I agree whole-heartedly. Right on!
Karen ...... www.overpopulation.org
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Steve Kurtz wrote:
> This sound nice, but no mention is made of the NET ADDITION of over 7
> million humans per MONTH to earth's population. Attitides and awareness
> must include the responsibilities and effects of procreation if the below
> perceptions are to become meaningfully realized.
>
> Steve Kurtz
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> February 25, 1999
>
>
> WORLD MAY BE ON EDGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REVOLUTION
>
>
> As we approach the new millennium, there are growing signs that the world
> may be
> on the edge of an environmental revolution comparable to the political
> revolution that swept Eastern Europe, reports Lester Brown, president of
> the
> Worldwatch Institute, in an article in the March/April issue of World
> Watch. The
> social revolution in Eastern Europe led to a restructuring of the region's
> political systems. This global revolution could lead to an environmentally
> driven restructuring of the global economy.
>
> "Not all environmentalists will agree with me," said author Lester Brown,
> "but I
> believe that there are now some clear signs that the world is in the early
> stages of a major shift in environmental consciousness. What is not clear
> to me
> is whether we will cross this threshold in time to avoid the disruption of
> global economic progress."
>
> Across a spectrum of activities, places, and institutions, the atmosphere
> has
> changed markedly in just the last two years. The CEOs of some prominent
> corporations are now beginning to sound like spokespeople for Greenpeace.
> Some
> political leaders are adopting policies long championed by ecologists. And
> literally thousands of environmental NGOs have sprung up around the world,
> mobilizing millions of people for change.
>
> For many who track environmental trends, such as collapsing fisheries,
> shrinking
> forests, rising temperatures, and the wholesale loss of plant and animal
> species, it has been clear for some time that economic progress can be
> sustained
> only if the economy is restructured so that its natural support systems can
> be
> protected.
>
> For those not already convinced of the need to replace the Western,
> fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with an economy
> that
> would be environmentally sustainable, what is happening as China modernizes
> offers compelling new evidence. For example, a car in every garage in
> China,
> American style, would not only deprive China of scarce cropland, but would
> also
> drive China's oil consumption to some 80 million barrels a day, well above
> the
> current world production of 67 million barrels per day.
>
> "If the western industrial development model will not work for China, it
> will
> not work for India, whose population will reach 1 billion later this year,
> or
> for the other 2 billion people in the developing world," said Brown. "And
> in an
> integrated global economy, it will not work over the long term for the
> industrial countries either."
>
> Brown argues that there is an exciting alternative economic model that
> promises
> a better life everywhere without destroying the earth's natural support
> systems.
> The new economy will be powered not by fossil fuels, but by various sources
> of
> solar energy and hydrogen. Urban transportation systems will be centered
> not
> around the car, but around high-tech light rail systems augmented by
> bicycles
> and walking. Instead of a throwaway economy, we will have a reuse/recycle
> economy.
>
> "Twenty years ago when we first outlined this new model at the Institute,
> it was
> seen as pie-in-the-sky," said Brown. "Now that view is changing both
> because it
> is becoming clear that the old model won't work and also because we can see
> the
> broad outline of the environmentally sustainable economic model emerging."
>
> Nowhere is the new model more visible than in the energy sector. While oil
> and
> coal use have expanded by just over 1 percent a year since 1990, the use of
> solar cells has expanded by 16 percent per year and wind power by a
> prodigious
> annual rate of 26 percent. Wind power already supplies 8 percent of
> Denmark's
> electricity and 15 percent of the electricity for Schleswig-Holstein, the
> northernmost state of Germany. In Spain's northern state of Navarra, it
> has
> gone from 0 to 23 percent in just three years. Worldwide, the wind power
> potential is several times that of hydropower, which now supplies just over
> one
> fifth of the world's electricity.
>
> A new Japanese solar roofing material promises to revolutionize the
> electrical
> generating industry. In Germany, the 100,000 roofs program launched in
> December
> of 1998 by the new coalition government is leading to a joint investment by
> Shell Oil/Pilkington in a solar cell manufacturing facility that will be
> the
> world's largest.
>
> The more enterprising corporate CEOs are beginning to see this economic
> restructuring as the greatest investment opportunity in history. In a
> speech on
> February 9, Mike R. Bowlin, Chairman and CEO of ARCO, a major oil company,
> described the beginning of "the last days of the age of oil" and the
> emergence
> of the new hydrogen-based energy economy. He sees ARCO's large holdings of
> natural gas playing a key role in the transition from a carbon-based energy
> economy to one based on hydrogen. Within the last two years, British
> Petroleum
> has committed $1 billion to the development of wind and solar energy and
> Royal
> Dutch Shell has announced a $500 million investment in renewable energy
> sources.
>
> Governments, too, are changing. Denmark has banned the construction of
> coal-fired power plants. Costa Rica plans to get all its electricity from
> renewable sources by 2010. In mid-August 1998, after several weeks of
> near-record flooding in the Yangtze River basin, Premier Zhu Rongji ordered
> a
> halt to tree cutting in the upper basin, arguing that trees standing are
> worth
> three times as much as those cut.
>
> If we are indeed approaching a social threshold on the environment that
> could
> lead to a rapid restructuring of the economy, will it come soon enough? Is
> it
> too late to save the Aral Sea? Yes, its fish are gone. Is it too late to
> save
> Indonesia's rain forests? Probably. Is it too late to avoid global
> warming?
> Apparently. The Earth's average temperature now appears to be rising. Can
> we
> ameliorate future temperature rises? Yes. Can we move fast enough to
> prevent
> environmental deterioration from disrupting the global economy? Probably.
> But
> only if we cross the threshold soon.
>
> "No challenge in the new century looms greater than that of transforming
> the
> economy into one that is environmentally sustainable," said Brown. "This
> Environmental Revolution is comparable in scale to the Agricultural
> Revolution
> and the Industrial Revolution. The big difference is in the time
> available. The
> Agricultural Revolution was spread over thousands of years. The Industrial
> Revolution has been underway for two centuries. The Environmental
> Revolution,
> if it succeeds, will be compressed into a few decades."
>
> Brown writes that archeologists have uncovered the sites of earlier
> civilizations that moved onto economic paths that were environmentally
> destructive and could not make the needed course corrections either because
> they
> did not understand what was happening or could not summon the needed
> political
> will.
>
> "We do know what is happening," said Brown. "The question for us is
> whether our
> global society can cross the social threshold that will enable us to
> restructure
> the global economy before environmental deterioration leads to economic
> decline."
>
> -END-
> --
>
> "To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being
> paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy,
> in our age, can still do for those who study it."
> Bertrand Russell, "A History of Western Philosophy"
>