Shopping:
A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE NEED FOR RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION
by Nick Pine
1 We would all like to be "responsible consumers," but where do our
consumables come from? Do potatoes still come from Idaho, or from
some factory in Russia? How much fungicides and preservatives do
we take in with our imported fruits from South America? If our shirt
is made in Rangoon or Bangladesh, how many bacteria do we buy with
it? We are faced with "irresponsible production." Therefore, we
should look at the whole production/consumption cycle and start a
dialog on "responsible living." One way or another, we are all
taking part in the whole cycle. We eat to live (consumption) and we
work to eat (production.) Reesponsible consumption inherently
requires the promotion of responsible production.
2 Consumption and production are two poles in a continuous biological
cycle which affects all other phases of our life. The sun sends
energy to the earth which drives this biological life cycle. If the
energy balance is distorted, something will happen to counterbalance
the cycle. Several times in the history of this planet, this energy
supply created an overpopulation and consequently massive extinction
(see the tabloid from the Philadelphia Inquirer.) How did the life
cycle balance get distorted throughout nature's history?
3 According to many scientific observations, the earth again faces
massive extinction of many species and we, the human species, do not
want to be one of them. But what if we are the cause of it this
time? Are we doing something that is upsetting nature, which we
should not be doing, and if so, what is it?
Kurt Vonnegut says humans have overdeveloped brains. The human species
is just getting too smart for its own good, and there is nothing
we can do about that.
With the help of the computer, our learning and storage capacity of
accessible knowledge is now universal and mind-boggling, BUT as
wisdom cannot be learned or stored, it is always running one and
often many phases behind knowledge, and because wisdom is a natural
REACTION and will not be computer assisted, wisdom will always be
too little and often too late.
4 Modern technology, which is the result of our universal knowledge,
is throwing the energy balance for a loop. We consume a lot more
energy than we receive directly from the sun, and even that is
already more than the biological cycle can consume. The carbon cycle
on earth is put out of balance by all the carbon compounds that are
being pumped out of the earth and put in circulation. It took mother
nature BILLIONS of years to create huge reservoirs of hydrocarbons,
but it took the human race only 200 years to convert it back into
heat energy. If we go on this way for another 100 years, there will
not be a drop of crude oil in the ground and all the old growth
forest will be gone.
We have to go way back in history to evaluate the way "life" was
intended to function. (We are only talking about at biological life
on earth here. Let's leave the discussion about life in the rest
of the universe to people with large telescopes.)
5 We have discovered that ALL biological life starts underwater. In
nature, all life basically functions in the same way. It is built up
of hydrocarbons and some trace minerals. It depends on oxygen to
function and on carbon to sustain itself. These two conditions
require a very delicate balance for biological life to exist.
6 Originally those conditions did not exist on this planet. There was
no liquid water. There was no free oxygen in the air. There was no
dissolved carbon. The earth was just a glowing ball of minerals with
hot gases as an atmosphere. It probably bonded together from dust
particles which orbited the sun some 3 to 8(?) billion years ago.
After a long journey through space, this collection of rocky mass is
for the time being in an orbit around the sun where the conditions
are just right to make water from the ice particles it picked up in
its travels. The surface temperature is just right to support water,
not too hot for it to evaporate and not too cold for it to freeze.
7 After there was water, which meant dissolved oxygen, the conditions
were present to support organic life, at least underwater. And it
happened. Don't ask me how. Maybe that was God's hand. Laboratory
experiments have shown that with all the conditions present as they
were 4 billion (!) years ago, we can create a green slime mass
underwater. Maybe we are all part of God! I imagine this was the
beginning of organic life on this planet and the beginning of "nature."
It took another couple of billion years for this organic life to
change the original sulfuric/helium (???) atmosphere above the water
into a life-sustaining oxygen atmosphere, but now conditions were
right for flora to exit the water and fauna to walk the land.
8 After there was air, living things adapted, but the flora were
always connected to the ground through which they received their
required oxygen and minerals. Through their leaves they received the
required energy for growth (photosynthesis) directly from the sun,
which converted unstable carbon oxides into the carbon required
for growth. The combustion products were exhausted the same way. At
night this process reversed and the trees provided the oxygen in
the atmosphere, which all living species needed to be able to live
out of the water. Some species started to walk freely out of the
water, but to be confortable on the surface of this earth, we are
still in constant need of water. The free-roaming species therefore
needed a sense of direction to be able to find the water, or some
other means to provide them with water and food. Consequently, ALL
free-roaming species, no matter how small or how big, developed
brains to perform a myriad of functions.
