No Natal, dê um presente para o planeta
fonte: o globo/defesa do consumidor
quinta-feira, 25 de dezembro de 2014
domingo, 21 de dezembro de 2014
Os animais que as próximas gerações podem não conhecer
No Brasil, 1 173 animais estão ameaçados de extinção, de acordo com o último estudo do Ministério do Meio Ambiente. São animais como a baleia-azul ou o boto-cor-de-rosa, que podem desaparecer no próximo século
Rita Loiola
Baleia, um dos 26% dos mamíferos ameaçados de extinção no planeta (Stringer/Reuters/VEJA)
Em todo o mundo, 41% dos anfíbios, 26% dos mamíferos e 13% dos pássaros estão próximos de desaparecer. No Brasil, são 1 173 animais ameaçados, de acordo com o último estudo do Ministério do Meio Ambiente, divulgado em dezembro. Se as estatísticas continuarem crescendo, em meio século, animais como o a onça-pintada, o boto-cor-de-rosa ou o tatu-bola talvez não existam soltos na natureza.
Além desses bichos carismáticos, que apelam à emoção e são facilmente estampados em camisetas ou broches que convidam à preservação, uma grande população de animais nem tão simpáticos, como besouros, pererecas ou lacraias tem diminuído drasticamente. De acordo com as pesquisas, a maior parte da população de invertebrados, como abelhas ou borboletas, sofreu um declínio de 45% desde os anos 1970. No mesmo período, os vertebrados tiveram uma queda populacional de 30%. No total, 322 espécies desapareceram nos últimos 500 anos.
Os dados são baseados em estimativas, pois os pesquisadores conhecem cerca de 4% de todos os prováveis 11 milhões de animais de habitam o planeta. "Espécies raras e desconhecidas provavelmente estão ainda mais ameaçadas, pois descobrimos primeiros e prestamos mais atenção aos animais comuns", diz o biólogo americano Clinton Jenkins, pesquisador visitante da Universidade Duke, nos Estados Unidos, e do Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPÊ), no Brasil.
Para o equilíbrio ambiental e o bem-estar humano, o decréscimo dos animais na natureza é problemático. Perder a biodiversidade pode significar o surgimento e crescimento de doenças em humanos e a diminuição dos recursos naturais que movem a economia mundial. Confira abaixo alguns animais fundamentais para o bom funcionamento da natureza:
Animais fofos da fauna brasileira que podem desaparecer
4 de 10
Ararinha-azul ('Cyanopsitta spixii')
A história da ararinha-azul no Brasil é trágica. Conhecidas há 150 anos, existiam apenas três exemplares em 1986 – que não se reproduziram. Desde outubro de 2000, ninguém mais encontrou nenhuma ararinha-azul na natureza, apesar de terem sido percorridos mais de 55.000 quilômetros desde 1990 em busca dos pássaros. O que provavelmente levou à extinção da ave de pouco mais de 55 centímetros de comprimento e plumagem em vários tons de azul foi o tráfico de animais e a degradação de seu ambiente, no sertão da Bahia e Pernambuco. É considerada extinta na natureza pelo Ministério do Meio Ambiente e a IUCN.
Espécies ameaçadas de extinção no Brasil que não despertam a comoção pública
1 de 8
Morcego ('Fueripterus horrens')
Essa espécie de mamífero voador é rara e habita cavernas da América do Sul. No Brasil, sua população diminuiu em decorrência da atividade mineradora. Os pesquisadores estimam que, nos próximos dez anos, a espécie sofrerá um declínio de pelo menos mais 30%. Ao contrário da maior parte dos morcegos, essa espécie se alimenta de insetos, como borboletas. É classificada com vulnerável pelo Ministério do Meio Ambiente brasileiro.
fonte http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/ciencia/os-animais-que-as-proximas-geracoes-podem-nao-conhecer
sábado, 20 de dezembro de 2014
terça-feira, 16 de dezembro de 2014
....demorou.
Secretaria do Ambiente anuncia parceria com ONG internacional para ampliar reciclagem de PET
Baixada Fluminense recebe rede de cem ecopontos para a destinação correta de entulho e garrafas PET
Foto: Cezar Muller
por Ascom SEA
04/12/2014 – 16:56h
04/12/2014 – 16:56h
O secretário de Estado do Ambiente, Carlos Portinho, anunciou em visita à usina de reciclagem CPR, em Xerém, nesta quinta-feira (4/12), uma parceria inédita com a ONG R20, do ex-governador da Califórnia Arnold Schwarzenegger, e a Associação Brasileira dos Recicladores de Pet (Abrepet). A iniciativa visa à expansão da cadeia de reciclagem de garrafas Pet no Estado do Rio de Janeiro com maior participação da sociedade, as cooperativas de catadores, as indústrias de reciclagem e o poder público.
Nesse sentido, a Secretaria de Estado do Ambiente trabalha na implantação de cem ecopontos – locais de processamento de resíduos da construção civil, que também servirão de pontos de coletas de garrafas pets – na Baixada Fluminense. A previsão é entrarão em operação seis ecopontos, até março de 2015.
“Esse trabalho da coleta é de grande importância para a indústria de reciclagem, pois serve de matéria-prima para fabricação de embalagens. Ainda hoje nos importamos muita matéria-prima da China que, por incrível que pareça, é mais barato do que o material reciclado aqui. E isso inclusive foi objeto de crítica da Secretaria do Ambiente, não só pela necessidade de inclusão dos catadores e de remuneração dos municípios nesse processo de logística reversa, mas também da desoneração do setor para que a indústria de reciclagem e novos produtos possam ter na sua composição um maior percentual de material reciclado”, declarou o secretário do Ambiente Carlos Portinho.
O conselheiro estratégico da ONG R20 (Regions of Climate Action), Terry Tamminem, que também participou da visita à usina de reciclagem, ressaltou a importância de se acabar com o desperdício de garrafas, cerca de 50% do total de pets produzidas no Brasil vão parar em aterros, lixões ou no meio ambiente:
“O desperdício desses recursos também é um desperdício de dinheiro, mas imagine ainda o que é necessário para extrair todo esse petróleo ao redor do mundo inteiro, transportar e refinar para fazer plástico. Em algum ponto esse petróleo vai acabar. Não faz o menor sentido usar uma garrafa uma vez e então enterrá-la num aterro e depois ter que obtê-la outra vez em forma de petróleo. A única coisa que faz sentido é tentarmos chegar ao desperdício zero e, para isso, estamos animados em trabalhar com o Governo do Estado.”
