Anthropocene Apocalypse – Scenario 2 – The Population explosion and the future!

Posted on by Opher

Anthropocene Apocalypse

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In Scenario 1 the population continued to grow eating up space, wilderness and destroying all naturally living creatures. Technology dealt with the problems of food, water, energy, weather and even oxygen in the atmosphere. We lived in huge urban developments and the world is devoid of wild-life and natural areas.

Scenario 2.

The premise:

a. We realise the impact of our actions on the environment and limit our numbers, conserve the wilderness and wild-life, stop our habitat destruction and pollution.

b. We lay aside 50% of the planet for wilderness and wild-life. We do not allow roads, hunters or development in these areas.

We are extremely good at solving problems. We can easily create a sustainable future where wilderness and wild-life has a place.

The result:

a. We introduce contraception, education and family planning on a global scale and successfully reduce our population.

b. We use technology to produce better transport, housing, energy production, and food.

c. We do not have urban sprawl, deforestation, overfishing, or other unsustainable exploitation of the environment.

d. We raise the standards of life for all people globally so that there is no longer war, conflict or poverty. There are social services, pensions and sick pay enabling people to live without requiring large numbers of children to support them through hard times.

e. We produce technology that is not polluting and is sustainable. We have ample energy (probably through nuclear fusion and solar) and our farming methods are not cruel or ineffective. We can produce ample good food to support the population without encroaching on the wilderness areas.

f. The forests are conserved. Fishing is sustainable. The weather and global warming is controlled.

g. 50% of the world is teeming with wild-life that we can marvel at. The air, water and soil are not contaminated with carcinogens. We globally control the weather and global warming. Everything regarding conservation and pollution is controlled and enforced globally.

I know which of the two possible future scenarios I would prefer to live in.

The future is for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. In my own life-time we have destroyed over half of the world. I feel we are at the precipice. Will we jump?Posted in Ecology, environment, ExtinctionTagged conservation, Ecology, education, Extinction, idealism, journalism, Literature, Nature, Optimism, Politics, Population, Science, the future, Writing, Zeitgeist4 CommentsEdit

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Anthropocene Apocalypse – Scenario 1 – The natural conclusion to our population explosion.

Posted on by Opher

Anthropocene Apocalypse

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Let us look into the future and extrapolate from where we are to where we are heading.

Scenario 1

The premise:

a. The population continues to grow

b. There are no catastrophes that wipe us out

Man is extremely good at solving problems. So let us assume that we negotiate our way through problem after problem. We do not annihilate ourselves through nuclear war or manufactured biological warfare. We do not succumb to a virus. We merely continue to grow in numbers.

These are the consequences:

a. Space and shelter. We need land and housing and our cities, towns and villages grow. The countryside becomes consumed in plastic and concrete. Roads connect and transport systems enable easy access.

b. The Wilderness. The wilderness and natural world become open to us and exploited for farming, mining, logging and habitation until there is no more inaccessible wilderness areas. Roads run through every place.

c. The Wild-life. The wild-life now has no habitat left, no food, shelter or way of living. It is butchered for meat, hunted for ivory or medicine (The rarer it gets, the more it is worth, the higher the price, the more worth the risk). The remnants of the wild things are corralled into parks or zoos and confined, protected and used as objects of tourism. Those considered pests, unpleasant or dangerous are eradicated.

d. Food. Even with all the wilderness opened up for farming, the seas fully harvested and hydroponics, genetic modifications and intensive farming methods there is not sufficient food for the burgeoning population. Food is produced from bacteria and fungus in vast industrial vats (Pruteen, mycoprotein etc. – already produced in large quantities – in our pies, sausages etc.), textured, flavoured and used as a meat substitute. Proper meat is a luxury food item.

e. Water. Water is a dwindling resource and desalination plants provide supplies.

f. Energy. Fossil fuels are replaced by large-scale sustainable technology – probably nuclear fusion supplemented with solar.

g. Weather. The effects of global warming are alleviated. The hurricanes and extreme weather conditions are now able to be controlled.

h. Oxygen. Oxygen is a natural product of photosynthesis. With the destruction of the forests and pollution of the oceans it is no longer being produced in sufficient quantities. Oceans are seeded to produce algal blooms and hydrolysis plants produce oxygen from water.

