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Humans May Have Loaded the Bases, but Nature Bats Last
Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we've ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change. Exponential growth is causing an already huge human population to double in shorter and shorter time periods.
When I was born in 1936, just over two billion people lived on the planet. It's astounding that the population has increased more then threefold within my lifetime. That staggering growth has been accompanied by even steeper increases in technological innovation, consumption, and a global economy that exploits the entire planet as a source of raw materials and a dumping ground for toxic emissions and waste.
We have become a new kind of biological force that is altering the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. Indeed, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has suggested that the current geologic period should be called the Anthropocene Epoch to reflect our new status as a global force -- and a lot of scientists agree.
As noted in a recent Economist article, "Welcome to the Anthropocene," we are altering the Earth's carbon cycle, which leads to climate change, and we have sped up by more than 150 percent the nitrogen cycle, which has led to acid rain, ozone depletion, and coastal dead zones, among other impacts. We have also replaced wilderness with farms and cities, which has had a huge impact on biodiversity.
On top of that, according to the Economist, a "single engineering project, the Syncrude mine in the Athabasca tar sands, involves moving 30 billion tonnes of earth -- twice the amount of sediment that flows down all the rivers in the world in a year." As for those global sediment flows, the article goes on to point out that they have been cut by nearly a fifth, eroding the Earth's deltas "faster than they can be replenished," thanks to the almost 50,000 large dams built in the world over the past half-century.
We now occupy every continent and are exploring every nook and cranny of the Earth for new resources. The collective ecological impact of humanity far exceeds the planet's capacity to sustain us at this level of activity indefinitely. Studies suggest it now takes 1.3 years for nature to restore what humanity removes of its renewable resources in a year, and this deficit spending has been going on since the 1980s.
For the first time in human history, we have to respond as a single species to crises of our own making. Until now, this kind of unified effort only happened in science fiction when space aliens invaded Earth. In those stories, world leaders overcame human divisions to work together against the common enemy.
Now, as comic strip character Pogo said in the '70s (appropriately, on a poster created for Earth Day): "We have met the enemy and he is us." Humans have long been able to affect the environment, but never before on such a scale. In the past, even people with primitive tools and weapons had impacts on local flora and fauna, as Tim Flannery outlined in The Future Eaters, and Jared Diamond described in Collapse. Diminishing resources forced people to come to grips with the need to sustain their resources or to move in search of new opportunities.
The only way to come to grips with the crises and find solutions is to understand that we are biological creatures, with an absolute need for clean air, clean water, clean food and soil, clean energy, and biodiversity. Capitalism, communism, democracy, free enterprise, corporations, economies, and markets do not alter those basic needs. After all, those are human constructs, not forces of nature. Similarly, the borders we throw up around our property, cities, states, and countries mean nothing to nature.
All the hopes that meetings such as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and the climate conferences in Kyoto in 1997, Copenhagen in 2009, and Cancun in 2010 would help us resolve major ecological challenges will be dashed as long as we continue to put economic and political considerations above our most fundamental biological, social, and spiritual needs. We humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.
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Show All"Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die."
Gore Vidal
It's not the earth that will die, but the biosphere and food chain that supports human life is indeed moribund. If the "host" dies, the virus will not be able to continue unless it finds another host, thus the scientists' search for "other habitable planets."
Unfortunately, when the die-off starts in earnest, it won't be selective. People who lived an ecologically correct life -- recycled, didn't own a car, etc., etc. -- will go right along with the people who claimed that climate change was a plot to keep them from getting rich through capitalism. It won't be fair, and those who believe their wealth and position will enable them to escape the consequences will discover that they cannot.
But human intelligence doesn't do well with long-range abstract threats. People can behave with wonderful selflessness when the catastrophe is upon them, but expecting all of humankind to unite in an effort to reduce our "carbon footprint" is a forlorn dream. If climate change (aka global warming) were the only environmental problem human life has inflicted on this planet, it could be dealt with. But it's only one of many, and they will compound and feed on each other as each hits its tipping point.
The questions are: How fast will the deterioration happen? Will there be a sudden onset of living condition awfulness? When living conditions go bad, will humans team up to survive or panic and let loose with a murderous survivalist shoot-'em-up bloodbath ending in nuclear weapons being set off?
Over-population .... Don't worry about it.
We humans won't be here much longer. Of course neither will much other life on planet Earth be here much longer.
If the tipping point of (no return) to global warming hasn't already been reached, it soon will be... The atmospheric Co2 level is already near 400 ppm and methne, Ch4, is the highest atmospheric level in the past 40,000 years and rapidly rising by the month.
