My
latest
estimates show that humanity is less than two years from being
forced to reduce our population's ecological footprint, and the only
control we might have is in how it happens. Our options are
very limited: we can reduce the total ecological impact of what all
of us use, reduce our population size, or both. We may be forced to
continue this reduction as natural consequences of our pollution,
especially atmospheric greenhouse gases, include taking away more of
our remaining resources.
I
would argue, based on my values, that the only morally acceptable
choice is to cooperate in reducing what we use until we either can't
or (ideally) don't have to, and making that reduction with the least
amount of pain possible. The alternatives all include people dying,
likely on a large scale, with the worst cases including extinction of
our species within a decade.
I'm
sure this is all very familiar to readers of my blogs, as it is just
the most recent of several passes I've taken at this extremely
important subject, and is further confirmation of the conclusions
I've been trying to find a convincing argument against. Even the
timing is similar; I've just got a better handle on the trajectory
that's gotten us here, and a more compelling explanation for the
relationship I discovered between happiness and ecological footprint
(as we begin to consume the resources needed by the natural providers
of our own most basic biological needs, we reduce their ability to
support us and thus endanger ourselves).
So,
what can we do over the next two years to implement the "morally
acceptable choice"?
Here
in the United States, we're facing a presidential election before the
two years is over. Election season, which has already begun, is an
excellent time to address the issues government can – and can't –
have the greatest influence over. The current field of candidates
includes only two people who recognize the seriousness of climate
change, which is clearly a critical requirement for anyone who holds
significant political power, so something we here can do is to
support one of these candidates. Another requirement is a firm
commitment to reducing pain among the larger population, which is
more aligned with the views of a core populist than someone in
alignment with the sociopathic leanings of large corporations and
their leaders who value focused power over distributed power. One
obvious risk of favoring populists, though, is the potential
amplification of consumption as more people gain power, so such
candidates will need to be open to focusing on efficiency and other
offsets, such as caps on overall consumption that are applied to
everyone.
In
our own lives, we can work to reduce our own ecological footprints,
including actions we take at work. We can also avoid having more than
two children to keep from further amplifying the global footprint.
Applying social and economic pressure on others, accompanied by
reasoned dialog and education, is something else we can do about the
problem, and is particularly important since there is almost
overwhelming pressure already to have at least as much as the people
we identify with (or would like to).
If,
as currently seems likely, we get through these last years of
voluntary action without change in attitudes and actions that
sufficiently promotes the moral choice, the world will – to say the
least – become even more bizarre to those of us who remember what
even a marginally healthy Earth was like (I was a preteen in the
1960s). I will personally feel very lucky to live to retirement age,
if such a term even makes sense, and the feeling I have now that we
are about to witness the equivalent of a massive asteroid impact will
have translated into a full-sensory experience of that disaster.
