David Suzuki: Humans May Have Loaded the Bases, but Nature Bats Last

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:




Published on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 by the Huffington Post
Humans May Have Loaded the Bases, but Nature Bats Last

by David Suzuki


Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we've ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change. Exponential growth is causing an already huge human population to double in shorter and shorter time periods.

When I was born in 1936, just over two billion people lived on the planet. It's astounding that the population has increased more then threefold within my lifetime. That staggering growth has been accompanied by even steeper increases in technological innovation, consumption, and a global economy that exploits the entire planet as a source of raw materials and a dumping ground for toxic emissions and waste.

If you destroy the world, you will fall with it!

We have become a new kind of biological force that is altering the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. Indeed, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has suggested that the current geologic period should be called the Anthropocene Epoch to reflect our new status as a global force -- and a lot of scientists agree. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/01-9

[hobbit709]

1. Mother Nature always wins in the long run.

[Name removed]

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[tblue37]

8. Mother Nature bats last, but she packs a wallop. nt

[Gregorian]

2. The first step is for people to realize that it all stems from their individual personal actions.

This is the big disconnect. The unconscious denial. People are looking outside themselves for the cause and for the solution. That is not where they will find it. Each vacation. Each new child. Each trip to the store. Each act that consumes anything that wasn't part of a natural environment in equilibrium. It's all about multiplicity now. Each person is actually many billions of people.

However, we cannot go back. So there is a dilemma. And a problem. But first we must become conscious of the problem. Until we do that, we continue to spiral in a path toward nothing other than disaster.

In a word, we will soon be force to sacrifice. Either we sacrifice by choice, or we sacrifice by demand.

It's a very uncomfortable discussion since it deals with freedom. We are no longer free. That is what people don't see. There is a delay between what we do, and what will come as a consequence. We're now seeing the consequences. But we're still hopping on planes to go surfing in Hawaii. Or any other number of things which simple cannot continue. Pretty sad that it has had to come to this.

[Electric Monk]

3. "Each person is actually many billions of people."

Um, no, I'm not. I'm just me.

[Gregorian]

7. Not from the planet's perspective. We are all adding up.

By multiplicity, each of us is comprising the billions.

[defendandprotect]

4. Discussions of Population explosion were shut down by RW ....

And, for a bit more insanity, by the 1990's when birth control was creating

smaller populations, the previous Pope went before the Italian Parliament

proclaiming that they "had to make Italian women have more children" -- !!


Was it because the Pope so loved children -- ?

Or was pushing more aid for families and mothers -- ?

No -- the Pope wanted to be sure that there was enough labor for business!!


Think we're already over 7 billion? Not sure at the moment?

[yesphan]

5. I read somewhere recently

that the 7,000,000,000th person is to arrive by the end of October, this year.