As the Guardian noted yesterday:
Many of Earth's “vital signs” have hit record extremes, indicating that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance”, a group of the world's most senior climate experts have said.
More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.
The temperature of Earth's surface and oceans hit an all-time high, driven by record burning of fossil fuels, the report found. Human population is increasing at a rate of approximately 200,000 people a day and the number of cattle and sheep by 170,000 a day, all adding to record greenhouse gas emissions.
I believe those scientists. All the available evidence is that they are right, given that everything that they have predicted so far, including extreme weather conditions and the threat to the survival of life on some parts of the planet, does seem to be happening.
I was eavesdropping on a conversation yesterday. I know I shouldn't, but the two people of about my age who were partaking in it in the coffee shop where I was working were doing nothing to stop me from doing so, and such was their volume that they gave me little option but to take note. They were discussing all the places that they had been in the world - and few tourist hotspots from Hawaii to every place you can think of closer to home - had seemingly been missed by them. Despite that, discussion was being had on where to go next, with the Himalayas seeming to be high on the agenda.
Why was I interested? I also listened to their discussion about their grandchildren, for whom they very obviously cared. I then wondered whether those grandchildren were really going to thank these two for having helped burn their planet for no good reason. A cocktail is a cocktail the world over - and they seemed to have a liking for them as well. Their 'making memories' tours of the world are very clearly part of the problem of excess consumption that is driving our world to the brink of chaos, and beyond. But they either did not know, or did not care, or could not make the link between their own excesses and the crisis that we face.
I fear societal breakdown. It will come because of that thing that most people in this country claim to fear most - which is the movement of people. That is going to happen now. Hundreds of millions of people, or more, are going to have to move in the decades to come if they are to have a chance of survival. That is not an opinion; that's a fact. And you can be sure that those who will move will do so because they are not going to sit still and die where life has become impossible, through no fault of their own.
In that case, what can be done to manage this risk of societal breakdown through the mass movement of people? What follows are incredibly simplistic suggestions, but in the face of a crisis of epic proportions, which is where we are, simple solutions might be required.
First, we will have to accept the reality of migration. Our narratives have to change. We embrace what is going to happen, or the turmoil of conflict will end what we have, come what may.
Second, we have to accept that our consumption is going to change radically. We will not, for a start, be aimlessly globe-trotting the world, but that is only the tip of the required change in behaviour.
Third, we might have to overthrow the powers that seek to prevent change from happening - most of whom are represented by the current power elites who have, for example, now decided that when the choice is between short-term profits and human survival, profits win. Alternatively, they are those who have decided that balancing the books should win. In either case, those priorities have to go, and those seeking to uphold them will have to lose power - however uncomfortable that might be for them.
And for the record (and in case anyone in the security services might be looking in), I am not for a moment suggesting revolution or anything so absurd because that would itself represent societal breakdown. I am suggesting that democracy - real democracy - has to deliver this. In other words, the will of the people to survive will, eventually, have to prevail at the ballot box.
Let's not pretend we are going to be living comfortably for some time to come. What has already happened might well prevent that from happening. The only hope we have is for changed attitudes, changed priorities, and the will to live. With them, we might survive climate change. Without them, breakdown it is.
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Global tourism is reckoned to produce some 8% of emissions, with current growth pushing that towards 10% of all emissions
It is still growing at a time when the opposite is needed.
Anyone thinking there is a divine right, or entitlement to global travel and play, amongst other “rights”, and that economic freedom exceeds the necessity for living within planetary confines, is likely to push back hard on the shrinkage of these luxuries, as are the corporate beneficiaries.
It won’t come easy, but I would not want to be a globetrotter’s child, or grandchild.
The jury might still be out, but I see no serious adaptation to the realities of our circumstances, and no reason that we will avoid 2° or even 2.5°C.
True story. A (former) parish councillor known to me was thrilled a couple of years ago when she managed to get the parish council to pass a resolution declaring a climate emergency. The very next week, she and hubby were on a jet plane to holiday in Greece, a large chunk of which had just been reduced to ashes due to climate-change-induced wild fires. They’re still at it, flying all over the world for work and pleasure. They are smart, educated, think of themselves as environmentalists! Other people at work talk incessantly about the foreign trips they are planning. Is there actually any hope of voluntary behaviour change significant enough to make much of a difference in the years ahead? What has to happen before the zeitgeist changes?
