As we look on at the world in dismay and disgust, to what we has human beings are doing to our land, waters and air. We are exploiting every resource with impunity, and relentlessly. We act as if we have been given permission by God to destroy the earth and the results of our actions are evident all around us. Along with all our self imposed suffering, we take every single living creature with us for the ride down this slippery slope.
It breaks my heart when I see the carnage of our Rhino’s, the slaughter of Dolphins in Japan, the determination of some nations to harpoon our Whale stocks. The clubbing of seals in Namibia because “they eat too much”, the destruction of the shark population in Mozambique for Shark Fin Soup, the raping of our coastline to feed an ever increasing population. Then we get to hear about Fracking and the possible consequences of this practice on our fragile ecosystem in the Karoo.
The earth has only one major problem, that’s us. Our insatiable lust to consume resources and the ever increasing pace we are doing it. It took 10,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion, it has taken 12 years for the last billion, and will take 8 years for the next billion. We are now at 7 billion. 1 in 15 of all the people that have ever been born are alive today, and are living much longer lives. When JFK was alive, we had half the world’s population we have today. It is said that the next billion will come from Africa, the last wilderness will disappear under the weight of their demands. To put this all into perspective, tonight when you have dinner, know that there are an additional 200,000+ people to feed, than what there were at breakfast.
This becomes evident that this is unsustainable, and we have completely lost our senses. What kind of world are we trying to create? What are we going to leave behind, or are we now standing on the precipice of our own doing? Something is, and needs to happen to rectify this situation; nature will find a way to balance the situation out. It might mean a war, starvation or disease... But one way or another all civilisations have come to this point we are at; except ours is on a global scale, and the results are all the same.
Days where people have 6 kids are gone... It is reasonable and sustainable for couples to have 1 kid. Educate and care for that one child, and turn them into someone who can live in the world of tomorrow. This would result in a stabilisation of the world’s population, and over time a slow decline.
Some people say the world can easily sustain 9 billion people; even if that were true (which I doubt); how will you then curb population explosion when you at 9 Billion by 2025?? The time to start is now; before it’s all gone; in our, and most of the people who are reading this, lives.
No recycling; no green initiative, will have the same effect on the Earth as us limiting our numbers.
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