The current set of problems facing the world is exposing as never before just how fragile we humans are.
We are facing three major challenges ( over which we have no control) CLIMATE CHANGE and ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE + SOCIAL MEDIA
The question is do we want to live or just exist in a world run by a few wealthy people.
These days it appears that we don’t want to hold powerful people to account.
They get a headline and thats it.
Take for example.
Prince Andrew who thought his privilege position would protect him till he became Andy.
Or
George Michel former US senator who played a critical role in Northern Ireland’s peace process once described his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a “blessing”.
He is now an old codger, but age should not excuse his crimes.
Donald Dump has gone to great lengths to sweep the whole Epstine thing under the carpet.
Epstine died by suicide.
———————-
The fragility of humans was especially shown in the two world wars.
A prime example would be the 7th Panzer Division brutality (that should never be forgotten ) as it made its way to Normandy, massacring all that stood in its way.
Or the recent brutal force of Israel retaliation. Committing a Genocide in response to an attack that killed around 1000 it has wiped out 60,000 Palestines, as the world watched it do so with impunity.
Humanity had always been fragile and will remain so till it learns to live in peace.
In order to make any difference we have to change the way we protect our shared human values. Somehow we must place them beyond the reach of ourselves where they are protected against any technological advances, wars etc.
Ukraine Russia war which is now four years old.
This can only be achieved with universal agreement to tackle, control what is self evident.
Climate change is self evident. Humanity must choose profit or a liveable planet
Artificial intelligence is less self evident. Digital slavery or freedom.
Social Media is evidence in abundance. False information or the truth.
All human comments appreciate. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The state of the Planet hit several remarkable records.
The amount of carbon dioxide gas hits the highest level in at least the last 800,000 years.
The Arctic Ice since satellite records is at it lowest. 13.3% per decade.
We dump 19.4 billion pounds of plastic into our oceans every year.
An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year.
We will be facing a 40% shortfall in water supply by 2030.
Climate change-related extreme events, plus population growth, could increase hunger by up to 20% by 2050.
What are we doing about it. Not much that will make a difference. Curbing emissions which is a joke wont be enough to halt a looming climate catastrophe.
When you take something out of the Earth, you need to put something back in.
The Selfish wasteful ways of Capitalism combined with modern humans is destroying the very planet we all have to live on.
Thoughtless mindless use of its limited resources for short-term profit, and the use of pesticides and there like is destroying life forms that took million of years to appear on our planet.
We all know the interconnectedness of all life. The we’re here, we’re powerful with nuclear weapons , we’ve got the technology, we therefore are entitled to every dame thing on this planet, is at the root of much of our problems.
Perhaps our current ecological crisis is telling us that something is wrong with our relationship with ourselves, with others, and earth.
The Dangers are clear.
We all want to live.
Without a reverence for all life that lives in the midst of other life we the brainy ones will be going no further than the moon, space station or not.
If you are interested there are plenty of previous post covering a verity of subjects interconnected to this post.
In fact, it still is — at least in nations blessed with plentiful clean tap water but that doesn’t stop the world from spending over $100 billion on bottled water a year.
I have posted on the subject of Fresh water as recently as the 31st of March this year. ( Fresh Water, Essential for human survival or a commodity for profit)
We all know that our Earth has and will continue to face many problems, some caused by nature itself and others caused by us its most intelligent inhabitants.
The problems caused by us are mostly related to excess of self-indulgence to the detriment of what effect it has on everything around us.
We seem incapable of acting for the common good, and when we try to do so our attempts are retrograded to profit. ( For example; Carbon Credits, Fishing Quotas, Arms Trade, Governments, Religions, you name it and its governed by money.)
We ourselves are now becoming commodity to be exploited and it will not be long before we will have no rights to clean Air never mind water.
Water is more than a chemical substance containing one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms it has become a reason for conflicts and a controversial commodity, and yet, it is inevitable for every human being and animal on the planet.
The global inequalities in access to clean water is only going to increase due to its Privatization. It is literally being turned into a commodity to produce profit.
So what do we see when it comes to Fresh Water.
