Earth Day 2007: a fine balance
This photo is called "green ascension." It's by Darwin Bell.
Can we consume our way to sustainability?
This Earth Day – April 22, 2007 – is expected to be the biggest one ever. “Green” is everywhere, from a plethora of green magazine issues, to the cap on the carton of soymilk for this morning’s cup of tea, to a newly announced deal for carbon offsets from British Airways.
No doubt about it, the American public seems more environmentally aware than ever before. A couple of days ago, Grist, which calls itself “an environmental news and commentary” site, reported the results of a USA Today/Gallup poll (I couldn’t find the link to the actual poll) on how Americans feel about the environment. According to Grist:
... 60 percent of us believe that global warming is happening now, and even more of us think it will … continue to happen. In true bootstrap form, most U.S. folk believe that they should be taking green actions to help the climate, in the form of CFLs, hybrids, and energy–efficient homes. Nearly 90 percent of Americans recycle, while 85 percent aim to reduce energy use.
But, in the next sentence, Grist also reported that:
... two–thirds of Americans favor more energy research, and about the same percentage are opposed to government–mandated restrictions on utilities and industries.
Sounds like Americans favor small environmental steps, but not big systemic changes, especially those that might change our way of life.
Meanwhile, Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich of WorldChanging expressed a sense of ambivalence about the American trend toward greater greenness, in their article called Make This Earth Day Your Last! They wrote:
It looks like we have at most four decades to cut our ecological impacts by a factor of ten, and the longer it takes us, the deeper the cuts will need to be and more painful the consequences will prove. It is also entirely possible for us to fail completely, with the best of intentions, by not acting boldly enough, quickly enough. Three decades would probably be a safer target. Seen in this light, the solar bikinis and greenwashing campaigns cluttering up this Earth Day no longer look benign or amusing.
Four decades – or three – to cut our ecological impacts by a factor of ten? Steffen and Rich don’t link to a source here, so I don’t know where they got this number. But I do hear similar talk from scientists. Maybe we don’t know if it’s four decades, but signs point to a need to cut consumption. For example, on science emails lists, I sometimes hear scientists asking each other, “How can we express to the public the harsh reality that the current level of consumption in the western world is not sustainable for the entire planet?”
In the years to come, our human creativity and ingenuity will count for a lot, and small steps (recyling, driving less) will be important. Still, human sustainability on Earth may require, as Steffen and Rich say in their article, a “systemic change.” Do you think we need a deep change? What if a deep change could lead to more human well being?
Meanwhile, green is in. It’s good. I only hope the green products and carbon offsets aren’t fostering a mistaken belief that we can consume our way to sustainability on a planet that’s finite and already overpopulated.
Want to find out how many Earths would be required if everyone lived like you? Take the ecological footprint quiz from the EarthDay Network.
Are you a visual person? Try understanding American consumption by looking at this art project: Running the Numbers by Chris Jordan.
Strategic Consumption: How to Change the World with What You Buy from WorldChanging.
Carbon offsets in a different light: Guilt–Free Pollution. Or Is It? from the New York Times.
Dear Colleagues,
Another Earth Day has passed, with the economic globalization powerbrokers, politicians and their minions in the mass media neglecting the noticeably fragile, small, finite planet we are blessed to inhabit.
Please consider that skyrocketing absolute global human population numbers AND increasing per capita consumption of limited resources AND expanding production capabilities worldwide are occurring synergistically in our time on the surface of Earth. At the current scale and anticipated growth rate of these distinctly human, global overgrowth activities, how much longer do you think the relatively small planet we inhabit can sustain the unbridled and maximal increase of human enterprise? Or to put the question another way, HOW MUCH (MORE) HUMAN GROWTH ACTIVITY CAN THE EARTH SUPPORT?
Ideas anyone?
Thanks,
Steve
Dear Friends,
For the past five years an annual Earth Day Summit on The Human Population has been held in Chapel Hill, NC. Speakers at these events have included Prof. Dr. Ir. Raoul Weiler of the Club of Rome, Dr. Alan Thornhill (Executive Director) of the Society of Conservation Biology, Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., Jason C. Bradford Ph.D. and Jack Alpert, Ph.D., among others.
A 6th Annual Earth Day Summit was not held this year. However, in the place of that event, may I invite you to participate in a belated Earth Day 2007 CYBER-DISCUSSION with Russell Hopfenberg on apparently unforeseen scientific research regarding human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of our planetary home, that will occur next week on MAY 3rd. Between now and then, questions for Dr. Hopfenberg can be posted at the website below.
For details, please click on the following link.
http://growthmadness.org/2007/04/15/coming-may-3rd-discussion-with-russell-hopfenberg/
Always, with thanks,
Steve
Perhaps humanity faces the prospect of daunting threats in Century XXI. But of all the potential challenges now visible on the far horizon, not one looms more ominously and oppressively than the human overpopulation of Earth.
My abiding hope for achieving “balance with nature” resides in the efforts of many people to find ways to communicate about the challenges that could soon be posed to humanity by skyrocketing absolute global human numbers numbers. An article follows that appears to me as a useful description of our predicament.
