On a Sustainable Future on Earth
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by The Irish William Wallace
I think there is a misunderstanding of what a sustainable future means, and I also think there are far too few people who realize that if humans as a species continue to damage the incredibly complex and extremely fragile ecosystems present on this earth, at the rate we are currently damaging them, there will be nothing left to sustain in the future. When you deforest, or hunt animals to the brink of extinction, you eliminate pieces of a massively complex ecosystem that thrives on a large amount of both botanic and animal biodiversity. If you slowly (note we aren't doing this very slowly, rather quickly in fact) eliminate the elements that make up the biodiversity that allows an ecosystem to thrive, that ecosystem will inevitably collapse. The conservation of every life form on the planet is essential. Most of it was here before we were, and humans have become entirely alien to this world. We are reliant on nature in literally every way imaginable, so I urge you to make a conscious effort to stop ruining your home, and the home of billions of different life forms.
We, as humans, are the ultimate species on this planet, therefore, we should be effectively preserving life on this planet, rather than destroying it in some ill-fated attempt to build more things we simply do not need, and should be accosted for continuing to create. We are an absolutely incredible race, but we have become a terroristic threat to all life on this planet, including our own. People need to wake up and realize that the time for skepticism is over.
We are facing real problems with more severe consequences than you can imagine; the end of most life on this planet. We are currently unsustainable, that is a fact. We will grow to between 8 and 10 billion people by 2050, that number will be impossible to sustain if we don't make the necessary changes now. You people, us, our generation, we have an opportunity and a challenge that no other era of humans has ever had; saving the world, the whole world. We need to spend our money and resources MUCH, MUCH more wisely, and we need to make changes that will actually make a difference. A wind farm will do nothing in a country that is technologically several decades, if not the lager part of a century, behind a country like the USA, or China, or Russia. We need to focus on expediting every country on earth into a technological age focused on restoration, and we need a safe retreat from the methods currently used for development.
What this world needs is very necessary and LONG overdue revolution. And not the kind that will lead to war and violence, that is a lamentable step in the completely wrong direction, and may actually be worse than doing nothing at all. No, we need an era of enlightenment, ego death, conservation, and restoration. We need to create rules that regulate how much is taken from the earth, and implement laws that obligate restoration of what is taken. That is a very simple concept; give and receive. It will be hard, it will be the hardest thing humanity has faced, but it MUST be dealt with, it is absolutely imperative. There is nothing else if this problem goes unresolved. If you value life on this earth, and the continuation of not only humans, but every species on earth, I urge you to research sustainable life on this planet, and I urge you to do everything you can to help. This problem has been known about and for decades, and now push has come to shove; we can ignore this no longer.
Please, all of you, do something. Be the change this world needs. If our generation does not act, our children and their children will hate us, and scorn us, and history will remember us the last chance that was never taken for mankind. Our inaction will doom this world and the entirety of its future. That is a fact. Please don't ignore this. There is nothing, LITERALLY NOTHING, more important.
I apologize if this is irrelevant to eRepublik and if it gets deleted by admins, so be it.
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Voted. I personally believe revolution is needed, but a peaceful one is impossible. Until the world wakes up, we mind as well start planning to terraform Mars. (Of course at this rate we may not make it there)
Waking people up has become the more difficult task in radicalism. The larger governments of the world have had centuries of experience shutting down free-thinkers and it will continue to be this way until we hit rock bottom again. In order for this change to occur...
humanity must be faced with no other option. Unfortunately that moment won't come for at minimum another 20-30 years.
I do see the potential 'need' for a violent revolution; but in an ideal sense a peaceful one would be most preferable..