9 These conditions developed over time. They can easily change again.
Remember, we still consist of hydrocarbons with some minerals mixed
in to support us. The temperature of the air better not be too far
from 20 degrees C (68 F), and the atmospheric pressure should not be
too far from 14.7 psi. Nor should the oxygen/nitrogen ratio be too
far from 21/78, and please, no other toxic gases. It took Mother
Nature 3 BILLION years to create acceptable living conditions for
ALL species, not just the human species. Remember, we have only been
here for the last two seconds of the evolutionary day, and many
species came and went before us (see chart.)
It has taken the human species about 3 HUNDRED years (a split second)
to start changing these very delicate environmental conditions by
burning big OZONE holes in the atmosphere.
10 What does this have to do with our production and consumption habits?
EVERYTHING. We went from a biological production/consumption cycle to
an economic production/consumption cycle.
Organic life on this planet is continuously producing and consuming.
Mother Nature (or the SUN, if you like) has a habit of providing
more food than is required to just sustain existing life. That is
why organic life is continuously expanding. Eventually the flora
covered the whole earth, except where it was too hot or too cold.
But even in those extreme temperature regions, the flora expanded
underwater, and this in turn supported life out of the water (the
polar bears, the eskimos, and so on.)
11 Organic life on earth will keep expanding until it comes to a balance.
Food has always been plentiful because it is life itself that supplies
it.
Life feeds on life. Consequently more and more species have developed,
and they have grown larger and larger. The trees got taller. The animals
got bigger. We have seen Sequoias thousands of years old scratching
the sky and reptiles going the way of modern-day corporations. But
balance is a dynamic condition. When there is too much of one species,
growth will slow down or stop completely.
12 What wiped out the dinosaurs? We can only guess. They were huge
animals and they dominated life on the ground and in the air, not
unlike present-day corporations. They were reptiles, and their
preferred food was the fauna and the mammals. There is some evidence
that they ate their own species as well, but that might be due to
deteriorating environmental conditions.
Those huge animals ate a lot, and Mother Nature had a hard time
keeping up with the demand. Vegetation does not grow that fast,
and the meat supply also did not get much of a chance to grow into
large species. The dinosaurs grew weaker and weaker. When a big
rock hit the earth near the Mexican Yucatan, it created a dust
blanket that destroyed the food supply completely. Dinosaurs did
not survive. This was only 65 million years ago.
13 Now the mammals got a chance to develop. Eventually the dust settled
in heavy layers and paradise was re-established on earth. There was
plenty of room for more growth, and the energy supply and the food
demand cycle were at work again. There were no dinosaurs anymore to
create a negative food supply. It took a couple of million years, but
Mother Nature was not in a hurry. With the power of natural selection
(the stronger one wins), new species had a chance to develop. For
example, if in a certain region, there were too many deer, the bottom
branches of the trees got eaten until there was no food for the smaller
animals and the size of the deer population dwindled, which gave the
trees a chance to recover, until the deer grew longer necks.
Some species were smart enough to migrate to areas where there was
more food or less competition, and gradually the world filled up again
with new stronger and smarter species. The energy which Mother Earth
received from the sun was plentiful, and large amounts of hydrocarbons
went into growing forests which eventually became pools of hydrocarbons.
About 1.6 million years ago, the human species entered the scene.
14 How did the human population expand? For thousands of years (until
a few hundred years ago), the human population expended gradually
at a rate of about one tenth of one per cent per year. By 1400, the
world human population was about 300 million, and the growth rate
began to rise. By 1700, the human infestation was growing at about
three tenths of a per cent per year. By 1800, we were growing at
five tenths of a per cent per year, and beginning a tailspin: the
human species had discovered another source of energy right here
in Pennsylvania, and we started pumping more and more energy into
that production/consumption cycle, and human life began to expand
four times faster than the prior curve would have predicted (see
curve.) Humans are now increasing at a rate of 1.8 per cent per year.
At this rate, the world population will be 9 BILLION by the year
2050, five times more than the pre-oil curve would have predicted.
15 India and China will EACH provide 1.5 BILLION people. The United
States, Indonesia and Pakistan will be equal partners with about
350 million each. Again, the natural cycle points to an excessive
growth. What is the cause of it, and what can WE do about it?