When the tipping point is reached, "there will be no do-overs, no turning back", as the highly regarded geologist John Atcheson warned all of us several years ago.
Add in the now continuing mess from Fukushima, Japan and no one on Earht knows how far or how long that deadly disaster will continue. Last Sunday the CEO of Tepco said they cannot possibly ever control it.
Add in the contiuing deforestration of rain forests and the acidificatrion of our oceans from burning coal, which is quite rapidly killing off the world's coral reefs and the vital for all life phytoplanton plant life which supply us with (most) of our (vital for all life) oxygen.
We hunans; the "intelligent" life form, have done it and it wasn't from an atomic war. It was from stupidity, ignorance and selfish greed by the very few rich and mighty ones.
We are stuck in a vicious circle of representative government that is unresponsive to environmental concerns and pre-occupied with the economic concerns of a tiny few greedy, fear filled idiots with little penises and too much money and power.
Direct democracy
The disaster that awaits us is not due to the actions of the United States government but to the very nature of human beings. People are reactive, not proactive when it comes to choosing a course of behavior. Something happens and they respond. They do not respond to the prospect of disaster but to the certainty of a bad situation. People deny there is a problem for as long as they can and then react in such a way as to save themselves--as individuals and the group they belong to--ignoring other people and organisms. Politics and economics are not as important as evolutionary biology in explaining the choices people make.
That's really not supported or supportable.
The only characteristic that we can find that is common to *all* unimpaired individuals (and thus something we can call "human" nature rather than some individual's nature) is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. That's it. That's the long and short of "human nature": we're adaptable.
Which means that the second step to changing things is for us to take the power away from the psychopaths.
Agree somewhat. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances is not limited to humans however. But human's ability to adapt depends on taking power away from psychopaths, otherwise known as conservatives.
Direct democracy
"..conservatives."
Uh, howzabout just replacing that with 'capitalists'?
Besides, liberals/democrats are the worst, for it is they that are the most devious and criminal. Just as greedy. Just as dangerous. Just as murderous. Just as jaded & corrupt as conservatives. And more importantly, just every bit as stupid. Perhaps more so.
Don't you mean neo-liberals, petit bourgeois and conservative lites? When we buy into the conservative's long established liberal demonization propaganda, we weaken ourselves.
I certainly agree that our ability to *survive* by adapting depends on taking power away from the psychopaths. But they are represented across the asocial and antisocial political subspectrum, which includes more than the rightwingers (and relatively few among the paleocons, actually, afaict)
Start with (adapting) to the rapid loss of ice and permafrost in the Arctic which will most likely be ice free within the next five years, or less..
Good luck with "adapting" to that and there is nothing that will prevent that world wide disasster... Nothing we humans can do anyway... I do believe you have totally missed the primary point of what is going on with nature now because of what we have done to screw up nature's natural balance.
>>Mairead: "But they (the psychopaths) are represented across the asocial and antisocial political subspectrum, which includes more than the rightwingers..."<<
This is what I've been saying for a long time: that the system is not something 'out there', but is actively enabled by our neighbors, friends, relatives, coworkers and so on. So maybe it's time to look at the problem differently, instead of through an ideological lens alone, even though such an ideology may appear to be well-thought-out and logical and all that?
>>Mairead: "That's the long and short of "human nature": we're adaptable."<<
You're forgetting denial - something that's present in a great number of "educated" people as well. I don't think animals would have denial, and I think animals and plants can sense changes in their natural environment better, although not all animals and plants have the same ability to respond - resulting in different rates of survival. I think it's safe to say that animals in nature are more attuned to nature. I have seen many, many times ants making a line in such huge numbers, in great hurry, only an hour or two before a major rain. And I've heard of other animals reaching for higher grounds before floods and tsunamis. Heck, I've even heard of a tribe of people in the Andaman Islands reaching higher ground before the 2004 tsunami because one of the elders felt something.
I think much of humanity is so totally cut off from nature. The degree of disconnect with nature may have something to do with the culture and ideology one is immersed in, because I don't think all societies and communities are equally destructive or equally arrogant towards nature. There is a fair amount of reverence, and even fear, towards nature among some people - something that is not present in more "advanced" societies.
I think there is a certain level of arrogance and a smug belief in one's ability to survive and ride out the disaster that one is actively causing, and there seems to be a sense that such misfortune would only affect others far away and a dismissive attitude that that's just too bad. This stems from the disconnect with nature - which causes a lack of empathy with fellow human beings.
And I'm sorry to say, that this "psychopaths" you speak of - I don't think they are a tiny minority. The extreme psychopaths may be in a minority, but there are a lot more people with enough lack of empathy and enough lack of concern for the consequences of their actions that they too might qualify for this definition, although the degree may be different. But it's just my opinion.