If humankind is to begin achieving in 2007 some sort “a fine balance” with the natural world God has blessed us to inhabit, then we might choose to consider the perspective presented just below.
OVERPOPULATION: Partying as the iceberg looms
By JIM LYDECKER
Napa, California
America’s a lot like the Titanic making her way through an ocean of danger. Any number of icebergs threaten to do damage and several are large enough to sink us. The captain warns us of the smaller ones, yet assures us our voyage is safe.
Most passengers believe the captain. Others figure there is nothing they can do, so why worry?
Some, however, notice concerned looks on the crew’s faces. Rumors are heard about one berg so big that there is no getting by regardless of the course plotted. It is connected to others making the situation more problematic. We’re on a direct collision course unless the damn thing melts and gets much smaller.
The giant iceberg’s given a name: Overpopulation. Some of the ones connected to it are known as resource depletion, climate change, disease, hunger and economic collapse. With no warning from the captain, the icebergs are closer than ever. The passengers party on.
Like this allegory, politicians and leaders focus our attention on issues easier addressed than those that really matter. Terrorism is an example.
Since 9/11, billions have been invested on what is a relatively small threat. Consider this: 3,000 died in New York on that fateful day in September 2001; 25,000 die every day in the world from contaminated water alone. Each year, 35 million children are mentally impaired by malnourishment. Each year, an area of prime farmland greater than Scotland is lost to erosion and urban sprawl. These are problems connected with overpopulation, problems that will get worse before they, if ever, get better.
Every statistic and number crunched, every fact absorbed, each study released makes it apparent that our industrialized civilization can’t survive unless we seriously reduce our numbers. We have overshot Earth’s carrying capacity by mortgaging the future.
To feed the current 6 billion people on a diet enjoyed by Americans would consume all the world’s oil production. For the same 6 billion to live at our current standard of living would require world steel production to increase 200 times. This is not possible.
Two current best-sellers look into the past to explain our present and predict the future.
In his Pulitzer-winning “Guns, Germs and Steel,” UCLA professor Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed technologies and immunities to dominate much of the world. His new book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” probes the other side of the equation: What caused the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin and what can we learn from their fate?
In “A Short History of Progress,” Canadian historian Ronald Wright examines how man throughout history has walked into “progress traps,” beginning with the slaughter of big game in the Stone Age and then continued the pattern of over-consumption until most of the world’s most creative civilizations fell victim to their own success.
Both books arrive at the same conclusion: Mankind has to seriously reduce its population and the speed of which we are running though Earth’s finite resources. To not do so will abruptly bring down the curtain on modern civilization.
But, unlike terrorism, these are subjects politicians and leaders have a better chance of staying employed by ignoring.
The only recent politician to make energy a part of his agenda was cardigan-wearing, in-front-of-the-fireplace Jimmy Carter. Who wanted to hear the horrible truth when Ronnie was telling good-time “morning in America” fairy tales? Reagan ended up president while Jimmy faded into obscurity.
Overpopulation is an issue no one, liberal or conservative, wants to touch. The right-wing Christian conservatives say it’s ungodly to screw with procreation while left-wing liberals claim it steps on our civil liberties.
So what happens? We continue to breed ourselves toward extinction.
Our leaders, and those who design and implement their policies, have chosen to ignore the real problems facing us for political and financial gain.
However, it is the responsibility of our leaders to take us down paths, regardless how uncomfortable or painful, when circumstances demand it. We face problems now, and have for several decades, that demand such actions.
Eventually our leaders will be held accountable for their actions, or lack of, and heads will roll.
Wright and Diamond point out that throughout history, once nature starts to foreclose — with famine, disease, crop failures and more — the social contract breaks down. People may suffer stoically for a while but eventually our rulers real relationship with the heavens is exposed as a fraud.
Each time history repeats itself, the cost goes up. At this point in runaway growth in population and consumption, we need to replace our irresponsible captain and crew before civilization is hopelessly bankrupt. Because even though most of the passengers party on, more and more of us know the icebergs are closer than ever. {END}
Dear Friends of Earth & Sky,
What seems to be missing from annual Earth Day discussions since the inception of Earth Day is the absence of a sense of urgency in the face of ominously looming dangers to the integrity of Earth. Perhaps humanity is not yet aware of our distinctly human-derived predicament; but, I dare say, there are plenty of opinion-makers and other leaders who at least have awareness of daunting global challenges in the offing. Unfortunately for life as we know it on Earth, most economic globalization powerbrokers, politicians and their minions in the mass media see no perturbations, hear of no problems and speak of no approaching peril. Willful blindness, hysterical deafness and elective mutism mark the behavioral repertoire of many too many masters of the universe in my generation of elders.
Sincerely,
Steve
Please consider the article by Tod Preston, to be found at the link below. Thanks.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/04/19/environmental-sustainability-women-and-health
QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE FOLLOWS:
“Since the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, world population has grown from 3.7 billion to 6.6 billion.
The world is currently adding 6.3 million people every month and is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050. Believe it or not, these updated projections assume declining birth rates in the developing world. If birth rates remain static, the planet could easily add 5 billion people in the next 43 years.
