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Who we are What we stand for Global/Local
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Global
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Be informed; spend a few minutes daily at www.safewatergroup.org, with relevant newspaper headlines and news clips from near and far.Overview In
1972, the Club of Rome published a controversial report call, Limits to Growth.
In it they coined the phrase “the Human Predicament”. In simple terms, the predicament is that
planet Earth is finite and therefore renewable resources are limited. Yet we
govern ourselves as if this most fundamental fact did not exist. Another way
of looking at this phenomenon is what we call the Paradigm Paradox. A
wide variety of issues blend together in a dynamic interactive fashion,
making it difficult to point to any one fundamental problem. The last para of
the Limits to Growth summery referenced above, states: The two missing ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind to the equilibrium society and the human will to achieve that goal. Without such a goal and a commitment to it, short-term concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the world system toward the limits of the earth and ultimate collapse. Today
there is no shared vision of a sustainable global future. And so today’s
governments follow the now unrealistic quest for everlasting growth, This
idea is conveyed by the phrase, our Paradigm
Paradox. *
The main policy objective of governments is economic growth. future well being of humans and the
stability of nature. ~Detailed definitions at Wikipedia~ The
appendix section below contains a few links to relevant web pages that deal
with the growth issue. Below
are a few brief comments on some of the interactive subjects which combine to
form the roots of the human predicament.
Homo sapiens means the smart hominid. While humans have a wide margin of
brilliant reasoning power over our gorilla and chimpanzee cousins, we retain
many characteristics that cloud our ability to deal with large scale, complex
issues that are outside the scope of our genetic programming, such as our
collective well being in the somewhat distant future. The
Paradigm Paradox is reinforced by well-known psychological characteristics
that prevent sociopolitical corrections, such as: cognitive dissonance, group think, addiction, denial, issue avoidance,
short-term-thinking, self-interest and others. This
mix enables us to hold deeply rooted beliefs that may have been reasonable at
one time, but as times and conditions change, these beliefs resist adapting
to the new physical realities. Beliefs can relate to a specific religion, or
an economic philosophy, or a nationalistic fervor. The
Appendix section provides some psychology web references. Energy Energy
flow makes all things happen, from your body heat, to travel, to weather
conditions. Energy flow is one key element of the human predicament. We know
that overgrowth and die-off occur
in any species that finds a friendly niche that serves as an escape from nature’s
normal carrying-capacity. Our niche was the discovery of fossil fuels
centuries ago. This set in motion the human growth trajectory, graphically
shown below: we humans will have to collectively decide what comes next.
This
graph relates to three dilemmas, population
growth, peak oil and the dire
consequence of fossil fuel use to date, global
warming. Our
separate page on energy deals with both global energy issues and the current
debate in As
the graph above shows, recent global population has grown at an astonishing
rate: from one billion in 1927 to 6.7 billion today. This glaring anomaly should raise alarm
bells in every corner of the world. But
to date, our human nature plus many established beliefs and social structures
within today’s paradigm prevent us from taking appropriate action in this
vital area. Indeed, the subject is
still avoided by most politicians and even shunned by many of the world’s
leading environmental movements. For
many years academics and some others have warned us about the danger: see
Paul Ehrlich’s,The Population Bomb.
Fortunately, more and more people are joining NGOs that attempt to bring this
issue to people’s attention. See the appendix for more information. Economics In
recent decades open-minded inquirers have speculated that the economic/monetary
system is seriously flawed. Although
there have been many changes to the money supply and the economic philosophy
surrounding it, each change seems take the system further from any form of
recognition that economics and human-activity are a subset of nature and
Earth’s fragile web of life. Historically,
prior to the burst of economic growth bubbles, the rich have gotten much
richer, and the poorer. This has
become especially noticeable in the past decade. Economic
reference data in the appendix. <<< Appendix >>> “Dissonance and consonance are
relations among cognitions that is, among opinions, beliefs, knowledge of the
environment, and knowledge of one's own actions and feelings. Two opinions,
or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do
not fit together; that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, considering only
the particular two items, one does not follow from the other (Festinger 1956:
25).” “Groupthink, a term coined by social
psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions
because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency,
reality testing, and moral judgment” (p. 9). Groups affected by
groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that
dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink
when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from
outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.” “An unconscious defense mechanism
characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or
feelings.” “In avoidance, we simply find ways
of avoiding having to face uncomfortable situations, things or activities.
