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Post by Rick Shea on Apr 14, 2007 11:19:18 GMT -5
Perhaps Paul Theroux says it best in his New York Times opinion piece, available at www.dalekeiger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/overfullamerica.pdfIt is not nostalgia to long for less crowded times -- times when the air was cleaner, the oceans and lakes were less polluted -- it really is an indication of sanity and civilization.
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Post by Rick Shea on Jun 14, 2007 12:05:35 GMT -5
Sent to the Capital News yesterday.
Dear Sir:
Your Wednesday, June 13th editorial regarding green policies was a breath of fresh air.
The self-serving policies and practices of superpowers, and even of ordinary citizens, have gotten us into a terrible environmental mess, and will continue to make things worse unless we finally take that “decisive leap that would guide this planet towards a green future....”
It is clear that the scale of human activity on this planet is the root cause of our environmental ills, and that having more people means more human activity. Therefore, the only decisive leap that will have any real impact on the problems we create is to stabilize our population and our economy now, and look toward determining the optimal population size and optimal economic scale that will truly be sustainable.
But social change, it seems, requires a certain critical mass. We are not yet at the required critical mass to truly make that decisive leap, but the signs are here that it is getting nearer.
Calls for population control and/or a steady state economy come from such diverse fronts as the Rockefeller Foundation, the town of Okotoks in Alberta, counties and cities in the U.S. which have designated funds for determining optimal population size, former World Bank economist Herman Daly, various branches of the Sierra Club, and now even the B.C. Field Ornithologists, who have examined bird extinctions and endangered species and declared flatly that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation.
Sure, we’ve heard it before. The Population Bomb. The ozone layer. Y2K. Global warming. Deadly virus outbreaks. Radioactive waste. These issues are now derided as Chicken Little alarmism. But, despite the lack of publicity, most of these issues are still very serious threats. It’s not a chicken, but a wolf that comes to mind here, and the wolf did eventually come.
And yes, the post-growth, post fossil fuel hangover will not be pleasant. The economic repercussions will be far-reaching and will be felt by everyone. This is exactly what happened of course to past civilizations which pursued growth and economic activity obsessively, and then slipped away into oblivion because of that obsession. But we can make the landing as soft as possible by acting now, right now, so that we can perhaps salvage something decent from this so-called “civilization” of ours.
Sincerely,
Rick Shea, Kelowna, B.C.
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Post by Rick Shea on Nov 11, 2008 15:12:14 GMT -5
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