Quite Jim,
I haven’t flown for almost 20yrs, (except to hospital).
Too many people, even those claiming environmental consciousness don’t think their own consumption is excessive when many probably need an emissionsn smart meter to educate themselves.
Then we have the obscenity of a former UK Prime Minister with a £40m a year helicopter contract.
I agonised over the IT euipment to do the videos
I have decided they can be justified by work
But it did not stop me thinking about it, hard
True story. As some know, I live in Belgium & the Ardennes is one hour by car (sigh) away. Took mate on cycle ride through silent forests – no traffic – couple of bigs hills – vast views into the blue yonder. Swim in cold river (no people) & modest lunch in very nice al fresco place (oh come on – you don’t think I’m going to give locations?). Yep we had to drive – two of us + bikes. For me, I do not need much more. Quiet & calm, exercise in a beautiful place, great bike ride, wonderful swim – beer at end. I probably lack imagination.
No
That’s reality
And as Crowded House once sang, you always take the weather with you – in other words moving won’t change your outlook, pleasure or much else. It’s what you change yourself that does that.
Fundamental change is decades overdue. The Government can instigate massive changes by introducing laws to hold all businesses to work within sustainable guidelines. Building regs should simply override the house builders lobby and insist on passiv haus standards in all new builds immediately cutting the running costs of those houses by 90%. Retrofitting all new builds from the last decade with solar where suitable. Investing in training high tech engineers and trades people to convert existing homes and businesses to more sustainable entities. Insisting large new estates are fed with electricity generated by direct connection (not the national grid) to locally installed high powered wind turbines like the ones we have here in Leighton Buzzard. Investing in alternative approaches to home economics, food programmes that reduce our reliance on animal protein, Electrification of our bus networks providing cheaper cleaner ways of getting about. But all this is but a pinprick in global terms. While nation continues to threaten nation and the economic madness of NeoLib capitalism dominates we are doomed to repeat the disasters of the past. Somehow we need to unite the secular and religious leaders of the world, (via the weak and toothless UN) to agree that harmony and peace are the only pathways to conquering the climate challenge. Removing enmity, catastrophic environmental destruction through war and political and religious suppression are the keys to the age of global climate salvation. Without this fundamental humanist paradigm shift all other ‘missions’ are condemned to failure.
Thank you and well said, David.
A dozen years ago, I attended a talk about local sources of clean energy in Austria. That was organised by my employer, the blue eagle, then and now still involved in fossil fuel finance. The speaker explained that, other than local council inertia, big energy firms lobbied against such local action, not just in the UK.
I live a down the road from you in mid Buckinghamshire.
I agree.
But I don’t think our thinly veiled pseudo-democracy can deliver the solutions that are required.
It pains me that people think they can consume unnecessarily without consequences. It pains me that businesses and politicians think that continuance of the status quo is moral.
We don’t fly. We restrict our vehicle usage to the bare minimum. We use our gas central heating sparingly. Our consciences won’t allow us to do anything else. Yet, it feels like we live in the margins of society, to the extent we are misjudged by relatives for the choices we make.
It appears keeping up the right appearance is more important than our long-term survival, and the long-term survival of nature and our planet.
I recognise much of that
Although my relatives seem of broadly the same mindset
Well done. I bleat and worry about climate change, then I say yes to a holiday in Japan and a hot tub. Usually we caravan in the uk and I avoid driving when I can walk, cycle, bus it etc.
I think it’s like smoking: we quickly forget our determination not to pollute when the attraction of the thing overrides that.
Perhaps everything should come with a planet warning and pictures of forest fires.
I have flown for leisure purposes theree times this century – once to Dublin (returning by ferry and train) and the other to go a a funeral last December when no other option seemed to be available.
I have been on holiday many times – far more than. is apaprent from this blog.
I did travel too much for work by air.
I refuse to do that too now.
I wonder how much carbon all the ME bombs have released into the atmosphere. I’m not optimistic about the future at all.
Thank you, Lesley and Richard.
A few years ago, the carbon footprint of the US war machine and its path of global destruction it was estimated. It’s possibly the biggest polluter around.