These statistics should give pause to anyone who cares about the health of our planet—not to mention the health and well-being of women. Despite the best efforts of family planning/reproductive health opponents and—yes—even some proponents in our community, the two are inextricably linked.
A 2005 documentary produced by PAI called “Finding Balance: Forests and Family Planning in Madagascar” really crystallizes these linkages for me. The short video profiles Voahary Salama, a local organization whose innovative approach to conservation provides women in remote rural areas with the health services they so desperately desire in order to choose how many children to bring into this world.”
Dear Friends,
Earth Day 2007 could mark the time when new and apparently unforeseen scientific evidence of the human overpopulation of Earth is shared widely and discussed openly, thanks to the willing and active participation of the members of the great Earth & Sky community.
Please consider the joining the vital discussion that begins today at the following link,
http://growthmadness.org/2007/05/03/special-guest-dr-russell-hopfenberg-on-food-supply-carrying-capacity-and-population/#more-166
Sincerely yours,
Steve
The complete text of the IPCC Report is available at the following link,
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
For those who are interested in following the great work of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat later this month, the information below is provided.
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UNFCCC.TV — Follow the conference anytime, anywhere!
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The United Nations Climate Change Secretariat is broadcasting live daily
from the Subsidiary Bodies Meetings in Bonn, Germany (7 to 18 May 2007),
Live webcasts will be available every day from 10:00 to 13:00 and from
15:00 to 18:00 CET on . On-demand videos are available 24/7.
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Some HIGHLIGHTS of the programme:
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Monday, 7 May
12.30 – 13.00 CET
Opening press conference with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer
Friday, 11 May
15.00 – 18.00 CET
First in-session workshop on mitigation
Topic: urban planning and development, including transportation
Saturday, 12 May
10.00 -13.00 and 15.00 – 16.30 CET
IPCC briefing on the Fourth Assessment Report
Monday, 14 May
10.00 – 13.00 and 15.00 – 18.00 CET
Round table of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I
Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG)
Tuesday, 15 May
10.00 – 13.00 CET
Second in-session workshop on mitigation
Topic: energy efficiency, including industry, and residential and
commercial end-use
15.00 – 18.00 CET
Third in-session workshop on mitigation
Topic: power generation, including clean fossil fuels and renewable energy
Wednesday, 16 May
10.00 – 13.00 and 15.00 – 18.00 CET
Third workshop under the Dialogue on long-term cooperative action to
address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention
Topic: Realizing the full potential of technology
Thursday, 17 May
10.00 – 13.00 and 15.00 – 18.00 CET
Third workshop under the Dialogue on long-term cooperative action to
address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention
Topic: Adressing action on adaptation
Friday, 18 May
13.00 – 13.30 CET
Closing press conference with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer
Perhaps 2007 will be the first year of the rest of our lives, when people everywhere choose to adhere to the good scientific consensus on global climate change and do what is required to protect the Earth from patently unsustainable, distinctly human influences.
Dear Friends and Colleagues All,
I am searching for a road to sustainability.
Perhaps someone can offer guidance to me and those many elders in my not-so-great generation who have evidently chosen to eschew science and, for the sake of the comforts in our lives alone, to hold onto our one and only God: wealth accumulation and the power associated with it. Regardless of the consequences to environmental health, human wellbeing, the future of life, and the integrity of Earth, we want more and more money and all the things derived from it. Yes, we are insatiable, intellectually dishonest, and even call ourselves Masters of the Universe. We are loathe to live within the limits of biophysical reality, share resources, make behavior changes, and do what is necessary for assuring life as we know it to coming generations.
Please consider assisting me with an unfulfilled responsibility to young people and future generations…... a responsibility I call a “duty to warn”.
Without success over the past several years, I have been inviting population scientists, demographers, biologists, economists and anyone else with appropriate expertise to openly comment on the apparently unexpected and unchallenged evidence on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth from Russell P. Hopfenberg and David I. Pimentel. I want to identify a deeply dedicated, top-rank brother or sister in the scientific community who possesses the necessary expertise and is willing to report in a professional manner on the Hopfenberg/Pimentel research?
According to this scientific evidence, humanity could soon come face to face with daunting global challenges, ones that result primarily from 1)unbridled human overpopulation of Earth; 2) unrestrained per human over-consumption of scarce resources and 3) endless expansion of the global political economy in the relatively small, finite world God has blessed us to inhabit.
Thanks for your consideration of this feeble request for help. Please feel free to contact me directly with a name or else have the scientist get in touch with me by email. I will do whatsoever is necessary to fulfill this unlikely personal obligation, one for which I am evidently unprepared and poorly equipped.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
(Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D.,M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
1834 North Lakeshore Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-6733
USA
Tele: 919-967-5764
Email: SESALMONY@aol.com)
If we are to achieve “a fine balance” with Nature, then I believe the time will come when scientific evidence in the following link will become valuable.
http://www.speciesalliance.org/video.php
With thanks to Gretchen, Peter, Melissa, Paul and other colleagues,
Steve