O presidente da Abrepet, Edson Freitas, revelou que já foram gastos, nos últimos quatro anos, R$ 125 milhões na implantação de aterros sanitários, enquanto isso R$ 1.5 bilhão em garrafas pets foram desperdiçadas nesses locais. “Não falta educação, falta opção. Há uma carência nas indústrias de todo o Brasil por essa matéria prima e com uma parceria como essa, que oferece opções a população a dar destinação adequada a essas embalagens, eu posso garantir que o Rio de Janeiro vai se tornar a capital da reciclagem em 2015.”
Outra parceria da SEA com a ONG R20, o projeto que visa à substituição de lâmpadas incandescentes por iluminação de LED, mais eficaz e econômica, será inaugurado neste sábado (6/2) em Nova Friburgo.
“Estivemos recentemente em Paris para receber o prêmio de reconhecimento da R20 para o projeto Fábrica Verde, de reaproveitamento de lixo eletrônico e envolvimento da comunidade no processo de reciclagem. Ao mesmo tempo nessa viagem nos firmamos um protocolo de cooperação com apoio da R20 para substituição das lâmpadas LED com financiamento do fundo internacional. Vamos inaugurar em Friburgo essa nova iluminação de LED e em breve estaremos levando essa iniciativa para o maior número de municípios possíveis”, disse Portinho.
fonte: globalgarbage.org
sexta-feira, 12 de dezembro de 2014
O mito do ano: “o desmatamento da Amazônia provocou a seca no Sudeste”
Vejo muita gente dizer que o desmatamento da Amazônia causou a seca no Sudeste. O dano que provocamos à floresta teria desligado a “bomba de umidade” e interrompido “os rios voadores” que mandam umidade para Minas Gerais e São Paulo. “Esse crime ambiental tem a ver com a falta d’água na maior cidade da América Latina “, disse o Fantástico recentemente. “Nos aproximamos de um futuro desértico e a culpa é toda nossa”, concluiu outra reportagem em tom de lição de moral.
Nada disso. A ideia de que há um culpado para a seca não tem a ver com a Amazônia. Tem a ver com os astecas.
Sim, com os astecas. Quando sofriam uma colheita ruim ou uma estiagem no Vale do México, os astecas julgavam o infortúnio causado pelo clima como um castigo. Achavam ter irritado os deuses e, para acalmá-los, realizavam centenas de sacrifícios humanos, atirando corpos decepados pelas escadarias das pirâmides de Tenochtitlán.
Como toda civilização que passou pela Terra, os astecas caíram na “falácia do mundo justo”, a tendência de acreditar que o universo segue uma lógica moral. Por causa dessa tendência cognitiva, é tão fácil para nós julgar desgraças como castigos. Se vivemos uma situação ruim, é porque fizemos por merecer.
Quando alguém comete a bobagem de culpar uma vítima de estupro (“foi horrível, mas ela não deveria sair por aí com uma saia tão curta”) ou de um assalto (“não precisava sair por aí ostentando um relógio tão caro”), não está expressando só um machismo ou marxismo da pior espécie. Também se deixa levar pela ideia de que uma força oculta pune quem não se comporta.
Como os astecas de oito séculos atrás, tem muita gente encarando a seca do Sudeste como um castigo. Se estamos sofrendo hoje, é porque nos comportamos mal no passado. Qual foi, então, o pecado que cometemos? Deve haver algum, é preciso procurar… Sim, claro! O desmatamento da Amazônia! Difícil resistir à tentação de relacionar a desgraça da seca à maldade do desmatamento.
Mas uma coisa não tem a ver com a outra. Conversei com três especialistas em dinâmica climática e eles foram categóricos. “Grande parte da comunidade científica concorda que não é possível fazer uma relação direta entre desmatamento da Amazônia e a seca no Sudeste”, diz Tercio Ambrizzi, diretor do Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas da USP.
“A afirmação de que as secas do Sudeste estão sendo causadas pelo desmatamento é leviana, sem base científica e contrária ao bom senso”, afirma Luiz Carlos Molion, representante dos países da América do Sul na Organização Meteorológica Mundial (OMM). “A umidade para as chuvas do Sudeste não é produzida na Amazônia. Ela vem do Oceano Atlântico e apenas passa sobre a floresta. As raízes das árvores consomem mais umidade do que as folhas liberam para a atmosfera.”
“O resultado de estudos dos últimos dez anos mostra claramente que o desmatamento atual não tem nenhum impacto no regime de chuvas do Sudeste”, me disse Francis Wagner Silva Correia, coordenador do núcleo de Modelagem Climática do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Inpa).
Se chove no Brasil, agradeça mais aos Andes que à floresta.
Mais que a floresta, o que garante chuvas no Brasil é a Cordilheira dos Andes. Caso ela não existisse, a umidade que entra na Amazônia pelo Atlântico seguiria direto para o Pacífico. Principalmente no verão, época de mais chuvas na região Norte, a umidade bate na cordilheira e volta sentido sul, alimentando as chuvas de verão de boa parte do país.
Esse fluxo não se desligou em 2014. A diferença é que, por causa da bolha de calor que misteriosamente se instalou no Sudeste no verão passado, as chuvas caíram antes de chegar a Minas Gerais ou São Paulo. Enquanto as represas esvaziavam em São Paulo, o rio Madeira teve a maior cheia já registrada.
Há cientistas que especulam até mesmo que haveria mais chuvas no Sudeste caso toda a floresta se transformasse num enorme estacionamento de shopping. “Na hipótese absurda de se desmatar completamente a Amazônia, a rugosidade da floresta deixaria de existir, choveria menos por lá e um fluxo de umidade um pouquinho maior que o atual seria transportado para o Sudeste, talvez aumentando as chuvas”, diz Molion.
Calma lá: não estou dizendo que devemos parar de nos preocupar com a floresta e asfaltar as margens do rio Negro. Há muitas outras razões para se preservar a Amazônia que este artigo não derruba. Mas não dá pra deixar de lado o rigor científico só para sensibilizar o público. Quem faz isso troca a sensatez por uma noção de culpa tão mística quanto a dos astec
sábado, 6 de dezembro de 2014
O ambientalismo na pauta
Por Luciano Martins Costa
A anedota sobre o bom vendedor que consegue até mesmo empurrar uma geladeira para um esquimó está se tornando realidade. Segundo reportagem publicada pelo Globo na quarta-feira (3/12), os inuítes, povo tradicional do Ártico, estão adquirindo congeladores para armazenar os alimentos, por causa do derretimento das geleiras e do aumento da temperatura média no Polo Norte. A crise ambiental se acelera e muitos deixam as regiões isoladas e vão viver em cidades maiores na Groenlândia ou no Canadá.
