Most rational people agree that we humans have had a tremendous impact on our home, the planet on which we live. Most would also agree, that impact has done tremendous damage, and the damage is on going. At what point is the damage non-repairable?
What if scientists are right and the planet's systems really are under threat of collapse, or are already in a state of collapse? What if humans were the major cause of that?Based on an evaluation of more than 1,000 previous studies, a new meta-review by an international group of 18 scientists suggests the Earth is perilously close to a tipping point where resource consumption, ecosystem degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss and population growth will trigger massive changes in the biosphere.
How would one live if this were true?
Would we continue with the economic system that is the root cause of all this damage, and continue to devour ourselves into extinction, or would we start to dismantle this system and structure our communities and society in a sustainable fashion, creating a system of co-operation rather than competition, seeing to our needs, and not the self-centred desires of the greedy? At what point will we make that decision? Now, or when it is already too late?
A Spanish environmental biologist (Miguel Delibes de Castro) explains this metaphorically:
ReplyDeleteI put a washing machine. When I remove my clothes from it, I find a small nut. I do not give it importance and I leave it anywhere. The next time, I find a little screw and I do not give more importance. Until one day the washing machine starts making a tremendous noise, it totters, cracks and collapses, pouring water all over the floor. Then I call the technician who informs me: The nut released the screw which, in turn, held a sleeve that released the water on the engine that eventually collapsed. If you had called me when the nut was released, we could have avoided the destruction of the washing machine.
We have already come across too many loose "nuts and bolts" to keep putting even one more "washing machine".