You're forgetting denial - something that's present in a great number of "educated" people as well. I don't think animals would have denial,
----------------------------------
Actually, A, denial is a way of adapting...though usually a useless one and often, as here, a dangerous one too.
It typically comes from a feeling of powerlessness: there's no point in trying to think about a threat over which we believe we have no control; it just makes us crazy. So we pretend that whatever it is is not happening. It's a very primitive self-defence mechanism, but all the more used because of that.
And, unexpected as it might seem, the non-humans nearest us do also engage in denial, and (as far as we can tell) for the same reasons. We can see it in, e.g., the cats and dogs we live with, if we observe closely.
------------------------------------------------------
And I'm sorry to say, that this "psychopaths" you speak of - I don't think they are a tiny minority. The extreme psychopaths may be in a minority, but there are a lot more people with enough lack of empathy and enough lack of concern for the consequences of their actions that they too might qualify for this definition, although the degree may be different.
-------------------------------------------------------
Adaptation again, believe it or not.
All traits are distributed under the usual curve, including psychopathy. So you're right, more than half the population has some capacity to behave psychopathically at least in the moment.
But it's only in psychopath-run societies (which at present are most of them, unfortunately) that psychopathic behavior is rewarded. Under such conditions, some normal people -the ones who've been socialised to suppress their psychopathic urges- see that the arseholes of the world (the psychopaths) seem to do very well, and that they've made it dangerous/illegal to cross them, and so they try to adapt to that pathological world with greater or less willingness and success.
In smaller societies, such as the gatherer/hunter societies of Africa and the small-village societies of SE Asia, psychopaths don't survive to adulthood, and so those societies suffer from very little psychopathic behavior. The few episodes of selfishness and greed that appear almost randomly from otherwise normal people are squelched by the elders as soon as they arise (there's a good example of this in the anthro lit, but I can't put my hand on it right now. Basically, when the visiting anthro provided a big, sumptuous feast for the host village, all the elders downplayed the value of it, saying that sure, everyone would eat to be polite, but it really wasn't worth anything. Later, they explained to him that they do this so that young men don't start thinking themselves special and more entitled than others)
Mairead ---- You are one of the tiny, tiny few who "gets it". Absolutey on point. The exsitentialist question is ---- How? If you kill them, do you become a psychopath? I have wrestled with this question for many years without reaching a conclusion. Stupidity is forgivable ------ psychopathy will be the end of us all, including the psychopaths. They may even grasp this intellectually, but still don't care. dh
Thank you - it's an uphill struggle (as you no doubt know!) to convince people of the source of their problems.
As to what to do about them.... In a village society, they would be driven out or killed. We generally only kill the stupid ones -- the ones that personally commit murder -often several murders- because they have too much grandiosity to restrain themselves.
The smart ones that have enough self-control not to go over the boundary line generally gain positions of power. Then they can largely do what they like, protected by their fellows. As we see today -- to our great cost.
Something that few people realise is that *all* human-generated suffering comes from them.
But there are some psychopaths who aren't vicious. They have insight and, while they don't have the normal human feelings, they're aware of their deficits and most of the time do their best to behave responsibly using their intelligence. When they injure others, it's unintentional, and they often devote their lives to "good works".
(There's a very famous case in the literature from WW2 or possibly Korea in which a psychopath stole the credentials of an MD and got himself a Navy commission as a ship's surgeon. In battle, he was of course called on to provide medical care to wounded crew.
Fortunately he was able to stay ahead of the need by reading medical texts during every free moment, although he nearly died of exhaustion doing it. He actually managed to make himself into a competent trauma surgeon, saving several lives and many limbs. And so when he was finally exposed, he only drew a short prison sentence.
Later, if I'm not confusing him with someone else, he settled down as the respected pastor of a rural congregation who accepted him despite his past.)
But most psychopaths are anything but responsible, and life will never be good for us until we deal with them as a matter of constant public policy.
Since they can't help being what they are any more than a poisonous reptile can, I'd be in favor of providing them the choice of euthanasia or the opportunity to live out their lives on an otherwise-uninhabited island somewhere from which escape is impossible.
Provide them shelter and clothing, and the means to grow food, and let them get on with it as best they can. Their new society would be over-supplied with former politicians and business executives, but there'd be enough healthcare professionals and people with other skills that they could get by.
Likewise with paedophiles, though a different island.
Paedophilia is truly a horrible disorder to have, since sex is a major driver and pleasure center for most people. To be socially condemned for one's basic nature is viciously unfair and disabling, for people who are otherwise unexceptional (as millions of lesbians and gay men have found).
