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Nature bats last but environmentalism strikes out first

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By Frosty Wooldridge

 

Canadian writer and environmentalist Tim Murray brings hard facts and realistic understanding to the population debate.  Additionally, Murray knows Peter Goodchild and shares some of his expertise.

 

While America and Canada ignore the overpopulation issue, Mother Nature continues to build her stock of solutions and none of them are pretty.


“…. it’s very unlikely that anything will put an end to the development of unconventional oil. No environmental concern is going to receive continual attention in a world where every non-renewable resource is in decline but the population is seven billion and gleefully rising. Environmentalists themselves rarely speak a word about overpopulation. And no amount of darkened skies or lung disease is going to stop the production of fuels that are, at the moment, all that separate us from a return to the Stone Age.”  Peter Goodchild (“Hydrocarbons Everlasting” http://bravenewworld.in/hydrocarbons-everlasting/)

Please give my readers a sense of what we face both in Canada and in America Mr. Murray:

“How brutally true the above quote from Goodchild,” said Murray. “And it is a truth that I have come to accept, with great reluctance. I used to believe in “Biodiversity First”, as the blog and organization that I co-founded in 2007 was called. I used to believe, as Dave Forman still does, that biodiversity matters.

 

“In fact, it matters most—–except to the many billions of us who care about filling our stomachs and gas tanks for just another day. The hard fact is, as recent polls have suggested, the “environment” is still considered by the great mass of people in more affluent societies as nice thing to have “if” and “when” we can afford it. And as the going gets rough— as it will—- the poverty that higher oil prices will inflict upon us will focus our minds wonderfully and harden our priorities.

“It used to be a common refrain that environmentalism was a middle class indulgence. As that middle class continues to shrink—and then disappear—-I expect that those of us who care about marshes and estuaries and pristine shorelines and fragile habitat will be seen as eccentric oddities at best and an intolerable menace at worst. That expectation received another boost today when I happened to listen in to a radio talk show from Calgary about whether the two proposed pipelines —Enbridge and Keystone—were worth any environmental risks. If you are a resident of BC’s West Coast—as I am—-alarm about the prospect of oil tanker traffic along our coast is not only commonplace but predominant, but listening to what rest of Western Canada has to say about it comes as a rude reminder.

“For the great majority of westerners, the tars sands project and the two pipelines are welcome news.  And if one wonders why the Harper Conservatives have tapped into the aspirations of blue collar Canadians, one only needs to hear their voice on talk radio. They want jobs. They want continuing economic growth. And they see the development and export of our unconventional oil as the ticket to their security. Oh, and BTW, they never heard of Peak Oil.  Oil spills? Well, we must of course take every precaution. But we already have 100,000 km worth of pipelines now—so what would another 1,000 km matter—– and you should see those new double-hulled supertankers….besides, every worthwhile Endeavour carries an acceptable risk.

 

“We need growth to pay down our debts and fund our social safety net.  And here is one more newsflash for those us with environmental pretensions. Joe Suburbia doesn’t give a damn about climate change either. Token sacrifices are seen for what they are. Token—and pointless. Carbon taxes are perceived as a job-killer, a ten percent surcharge on the cost of doing business in Canada, another incentive to outsource Canadian jobs to China and India where pollution controls are feeble. In fact, as Gail Tverberg has argued, adherence to Kyoto targets may have even made GHG emissions WORSE than they would otherwise would have been.

“The sad reality is that we are no different than any African who would kill bush meat in a national park or hack down trees for firewood to help his family survive. We don’t care about our ‘life support system’, but the life support of our families this day, this week and this year.  We will do what we need to do to stay warm and feed ourselves. We will not sacrifice our living standard without a fight.

 

“That is who were—maybe not you or me and maybe not now—but Peter Goodchild is right. When it comes down to the crunch, we will do anything to delay our descent into the Stone Age—-the environment be damned—even though BAU accelerates that descent.  Call us greedy, call us selfish, call us short-sighted but perhaps it’s more accurate to simply call us human. We play chess looking only one move ahead.

“We are what we are. Yet another species with a built-in design flaw, rigged to takes its place in the fossil record. Too dumb to live and too afraid to acknowledge long-term dangers. The question is, as C.G. Darwin asked in 1950, would our demise be such a tragedy?”

 

##

 

You may reach Tim Murray: http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com or http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com, said, “I came upon an orchestration, the environmental movement, and all the musicians were playing violins to the tune of “Overconsumption, overconsumption, overconsumption.” They refused to play any other tune or use any other instrument to compliment that narrow repertoire. Apparently some corporate donors were paying them to be a one-trick pony.

##

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as seven times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. Copies available: 1 888 280 7715

 

 



 



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