O relato pitoresco vem no pé de uma ampla reportagem sobre o papel das populações indígenas da Amazônia na manutenção do equilíbrio ambiental na região equatorial. Um estudo divulgado durante a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Mudanças Climáticas, que acontece em Lima, no Peru, revela que as áreas ocupadas por comunidades tradicionais, em nove países latino-americanos, estão entre as principais regiões armazenadoras de carbono em todo o planeta. Portanto, há mais do que razões humanitárias ou antropológicas para a defesa desses territórios: eles contribuem para o bem-estar de toda a humanidade.
Entre os principais diários de circulação nacional, o jornal carioca é o que mais investe na cobertura do evento, recolocando na agenda o debate sobre a questão climática, que foi relegado a segundo plano com o noticiário mais intenso sobre economia e política. Os outros jornais publicam reportagens pontuais sobre casos relacionados de alguma forma à questão ambiental, como o protesto dos índios Mundurukus, no Pará, contra a construção do complexo hidrelétrico do Tapajós ou a morte de periquitos num condomínio de Manaus.
A cobertura mais ampla da conferência da ONU cria a oportunidade de devolver ao tema das mudanças climáticas o espaço perdido no noticiário nos últimos anos. Depois de um importante avanço, documentado ano a ano pelo Instituto Ethos, a questão da sustentabilidade do modelo civilizatório vem perdendo relevância na imprensa brasileira, fazendo desaparecer das páginas de jornais e revistas e dos noticiários eletrônicos os profissionais que se haviam especializado nas diversas vertentes dessa complexa área de conhecimento.
Jornalismo e sustentabilidade
A sobrevivência de alguns projetos de mídia especializada, como a agência Envolverde (ver aqui), é quase inexplicável diante da falta de apoio publicitário. No entanto, em mais de uma década essa agência tem sido uma das principais fontes de formação de jornalistas especializados, alguns dos quais passaram a atuar em ONGs, empresas, entidades governamentais e na chamada grande imprensa. Um movimento iniciado há cerca de oito anos, pela criação de uma política de comunicação para estimular o jornalismo crítico na temática ambiental, esbarrou na indiferença das autoridades federais.
Com o interesse da mídia hegemônica reduzido a quase zero, a cobertura da crise climática retrocedeu ao tempo do mico-leão, com reportagens pontuais que reduzem o complexo tema da sustentabilidade a historinhas infantis. Nem mesmo o grave problema hídrico da região Sudeste, que poderia levar à discussão sobre o desmatamento das matas ciliares e a degradação das fontes de água, foi capaz de sensibilizar as redações para a necessidade de encarar o processo de expansão das cidades e a falta de racionalidade na exploração da terra.
Já se disse, neste Observatório, há alguns anos, que a mídia tradicional não vai avançar na busca de conhecimento sobre o problema climático porque as perguntas irão conduzir, necessariamente, a questões incômodas para o breviário da economia de mercado, como a sustentabilidade do sistema econômico, as condições para o uso da propriedade e a apropriação, pelo interesse privado, de bens coletivos como a água e a atmosfera. No entanto, há um vasto espaço a ser explorado entre a omissão atual e um debate profundo sobre modelos civilizatórios.
Não basta, por exemplo, publicar com estardalhaço os números parciais do desmatamento na Amazônia e, ao mesmo tempo, ignorar o avanço das grandes culturas e da pecuária sobre regiões protegidas. Por isso, a reportagem do Globo é um avanço. Tímido, relativo e superficial, mas suficiente para colocar em outro patamar o debate sobre a importância de preservar as reservas indígenas.
O papel dessas comunidades na redução das emissões de carbono merece mais do que essa página isolada, mas já é alguma coisa no meio do preconceito geral que certa o tema.
sexta-feira, 5 de dezembro de 2014
País rico é país sem pobreza?
Leandro Narloch
Nos últimos quatro anos, os brasileiros tiveram que conviver com a frase “país rico é país sem pobreza”. Ela esteve em toda logomarca, em toda propaganda do governo federal. Por isso é o caso de perguntar: é válida a afirmação do slogan de Dilma?
A princípio, é difícil discordar da frase. Mesmo se parte da população tiver picanha na mesa e iPhone no bolso, ainda estaremos mal se a outra parte seguir faminta. Em 2011, quando o governo lançou o slogan, houve quem reclamasse da obviedade da afirmação – é claro que país rico é país sem pobreza, disseram.
Mas a frase não é óbvia. Na verdade, ela esconde um problema fundamental: é muito difícil não haver pobres num país rico. Essa condição não é estável, pois países ricos atraem pobres. Um país rico e sem pobreza até é possível, mas somente se o mundo todo enriquecer ao mesmo tempo ou se impedirmos migrações erguendo muros e cercas nas fronteiras.
O problema fica claro se o leitor imaginar exatamente o que o slogan propõe, um país rico e sem pobreza. Digamos que, ao acordar amanhã de manhã, você percebe que tudo deu certo no Brasil. O menor salário pago no mercado chega a 3 000 reais. Mesmo a turma do último tijolo da pirâmide social vive com alguma dignidade. Não há favelas ou indigentes; não sobrou sequer um único sujeito que reutilize o copo de requeijão ou seque roupa atrás da geladeira. Incrível.
A alta de salários causa mudanças no estilo de vida dos brasileiros. Vagas em trabalhos menos produtivos que 3 000 reais por mês se extinguem. Uma família de classe média, que dispõe de apenas 900 reais para pagar alguém que limpe a casa, passe a roupa e passeie com o cachorro, terá de se virar com o serviço doméstico.
Mas 900 reais por mês é luxo em alguns países latino-americanos. Haitianos logo perceberão a demanda não atendida por empregos domésticos no Brasil e virão contentes trabalhar aqui. Como demonstram os haitianos que já se mudaram ao Brasil, 900 reais para eles significa um ganho e tanto. Podem economizar todo mês o equivalente ao salário integral que ganhariam no Haiti – onde o salário mínimo, para quem não está entre os 40% de desempregados, é de 13 reais por dia.
Acontece assim o jogo preferido dos economistas: o jogo de soma diferente de zero. No futebol ou no pôquer, a soma dos resultados é nula. Um time precisa perder para o outro ganhar. Quem tem duas damas no pôquer perde as fichas para o sortudo que tirou uma trinca de setes. Não é assim nos acordos voluntários da economia. As fichas se multiplicam; todos voltam para casa com um pote maior. Você e o haitiano jogam. E os dois ganham.
A chegada em massa de haitianos, ainda maior que a atual, faria bem a eles e às famílias brasileiras que os contratariam, mas há uma consequência. Eles trariam pobreza para dentro das linhas imaginárias brasileiras. Alguns dos recém-chegados morariam em cortiços com cinco pessoas no mesmo quarto. Outros, para economizar no transporte, montariam casebres em terrenos próximos à casa de brasileiros enriquecidos, criando cenas tocantes de contraste. Em pouco tempo, não seríamos mais um país rico e sem pobreza.
