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The Forum > Article Comments > Industrial society is eating us out of house and home > Comments

Industrial society is eating us out of house and home : Comments

By Evaggelos Vallianatos, published 19/7/2011

Our vast industrial exploitation of food resources may have exhausted our larder.

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Nothing to see here but the usual vituperative self-loathing. Ooh, aren't we awful!

Just for the record, though, current extinction rates are actually no higher than normal, and the (deep breath) 'International Programme on the Status of the Ocean and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature' is a happy little kaffeeklatsch of twenty or so self-appointed activists with no official standing.

See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses for extinction rates and

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/21/saving-the-world-and-the-ocean-one-activist-opinion-at-a-time-another-greenpeace-flap-this-one-duped-global-media for the IPSOIUCV. Phoebus, what a name!
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 8:06:19 AM
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This article is spot on. The scale and intensity of the plunder of the natural world has dramatically increased and shows no sign of stopping. I find it amazing that the previous comment seems to think that our industrial society has had no impact and uses a couple of links to support that contention.

I suggest watching Gasland the movie on gas fracking. Or if you watched Four Corners last night on mining in WA. The machines and the amount of mining/damage they can do is almost unbelievable. Also it would be wise of us to remember Nauru and Easter Island - if you use up everything with no thought of the future - even tomorrow - is insane.

It is interesting that even though we know this is crazy we still allow it to continue. Do we feel too powerless to make a change? Are we too busy enjoying the fruits of this pillage? Is it to hard to believe how nuts we are and assume that if it really was this bad someone somewhere would do something about it?
Posted by lillian, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 9:59:09 AM
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Lillian asks...... "Do we feel too powerless to make a change?"

Lillian, for the small amount of people in the world that actually do care and are very aware of where this is rapidly heading, yes, we are powerless. Most of the human population has been hoodwinked by big business into believing that growth is limitless and can go on forever. The only thing you can do now is learn to live as frugal a lifestyle as possible, get out of debt and learn new skills that will be useful in a world of rapidly diminishing energy.

Like microbes, humanity has been programmed by evolution to devour all in it's path until it reaches constraints on it's insane growth culture. After that, it will reach over-shoot and begin a massive die-off. In the meantime, all we can do is sit back and watch the fun.

Join in where you can since nothing you do can make a jot of difference to the outcome, but make sure you have a default position of making do and survival techniques such as the ability to grow food to fall back on. The more skills you have, the more likelihood you and your loved ones will survive, but remember, the end of growth is not far away.
Posted by Aime, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 10:54:15 AM
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Yes a very accurate assessment of the situation that all of Earthkind is now in.

This quote by Jules Henry from his 1963 book Culture Against Man, sums up the situation - which nearly 50 years later is much worse and to an unimaginable degree.

In Western Culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e. with death ...Where is the culture of life?
The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened, and confused, are wondering "where it will all end."
Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - the people who long for peace and a culture of sanity - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wool-minded, overwhelmed by their own impotence.
Death struts about the house while Life cowers in the corner

Some people would like to tell us "there is no other way" (Margaret Thatcher). And her benighted present day acolytes would collectively "educate" babies, toddlers, young children to be "faith"-full consumers, as described in This Little Kiddy Went To Market by Sharon Beder.

They would even convene gab-fests which celebrate The (psychotic)Genius of Western Civilization.
Posted by Ho Hum, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 11:39:56 AM
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This story and the comments attached show paranoia is alive and flourishing!
Posted by lockhartlofty, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 12:09:54 PM
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I don't necessarily ascribe to the paranoia theory, lockhartlofty.

>>This story and the comments attached show paranoia is alive and flourishing!<<

But it does confirm my belief that if you are keen to have your work published in 2011, it is best to write about the imminent demise of civilization as we know it.

The banking system will pauperize the lot of us! Global warming/climate change (correct my terminology if necessary, I find it hard to keep up sometimes) is going to fry us all! About the same time, we'll all be drowned in the rising sea levels! We're running out of food/water/air/home handymen! And don't forget, the Rapture is due (again) soon...!

Myself, I'm concerned about the heat death of the solar system. But will anybody listen...? No-o-o-o-o.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 1:38:33 PM
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WARNING: DON'T Click on the link to 'Through Greek Eyes' WEBSITE at the bottom of this article. GOT AN IMMEDIATE TROJAN VIRUS WARNING.
Posted by Atman, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 2:49:06 PM
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Here's the clincher
"Create a global Environmental Organization with the resources and power to really protect the oceans, the land, water and air from poisoning and other human depredations. No economic or strategic interest should take precedent over the health of the earth, which is also the health of human beings"

It is again is the good old 'Club of Rome' unitary government agenda for contolling the masses through the elite's influence in the UN. Keep the people feeling guilty, hungry and hating their own species and make Gaia the new god which must be obeyed above all else. Punishments to the bad humans to be handed out by the Global governance system while the mega rich elite continue doing exactly what they want. No thanks.
Posted by Atman, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 3:11:12 PM
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Thanks Atman. I've taken that part of his biog down. He must have been hacked.
Posted by GrahamY, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 8:35:17 PM
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I appreciate this article. It dovetails nicely with the idea that being an industrial society requires us to earn, earn, earn and spend, spend, spend (because we're above making stuff we use ourselves, apparently). At least that's the line one learns at university. Then one sees another way of viewing life, of doing things, of being resourceful and caring for the resources around us ... and that is very challenging
Posted by ruthie2011, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 8:36:13 PM
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It is not possible. I couldn’t possibly have read an article like this, which is basically a brief history of man’s impact on the plant in recent decades, without any mention or even the slightest allusion towards human population growth!

