Fruit Flies in a Bottle

[CrisisPapers]

Ernest Partridge
The Crisis Papers
www.crisispapers.org

I

Place a few fruit flies in a bottle with a layer of honey at the bottom, and they will quickly multiply to an enormous number, and then, just as quickly, die off to the very last, poisoned by their wastes. Similarly, add a few yeast cells to grape juice, seal the bottle, and the cells will consume the sugar and turn it into alcohol. When the alcohol rises to 12.5% it will kill off all the yeast, and the wine will be ready for the table.

Fruit flies and yeast in a bottle are embarked upon suicidal endeavors. They can’t help it. They don’t know any better, lacking the cognitive equipment to “know” anything at all.

Human beings, we are told, are different. Humans can utilize their accumulated knowledge, evaluate evidence and apply reason, and with these skills and accomplishments they can imagine alternative futures and choose among them to their advantage.

Human beings have these capacities. But history teaches us that all too often, human beings simply refuse to apply them and, like the mindless fruit flies, march blindly into oblivion. For example:

**None of the antagonists in the First World War wanted the war. It was touched off by the assassination of an Austrian Duke in the Balkans. And when it was all over four years later and sixteen million had died, one German politician asked another, “How did it all happen?” The second replied, “Ach, if we only knew!” (Tuchman)

**When the Nazi pogrom against the Jews accelerated, a few wise Jews fled Germany, leaving friends, professions and all their possessions behind. The others, reflecting that “This can’t be all that bad, after all, I am a loyal German,” remained. When in January 1942 “the final solution” was decided at the Wansee conference, it was too late.

**Industrialized fishing techniques have drastically reduced both the quality and quantity of the world-wide catch. As Elizabeth Kolbert reports in The New Yorker, “In the late nineteen eighties, the total world catch topped out at about eighty-five million tons... For the past two decades, the global catch has been steadily declining ... by around five hundred thousand tons a year.” This is a paradigm example of Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons,” whereby “ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest...” While a global agreement to limit fishing might restore the take to sustainable levels, there are ominous indications that, in addition to over-fishing, climate change might be significantly responsible for these reductions. (More about this below).

Finally, consider Easter Island. When Polynesian explorers discovered and colonized Easter Island at about 900 AD, they arrived at an island that was fully forested, with huge trees that supplied essential resources for canoes, houses, food, fuel, ropes and textiles. With these resources, the islanders built more than eight-hundred stone statues (moai) for which Easter Island is famous. When the first Europeans arrived in 1722, they found a barren island totally devoid of trees. The peak population of this sixty-six square mile island is estimated to have been as much as thirty thousand. In 1872, only one hundred and eleven native islanders remained. (Diamond). Could the Easter Islanders foresee the consequences of the destruction of their forests? If not, then why not? If so, why did they not act to protect this essential resource before it was too late?

In his book, Collapse, Jared Diamond poses these questions in words that strike ominously close to home:

I have often asked myself, “what did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it? Like modern loggers, did he shout “Jobs, not trees!”? Or: “Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we’ll find a substitute for wood”? Or “We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering”?

Sound familiar?

II

When we look back in time, we find numerous examples such as these of a collective failure of societies to anticipate and deal with oncoming emergencies. With 20/20 hindsight, we look back and wonder: How could they not have seen what was in store for them?

Thus it is fair to ask, how acute is our foresight today? What are we doing, or failing to do, that might prompt future generations to ask the same question of us: How could they not have seen what was in store for them?

The answer, I submit, is most discouraging. Our political and corporate leaders have eyes, but will not see. They have minds, but will not think, much less anticipate the catastrophes before us and take appropriate action to avoid them. Consider:

**Regarding the domestic and global economy, our leaders are steadfastly ignoring Herbert Stein’s law: "That which can not go on forever, won’t.” Wealth continues to “percolate up” from the producers of wealth to the owners of that wealth. Today, one third of the U.S. national wealth s owned by one-percent of the population. The average Standard and Poors 500 CEO earns in half a day, more than his company’s median worker earns in an entire year. When, if ever, does this trend end? More in an hour? In a minute? Meanwhile, the super-rich pay a smaller fraction of their income in taxes than the average citizen – taxes that pay for the infrastructure, the courts, and the education of the workers upon which their wealth depends. Ever upward climbs the national debt. The Republican “solution” to the economic crisis? More of the same policies that precipitated the crash of August, 2008.

**The solution to the federal budget deficit? Screw the little guy by cutting back on Social Security, Medicare, health reform and education. But don’t even think of raising taxes on the super-rich. How long will the bottom 99 percent of us tolerate this injustice until, at last, we band together and storm the Bastille?

