A new year and I am ready to dive back into the world of blogging. It’s easy to get distracted by busyness and work, but I continue to research and apply what I am discovering in regards to existing in a life friendly manner.
I have made some changes in my life over the last five or six months. I began researching the environment, started a blog, stopped driving, switched to an all organic diet, drastically reduced my consumption of material goods, turned down my water heater, switched to a handkerchief, began composting, taught a college class in which a major project was the creation of a Web site based on a worthy cause, tried to share my research/philosophy/understanding with as many people as possible, tried to stop direct mail from reaching me, stopped drinking colas, reduced my water usage, began doing pro-bono work for a nonprofit, stood in silent vigils protesting the Iraq war, joined with community members for discussions and a progressive film series, wrote my congresspersons regarding a number of vital issues, helped save (at least temporarily) the integrity of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, began frequenting my local library, added my voice to the choir etc.
Why?
We should be working on as many levels as possible (from the personal to the global) to help create a shift in paradigm. What’s the solution? How are we going to save the planet from the ecological disaster of which we are in the midst? Everybody should be devoting a considerable portion of their time to researching, learning, planning and living differently.
It’s not that this disaster is going to happen in the future. It’s going on now. Just turn on the news or late night PBS. The projections in regards to global warming, population, water tables, oceanic resources etc. are terrifying. America is not currently bearing the brunt of the four horseman, but it’s coming. A worldwide depression seems inevitable.
What then?
I believe that we should be working towards a reduced and stable world population and a reduced and stable global economy. There is a certain inevitability to the reduction in population, but we should be pro-active in our approach rather than allowing our numbers to be reduced via famine, plague, environmental toxicity and war.
The latest book I’ve started is Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough & Michael Braungart.
It begins with the normal gloom and doom. Specifically the toxicity of one’s personal environment. Basically we are surrounded by electronics, and plastics that emit toxins. I believe that they have chosen the personal health angle to try and break through the resistance many people have to change.
The book itself is a model of the cradle to cradle philosophy. It is composed of some magic synthetic. However, it still needs to be produced and shipped.
The ideas expressed in the book may be an aspect of a solution, but for the time being I think that we should look at consuming fewer material goods.
I was watching a show on concept cars the other day and one of the cars was based on the cradle to cradle principle. The plastics were made out of soy and the tires out of corn. There is not land to grow enough soy to feed all the cattle and still make cars for 6.5 billion people.
Not to mention that in Lester R. Brown’s book, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, he mentions that every five cars in the US requires a football field of asphalt (pg 49).
An author for Harper’s talks about the contribution of our current farming techniques to global warming (I am sorry I can’t find the URL. If I can track it down I will update this entry). So it’s all well and good that we make everything out of natural components, but not only are our croplands in trouble, but they are actually contributing on a number of levels to the destruction of life on the planet.
I was just reviewing my notes on the Lester R. Brown book. They look something like:
aids epidemic pg 5 - aquifers, climate change, eroding soils, expanding deserts pg 6 - food first pg 7 - population doubles water use triples pg 10 - Gobi Desert China pg 13.
Chapter 2
Falling water tables - rivers don’t reach the sea pg 24 - Yellow River, Colorado, Nile - wars coming over water - countries import water as grain - farmers vs cities pg 35 - When will the bubble burst? - food shortages = destabilized governments
Chapter 3
1/3 of topsoil eroding faster than can be replenished pg 43 - dustbowl created when wind erosion out of control - agricultural expansion into marginal land - every five cars in US equals one football field of asphalt pg 49 - cropland 723 million hectares 1981 > 647 million in 2002 pg 53 - rainforest for soybeans pg 55
Lester Brown promised a solution, but I didn’t make it to the end before I had to return the book to the library. I am still planning to finish it. I’ll let you know how it ends.
So. How do we reduce global population in a humanitarian manner? And how do we reign in the devastation of our current economy? I am open to suggestions.
2 comments:
I'm glad you're back - we need your voice on these issues. I wish I had suggestions for you at the moment on the big problems ... but for now I'm glad that we are making changes and spreading the word. Keep the faith.
P.S. Turn word verification on in your "comments" settings, or you're going to start getting some spam. ;o)
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