I went for a walk the other night with my 83 year old neighbor, who out-walks me, by the way. She is very outspoken and does not mince words. We got on the topic of climate change, natural resources, conservation and the ‘green movement’ (for lack of a better term).
She does not feel hopeful.
She feels there are too many people on the planet to offset her recycling, and water and electricity conservation. She wonders why she bothers doing those things, when our population is too great for our resources. Her point is: What’s the point?
In 1985, in Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, I read that our resources could maintain 2% of the then current population. That meant 98% of the 4.85 billion people inhabiting the Earth had to die off for the planet to be in balance. Over-population.
Today we sport almost 7 billion people on the planet, and naturally, we have fewer resources than 25 years ago. As long as too many people are sucking up too few resources, the earth’s massive ecosystem will not be in balance.
So do our small, personal recycling and conservation efforts offset the imbalance between resources and the number of people on the earth? My neighbor thinks not. She feels her efforts are a waste of time. She does them, but wonders why.
A colleague of mine feels his efforts to educate people through his progressive website are for naught. When he digs up information such as Monsanto and BP donating money to The Nature Conservancy and Halliburton being named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in the Global Oil Services sector, he wants to give up.
He does not feel hopeful, obviously.
It’s frustrating to be working towards reducing CO2 emissions, cutting back on consumption, educating everyone around you, and feeling you’re making progress in restoring and maintaining the health of the Earth, only to find out that some big corporation has more sway than you do. Much more sway!
So do our efforts make a difference?
If several million individuals:
> recycle
> close lights in unused rooms
> drive less, carpool or cycle
> build or remodel energy efficient homes
> not fly
> bring reusable bags to the store
> turn down the thermostat
> buy local and organic food
> etc,
will their actions offset one dirty, underhanded, non-transparent, anti-environment corporation greasing the palm of a non-profit that is supposed to be protecting and conserving nature?
What are your thoughts?
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