Humans vs. the environment - A thought experiment

[Guest guest]

How long have you been aware of this? For me, it's been a few years. Have I done anything about it? NOT Really!

Ok, so I try to cut back on driving the car. I run all of my errands at one time. But I haven't put my 3 wheel bicycle together, that could be used locally.

Have I cut back on electricity? Well, I don't unplug everything. I did switch to energy saving bulbs and I try to keep the electronics off, if I am not paying attention to them, like TVs. But to unplug everything, and only plug it in when we need it, is hard because of where the outlets are. Hmm. Will have to look into that.

Do I recycle. No, but our garbage pickup doesn't recycle. But I could separate the plastic, glass & paper from rest of the junk and take them to where ever they have drops.

Do I purchase because I want something or need it? Oh, It's needed or I won't buy it.

Do I collect rain for water plants? Well we do have one rainbarrel now and I am please with it, so we will be adding more of the same.

What other ways, can we as individuals do to help save? The first that we need to do, it make All aware of the critical need of saving our environment. It's going to be difficult. Americans are spoiled. They want life easy. They are impractical. Instead of driving an economical vehicle, if they can afford to, they will buy a gas hog. Even if they can't afford it, they will buy it for the status symbol. Americans are so busy, we don't look farther than our noses. It needs to change, as the article below points out. It's going to take effort on our parts. Blessings, Joy

http://www.naturalnews.com/029056_environmental_protection_population_control.html

Humans vs. the environment - A thought experiment

(NaturalNews) Protecting the environment isn't a "liberal" idea; it's everybody's business. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, the environment provides life support for us all, and if we fail to recognize that, we are truly doomed as a civilization.To help explain this, I've put together a simple thought experiment. It begins with three undeniable truths about humans and the environment:Truth #1 - The Earth's resources are limited.This should be self-evidence, but some people still don't get it. The Earth's resources -- oil, forests, water, energy, and so on -- are finite. They do not exist in infinite quantities. If they did, they would obviously be larger than the Earth itself (and would, in fact, fill the universe). But they don't fill the universe. They are contained within the boundaries of planet Earth, and therefore they are limited.Of course, many of Earth's resources can be either regenerated or recycled, but that only happens over time -- usually a long time. In the case of oil, it's hundreds of thousands of years. For fossil water it's much the same. The rate at which modern human civilization is using up these resources is orders of magnitude faster than the rate at which they can be naturally regenerated. This holds true for oil, water, topsoil, forests and more.Truth #2 - Each person living in modern civilization consumes some amount of the Earth's limited resources.This should also be self-evident: People consume resources. When you drive your car, you're obviously consuming limited natural resources. When you buy a car, you're consuming many other natural resources (all the elements that went into making a car), too. This is true even when you buy a solar panel.Every time you turn on a light switch, or open a package of food, or swallow a piece of food, you are consuming some amount of the Earth's limited resources.The sum of your consumption is called your "ecological footprint," and your ecological footprint is much larger than the immediate space you might call your home. The things you consume in your home require the resources of a much larger area far outside your home.A human child born in America today, for example, will consume 45,000 pounds of metal in their lifetime (through the products they purchase). That's 45,000 pounds of metal that must be mined, processed, transported and manufactured into consumable products, and metal mining is a very dirty business, by the way, even if that metal goes into making clean energy devices such as wind turbines.Truth #3 - Humans are altering the environmentYou can't argue with this (although some people ridiculously try). Human activity is altering our environment in a huge way, from the massive deforestation of the planet to the release of gases into the atmosphere. We've poisoned the rivers, destroyed natural habitat, polluted the oceans (Gulf of Mexico, anyone?) and altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere. These are undeniable scientific truths. No sane person can reasonably argue that human beings have not radically altered the environment of our planet over the last 200 years.If you visited North America 200 years ago, for example, you wouldn't even have recognized it as the same continent dominated by human beings today. A few hundred years ago, North America was teeming with life, with huge old-growth forests, pristine rivers and abundant plains. Today it is relatively dead, having been over-developed, over-paved and over-population to a point so extreme that our ancestors would largely consider it "dead".Truth #4 - Humans really like to have babiesThis is also self-evidence: People like to procreate. Every family, it seems, wants children, and those children want their own children, too. In general, human beings want to procreate without limitation. This, of course, leads to an explosion in population growth. We've seen this explosion over the last two hundred years as the Earth's population has grown from less than one billion people in 1800 to nearly seven billion today.Human beings do not consider their impact on the global population when they procreate. The decision to have children is made privately, selfishly, without regard to the impact on the planet. One more child seems like no big deal from the point of view of a couple that wishes for another son or daughter, but multiplied by billions, these decisions to procreate en masse lead to overpopulation, which leads to over-consumption of the planet's limited resources.

The Easter Island effectNow let's work our little thought experiment. Given the four simple truths described above, it is only a matter of time before the continued procreation of human beings collides with the reality of limited resources, causing a crisis of unsustainability.At some point, in other words, the continued expansion of human beings will destroy so much of the natural environment (and use so many natural resources) that there will not be enough resources available to support the continuation of the existing population.I call this the "Easter Island effect," in reference to the way in which the natives of Easter Island chopped down all their trees to build ever-larger monuments to themselves, and in doing so they destroyed their entire ecosystem and soon perished. The entire human civilization is now pulling an Easter Island on a global scale.

Our two choicesGiven that the unlimited expansion of the human population must inevitably use up key resources required to sustain human life, it stands to reason that there are only two choices for how we human beings can choose to deal with the situation:Choice #1 - We can acknowledge the ecological impact of human beings on our planet and make conscious choices to live within the bounds of sustainable balance with our planet (i.e. keeping our population size relatively stable by limiting runaway population growth, reducing our ecological footprint, respecting the natural environment that supports life on our planet, etc.).Choice #2 - We can continue our mindless population expansion and resource exploitation while ignoring any long-term consequences. This is the definition of stupidity, and yet it is precisely the path that modern human civilization is now choosing. It also seems to be the chosen path of "anti-environmentalists" -- people who resist the idea that we need to protect the environment at all.Sadly, human civilization has decided to go with choice #2. I believe the future of modern civilization is now set. Population expansion and resource depletion will soon collide with the limitations of our planet and result in a cataclysmic collapse of our civilization. We human beings are pulling off the Easter Island scenario, but with more than just trees: We're doing it with oil, water, soil and habitat. We are destroying the only planet that can keep us alive, and there now appears to be no stopping this self-destructive tendency of the human species.I have personally seen no evidence that the current human species is capable of long-term, sustainable balance with any ecosystem. It lacks the intelligent foresight necessary to anticipate such outcomes and make adjustments well in advance of them coming true. Some people among us even argue against environmental protection, not realizing they are essentially arguing for their own self-destruction.Other who are more thoughtful argue only against the fear of a world government enforcing environmental regulations at the expense of losing personal freedoms. This is a legitimate concern, and I happen to agree with these concerns. "Protecting the environment" can all too easily become a slippery mantra for world domination over individual freedom. The best way to avoid losing freedom while saving our environment is through education of the public that urges people to make better decisions without turning them into criminals if they fail to make those decisions