It is purified and then sold to us at thousandfold increase in price:
As still water, carbonated water, functional water, and flavored water, as absolute water” and “harmony water” as mineral water, pure water, the ecological water, soda water, alkaline water, coconut water, deep-sea water, mint water, tonic water, sparkling waters, naturally sparkling, still waters,natural water, distilled water, wild water, absolute water, preserved water, controlled water, etc;
The category of “wild water” includes products like Pepsi-owned Enchant’s marketed so as to convey through its label, strength, vitality, and human’s fusion with nature.
Absolute water is in a league of its own, and uses neither nature-themed nor industry-themed signs. The designs of the bottles are revolutionary and futuristic. Their beyond-nature and beyond-human appearance suggest that this water is extremely pure and transcendent.
Then we have preserved water, marketed as nature to contemplate, a source of peace and quietness, a preserved nature, untouched.
And last but not least controlled waters which are totally safe and clean called still water. It sales makes up 64.9% of the overall market.
Oops I nearly forgot tamed water. It is adapted for consumer benefit. Nestlé’s Pure Life, for instance, uses more dynamic shapes and human figures to demonstrate its tamed water’s message of happiness, liveliness, and cooperation.
In terms of revenue, Asia-Pacific dominated the global market in 2013, accounting for a market share of 33%. Europe surfaced as the second largest contributor in the global market for bottled water, accounting for a market share of 28.8%.
The bottled water world industry is a market dominated by European water brands.
Shifting patterns of consumer preference in favor of flavored and vitamin-rich functional water and innovation in terms of portability and packaging of hygienic water has propelled the demand for bottled water in the global market to highs where the producers are buying up resources at an alarming rate.
You might be surprised to learn that 25% of bottled water comes from municipal supply.
While the world’s population continues to grow at an alarming rate, water is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity. 80% of the world’s population are exposed to some risk of insecure freshwater resources.
The global water market is dominated by major players like Groupe Danone, Coca- Cola Company, Icelandic Water Holdings ehf., Mountain Valley Spring Company, The PepsiCo Inc., Nestle Waters, Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. Ltd., and LLC.
Nestlé currently controls more than 70 of the world’s bottled water brands, among them Perrier, San Pellegrino and Vittel.
Nestlé’s annual sales of bottled water alone total some CHF 10 billion. And yet the company prefers not to discuss its water business.
To be able to sell and make money from water, you first have to own it.
Every year the company pumps out millions of cubic metres of water, for transportation in road tankers to huge bottling factories.
In the small towns of Fryeburg, Newfield and Shapleigh, journalist Res Gehriger witnessed how Nestlé tries to stifle and suppress local opposition to its operations with an army of powerful PR consultants, lawyers and lobbyists.
The company sells mainly spring water with a designation of origin. In developing countries, however, the corporation pursues another concept – namely Nestlé Pure Life. This product is purified groundwater, enriched with a Nestlé mixture of minerals. Nestlé Pure Life is a clever business concept. And particularly so in the developing world.
In countries such as Pakistan where the public water supply has failed or is close to collapse, the company proudly presents its bottled water as a safe health-enhancing alternative. But for the overwhelming majority of consumers, it is an expensive out-of-reach alternative.
The scenario of a city in which everyone has to pay for life-giving water, is already a sad reality in Lagos. Families eking out an existence in the slums spend half their meagre budget on canisters of water. The upper class? They purchase Nestlé Pure Life.
Nestlé is a company intent on amassing resource rights worldwide. With the aim of dominating the global water market of the future.
The global bottled water market was valued at US$157.27 billion in 2013 and is expected to reach US$279.65 billion by the end of 2020, registering an impressive growth at a CAGR of 8.7% from 2013 to 2020.
In terms of volume the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.3% and reach a market size of 465.12 billion liters by 2020. Over half of all Americans 54% drink bottled water. There are over 700 brands. America is now drinking more bottled water than milk or beer.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC), in 2014 the total volume of bottled water consumed in the United States was 11 billion gallons, a 7.4% increase from 2013. That translates into an average of 34 gallons per person. While that may sound like a lot, it actually puts the U.S. in 10th place when it comes to global per-capita consumption
Bottled water is the second largest commercial beverage category by volume in the United States. However, bottled water consumption is about half that of carbonated soft drinks and only slightly ahead of milk and beer.
60% of the global bottled water market is dominated by the national and regional players.
