Growing Pains

''Every nation has both a right and responsibility to keep its population in balance with its resources. The notion that you can grow forever is crazy economics.'' ―Mark O’Connor

In the world outside a coal mine frogs are the canaries, and they are dying.

As we humans change the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the oceans, and of the land itself, the very planet we depend on for life support is rapidly losing the ability to support life. Scientists and other experts warn that we are fast approaching critical tipping points on numerous fronts and that mass extinctions are a likely result.

Few people seem to grasp the precariousness of our situation―the immediacy of the dangers we all face―and fewer still fully grasp the proximate causes of it. Until we acknowledge the human element at the epicenter of environmental degradation and resource depletion―until we stop thinking in terms of resource shortages and start thinking in terms of excess demand due to overpopulation―and begin an honest dialog aimed at resolving these difficult issues, we are condemned to live a “slapstick comedy” kind of existence.

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Daze of Our Lives

Among the many things that block human progress are politics, religion, economics, corrupt government infested with corporate insiders, and a profound lack of critical thought at all levels of society. Thus it has always been, and thus it will always be. The dumbfuckery just never seems to stop.

Too many of our nation’s leaders are greedy opportunists voted into office by people of questionable intelligence. We’re a nation in gridlock because imbeciles and “morans,”  who know exactly what they want but are totally clueless about what they need, would rather be led by self-aggrandizing dolts and liars than by intelligent, principled visionaries whose main concerns are to serve society’s immediate and long-term interests. The efforts of our too few principled leaders are perpetually thwarted by our too many leaders who, devoid of principle, obfuscate and obstruct in service to a corporate agenda.

A little more than a decade into the 21^st century, the 20^th-century way of doing things no longer works for most people. Call it one of the undesirable side-effects of overpopulation meeting resource limits. When you have a large population clamoring for prosperity for everyone, what you get is environmental disaster and ecological collapse quickly followed by economic collapse. It's time for people to wake up and recognize "economic growth" for the bullshit it is. Population growth, too. We’ve already exceeded the limit on both.

Too many people doing too many destructive things take unsustainable tolls on environment and resources. Nothing about the way we’ve structured our society (and all of the systems that support it) is sustainable. If we are to create a progressive, inclusive, humane society that’s truly sustainable, we must rethink our priorities, slaughter a few sacred cows, redesign our social institutions and build or rebuild everything we’ll need to make it so. The sooner we get started the lower the costs will be—and the easier the task.

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Denial-of-service Attacks

No, no, this has nothing to do with the Internet. This is all about denying abortion and reproductive health and family planning services to women desperately in need of same. In a world that’s already dangerously overpopulated (and a world that seems to be setting up as much as 90% of its total population for near-term extermination), it gets ever more difficult to understand where the anti-choice, pro-life morons who depend on religion to inform their every opinion are coming from.

"We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage." —Mikhail Gorbachev

This is exactly the kind of shit that happens when people with small brains and even smaller minds try to establish rules for other people to live by. But, hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, don’t they?

Chug-a-lug

Gone Fishin’

Beat Me, Senseless

These are just a few of the reasons why I’m pro-choice.

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Speeding Toward a Wall of Reality

Few people seem to realize that human overpopulation is the biggest threat now facing humans and other planetary life forms, and fewer still are talking about the crisis that should be—but isn’t—on everyone’s mind. We’ve run into a wall in terms of population growth and economic growth (neither are sustainable), and the sooner we accept that fact the sooner we can start a discussion about possible solutions.

The following five videos are sequential parts of a program that aired on Canadian television on May 5, 2008.

The Agenda w/Steve Paikin: Overpopulation

Part 1 of 5

The Agenda w/Steve Paikin: Overpopulation

Part 2 of 5

The Agenda w/Steve Paikin: Overpopulation

Part 3 of 5

The Agenda w/Steve Paikin: Overpopulation

Part 4 of 5

The Agenda w/Steve Paikin: Overpopulation

Part 5 of 5

Denial has never been a particularly effective coping mechanism, and it’s even less effective as a survival strategy. What we do (or don’t do) in the next few years will determine the future of the human race.

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Calamity Jane?

Jane Goodall confronts the elephant in the room—and stays rational throughout.

More about this subject in tomorrow’s post.

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Today Started at Midnight

When I started writing this, the day was 13 hours and 20 minutes old.

In 13 hours and 20 minutes the global population increased by more than 117,000 people. More than 82,000 people became malnourished. 41 species became extinct.

During those 13 hours and 20 minutes more than 41,800,000 tons of CO² were spewed into the atmosphere, the U.S. produced more than 335,000 tons of garbage, 41 tons of oil spilled into the oceans, and some 19,800 hectares of the planet’s forests were razed to the ground. In that 13 hours and 20 minutes more than 46,500,000 barrels of oil were pumped out of the ground.

What time is it?

Doesn’t matter.

It’s later than you think.

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HorseCents or Horseshit?

Either this guy is a fucking moron or he’s a brilliant satirist. I haven’t decided which. Maybe you can tell:

Overpopulation crisis debunked in 5 minutes, by HorseCents


The only thing HorseCents debunks is the notion that giving a moron who had an excess of beer on Saturday night access to a video cam on Sunday morning is a good one. Another perfect example of a person who failed to ask the next question.

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The Problem with Problems*

Global warming, environmental destruction, polluted water, depleted fish stocks, an endangered food supply, an energy crisis, a shortage of affordable housing, poverty, education funding shortfalls, rising healthcare costs, declining numbers (relative to the population) of living-wage jobs, war . . .. These are among the most egregious, most vexing, most persistent problems that plague society today. What are we going to do about them?

The conventional mindset is that if society's problem solvers throw enough money at a problem, or do something equally stupid, the problem will just go away. Sorry! Reality doesn't work that way. In reality, one must attack the source of a problem if one has a serious desire to solve the problem.

Everyone has their own ideas about how to remedy society's most pressing problems, but that, in itself, creates another problem. Most remedies postulated by concerned citizens and well meaning (or not) politicians concentrate on treating the symptoms, not the disease. These are nothing more than feel-good solutions that dull the pain of failed policy while ignoring the underlying cause. They give the illusion of making progress, but deliver nothing of substance.

Feel-good solutions are band-aid solutions; they're stopgap measures at best. The sore that is the crux of the problem continues to fester under the band-aid until the band-aid falls off, at which point the original problem becomes a little more difficult to deal with.

Virtually all of the problems mentioned in the first paragraph of this short essay stem from one source—overpopulation. Until all members of society, from the movers and shakers to the moved and shaken, can recognize, understand and accept this simple truth, and will themselves to act in concert to end our collective nightmare, the nightmare will continue, unabated, to its ultimate, frightful, painful conclusion.

We can take decisive, positive steps to limit population growth by placing sanctions and controls on the front end; we can implement harsh, brutal, extreme measures on the back end; or, we can do nothing, thus letting the status quo prevail. We can do it the sane way, we can do it the insane way, or we can let Mother Nature do it her way. That, too, is a choice. The only certainty is that we, as a species, will either live or die by the choice we make.


*This brief article originally appeared in Petey's Pipeline E-zine, Issue #17, October 17, 2005.