I did this post on my blog last January on the contributions from the globe war machine to greenhouse gas emissions. https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/exposing-the-global-war-machine-as?utm_source=publication-search
I had, literally (used correctly!), just had the same thought…
It would not surprise me if the global hopping elite are banking on the rest of us killing each other in order to leave them with everything. But what will they have?
Over the years I have been tormented by not going to Hawaii and elsewhere (keeping up with the Jones’s) but have learned to live with it knowing that even as a 13 year old we were being told about pollution from the jet planes and then reflecting on the growth of air travel you know something has gone seriously wrong.
Add in the use of the diesel engines for cars (something that should never have been allowed at all, but was to boost sales) and you can see what a corrupting enterprise we have been part of.
Still, the rich who are driving all of this are banking on their immense wealth buying them out of facing the consequences.
I too am regularly on repeat ! The topics matter and the only way to influence change is to repeat, reinforce and evidence.
The planet is heading towards a 3 to 4 C temperature increase by the end of the century. The evidence is overwhelming. Populations will have to move North and South to escape from uninhabitable areas. The upheaval will be huge and unpredictable. The likelihood of conflict will be even higher than it is now. We also face the increasing likelihood of tipping point acceleration. So a very gloomy outlook. Carbon capture won’t save the planet !
The only solution is concerted government action across the globe at a hugely accelerated pace. It is already too late to avoid a 2 C increase but there is time to avoid the very worst outcome.
Global travel is part of the same self interested mindset that had resulted in the ridiculous ever increasing size of cars. “I will do what I want and I don’t care about the impact on others”. Some days I need respite from current affairs. It a coping strategy but it doesn’t make them go away.
Thank you, Richard.
And we have this fellow in charge: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-green-climate-change-starmer-miliband-b2372012.html.
Animal argriculture is a big part too of the emissions, land use and deforestation, animal extiction, and dead zone creation. It is also what drives zoonotic diseases like Covid which we can expect more of, as well as antibiotic resistance. People’s diets will have to be of plants, but that’s healthier anyway.
I suggest you learn what essential amino acids are together with what MTOR is and does and then consider why it is the Paris 2024 Olympians might disagree with you
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/olympians-demand-meat-as-vegan-menu-and-poor-conditions-spark-outrage/
If you were to walk down the road on which I live in a small village in Somerset, you will notice “The Old Bakery”, “The Old Stores”, “The Old Post Office”, “The Old Forge”, and properties that were once a butcher’s, a hairdressers, a haberdashery, a carpenters workshop (coffins at a reasonable price!). It’s the same in the nearby, rapidly growing, village of Cheddar, where my office happens to be. My office is above a shop in what was, until 70 years or so ago, the proprietor’s accommodation. Back in the day, business owners did indeed live within or very near their premises.
I believe that this will gradually return as localism becomes the norm once again. My children believe so, too, and so do most of their peers I know, and one has just relocated to be within a very short bus ride of their employer’s office. Many younger people seem to be far more optimistic in their outlook than me, which can only be a ‘good thing’. They accept that life will become simpler, perhaps more difficult, less materialistic. People will relearn how to to do things, real things, unlike so many BS jobs today.
We have to have hope.
Indeed
For some of my time in London and all of bit since I could walk to work
Now, I walk into town for exercise, the sake of the planet and to assemble my thoughts. Few do, I note.
Local is good
Thank you, Mark and Richard.
I would love to and started work 20 minutes on foot from home, the late Equitable Life.
When on the continent, I marvel at the variety of local work, reasonable pay and better quality of life on offer. One can make a career in the provinces / away from the capital. The dominance of London and Big Finance is unhealthy in many ways.
Agreed
Interestingly, my son who is working in London, thinking it where the action is, seems to be having second thoughts
Small is Beautiful… now where have I heard this before? First economics book I read actually 🙂
Not my first
But read whilst I was a sixth former
And the Old School House – one of the most frustrating and damaging things Bliar encouraged was “school choice” with the result that to avoid supposedly “bog-standard” local schools parents started bussing and driving their kids for miles every morning and afternoon, emitting immense amounts of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile this was an excuse to privatise (sorry, academy-ise) the local “bog-standard” (as it had failed Ofsted inspections or whatever) school down the road and wreck it as a genuine educational establishment. Strangely, making every local, state school the epitome of excellence has never been an aim of any government.