The commercialization of water, which on a global scale finds its manifestation in the bottled water industry:
Global consumption of bottled water goes up 10 percent each year.
China is now the second largest consumer market for bottled water in the world. China drank roughly eight billion liters in 2000, and just under 21 billion liters in 2009. It is now drinking around two billion liter less than U.S. 2014.
China Water (1.5 liter bottle)
Cost 3.66 ¥
us$ 0.56
France-based Evian is the most popular bottled water brand in the world. Pepsi-owned Aquafina is the best-selling bottled water brand in United States. Both have mountains on their packages, signifying the pursuit of something greater.
You don’t have to be a genius to see where all this is leading.
Water insecurity is a global phenomenon, and in most of the populated places on earth water resources are under some form of stress that poses a potential risk.
“The biggest enemy is tap water ” said a Pepsi VP in 2000. “When we’re done, tap water will be relegated to irrigation and washing dishes,” said Susan D. Wellington of Quaker Oats, the maker of Gatorade.
But its more than just words: Coca-Cola has been in the business of discouraging restaurants from serving tap water and pushing bottle water for years.
Fear of tap water is part of the reason for the bottled water surge.
The production of water bottles uses 17 million barrels of oil a year, and it takes three times the water to make the bottle as it does to fill it.
For a product that claims to be environmentally responsible the bottled water industry does more than its fair share of planet trashing.
The amount of oil used to make a year’s worth of bottles could fill one million cars for a year. It takes about 72 billion gallons of water a year just to make the empty bottles. Another words it takes about two liters of water to make every liter you see on shelves of supermarkets and the like.
What do we get in return:
Out of all the plastic bottles that pollute our seas, our oceans, that are tossed out the windows of our cars, left to roll up on to our beaches fewer than 20% are recycled to a second life. To put this in perspective the California Department of Conservation estimated that roughly three million water bottles are trashed every day. The bottle that takes three minutes to drink takes up to a thousand years to biodegrade.
Pepsi Co claims to have diverted 196 million beverage containers to recycling using its own resources since it made its initial commitment in 2010, yet this represents only about one-third of one day’s sales of beverages in the United States.
More than 40 countries worldwide, including most European Union nations, have adopted some form of EPR (extended producer responsibility) mandate that shifts some or all financial responsibility for packaging recycling from taxpayers to producer brands.
Brands that place packaging into commerce need to take more responsibility for its life cycle impact.
Recycling produces so many benefits to society that it should be a priority for corporate sustainability programs.
The biggest threat to increasing recyclability in the beverage sector is the growing use of flexible packaging….Using nonrecyclable packaging when recyclable alternatives are available wastes enormous amounts of resources, in contrast to aluminum and PET, which can be recycled many times over.
According to Doug James, a professor of computer science and computer graphics at Cornell University and a recycling advocate, we are left with 25 billion bottles world-wide that are dumped in landfills, littered or incinerated.
Essentially, there is no way for bottled water to be as environmentally responsible as tap water.
Many regions of the world lack access to clean drinking water, and bottled water is the only safe alternative. Companies know this and have been cleaning up in countries like China, Pakistan and India in recent years.
The 2011 global forecast for bottled water called for over $86 billion in profits. This includes sparkling flavored water, sparkling unflavored water, still flavored water and still unflavored water. A very impressive number considering a similar product comes basically free from the kitchen sink.
The global water market could be worth $800 billion by 2035, with Asia making up half that value as rapid economic growth and a rising population boosts demand, the president and chief executive of Finnish chemicals firm Kemira said.
“Water is the fastest growing market at the moment, with a size of $500 billion globally,” Harri Kerminen said in an interview in London.
Some experts foresee the water market hitting $1 trillion by as early as 2020.
So don’t be a Wally get your self a reusable stainless steel canteen.
It will pay for its self, stop you picking up some horrendous disease, and save on large dental bill if you leave the fluoride in. (Put it uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours and any chlorine will dissipate.)
