...........


Shaping the Future:




manuscript by
Hugh Bibbs


5.

Action Stations


Systemic analysis of the crises facing Earth can be done by breaking them up into separate domains.

There are three crises to face down:

1. Destruction due to overpopulation.

a: Nothing can be done to stop population growth except by state interventions at least as oppressive as China's. The most effective non-interventionist method of population control appears to be prosperity and long life expectancy, where the parents voluntarily limit their own family size to give themselves a better chance to provide really well for the prolonged rearing of their own first and second-born children. Prosperity in this case is not tied to consumption, but to education and elite employment opportunities. Caused, as it is, by billions of individual choices, overpopulation itself is not a candidate for political remedy, even though it is the prime cause of environmental destruction.

b: Global warming, caused by the growing demand for fuels to heat with and to cook with and to fuel industrial processes, is driven by population growth. It has to be seen that global temperature is also affected by the solar cycles, over which we have no control. Our current plantary temperature is at a natural global maximum which should collapse within a few hundred years and not return again for over a hundred thousand years. The Ice Age is the normal condition of the planet, not the exception, as seen by the following chart of global temperatures over the last quarter of a million years:

2. Poisoning of the environment.

a: The deliberate acceleration of the mass production of toxins, since the so-called "green revolution" begat the chemical economy, is bearing anti-fruit in the biosphere. The toxins are killing off biomes the world over, causing desertification of land and sea.

b: Weapons of mass destruction are really a subtext of the proliferation of man-made toxins. If the radioactive toxins are harnessed/released to their full potential, they will overtake the chemical toxins as the chief enemy of life on the planet.

3. War. Seen simply as the intraspecies bloodletting that it once was, war is both a part of life and death on the planet and an inevitable consequence of human nature (i.e.,"original sin": yes, the ancients hit it right on the nose first time round). However, since the advent of weapons of mass destruction, and mass production of weapons of limited destruction, war today always impacts the biome in which it is waged, often killing more of the other life forms than of the human.

When we approach these three destructive emergencies, we must apply triage to harness our effort well.

1: Overpopulation is viewed as a hopeless case, and will be left to run its own course. This means, of course, that the environmental degradation will result inevitably in supply crises and rising sea levels due to global warming. Our response to overpopulation must therefore be the immediate survey and preparation of coastal regions for diking, reconstruction upland, and eventual inundation. Plans for the redistribution of food aid and water supplies are going to be required to at least attempt to moderate the supply crises, although the real answer will be a spontaneous grass roots one... human migrations on a large scale, from regions of waste to those with resources. This is not an avoidable future.

2: The deliberate production of toxins must be brought to an absolute halt. It is possible to legislate and enforce state controls over toxin trafficking, and it is the only emergency that is within the power of state organs to effect a peaceful and absolutely satisfactory end.

3: War cannot be avoided except by the constant diplomatic efforts of both the weak and the strong, and by the occasional police action by the strong to curtail the excesses of the weak. Global war between the strong is an unworthy failure of our separate states, but it is always a possibility, and so should be worked against tirelessly by those in a position to effect diplomatic solutions, in business, trade, military adventures, global finance, communications, and religious institutions. Particularly the latter bear a renewed responsibility to eliminate warlike rhetoric and teach peace among peoples, since their adherents are those citizens who are particularly susceptible to external guidance. We look for success here especially amongst currently warlike religious groups, that they may reinvent themselves as peacemakers.
note: this was written in 1998, and things have not gone well since, in this respect (2007).

In concluding, we can say that the state organs currently deal with the third crisis, War, in an effective manner, after a hard training during the last century. So, the third crisis is being dealt with at present.
note: this was written in 1998, and things have not gone well since, in this respect, either (2007).

The first crisis is going to breed future trials which must be prepared for and faced as inevitable, since overpopulation cannot be prevented. The consequences of overpopulation, crises of global supply and rising sea levels, must be viewed as inevitable problems to be planned for and dealt with by all States. The remedies are for the future to deal with, since the global changes have not developed into immediate emergencies.

It is the second crisis, the poisoning of the planet's biosphere, which has not been dealt with, is continuing to worsen, and which has the readiest remedy in immediate political action. Therefore, people wishing to act, on behalf of the future of the environment and all life on our planet, will do well to first address the continued deliberate manufacture of toxins, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, overly-strong antiseptics and detergents, radioactive manufactured goods such as smoke alarms, radioactive power generators, radioactive weapons deployment (thermonuclear warheads and simple radioative heavy-metal shell casings), cyanide ponds (gold extraction), strip mining within active biomes, the further extraction of naturally radioactive minerals, and all other such deadly processes that have been initiated by the world's chemical economy, and must be ended by the world's other economies before they each die off, like the fisheries, with the biomes in which they once thrived.




BACK



TABLE OF CONTENTS



Other History Sites:


WESTERN CANADIAN SITE