**More than half of the federal budget goes to wars, past, present and projected, and to the maintenance of the American global empire – over seven hundred military bases in at least 130 foreign countries. The military-industrial complex builds submarines and aircraft carriers to fight an enemy without a navy, and jet aircraft to fight an enemy without an air force. The U.S. military budget is roughly equal to the total of all other military budgets in the world. Yet scarcely any politician dares suggest a cut in the so-called “defense” budget which, with its enormous waste, fraud and abuse, is arguably a greater threat to our “national defense” than any “enemies,” real or imagined. How about using some of that cash for R&D in clean energy? Or for the education of the next generation of scientists and engineers? Or in the repair of our collapsing physical infrastructure? All of these are clearly matters of “national defense.” Will our leaders recognize this and act appropriately? Given the current political/economic/media environment, not a chance.

**Modern industrial society runs on oil. There can be no doubt about that. In a very real sense, citizens in industrial societies “eat oil.” Petroleum products produce fertilizers and pesticides, run farm equipment, and distribute food to the cities. In the United States, about two percent of the population is directly involved in food production: one agricultural worker feeds fifty American citizens, and many more individuals abroad. And yet, ecologist Kenneth Watt estimates that nineteenth century pre-petroleum agricultural methods could support a global population of from one to four billion people. “Mankind,” writes Watt, is thus “embarked on an absolutely immense gamble” that somehow, when the oil runs out, another energy source will be available. When that happens, the world population, now approaching seven billion, might well exceed ten billion.

No one will contend that the supply of unrecovered petroleum is infinite. The controversy centers on various estimates of the remaining reserves. Oil extraction is becoming ever-more expensive, and the last drop of oil will be recovered at about the time that more energy is required to extract it than is contained in the oil itself. Some experts claim that “peak oil,” the time of maximum oil production, is now upon us.

So what happens if and when the oil finally runs out? If alternate energy sources are not in place and in full operation, wars and mass starvation are certain to follow. Current efforts to avoid this catastrophe are feeble, too little and too late. The international oil conglomerates that effectively own the congress of the United States are not inclined to encourage the promotion of their competitors.

**Ninety-seven percent of all active climate scientists agree that The climate denier’s efforts and investments have been effective, as surveys indicate that fewer citizens are concerned about global warming and more citizens are inclined to be skeptical about it. [br />
Meanwhile, the global atmosphere is proving itself to be totally indifferent to public opinion and political inaction as it continues to heat up, causing widespread wildfires in Russia, floods in Pakistan and Iowa, drought in the American southwest, the shrinking of the Greenland icecap, rising sea level, with still more horrors in store in the future.

Oberlin College ecologist David Orr is unconstrained in his rage over the political and corporate resistance to informed and effective responses to climate change: "We really don't have a name to describe behavior of this sort... It is criminality beyond any language, concepts or laws that we presently have. It's criminality that places the entire human enterprise at risk. And we simply have not been able to confront inaction that allows the entire human enterprise to slip into catastrophic failure. It really does beggar the imagination to understand why, given the consensus of the scientific community on this issue, ... inaction was the order of the day."

And finally, a little-noticed news report that should scare the bejesus out of all of us: Canadian scientists have discovered that the population of oceanic phytoplankton has dropped by 40 percent since 1950 and continues to drop at a rate of about one percent per year. This fact just might foretell a catastrophe even greater than global warming which, as it happens, may be the primary cause of this phenomenon.

Why should we care about the fate of these microscopic plants? Because phytoplankton are the foundation of the oceanic ecosystem – the base of the food pyramid that sustains all marine life. No phytoplankton, no fish, and the seas become biotic deserts.

And that’s not even the worst of it. Phytoplankton produce half of the world’s atmospheric oxygen and absorb that carbon-dioxide that we are spewing into the air in dangerous super-abundance. This raises a question that I’ve neither read about or heard: is it just possible that the loss of phytoplankton might suffocate us all? Without oxygen, we all die. Plain and simple. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the alarm? Are there any proposals to reverse this trend? And if we suppose that we can survive without the oxygen supplied by the phytoplankton, then pray tell us how this is possible.

Perhaps the Canadian scientists are mistaken. If so, then a threatened humanity pleads with the dissenting scientists to present their evidence and deliver their refutation. However this investigation might proceed, one fact remains unassailable: our fate is inexorably bound with that of the phytoplankton.

III

Are we, like the fruit flies in the bottle, predestined to meet a horrible fate due to forces beyond our control – beyond our control because we cannot overcome the blind economic interests which dominate our political processes and which own the mass media that misinforms the public?

I am sadly inclined to believe that this is the case. But I am not entirely convinced, for history also provides examples of how, facing pending emergencies, societies and nations can act responsibly.

**On December 6, 1941, a majority of the American public was pacifist, demanding that we stay out of “those foreign wars.” Two days later, that same public was in solid support of President Roosevelt’s declaration of war. And the United States military, at that time one of the weakest in the world became, within months of total mobilization, the strongest.

**When in 1974, physicists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina published a paper in the scientific journal Nature, linking the erosion of the atmospheric ozone to the artificial chemical compounds, chlorofluorocarbons, the chemical industry responded with an all-out public relations campaign to debunk them. Eventually, the international scientific consensus prevailed resulting in the Montreal Protocol of 1989, banning the production and release of these substances. In 1995, Molina, along with Paul Crutzen, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery.