Sim, há uma boa notícia na famosa foto da desigualdade social
Os jornais mostrariam fotos de gente pobre no Brasil, e essas imagens circulariam pelo mundo. Os políticos da oposição alardeariam dados sobre a péssima qualidade de vida dos novos moradores que, segundo eles, seriam explorados pelas famílias de classe média. Ainda que todos os pobres envolvidos na história tivessem melhorado de situação.
Quanto esse exercício de imaginação explica a realidade brasileira? Um bocado. Muita gente entristece diante da desigualdade sem notar que aquelas pessoas estão numa situação melhor que no passado. É o caso da famosa foto acima, da favela de Paraisópolis ao lado de apartamentos de luxo do Morumbi. Quando livros didáticos ou provas de vestibular escolhem essa imagem para retratar a desigualdade social – e fazem isso com frequência –, comparam a riqueza dos apartamentos com a miséria da favela. Mas a comparação mais adequada é dos moradores da favela hoje e no passado, antes de mudarem para a metrópole. “A pobreza urbana não deveria ser comparada à riqueza urbana”, diz o economista Edward Glaeser, professor de Harvard e o mais celebrado especialista em economia urbana dos Estados Unidos. “As favelas do Rio de Janeiro parecem terríveis se comparadas a bairros prósperos de Chicago, mas os índices de pobreza no Rio são bem menores que no interior do Nordeste brasileiro.”
Por essa nova comparação, a famosa foto da desigualdade social mostra uma excelente notícia. Quem mora em Paraisópolis vive muito melhor do que se tivesse permanecido no sertão nordestino, nas lavouras de boias-frias do Paraná ou entre os escombros de Porto Príncipe. Não importa se a miséria está mais aparente ou mais próxima; o principal é que para os miseráveis ela tenha diminuído. Glaeser arremata:
A pobreza urbana não deveria envergonhar as cidades. As cidades não criam pobres. Elas atraem pobres. Elas atraem pobres justamente porque fornecem o que eles mais precisam – oportunidade econômica.
Esse raciocínio vale não só para cidades, mas para países. Mesmo se enriquecer, o Brasil jamais será um país sem pobreza. E é bom para os pobres que seja assim.
quinta-feira, 27 de novembro de 2014
7 Billion Beasts
Africa"s a mess. Doesn"t hardly matter what horrid scourge you"re looking for, Africa"s got it: genocide, civil war, systematic rape, dictators, corruption ... not that Asia is any better. Asia"s got every foul blight Africa has, plus the largest concentration of religious extremism on the planet. Western Asia is blowing itself up—with plenty of American help—while eastern Asia is throwing up world-class polluteries almost faster than Americans can buy the cheap crap that finances them.
And South America, what a mess. Rain forest comes down while more slums go up. Death squads, guerrilla insurrections, indigenous people being exterminated, drug wars ... one hell of a mess.
On the surface, Europe looks better. But keep in mind, it was Europeans who figured out how to slaughter more people, and do it faster, than even the most evil geniuses would have dreamt of just a century ago.
Let's face it, humanity is a mess. Even here in Wal-Mart country, we can't get our bridges fixed or our kids properly educated. If we Yanks have accomplished nothing else, we have proven there is no correlation whatsoever between a high standard of living and intelligence, so let's not be patting ourselves on the back while we watch the rest of the world crumble. A few more droughts, another big depression and who can guarantee we won't be butchering one another for the protein value?
Yet, as messed up as we are, there's one thing we're absolutely fantastic at. All of us—Africans, Asians, Americans (South and North)—if you don't count fungal spores and bacteria, no other species can compete with us in the propagation department. We can propagate like nobody's business. We may no longer have the ambition to read a book, learn the positions of our political candidates, teach our kids respect or figure out what to do with our trash, but we can sure as hell have babies. We are so good at having babies, in fact, there will soon be—by the year 2012, according to a report just issued by the U.S. Census Bureau—7 billion humans on Earth. Let that sink in. Seven. Billion. People.
Even more astounding than the sheer number of people running around screwing everything up even more than it already is, is the time it took to add another billion to the fold. In 1999, there were a piddling 6 billion humans, so we're talking 13 years here, fellow baby machines. Thirteen years to accomplish what it took our ancestors 10,000 years to do. Wow, if only our sewage systems worked as well as our reproductive organs, eh?
As you have certainly guessed, I'm being sarcastic. I don't now, nor did I ever, consider it much of an accomplishment to produce offspring. Damn near anyone can do it, and damn near everyone does.
In columns past, I have spoken of how over-population is the common denominator of virtually every other environmental and social ill bedeviling our world. Didn't do any good. People just kept on having babies. Some people have so many babies they get a five-minute interview with a gushing teevee personality, have you seen 'em? In some circles, couples who spew out babies like rabbit turds are regarded as special.
I have come to believe that geometrical progression is simply too complicated a concept for most Homo Sapiens to include in their family planning. And frankly, I'm caring less and less about what will become of a species so blind to the planetary effects of exponential growth that they threaten to push everything outside of themselves into oblivion.
But a letter in the Idaho Statesman two weeks ago articulated what I fear is the true level of selfishness among far too many of our neighbors, be they in Singapore, Saudi Arabia or—as in the case of the man who wrote the letter—Star. His overall point was that nothing should stand in the way of his energy needs. "Sorry folks," he wrote, "but my well-being and the well-being of my family will trump an animal, even if it's the last animal on Earth."
I suppose this man might be commended for his candor. It's not every person who will so openly and venally argue that lower gas prices or reliable air-conditioning is worth every polar bear or sea otter in the galaxy. Yet I suspect there are plenty—from India to Africa to Brazil to Melba—who would share his sentiment.
Sadly, he may not have long to wait for that "last animal on Earth." (I omit cockroaches and cows from this discussion as cockroaches seem to be perfectly content with us being such profligate pigs, and we'll always find a way to produce ground chuck for those who gotta have it.) Particularly since Europeans started spreading across the globe like mange, mankind has collided with the animal kingdom like a Texas-sized meteor.
But it's one thing to learn the last dodo bird, for instance, was killed 300 years before modern sensibilities might have saved them, and quite another to imagine the world without even one manatee or jaguar or panda—creatures which will be on our collective consciences if they disappear. So I thought I would end this column with a few simple numbers—numbers maybe even the most self-absorbed can grasp. If you will, think of them as box scores in the game of what makes a planet worth inhabiting. I doubt the fellow from Star will appreciate the degree of melancholy such dismal figures represent to those of us who can't fathom a world with nothing but his kind in it. But hopefully, his children will.