Yet in the case of paedophiles the conflict is irresolvable: it's a horrible idea to make non-consensual anything okay, so there's no way such people can legitimately have a sex life except by proxy (films, magazines, etc).
If we're not willing to allow them that much release within the context of our culture, then the only responsible thing to do is give them their own space and make it as nice as we reasonably can since they're never going to leave it again once in.
Agreed, but some cultures have survived as Jared Diamond shows in "Guns, Germs and Steel" and in "Collapse", by controlling the population/available resource ratio often by uncivilized ways. That we can do so by civilized ways and choose not to is the real disaster.
Thank you, Mr. Suzuki. You've been on the cutting edge of this problem for years, decades even. I still remember the evocative documentary you did on the waste industry and how it raised my consciousness as to what this entity was doing to the tri-state area (NY/NJ/CT).
In this quote you address those factors that exacerbate climate change:
"That staggering growth has been accompanied by even steeper increases in technological innovation, consumption, and a global economy that exploits the entire planet as a source of raw materials."
Some of the shills who potentially work for corporations that don't want the truth to be known, often will use the population issue as a means to deflect focus away from items like fossil fuel usage, or rampant consumerism.
More than one factor drives climate change... over the proverbial edge. Instead of fighting over which is the key factor to be damned, a variety of lifestyle practices must end (or significantly alter).
The posters ahead of me all made valid points, but no one left room for the possibility that a critical mass might be reached that inspired the changes necessary to sustainability. I am not such a Pollyanna to think ALL will survive; however, I don't think all will perish, either.
Brave efforts like those being ushered in by persons like Evo Morales, seeking to create an international mandate that regards the natural world as the living kingdom that it is (by allotting to Mother Nature/Pacha mama the respect she's seldom received) is a powerful starting point.
It's not like any leadership in the US has pushed the agendas of conservation or conscious living. Citizens COULD wake up if properly motivated. And what will Big Oil, the great "Onceler" do, when it all dries up?
Creation is inpaired, yet there are several factors that work against extinction. One is human ingenuity, another is Grace, and yet another, the fact that the Mother of all life genuinely loves her offspring, and where possible, will endeavor to save them... even from themselves.
Well Sue, if she saves seven hunams, four female and three male who are all capable of reproducing, that is suffeceint for a decent gene pool. Hate to see the seven living in the radioactive and chemical cess pool we have dug, without enough oxygen.
BTW, how do you like that "new" trolling shill we now have? Go back and read the replies to him since your excellent one.
No one wants to hear we have "done it"... That's not fun, it's depressing... It's true though.
"Hate to see the seven living in the radioactive and chemical cess pool we have dug, without enough oxygen. "
Think of Nevil Shute's novel: On the Beach.
Perhaps his flabby tits?
It's for this very reason that I keep beating the drum for a change of focus away from nukes.
No matter HOW bad it gets with nukes, the other problems are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE WORSE for us all. It is *they* that should be the focus of all our intelligence, energy, and creativity. Because if we don't solve them, it won't make a tinker's dam what happens with nuclear anything.
Right now, we have the equivalent of a half-dozen cobalt-jacket hydrogen bombs counting down to zero. We can maybe still stop them wiping us all out, but not by effing around pretending that getting rid of nuke reactors is the most important thing.
We can no longer blame the industries of nukes, coal, dams, oil, gas, pharmaceuticals, corporate greed, the war machine, it's just us, all of us. We are all those things and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Thank you Mr Suzuki
Well, it seems clear that nothing substantial will be done until it is too late (unless it already is too late). In a couple of generations the human population probably will be considerably smaller than today because of droughts, viral infections, severe weather, wars, nuclear pollution, etc.
If the greenhouse effect really does run wild, the ultimate end could be the equivalent of Venus - a thick atmosphere of mostly CO2, surface temperatures of about 800F, and rain consisting of various acids.
If the human population is largely wiped out before Earth becomes Venus, the atmosphere will probably stabilize somewhere between the two conditions. Other life forms will adapt - probably insects on land and algae in the oceans, and bacteria everywhere.
The planet will survive, but humans will become extinct, as is the fate of all species.
If we look, we will see what will happen.
Where there is no oil, poor people will cut down every tree and stick for cooking fuel, or they will feed every last tree leaf to the goats. Certain countries such as North Korea and Haiti are denuded of trees because wood was these countries' last fuel source. Arid lands have become more arid.
This same phenomenon was seen in France. Elzéard Bouffier, a shepherd, planted thousands of trees to restore a deserted mountain valley, and then more than 10,000 people moved back into the valley.
New England was once pretty much denuded up to the highest mountaintops in Northern New England. All was farmland. The maples and then the oaks have now repopulated the farmland.