Our lives in these huge metropolises are highly controlled. Our environment is plastic. Our food, water and even the air we breathe is manufactured. We take our children to see the last remaining trees in the tree museum. We then go to the zoo to get a glimpse of and wonder at the little animals that used to run free in the wild.

It’s a vision of the future. It is quite possible. But is that the way we really want to live? Is that the world we want to pass on to our children?Posted in Ecology, environmentTagged Alternative, conservation, Ecology, education, Extinction, idealism, Nature, Optimism, Politics, Population, Writing, Zeitgeist

Poetry – I Wonder

Posted on by Opher

I Wonder

Sometimes I wonder,

As I sit back in my lone tree.

What is it all about?

What has happened to you and me?

I’m on my own now –

The last of my kind.

And as I watch you from my perch

I don’t think you’ll be far behind.

You’ve chopped down all my forests

And killed my kith and kin,

And put me in this zoo

Where I sit pondering.

I have everything I need

In terms of the basics of life

Apart from companionship,

My tribe and a wife.

There is no future for me now;

Nothing left for me.

Which is why you find me pensively

Sitting in this tree.

Opher 6.6.2019

I wrote this poem in response to a picture I saw of a male chimp sitting in a tree eating a piece of fruit and looking extremely sad and thoughtful.

Looking into the future when we have destroyed nature and set the scene for our own demise I found it easy to imagine his thoughts.

Poetry – Our Layer in the Rocks

Posted on by Opher

Our Layer in the Rocks

I like our layer in the rocks

With all my kith and kin.

I’d have liked to see it thicker

But we chose to make it thin.

It resembles a museum

Of all we could achieve.

But no sooner had we started

Than it was time for us to leave.

Opher 18.5.2016

Our Layer in the Rocks

For some strange reason we always think that things will go on the way they are; against all the odds. Things always change.

We get caught out every time. The unexpected always knocks us for six.

We seem to think we can do what we like with impunity and there will be no repercussions. That is madness. There are repercussions to everything.

As we go around trashing the planet for fun or greed we assume that we will be able to carry one forever. Who needs the plants and bees? Who needs the wilderness? So what if there are no chimpanzees?

Yet we are part of the web.

We are busy laying down the foundations of our own demise. As with all the other fossils we will end up as a layer in the rocks. How thick and how important will be determined by what we do in the near future.

If we are intelligent we will look after our life-support system.

This poem is a little pessimistic but I wrote it in hopes that we will wake up and deal with the mess we are creating before the mess deals with us. I don’t want to be in that layer just yet and I’d like it to be much thicker.

Poetry – The Last Party (For Greta)

Posted on by Opher

The Last Party (For Greta)

It’s the last party on the Titanic

And nobody’s at the wheel.

The iceberg has come into sight,

We’ll soon hear the crunch of steel.

Let’s order another bottle of champers

And pretend that it’s all God’s will.

‘Shouldn’t someone be keeping watch?’

I heard a young kid shout.

‘It’s looking pretty murky.

There’s a lot of ice about?’

‘Don’t worry your young head,’

The gambler replied.

‘Leave it to the Captain.

Let them that know decide.’

‘But isn’t that an iceberg,

Looming in the dark?

Surely we should steer away,

Lest it leaves its mark?’

How everybody laughed

At the silly little girl.

And carried on a-gambling

Within the social whirl.

There was surprise and chaos

When the iceberg hit.

Nobody could have seen it coming?

Was the grand verdict.

There weren’t enough lifeboats

But the wealthy took their place.

They knew they would survive

The gathering disgrace.

Opher – 31.10.2020

I wrote this one for Greta Thunberg.

It seems obvious that there is a major catastrophe or two looming – not only global warming but the annihilation of species and pandemics.

We can still alter course and change our ways. There is time. But the calamity it looming.

It takes a child to point out the catastrophe that lies ahead.

There’s still nobody at the wheel.

Sri Lanka – the abuse of animals.

Posted on by Opher

Unfortunately, animals are used all over the world are used as tourist bait. People pay good money to be photographed with monkeys and snakes, elephants and all manner of exotic animals.

Some of these animals are kept in terrible conditions, caged and bored to death.

The snakes often have their fangs pulled out.

Wild animals are caught and abused.

Biodiversity – the big disaster. The Anthropocene.

