By Paul Cox MSc – environmental campaigner
The famous Earthrise photograph taken by Jim Lovell and the crew of Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968 came as a revelation to many people. There it was, our beautiful blue and white planet floating in the inky blackness of space.
Earth, a water planet, with just the right amount of heat from its star (the Sun); just the right amount of gravity; just the correct thickness of atmosphere; just the right amount of oxygen; just the right amount of plate tectonics; a strong magnetic shield, and old enough to support advanced life forms.
Our Earth is unlike any other known planet and indeed it may be unique amongst all of the plants which lie within the limits of what we could ever observe. Today we know of a handful of approximately Earth sized planets which may harbour liquid water. It is thought very unlikely that any of them support advanced life forms and visiting them would be totally impractical within the bounds of known physics because the distances are just too great. So for all practical purposes we are alone in space on our small life support machine, our Earth.
I was born in 1950, a time of optimism; a time when everyone, quite reasonably, believed that as time progressed, every person in the world would see their living standards rise and continue to rise towards a golden future. No one then could reasonably foresee the world population almost tripling to over 7.4 billion; no one then could foresee the massive widening of the gap which has occurred between the rich and the poor; no one then could foresee the disruption to the Earth’s weather patterns now caused by global warming.
Today I live in a different world; the beautiful and vibrant dawn and evening chorus of bird song I no longer hear; the dancing colours of clouds of summer butterflies I no longer see; the background hum of busy bees on a hot lazy summer’s afternoon and the sweet smell of a new day are forgotten memories, and whatever happened to that little copse of trees, lake, stream, meadow, patch of moorland, where, as children your grandparents used to play.
Today our Earth, our life support system, is damaged. The Earth is going through a phase of mass extinction. Possibly as many as 26,000 species a year are being lost. Extinction on this scale is completely unsustainable. The biodiversity on which we rely is being cut from under us. Many of the minerals on which we rely are becoming dangerously depleted. The oceans, our rivers and the very ground beneath our feet are all increasingly contaminated. Pests are becoming resistant to pesticide and disease causing bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Our farmland is becoming exhausted and water shortage is an increasing problem in many parts of the World. All of this is being exacerbated by man-made warming of the climate; the effects of which are likely to last for many thousands of years to come.
Today, if we are going to survive on this planet we will all have to learn that our planet is only finite. There is only so much to go around. The potential for growth is limited. Some of us will have to accept less so that others may live with dignity.
If you don’t believe me, all I can say is undertake your own research. Look at scientific publications and seek websites supported by bona-fidae scientific institutions.
For a start try these globally respected websites:
- www.nature.com
- www.newscientist.com
- www.scientificamerican.com
- www.nasa.gov
- www.ippc.ch
- www.climateandhealth.org
- www.sd-commission.org.uk
- www.wwf.org.uk
We can survive and we can all have a good and prosperous life, but we will all have to accept that our world faces an important underlying problem which is the over use and depletion of the Earth’s resources. This is being driven by a rapidly increasing World population and resource hungry lifestyles. Clearly there could become a point where no matter how frugally we live an increasing population would overwhelm the planet. Population is therefore crucial to the debate. Currently, the World population is rising by about 80 million people a year; this is about ten more Londons, or ten more New York Cities. How many children we have is a very personal matter and it is not appropriate for me to comment on this. However, studies of population trends point to high levels of welfare within a society, coupled with women’s rights and good educational opportunities for women as being factors which influence smaller family sizes. Some countries, in Northern Europe and East Asia are seeing stable and in some instances falling populations. Japan is in the forefront of this trend. Because of its recent history of small families and because of a cultural resistance to immigration, the working population of Japan is falling more rapidly than any other major country. Can lessons be learned from how Japan and others are handling a reduction in their working age population or like the U.K. will they continue to seek solutions based around trying to return to a situation of growth?
The prime movers in improving the situation will be our governments. Unfortunately all too often governmental decisions are unduly influenced by the interests of commerce. The underlying principles of most commerce are based upon the idea of ever increasing growth, an idea which is clearly unsustainable with finite resources.
Population, commercial interests and growth to one side, we as individuals can help by trying to lead a sustainable lifestyle with what is available to us right now. I believe that true sustainability within what is commonly described as a western style of living cannot be fully achieved because the infrastructure such as sustainable power supplies; sustainable housing and sustainable means of transport, is simply not there. But by altering our individual behaviour patterns we can still live more responsibly. We can, for example:
- Choose a supplier providing electricity from a sustainable resource. For example, Good Energy
- Choose to use public transport, rather than drive by car.
- Travel by train rather than plane.
- Insulate our homes.
- Install smart meters to monitor our energy use.
- Use L.E.D. lighting.
- Use rainwater for watering gardens and flushing toilets.
- Eat locally grown and seasonal food.
- Reduce the amount of meat that we eat.
- Reduce our consumption of bottled water.
- Buy clothing, food and other items from ethical suppliers. For example, Bros We Stand
- Invest our money with ethical banks and put savings into ethical and eco crowd investments like Abundance
- If you are lucky enough to have a garden, find room for wildlife and grow some of your own food.
Our future is in our hands. Short of a meteorite strike, or the eruption of a super-volcano we are responsible our own future. Even the ravages of climate change are almost certainly going to be manageable. If we can find it within us to lie cultural differences to one side and if we can find it within us to share what the Earth has to offer and to treat the Earth with respect; our future is bright.
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