“I am not for a moment suggesting revolution or anything so absurd because that would itself represent societal breakdown. I am suggesting that democracy – real democracy – has to deliver this. In other words, the will of the people to survive will, eventually, have to prevail at the ballot box.”
I think that is very well put. I sympathise with the calls for revolution but my concern for least harm and recognising the chaos and suffering of actual revolutions leads me to advocate and hope for what you also prefer, Richard. I think “the will of the people to survive” is a phrase worth repeating. Sometimes, at present, it looks like there are those who will to survive and damn the rest for our lack of wealth to survive. (Though I suspect that their wealth, in the end won’t protect them as much of it is also built on metaphorical sand).
Noted
Travelling by train is a great alternative for those who have Wanderlust. It might not get you to Australia or the Galapagos, but there are plenty of places to explore closer to home, and Eurostar, despite the Brexit induced inconvenience, will link you into the great European railway systems. There are several good tour companies who will help organise a great custom made trip.
Agreed
You can also go to Cromer, Scarborough, St Ives, Fort William and Pwllheli, and more besides. And for the record, I’ve done them all.
LOL, we drove through Pwllheli twice yesterday on way to and from dentist in Penrhyndaedraeth! My teeth are my curse, this is the second dentist trip I’ve made to Welsh dentists this year!
We only holiday in our caravan in North Wales now, we stay here for months at a time. Husband goes back once or twice to collect our mail and check the house and garden. Liverpool isn’t that far from Abersoch, so I reckon we’re doing what we can to not travel too far. I’ve never flown in my life, and have no wish to do so. I prefer watching my feathered friends both here and at home!
The Llŷn Peninsula – I love it.
“And for the record (and in case anyone in the security services might be looking in)”
That made me laugh I must say..
You think I am joking?
My eldest son used to work in the security service, including being a Cameron bodyguard. I used to have to avoid using certain words or opinions online or on the phone when he was being screened. You will certainly be under some form of surveillance initially, but probably filed with me under ‘harmless and ineffectual’ 🙂
Nowp
Things are much worse than the mainstream news media are prepared to discuss.
Climate scientists think there is a strong chance of a double Blue Ocean Event in 2025:
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/10/double-blue-ocean-event-2025.html
Blue Ocean Events occur when there is no ice over the poles, this lowers the albedo of the planet, which causes it to absorb more of the Sun’s energy, which melts more ice, and so on in an increasing cycle of positive feedback. If the methane stored in the permafrost under the poles begins to defrost and add to the greenhouse effect it could render the planet completely uninhabitable by our species in a very short time span.
It is no longer a climate crisis, it is now a climate emergency. Not that the politicians care.
Thank you, Matthew.
Not just at the poles, but the permafrost in Siberia, too. Not just methane, but diseases yet to be encountered.
Last month, a merchant ship sailed from Murmansk to China by way of the Arctic and north Pacific.
The MSM is oligarch owned and influenced. A couple of years ago, there was a presentation in NYC to investors about the business opportunities from climate change, a PR term to dilute the impact of global warming / climate emergency, including new coastal developments in what is now inland and vineyards in the likes of Montana. The investors aimed at often have bolt holes in Patagonia, New Zealand, the Rockies etc. and think they can survive. As I have said, neither the planet nor its people can afford the wealthy.
Other than the recent floods in central Europe and storms Helene and Kirk in the US, which are not endearing voters to the Biden administration / Dixiecrats, as with genocide in the Levant, these tragedies are over there and, it seems, don’t affect us / people who look like us.
I’ve just read the latest blog you referred to and it’s very concerning – to say the least. This should be front page news…..
Here’s a thought-provoking talk by Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research & professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University, on dramatic changes in Atlantic ocean currents. These suggest that, while the rest of the word is becoming significantly hotter, the North Atlantic will be much cooler and therefore northern parts of the UK and Scandinavia, Greenland and Iceland will all be colder and wetter. At nearly 35 minutes it’s a long watch, but well worth watching.
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2024/09/02/atlantic-ocean-currents/
Opened to view later
Thanks Ken
We need a response akin to 1939-45 – all efforts towards saving society including rationing of scarce resources.
I think I was hoping that parliament agreeing that we are in a climate emergency would bring that about. But it turns out it was more hot air to add to the CO2 already too abundant.
I would advocate a ban on all personalised motorised transport, no carnivore pets unless to help with disabilities and severely restrict the consumption and for this rationing is the way forward and that includes the purchase of clothing.
