Natural resources

There are approximately 6.5 billion human beings living here on this tiny planet. Everyone one of us requires a minimum of water, food, and shelter. Just for basic survival needs, our consumption of natural resources is tremendous. Projecting past the state of just surviving, what limited natural resources we utilize to support a lifestyle of normal living standards will be depleted in the not far off future. Fifty thousand species become extinct every year, and there is a study that predicts that by 2048, all commercially fished species will be gone. Our worldwide forests have been reduced to half of what they were, and we can not stop industrial pollution. All we can hope to accomplish is to slow down this process.

In 1992, a document titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” was signed by more than 1,700 senior scientists, and states that: “Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future we wish for human society . . . and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about. The critical areas documented in this report are of atmosphere, water resources, oceans, soil, forests, species extinction, and overpopulation. No more than a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.”

So what do we do to change this course? Unfortunately, there is very little we can do. The problem is so immense, the interest to change at the cost of lifestyle and economics is so small, and the human ability to deny the logical outcome of over populating is an art unto itself. Technology and it’s ever changing ability to change the way we live will not be enough unless the mind frame of all human beings accepts the challenges we face.