Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice to....

…conceive.

Bio-diesel reduces the cost of food by reducing transportation energy costs, but adds more to the carbon footrpint than fossil fuels

Nuclear energy is clean with virtually no greenhouse emission, but what are we to do with the spent fuel.

Immigration allows for less fortunate, impoverished neighbors from the South to carve out a decent life for themselves, but drains over $21 billion dollars out of the economy as it sends it south to subsidize families in Mexico. This doesn’t account for the overhead increased social service and law enforcement costs.

The new “electric” cars to be released will reduce the greenhouse emissions at the tailpipe, but increase emissions at the power plant smoke stacks.

It’s so hard to do the right thing,...

... without doing something else wrong. (Continued below)




It’s enough to make an activist curl into a fetal position and the average person to retreat from the glut of facts and turn to “real” TV where bikini clad beautiful people struggle for survival with the luxury of being able to eliminate those in their society they deem not pulling their weight. Wouldn’t that be nice if we could all get together and eliminate those we think drawing down our economy. But wait, haven’t we seen attempts for that sort of thing? And isn’t the memory of those episodes enough to make one suck in their breath, aghast? Think: Holocaust. The Death March of China. Rawanda.

The one thing that very few are acknowledging is that none of our problems with food supply/costs, global warming, the demand for oil that drives us to war would be a problem if the demand on resources was so much less than what it is. That means too many people demanding too much from the planet.

Not A New Theory

In his 1968 book “The Population Bomb,” Paul Erhlich predicted exactly what we are seeing happening these days with food riots and sky-rocketing food prices resulting in food shortages impacting people at epidemic levels. Before him, going back as far as the late 18th Century.Thomas Malthius noted the lowering infant mortality rates an increase in birth rates as a result of the Industrial Revolution. He predicted with a rather accurate time line, that population would outstrip the planets ability to grow food. Since the Industrial Revolution, the population has doubled every forty years.

Surprise!

What had not been predicted had been the impact of population on Global Warming and how that would in fact accelerate the issues of food costs and distribution. Too many people emitting greenhouse gases faster than the planet can re-oxygenate and farmable land being lost to housing, not to mention the vicious cycle of land lost to flooding as a result of global warming.

What can we do?

Like “reality TV,” do we vote people off the planet who we deem detrimental to our survival. Of course not!

Thoughts like that are so horrendous, that I can only even consider it in the context of humor to show what no-win situation we may have. James Lovelock, author of “The Gaia Movement” thinks we are already 15 years too late and in the next 100 hundred years all the surviving population of the world will be living above the Artic Circle. The rest of the planet will look like Mars. What makes this frightening is that Lovelock is not a fanatical writer, but a scientist. Much of the studies of the International Planetary Committee on Climate which comprises of over 500 independent scientists and agencies including NASA, have indicated that much of Lovelock’s science is correct.

Can We Talk?

Well, we can take a “let’s move forward” approach and possibly mitigate the worst case scenarios. In the U.S. the birth rate peaked in 2002 and has slowly began to drop. However, with the immigration influx our population is still increasing and with less than 4% of the Earth’s population, we contribute nearly 24% of greenhouse emissions. We can do what each of us can do personally to reduce our carbon footprints (Click here for list) and food consumption. (We are the most wasteful population).

What is needed is to become aware and act.

Perhaps we can reduce our own contribution to the population explosion. At least limit to two children to stem the population growth rate, But what would be wrong with a single child as a mitigating factor. Right now it is easy to pass off these considerations. We in the U.S. are not paying the costs. The costs are being realized in Tivulo which no longer exits do to rising sea waters and Bangladesh due to losing 20% of its farmable land or, Haiti or Central Africa where there are riots for food.

And we need to educate.

The largest contributors to the issues of population are those who are the least educated in the issues: impoverished societies of third world countries. However, look around. If you look in both urban and rural areas you will see large families of impoverished, disenfranchised and sometimes ethnic families who have a number of children due to their cultural or religious beliefs. Many of these groups of people live lifestyles far removed from the concerns of carbon footprints and contribution to global warming. Because of their culture and sometimes the struggle of their low socio-economic status, we don’t tamper with their child bearing lifestyles. Fact is we don’t speak to them about issues of population and adverse impact on the planetary whole simply because it is a hard topic and they are too locked in their personal strife to care about other. However like the family with an alcoholic member, or inappropriate abusive behavior, it is the Ecological Elephant in the Global Living. And as members of the Planetary family, we might have to broach the hard subjects with those least willing to listen.

Too hot in the global kitchen!

Certainly, no one is keen on the idea of population control, but it is the tendency of our society to enforce what we can't seem to come to concensus over with discussion. We have enforced laws for parking to keep order in our cities. So what is going to prevent enforcement of population control. And given the nature of pride in heritage what is going to stop ethnic minorities from becoming targets? Perhaps “discussion” as hard as it may be, is the lesser evil.

Click here for things you can do to reduce your own carbon footprint.