Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Earth DAY

April 22 is the day we celebrate Earth Day. The first celebration of this event was in 1970 and we have been trying to convince the earth’s inhabitants of the precarious state of the planet for the past forty years. Global human populations have almost doubled in the forty years from 3.6 billion to 6.8 billion. Livestock populations are more than twice what they were in 1970. For the first time in human history the collective mass of livestock exceeds the collective mass of humans.

Now the zinger; private vehicles owned by the humans on earth have tripled to a level of over 900 million in these forty years. Even in the Ignited States we have increased the number of registered vehicles from 107 million to 245 million in the past forty years. I guess the humans on earth paid lip service to earth day and spent the other 364 days of the year recreating in their vehicles. What a mess we are in!

On earth day I have to admit that like the astronauts in Apollo 13 “Houston we have a problem”. Their mission was launched on April 11, 1970 and had to abort and return on April 17, 1970. Their mission was termed a “successful failure”. The three heroes returned to earth to celebrate the first earth day five days later. We should admit right here and now our mission on earth has been a “successful failure”. Never before have so many enjoyed private vehicles, meat, Starbucks Coffee, a longer life span, and general wealth. But and it’s a big BUT we are successfully failing to deal with dwindling natural resources.

I work with extremely intelligent and very well educated people, yet many of them naively believe we will have electric cars that solve the oil problem, we will have bio-engineered diesel fuel to replace fossil fuel, we will have technical solutions to all of the problems we will face because we are smart. Right now we do not need “technical solutions” we need adaptive human behavior. We need less from the earth and more from ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and admit our mission is an Apollo 13 mission. We will not get to walk on the moon but we can use our smarts to get back to planet earth.

We can admit to our collective failure and reset the course. The human population does not need to double again, the livestock population does not need to double, and certainly the number of vehicles does not need to triple. The question is whether the modern lifestyle is a “successful failure” or a “failed success”. Irrespective of the way we term our past history we must change course.

25 comments:

  1. I think this--that we need to adapt our behavior rather than engineer stuff--should be a continued focus of the blog. It is a key point.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah I received several emails from folks on this. Maybe global warming will unfreeze long established attitudes?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The problem has been captured perfectly GM. We will one day be known as the civilisation that was extremely successful at failing in the one area where failure was not an option - survival.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sam you wonderful mathematician. Brilliantly stated. I did a double take on GM thinking of the auto company instead of Green Machine.

    ReplyDelete

  5. http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/2016/07/31/%d8%b4%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d9%86%d9%82%d9%84-%d8%a7%d8%ab%d8%a7%d8%ab-%d8%a8%d8%ac%d8%af%d8%a9/ شركة نقل عفش بجدة
    http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/2016/08/01/%d8%b4%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d9%86%d9%82%d9%84-%d8%b9%d9%81%d8%b4-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%86%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%a9/ شركة نقل عفش بالمدينة المنورة
    http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/2016/08/01/%d8%b4%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d9%86%d9%82%d9%84-%d8%b9%d9%81%d8%b4-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%85/ شركة نقل عفش بالدمام
    http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/2016/07/31/%d8%b4%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d9%86%d9%82%d9%84-%d8%b9%d9%81%d8%b4-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b6/ شركة نقل عفش بالرياض

    ReplyDelete







  6. http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/ شركة نقل عفش
    | http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/ شركة نقل اثاث بجدة | http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/ شركة نقل عفش بالرياض | http://transferefurniture.bcz.com/ شركة نقل عفش بالمدينة المنورة |

    ReplyDelete
  7. By taking the time to read a lot of information like this to add my insight . cara menggugurkan kandungan

    ReplyDelete
  8. What an interesting story! I'm glad I finally found what I was looking for 메이저토토사이트.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think a lot of articles related to 메이저사이트 are disappearing someday. That's why it's very hard to find, but I'm very fortunate to read your writing. When you come to my site, I have collected articles related to this. My site name is .

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's a great article! The neatly organized content is good to see. Can I quote a blog and write it on my blog? My blog has a variety of communities including these articles. Would you like to visit me later? 우리카지노계열

    ReplyDelete
  11. The article composing business is going extraordinary for me at this moment, and the vast majority of my prosperity is because of the substance that you post here. I utilize your substance to compose my articles, and the substance makes my great article incredible! 메이저놀이터

    ReplyDelete
  12. In the meantime, I wondered why I couldn't think of the answer to this simple problem like this. Your article is an article that gives the answer to all the content I've been contemplating. 온라인홀덤

    ReplyDelete
  13. What an interesting story! I'm glad I finally found what I was looking for Kèo hay.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is a really very informative article, there is no doubt about it. Thanks for sharing this article with us. This is very nice of you. 경마사이트

    ReplyDelete
  15. You made some really goood points there. I looked on the net for more information about the issue and found most people will go along with your views on tis web site. 토토사이트

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks for the blog filled with so many information. Stopping by your blog helped me to get what I was looking for. Now my task has become as easy as ABC. 메이저안전놀이터

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hard to ignore such an amazing article like this. You really amazed me with your writing talent. 온라인카지노Thank you for sharing again.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Your article is very interesting. I think this article has a lot of information needed, looking forward 온라인카지노to your new posts.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Your web site is excellent. I was really touched by this post. I'm so satisfied to discover the post I have actually been seeking for a very long time. I covet the amount of individuals sympathize with your writing. You find out a great deal of expertise from my writing. 바카라사이트

    ReplyDelete
  20. Your internet site has excellent web content. I believe it was an excellent chance to alter my mind once more after reading this short article. I'm creating like you. Would certainly you such as to see my message and also request for responses? 바카라사이트

    ReplyDelete
  21. This site seems to inspire me a lot. Thank you so much for organizing and providing this quality information in an easy to understand way. I think that a healthy era of big data can be maintained only when such high-quality information is continuously produced. And I, too, are working hard to organize and provide such high-quality information. It would be nice to come in once and get information.

    Also visit my site:안전토토사이트

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thank you very much for giving me such excellent information and I wish youv all the best. 카지노사이트

    ReplyDelete
  23. I like what you guys are usually up too. This type of clever work and coverage! Keep up the good works guys I’ve included you guys to blogroll.
    토토사이트
    경마

    ReplyDelete
  24. It’s going to be end of mine day, however before end I am reading this wonderful article to increase my experience.
    바카라
    사설토토

    ReplyDelete