**In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released a comprehensive government report linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer. The tobacco industry replied with a volley of quasi-scientific rebuttals. Now the good news: after relentless effort by medical and public interest groups, brutal truth has broken through the tobacco industries’ PR campaigns. In 1965, 42% of American adults were cigarette smokers. In 2005, less than half that number of Americans were smokers.

**"You can't keep an empire abroad and a republic at home," wrote Mark Twain. Chalmers Johnson agrees: “Empire vs. Democracy...” Faced with this choice sixty years ago, Great Britain chose democracy. It remains to be seen how the United States will choose. At the moment, the indications are not favorable for democracy.

**Japan, with one of the highest population densities in the world, has managed to keep 74% of its land mass forested – the highest percentage of all first-world countries. (Diamond)

**While the fossil fuel public relations behemoth continues to convince the American public and politicians that renewable energy sources are “impractical” and “too expensive,” foreign countries such as Denmark, Iceland, Germany and China forge ahead with their research, development and installation of alternative energy. True, electricity from the sun costs more than energy from coal. But as R&D progresses, those costs are plunging while fossil fuel costs are rising. The cost curves are certain to cross in the near future, at which time coal-generated electricity will become obsolete. In fact, when such “externalities” as health and environmental effects are factored in, fossil fuel energy today is vastly more expensive than wind and solar energy. Europe and China’s message to American industry: lead, follow, or get out of the way. But we are not waiting for your reply!

Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse, is a monumental study of how societies from around the world – in Easter Island, in Pre-Columbian Central and North American, in Greenland – are demolished by the heedless destruction of the sustaining environment. And yet, in the final page of this book, Diamond closes on a hopeful note: “we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples. That’s an opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a degree.”

It remains to be seen if we seize upon this opportunity.

IV

A few corporate public relations geniuses with limitless budgets have convinced large portions of the American public that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with al Qaeda, that their president was foreign-born and is a practicing Muslim, and that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a vast conspiracy of climate scientists with motives still unknown. Now these same geniuses have taken on the task of convincing us that the solutions to our energy, economic and environmental problems are to continue the policies that created these crises in the first place.

This, of course, is the clinical definition of insanity. And so, to borrow Albert Einstein’s reflection upon the atomic bomb, everything “has changed .. save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes."

The immediate result of a policy of “more of the same” will be a securing of the vast wealth and political power of those who have benefited from this policy. As for the remaining 99% of us in the disappearing middle class and the growing serf class, we’re on our own. No doubt, in the calamities that follow, the oligarches and kleptocrats of tomorrow will eventually be consumed as well.

To prevent which, here are a few stragegies of survival:

**When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. If you are heading straight for a cliff, stop and change direction.

**“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Richard Feynman) The best means of discovering and validating truth is science. Propaganda, skillfully and ruthlessly practiced, can deceive an entire nation. But it can not abolish fundamental physical laws. “Facts,” said John Adams, “are stubborn things.”

**“In the conditions of modern life, the rule is absolute: {the nation} that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.” (Alfred North Whitehead). A nation that dismantles its public schools, impoverishes its universities, and makes advanced education unattainable to its brightest young people, is a nation engaged in collective suicide. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be.” (Thomas Jefferson).

**Promote the common good. There are public interests and social benefits distinct from the summation of all private interests. Ayn Rand was profoundly and dangerously mistaken when she proclaimed that “there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ the public is merely a number of individuals. On the contrary, that which is good for each, may not be good for all. United we stand, divided we fall.

**No civilized society has existed without a rule of law and sanctions to enforce the law, which is to say, no society has existed without a government. The choice, then, is not between government or no government, but between worse or better government – between government of, by, and for the privileged few, or government of, by and for the people. “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.”

**The ballot is the beating heart of democracy. The citizens’ ballot must be secret, but not the method of counting it. Neither should the counting and compiling of votes be in the hands of private companies with partisan affiliations. An unverifiable vote is an invalid vote. There is abundant evidence that recent elections in the United States have been fraudulent, yet the politicians have refused to investigate and the media has refused to report this evidence.

**In a free society access to public office, legislation, and judicial decisions can not be bought and sold. “Privatized popular government” is an oxymoron. When privatization of government and an unrestricted market obtain, the inevitable result is oligarchy and despotism. The remedy was clearly enunciated by the founders of our republic when they declared our independence: “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce {the people} under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

The task before us is momentous, and the outcome is uncertain. Quite frankly, I am inclined to agree with the pessimists that humanity is about to enter into dreadful and prolonged dark age.

There is no greater task before us than to dedicate ourselves to proving pessimists such as myself to be ultimately wrong. As the great Andrei Sakharov reflected:

“There is a need to create ideals even when you can’t see any route by which to achieve them, because if there are no ideals then there can be no hope and then one would be completely in the dark, in a hopeless blind alley.”