The discomfort, for example, may come from unconscious sexual or aggressive
impulses.” “Short
term thinking dooms social progress…” “The relationship between belief and knowledge is
subtle. Believers in a claim typically say that they know that claim.
For instance, those who believe that the Sun is a god will often report that
they know that the Sun is a god. However, the terms belief and knowledge
are used differently by philosophers. And it a telling point concerning the
nature of belief that most people distinguish between what they know and what
they believe, even though they consider both kinds of statements to be true.” While last century’s astonishing
growth in global population was physically enabled by the energy from fossil
fuel, many elements blended together into a social, economic and political
mould that shapes today’s paradigm.
Many physical realities tell us
growth will soon end. One of the clearest descriptions is by The Global
Footprint Network where measurements tell us that Ecological Debt Day comes
earlier every year: On September 23, 2008, humans started deficit spending
Nature’s capital resources. Next year it will be a few days earlier. In this graph peak oil is
incorporate into the mix of trajectories. Various researchers have endorsed
this depiction of our situation, yet
We are still trapped in our growth
paradigm paradox. "GDP is obsolete", Roy
Romanow former Premier of Saskatchewan leads a team to find realistic
progress indicators: http://www.atkinsonfoundation.ca/ciw/SkinnedFolder_1191351930387
"The Growth
Syndrome" by Don Chisholm, presented at the Fourth Interdisciplinary Conference On The Evolution of World Order,
October 2004 at
The drawing is an email footer of Jack Alpert, Laboratory Director, Stanford
Knowledge Integration Laboratory (SKIL) Stanford, California. See his websight at http://www.skil.org/ “The carrying
capacity of a biological species in an environment is the population size
of the species that the environment can sustain in the long term, given the
food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. For
the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical
care are sometimes considered as part of the necessary infrastructure.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity Ontario Government’s EV
commissioner: “Ontario's Environment
Commissioner, Gordon Miller, has challenged the provincial government's plans
to accommodate an additional 4.4 to 6 million people for Ontario over the
next 25 years. He is to be congratulated for taking this action, says
Immigration Watch Canada.” Bill Ryerson’s Population Media Center works worldwide using entertainment-education for
social change. PMC’s programs encourage positive behavior change among the
audience.
“Don't Fix the Economy, Change
It!” by Peter G. Brown & Geoffrey Garver, professors at McGill and
Laval respectively.
"Dennis Kucinich States his
intention to put the Federal Reserve Under Government Control."
See: http://cspanjunkie.org/?p=1724
"The Grim Reality." (From the Exeter Conference on
Climate Change).
"What to do in a failing
civilization," by David Delaney, Ottawa. "Can global civilization adapt
successfully to degradation of the biosphere and depletion of fossil
fuels? I argue that it cannot. Important elements of all constituent
societies would have to be reformed. Reform would have to be radical and
would be uncertain of success. It could be undertaken only in the presence of
incontrovertible necessity: a necessity that will reveal itself
incontrovertibly only when catastrophic collapse has become unavoidable. I
conclude that those who seek to preserve civilization should plan for its
survival in restricted regions."
Schell teaches a course on the
nuclear dilemma at Yale. He is the author of, The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger,
an unblinking assessment of the dilemmas facing the whole world at this
hour. He writes, "The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a
kind of Gordian knot." "Sustainable Energy: Shifting
the Paradigm: An Idea Whose Time Has Come"
by Alice Slater. "Today's dominant world energy
systems, relying on fossil, nuclear and biofuels, endanger the very existence
of humanity. The world is faced with a crisis that requires a total
transformation in the way we create energy, shifting to sustainable energy
that flows freely from the sun, the wind, the tides, and the center of the
earth. Accelerating weather catastrophes - tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, the
melting of the polar ice caps - underline the urgency to heed the scientific
consensus that we are endangering our very survival on the planet with the
continued use of carbon-based fuels." "For the past 40 years access
to energy has been a hidden driver of global geopolitical agenda,
including wars. The energy issue is no longer hidden, as described in
this NY Times article, which outlines how
These data will be changed from time
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