Earth Day Cometh and Earth Day Goeth (and Where Have All the Bees Gone?)
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Having been an environmental activist since 1968, I have seen the movement go up and down like a roller coaster in popularity. It was big in 1972 with the Environmental Conference in Stockholm, which I attended, and it became big again in 1992 with the United Nations Environmental Conference in Rio De Janeiro that I also attended. I remember that the priority issue in 1972 was the danger of escalating human populations, but by 1992, that concern was not even on the agenda.
Well, we are approaching the end of another 20-year period and it looks like ecology is in vogue again thanks to global warming and a few other scary things. Green is once again popular.
It’s global warming now. When we were trying to warn people about global warming and climate change twenty years ago, no one was interested. Now it’s become the “in” issue and the big organizations are tapping the public for donations to address the problem although no one has come up with anything that makes much sense. But global warming is good for business if you’re one of the big bureaucratic organizations whose primary concern is really corporate self-preservation.
But let’s look at the number one cause of global greenhouse gas emissions: First and foremost it is human over-population – the very same issue that was the priority concern at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm. It’s 6.5 billion people folks. Remember in 1950, the world population was 3 billion. It’s now more than doubled. 6.5 billion people produce one hell of an annual output of waste and utilize an unbelievable amount of resources and energy. And this number is rising minute by minute, day by day, year by year.
And most of the people having children have no idea why they are even having children other than that’s what you do. Most of them don’t really love their children because if they did, they would be very much involved in trying to ensure that their children have a world to survive in.
Unless over-population is addressed, there is absolutely no way of slowing down global greenhouse gas emissions. But how do you do that within the context of economic systems that require larger and larger numbers to perform the essential task of consuming products? Corporations need workers and buyers. Governments need taxpayers, bureaucrats, and soldiers. More people means more money.
I’ve said for decades that the solution to all of our problems is simple. We just need to live in accordance with the three basic laws of ecology.
First is the Law of Diversity. The strength of an ecosystem lies in diversity of species within it. Weaken diversity and the entire system will be weakened and will ultimately collapse.
Second is the Law of Interdependence. All of the species within an ecosystem are interdependent. We need each other.
And the third law of Ecology is the Law of Finite Resources. There is a limit to growth because there is a limit to carrying capacity.
Human populations are exceeding ecological carrying capacity. Exceeding ecological carrying capacity is diminishing both resources and diversity of species. The diminishment of diversity is causing serious problems with interdependence.
Consider the humble honey bee and remember that the little black and yellow insect you see flitting busily from flower to flower is all that stands between us and our demise as a species on this planet. We better see to it that they don’t disappear.
full article
http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_070420_1.html
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