I won't delete it but don't start posting these frequently o/
They won't be frequent, they are quite rare. But when I write a meaningful critique, I want to share it with as many people as possible. eRep is a source of social networking and idea spreading 🙂 Thank you maartenw
The irony is that the technology exists that can turn the garbage we produce into energy, instead of siphoning it from the earth itself (e.g. Thermal Depolymerization). There are also natural resources that can be used to create food, fuel, fiber, etc. I wrote such an article regarding it some time ago. http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/erepublik-admins-introduce-new-super-resource-1642198/1/20
What do these two things have in common? Our (US) government has done everything in its power through legislation and administrative regulation to prevent these from becoming a reality. Wouldn't want competition out there to threaten the entrenched Corporate interests that keeps the incumbents in office.
😁^And that's why our country sucks. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: Capitalism is great until it's not.
^
Right? Capitalism was necessary for a time, but it is overdue. Humankind can progress to more rational, sustainable, and reliable systems of economic and political organization.
We will grow to between 8 and 10 billion people by 2050,''
This is actually and old number; growth rate was 1,3 in 2000, in 2011 this number was declined to 1,09.
In 2100 the population of Tokyo will be declined with 50%, but also in countries as India the growth rate is slowing down. So the population won't reach 8 or 9B in 2050.
I like the article but i think there are always solutions, this is not the first time in history that people thought there wouldn't be a sustainable future.
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Too many words in there for a lazy Saturday afternoon...
I agree something should be done, but just look at our world. You know it, and I know it; nothing will be done to drastically prevent our own demise. We should all do our own parts, but I believe our only real chance will come when we face this demise. Only when we are faced with our own destruction will we do what is necessary to survive. But at what cost? And even after the fact, are we talking about living in an advanced society, or a society reduced to more primitive methods of survival?
I am not a primitivist, we can live in a modern technological society and still have a sustainable future. It is the people's arrogant resistance to cut down on consumerism, fear of giving government control of those key industries (to be fair though, most people in politics today I wouldn't trust to save us), and the apathy of the majority of humankind to act and put the right people in those positions.
@Mike
I see where you are coming from, thinking that there is necessary change to preserve our earth, but what you are talking about it preserving the earth you know. Man, mammals, crustaceans, and all other forms of life on this planet have adapted from more primitive forms (yes, evolution. It is factual, and even if you don't believe in man evolving from apes, you have to see that other animals did. There is evidence of it). Just because our world is breaking down doesn't mean it is ending
It is simply changing into a form better suited for the environment we are creating. Simply put, it is survival of the fittest. Our world has been put through meteors, tsunamis, earthquakes, and plenty of ice ages. It will survive our mistakes, just as it survived the dinosaurs. You must trust that it will reach a state of equilibrium, just as the rest of nature does. It is the natural order.
I believe in evolution and yes survival of the fittest used to be necessary, but humans have established themselves as the dominant species on Earth. Now we need to establish ourselves as the most rational which can be done easily if humans just escape their primitive notions that the world is abundant with resources that will last forever la-de-da fairytale land.
Leo, you are only correct if humans do not change and we go on with our self-inflicted species' suicide.
No, it is the opposite. Your argument is only valid if humans continue in this way. But they won't. To expand on my point, I would like to say that nature even abides by the rule of "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Cows have no use for their dung, yet certain species of beetles eat it and it can be used as fertilizer. It can also be recycled through fungus or other natural decomposers. When push comes to shove, either we die or we find a way to adapt to the resources left.
I see your point and it is valid, however I am trying to avoid that live-or-die decision all together. If we just changed now, we wouldn't have to make that split. That 'natural' population check isn't necessary, we can all live and prosper but not if we continue consuming at the rate we are now. It takes like over 50 years or some shit to grow a tree back to significant size to re-chop it down in the future.
That is how evolution works, we take garbage and turn it to gold. Also, while the complex "resource" may not be renewable, we cannot destroy matter. Therefore, we really can remake our resource, just not quickly, so we adapt to what we have. We will adapt to take our used garbage and make them essential to live. So really, it would just be expensive to carry out your idea, when we could just let nature take its course. We could re-create our resources your way, but its costly.
sorry, tht was a continuation of my comment
What Im trying to say is that the situation is inevitable, the earth will change to suit the pop., and the longer you delay that change, the more drastic it will be, henceforth, you are just shooting yourself in the foot. The more changes you make to preserve the world you know, the bigger the changes will be when the earth says enough and adapts anyway. It's like giving a child a shot. The longer they delay it, the more dramatic it will be, and when it's over, theyll realize it was nothing
Technology, and plenty of it, is the solution - not the other way around.