The alternative is to carry on drinking bottled water which I am sure is subject to the same safety regulations as Tap water which covers all washing machine tablets, all washing up liqet, all shampoos, all industrial run off, all farming fertilizers run off, all lead piping, all landfill toxins, toilet cleaners, all fracking ( 7.5 trillion gallons of water mixed with dangerous chemicals a year in the US) all brown water shower/bath. We know that pollution is a human problem because it is a relatively recent development in the planet’s history:
According to the environmental campaign organization WWF: “Pollution from toxic chemicals threatens life on this planet. Every ocean and every continent, from the tropics to the once-pristine polar regions, is contaminated.”
There is no easy way to solve water pollution; if there were, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem. There are three different things that can help to tackle the problem- education, laws, and economics.
Why am I bothered or for that matter why should any of us be bothered that water is being turned into profit.
Perhaps we are focused too much on reducing carbon emissions and have failed to take a sufficiently broad view including end-of-life fate and impact.
Materials that are “designed for the dump” reinforce a message to consumers that it’s okay to continue to throw away materials that could have been made to be recycled.
The very least we can do is work to protect and preserve earth. It’s not all about making massive profit.
The time for global action” to protect the integrity of our planetary home is now to develop a new set of guiding global goals. We must embrace a culture of shared responsibility, one of all actors–governments, international institutions, private sector actors, and organizations of civil societies, and in all countries, to the people themselves.
We must remove this responsibility from the United Nations and create a new world Organisation.
What kind of new worldwide organisation could be established that would truly defend humankind’s common resources and limit the major powers?
The UN’s imperfections were manifest from its creation. It was built upon some obvious contradictions.
The UN was premised on the idea that the gravest threat to mankind was cross-border aggression, the main cause of the second world war: history later showed that the gravest threats came from states abusing citizens within their borders, or from terrorists who disregarded borders. Instead of strengthening collective structures to perform essential humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks, rich countries have decided to go it alone or stay home. The strings that member states attach to payment of their UN dues are even more demoralising.
If we want a healthy earth we need an organisation that represents Earth irrelevant of religion or power. That is Self financing, that rewards good practice and applies penalties for not. That is not governed by the might of Capitalism. ( See Previous Posts)
Mark my words if we don’t soon start seen our world as we there will be no Freshwater worth drinking.
Nobody is winning right now on this thing. We’re not moving the needle.
Life is ultimately about choices—and so is pollution.
Most of today’s decision makers will be dead before the planet feels; the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss.
Most of the young voters of today will still be alive.
The consumer cultures will have to be re-engineered into cultures of sustainability, so that living sustainable feels as natural as living as a consumer does today.
Two-thirds of the world’s energy is used to-day is for the production of commodities.
This new reality, from which there is no escape, must be recognized – and managed.
Sustainability cannot be achieved by simply switching technologies.
We need to see instead the possibility for a new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base.
We all know that industries most heavily reliant on environmental resources and most heavily polluting are growing most rapidly in the developing world, where there is both more urgency for growth and less capacity to minimize damaging side effects.
Humanity’s inability to fit its activities into a less must have now orientation for the sake of short-term pleasure and profit – from I am alright Jack attitude to recognizing our true values can not come soon enough.
Our Common Future, cannot be a prediction of ever-increasing environmental decay, poverty, and hardship in an ever more polluted world among ever decreasing resources. Which is changing planetary systems, fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards.
We need a new description of the possibilities ahead of us.
We have been for centuries and still are borrowing environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. It may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses.
The onus for change lies with no one group of nations.
Every day, we are presented with a range of “sustainable” products and activities—from “green” cleaning supplies to carbon offsets.
Is it time to abandon the concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability? If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?
Given that consumerism and the consumption patterns are not compatible with the flourishing of a living planetary system, either we find ways to wrestle our cultural patterns out of the grip of those with a vested interest in maintaining consumerism or Earth’s ecosystems decline will bring down the consumer culture for the vast majority of humanity in a much crueller way.
A change has to be started to put us on the path to prosperity without diminishing the well-being of future generations.
It will and is being resisted by myriad interests that have a huge stake in sustaining the global consumer culture— from the fossil fuel industry and big agribusiness to food processors, car manufacturers, advertisers, and so on.
Consumerism is not a viable cultural paradigm on a planet whose systems are deeply stressed and that is currently home to 7 billion people, let alone on a planet of 8–10.6 billion people, the population the United Nations projects for 2050.
So what can be done?
We all know what has to be done but every few of us are willing to do anything.