If we run out of oil, or if all the remaining oil in the world goes to China and India, what will happen?
I hear addiction in your voice.
Expand your knowledge base. Solar stoves are easy to build and very efficient. So are solar water purifiers. And they are cheap. Remember that our ancestors managed for what...200,000 years?..without oil or gas.
I remember MadMax...that's where we're headed. There's been a couple others, but surely we have to begin to state the obvious and disasterous. It really is time to stop pussyfooting around this issue and find solutions. It's up to the scientists, geologists, physicists, and natural resource people to provide us with all the facts. It's up to the citizens of the world to do their own part. There's the key, everyone. But first everyone has to stop sticking their head in the sand, or financial finger up the butt of corporate hypocrisy, or denial through Virtue of Armageddon shit. But if humanity is really as dumb as the people in power, then 'asta la veesta, sucka's'
"It's up to the scientists, geologists, physicists, and natural resource people to provide us with all the facts. It's up to the citizens of the world to do their own part. "
In fact, the scientists have been doing their part for decades. But the propaganda machine financed by the fossil fuel industries has obscured the subject so much that no one seems to notice. And the politicians who are in the pockets of the industries have their heads where the sun doesn't shine.
The information is there - who is going to use it?
I love ambiguity.
Great to see an article by Dr.Suzuki posted here at Common Dreams. As a student I had the privilege to hear this wonderful man speak.....(Many years ago)
Thomas Gilbert
Thanks for your post David Suzuki because you and only a few others ever mention or even try to mention and discuss the horrid situation of the over population of the 'most intelligent species to inhabit this planet'. I concur with your amazement of the exponential growth of humans. I felt the same in 2005 when it was predicted that in October of that year the human population would reach 6,500,000,000 people and seeing that and reading where just 50 years or so earlier, it was only 2,000,000,000 people and with each individual's footprint and lifestyle thrown into the mix, it can only mean a dead reckoning course to disaster. Truly humans have proven ourselves the worst of the worse stewards of this planet who live only for the moment and have not a care about the future or of what the past has to tell us. Learning, education and intelligence are things not to be bothered with, only the adrenalin of emotions to give us what we have today, a very bleak future.
We do what's profitable. We're destroying the planet because it's profitable to do so, ergo in order to save the planet we have to make it profitable to do so.
Otherwise we're doomed. Sad but true.
I like Suzuki and have attended one of his lectures, but like many environmentalists he has a habit of presenting these facts in a vacuum. The causes of environmental catastrophe are reduced to "human beings" or "civilization" rather than human civilization operating under specific conditions. "Lifestyle choices" are given precedence over political processes.
The emphasis on "overpopulation" (often accompanied by analogies in which human beings are compared to viruses) is also not particularly helpful. In fact a lot of statements by "radical environmentalists" closely mirror the language of Eugenicist types and elites like Prince Phillip. Henry Kissinger once said that "Depopulation should be the highest priority with respect the Third World."
Why not take a look at the work of Frances Moore Lappe? She notes that “antidemocratic power structures create and perpetuate conditions keeping fertility high” and that “children are poor people’s source of power”:
"In sum, convincing historical evidence suggests that when individuals and families are gaining power because their rights are protected – particularly the rights to education, medical care including contraception, old-age security, and access to income-producing resources – they no longer have to depend only on their own families for survival."
Capitalism and Soviet style state capitalism are obviously incompatible with human survival. Yet Suzuki utters the word capitalism precisely once in this piece, and he does so by stating -- "Capitalism, communism, democracy, free enterprise, corporations, economies, and markets do not alter those basic needs." The general effect is to erase the vital differences between, say, capitalism and real democracy, and the vastly different ways these social systems may affect the environment.
Anarcho-primivists argue that the problem isn't capitalism but civilization itself. Yet this seems like an example of the only game in town fallacy. In "Forces of Production", David Noble shows that modern technology has not evolved as some sort of neutral force but according to the logic of capitalism. Under hierarchical systems, technologies are naturally favored which increase power at the top and reduce power for everyone else.
Here's a great quote from Chomsky on the relationship between environmental destruction and competitive, hierarchical systems.
"The reality is that under capitalist conditions – meaning maximization of short-term gain – you’re ultimately going to destroy the environment: the only question is when. Now, for a long time, it’s been possible to pretend that the environment is an infinite source and an infinite sink. Neither is true obviously, and we’re now sort of approaching the point where you can’t keep playing the game too much longer. It may not be very far off. Well, dealing with that problem is going to require large-scale social changes of an almost unimaginable kind. For one thing, it’s going to certainly require large-scale social planning, and that means participatory social planning if it’s going to be all meaningful. It’s also going to require a general recognition among human beings that an economic system driven by greed is going to self-destruct – it’s only a question of time before you make the planet unlivable.
