- Cap and trade? Will it work? Not a chance! Screw in
a mercury, curly-cue bulb to save electricity! Will that stop carbon emissions?
Sorry! Drive a Prius for greater fuel efficiency? Only delays the inevitable!
Add more lanes to Los Angeles' freeways to solve gridlock? That's like
a four hundred pound man facing a heart attack-unbuckling his belt to allow
more room for his bulging belly. That's a tragic choice!
-
- "TEMPORAL BLINDNESS is a limitation in cognitive
process. People with temporal blindness cannot gather and process available
information into predictions of future conditions. Their processes cannot
connect future conditions to a causing behavior. When their processes do
create unpleasant predictions, and identify the causal behavior, they fail
to create enough present meaning for the future conditions to motivate
a change in that behavior." Dr. Jack Alpert
-
- In a brilliant essay, Dr. Jack Alpert, www.skil.org,
introduced a new concept for Americans to consider: "Why do we need
rapid population decline?"
-
- The first question you might consider stems from our
civilization that grew population every year for over 400 years. How will
you stop that kind of a cultural juggernaut? Simple: either we do it or
Mother Nature will! And, Mother Nature always bats last.
-
- "Everyone knows population-increase grows cities
and crowds freeways," Dr. Alpert said. "As a result freeways
get wider and cities get bigger. Everyone knows that if city dwellers
want bigger cars or houses cities and freeways grow even if the population
doesn't.
-
- "Hard to grasp is that city growth requires more
square miles of ocean and farm land to feed its dwellers. Cities need more
water to flush its toilets and water its lawns. Farms need more land and
water to feed city people. Cities need more energy to heat homes, run
transport and support goods and services."
-
- Alpert points out that what you see at first glance is
not the real problem. Like an iceberg, with 92 percent of its volume
below the water, the actual human predicament is 10 times bigger than our
first estimate.
-
- "Cities already consume 75 percent of the resources
of humankind," Alpert said. "Farm land is finite. Oil reservoirs,
aquifers and rain are finite. Places to put waste are finite. Mined resources
like soils and iron are finite.
-
- "There is a whole web of life from bacteria to polar
bears that share this finite environment. When humans usurp their space
and resources, they are extinguished. Loss of diversity threatens the ecological
system."
-
- Are you beginning to see below the surface? Catch a
glimpse of the reality of overpopulation? Understand the implications
for your children?
-
- "When there are relatively few cities and a lot
of unallocated global resources, city growth appears to have no limits,"
said Alpert. "But when the support for all these cities equals the
environment's abilities to produce, one city must compete with another
for scarce resources. Eventually the competition turns into disenfranchisement
and conflict.
-
- "Conflict consumes resources. This leaves less resources
to support cities. Which increases scarcity. Which increases competition.
Which increases conflict. Which diverts more resources away from supporting
cities. The circular process causes civilization to experience a death
spiral.
-
- "Two possible approaches to keep scarcity of goods
and services from triggering collapse of civilization. One increases global
carrying capacity with technological efficiency and substitution. The other
constrains total human footprint.
-
- "Many people think these dangers can be avoided
by a combination of technological expansion and population stabilization.
However, even with a cessation of population growth technological expansion
is facing a very large task.
-
- "First, because we don't know how close the current
human footprint is to the globe's limits. Some would say we have overshot
them at present technology and are depleting fish stocks, oil reservoirs,
aquifers, and damaging climate.
-
- "And second total human footprint would still continue
to grow because 80% of today's global population, the poor, consume at
a rate of 1/8 to 1/16 of that consumed by the 20%, who are wealthy. We
should expect these have-nots to increase their consumption. If they doubled
that consumption every twenty five years, It would take a century or more
for them to catch up with the haves and it would quadruple the total human
footprint and the technologist's challenge.
-
- "In addition to the poor's increase in consumption
the haves will increase their wellbeing. The goods and services required
by even a constant population will likely double every 20 years for centuries.
-
- "If we are counting on technology to protect us
from the vagaries of scarcity, it will have to double global production
of goods and services (with fixed land and less dense energy) every 20
years for centuries.
-
- "Any technological shortcomings will have to be
addressed by constraints on total human footprint. At first this might
be viewed as capping the excesses of the rich. However, if improved health
care increases longevity that increases footprint and it has nothing to
do with excesses.
-
- "Since total human footprint is the product of population
times per capita consumption, any improvement in wellbeing will have to
be matched with reductions in population. Even an improvement in healthcare
requires a decrease in population.
-
- "If we expect a doubling of human footprint every
twenty years, and technology fails to keep up then the prevention of scarcity
must be addressed with a halving of the population every 20 years.
-
- "Rapid population decline (RPD) appears to be "the"
path to a viable future for our kids, our nation, humankind, and our ecosystem.
-
- "Rapid population decline (RPD) occurs only when
deaths greatly exceed births. The three mechanisms for having deaths exceed
births are:
- 1) deprivation (starvation or
disease,)
- 2) genocide, and or
- 3) birth rates far below two
per woman.
-
- "The challenge that confronts us is, "Can we
engineer a future with lesser amounts of RPD caused by deprivation and
genocide and more RPD caused by lower births?"
-
- (1) Many answers to the following questions justify
a shift in emphasis from current proposals that address visible problems
(eco destruction, resource exhaustion and social inequity) to RPD proposals
that produce civilization viability.
-
- 1. What is the carrying capacity that is divided between
humans and other species?
- 2. How much and how fast can carrying capacity drop?
- 3. When will carrying capacity drop?
- 4. If billions are living hand to mouth on a dollar
- or two a day, how fast can a doubling of food costs (demand over
supply) put billions on a death diet?
- 5. How long can/will the rich keep the poor from starvation using
redistribution?
- 6. When it is obvious that redistribution will not satisfy
the starving hordes and inhibit their social conflict, how long will it
be before the rich or powerful resolve their desperation with genocide?
-
- Another question Dr. Alpert asked, "How fast can
a lower birthrate reduce the population?"
-
- In <http://www.skil.org/position_papers_folder/howfastBRlowersPOP.html>SKIL
Note 63, Alpert provides graphs of population vs time for various
birthrates established by various behaviors. He said, "The graphs
describe the opportunities for the human experiment that are created
by birthrate-driven rapid population decline. He hoped the model's products
make implementing very low birthrates a little easier. By visiting <http://www.skil.org/position_papers_folder/howfastBRlowersPOP.html>SKIL
Note 63 you will be able to see the graphs and down load the model
that runs under the latest version of MS excel. For all 67 SKIL Notes,
a selection of articles, and books that more fully describe our temporal
blindness, the human predicament, trends that resolve it, and behaviors
to create these trends <http://skil.org/position_papers_folder/head_position-papers.html>click
here.
-
- As Alpert illustrates, our civilization must change course
from unending growth to population stabilization or Mother Nature will
change course for us.
-
- ________________
-
- To take action: First and foremost, join <http://www.numbersusa.com/>www.numbersusa.com and
become one of nearly a million Americans making impact with pre-written
faxes and phone calls to change immigration policies toward a stable future.
Bi-partisan and highly effective!
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