Either we are serious about saving the world or we are not. We could eventually become the “flag bearer” for good practice which other countries could adopt. Sacrifice is needed and we need to start as soon as possible.
Dogs can be fed vegan diets, and cats there are formulations that give cats what they need so they can be fed that too.
As already your piece Richard and the range of fundamental points here suggest, there is much to discuss. But while the vast major of the public do not gather in community meetings and, instead, sit on their bottoms listening to the padding of ‘manufacturing consent’ mainstream media, we are not really going anywhere. Added to that is the ignorance in Government evinced by latest the £22bn for CCS. Now we have the new head of the Committee on Climate Change who has a degree in Classics with a formative early career in financial services, when what is needed is someone with a strong scientific / engineering background and systems’ analysis; of the calibre of the late Donella Meadows.
The climate emergency will persist and grow worse while we fail to realise the solution is fundamentally political. A basic starting point is a culture of citizenship that underpins a truly consensual democracy that, at least, generates the pressure to have intelligent politicians and expectations thereof. The answer is NOT ‘Just Stop Oil’, as if only we could move to have unlimited supplies of energy; the answer is to work to understand why we need to transform our paradigm: that over consumption and unsustainable living, antagonistic to the planet’s ecology (just as you mention), is THE problem.
I see so much of what you post Richard as highly relevant to moving us towards a better transition of society but also the exchanges on your blog are much needed. But somehow (!!) we must accelerate conversations and understanding across our country. It is not easy. As a long-in-the tooth ‘climate activist’, I keep coming back to citizenship, need for ‘communities engaging, interacting’. It’s back to JFK’s: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”.
As far as our mainstream media and most of our crop of politicians the answer is:
it’s not enough. Instead, they persist in their cosy, smug ‘bubbles’.
Interesting article here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvdgvj592do
OK its only Halloween Pumpkins, although my Squash crop (food) was poor this year but when it happens to Wheat, Maize, Rice etc we are in trouble
[…] By Richard Murphy, part-time Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School, director of the Corporate Accountability Network, member of Finance for the Future LLP, and director of Tax Research LLP. Originally published at Fund the Future […]
And meanwhile we’re busily firing rockets at each other.
My parents, uncles and aunts were evacuated during WW2 for their safety. Mention this to those on far right and they nod at the wisdom of it.
They then react with disdain towards parents in war torn countries across the world sending their loved ones abroad for safety.
And they like to accuse the left of hypocrisy
The problem with humanity is that history shows us that we will always overshoot – we are an unsustainable species as Tom Murphy puts it. If one civilisation falls into ruins, then another one will eventually arise to burn, rape and plunder until inevitable overshoot when it will then fall, and in time another will arise and do the same. We aren’t capable of learning our lessons. Even now, as a category 5 hurricane barrels its way to Florida, I don’t hear or see the clarion calls for action from our leaders. Instead, what I see, is the wealthy and powerful plundering the weak and defenceless in a last ditch attempt to extract what wealth and resources they can so that their future is one of relative comfort, even whilst those around them starve and the world burns.
Even those suggesting solutions on thread, still put humanity’s survival at the centre of it, with all the attendant collateral damage that this will inevitably entail. For example , someone suggested banning carnivores as pets, but the implication there is that the lives of those carnivores have no value whatsoever and can be sacrificed as required on the alter of human supremacy. Yes, the argument might go that we won’t kill them but cease to breed them and in that way achieve the same ends, but the implication is still the same. Humans must survive even if our companion animals are consigned to the history books. What else are we prepared to sacrifice to ensure that we survive? We’ve already initiated a sixth world extinction event – are we prepared to live in a future where nothing but humans and rats survive as mammalian life? And the irony of course is that we actually cannot survive without the enormous complexity of life – we are wholly dependent upon it. So once we’ve got rid of the livestock, depleted soils to the point of exhaustion to meet our ever increasing demands for food, destroyed most insect life as part of trying to control plant pests, driven out what remaining wildlife so that we can utilise every scrap of land for food production, and completed our wholesale plundering of the seas, we’ll still be in overshoot. Because what we haven’t done, and what we should have done, is scaled back our ambition to something truly sustainable that doesn’t put humanity at the heart of it, but puts the ecological health of the entire planet there instead. There’s no point trying to save a finger if the entire body is bleeding out.
