There is absolutely no point in trying to address the growing environmental crisis, regardless which of the veritable smorgasbord of critical issues most concerns you, with top down political and economic solutions. The reason that there is no point is because there is about as much chance of those solutions making a difference as there is getting on a Barcelona bound train in Madrid and expecting to get off in Paris.
The poor, weary souls who really do give a damn about trying to save the planet are trying to convince the rest riding on the Barcelona bound train that if we all get up and walk to the back of the train, somehow we will delay our arrival long enough to actually change our destination.
Despite our high speed connectivity and remarkable scientific achievements, the human race is less “fit” to make the changes necessary to save our sorry souls today than we were fifty years ago. The reason for that is because there are too damn many of us, and we all want to have a say in what the solution should be.
In 1960 the world’s population was slightly over 3 billion. Today it is over 6 billion and expected to reach 7 billion by the end of next year. Despite declining population growth worldwide, census projections put the World’s population at 10 billion by 2060.
It is illogical to consider that the exponential increase in population, along with our unbridled leap forward in technology, is not directly connected to the exponential decline of our global ecosystems, and yet I repeatedly hear politicians and economists tell me that the solution to our problem is improvements in technology and the application of more money to more programs.
In the 1960s an American plant pathologist named Norman Borlaug advanced an idea that came to be called the “green revolution”. The original goal of the Green Revolution was to increase efficiency and boost the yields of cereal grain crops. Since populations were topping 3 billion, it was thought that if we produce more cereal grains we could decrease global food insecurity. The way to do that, Mr. Borlaug contended, was to genetically modify (GM) seeds to condition them to germinate in shorter periods of time and despite adverse climate conditions. The idea was good enough to win Mr. Borlaug a Nobel Peace Prize.
Backed by the money from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, along with huge financings from the World Bank and American government, research commenced on the development of GM plant species, many of which were heavily pesticide dependant, and these “new world” seeds were shipped abroad to farmers who stripped their land of the rich plant diversity and moved toward a mono-crop culture. Within a short time the pesticides had ruined the soil, killed the good bugs as well as bad, had contaminated the farmer who had little or no training in the application of these poisons, and had bankrupted communities who couldn’t afford to pay for these expensive plant drugs. In short, it was a disaster!
Yet, even today we continue down that path, following those who cry out for us to hitch our fate to the wagon of technology, scientific advancement and international financing through the World Bank. Those are the voices that have convinced the politicians to let them drill for oil deep in our oceans without the capacity to halt a catastrophic disaster that results from a blow out. Similar voices have convinced Obama to once again roll the nuclear dice for domestic power production, risking far more than the ecosystem of the Gulf States. And they can do so because the average amongst us is wrapped in a foetal sack of ignorance and disinterest, firmly attached to the umbilical cord of commerce.
The prophets of the 1960s, like E.F. Schumacher, Amory Lovins, Rachel Carson and Donella and Dennis Meadows all put forward thoughtful and visionary approaches to solutions within their various fields of endeavour. Sadly, their good works were co-opted. Their ideas infused within the populus vox vocis played to us through the instruments of the state. We all climbed aboard a train bound for Barcelona, told by those who run it, “next stop Paris”.
Don’t look to the politicians, and certainly don’t look to science or technology to fix the problems. It is up to us to get off the train. In order to do that we need to pull the brake cord on our race toward the global madness of unlimited consumption, and learn the lessons so patiently taught us in the mid-twentieth century. Limits to growth economic models are not only ok, they are imperative if we are to survive the demands of the growing number of people who now and will soon roam this earth.