Agreements don’t require centralized authority, certain kinds of agreements do. One’s assumption, at least, is that decentralization of power will lead to decisions that reflect the interests of the entire population. The idea is that policies flowing from any kind of decision-making apparatus are going to tend to reflect the interests of the people involved in making the decisions—which certainly seems plausible. So if a decision is made by some centralized authority, it is going to represent the interests of the particular group which is in power. But if power is actually rooted in large parts of the population—if people can actually participate in social planning—then they will presumably do so in terms of their own interests, and you can expect the decisions to reflect those interests. Well, the interest of the general population is to preserve human life; the interest of corporation is to make profits—those are fundamentally different interests.
Having jobs doesn’t require destroying the environment which makes life possible. I mean, if you have participatory social planning, and people are trying to work things out in terms of their own interests, they are going to want to balance opportunities to work with quality of work, with the type of energy available, with conditions of personal interaction, with the need to make sure your children survive, and so on and so forth. But those are all considerations that simply don’t arise for corporate executives, they just are not a part of the agenda. In fact, if the C.E.O. of General Electric started making decisions on that basis, he’d be thrown out his job in three seconds, or maybe there’d be a corporate takeover or something – because those things are not a part of his job. His job is to raise profit and market share, not make sure that the environment survives, or that his workers lead decent lives. And those goals are simply in conflict."
@Durrutix
You have a blog? You should. Thanks for the references
Thanks tfernsle.
No blog as of yet but I do have a website showcasing my ongoing documentary work.
Metanoia-Films.org
Quote is transcribed from "Understanding Power".
Hadn't heard of David Bohm. The concept of "energy alignment" reminds me of Buckminster Fuller's writings on synergy.
"Participatory social planning" is the basic process of Transition Towns, when they're done right. The effort is made to get beneath the divisions that do not serve the long-term interests of life on Earth, thus enabling diverse people to work together in designing and building a just and resilient local economy that interacts intelligently with the ecosystem(s) which sustain it.
See www.transitionus.org.
Download information on starting a local Transition Initiative and learn how to do it by putting it into play where you live, in your neighborhood.
Then, when you have a solid core group, get to work, if you want a future worth living. Talking is fine, if you're as articulate and convincing as Dr. Suzuki.
Otherwise, get to work on healing the social divisions ( which benefit no one interested in a viable future) in order to make participatory social planning possible.
The challenge is becoming one species again, responding to this universal threat.
That evolutionary event won't make the news, but it will make a future on Earth.
Good points, especially the take on connection with Eugenics in the advocacy of population control.
Many societies also point out that their Carbon footprint is 20 times less than that of other places (eg US versus India).
Feelings of dispossession, fear of future, low education levels, low incomes etc are also correlated with higher fertility rates.
Many of these issues will only go away with the removal of wars/colonialism (either by countries or corporations), and resulting greater affluence all around the world.
"In fact a lot of statements by "radical environmentalists" closely mirror the language of Eugenicist types and elites like Prince Phillip. Henry Kissinger once said that "Depopulation should be the highest priority with respect the Third World."
Even paleocons can infrequently be partially correct, though they prefer to use uncivilized, bloody but personally profitable methods of overpopulation control. Since we in the first world use many more resources than the people of the third world, we need to apply the depopulation rationale to ourselves.
The emphasis on "overpopulation" (often accompanied by analogies in which human beings are compared to viruses) is also not particularly helpful.
--------------------------------------------
The analogies mightn't be flattering, but most of them are accurate as analogies and the emphasis on overpopulation itself is *vital* to our survival.
But, contrary to the psychopaths like Kissinger, the population reduction must be 100% even-handed around the world.
If you run the numbers for a reduction rate of one-half live birth per person, no exceptions for any reason, you'll see that even that many births will cut it unpredictably close, given how little time we have til our profligacy has us tits-up as a species.
*Lovely* post otherwise.
Great post!
RE: The causes of environmental catastrophe are reduced to "human beings" or "civilization" rather than human civilization operating under specific conditions. "Lifestyle choices" are given precedence over political processes.
This is a key statement. It is typical of liberals, and I would include Suzuki here, to speak fairly accurately about a systemic problem, but then to universalize the blame. "Civilization operating under specific conditions" are the conditions imposed by the capitalist political economy which only benefits a tiny portion of the world's population. The environmental problems we face are systemic problems endemic to the capitalist system (that the benefits the capitalist class). It is they who are to blame. By blaming everybody, liberals, who are capitalists themselves - by definition, distract us from the real enemy: capitalism itself.
