Part 28: The 7th billion human on Earth—A Rude Awakening

By Frosty Wooldridge

Part 28: Rude awakening

In October of 2011, the 7th billion human being will land on this planet.  From that threshold, humans will continue multiplying by 1.0 billion every 13 years to reach more than 10 billion within 39 years at the mid century.  The ramifications stagger the mind of any thinking American.  This series will give you an idea of what our civilization faces. 

Ever wake up with a headache?  Ever open your eyes in the morning with a hangover?  Ever wake up without a good night’s sleep?  Ever have anyone be ugly or rude to you for no reason you knew about?

If the USA allows an added 100 million within the next 24 years and another 100 million beyond that, as projected in demographic studies, your kids will wake up to multiple rude awakenings on countless fronts. 

Peak Everything: Waking Up to a Century of Declines By Richard Heinberg, New Society Publishers,   ISBN-10: 086571598X ,   ISBN-13: 978-0865715981, www.postcarbon.org; www.richardheinberg.com

“The subtitle of this book, Waking up to the Century of Declines,” reflects my impression that even those of us who have been thinking about resource depletion for many years are still just beginning to awaken to its full implications,” said Heinberg. “And if we’re all in various stages of waking up to the problem, we are also waking up from the cultural trance of denial in which we are all embedded. This awakening is multi-dimensional.  The very fabric of modern life is woven from illusion—thousands of illusions.”

“What illusions?” you ask.

First of all, most Americans ‘think’ this party will continue forever.  Sure, it’s real today because oil continues flowing out of the ground. But the minute it stops, and it WILL run out, or water WILL run out, or resources WILL run out as population overwhelms the planet—the party becomes an illusion.  The Age of Oil presented us with a 100 year window of population growth and unlimited energy.

That illusion continues in the minds of most of the countries of the world and their leaders.  You won’t see a single world leader preparing for Peak Oil and the decline of energy in the majority of the world.

“The great transition of the 21^st century will entail enormous adjustments on the part of every individual, family and community,” said Heinberg.  “We will need to plan rationally.  Implications and strategies will have to be explored in nearly every area of human interest—agriculture, transportation, global war and peace, public health, resource management, and on and on.”

Today, with gasoline powering our cars, we enjoy food, travel and unlimited ‘gadgets’ to buy.  We don’t need 90 percent of the junk we inhale from manufacturers.  What amazes me stems from the fact that people buy that junk, ‘live’ at computers, text their friends instead of talking with them and zombie-out in front of the TV. 

Heinberg mentions “Living a Life of Value” by Jason A. Merchey; “Fifty Million Farmers” by the Schumacher Society which we will need to feed ourselves when oil runs out in this century; “Five Axioms of Sustainability”  by Heinberg , which clarifies the fact that our current civilization cannot be sustained;  “Boomers’ Last Chance” by Heinberg illustrates how our generation burned up all the oil in less than 70 years;   “A Letter from the Future” by Heinberg; and finally “Talking Ourselves into Extinction” by Heinberg shows how we cleverly advanced so well that we caused our own extinction by our actions.

HUMANS PROGRESS TO LIVE OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

As we advanced from the Stone Age, we careered into the Bronze Age and, from there, we rocketed into steam engine, automobile and now, Computer and Space Age.  Every step carried us further away from Mother Nature and the natural rhythms of life.  John Zerzan asserts, “…that it is the human tendency to abstract and manipulate, which are at the heart of our tool-making ability, that cut us off from our innate connections with the natural world, and therefore, obscure our own inherent nature.”

Today, in Western societies, kids and parents text, twitter, Skype, Kindle, digg, dang, dog, dangle and dazzle—anything, but talk face to face with each other.

Izhak Bentov wrote: Stalking the Wild Pendulum.  Bentov notes that all life and non-life in the universe vibrates at certain frequencies.  Slowly, as humans continue surrounding themselves with steel, concrete and glass—they skewer their natural vibrations.   In the biggest cities, most cannot reconnect with nature, thus, they sprint toward losing their minds, bodies and spiritual connections.  The larger the city, accelerating aberrant behavior explodes on TV nightly.  He connoted that Western society drives itself crazy at breakneck speed.

How can those big cities continue?  How can they grow?  What supports their cancer-like growth? Answer: oil, coal, natural gas.

Specifically, it takes 84 million barrels of oil daily!  That quantity cannot be maintained much longer.

With an added 100 million humans to the USA in 25 years and another 2.0 billion to the planet in that same 25 years, whoa Nellie, what will humans do when their collective “Rude Awakening” hits?

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If any of us, no matter what our race, creed or color might be, refuse to engage our U.S. Congress as we have not for 30 years as to the population/immigration equation-our children will find themselves living in a terribly degraded America where the American Dream will be described by the history books as a ‘fleeting fantasy’ from the era of 1950 to 2010. These are several of the top organizations where you can take collective action to change the course of American history as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Take collective action at www.numbersusa.com where you can join 1 million Americans, bi-partisan, to reduce all immigration into the USA to sustainable levels, and send pre written letters via fax to your reps.  Easy, quick, fast, effective and free.

www.fairus.org ; www.capsweb.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; www.populationconnection.org ; www.quinacrine.com ; www.familyplanning.org/ , www.skil.org ; www.growthbusters.com; www.populationpress.org ; www.thinkpopulation.org ; www.carryingcapacity.org ; www.balance.org ; www.controlgrowth.org ; in Canada www.immigrationwatchcanada.org ; in Australia www.population.org.au and[email protected]; in Great Britain www.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.

Must see DVD: “Blind Spot” http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/blind_spot/ , This movie illustrates America’s future without oil, water and other resources to keep this civilization functioning. It’s a brilliant educational movie! www.blindspotdoc.com

Must see: Rapid Population Decline, seven minute video by Dr. Jack Alpert-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWduFB_RX0

Must see and funny: www.growthbusters.org ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXSTrW_dARc
Dave Gardner’s Polar Bear in Bedroom: http://growthbusters.org/2010/03/save-the-polar-bear-in-your-bedroom ; Dave Gardner, President, Citizen-Powered Media ; Producing the Documentary, GROWTH BUSTERS; presents Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, Join the cause at www.growthbusters.org ;760 Wycliffe Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80906 USA; +1 719-576-5565

Check out this link with Wooldridge on bicycle and Lester Brown and panel discussion:

http://www.upnorthmedia.org/watchupnorthtv.asp?SDBFid=1631

Tomorrow’s Americaproject on www.youtube.com/contemporarylearning.

Producer: GEORGE A. COLBURNwww.tomorrowsamerica.com

DC: 202-258-4887

Email: [email protected]

Link to www.tomorrowsamerica.com for more discussions on America’s predicament.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.starbrightmediacorp.com

www.tomorrowsamerica.com

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six 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