Posted on by Opher

The tragedy of our destruction of biodiversity has been like a slow-motion car-crash that I have been observing throughout my life.

The destruction is ongoing, continuous and horrendous.

I have witnessed it in the UK and as I’ve travelled the world I have seen the evidence everywhere I have one.

In The UK.

The plants and animals I used to see regularly are disappearing fast. As a boy, I used to play in meadows full of wildflowers. I used to collect caterpillars, newts, frogs, toads, slowworms and grass snakes. They were common. Hedgehogs were everywhere. The fields were full of the buzz of insects. Big flocks of swifts and swallows swooped and fed. Streams were full of sticklebacks, dragonfly and caddis.

Those fields are sprayed with pesticide and herbicide. The streams are polluted or culverted. The hedgerows have been grubbed up, trees chopped down and ponds filled.

Where can the wildlife live?

Abroad.

The rainforests – the lungs of the earth – are disappearing at an alarming rate. Flying over the Amazon the sight of the vast areas of cleared forest is alarming. But the same thing is happening in Borneo, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Africa. What was once impenetrable jungle (only fifty years ago) has roads running through it. The loggers and hunters have moved in. The farmers follow. The forest, along with the creatures it supports, is burnt.

I was quite shocked by a statistic that came out of the David Attenborough programme last night concerning the biomass of organisms.

60% Livestock

36% Humans

4% Wildlife.

That is what we have done in the last hundred years.

Our seas are being denuded of fish by huge supertrawlers. Our rivers are likewise overfished. Travelling down the Mekong I was amazed to see that through the whole length there were fishing enterprises taking even the smallest fish to batter into fish paste. What hope is there?

In Vietnam, everything that moves is killed. Even the paddy fields have traps to catch and eat insects. The jungles were silent.

I am appalled by the cruel, inhumane way we treat animals. They are caged in tiny cages, driven mad and killed in the most horrendous ways – being boiled alive, skinned alive or cut open to extract blood or gall bladders. Such insensitivity.

What is wrong with people?

This is not sustainable.

The delicate balance of nature not only supports this wondrous array of life but provides our climate, our food, our oxygen and atmosphere that keeps us alive.

Already we are seeing the huge fires due to global warming, the floods, droughts, heatwaves and changes in air and sea currents.

Nature can bounce back but we have to help it. We have to stop the destruction, reduce our population, stop the waste, put back the forests, the ponds, streams and hedgerows and start to act responsibly (and far less cruelly).

I think we are on the brink.

https://populationmatters.org/campaigns/anthropocene?gclid=CjwKCAjw74b7BRA_EiwAF8yHFEU-83LimHv9sMS8kwfZm2wvo6wFi4wIkrpz3f3bBLz-zj0Dp9YsJBoCzyEQAvD_BwE

 a passionate and always readable book conceived in love, gestated over a lifetime of travel and naturalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2016

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Poetry – Precious

Posted on by Opher

Precious

 

Every tree

Precious

Every stream and hedge.

 

We’ve put

Every plant and animal

Living on the edge.

 

For those of us who care

We look towards our leaders

To provide the direction.

 

It’s always up to us

We need to place the right ones

In every election.

 

Every bug

Precious

Every fish and shrub.

 

Every single organism

Is a member of our club.

 

Every tree

Precious

Every stream and hedge.

 

Yet we’ve put

Every plant and animal

Living on the edge.

 

Opher – 13.9.2020

Poetry – Extinction Rebellion I love you

Posted on by Opher

Extinction Rebellion I love you

 

Sitting in the smoke of a burning world

As the deniers continue buying,

The producers go on producing,

And the rest of us give up trying.

One group defiantly stands

Against the absurdity,

Protecting the last tree,

Defiantly.

 

Extinction Rebellion

I love you.

You know there’s nothing left to do.

 

Bring it to a stop

As the last bird warbles

And nature’s for the drop.

We’re selling the world for baubles.

 

Standing on the rim of the Arctic desert

As the oilmen sink their well,

The politicians’ hard sell,

And all we can do is yell.

Only one group takes action

In desperate disbelief

Saving that last leaf

From grief.

 

Extinction Rebellion

I love you.

You know there’s nothing left to do.

 

Bring it to a stop

As the last bird warbles

And nature’s for the drop.

We’re selling the world for baubles.

 

Opher – 11.9.2020