Discuss: Change Everything Now

http://www.greenuniversity.net/Ideas_to_Change_the_World/Rothschild.htm

Fairings thinks it’s “tiring” to hear about the chimera of human overpopulation. I would suggest that the thousands of species we humans have driven to extinction are even more tired of hearing the ineffective arguments.

Just spread the resources equally, Fairings says. Well, since Americans are now consuming 23 times the world average, I imagine that he would be happy living on an annual income of $2000.

It requires 1.25 acres of land to feed one person, and the annual population increase requires an additional 12.3 million acres be put into production - which is the primary cause of forest destruction contributing to global warming, species extinction, loss of soil and myriad other environmental calamities.

The “free” services that nature provides to the human economy are worth more than the combined GDPs of all nations on Earth, and population pressures are destroying that storehouse.

Considering food, fiber and energy needs, even of a conserving and egalitarian culture, it is feasible that the planet can sustain a human population of 1.5 to 3 billion.

The unchecked growth of human population is parasitic on the life support systems of the planet and is fast destroying its host.

What I find “tiring” is a refusal to take an honest look at reality and make responsible choices that reflect our proper role in the web of life. If I were a polar bear, I’d be completely disgusted with attitudes such as Fairing’s.

I haven’t been active in the environmental movement since moving from Vermont to live with my disabled sister in Maine about 12 years ago, though I continue to write, put out my newsletter, and certainly keep up with what’s going on. But what I have noticed is the concerted lack of an overarching movement such as existed in the past, and even in the not-so-distant (late 1980s - mid 1990s) past. During that time I remember speaking at numerous conferences and “gatherings” held around the country. The gatherings were often specifically for activists working on issues, a way for us to stay in touch and plan strategies together that we would implement when we left. Meeting face-to-face, spending time together, meeting new people, sharing ideas, and also taking the time to appreciate a different enviroment (like visiting old growth, something we no longer have much of in New England) was, it seems to me, an important part of movement building. Today we have the internet and e-mail but it’s not the same, especially so if you don’t really know those you’re connecting online with. What I sense is that, like Hawkins’ book details, there are lots of various organizations and groups doing good stuff but very little connection between them. In this kind of environment a movement cannot be built, not like what we need to mobilize millions of us to ACT NOW.  I’m not advocating that we all start flying around the country. It’s a different world now than it was when that’s what I did. But we need to find some way to rebuild the connections and relationships that have withered or even comletely disappeared. And online just doesn’t cut it all the time. Perhaps regional gatherings we can car pool or take a bus or train to would work and then somehow find ways of connecting these regional gatherings so that a national/international movement exists.

Re: population. I know this is a major issue and at the same time I understand those who get “tired” of hearing about it. Beyond personal choices, it doesn’t seem right to tell other women what to do, and while I know (as I said) numbers are important, developed world consumption is a huge part of the problem, as is undeveloped world poverty. Women’s economic opportunity is key here, along with access to reliable birth control and community/family security. Robert R., I agree with what you’re saying, but when you write about people making “responsible choices that reflect our proper role” this can (and should) include much more than simply whether or not to procreate. However, as a woman, mother, and now grandmother I know that such decisions are not always cut-and-dried. Birth control fails, not everyone wants to have an abortion and on one should be forced to have one (just as no one should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term). And while I love my grandsons, I have not, and will not, ever pressure my kids to have more babies so I can have more grandkids. I have also made sure they know I’m totally fine with having no more grandkids and have also mentioned the possibility of adoption as an option if they really have to have kids. But I cannot tell them what to do and I won’t. Sorry for rambling. It’s just that when we talk about population we have to be clear that this is a touchy subject and very, very personal on many levels. As I noted once at a conference several years ago, it is more often than not white, middle-class men who bring up the population issue. Something to look at, I think. (And now I cringe waiting the responses).

smlowry: “it is more often than not white, middle-class men who bring up the population issue.”

Perhaps. But though I’m white, I’m working class and live voluntarily at a subsistence level.

While I agree that any kind of legal control over reproduction treads dangerously close to eugenics (unless it’s applied universally, as in China), and cultural restraints don’t work in a multi-cultural society, either we begin to procreate responsibly or Mother Nature will take matters into her own hands.

And while it’s true that improving economic opportunity for poor populations, and in particular for women, decreases the birth rate, it is irresponsible to increase economic activity somewhere else without a complementary decrease in consumption here in the first world.