*Excellently* said! It is indeed Capitalism - or, more generally, feudalism/classism - that's behind the disaster rolling over us. As long as any group believes it has the right to exploit other groups, we'll continue riding the Fossil Record Express.
There's a rather interesting article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/world/asia/22japan.html about Hime Island, just north of Kyushu.
There, the 2500 islanders take less money for their work so that more people can be hired, keep their mayor in office by consensus, and consider themselves politically conservative. Like people in many "primitive" societies, they're highly conflict-averse, prefer cooperation and talking disagreements out, and greatly value community and equality.
“Our thinking is, ‘let’s all share the economic pie and get along, instead of giving all of it to the rich’ ” says the mayor.
Fascinating.
"Man is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical
animal on earth." --Michael W. Fox, vice president, Humane
Society of the United States.
"Humans are exploiters and destroyers, self-appointed world
autocrats around whom the universe seems to revolve." --Sydney
Singer, director, the Good Shepherd Foundation, "The Neediest of
All Animals," The Animals Agenda, Vol. 10, No. 5 (June 1990),
p. 50.
"If you haven't given voluntary human extinction much thought
before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem
strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree
that the extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for
millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing
out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and
environmental." --"Les U. Knight" (pseudonym), "Voluntary Human
Extinction," Wild Earth, Vol. 1, No. 2, (Summer 1991), p. 72.
Humans, as a species, may very well be fundamentally insane. (And please don't play the "sociopath" or "misanthrope" card in an attempt to stifle criticism or debate.)
You are forgetting that among the human species are those people and their societies that are innocent of this ecological nightmare: it may be well worth your time to read, Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge by Daniel R. Wildcat. As far as the rest of the human species I can well understand your sentiments but rather doubt that suggesting mass suicide would happen regardless of the benefits to the rest of the Web of Life. It strikes me that this is just a way too easy out for the culprits. Why not suggest the need to grow a conscience?
This Universal wheel, this merry-go-round
In our imagination we have found
The sun a flame, in the Cosmic lantern bound
We are mere ghosts, revolving, the flame surround
(For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go)
From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Opinion #1-We are all "environmentalists, because we ALL depend on the earths environment to sustain us;
Opinion #2-Every day IS "Earth Day", because we live every day on the earth, and depend upon her for our lives.
Opinion #3- Mother Nature smiles sweetly, but she has no soul. In other words, if we don't do right by her, she will, by default,allow us to do ourselves in.
Too bad the smug, greedy uber-capitalists think they are invincible to what's coming, because I know I'm not
>>"The only way to come to grips with the crises and find solutions is to understand that we are biological creatures, with an absolute need for clean air, clean water, clean food and soil, clean energy, and biodiversity. Capitalism, communism, democracy, free enterprise, corporations, economies, and markets do not alter those basic needs.<<
I'm guessing that David Suzuki addressed this part to those who insist that getting rid of capitalism would somehow solve all the problems. But any system or ideology that replaces it must still **explicitly** recognize the limits imposed by nature, the basic needs of humans and the fact that humans are only one part of nature, for it to be sustainable and truly better.
I believe that David Suzuki is speaking from experience and sufficiently deep thought when he says that meetings and conferences will NOT "help us resolve major ecological challenges" ... "as long as we continue to put economic and political considerations above our most fundamental biological, social, and spiritual needs."
I know some here will not accept "spiritual need" as something fundamental. I have not seen David Suzuki elaborating on this aspect, but I think he basically acknowledges that there is something more to life than economic and political considerations alone, and neglecting this "something more" as trivial or cultivating a contempt for any such idea would reflect on how we live our lives and interact with nature.
Right this very moment, in the city where David Suzuki is based at, i.e., Vancouver, half the population must be going crazy with excitement at the NHL Stanley Cup finals. The two teams, Vancouver and Boston, will end up flying back and forth across a whole damn continent - from one end to the other, and back and again - enacting their totally pointless battles in front of mad, cheering, almost bloodthirsty crowds. I mean, "fans". It's a best-of-seven affair. Seven games to decide on the champions - and this thing is not even every 4 four years like the soccer world cup. This thing is held every year, and yet some people cannot have enough of it.
I wonder what would be the reaction of these crowds if someone were to tell them about the carbon footprint of their "passion" - from the electricity needed to make and maintain the ice surface in the ice rink (which is basically one giant freezer - that's left open!) to all the other energy use associated with these matches - from the air travel by the teams to the energy used by the "fans". All for what?