In a majority of societies today, consumerism feels so natural that it is hard to even imagine a different cultural model.
Consumerism—now propped up by more than trillions in annual advertising expenditures, by hundreds of billions in government subsidies and tax breaks, billions more in lobbying and public relations spending, and the momentum of generations of living the consumer dream—will undoubtedly be the most difficult part of the transition to a sustainable society.
The only question is whether we greet it with a series of alternative ways of orienting our lives and our cultures to maintain a good life, even as we consume much less.
You must ask yourself if there is any chance for us to come through the trials of climate destabilization in a nuclear-armed world with 10 billion people by 2100.
How can we soon reckon with the thorny issues of politics, political theory, and start governing with wisdom, boldness, and creativity.
We can all see our present danger, and we can also see our future potential: a stable human population of some 7–9 billion, living cleanly and well on a healthy biosphere, sharing Earth with the rest of the creatures who rely on it.
Or
Has humanity already overshot the carrying capacity of Earth so badly that we are doomed to a horrible crash after oil, or freshwater, or topsoil, or fish, or the ozone layer, or many other things—after one or all of them run out? So that no matter what we do in the meantime, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re in for a fall?
I don’t believe so.
Provided we locked the global economy and global ecology together in new ways there is a way out for our beautiful home planet. There is no point reaching for the stars if we are bring with us Greed and Profit.
This is not just a dream but a responsibility, a project. The things we can do now, to start on this project are all around us, waiting to be taken up and lived.
Our problem stems from decades of engineering of a set of cultural norms, values, traditions, symbols, and stories that make it feel natural to consume ever larger amounts—of food, of energy, of stuff.
Policymakers changed laws, marketers and the media cultivated desire, businesses created and aggressively pushed new products, and over time “consumers” deeply internalized this new way of living.
For example, the United States, now suffers from an obesity epidemic in which two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. This obesity epidemic—which has spread around the world.
McDonald’s did not just create a cheap and tasty food, it effectively targeted children to get them to eat at McDonald’s early on—shaping their palate for both the company’s food and the high-sugar, high-salt, high-fat consumer diet.
Or
People spend more than $58 billion on pet food each year around the world. ( There are 133 million dogs and 162 million cats in just the top five dog and cat owning countries in the world),
Or
Globally, military expenditures total about $1 trillion a year and continue to grow.
Nothing will change unless our cognition’s change.
Even Professional sport promotes consumerism.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that “we must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” By living “deliberately”—as Henry David Thoreau understood—we spend less, work less and enjoy life more.
Through collective action inspired by creativity we can build a vibrant environmental justice movement and reform the institutions that are driving “climate collapse”: the military and unchecked consumer capitalism.
Imagine if we had lists of “Ten Things to Save the Planet”
The problem would be that we have nowhere to hang the list. Even if we did we there is no way of making anything on the list to stick.
So there is only one solution. We will have to use the most basic weakness of mankind – his own self-interest to effect change.
Rewards/Payment that are felt in his pocket.
Where do we get the funds to make these payments.
By Placing a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( Over 20,000$) on all High Frequency stock exchange transactions and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.
With this Perpetual Fund by greed we could then redesign Consumerism into Savvy consumers and Sucker consumers. Create a new consumer culture which would be truly a step in the right direction.
We could start to address Climate Change by granting home solar panels.
We could pay to protect to safeguard our, fresh water, our forests, our seas, our environment and give fundamental rights to the planet itself.
The faster we use our talents and energies to promote a culture of sustainability, the better off all of humanity will be.
This is what we have achieved so far. Have a look.
We need to create a new centralization of power that specifically looks after our planet > not a United Nations gossips shop that can do nothing because of its veto corset.
But an Earth Court that must be heeded or suffer the consequences, or no rewards or grants.
Sorry for the over the top headline but Scientists have done the maths and according to their calculations, life on Earth has 1.75 to 3.25 billion years left to thrive.
Even short geologic time scales outrun our ability to project human history.
One common, frequently unconscious misconception is that history is linear, progressing toward an inevitable end point.
Our inability to see ourselves as part of a continuum of processes that will continue into the future is also directly linked to our shortsightedness in managing our environment. Human impacts already equal or surpass many natural processes. For example, human earth-moving processes exceed natural erosion in the volume of material moved (Hooke, 2000; Wilkinson, 2005).