Copyright 2010 by Ernest Partridge

________________________________________


REFERENCES:

Diamond, Jared: Collapse, Viking, 2005.

Kolbert, Elizabeth: “The Scales Fall,” The New Yorker, August 2, 2010.

Tuchman, The Guns of August, Random House, 1962

Watt, Kenneth E. F.: "Whole Earth," Earth Day, The Beginning, Arno Press, 1970, pp 9-11)

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. K&R.

“we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples. That’s an opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a degree.”

And is an opportunity we must not squander.

[20score]

2. Great and important article.

Was just talking to my wife about these subjects on our way back from Vegas, today.

(Saving this.)

[druidity33]

3. excellent article...

For the particulars of the Global Warming problems i would refer DUers to an excellent book that came out this year called Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer. It is eye opening and frightening.


:(


K&R

[sam sarrha]

28. forget about global warming.. it is about "Ice". when the Ice melts at the poles, the ocean Conveyor

that brings warm equatorial water up to replace sinking cold melt water will stop.. within a few years.. not centuries, the snow will start not melting on the ground in summer above about latitude 45*, or lower. the oceans were more than 350 lower than they are now during the last ice age.. it takes 5 lbs of red hot cast iron to vaporize a pound of water.. the ice sheets were 1.6 miles thick.. consider the size and frequency of the storms that carried the water up there. archaeological finds indicate mega hurricanes 1600 miles across traveled up the Atlantic, probably like clock work.. there will be nothing but hurricanes to cool off the equator..

the earths population will quickly fall to below a Billion... after the last Toba eruption, causing the last ice age, only about 1000 to 1200 breeding pairs of humans survived. mitochondria DNA shows Europe was re-populated by about 80-90 migrants

the earth has been in an ice age for 125,000,000 years. with some warm spots..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjO8rwB-GI&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsEbP5zarCQ&feature=related

[druidity33]

42. um... ok. nt.

[Hawkowl]

52. +1000

Can't agree more. DNA analysis of humans indicate that there is more diversity in on troop of chimps than the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE. This points to a catastrophic die off in the not too distant past.

Unfortunately, I have to agree about the Atlantic conveyor as well. Once all the polar ice is melted, we are fucked. GAME OVER. The earth will reset itself and we don't have anywhere near enough data to see how it will end up. We do have enough data to suggest that a few decades may be all it takes to melt all the polar ice and cause a catastrophic climate shift. Not the thousands or tens of thousands of years as previously postulated.

Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth was probably the canary in the coal mine and since we have failed to act, we are probably on the path to cataclysmic climate change within the next 50 years. Yeah, that's right before the end of this century.

[theaocp]

4. Gimme a P-L-A-N-K-T-O-N!

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I think it's so strange,
They're callin' it climate change;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! We're all gonna die.

~all due credit to Country Joe and the Fish

[Demeter]

5. Excellent and Complete

If only someone in a position to make large and fast changes were willing to listen and act.

[BeFree]

6. Thanks Ernest

Seems we have a sick democracy.

The only cure for a sick democracy is more democracy. Ed Abbey

More democracy means more people involved. Better representation.

George Washington is said to have felt there should be one representative for every 30,000 citizens.

As it is there is but one for every 600,000.

[bvar22]

7. "I am inclined to agree with the pessimists "

“There is a need to create ideals even when you can’t see any route by which to achieve them, because if there are no ideals then there can be no hope and then one would be completely in the dark, in a hopeless blind alley.”---Andrei Sakharov

[Kablooie]

8. All well and good but...

you never explained how fruit can fly inside a bottle.

[glitch]

10. He did mention grapes becoming alcohol. Connect the dots. ;) nt

[libodem]

9. Ahhh, yes

Shitting yourself out of the petree dish.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Outstanding!

Thanks for the thread, Ernest.:thumbsup:

[disillusioned73]

12. Incredible post - thank you

I plan to come back and check out the links

[Gregorian]

13. An extremely important subject. Sadly, even though we see the general, we don't see the specific.

And even though a few of us are trying to make changes, the many don't seem willing to change. Because change is what it's going to take. And not just technical change, but the mundane. The little things. Like having babies, and driving. Don't touch the individual's life. But yet, individuals are what comprise the mass that is strangling the planet.

Unless this was supposed to happen. In which case, we're the fools.

[DeSwiss]

14. K&R

I agree with the points made in your post, and yet I also realize that warnings that we were headed this way were given long ago:

In 1965, in an article in Horizon, I coined the term "future shock" to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Fascinated by this concept, I spent the next five years visiting scores of universities, research centers, laboratories, and government agencies, reading countless articles and scientific papers and interviewing literally hundreds of experts on different aspects of change, coping behavior, and the future. Nobel prizewinners, hippies, psychiatrists, physicians, businessmen, professional futurists, philosophers, and educators gave voice to their concern over change, their anxieties about adaptation, their fears about the future. I came away from this experience with two disturbing convictions.