At this moment, there are 720 mountain gorillas and 30,000 lions left in Africa. Asia is down to less than 200 Siberian tigers and less than 3,000 Komodo dragons. There are no more than 6,000 blue whales left in all the oceans or 150 golden lion tamarins left in all of South America. Java has between 40 and 50 remaining Javan rhinos, and ...
Hold on. This is taking too long, and the last thing we have is time. Let me approach this another way: If you count all the wild mammals bigger than a sewer rat, then add on all the world's remaining reptiles, amphibians and birds, is it so impossible to imagine the total you get won't come to anywhere near 7,000,000,000?
As their numbers go down, ours continue to climb. Thousands of species are but a step away from the tar pit of extinction because humans don't have the sense to slow their baby making down. And I can't help but note the further removed each succeeding generation gets from any sort of connection with those wild beings we share the planet with, the more messed up we are. I shudder to think what we'll be like when there's nothing left but us.
The World of 2108
By Captain Paul Watson. I was asked recently what I thought the world would be like in 100 years. The question was meant to solicit if I am an optimist or a pessimist. The fact is that I am neither an optimist nor am I a pessimist. I am an ecologist which means that I view the world through the eyes of the laws of ecology and I try to do so as objectively as possible. I have faith in the laws of ecology, and I believe that these laws will ensure that the planet takes care of itself for billions of years more as it has for a few billion years already.
I actually find all the hysteria over global warming and climate change to be somewhat amusing. As an environmentalist I was speaking and writing about this problem thirty years ago. Of course my opinions were dismissed then as were other voices of ecological realism and sanity.
It just made sense to me back then that if we pump carbon into the atmosphere in the volumes we have been doing for over a century that there would be serious ecological consequences.
The present annual release of carbon through the combustion of fossil fuels is around 5.6 billion tons in the form of carbon dioxide. The annual release of carbon from deforestation is another 2 to 3 billion tons. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from the livestock industry is an additional 1.5 billion tons. The atmosphere presently contains about 750 billion tons of carbon and another 2000 billion tons is contained in organic materials on and in the Earth and in the sea.
Photosynthesis on land absorbs about 100 billion tons of carbon annually. Prior to industrialization the amount of carbon absorbed by living organisms on land and in the seas was pretty much equal to the amount of carbon released by living organisms. The species homo sapiens has changed this by releasing approximately 3 billion tons more carbon annually than can now be absorbed.
An increase in temperature by even 1% centigrade will increase respiration of carbon by 30 to 40%. Absorption however will not be affected by any significant percentage. Thus as the atmosphere gets warmer the effect on global warming will be acceleration and the melting of glaciers and ice caps will accelerate this process even more.
Another factor is that warming of the atmosphere will increase the density of water vapour in the atmosphere. Water vapour is one of the strongest greenhouse gases and an increase in the density of water vapour will accelerate the warming process even faster.
As biota, or the mass of non-human organisms is diminished, the rate of absorption will further decline causing an even greater amount of carbon to be released.
Thus diminishment of biomass diversity is a major factor contributing to global warming.
What makes our present situation so alarming is that we are moving from a relatively slow period of global warming to an accelerated period. Life adapts to slowly changing conditions but adapts with greater difficulty to faster ecological changes. In other words there is little time for transition and what would normally take millennium or centuries to occur will now take place within the context of decades.
Release of carbon through decay of biomass because of increased temperatures will soon exceed the release from fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels was simply the trigger for an even more massive release of carbon stored in the form of vegetation and living organisms. Increased temperatures will lead to more forest fires, more crop failures and changing oceanic currents causing massive planktonic die-offs. Other factors are ozone depletion, and acidification of the oceans.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions and this includes 9% carbon dioxide and 37 percent of all methane released and 65 percent of all nitrous oxide emissions. These emissions exceed those of the entire transportation industry.
Eating a steak contributes more towards global warming than driving a car.
Methane and nitrous oxide are a cause for major concern. Methane has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of CO2.
Most of the gases that will be released due to rising temperatures and the thawing of the permafrost will be in the form of methane and water vapour.
Although most people remain ignorant of the organic chemistry of Gaia, the world has woken up and discovered that yes, there is a global warming problem and it is amusing to see just how surprised everyone seems to be about it.
Of course it's too late to do anything about it. Even in the unlikely event that every person in the world decided to not drive a car, ride on an airplane, and carry on with business as usual – there is no stopping the global chemical reactions that we set in motion decades ago. The three C's – the combustion engine, cattle and consumerism have sealed the fate of civilization as we know it.
However despite the writing on the wall we still keep pumping out more and more combustion engines, raising more cattle, and buying more and more material goods. As the poet Leonard Cohen once wrote, "we are locked into our suffering and our pleasures are the seal."
As a species we are material junkies, hooked on oil, meat and luxuries. Let's face it, simple living bicycle riding vegans are still considered to be somewhat odd when in fact they should be the example of how we all should be living.
But back to the question of what kind of world will it be in 2108?
One thing for sure it will be a radically different world than that of today.
We will have long since reached the limits of carrying capacity and resources like oil and rare and once abundant ores will have been exhausted.
The three basic laws of ecology are (1) The law of diversity that eco-systems require diversity of species to be healthy. (2) The law of interdependence meaning that species are interdependent with each other. And (3) the law of finite resources or limits to carrying capacity and limits to growth.
There are limits to growth because there are limits to carrying capacity. If we steal carrying capacity from other species we will contribute to the extinction of more and more species and the removal and diminishment of other species erodes diversity and interdependence.
Natural history has demonstrated for millions of years that when a species exceeds carrying capacity it will crash. If one of the species that we are closely dependent upon like bees, wheat, rice, etc disappear, our populations will crash.
The protection of diversity is one of the most important responsibilities we have, far more important even than the cure for cancer yet species protection receives less than 1% of every charitable dollar.
Human populations continue to rise and the global world population is now approaching 7 billion. It was 3 billion only 50 years ago. Since the majority of these 7 billion are under 35 and thus of child bearing age it means that the population could double to 14 billion by 2058 and again to 28 billion by 2108.
It won't get that far of course because we have already exceeded global carrying capacity. Every single commercial fishery is in a state of collapse, we have reached peak oil and without oil to provide fertilizer and transportation, world food production will decline. Added to this is the annual losses of topsoil and diminishment of fresh water contributing even further to the destruction of industrial agriculture.
The Bible strangely enough predicts the tools of the ecological apocalypse. The four horsemen were famine, disease, war and civil strife and disorder.