I’m stonkered! How big is the blind spot here, Mr Vallianatos?

You write:

< The decimation of so much life in such a short period of time, 30 years, barely a moment in the age of the earth, is a result of economic development, i.e., logging, fishing, irrigation, and intensive factory-like farming. >

It is partly due to economic development. Also very largely due to enormous population growth over that period.

< The only reason this ecocidal development goes on largely unchallenged is because of corporate tyrannies >

It is not the only reason! Again, population growth and now enormous overpopulation, has got a great deal to do with it.

Remember this simple equation, first introduced by Paul Ehrlich:

I = PAT

Impact on the planet = population size multiplied by average affluence or average per-capita resource consumption and waste production multiplied by technology or the efficiency with which we utilise energy and other resources.

Again, it is truly staggering that the population factor has been left out of this article, and the author’s thinking on the subject. However, this is not uncommon. This enormous blind spot seems to affect many people, including lots of OLO article authors.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:36:44 AM
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So that’s it “Create a global Environmental Organization “

You can give it all the powers you want and you will get one result

The development of a massive black market

Combined with a massive hike in prices to pay for all the pointless bureaucrats who will run roughshod over real people, beating them into submission with the authority of this “Global Environmental Organisation”

Demand and supply will ultimately resolve the problems

Demand increases and human innovation invest more in fish farming

And if the whole thing gets too much, some people will starve.

Of course any statement which starts “Europeans and North Americas have been treating the natural world as if it was a lifeless mass of dirt. They spread to the tropics like a cataclysm, and they took the best land of Africans, Asians, and South Americans and sowed it in cash crops. They killed and decimated wildlife for sport, plundering the valleys, forests, and rivers.”

Is going to be loaded

I would suggest if Evaggelos thinks his idea is such a good idea then he starts by putting it to his Greek brethren.

Lets face it, if the national economic management of Greece is any clue to the capacity of Greeks to supervise a “Global Environmental Organization”, then all is lost before it starts

Of course, if you want to see what happens when the nearest thing to a "Global Organisation" takes "control".. and substitutes for "Market Forces" you could simply look at USSR with all the authority and the tanks to achieve whatever they want -

Then you might ask

Whatever happened to the Aral Sea?

Atman.. I agree with you (obvious really) and Ludwig :-)
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 1:14:31 AM
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Industrial society is the only reason we have 9 billion or thereabouts people on the planet and they've all got roughly enough to eat, withe distribution problems the only reason anyone is missing out. It's the same reason we can contemplate an increase in that number to around 30 billion before we anticipate any reduction.

So I don't buy the author's argument, it's at best a rant against the very thing that makes it possible for him to live comfortably and have enough leisure time to spend some of it railing against his own good fortune.

I do, howeer, have some concerns about the continuous growth paradigm, simply because it must eventually run out of resources in a finite world. Are we so close to that point that it matters to us now? Possibly, but as others have said, it's beyond the control of any group or individual.

It will continue, because that's human nature. It's what has made us more than just another primate species eking out a precarious existence among the toothy threats in the jungle. Trying to change that is simply not going to be very effective, so inevitably there will be a collapse due to insufficiency of resources.

Human nature will come to the fore then, as well and there will be some suffering, but the species will survive and so will the planet. I'm not sure if post-collapse humans will enjoy the same free time that the author does, but that may also not be a bad thing.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 6:19:06 AM
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Ludwig is right. The Global Footprint Network has done the calculations on comsumption. While there will be obvious differences for particular commodities, it is easy to work out from the tables in their 2010 Atlas that the top billion are responsible for about 38% of total global consumption, i.e., most of the consumption is being done by poor people. If there are enough people, it doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low. Even if people in the developed countries were environmental saints, the average global citizen would still be poor, and any benefit would be wiped out in a few decades, because the global population is continuing to grow at about 80 million a year.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/ecological_footprint_atlas_2010

I also recommend Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc's book "Constant Battles" as a corrective to ideas about the noble savage, where only the evil white man is vile. LeBlanc describes his surprise on excavating in the American Southwest. Instead of peaceful, noble Indians living in harmony with nature and with each other, he found widespread environmental damage, fortified communities, whole villages massacred and the bodies left unburied, and collections of trophy skulls. Judging from damage to skeletons, at least 25% of the men died in battle on a continuing basis. Some of LeBlanc's ideas are discussed here

http://discovermagazine.com/2003/may/featwar

Antiseptic, you probably have already watched a collapse on television, the one in Rwanda in 1994, and it is hard to see how you can be cavalier about it. It won't be the last. 30 billion people is a pipe dream. As described in the Atlas above, we are already in environmental overshoot. Developed countries already have low fertility rates and could quite easily avoid collapse, if they are not already badly overpopulated, by keeping their numbers down and managing the environment more sensibly, provided that such efforts are not undermined by greedy elites. What is wrong with using our intelligence to save ourselves?
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 11:35:04 AM
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