Amerika

Whether we like to admit it or not, our very own rapidly multiplying presence on this planet is the biggest environmental problem there is, and it’s getting bigger by the minute. We voraciously consume resources, pollute the air and water, tear down natural habitats, introduce species into areas where they don’t belong and destroy ecosystems to the point of causing millions of species to become endangered and, all too often, go extinct.

It took nearly all of human history – from the first days of man on earth until the early 1800’s – to reach a global population of 1 billion. In just 200 years, we’ve managed to reach 6.5 billion. That means the population has grown more since 1950 than in the previous four million years. We’re adding roughly 74 million people to the planet every year, a scary figure that will probably continue to increase. All of those mouths will need to be fed. All of those bodies will need clean water and a place to sleep. All of the new communities created to house those people will continue to encroach upon the natural world.

EarthFirst

While the deluded celebrate the victory of their multinational-corporation-supported candidate whose amorphous plan for Hope/Change seems to mainly involve the same old Democratic policies, the future-sighted are watching the real issues.

* Environmental decay
* Class revolt dumbing down the nation
* Nuclear proliferation
* Religious warfare

One of the first of these is Earth First, who above point out the obvious: the fundamental environmental problem is too many people.

You can’t buy a hybrid, buy fluorescent bulbs, buy green appliances, and recycle condoms to keep this at bay.

Plato — one of the smartest people to ever live — pointed out that in democracies, people get dramatic and try to prove their uniqueness and differentness by acting against what they see as the dominant tradition.

In doing so, they create a chaos that requires a cruelly manipulative tyrant to unite them, usually around some simple illusion — bread and circuses, as the Romans later found out — which masks an ugly underlying power grab.

The Russians discovered this when class warfare gained the upper hand — and whether it’s communist, capitalist or other, class warfare always behaves the same way — and threw their country into 70 years of beating up the smarter so that the dumber felt better.

While it’s not a big deal if the USA chooses to turn itself into Brazil, for humanity as a whole — itself in the grips of class warfare — the bigger problems are just beginning to reveal themselves.