We who are alive today have just lived through the last two most affluent generations in the history of the world. The orgy of materialism that we have enjoyed from 1945 until the present is almost at its end.
We have filled countless landfills with the trash of our excessive life styles, we have stripped life from the oceans and replaced it with plastic and chemicals. In short a combination of rising populations and declining carrying capacity is leading to an ecological collapse.
What does this mean?
In short, it's nothing pleasant. It's a series of events leading to a break-down in carrying capacity meaning the removal of resources that we have grown dependent upon.
Add to this rising sea levels and changing weather conditions and the possibility, rather the ine..vita..bility of the shut down of the Atlantic conveyor and the problems will mount progressively.
Within two decades, we will have completed the destruction of the fishes of the ocean. Wars will be waged over the resources of ..Antarctica.. and wars over water resources will replace the wars over oil resources.
Wars of genocide will erupt around the globe simply because homo sapien is still a primitive hominid and quick to blame every diminishment on any other group of human beings of a different culture or race. Wars of religion will escalate as people attempt to escape ecological reality with inventive anthropocentric pie-in-the-sky fantasies. As energy resources break down so will transportation leading to the end of the global village and the development of tribalism. Tribalism will lead to territorial conflicts or numerous small wars of genocide.
Somewhere in the next fifty years there will be a loss of a pivotal species or species – that will escalate the crash of humanity. Remove the honey bee and agricultural will be devastated. Remove a few species of wheat and rice through blight and worldwide starvation will result with people fighting over fields of potatoes or turnips. Viruses deprived of hosts will be looking for new hosts and human will present a tempting target for these minute masters of survival.
It will be ugly, exceedingly so.
Unlikely? Unrealistic?
Consider 1908. If then, I were to have said then that the coming century would see two horrifically insane world wars, concentration camps, killer epidemics, the nuclear bomb, gas warfare, suicide bombers, AIDS, and George W. Bush, no one would have believed it then either.
1908 was an age of innocence shattered with the eruption of the "war to end all wars" in 1914 and the unleashing of the demons of industrialized hell thanks to the evil genius of the likes of Krupp, Nobel, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hitler, Oppenheimer and Teller.
Yes there were good things that happened. In 1908 woman could not vote in most countries and racism was taken for granted as something natural and acceptable. We did learn a few lessons along the way but overall we learned how to kill more efficiently, and to oppress more ruthlessly, and to exploit nature more rapaciously.
But strangely I predict 2108 will not be a bad time to live for the survivors of our species. By then with populations drastically reduced to less than a billion people, there will be no choice but to adapt to a world without the three C's.
I see a world not unlike the world of 1808 with windmills generating local power, horses, plus bicycles, balloons and sail providing the primary means of transportation, smaller communities and most likely people will have been forced to higher ground by rising sea levels and to cooler underground living allowing for nature to regenerate above ground with species adapting to warmer temperatures.
Without diesel powered ship with industrialized means of exploitation, those remnants of surviving fish populations will begin to flourish again. Hopefully we will still have whales, dolphins, sea-turtles, sharks and sea-birds and in time they will begin to re-populate the seas.
People will be forced to live simpler lives – no more jet planes, cars or ocean liners. Yet we still may maintain knowledge and we may still be able to communicate globally with wind and solar powered generators powering computers and an internet system.
If we are intelligent enough we may even be able to establish a centralized repository of valuable fossil fuels to allow us to continue to orbit satellites for global communication and navigation.
People will look back in disbelief at the waste of fossil fuels on plastic bags, toys and joy-riding in cars and boats.
I see a greener future with people living simpler less stressful lives and re-learning the loss arts of sailing, black-smithing, wood-working, stone masonary etc.
We will still wage war on each other, because we are a violent species, but wars confined to simpler weapons.
There will still be a repository of nuclear bombs and no go areas where former nuclear plants stood but in time they will decay as will the trash of our past mistakes. They will still be dangerous places and will remain dangerous for some time. But as Chernobyl has demonstrated life will adapt.
The global warming threat will have spawned a proliferation of nuke plants by 2015 but they will fail by 2025 when the shortages of fossil fuels will prevent the mining and processing of uranium which actually consumes more fossil fuels than even the oil fired generators. It takes over two thousand tons of pitchblende ore to make one ounce of uranium fuel.
If we are lucky horses will survive and if we are lucky cows will not. Hopefully the world will adapt to an ecologically more friendly vegetarian diet. People will have to learn to live simpler lives without excessive consumerism.
The key to the survival of civilization is to retain the best and discard the worse. Art and music will survive although music will be acoustic and wandering minstrels will replace rock stars. Theatre will survive but motion pictures and television most likely will not. Radio may be the primary form of mass communication powered by wind and solar.
Wind and solar and a solid conservation ethic will provide all the power resources required. Essential machinery like pumps and small electrical tools and conveniences will survive.
The survivors of 2108 will have the wealth of collective human knowledge at their fingertips. Libraries will become popular and large universities will be replaced by small colleges that will stress knowledge and practical technologies.
Massive mindless consumerism will have no place in such a future. All needs will be met by the community market.
The large structures of the past, the malls, and the massive infrastructures will deteriorate. Sites will be cannibalized for practical usage and time and erosion will absorb the scars of the past.
Men and women will once again be able to explore the planet by sail and on foot, by balloon and bicycles. Bicycle and sail technology will prosper. The world will be dotted with millions of small windmills pumping water, grinding grain, running small machines and creating power.
The planet will be quieter and more peaceful and once again we will hear the birds sing and the wind blow through the trees.
Our celebrities will be writers and poets, musicians and artists, explorers and thinkers.
I believe that the future can be a positive one although the birth pangs of such a future will be intensely violent and for fifty years or so, humanity will suffer the effects of the collapse as they strive to adjust and survive. Billions will die from starvation, war, civil violence and disease.
Only a small percentage of people born in the next thirty years will be alive in 2008. The world of 2008 will belong to the children of the survivors and will be born in the latter part of the 21st Century. The world also will hopefully belong to the survivors of other species and with luck we will not destroy more than half of them.
We have survived before. The great plagues of over 800 years ago killed more than survived and the survivors emerged stronger and able to resist future bubonic plagues. There will be those who will resist and survive the plagues of the 21st century also.
Hopefully anthropocentric religions will be abolished. These perversely ignorant ideas are what got us here in the first place – the idea that we are superior to other species and we have absolute dominion over everything and in the end it does not matter because we will all go to some fantasyland in the sky.
If we are to survive as a species we will need to bring the diversity of life into our everyday reality and we will need to live our lives in accordance with the laws of ecology and that will mean protecting diversity, embracing interdependence and realizing that resources are finite and there are limits to our growth.