First, it became clear that future shock is no longer a distantly potential danger, but a real sickness from which increasingly large numbers already suffer. This psycho-biological condition can be described in medical and psychiatric terms. It is the disease of change.

Second, I gradually came to be appalled by how little is actually known about adaptivity, either by those who call for and create vast changes in our society, or by those who supposedly prepare us to cope with those changes. Earnest intellectuals talk bravely about "educating for change" or "preparing people for the future." But we know virtually nothing about how to do it. In the most rapidly changing environment to which man has ever been exposed, we remain pitifully ignorant of how the human animal copes.

Our psychologists and politicians alike are puzzled by the seemingly irrational resistance to change exhibited by certain individuals and groups. The corporation head who wants to reorganize a department, the educator who wants to introduce a new teaching method, the mayor who wants to achieve peaceful integration of the races in his city—all, at one time or another, face this blind resistance. Yet we know little about its sources. By the same token, why do some men hunger, even rage for change, doing all in their power to create it, while others flee from it? I not only found no ready answers to such questions, but discovered that we lack even an adequate theory of adaptation, without which it is extremely unlikely that we will ever find the answers. ~ Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (1970)

If Alvin Toffler's 1970 perspective was ignored by us back then, so too are the warnings and recommendations that others are making now:

The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts.

The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth of large groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment. So to put this into a sentence: "Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit."

Progressive advancement in science and technology which can solve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment's servicing of those issues obsolete. Therefore in a monetary system corporations aren't just in competition with each other, they're in competition with progress itself. That is why social-change is so difficult within a monetary system. In other words, the established monetary system refuses to allow free-flowing change.

Today we use paper proclamations to denote a person's so-called 'rights.' And just like laws, they are culturally biased, artificial concoctions which attempt to solve recurring problems by simply declaring something with words on paper. Rights, in fact, have been invented to protect ourselves from the negative byproducts of the social system itself. And once again instead of seeking a true solution to a problem, we invent these patches by way of paper proclamations in an attempt to resolve them. This does not work. It has never worked. There is really no such thing as an inalienable right outside of the culture in which it is assumed. We are making this up. Therefore liberties need to be inherent in a social system by design not alluded to ambiguously on paper.

In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more. In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design.

There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendments is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

I’m not saying that laws and rights are not needed at this time. They certainly are. But we need to hone our focus toward solving the actual problems. And by the way for all the nationalists out there, I'm not attacking the US Constitution. However, it's not the answer. It's naive to think that this document has that much relevance. I am a fan of people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinch, I believe that there is a place for the work that they do. But it's not the answer. The history of America is just like the history of every other country on this planet: It is a history of deception, fraud and corruption. There is nothing to 'return to' for the integrity was never there to begin with. We must move forward, not backwards.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order.

In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance. ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmHaTirnCc">Peter Joseph


At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was no, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war. In a resource-based economy all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative. ~ http://www.thevenusproject.com/a-new-social-design/resource-based-economy">Jacques Fresco, The Venus Project

[liberation]

37. Very insightful post.

Thanks for sharing.

[DeSwiss]

44. You're welcome. n/t

[Raster]

15. Bookmarked! Thank you for posting. It's good to see you posting at DU again.

:kick:

[raouldukelives]

16. k&r

[indepat]

17. While a word to the wise is sufficient, this entire brilliant treatise won't have a whit of impact

on those who have created and continue to exacerbate the staggering problems confronting mankind and literally threatening the planet's ability to sustain life as we know it. ;)

[Gregorian]

19. Yep. It's rather discouraging. This specie, not unlike others, only responds to crisis.

Fixed amount of resources, essentially. Exponential increase in those using the resources. Not to mention the suffering endured by those of us sitting here observing it, knowing where it probably leads.

Then again, lately I've been thinking that this may be what is supposed to happen. I really don't think so. But instead of always acting as if I know what is happening, maybe I don't. I like to preserve beauty and happiness. There's enough suffering already. I guess only a few of us can actually see that for some reason. Why else would people sit at home while Iraqi's were being slaughtered and poisoned by depleted Uranium. I'm wasting my breath. Which is why I no longer post on forums like this one. Not unless it's to support a thread like this one.

[indepat]

20. You are not wasting your breath for you now know at least one other person cares that Iraqis were

being slaughtered and poisoned by depleted uranium, but sadly far too few seemingly care a whit: surely it is not that we as a people are largely devoid of humanity, but if so, the multitudes have a strange way of showing that humanity imo. ;)

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. The title reminds me of an old phrase

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a bananna."

I was thinking that inventing fruit that flies into the bottle would be a really good idea.

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Brilliant and fascinating.

[Gator_Matt]

22. What can we do? Be more like New Zealand perhaps.

Seems as though we can:

1. Vote for pro-environment candidates (unfortunately fairly rare)
2. Recycle
3. Reduce energy use
4. Buy environmentally friendlier products


Some countries do seem to have a more responsible approach. Take a look at New Zealand. 1/3 of the country is a national park. They generally refuse mining operations, and they're a nuclear free zone. Their refusal to exploit the environment may mean a lower per capita income, but their quality of life is through the roof.