16 What happened to the "other" world population? We all know that it
went into a deep decline. Thgousands of species have disappeared and
they have not been replaced with new forms.
17 The excessive use of energy is severely affecting natural life cycles.
The human species has found a way to live comfortably without spending
human energy to produce or consume. The excessive energy which Mother
Nature received from the sun to make things grow on the surface of this
earth has been accumulating in different forms of carbon. For instance
in diamonds, with a very high concentration of carbon. Mother Nature
has made hydrocarbons in liquid and gaseous forms with all kinds of
hydrogen, carbon and oxygen ratios. When the human animal found it
could build fantastic fires with these materials, all bets were off.
All kinds of minerals could be melted and shaped into all kinds of
weapons and machinery. Pretty soon machines were making machines which
did all the work, and all we had to do was find a way to CONSUME all
that stuff. If we don't consume enough, we say the ECONOMY is falling,
and we have to create a war to get production and thus the economy
going again. Consumerism drives the economy, and if the economy fails
and we cannot prepare for a war, then we go into an economic depression.
18 Life has gone out of balance, and nature disagrees with our ethics.
Machines make computers which do all the thinking and come up with
new computers which think much faster if not better than humans
ever dreamed of. All we have to do is ask the computer and we have
all the "right" answers. THIS is a form of consumption in which
knowledge competes with knowledge. It is used to produce better
weapons to destroy "stuff" and save peoples' lives. The wisdom of
the human mind runs further and further behind. If wisdom does not
keep knowledge in check, things will go awfully wrong in such a
hurry that a lot of damage will soon be done.
19 What will restore the balance? Remember, somewhere in history we
went from a biological production/consumption cycle to an economic
production/consumption cycle. Can we go back? I do not think so...
Only when we can get wisdom in phase again with knowledge is there
a chance for a happy life (with a moderate life style.) In nature,
the balance of life is maintained by increasing or reducing LIFE.
A balance can be restored by severely reducing new growth and
severely reducing or even eliminating the use of our energy reserves,
that is, hydrocarbons. So ask all religions to start teaching the
advantage of zero or negative population growth.
And ask EXXON, Shell, Texaco, Dupont and many other companies to stop
producing oil and convert their efforts to creating sustainable energy.
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From Elaine Harger:
I am extremely disturbed ... whenever a speaker or writer, such as Nick
Pine, makes the following sort of statement regarding population growth:
>
> 15 India and China will EACH provide 1.5 BILLION people. The United
> States, Indonesia and Pakistan will be equal partners with about
> 350 million each. Again, the natural cycle points to an excessive
> growth. What is the cause of it, and what can WE do about it?
>
Three points from me: first, any "equation" between the U.S. and countries
like Indonesia and Pakistan, even when it's simply a statement of
"numerical fact," is _way_ out of bounds. One should, instead, provide
numbers showing the amount of _pollution_ -- not people -- produced by
those countries. Or, give numbers that compare the source and amount of
caloric intake between the various nations _and_ classes of people. Or how
about the numbers showing the amount of fossil fuels required to transport
luxury consumer goods (such as fresh flowers from Holland, Mexico, Chile,
etc.) to U.S. markets. We in the U.S. pose a much greater threat to the
environment than Indonesia and Pakistan multiplied many times over.
Second, although it might certainly be true that the populations of India
and China are growing at tremendous rates, that in-and-of itself sounds
much more frightening that it is, and makes a person think that perhaps
drastic measures need be taken in those countries only. This kind of
thinking feeds into xenophobic and racist attitudes in a frightening way,
and one wonders what kind of extreme measures might be required to carry
out a committment to "negative population growth."
Finally, it is naive in the extreme to think that simple appeals to
businesses the likes of Exxon, Shell, Dupont etc. will have any effect.
Such arguments pander to a simplistic view of power in our world. They
also allow individuals to feel they've done all they can to preserve the
environment when they limit their political activism to writing letters and
signing petitions. Meanwhile, after posting our letters, we hop in our
cars, we fire-up our bar-b-ques, we go on our shopping sprees, we adorn our
homes with flowers we ourselves "don't have time" to grow, we golf on
immaculate lawns laces with herbicides and pesiticides, we recycle junk
mail made of however many trees and delivered via however many
fossil-fueled vehicles.
I wish people like Mr. Pine would think concretely and humanely about how
to discuss the changes required in lifestyles, jobs, recreation, diets, and
_politics_ in the U.S. in order to clean-up the Earth's environment.
Elaine Harger