I don't believe in Gaia or other, with all due respect, environmental alarmist hysteria. For instance, fears of overpopulation had been around since mid-18th Century.
As for the very issue of "too many of us", I think education and progress is the best tool to reduce population pressures anyway. Just look which countries have exploding population and which have a more-or-less stable or slightly declining one...
^
who the hell said anything about Gaia? That was a discussion about balance in ecosystems.....
I never mentioned the argument "there is too many of us", the thing about that technology is IT DOESN'T EXIST YET. Also, back in the 18th century they had no way to record the world's population, we have way more accurate and advanced ways of recording it and statistically we can conclude we'll hit a "tipping point" in the future.
And think about it, even if all the hysteria is false, preventing it would bring about more good than harm.
@Leo: Fine, I'll just regress back to my misanthropic
view on humans and believe they all deserve to die because they exist in such a stupid world. And really, who cares about the COST it would need. Maybe if humans just built stuff and helped me each other FOR THE GOOD OF OUR RACE it wouldn't cost us anything more than labor and the will to execute it.
We don't deserve to die, but just because we are the dominant species, that does not put us above nature. We die just as other organisms, and we adapt like them as well. Our race is superior, but we cannot play God and try to control mother nature. You must let nature take its course for the earth to continue in a balanced state. Trying to preserve a dying world is just preventing a newer and better one from sprouting. Do not worry for the earth. It is 4 billion years old, it will survive.
I believe we can play God, why not? If we can, we should. I do not believe in any god, but I believe in a possible posthuman age in the future. What you suggest is destroying our entire achievements and being slaves to nature. We can coexist with nature, we don't need to completely adhere to nature if we don't want to and try. We already defy nature, we live near the ocean even during tropical storms and we survive.
And archaic bacteria live near volcanoes. We are simply very well suited to adapt. That is nature at work, not our amazing ability to defy it. You don't know everything, nobody does. If you can't use 100% of your brain, how can you control another organism's? We just happened to learn quicker than other organisms, that doesn't make us superior to the ecosystem. Rather, it makes us a vital component of it. Without us sustaining or improving ourselves, the world is bound to end in chaos.
If we don't know the very basic structure from which we are built, how can you definitely control the natural system that governs it. We don't need to get rid of our achievements, rather, we must update them to be of use to us in a constantly changing world. Whether or not you believe in a God is irrelevant, but man is a part of this world, not a controller of it. Turning earth into a machine is like giving someone an iron lung, it isn't really living.
I posted a comment but it has been deleted or something??
Is there a censorship?
tl;dr but I'm sure it's another masterpiece, Mike. If it's for the preservation of our beautiful planet, then I'm fer it.
Voted. o/
Many advanced species developed some capability to modify the natural environment for their immediate interests. From birds building nests to pack of wolves organizing an attack on antelopes.
Why would human technology (from transportation to weapons to energy production) would be different, then, as in we purposefully refusing to use it?
your article is a flawed one apart from the fact that the numbers you're using aren't based on recent facts as shown above you are missing out on the biggest point mankind is only responsible for 3% of all CO2 production on earth our enviroment is changing rapidly yes, but it's normal to do so it has always done this and will continue to do so until the earth's core (made out of meteorites colliding) has cooled down and volcanous the thriving power of climate change and CO2 producer number one
will be no more. all this explains the current climate change because once london used to be a tropical savanna and there where tropic dolphins at the north pole. but although all these things are completely normal all the people who think resources will never run out are dead wrong it's terribly important for mankind to develop new fuels and such, like the so much despised USA is doing right now in california with the honda clarity which runs on hydrogen and produces only water and movement