Tag: ecology

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Scientist David Suzuki Says Exponential Economic Growth Is Suicidal

Scientist David Suzuki Says Exponential Economic Growth Is Suicidal

Facts Of Life

You know there are a lot of things we can fix in this world; we can do something about…”

David Suzuki is a scientist, environmentalist, broadcaster, and co-creator of the David Suzuki Foundation.

But some things are facts of life… those are things we have to accept and work ourselves around.”

Exponential Growth

One of these facts, Suzuki stresses, is exponential growth:

If something is growing at 1% a year it’ll double in 70 years. 2% a year it’ll double in 35 years; 3% a year in 24 years… anything growing exponentially will double in a predictable length of time. Now I’m going to show you why all this stuff about… ‘We got to keep the economy growing’… is ultimately suicidal.”

Click Here To Watch The Video [3 min. 26 sec.] Of Suzuki Explaining Exponential Growth

A System Analogous To The Planet

  • 1 test tube full of food = the planet.
  • Bacteria who eat the food= humans.

The Experiment:

  • 1 bacterial cell is introduced into a completely full test tube.
  • According to exponential growth it will divide every minute.

So at times zero there is 1 cell (bacteria). 1 minute there are 2 (cells). 2 minutes there are 4. 3 minutes there are 8. 4 minutes 16.”

60 Minute Growth Cycle

At 60 minutes the test tube is completely packed with bacteria and there’s no food left. So we have a 60 minutes growth cycle. When is the test tube only half full?”

  • 59 minutes: 50% full.

Even though it’s been chugging along for 59 minutes it’s only half full but one minute later it’ll be completely filled. So that means that…”

  • 58 minutes: 25% full.
  • 57 minutes: 12.5% full.
  • 55 minutes: 3% full.

Living In The 59th Minute

Our home is the biosphere. It’s fixed and finite. It can’t grow. And we’ve got to learn to live within that finite world. Every scientist I have talked to agrees with me: We’ve already passed the 59th minute.”

All quotes courtesy of the test tube video with David Suzuki.

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What Are The Consequences Of Ecological Overspending?

Since The 1970s Human Demand On Nature Is Larger Than Nature’s Renewable Production

Today, we are using 20% more than what nature can regenerate. In other words, it would take a year and more than 2 months to regenerate everything that we use within one year.

This difference is called the ‘ecological deficit,’ the difference of how much more rapidly we are using resources like forests, fish stock, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, than nature is able to accommodate.”

Mathis Wackernagel, PhD, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network exemplifies what he calls an “ecological bank statement” in a video presentation, excerpted below, showing how humanity today is using more than what nature can regenerate.

Ecological Bank Statement Shows Humanity’s Using More Than It Has

If we look at this bank statement and say that we’re using more than what we have, is this good news or bad news? I would say it is good news in the sense that it gives us more information. And we still have choice. We can still just not open the bank statement and recycle the envelope, or we can look at it. But if we do spend too much money, we also know what the consequences are, so there is a kind of a feedback loop. In the same way we have to think about nature from a budgeting perspective, and say, ‘what are the consequences of overspending?’”

Watch The Video [if the video is not embedded below, then you can watch it here] [3 min. 30 sec.]:

06 – Overshoot (Exceeding Ecological Limits) – GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK from WERI on Vimeo.

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Ecologize Growth

The words “Economy” and “Ecology” both come from the Greek word “Ecos,” meaning “household.” In other words, Ecology is the science about how to arrange our household on the planet Earth, and Economy sets forth the rules by which this household should operate. Therefore, we shouldn’t separate ecology from economy.

Economy and ecology both have their own natural laws. And if we’re building an artificial economy, one that’s based on our own invented rules instead of the rules embedded in nature, then we’re leading ourselves to bankruptcy. Nature is a massive, complex, harmoniously designed, living household. By meddling in it and violating its laws, we induce the crisis. The entire economy must be reconstructed from being an economy of consumption to an ecologically correct economy – an economy of sensible consumption.

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The Green Beautiful

The crisis is occurring in the family called humanity. By repairing our relationship, we would resolve all problems life is presenting us with. There are some amazing studies, which assert that if people were to start treating each other like family then even nature, climate, and other natural phenomena would also normalize.

Today many scientists are already discovering a connection between human society and other levels of nature: the still, vegetative, and animate. We need to explain to ourselves that we have no choice; we must come to negotiations and mutual understanding on a global scale. This is the first thing we must do.

There are also laws of inner, human nature: a person’s psychology, the psychology of the society and the family, relationships between parents and children, and relationships between children. It is necessary to know the psychology of all human relations, human animal nature: the small and the big, parents and children, the old and the young, all the human layers, in all directions. If I know human nature and the way to fix the relationships between us, I will be able to build a human society where everyone will be comfortable and happy.

Everyone will have to compromise. After all,everyone wants to be respected and admired. On the other hand, if we were to educate a person that one benefits and gains respect, support, and assistance when he is on equal terms with others, then he would gladly accept this. A person will see that in a system where everyone depends on each other things cannot be any other way.

It is clear that the human ego will constantly try to fight it and will wish to rule over others. To balance it, there is such a powerful instrument as public opinion. After all, it is the society who influences and educates us. Public opinion and the influence of society are the dominant and binding factors in forming a human being.