[Gregorian]

25. The single most important thing we can do

Stop reproducing. It is an emergency situation we're in. Most people can't look at it. Most are unconscious of it. But then most people aren't even conscious of their own bodies.

This is a subject I have pretty much devoted my entire life to. I hate to say that because it feels like wasted effort. When one truly understands the exponential curve, they see that there is no denying that this is an emergency. Something will stop it. Disease, war, resource depletion, or a conscious and humane and responsible decision to simply stop making new humans.

And here's just one argument in favor of that theory. Even if we improve our technologies in energy conversion by 100%, we will still not only defeat that in the near future due to both increases in the number of people, but also the number of users. And on top of it, we are artificially sustaining our food production through the manufacturing of nitrogen that we supercharge our farms with. And it's killing our oceans. Technology isn't going to fix most of our problems.

We're already way way way over the limit.

The key is recognizing that there are limits. Something Americans in particular just don't like acknowledging.

My prediction is a slow, smoldering wreckage that emerges. People are still breeding, but at a slower rate. It's a competition between us and the planet. And we will do damage to the planet, leaving it a far less diverse place. But our unsustainable way of living will change to something more in line with the equilibrium that the earth can sustain.

And then, no one actually knows what is going on. I've been thinking lately that perhaps this was all supposed to happen. Maybe there is a destiny whereby the earth being damaged is part of the plan. I really don't think so. I am currently in a phase of my life where I don't drink or smoke any more. And I'm now racing bicycles. The act of doing so has given me some amazing realizations. My body is like the planet. When running well it can be magnificent. When not, it's a real drag. And on that note, I'm taking a shower after my daily 20 mile ride through the forest.

[tclambert]

23. Very disturbing. Fruit flies have the advantage.

They don't know they are headed for destruction. How much worse is it to see it coming, and not be able to stop it?

We need to open the bottle. We need to get off this tiny planet.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

24. Thanks for posting this.

Recommended

[nashville_brook]

26. big f'n k and r

[keepCAblue]

27. Agent Smith said it best....

Agent Smith:

I'd like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we... are the cure.

[BrklynLiberal]

30. Kurt Vonnegut described humans as a virus that is infecting the Earth..and she is doing her best to

rid herself of us...

Vonnegut quotes

# "We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."
# "We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should." "I don't want to belong to a country that attacks little countries."

[Gregorian]

33. Vonnegut is one of the very few people who impressed me on this subject.

Not many people utter the "P" word.

The other is RFK jr. He also uttered the word.

I always thought the human race was bright and aware. Look at all we've done. But it's like the backside of intelligence. Bright people are doing stupid things. Like not seeing that having a bunch of children is fueling a serious problem. It boils down to personal responsibility. People think they are divorced from the rest of the world. They think that what they do is confined to their private world. No. That is not the case. "Just me". "Only me". "I'm only going to do it one time". "It's just one trip". Whatever we do is multiplied by BILLIONS. So "Just me" is really just me times a billion. This is what people are delusional about. They'll argue that it's dictatorial. That it is not the case. That the logic is flawed.

I wish we could spend more time talking about this subject. Population Connection is beginning a speaking tour. But the audience isn't there.

Oh well.

[BrklynLiberal]

35. What I find depressing is that mostly,the intelligent, thoughtful people ARE limiting their families

It is far and away the ignorant, fanatical, fundamentalist, "god will provide" types who are out there having kids by the litterful.

Eventually their numbers alone will spell disaster for all of us.

Think of them as the kudzu of the human race...

[Gregorian]

39. Yes, but...

Looking at the exponential curve what we see is that for all of eternity we could have as many children as we wanted, and even though we were doubling the population, it was still sustained by a planet in equilibrium. Now, however, even small changes have huge consequences. That is why even having any children has a big impact on the number of people present at this time.

There is also the other factor in the equation. We all want health care, heat, etc. As the relatively undeveloped rest of the world begins living the way we're used to, the situation will become even more exacerbated. What I mean is that even the way things are, global warming is moving rapidly. Even with zero population growth we're in trouble. Even small growth is not sustainable at this stage in our existence.

I cringe whenever the word "growth" is even mentioned. Little do people realize. If we grow at 3% per year, we double in size in 24 years. We're playing with fire.

I'm just really glad to be able to even have this conversation. It's why I came to DU all of those years ago. Yeah, Bush sucked, but I realized that he paled in comparison to this subject.

[BrklynLiberal]

43. So we want not only ot survive, but thrive...

I cannot get over the feeling that we are doomed...

[Gregorian]

45. Resiliance

I smoked and drank for years. Now I'm 54, and I've begun a program to transform myself. And it's working. I've ridden to mountain bike races in the last month, and been on the podium twice. Granted, I have a way to go before I am truly competitive. But we're talking about a living organism. What was thought to be extinct might not be. Some crucial life forms may exist that will enable other life to flourish. Even long after we're gone.