I refuse to accept that this is a fault of capitalism. NO ONE is forcing ANY ONE to get addicted to anything. There really is something called "free will" to say no to all such madness. I commented on this same thing, but in a longer post on another article:
"Worst Ever Carbon Emissions Leave Climate on the Brink"
www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/30
Alcyon - May 31 2011 - 10:56am
Alcyon - May 31 2011 - 3:37pm
People can and should play some kind of sports. But identifying with a commercial, corporate sports team and calling it their "local" team is pure insanity that has nothing to do with capitalism. Why? Because it is possible for individuals to see that this is nothing more than a money-making venture for the capitalists and so to say, "To hell with it!". And it's possible for parents to teach their children to stay free of such madness, even while encouraging them to participate in various sports and physical activities, including competitive sports. Instead, people so easily fall prey to the capitalist propaganda that such things are part of their culture, tradition and what not. The con game may be played by the capitalists, but no one is forced to get tricked.
This is just one example, and I mention it because this thing is going on right now. And every "fan" addicted to some such "passion" with loyalty to one team or another and who spends considerable time on such madness is one less person who would be bothered about the things that truly matter. And there are millions of such "fans" everywhere. You can as well count these people out in any effort to bring about change.
To Alcyon --
As someone who survived the Vancouver Olympics and as someone who is attempting to survive the NHL playoffs, I agree. I am one of only three Canadians who doesn't care that much about Hockey (literally three Canadians -- there's me, a guy in Saskatoon and a gal in Nova Scotia -- this isn't a scientific poll ;)
I live on Vancouver Island, so I am afforded a certain degree of separation from the insane asylum, but even over here people are going nuts over the Canucks.
One lesson in all of this is that Canadians are considerably less enlightened than we generally assume of ourselves. We usually couch our alleged wisdom in reference to those backwards Americans down South.
The fact that one third of our populace just voted for S. Harper is a glaring testament to the absurdity of this claim. At least Americans never tasted the sweet fruits of Universal Health Care. We're willing to throw it all away because the media tells us Stephen Harper is "good on the economy".
But I digress...As indicated, I like Suzuki. But I also think that like many environmentalists he SEVERELY neglects the significance of human socio-political organization in his analysis of human destruction of the environment.
>>Durrutix: " I am one of only three Canadians who doesn't care that much about hockey..."<<
May your tribe increase! :)
>>"We're willing to throw it all away because the media tells us Stephen Harper is "good on the economy".<<
Yes. That is really the danger in handing over control of whatever little free / leisure time we get over to the media and to let ourselves be taken in by hype. Falling for such hype over hockey in the name of "tradition" (a meme that media will constantly reinforce - because they get to sell more advertisements, and that is ALL that matters to THEM!) is therefore far more insidious than many people recognize. It completely blinds (or blindsides) people from things going on right in front of them and done in their name.
You mention "participatory social planning" in your post above. Well, there was a small chance towards such a thing - in the form of proportional representation - to be voted in by the BC public. And what do they do? They stay home to watch hockey, not even bothering to vote in the provincial elections in 2009 where this question was included on the ballot. In fact, it was a record low turnout that time!
From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC-STV ):
>>First referendum (2005):
While a simple majority of voters in 97% of the electoral districts (77 of 79) voted to support the adoption of the BC-STV system, in the province-wide popular vote 57.7% of the population voted to support BC-STV, falling just 2.3% short of the government-set requirement for the result to be binding.
Consequently, the results of the referendum were not binding on the government, and indeed the government did not take any steps to adopt the preferred system. However, a decision was taken to hold the referendum a second time.
Second referendum (2009):
A second referendum on electoral reform was held in conjunction with the provincial election on 12 May 2009. The BC-STV electoral system was again voted on by the British Columbia electorate. To be binding, similar to 2005, the referendum required 60 per cent overall approval and 50 per cent approval in at least 60 per cent of the province's electoral districts. Partially addressing concerns expressed during and after the first referendum campaign, voters were able to consult a map of proposed electoral boundaries under the BC-STV system, and advocacy groups were given some public funding to campaign for and against the new electoral system.
The province's voters defeated the change with only 38.82% voting in favour.<<
I don't think it's the fault of people like David Suzuki for not making the connection. Like "Space Cadet" mentioned, Suzuki is probably not saying everything on his mind, even while trying to throw light on the destruction going on and the alternatives available. ("It's a high wire act that few of us could have performed with such aplomb as David Suzuki", were his words).
David Suzuki has a certain role to play and he is doing a great job at that. And there are others who are working on "improving" the system. Maybe "improving" the system is not good enough anymore. But when most people do not even bother to go out and vote on an important question, how do you expect them to work towards replacing the system? I think the question "Who will do it?" cannot be brushed away.