Let’s peer into the future. The reasons for disaster are not hard to conjecture.
Technology might become so advanced that humans will no longer need to modify the natural environment extensively, but any attempt to predict technology far in advance is bound to be almost pure speculation.
Space Weather (which includes any and all conditions and events on the sun, in the solar wind, in near-Earth space and in our upper atmosphere) can affect space-borne and ground-based technological systems and through these, human life and endeavor. Not to mention Yellowstone National Park that could decide to erupt.
Even if humans avoid causing a mass extinction, many species will have become naturally extinct and new ones will have evolved.
The truth is we don’t have a particularly detailed idea of what is going on inside out own planet never mind on the surface.
When the Earth’s molten core eventually cools and hardens to the point that there is little or no slip-sliding of different substances, it more than likely its magnetic field will die out as well. The Earth is thought to have begun this cooling sometime in the last billion years.
That’s good, since one way or the other we certainly have a lot of time left; while a magnetic flip is largely meaningless, magnetic death certainly would not be.
In all likelihood, the Sun will swallow the Earth long before then, as it convulses and expands as a part of its natural death throes and that’s if a giant asteroid or a nuclear war doesn’t finish us off first.
However the 92.9 million miles between us and our host star will not be enough to keep us comfortable.
For those of you that need to use Google the Sun is a magnetic variable star at the center of our solar system that drives the space environment of the planets, including the Earth. The distance of the Sun from the Earth is approximately 93 million miles. At this distance, light travels from the Sun to Earth in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds. The Sun has a diameter of about 865,000 miles, about 109 times that of Earth. Its mass, about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three-quarters of the Sun’s mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. Less than 2% consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, iron, and others. The Sun is neither a solid nor a gas but is actually plasma. This plasma is tenuous and gaseous near the surface, but gets denser down towards the Sun’s fusion core.
Where was I? The earth will become inhospitable to humans long before the planet enters the hot zone ( Stars like our Sun shine for nine to ten billion years. The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old, judging by the age of moon rocks. Based on this information, current astrophysical theory predicts that the Sun will become a red giant in about five billion (5,000,000,000) years. So there is not much to worry about.
However I am pushing on in years and I often wonder how my generation will survive the impending climate crisis never mind the future of our planet. There is a tragic alienation between us and nature.
There’s not much money in the end of civilization, and even less to be made in human extinction.” The destruction of the planet, on the other hand, is a good bet, because there is money in this, and as long as that’s the case, it is going to continue. The amount we consume each year already far outstrips what our planet can sustain, and the World Wildlife Fund estimates that by 2030 we will be consuming two planets’ worth of natural resources annually.
Over the course of this century, the relationship between the human world and the planet that sustains it has undergone a profound change. When the century began, neither human numbers nor technology had the power radically to alter planetary system.
We know that in two billion years or so, an expanding sun will boil away our oceans, leaving our home in the universe uninhabitable—unless, that is, we haven’t already been wiped out by the Andromeda galaxy, which is on a multi billion-year collision course with our Milky Way. Moreover, at least a third of the thousand mile-wide asteroids that hurtle across our orbital path will eventually crash into us, at a rate of about one every 300,000 years.
Perhaps Google is a good idea after all to prepare a copy of our civilization and move it into outer space and out of harm’s way—a backup of our cultural achievements and traditions.
There is hope on the horizon during my Nuclear Warheads reading ( See The Series of Posts) I learned that a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could decrease global surface temperature by 1°C–2°C for 5–10 years and have major impacts on precipitation and solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. No much help. We will hit the average of 400 ppm…within the next couple of years. Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon—an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 pentagrams of it (a pentagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That’s about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth’s soils.
In the short-term, we need to make it in the economic interests of people to do the right thing. The chances of that happening in a Capitalist world I will leave up to yourself to decide.
Here is what is happening.
The signs of a worsening climate crisis are all around us, whether we allow ourselves to see them or not.
Unintended changes are occurring in the atmosphere, in soils, in waters, among plants and animals, and in the relationships among all of these.