But I hold little hope in humankind’s willingness to self-limit either our population growth or our resource exploitation. My hope resides in pandemics and the increasingly cataclysmic weather events that we have brought upon ourselves like biblical plagues.

The root of our problem can be seen in our willingness to celebrate a massive die-off of rats or cockroaches, for instance, but our abhorence of the prospect of a similar die-off of the human population.

As long as we deem ourselves more worthy of life than rats and cockroaches (or condors and polar bears), we will continue to overspread the Earth like a cancer.

Odd that we consider it heroic to give one’s life for his/her country but idiotic or immoral to give one’s life for the Earth.

As a white, middle-class male American, I want to follow up on the previous two comments.  Can any of us really imagine how to get to a sustainable global society from where we are now?  We participants in this discussion might, as armchair advocates for sustainability and justice, imagine agreeing to live on $2000/yr; but can we imagine a majority of our fellow Americans (not to mention the rest of the developed world) doing the same? 

On the subject of procreation, it’s true that the choice of whether and how much is intensely personal.  I have no children, and have ensured that I never will. I won’t claim to be motivated by selflessness, however: I just never wanted to be bothered with kids.

By the same token, I’m skeptical that enough of the world’s people will be willing to sacrifice their own interests, in order to make the huge changes that are required. Our present predicament resulted from the Tragedy of the Commons.  I’d love to be shown a plausible way out, but I can’t contruct one myself.

Robert, I basically agree with everything you said in your latest post, especially re: humans being one species on Earth. I’ve not heard anyone saying it’s immoral to give one’s life for the Earth, but do agree that most people just don’t understand what might compel someone to feel so strongly about a particular place (like old growth, for example) that they willingly risk serious injury or death to defend it. To me such actions are heroic.

It must be difficult to find hope in pandemics and cataclysmic weather events, though intellectually I certainly understand. For myself, I find hope in the beauty and resilience of Nature, in the vast unknowns of consciousness (and the possibilities inherent in what we don’t know), and in the reality of how humans (just one species here as you said) and nonhumans, including Earth (and ultimately Universe and Cosmos though I’ve no personal experience with these that I can grasp) can – actually must – participate together, vastly expanding the nature of our relationship and how we live. You can roll your eyes if you like, but I’m simply basing my hope on my own, felt experiences. I compare it to what happened after my sister was seriously brain injured in a car accident 26 years ago. First the doctors said she would not live, then when she failed to die they said she would be a vegetable. But I didn’t buy it, knowing my sister, and having faith in Love and Spirit. I told her doctor that my hope for my sister’s recovery lay in their ignorance (of the brain’s ability to heal). Needless to say, my sister is not a vegetable. She isn’t exactly the way she was before the brain injury, but she has a good life. I know my sister is not the Earth, but there is so much we don’t know, I have to believe that not everything we don’t know is bad (like climate change progressing faster than anyone thought, etc.). Perhaps we don’t know about healing or the power of love and the Earth. I’m not counting on things working out, but I’m not discounting the possibility either.

Thank you smlowry, that was well said about expanding the nature of our relationships. I have been an activist publisher, writer, artist and grassroots rabble rouser for the better part of 35 years. I find bittersweet satisfaction in seeing more people begin to understand what some of us saw a long time ago about the cancerous growth of corporate greed raping the soul of this society. I am sad beyond words but not surprised at the mess we’ve gotten ourselves in environmentally.

I’ve worked with others in trying to shed some light on the situation in many different ways over the years. I am now disabled myself from environmental illness. Too many toxic exposures.

These days I focus my writing on reminding people what it’s like to live in harmony with the natural world through my website and blog at http://goodwordswan.wildflowerstew.com because I came to see that you can put all the facts and suggestions in the world out there but if people aren’t motivated - nothing will happen.

Everyone has a place somewhere inside that links to the natural world. I believe it is an innate part of our makeup to want to be in harmony with the natural world around us. Even if you live in the most artificial urban environment, there is still a sky overhead and maybe even grass poking through the cracks in the parking lot.

There is a force there that can’t be tabulated, sold off, or claimed for profit. That, I believe, is where our power lies and what will motivate us to save ourselves from our own foolishness.

Yes, Rebecca. I totally agree. And what a beautiful website/blog. Thanks for sharing it. I’ll visit it every once in a while.