What is on my mind lately is that we don't know what is going on here. Are there other earths? Is this one doomed, and yet of little consequence? Tell that to the people who are suffering. That is real as hell. But still we don't know. It's like racing. I almost didn't enter the one race that was really tough. Tough enough that Levi Leipheimer showed up for it. I trained for a month to get ready. I worried that I wouldn't be able to finish. Off the starting line I felt like it was going to all go badly. Then half way I realized I was going to not only make it, but do rather well. And there are so many factors going on all at the same time. Here we now have the internet for sharing information. Not only are we discussing the perils of population in combination with combustion as a means of energy conversion, but we're combining our knowledge in order to avoid disaster. It looks like melting ice caps are irreversible, and disaster looms ahead.

I also feel that we're doomed. But now I am working to keep conscious of what other possibilities might exist. That perhaps quantum transformations in engineering and physics may turn things around. For me, it already is over. I grew up in San Francisco when there were dairy farms. And I've been emotionally crushed since the first 7-11's went in. When my fields were destroyed for condominiums. I used to jog in the field where Google now exists. I love beauty and silence. Silence. And I've just spent the last 15 years buying and selling real estate in an attempt to find silence. And it's disturbing to realize that it doesn't really exist any more. So I'm not preaching. I also hurt for what has happened. Yet I want to keep an open mind. I do not know the truth. I only see a snapshot. It looks bad to me. But maybe that's just me. And even if it is bad, maybe that was supposed to be. I suppose this is all a bit contradictory and confusing.

I am trying, and I am also part of the problem. It's weird.

[BrklynLiberal]

46. I guess, to some extent, everyone is part of the problem, no matter how hard they do try.

I am bookmarking your post.

I am going to reread it every time I feel a bit discouraged.

It sounds like you have done a great job of turning yourself and your life around..and making yourself as useful, and peaceful
as possible.

I wish I could overcome the inertia I feel, and do the same thing.

I happen to live in a lovely area..right on the ocean, and it is quiet..except for hurricanes and such. It truly
is an oasis of peace and quiet in the midst of the NYC insanity.
You can check it out here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/realestate/05living.html


But I intended to move out to Portland Oregon decades ago..and find a quiet, peaceful way of life there.

It never happened, and I have given up on my dreams.

Your post makes me think that perhaps it is not too late.

We each have to find out own little piece of peace, so to speak.

Thanks.

[Gregorian]

47. Thanks so much.

I have had the same discouragement since just before I could drive. That was a long time ago. I'm still not free of concern. I think it just means we care.

And how cool. I also am on the coast. I've got a beautiful ranch with redwoods. After the last post, I opened my door, and there was a mother turkey and her five young ones. And occasionally I hear seals about a mile away on the beach. One reason I'm here is that Mendocino is much like Berkeley or San Francisco in the political sentiment of the locals.

I'm still trying to sort it all out. I'm a purist. I want silence and beauty. I've gone for the monk lifestyle. But now I'm in a community where the people are real, and I am beginning to get involved. I did trail work with the mountain bike club a couple of days ago. A bunch of 50-70 year old men on bikes! Like kids. I sometimes think that what is important is spiritual. As in, relationships and sharing. But I do long for the days when animals flourished, and silence was broken only by birds. Well, it's too blue and nice outside. I've got to go out into the non-virtual world for a bit. :)

[MrMickeysMom]

40. If we did spend more time talking about it...

What would we file it under?

[bread_and_roses]

48. I admire your personal journey. But "personal responsibility" is not the solution

People will never stop having children. Not most of us, at any rate. The urge not only to reproduce but to nurture is too strong.

"Personal responsibility" leads down the road we are on - where we're told that we can consume as much as we want as long as we "recycle" or "buy green" or whatever the current catchword is.

When the entire system is unsustainable, individuals cannot make responsible choices that make a real impact. And there will never be enough trying. Life is just way too hard for most people. What does one tell the villager cutting down trees to make the fire that will cook the grain that will feed his/her child? To let the child go hungry?

We're not even able to make responsible choices all the time under much more favorable conditions. I remember when my daughter was young, and about 90% of the time I managed to feed her healthy, home-prepared food - despite working full time. But some nights I was just too tired. I told myself, of course, that it's just now again, just once in a while as I bought the packaged or processed or fast food. But of course, multiply even my rare capitulations a zillion times and you have the disastrous feed-lots poisoning the earth, abusing the animals, feeding the grain that people need to fatten the meat that we in the industrial world will eat...pollution, cruelty, global starvation...the same with the occasional cheap junk from China I'd let her buy, or being too tired or broke to do the work of seeking out American made shoes or union-made clothes...(which of course one can't even find any more).

