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10/29/2007: "Doom imminent, official sources now agree"

The United Nations Environment Program has released the Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) report, and it doesn't make for happy reading.

The seas, studies show, are rapidly being depleted of fish stocks by overfishing. At the same time, warming temperatures are eradicating the coral reefs, sources of massive biodiversity, and agricultural run-off is creating enormous dead zones of deoxygenated water, devoid of life. Consumption of sea food tripled in the 40 years following 1961, and subsidies for fishing fleets have created a huge excess capacity. Many fish stocks have been depleted to the point where they will never recover.

The oceans aren't our only water problem. Fresh water, an absolute necessity, is also in trouble. Water supplies are increasingly polluted; contaminated water is the leading cause of death worldwide. The report points out that 70 percent of all fresh water is used for irrigation, but meeting the food needs of our ever expanding global population would require doubling current output over the next five decades. With precipitation changes already being seen thanks to climate change, that's a bleak prospect. Industrial pollutants, from heavy metals to organic compounds, abound in the biosphere, and that means they abound in our food supply. While all of these problems disproportionately affect the poorer regions of the planet, the industrialized world is hardly exempt.

According to studies, our use of natural resources is unsustainable. We currently use a third more than the planet has to offer, and that's with less than a 6th of the global population living in industrialized countries. Despite the rapid development of China and India, the resources simply do not exist to allow their billions of citizens to enjoy the same lifestyles seen in the US or Europe.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071027-new-un-environmental-report-paints-a-very-bleak-future-for-humanity.html

Oil supplies peaked in 2006, say analysts, furthermore future shortages could mean mass unrest around the globe

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626273.900&feedId=online-news_rss20

[ It doesn't look like anything resembling a "plan" has occurred here. Humanity is out of control. ]

http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/index.asp

Replies: 3 Comments

on Sunday, November 4th, Uncle Jerry said

Sadly, what you just outlined is virtually impossible at this point. The Masses of Asses have show that despite regular complaints, they are actually perfectly comfortable with being serfs on corporate plantations, and don't give a shit what kind of waste they're consuming, so long as it tastes good and doesn't kill them right away. By the time things start visibly turning sour in the form of Turd World conditions enveloping Beverly Hills, wide-scale unrest may bring down some walls, but I highly doubt anything on the order of reversing our slide will be achieved. And my previous post was inspired from an afternoon of reading through a few old Buddhist books I had collecting dust on the book case. Fascinating stuff, albeit with a good amount of just plain absurd fairy tale junk scattered throughout, as is the norm for religious material.

on Friday, November 2nd, R.C. O'Donnell said

I must say that I'm surprised by uncle jerry's surprisingly manichean interpution of this study...But I guess if we wanna try harder to be more optimistic we have to at least focus on some real solutions and at least try to make our genepool and planet healthier...stay away from consuming plastics, stay away from pharmacies/chemical companies and their medications and solvents, start eating healthier, protected endangered species of fish and animals, implement positive eugenics. These are just a few very simple things that we can do to save our world and our selfs...if only the huge majority of people in the USA would stop being such gluttonous consumers and start making some positive changes.

on Tuesday, October 30th, Uncle Jerry said

It's not the end of the world. Humans will more than likely die off completely although it is possible that some hardy groups on the order of the Afghans or Chechens may be spared. Either way the planet will probably recover as it has countless times before, and if it doesn't, well hey, wouldn't that end the needless cycle of birth-suffering-death-rebirth-more suffering-etc. that the animal kindom has been trapped in? Is it not inherently masochistic to want it to continue? No situation is completely negative.