Perhaps once slapped down to size we may indeed learn our lesson and we won't try this similar nonsense again.
Of course our species may not survive the next century but one thing for sure – the Earth will abide. It always had and it always will and this major extinction event, the sixth in the entire history of the Earth will be addressed by a healing process of regeneration over the next ten to twenty million years.
One thing I know for sure is that tens of millions of years from now, this planet will still shine like a blue and white gem against the blackness of eternity and that is the image that sustains me and provides me with my optimism.
For all of us will forever be a part of this magnificent rock orbiting this miracle of a life giving sun on the outer arm of this magnificent galaxy within the great mystery of the infinite universe.
2108 – I regret I won't see what the world will be then, but I envy those of our species who will survive and I only hope this second chance to rebuilt civilization will be more successful than the last.
Anthropocentric civilization is almost dead – long live a biocentric civilization for tomorrow!
It just made sense to me back then that if we pump carbon into the atmosphere in the volumes we have been doing for over a century that there would be serious ecological consequences.
The present annual release of carbon through the combustion of fossil fuels is around 5.6 billion tons in the form of carbon dioxide. The annual release of carbon from deforestation is another 2 to 3 billion tons. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from the livestock industry is an additional 1.5 billion tons. The atmosphere presently contains about 750 billion tons of carbon and another 2000 billion tons is contained in organic materials on and in the Earth and in the sea.
Photosynthesis on land absorbs about 100 billion tons of carbon annually. Prior to industrialization the amount of carbon absorbed by living organisms on land and in the seas was pretty much equal to the amount of carbon released by living organisms. The species homo sapiens has changed this by releasing approximately 3 billion tons more carbon annually than can now be absorbed.
An increase in temperature by even 1% centigrade will increase respiration of carbon by 30 to 40%. Absorption however will not be affected by any significant percentage. Thus as the atmosphere gets warmer the effect on global warming will be acceleration and the melting of glaciers and ice caps will accelerate this process even more.
Another factor is that warming of the atmosphere will increase the density of water vapour in the atmosphere. Water vapour is one of the strongest greenhouse gases and an increase in the density of water vapour will accelerate the warming process even faster.
As biota, or the mass of non-human organisms is diminished, the rate of absorption will further decline causing an even greater amount of carbon to be released.
Thus diminishment of biomass diversity is a major factor contributing to global warming.
What makes our present situation so alarming is that we are moving from a relatively slow period of global warming to an accelerated period. Life adapts to slowly changing conditions but adapts with greater difficulty to faster ecological changes. In other words there is little time for transition and what would normally take millennium or centuries to occur will now take place within the context of decades.
Release of carbon through decay of biomass because of increased temperatures will soon exceed the release from fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels was simply the trigger for an even more massive release of carbon stored in the form of vegetation and living organisms. Increased temperatures will lead to more forest fires, more crop failures and changing oceanic currents causing massive planktonic die-offs. Other factors are ozone depletion, and acidification of the oceans.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions and this includes 9% carbon dioxide and 37 percent of all methane released and 65 percent of all nitrous oxide emissions. These emissions exceed those of the entire transportation industry.
Eating a steak contributes more towards global warming than driving a car.
Methane and nitrous oxide are a cause for major concern. Methane has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of CO2.
Most of the gases that will be released due to rising temperatures and the thawing of the permafrost will be in the form of methane and water vapour.
Although most people remain ignorant of the organic chemistry of Gaia, the world has woken up and discovered that yes, there is a global warming problem and it is amusing to see just how surprised everyone seems to be about it.
Of course it's too late to do anything about it. Even in the unlikely event that every person in the world decided to not drive a car, ride on an airplane, and carry on with business as usual – there is no stopping the global chemical reactions that we set in motion decades ago. The three C's – the combustion engine, cattle and consumerism have sealed the fate of civilization as we know it.
However despite the writing on the wall we still keep pumping out more and more combustion engines, raising more cattle, and buying more and more material goods. As the poet Leonard Cohen once wrote, "we are locked into our suffering and our pleasures are the seal."
As a species we are material junkies, hooked on oil, meat and luxuries. Let's face it, simple living bicycle riding vegans are still considered to be somewhat odd when in fact they should be the example of how we all should be living.
But back to the question of what kind of world will it be in 2108?
One thing for sure it will be a radically different world than that of today.
We will have long since reached the limits of carrying capacity and resources like oil and rare and once abundant ores will have been exhausted.
The three basic laws of ecology are (1) The law of diversity that eco-systems require diversity of species to be healthy. (2) The law of interdependence meaning that species are interdependent with each other. And (3) the law of finite resources or limits to carrying capacity and limits to growth.
There are limits to growth because there are limits to carrying capacity. If we steal carrying capacity from other species we will contribute to the extinction of more and more species and the removal and diminishment of other species erodes diversity and interdependence.
Natural history has demonstrated for millions of years that when a species exceeds carrying capacity it will crash. If one of the species that we are closely dependent upon like bees, wheat, rice, etc disappear, our populations will crash.
The protection of diversity is one of the most important responsibilities we have, far more important even than the cure for cancer yet species protection receives less than 1% of every charitable dollar.
Human populations continue to rise and the global world population is now approaching 7 billion. It was 3 billion only 50 years ago. Since the majority of these 7 billion are under 35 and thus of child bearing age it means that the population could double to 14 billion by 2058 and again to 28 billion by 2108.
It won't get that far of course because we have already exceeded global carrying capacity. Every single commercial fishery is in a state of collapse, we have reached peak oil and without oil to provide fertilizer and transportation, world food production will decline. Added to this is the annual losses of topsoil and diminishment of fresh water contributing even further to the destruction of industrial agriculture.
The Bible strangely enough predicts the tools of the ecological apocalypse. The four horsemen were famine, disease, war and civil strife and disorder.
We who are alive today have just lived through the last two most affluent generations in the history of the world. The orgy of materialism that we have enjoyed from 1945 until the present is almost at its end.
We have filled countless landfills with the trash of our excessive life styles, we have stripped life from the oceans and replaced it with plastic and chemicals. In short a combination of rising populations and declining carrying capacity is leading to an ecological collapse.
What does this mean?
In short, it's nothing pleasant. It's a series of events leading to a break-down in carrying capacity meaning the removal of resources that we have grown dependent upon.
Add to this rising sea levels and changing weather conditions and the possibility, rather the ine..vita..bility of the shut down of the Atlantic conveyor and the problems will mount progressively.
Within two decades, we will have completed the destruction of the fishes of the ocean. Wars will be waged over the resources of ..Antarctica.. and wars over water resources will replace the wars over oil resources.