So maybe a system that requires a couple working 90+ hours a week, driving a child to-and-from child-care before-and-after work, etc., etc. to be the sole caretakers of even one child is simply not sustainable? The solution of not having even that one child is not one most people will accept - the desire is too deep, the drive too strong.

It is only systematic change that can address the environmental disaster, the mass species extinction we are already experiencing and which, as noted, will only get much worse. And we see no sign of that happening. The inertia of any system, combined with the vast wealth of the exploiters is too much. There is very little if any hope for us. Or for the most of the earth's species.

[Gregorian]

49. I disagree.

And I'll just leave it at that.

Edit- I will add a comment. Our numbers are what fuel the corporations.

[bread_and_roses]

50. The only reliable method I've ever read of for reducing birth rates

is to raise the status of women while raising the standard of living. People who feel reasonably secure that two children are likely to grow up, and societies where women have choices, tend to reduce birthrates. I could look up citations, but I honestly don't have the time.

However, the only way our societies seem to know how to raise the standard of living is to increase consumption - a solution that the earth cannot sustain.

Of course, we could re-define "standard of living" to mean living in communities with sustainable local agriculture, sustainable small-scale manufacturing of essential goods, acceptable levels of medical care available to all, ideally some sort of communal child-rearing that is safer for the children and saner for the adults than the nuclear family. But such redefinition is a systems change, and I see no evidence that it will be accomplished by "personal responsibility" or "personal choices."

I would be happy to reconsider my premise if I knew of any reason at all to do so.

[Gregorian]

51. I think you are right on about that.

I am torn between this paradox/dilemma.

I see two curves. Population and usage of resources per capita. If we were to go backwards, we could save the planet. But then what about penicillin, electricity, refrigeration, internet? We could go back to starting fires in caves. But nobody wants that. It's our lack of consciousness of the population problem that has allowed us to sleep through what is now a disaster. I now believe that the one most important means by which we will become aware, and change our pattern of birthing, is through the refinement of the modern society. I've fought this for a long time. But as I have witnessed the global changes that have come to fruition through the invention of the internet, I can see that this could be just what was needed. It has created "one mind" of all of the individual minds on the planet. A sort of global consciousness.

I will admit that much of my trouble with population is selfish. I worry about whether we will kill the planet before the decrease in population/consumption occurs. But I'm personally more distraught about my surroundings. I remember San Francisco when there were dairy farms. I was happy. I loved it. And then the hoards descended upon the place. And why not? It's far better than Oklahoma. So now I'm no longer living where I wanted to live because it's not desirable to me. But that's all another issue.

When I ask which came first, the corporation or population, I see just what is fueling the mess we're in today. With every new child in a modern society, we are literally voting to be dependent upon those factories that keep us supplied. There were no corporations until we had to create ways to supply our demand of resources in a more convenient and bigger way. Not the other way around.

There is a simple answer. But unless people are willing to alter their habits of consumption and birthing, we'll just have to watch this race play out. I think it's obscene and tragic. And I agree that those who claim to be in governance have a responsibility to bring this issue to the forefront. To discuss limits. But we have all seen what happens when birth rates slow. Governments go nuts. Growth is all important to economies. But economies depend directly upon resources.

[bread_and_roses]

54. And I share your sadness for the land

I do not know SF, but I've seen other places sprawled...where there was once green space. I've seen the local dairy industry in my part of NY mostly die off too ... We slog on, in our small ways doing our best to live sanely with the earth, doing our best to be some small part of working for change.

[BrklynLiberal]

29. I have this sick feeling that it is already too late for the human race to survive on this planet

:-(

Are we capable of the sea change that would be needed to ensure our survival and that of our children and their children?
:shrug:

[Hawkowl]

53. You're quite right

And no, humanity in its present form is not capable of the sea change (did you intend that pun?).

Humans will probably survive. Just in vastly diminished number and in new and exciting cultural combinations! (Exciting is a bad term. Like when people ask me is my job exciting? And I tell them only on bad days (airline pilot)

[nannah]

31. thanks!!!!!! clear and thoughtful presentation of status quo

but how to counter this????????

One thing that i have suggested (with minimal response) was to brainstorm a way to let the obvious money expenditures trigger a negative response to the message. neutralize the power of money in elections.... make that a focus of strategy brain storming rather than how to raise more money.

use their "power" achieved because of their "money" as a negative in the minds of the voters.

how can this be done???? let's at least ask the question?

[babsbunny]

32. I wish I was smart enough to get this.................

Thanks! I'll keep trying to get it!

[Ignis]

34. K&R. GREAT Diamond references.

:yourock:

[live love laugh]

36. "..the global atmosphere is proving itself to be totally indifferent to public opinion..." AMEN nt

[mia]

38. Best post on DU ever; if only the powers that be cared enough.

I should turn down the thermostat on my air conditioner, but it feels so good to be cool.

[rucky]

41. That was awesome.

I think I need a cigarette.

[KoKo]

55. Another Good One...Keep 'em Coming. And Thanks!

:kick: