State of the World 2008
(Credit: Richard Eriksson. Some rights reserved.)
The world’s economic base, its natural ecosystems, is in danger …
But human innovation might turn things around, according to a new report by The Worldwatch Institute. Tom Prugh of Worldwatch co-directed the State of the World 2008 report.
Tom Prugh: One of the striking conclusions of State of the World 2008 is that all the technological tools that we need to achieve a sustainable culture are already available.
Prugh said that a sustainable economy would be one that works for everybody, within the limits imposed by nature. He said there’s a need for innovative solutions to be scaled up – for instance, solar or wind energy and other renewables – in order to bring their costs down.
Other sustainable innovations in the report – investors pouring an estimated $71 billion into renewable energy in 2007, up 29 percent from 2006 – companies such as DuPont and Wal-Mart saving money and reducing their environmental impact by cutting waste and energy use – and companies using biomimicry to examine and emulate the way nature does things to reduce waste and costs. For these reasons and more, Prugh says he’s optimistic.
Tom Prugh: There is a rather astounding collection of innovations out there that are all pointing in the direction of sustainability. That’s an extremely hopeful sign.
By the way, there’s more and more money available to back necessary innovations. “Clean tech” – such as in renewable energy and products that improve energy efficiency – receive a lion’s share of the world’s venture capital. At number three and rising, clean tech is just behind the Internet and biotechnology.
Dear Tom Prugh, Gary Gardner and Deborah,
We are seeing the emergence of a global community of sorts that is passively connected in cyberspace and has as its mission the protection of human wellbeing and the preservation of environmental health, among other goals.
How do we advance from passive “cyber contact” to a grounded, more active connectedness for necessary human behavior change?
Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Steve
Dear Dr. L. B.,
I am imagining that your questions are rhetorical ones.
You ask,
“Why are politicians and skeptics so willing to risk their future and everyone else’s future on blindly clinging to a course of action that has a high probability of leading to a seriously crippled future? If you even suspect that global warming represents a serious risk to your survival (and we have far more than suspicion these days), why wouldn’t you do everything protect and conserve your planet?”
It would please me to hear from others; but from my humble perspective the “answers” to your questions are all-too-obvious.
First, the leaders in my generation of elders wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, of increasing per capita consumption and skyrocketing human population numbers; our desires are evidently insatiable. We choose to believe anything that is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially agreeable; our way of life is not negotiable. We dare anyone to question our values or behaviors.
We religiously promote our shared fantasies of endless economic growth and soon to be unsustainable overconsumption, overproduction oand overpopulation activities, and in so doing deny that Earth has limited resources upon which the survival of life as we know it depends.
Second, my not-so-great generation appears to be doing a disservice to everything and everyone but ourselves. We are the “what’s in it for me?” generation. We demonstrate precious little regard for the maintenance of the integrity of Earth; shallow willingness to actually protect the environment from crippling degradation; lack of serious consideration for the preservation of biodiversity, wilderness, and a good enough future for our children and coming generations; and no appreciation of the understanding that we are no more or less than human beings with “feet of clay.”
We live in a soon to be unsustainable way in our planetary home and are proud of it, thank you very much. Certainly, we will “have our cake and eat it, too.” We will fly around in thousands of private jets and live in McMansions, go to our secret clubs and distant hideouts, and risk nothing of value to us. Please do not bother us with the problems of the world. We choose not to hear, see or speak of them. We are the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and the many minions in the mass media. We hold the much of the wealth and the power it purchases. If left to our own devices, we will continue in the exercise of our ‘rights’ to ravenously consume Earth’s limited resources; to expand economic globalization unto every corner of our natural world and, guess what, beyond; to encourage the unbridled growth of the human species so that where there are now 6+ billion people, by 2050 we will have 9+ billion members of the human community and, guess what, even more people, perhaps billions more in the distant future, if that is what we desire.
We are the reigning, self-proclaimed masters of the universe. We have no regard for human limits or Earth’s limitations, thank you very much. Please understand that we do not want anyone to present us with scientific evidence that we could be living unsustainably in an artificially designed, temporary world of our own making…… a manmade world filling up with distinctly human enterprises which appear the be approaching a point in human history when global consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species become unsustainable on the tiny planet God has blessed us to inhabit….. and not to overwhelm, I suppose.
Third, even our top rank scientists have not found adequate ways of communicating to the family of humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the reckless dissipation of Earth’s limited resources, the relentless degradation of the planet’s frangible environment, and the approaching destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, when taken together, appear to be proceeding at a breakneck pace toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world’s colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic ‘wall’ called “unsustainability” at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth’s ecology is collapsed.
Sincerely,
Steve
With the establishment of the scientific evidence on climate change, is it reasonable and sensible to ask of government officials who remain in denial or else willfully obstructive of the open and honest discussion of this extraordinarily large body of research if they are perfidiously engaged in a violation of public trust and, therefore, malfeasant in office?
Press release19-04-2008
Fisher people demand justice for climate refugees
South Indian fishing community conference on Climate change and
Fisherpeople’s livelihood was held on 17th April 2008 at Rotary Community
hall,Nagercoil, Kanyakumari district. This event was organized by
TamilnaduFisher workers Union (TFU), Kerala Independent Fish workers
Federation(KSMTF) and Voices from the Margins (VFM).
Mr. T. Peter Dass, President,Tamilnadu Fish workers Union (TFU) delivered
welcome address and he pointed out that fisher people are facing sea erosion
as a result ofclimate change. This public event is recognized as the first
one organized by the affected community against Climate Change and fisher
people have decided to launch public protest for their sufferings as a
result ofclimate change.
Mr.M.Pakkirisamy, district revenue officer inaugurated this workshop and in
his Chief Guest address said that sea level is rising in the last pastdecade
at an unimaginable rate of increase. Sea level is expected raise 5 meters in
the next 50 years and it is going to affect the fisher people.There is a
need to change the consumption pattern to avoid the expansion of the hole in
ozone layer.
Mr. K.P. Sasi, activist film maker wondered what the government is doing to
stop the carbon emission? There is a need to change the production process
of the industries, agriculture and the energy systems. Nothing is done so
far to the people affected by climate change and marginalized people who are
becoming refugees as a result of ecological impacts thrustupon them.
Dr. A.D.Shobana Raj, ecological researcher highlighted the factthat the
coastal Kanyakumari district has 56 km long coast with apopulation density
of 1500 per sq.km; and the coast line is vanishing. 80% of the water
resources in the coastal area have become saline and peopleare facing water
crisis because of the intrusion of sea water. 132 coastal sea weeds have
disappeared in the last 10 years. If the global temperature rises 2 degree
Celsius then it will have impact on micro organisms leadingto several
contagious diseases affecting coastal people.
Dr. S.P.Udayakumar social activist demanded that our energy consumption
pattern should change. The solution for climate change lies in shifting our
energy sector from fossil fuel dependent sector to renewable energy. Our
transportation pattern should move towards effective and efficientpublic
transport system rather than promoting cars which will lead toincrease in
carbon emission and vehicular pollution.
Mr. Sathya Sivaraman,journalist & film maker stressed the need to pinpoint
who emits more carbon and who should pay for carbon credit. USA is
responsible for 25% ofcarbon emission and it should take the responsibility
in compensation to the victims of carbon emission and climate change. The
relationship of Human species to Earth should be the equivalent to child and
mother, but this species has taken up the role of the destroyer of the earth
and other species. Carbon emitting industries should be changed and if this
is not possible all such industries should be closed.
After the people’s response, Mr. T.Peter president KSMTF demanded that
chemical farming practices, polluting industries and carbon emitting
lifestyle should be stopped since the fisher people are the most affected
bythe climate change. Today, this public event is organized with the
conviction that the affected communities can not remain in halls but there
is a need to launch mass public protest not just for their survival alonebut
for the entire humanity locally, nationally and internationally.
In the concluding session Mr. S.M.Prithiviraj, Convener, Voices from the
Margins explained how the marginalized farmers of the Tamilnadu are affected
by climate change in recent heavy rains as a result unusual low pressure in
Arabian Sea. Fisher people are affected by changes in pattern of fish catch,
reduction in fish wealth, and loss of working days as a result of climate
change and tidal waves and their houses are washed away by intruding sea in
many places of South India. Why should the fisherpeople pay for the impacts
of climate change entirely created by other vested interests? The conference
ended with a resolution questioning the polluting industries, chemical
farming practices, non-renewable energy sectors,carbon emitting life style
and the need for taxing the polluters to paythe price for ecologically
affected fisher people and other marginalized communities.
Press release issued byTamilnadu Fisher workers Union (TFU)
Ph:09443294198
Kerala Independent Fish workers Federation (KSMTF)
Ph:09447429243and
Voices from the Margins
(VFM)Ph:09843080963____________________________________
A CLARION CALL FOR CLIMATE ACTION
A particularly pernicious disturbance exists in the human community. ELECTIVE MUTISM is one of the great, clear and present dangers to human and environmental health. It is a worldwide “plague” in our time from which many too many in the vast community of science suffer egregiously. That elective mutism has afflicted so many in the social sciences is one thing. The family of humanity can understand, I suppose, how social scientists do not possess the most adequate expertise to speak out loudly and clearly regarding the emerging and converging global challenges derived from the human overpopulation of Earth.
On the other hand, what I find reprehensible and unbelievable is the way scientists with appropriate expertise in the physical and biological sciences, whatever their excuses, are choosing not to fullfil their professional responsibilities and not to discharge duties only they can perform. Their willful refusal to comment on good scientific evidence of the human species’ overpopulation of the planetary home God blesses us to inhabit is as unacceptable as it is perverse.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
Dear Friend of the Blue Dot called Earth,
I have received a question regarding my comments just above on ELECTIVE MUTISM. If you will bear with me, I would like to share with you the question and my response to it.
begin ——-
Thanks so much for responding to my post.
Absolute global human population numbers are not coming down nearly fast enough. Even with a substantial decrease of the population growth rate in some countries, the total population of the human species has been skyrocketing and is continuing to increase much too rapidly.
Perhaps the widely shared and consensually-validated “demographic transition” that is anticipated in the middle of Century XXI is an example of specious preternatural thinking and theorizing, borne of political convenience and economic expediency.
You have asked a wonderful question,
“Assuming you are right for the moment, do you have any concrete policy proposals which we might consider to enable us to think about what we might do?”
Perhaps we could follow what we already know from good science, reasoning and common sense. We can choose to respond ably and much differently, in a more reality-oriented way, to the global challenges before humanity, challenges we can certainly manage because we have induced them by our spectacular unrestrained overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, the ones now threatening to engulf the surface of Earth.
Of course, it is fair to ask what the family of humanity could choose to do “ably and differently.” Several ideas come to mind.
1) Implement universal, voluntary and humane programs that encourage people to limit the number of offspring to one child per family.
2) Establish an upper limit on the growth of the individual human footprint.
3) Restrict immediately the reckless dissipation of limited natural resources so that the Earth is given time to replenish them for human benefit.
4) Substitute clean, renewable sources of energy, through the use of substantial economic incentives, for the fossil fuels we rely upon now.
5) Recognize that everything human beings do on the surface of our tiny planet utterly depend on the finite resources of Earth. One consequence of this realization is understanding that there can be no such thing as an endlessly expanding global economy, given its current leviathan-like scale and anticipated growth rate, on a relatively small and noticeably frangible planet with the size and make-up of Earth.
The family of humanity has huge global challenges to address and overcome. Our leaders appear much too contented with arguing about which country will take the first step forward. Meanwhile, as reasonable and sensible actions are not taken, the threats to human and environmental health grow more daunting day by day.
As I see it, many leaders understand quite well the precarious status of the natural world we inhabit; nonetheless, they adamantly refuse to acknowledge or speak openly about the distinctly human-induced predicament that looms ominously before the family of humanity in our time.
Billions of human beings–- some overconsuming, others overproducing and still others overpopulating the Earth –-are ruining our planetary home as a fit place for human habitation and life as we know it. At least to me, what is incomprehensible and tragic is this: our leaders know what all of us are doing that is destructive of human and environmental health and still they remain resolute in their reckless pursuit of a “primrose path” to the future.
For a moment please consider that our top rank scientists have not found adequate ways of communicating to the family of humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the unregulated increase of human population numbers, the unbridled growth of per-capita consumption, the reckless dissipation of Earth’s limited resources and the relentless degradation of the planet’s frangible environment could result in the destruction of our celestial orb as a fit place for habitation by humankind and life as we know it. When taken together, these distinctly human activities appear to be growing at a breakneck pace toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world’s colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic ‘wall’ called “unsustainability” at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth’s ecology is collapsed.
end ——-
Sincerely,
Steve