Life-threatening challenges of desertification, deforestation, and pollution, of toxic chemicals, toxic wastes, and acidification of carbon dioxide and of gases that react with the ozone layer, and from any future war fought with the nuclear arsenals including increasingly powerful floods, droughts, wildfires, heat waves, and storms are underway. Evacuations from low-lying South Pacific islands have already begun.
The onslaught of droughts, earthquakes, epic rains and floods over the past decade is triple the number from the 1980s and nearly 54 times that of 1901, when this data was first collected.
Yet we are aware that such a re-orientation on a continuing basis is simply beyond the reach of present decision-making structures and institutional arrangements, both national and international and endure most of the poverty associated with environmental degradation.
The rate of change is outstripping the ability of scientific disciplines and our current capabilities to access and advise. It is frustrating the attempts of political and economic institutions, which evolved in a different, more fragmented world, to adapt and cope.
This planet has not experienced an ice-free Arctic for at least the last three million years. Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona ” the implications are truly dire and profound for our species and the rest of the living planet.”
We are currently in the midst of what scientists consider the sixth mass extinction in planetary history, with between 150 and 200 species going extinct daily, a pace 1,000 times greater than the “natural” or “background” extinction rate.
The ability of the human psyche to take in and grasp such information is being tested. And while that is happening, yet more data continues to pour in—and the news is not good.
Thanks to climate change oceans have already lost 40 percent of their phyto plankton, the base of the global oceanic food chain, because of climate-change-induced acidification and atmospheric temperature variations.
So you might well ask if some version of extinction or near-extinction will overcome humanity.
It deeply worries many people who are seeking ways to place those concerns on the political agendas.
Climate-change-related deaths are already estimated at five million annually,
We’ve still got plenty of time left to enjoy planet Earth but we need to know how to respond, to changes that are already happening—and to those coming in the near future. It’ll happen very fast.
It appears that there is not much hope for the future, nor for a governmental willingness to make anything close to the radical changes that would be necessary to quickly ease the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere; nor can we expect the mainstream media to put much effort into reporting on all of this because we are all more interested in leaving a legacy of material wealth that will be totally worthless.
Climate change and other human influences are altering Earth’s living systems in big ways, such as changes in growing seasons and the spread of invasive species,”
The world-wide spread of extremely resource-intensive lifestyles and economic practices has become one of the most important challenges we face.
There is an increased awareness of human impact on the environment, however, the rate of environmental degradation is still on the rise.
Although many people are uncomfortable with the way things are, they are not motivated to act on their beliefs because they see no other way.
The environmental discourse is still confined to a relatively small minority
of elites and ‘experts’, and it remains incredibly top-down but there are no experts as we are all dancing on the edge of acceptable risk.
Is economic growth making us happier?
What type of change is possible?
By addressing things such as human well-being and the meeting of the needs in environmentally in a sound way, the discourse brings economy down to the grass root level of everyday life.
It enables us to ask questions such as:
How do we change the present day short-shortsightedness which is the source of most modern environmental and economic problems?
Messages of environmental risk should be effective in relaying seriousness and immediacy, but arguably, they are also in danger of breeding hopelessness and fatalism. Although many people are uncomfortable with the way things are, they are not motivated to act on their beliefs because they see no other way.
This is tragic because the way in which we perceive the future has a significant influence on the choices we make.
It affects our values, attitudes, coping mechanisms, expectations feelings, motivations and behaviors. The very act of articulating a future presents a tendency and inclination, which increases its likeliness of occurrence.
Could it therefore be possible to produce a set of different outcomes by providing engaging, lucid and optimistic alternative ecological future narratives?
I have posted many posts on the Subject but let’s try an other approach.
Suggest an inexpensive tool that could make a difference.
Sufficient living questions the connection made between growth and quality of life.
The last time climate change happened was approximately 55 million years ago and it took 1000 years to recover from the level of elevated carbon after the extinction of dinosaurs.
Imagine a world without pollution and waste: Products are made from materials that are beneficial for humans and their surroundings. Imagine a world where humans can be glad that their actions benefit those around them.
It seems that people are not good at providing (quasi) exact statements of the future, but they can be better in stating whether the past trend will change and in which direction.
Over a hundred species are still becoming extinct everyday. One and a half acres of rain forest is still disappearing every second.
