. Instead of limiting production all excess is bought by the government and put on a single world market with prices set by supply and demand. any food not sold could then be sent to poor starving countries. This would mean every farmer could get fair market value for their crops rather than the corporate system now that ensures they live on the brink of starvation. It also means looking at the farms in Europe and Asia that have been going for thousands of years and using those old methods to build soil instead of using it up like we do today.

2. Migration. Most countries in the world today are reproducing at a rate of 2 per family unit or less. There is no helping those that want to reproduce at rates higher then that unless they want help. Maybe going back a century and changing all immigration to those young, skilled and healthy able to enter their chosen countries and be successful right away like two generations ago and before them were would help every country grow and find new solutions too their problems. Unfortunately this would mean eliminating the word refugee from all languages as everyone is fated to live where they are unless there is a need for them somewhere else.

it would be easy to write a book about could be tried to save the earth but there is no political will anywhere outside of maybe Northern Europe. To do so would require changing everything from taxation, law, redistribution of wealth, dealing with new technology not to mention individual despots and oligarchs. At this point it is just a fantasy unless some new political movement is started, underground at first, that has a clear vision of the changes needed emerges to save the day.

Lorne said...

What I think, Mound, is that despite the denials and subterfuges of all governments, which are, essentially constructed by and for the elites, homeostasis will win out. It is just a matter of time before payment for all of our excesses is due, at which point nothing anyone tries to do to forestall or mitigate it will matter at all. It is out of our hands now, and while the cleansing will be severe, perhaps Earth will ultimately be better off for it.

The Mound of Sound said...


As I feared, not a single devoted Liberal has responded. No defence of our governments, current and past. It reinforces the idea that we're on our own now or, worse, that our government is working against our and especially our kids' interests.

Carl touches on resource management, at least in the context of food supply. We are badly in need of some distribution scheme but that brings into play the thorny issue of equity. We live in a world of have and have not nations based on per capita consumption levels. We're running out of most everything including renewables without which there can be no life. Can those who have more than they need be persuaded to slash their consumption so that those on the edge of survival may have a future? That's not going to happen. The affluent still frame that sort of thing as an unearned "giveaway," refusing to consider the role we have already played in Third World shortages. What's mine is mine. What's yours is not my problem.

I also agree with Carl when he says that learning to live in harmony with our limited planet would require changing all of our historic modes of organization including 18th century economics, 19th century industrialism and 20th century geo-politics. It is hard to imagine this global civilization we've crafted becoming flexible enough to accommodate wholesale, radical reform.

As Lorne points out, it's just a matter of time. There may be less time than we imagine. It was reported today that the British Met Office has warned that the UK faces at least two more major drought summers like they're having this year. Wildfires inside the Arctic Circle where temperatures have broken 90F. Japan went through killer floods only to be hit in the immediate aftermath with a killer heatwave that has sent more than 23,000 to hospital. The tragic wildfire in Greece. The fires in western North America. Record heat in the American southwest. Heavy flooding across the US Atlantic states.

Trailblazer said...

Where there is only greed there will be no political will for change.

Whilst the greedy bastards club members are fighting a losing battle they will take many of us down with them.

TB

Anonymous said...

Well! What can I say. I am also disliked for my stance taken regarding the environment. What I see are millions of people who will begin to head north especially Canada since most of the world believes we have everything they need. Worst of all are the Born Agains...they are waiting for Jesus Christ to drop from the heavens and take care of everything. And don't what ever you do mention over population. That is heresy and anyone that mentions overpopulation is the cause of the earth's problem is just well..."mentally ill". There ought to be a very thick line drawn between Religion and Government. We are going to need someone to come to the fore with a very hard rule as to what has to be done to save life...and yes, many people will have to die to do so. Forget about being a billionaire. Those that are billionaires won't be doing anything any different than what is happening now. Who the hell am I going to vote for during the coming election..Jason Kenny...the junk yard dog, Andrew Shearer, Justin Trudeau or any of the others? No. They are all the same. Do I believe in a myth..no.

Anonymous said...

The above is me Anyong....

Trailblazer said...

Beware ,at your peril, the Born Agains.
The Born Agains come in all colours , shapes and sizes.
The Born Agains are Christians, Muslims, Jews, and even the 'non violent' Buddhists.
As greed , power and influence take over common sense, honesty and reality we have much to fear for those are the prevailing attitudes that prevent us confronting global warming, overpopulation and other real issues of our time.

TB

Trailblazer said...

This is how we define ourselves!

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/26/facebook-market-cap-falls-109bn-dollars-after-growth-shock

How does this relate to 'real' life?

TB

Purple library guy said...

"It is estimated that mankind last lived in harmony with nature in the mid-70s when our population reached three billion."
That strikes me as rather overselling our relationship with nature at the time. Perhaps "Not killing nature fast enough to overwhelm its ability to regenerate--but not for lack of trying" would be closer to the mark.

Purple library guy said...

As to the born agains . . . I recently heard of the "quiverfull" movement. It's kind of an explicit emphasis on what's been a little more tacit among a lot of born agains: Deliberate overpopulation conceived as warfare. They want to outbreed everyone so they'll have lots of little hatemongers to fight the world with, and they're quite overt about saying so. Horrific.

Anonymous said...

Why aren`t we asking our Indigenous peoples how to live with sustainability..question. ``Carl touches on resource management, at least in the context of food supply. We are badly in need of some distribution scheme but that brings into play the thorny issue of equity. We live in a world of have and have not nations based on per ca pita consumption levels. We're running out of most everything including renewable s without which there can be no life. Can those who have more than they need be persuaded to slash their consumption so that those on the edge of survival may have a future? That's not going to happen. The affluent still frame that sort of thing as an unearned "giveaway," refusing to consider the role we have already played in Third World shortages. What's mine is mine. What's yours is not my problem...Unquote. No, we prefer to call them lazy. They know more about the above than we give them credit for. Are you Mound, prepared to give up your elitist style of living...

Anonymous said...

10:47 Anyong

Anonymous said...

You can bet your bottom dollar the Islamist....I`m talking about the religion, not the Culture....will continue to keep their women pregnant as did the Roman Catholics not so long ago. Does being poor stop India from continuing to produce more and more babies..question. No it does not. Until we separate Religion from Politics, we will continue to have this problem. It is called...the battle of the cradle..!! Anyong