People talk about how we live in our own bubbles, each
faction isolated from the other’s in an echo chamber of media and social media
reflecting our social and political views.
But the biggest bubble we live in is the one that ignores
that there are way too many people on our planet—and we live in denial at our
own peril.
You won’t hear this from advertisers because businesses want
more people to buy their products.
You won’t hear it from government because they need more
taxpayers to support their programs.
You won’t hear it from politicians, because they won’t get
re-elected.
But the evidence is all around us if we take the time to
look. Yet we don’t take time in our busy lives. We’d rather not look than risk
having to give up what we want.
In the late 1980s the human population exceeded the planet's ability to sustain us, putting us in ecological debt.Since then we have put 3 billion more people on the planet. It took from the dawn of man until 1959 for the population to reach the first 3 billion! We are using today what future generations would have needed. We are depleting
fisheries, aquifers and destroying rainforests faster than they can regenerate
and adding pollutants faster than the planet can absorb them. We resort to fracking and mountain-top removal to extract
fossil fuels to sustain our lifestyles.
It is so simple, so important, and we are so stupid to
ignore what is unfolding.
Instead, we keep pouring millions into space exploration,
rather than taking steps to protect the one planet perfectly suited to meet all
of our needs.
We purse new medical technology for things like head
transplants, rather than facing the stark reality that we cannot afford to live
longer or keep more people alive.
The simple truth is that if we don’t reduce our numbers
drastically, we will destroy much of life on earth, including our own species.
Indeed, we are already well on the way, having pushed from
existence half of the wildlife on the planet. Each day at least 80,000 acres (32,300
ha) of forest are destroyed. Already two-thirds of the world's fish stocks are
fished at or beyond their limit.
While we squabble about politics—and even global warming--,
the decisions we make every day are condemning us to a hellish future of
deprivation and despair.
