Yes. The Planet Does NOT Need Saving

The Human Race Does.

I know this is feeding into quibbling between proponents of the anthropogenic aspect of climate change and deniers.  Also, I am aware that  I am once again, preaching to the choir.  Those who believe that the whole plethora of potential and sometimes currently realized danger to the human race grouped under the umbrella of Global Warming will nod their heads in agreement, while Climate Change Deniers will sputter at this in mock.  Nobody's opinion will be changed.

What brings me here to post after a long hiatus from posting¹ (Tired of trying to teach pigs to sing) was several discussions in which I participated where people rather flippantly indicated that "the planet" has been taking care of itself for more than 4.5 billion years without needing saving by humans.  One person in such a discussion quoted comedian George Carlin² as a source, missing the double entendre of his joke.  If you have read any of my previous posts, you would realize that by this point in a post, I would have already quoted statistics like scripture, but have since learned that facts are ineffectual to  changing opinions.  I need to find a muscle-bound man and bikini clad woman in yoga poses to convey my message,  So, here's my rant³...er appeal to sensibilities:

Does this really need explaining?

Evidently, people don't get that "saving the planet" used in the vernacular is a colloquialism for keeping Earth habitable for humans; "saving the planet" means saving the human race.  Even when I titled my book "The Council to Save The Planet"  it had a bit of a tongue-in-cheek double meaning.  The tagline for the book read: "Take care of the Earth before the Earth takes care of you"

The Fatalistic Solipsism of Deniers.

The flippancy of the logic that Earth is on it's own agenda is the first indication of the solipsistic avoidance of personal inconvenience required to reduce carbon footprints, waste that won't decompose, conservational use of water and other resources, etc...  The harsh reality of selfishness of epidemic proportions practiced by climate change deniers come from the projections from the International Panel on Climate Control⁴ (IPCC) which show that real problems with the current carbon acceleration⁵ won't become cataclysmic until 2100.  It's not our problem, it won't happen until we are gone.

I don't know about you, I find this lack of compassion for future generations to be appalling selfish to the point of being pathological.  I would have used the term sociopathic, but I'm sure someone would argue that we can't be in society with future generations.  However, we can be compassionate and empathetical to those who will pay the price for our actions. Worse is the fact that those who will be the first to be harmed the most are poor from Third World countries. Now the term sociopath can be invoked to individuals who defer care about those less fortunate than privileged U.S. citizens⁶.

It's Not Someone Else's Problem

If you think about things blamed for green house emissions (cars, power plants, and manufacturing) there is no way to point the finger at someone else.  These are things that us ordinary individuals (AKA "consumers") leverage for our convenient lifestyles.    We are in control.  We can reduce our use of cars, reducing gas consumption. We can reduce our power consumption⁸.  We can reduce how much and what we purchase, reducing more power consumption and our output of non-degradable pollution,  We can conserve water⁹.  Sounds small scale, but multiply what you can do by 300 million and you have massive impact.  Most know how to do this, Global Warming ethicists and activists have pounded this at you for decades.  If not Google each, or look below where I have done it for you.

Rather than demanding that manufacturers give us more sustainable products and technology and that the government regulate those manufacturers to ensure sustainable products, we can change our habits to drive these changes. That is the one beautiful thing about Capitalism. It's really driven from the bottom up. It just means getting past The Cult of Convenience.

A New Zeitgeist

I have discovered that railing about specific practices needed to ensure a sustainable planet for our descendants is not productive.  We all know what we can do.  What's really required is a whole new way of thinking; one that is more mindful of others, alive or yet to be born.  This is tough for most U.S. citizens indoctrinated in the paradigm of rugged individualism (selfishness) .  The Cult of Convenience is rife with entitlement and status by gain, but lacking in empathy

Try this:  As often as you can, before you do something, buy something, throw something away, ask yourself how will this impact others, now or in the future?  A good time might be while you are in yoga class trying to ignore the pain of the Upside Down Flying Dog position.  Trust me, an overall new paradigm of concern for others will do a world of good


Footnotes
(Not only required to make this post look official, but informational also)

1. Actually I opted for action, by giving money to the strongest pro-ecology lobby in the US The Nature Conservancy
2. Carlin's opinion as a comedian of course outweighs the opinion of the 800 scientists of the International Panel on Climate Change and NASA
3. Rant's play better nowadays.
4. For those of you who are capable of reading more that short paragraphs Click here for the IPCC projections
5. "Carbon acceleration" refers to the fact that the rate of emissions gases released into the atmosphere is greater than the rate the Earth can turn it back into Oxygen and that rate is accelerating
6. The US has 3% of the planet's population, yet contributes to 25% of the green house emissions. Only China is higher, but that is only because they have so many more people.  On a person by person basis the Carbon Footprint⁷ of each Chinese person is 1/4th of each U.S. citizen contributes
7. Carbon footprint describes all green house emissions released by a particular entity (person, vehicle, factory, power plant) being assessed.  
8. Reducing your power / electric consumption <--Click
9. Conserving water <--- Click

You are responsible for the future.  

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.

What No One Will Talk About: The Eco-Elephant in the Global Living Room

Overpopulation! Too many people for the Earth to sustain!

That's right! There are more people generating carbon footprints (greenhouse gas emissions)than the Earth can reconvert into oxygen (Continued below)

The curve of the population growth -- Hell, explosion -- exactly matches the the curve of the increasing global warming. And, no it is not a typical cycle of the planet. In the past temperature changes have related to cooling, not increased temperature (e.g. the ice age and the Dark Age). Neither of those correlate with population change so indentically.

Since the industrial revolution, world population has doubled every 40 years

The Global Warming - Population Connection

To learn more about the connection between population growth and global warming, click here

And we (the U.S.) are the worst contributors to greenhouse emission

Yup. We have less than 4% of the world population, but contribute to over 25% of the greenhouse emissions. But, you may be saying, China contributes more! On a person by person basis, no they don't. Each Chineses person's carbon footprint is 1/4th of each U.S. citizens carbon footprint. It's just that there is more than 4 times as many Chinese (1.6 billion vs 260 million). That means that whatever you do, eco-good or eco-bad, multiply it by 260 million. If you want to find out what simple things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, click here

This message has been brought to you by The Council To Save The Planet!

For more information or purchase, click here

Global Warming, Population, Overpopulation, ecology, environment, speculative fiction, science fiction

• --
  
  Global Warming


• Population


• over population


• ecology


• science fiction


• environment


• global disaster


• speculative fiction


• eco-fiction


• ecofiction


• ecoparable


• global destruction