Business as usual? Really?

This morning I finally finished reading What Is Life?: five great ideas in biology, by the Nobel laureate, Paul Nurse. At the risk of being a spoiler, I want to share the books penultimate paragraph. I hope the reason for sharing becomes self evident.

Our planet is the only corner of the universe where we know for certain life exists. The life we are part of here on Earth is extraordinary. It constantly surprises us but, in spite of its bewildering diversity, scientists are making sense of it, and that understanding makes a fundamental contribution to our culture and our civilization. Our growing understanding of what life is has great potential to improve the lot of humankind. But this knowledge goes even further. Biology shows us that all the living organisms we know of are related and closely interacting. We are bound by a deep connectedness to all other life: to the crawling beetles, infecting bacteria, fermenting yeast, inquisitive mountain gorillas and flitting yellow butterflies that have accompanied us during our journey through  this book, as well as to every other member of the biosphere. Together, all these species are life's great survivors, the latest descendants of a single, immeasurably vast family lineage that stretches back through  an unbroken chain of cell divisions into the far reaches of deep time.

With the preceding paragraph as background, please now follow this link and read  A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news.

read the whole report

I believe it  is critical to be aware that the authors of the 1972 study did an update in the early 1990's that reiterated the key themes of the original study. Please read carefully:

The book was interpreted by many as a prediction of doom, but it was not a prediction at all. It was not about a preordained future. It was about a choice. It contained a warning, to be sure, but also a message of promise. Here are the three summary conclusions we wrote in 1972. The second of them is the promise, a very optimistic one, but our analysis justified it then and still justifies it now. Perhaps we should have listed it first.

1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his or her individual human potential.

3. If the world’s people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success. (Meadows et al., 1972)

We, the  world's people, are now facing strong reticence to change from those with vested interests in continuing business as usual and much  to gain if the status quo is maintained. If those interests prevail, it may well be at the expense of life on Earth as we know it. Think about that, then act appropriately!

If you are  looking for additional information on the limits to growth, you can start here. Type limits to growth in the search box.

American Future

By Peter Bethanis

In 1963 the morning probably seemed harmless enough

to sign on the dotted line as the insurance man

talked to my parents for over an hour

around a coffee table about our future.

This roof wasn't designed to withstand meteors

he told my father, who back then had a brush haircut

that made his ears stick out, his moods

still full of passion, still willing to listen,

my mother with her beehive hairdo,

smiling back at him, all three of them

wanting so much to make the fine print

of the world work. They laughed

and smoked, and after they led the man

politely to the door, my parents returned

to the living room and danced in the afternoon light,

the phonograph playing Frank Sinatra,

the green Buick's payments up to date,

five-hundred dollars safely in the bank—

later that evening, his infallible common sense

ready to protect us from a burst pipe or dry rot,

my father waded up to his ankles in water,

a V of sweat on the back of his shirt.

Something loomed deeper than any basement

on our block, larger than he was,

a fear he could not admit was unsolvable

with a monkey wrench or a handshake and a little money down.

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