These problems are link to a lack of ideas concerning how to deal with environmental problems and the future of our society.
It is always useful to conceive futures in a generational paradigm, because we find it easier to think of futures in terms of our children and grandchildren’s lifetimes. The decisions we make in the next 20 years will determine the fate of the earth and human civilization for centuries to come.
In this context, online news gives a quick overview on what is happening in the world and the use of the Internet as information source has become an inherent part of everyday life leading to a sort of “big brother feeling” of being observed.
Unfortunately, most of our ecological future narratives are ambiguous or inherently pessimistic.
For instance, one of the most popularized means of living within nature are ‘sustainable futures. However this vision lacks clarity or a consensus over what it means to live ‘sustainably’. Moreover, a proliferation of ‘sustainability’ definitions leave some to regard it as a landfill dump for everyone’s environmental and social wish list.
In a sense of powerlessness. people perceive the environment to be a single totalising entity that is ‘out there,’ enabling them to remain emotionally distant, despondent and in a state of resignation.
High levels of non-engagement are further exacerbated by the lack of faith in the institutions tasked with combating the problems. People are choosing not to dwell on ecological problems by using reflexive strategies of non-engagement with global issues including the future.
The apparent lack of desirable alternatives is highly dangerous.
Could it therefore be possible to produce a set of different outcomes by providing engaging, lucid and optimistic alternative ecological future narratives?
In other words, if governments continue to think in four-year election cycles, businesses work from one financial year to the next and stock markets re-start everyday there is no hope of achieving anything.
When imagining futures, we also need to invent time for change.
What is needed is long-term thinking that reconciles itself to a planet that is 4.6 billion years old?
We support in the capacity to imagine and articulate preferred outcomes, which in turn mobilise action and creates an opportunity for the visions to embed themselves as possibilities in reality. As opposed to the current approach of endlessly treating symptoms of a much deeper problem that is both out of sight and out of control.
Each and every individual needs to be actively (and creatively) involved by, possibly, visualising, spreading and implementing ideas of alternative societal models. We need a method that enables us to think beyond existing societal models.
While Industrial welfare state mainly defends business-as-usual change can only be achieved in the world to-day by what I call,
– An Universal Electronic Voice that demands change –
# UEV- Universal Electronic Voice.
When we want to enable consumers to execute truly effective change it is central to empower them to understand their role as important actors in the field.
This is beyond governments, and our present day world institutions.
Governments: Because before they can mend a road there is an other government. Institutions: Because they have turned into gossip shops with no funds, run by the market.
We need to re-define what it meant by people power.
A unified electronic voice will do just that resulting in a movement that unified our cohesive efforts. That will enable the ‘democratisation’ of modern environmentalism that are fixated on finding solutions to one that imagines entirely new possibilities
The debate over climate change and whether it is being influenced by man’s activity has ceased. The prevailing view is that climate change is real and that it is influenced by human activity. The link between rising consumption and climate change is becoming clear and opposition to consumerism is growing.
Images of the future in which the Universal E Voice should be used as tools for making images become part of reality, it can be used to direct actions and decision-making.
Of course none of the above has any hope of becoming a reality unless we tap into the world of greed.
This can only be done by a collective demand to place a world aid commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency trading, Sovereign wealth funds acquisitions and foreign exchange transactions over $20.000, creating a perpetual funded fund. ( see previous posts)
As such UEV(universal electronic voice) does not describe the actions needed to achieve the described future however it would be the first step in the right direction to be heard. We all know timescales are the best until after the critical period is over and we have the benefit of hindsight.
Now it the time to combine all of those how are Whining on the Internet and Social Media into one voice.
With the rather elusive and volatile character of the Internet creating a focus point for the over strain user of the Net when it comes to selecting individually important and relevant information to establish a collection pool offering one voice has many difficulties to over come.
Perhaps # UEV- Universal Electronic Voice might to the trick.
I am all ears to any suggestions.
The mere fact that more of these devices are constantly introduced to the market and the ways in which they are advertised show that yet again a different perception of the future.
This is only the top of the iceberg.
What more ecologically benign consumption and production patterns would mean in practice? is another question to be discussed.
And to what extent it is fruitful to talk about economy beyond the social? Is another in dire need of serious discussion.
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