Human Problems; Human Priorities?

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by TheodoreVTuesday, July 10 2012, 1:59PM
“The issue of human population on the earth is a massive and complicated one that is susceptible to no easy answers. More people have been born in the last hundred years than have lived in the hundred thousand years prior to it! 

Intelligent humans uniquely and paradoxically have had a far more damaging effect on their environment than any other species, and ironically the more developed their culture, the greater the impact. 

We tend to focus on "Black Africa", and indeed this is where both population growth and poverty is greatest, but it is the developed world in the west, and latterly in the east, that has the greatest impact on the environment. Humans have an insatiable appetite to consume raw materials in bettering their lot, meaning the average American consumes hundreds of times that of a poor African. 

The issue is not just basic numbers but also how human conditions can be improved for the poor, without replicating the problems of the rich. 

However it should be remembered that a hundred years ago, a common Western family size might be ten children. It is economic development and changed perspectives that has brought this down to two. This is a glimmer of hope for Africa, South America, the Far East and the world.”

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Update.

Nothing much has changed since I wrote the above four years ago on my Facebook page. What if instead of devoting all our energies to weaponry and war we were to devote them to living sustainably and healthily, addressing hunger, illness, disease and unsupportable birth rates? To protecting vulnerable eco-systems and the species that depend on them? 

If we are, human attitudes and behaviour have to change radically, particularly as regards travel. Human intelligence and intellect needs to be redirected to the overwhelming priority of maintenance and survival of the whole ecosphere. The deeply embedded human urges to domination, aquisition, differentiation and violence need to be somehow brought under control for the greater survival imperative.

As always the question remains: "How?"