I want humanity to survive, but not at the expense of everything else. And as I see no evidence of humanity being able to do anything other than overshoot, and our leaders intent on hastening this inevitable outcome, then I have no hope for the future. I don’t see any evidence of anyone in authority doing anything to rein us back or put us onto a sustainable path. It’s as if our leaders really are the equivalent of the scorpion on the frog’s back. Despite knowing what the inevitable outcome of their actions will be, they do it nonetheless because that’s the only thing they know how to do.
Indeed. I read “Limits to Growth” by Donella Meadows in my teens and “Overshoot” by William Catton in my twenties. Much has come, and is coming, true. It’s interesting that, excepting migration, there were more deaths than births in the UK last year, for the first time in modern history (I expect 1348 when the Black Death arrived might have been the last time).
Thing is that previous civilisations came and went for a number of reasons, but didn’t wreck the entire planet.
Other thing is that those with the power, and ability to put a stop to this madness are the very worst offenders.
As a species, in geological terms, I think man’s capacity for messing his/her own nest, and leaving the mess, rather than our bellicosity, is our failing grace.
Global tourism:the “last chance to see” paradox.
One positive step is to stop buying more “stuff”, as there is more than enough “stuff” already in existence for most peoples needs and wants. A trivial example might be the humble CD. I don’t mind admitting that I have far too many of these, but I very rarely buy anything new.
Back in, say, 1990, a new classical music CD might have cost £16, the equivalent of £38.46 today according to the BoE’s inflation calculator. I can pick up six used, but perfect, CDs in my local market (from a very nice man indeed) for £10 – even though I don’t “need” any more. There are billions of CDs in existence and I prefer them for the booklet notes and librettos, to energy-intensive streaming.
Same for books and, probably, many other items. But whoever thought making kettles out of plastic for £20 – a prime example of the “landfill economy”, if ever there was – should have been scolded!
Much to agree with
As a real example, I have just got home to find that a copy of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier by Davitt Moroney has safely arrived. This was released in 1988 and according to an old price label in the case cost the original owner £51.99 in December 1991. That’s the equivalent of £116.22 today, using the BoE’s inflation calculator. I paid £11.79, including postage, the equivalent of £5.27 in 1991.
This tells me two things. CDs were very much ‘luxury’ products in 1991 and were very overpriced (probably) and that we are seeing notable deflation in the price (not necessarily value) of discretionary “stuff” like old music CDs. So, I believe that as “Boomers” die off, the deflation in the price of their “stuff” will be exacerbated, whereas the price of “essential” goods and services have risen appreciably, and will continue to do so.
According to UN calculations – https://population.un.org/wpp/ – the world’s population has increased by more than 3 times since 1950. That’s my entire lifetime, thus far.
Add to that, our penchant for burning fossil fuels and consuming resources like there is no tomorrow (a prophetic phrase indeed) and destroying habitat just to make room for all these ‘new’ people …and then feeding and watering them …it’s no wonder we are in deep trouble.
People who believe we should all go vegan to save the planet are not really engaging in reality. For example, going vegan or vegetarian can make some sense (in some respects, not necessarily in personal health) but only if all the ‘veg’ we will be eating is grown locally. Replacing locally sustainable meat sources (poultry, eggs, lamb, beef, pork, goat and locally caught seafood, if available) with vegetable foods that need to be imported over long distances in large enough quantities to feed us —while burning huge quantities of fuel in transport, blanketing the planet with pesticides and herbicides and so on—does not make environmental sense at all. Switching to local food production, including meat, does make sense.
One of the best things we can do for the planet is stop having so many children. People who don’t want children should be actively encouraged not to have them. People who do want children should consider having only one child per couple. This is actually one of the most effective means of reducing pressure on the planet that each of us has control over.
Unless we act quickly to reduce the human population explosion—and I call a threefold increase in a period of just over 70 years an explosion—we are not going to survive. Any living thing that increases its population until it outgrows its food supply dies out.
Of course there are many many other things we can do, many of them mentioned in the comments here on this thread, that can also help reduce the pressure on our planet. But our present population growth is unsustainable, and should be recognised as such. ASAP. Before another generation produces a sixfold increase in people vying for scarce resources …and on and on….
[…] Cross-posted from Richard Murphy’s blog […]