Wars of genocide will erupt around the globe simply because homo sapien is still a primitive hominid and quick to blame every diminishment on any other group of human beings of a different culture or race. Wars of religion will escalate as people attempt to escape ecological reality with inventive anthropocentric pie-in-the-sky fantasies. As energy resources break down so will transportation leading to the end of the global village and the development of tribalism. Tribalism will lead to territorial conflicts or numerous small wars of genocide.
Somewhere in the next fifty years there will be a loss of a pivotal species or species – that will escalate the crash of humanity. Remove the honey bee and agricultural will be devastated. Remove a few species of wheat and rice through blight and worldwide starvation will result with people fighting over fields of potatoes or turnips. Viruses deprived of hosts will be looking for new hosts and human will present a tempting target for these minute masters of survival.
It will be ugly, exceedingly so.
Unlikely? Unrealistic?
Consider 1908. If then, I were to have said then that the coming century would see two horrifically insane world wars, concentration camps, killer epidemics, the nuclear bomb, gas warfare, suicide bombers, AIDS, and George W. Bush, no one would have believed it then either.
1908 was an age of innocence shattered with the eruption of the "war to end all wars" in 1914 and the unleashing of the demons of industrialized hell thanks to the evil genius of the likes of Krupp, Nobel, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hitler, Oppenheimer and Teller.
Yes there were good things that happened. In 1908 woman could not vote in most countries and racism was taken for granted as something natural and acceptable. We did learn a few lessons along the way but overall we learned how to kill more efficiently, and to oppress more ruthlessly, and to exploit nature more rapaciously.
But strangely I predict 2108 will not be a bad time to live for the survivors of our species. By then with populations drastically reduced to less than a billion people, there will be no choice but to adapt to a world without the three C's.
I see a world not unlike the world of 1808 with windmills generating local power, horses, plus bicycles, balloons and sail providing the primary means of transportation, smaller communities and most likely people will have been forced to higher ground by rising sea levels and to cooler underground living allowing for nature to regenerate above ground with species adapting to warmer temperatures.
Without diesel powered ship with industrialized means of exploitation, those remnants of surviving fish populations will begin to flourish again. Hopefully we will still have whales, dolphins, sea-turtles, sharks and sea-birds and in time they will begin to re-populate the seas.
People will be forced to live simpler lives – no more jet planes, cars or ocean liners. Yet we still may maintain knowledge and we may still be able to communicate globally with wind and solar powered generators powering computers and an internet system.
If we are intelligent enough we may even be able to establish a centralized repository of valuable fossil fuels to allow us to continue to orbit satellites for global communication and navigation.
People will look back in disbelief at the waste of fossil fuels on plastic bags, toys and joy-riding in cars and boats.
I see a greener future with people living simpler less stressful lives and re-learning the loss arts of sailing, black-smithing, wood-working, stone masonary etc.
We will still wage war on each other, because we are a violent species, but wars confined to simpler weapons.
There will still be a repository of nuclear bombs and no go areas where former nuclear plants stood but in time they will decay as will the trash of our past mistakes. They will still be dangerous places and will remain dangerous for some time. But as Chernobyl has demonstrated life will adapt.
The global warming threat will have spawned a proliferation of nuke plants by 2015 but they will fail by 2025 when the shortages of fossil fuels will prevent the mining and processing of uranium which actually consumes more fossil fuels than even the oil fired generators. It takes over two thousand tons of pitchblende ore to make one ounce of uranium fuel.
If we are lucky horses will survive and if we are lucky cows will not. Hopefully the world will adapt to an ecologically more friendly vegetarian diet. People will have to learn to live simpler lives without excessive consumerism.
The key to the survival of civilization is to retain the best and discard the worse. Art and music will survive although music will be acoustic and wandering minstrels will replace rock stars. Theatre will survive but motion pictures and television most likely will not. Radio may be the primary form of mass communication powered by wind and solar.
Wind and solar and a solid conservation ethic will provide all the power resources required. Essential machinery like pumps and small electrical tools and conveniences will survive.
The survivors of 2108 will have the wealth of collective human knowledge at their fingertips. Libraries will become popular and large universities will be replaced by small colleges that will stress knowledge and practical technologies.
Massive mindless consumerism will have no place in such a future. All needs will be met by the community market.
The large structures of the past, the malls, and the massive infrastructures will deteriorate. Sites will be cannibalized for practical usage and time and erosion will absorb the scars of the past.
Men and women will once again be able to explore the planet by sail and on foot, by balloon and bicycles. Bicycle and sail technology will prosper. The world will be dotted with millions of small windmills pumping water, grinding grain, running small machines and creating power.
The planet will be quieter and more peaceful and once again we will hear the birds sing and the wind blow through the trees.
Our celebrities will be writers and poets, musicians and artists, explorers and thinkers.
I believe that the future can be a positive one although the birth pangs of such a future will be intensely violent and for fifty years or so, humanity will suffer the effects of the collapse as they strive to adjust and survive. Billions will die from starvation, war, civil violence and disease.
Only a small percentage of people born in the next thirty years will be alive in 2008. The world of 2008 will belong to the children of the survivors and will be born in the latter part of the 21st Century. The world also will hopefully belong to the survivors of other species and with luck we will not destroy more than half of them.
We have survived before. The great plagues of over 800 years ago killed more than survived and the survivors emerged stronger and able to resist future bubonic plagues. There will be those who will resist and survive the plagues of the 21st century also.
Hopefully anthropocentric religions will be abolished. These perversely ignorant ideas are what got us here in the first place – the idea that we are superior to other species and we have absolute dominion over everything and in the end it does not matter because we will all go to some fantasyland in the sky.
If we are to survive as a species we will need to bring the diversity of life into our everyday reality and we will need to live our lives in accordance with the laws of ecology and that will mean protecting diversity, embracing interdependence and realizing that resources are finite and there are limits to our growth.
Perhaps once slapped down to size we may indeed learn our lesson and we won't try this similar nonsense again.
Of course our species may not survive the next century but one thing for sure – the Earth will abide. It always had and it always will and this major extinction event, the sixth in the entire history of the Earth will be addressed by a healing process of regeneration over the next ten to twenty million years.
One thing I know for sure is that tens of millions of years from now, this planet will still shine like a blue and white gem against the blackness of eternity and that is the image that sustains me and provides me with my optimism.
For all of us will forever be a part of this magnificent rock orbiting this miracle of a life giving sun on the outer arm of this magnificent galaxy within the great mystery of the infinite universe.
2108 – I regret I won't see what the world will be then, but I envy those of our species who will survive and I only hope this second chance to rebuilt civilization will be more successful than the last.
Anthropocentric civilization is almost dead – long live a biocentric civilization for tomorrow!
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