Editor,
The April 29 article on seafood sustainability (Daily Journal, page 15) carefully avoids the twin causes of all environmental problems: the suffocating number of people on the planet, and our fantasy of perpetual economic growth in a finite world.
A few quick facts are in order: In 1900, a global human population of 1.6 billion used an estimated seven billion tons of resources, two-thirds of which were renewable. Today, more than five times as many of us use 10 times the volume of resources, two-thirds of which are nonrenewable.
At last check, we annually dump more than 6 billion tons of plastic into the oceans, and 36 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
We are the only species that does not regulate its numbers, and the only one that produces garbage, builds weapons, pollutes the air, land and water, and the only one ever to cause a mass extinction. We call ourselves the “only intelligent species,” while behaving like engineers of stupidity.
By numerous scientific measures, we are headed toward a global collapse of civilization — sometime between 2040 and 2070, depending on how much we might do toward reversing these trends.
We are told that population growth is necessary, if for no other reason than someone to care for our elders. Instead, we should accept the reality by which all other species live: When we can no longer care for ourselves, it is time to quietly and gracefully leave the world to the next generation.
Mark Behrend
East Palo Alto
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(1) comment
Right on the money Mark. I doubt you get to read the online comments, but you framed the issue perfectly. We the 'ENLIGHTENED" species of modified monkeys, spend way too much time playing at "King of the Hill" rather than looking intelligently at our overall human condition which is a shared experience for all of us dopey humans. Talk about taking our eyes off the ball at critical times, Wow.
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