We humans, especially in the western world, have a commitment to growth
which, if sustained, will have disastrous results.
In fact growth is a
self fulfilling prophecy. For as fast as we expand to the outer limit,
that outer limit is handled by developers demanding and getting more
land to handle the growth, establishing yet another outer limit. That
can’t go on!
We seem to believe the old saw that if you don’t continue growing you
will go backwards into the maw of mediocrity. This mantra of “grow or
perish” spurs municipal politicians – where the real action is – to
attract more and more industry thus requiring more land for residences.
Even when land is kept away from developers, existing apartment space
will be forced to go higher.
Senior governments pitch in by building more highways and bridges which,
when built, will attract more and more vehicles.
We promise that we’ll stop using petroleum for fuel at the same time as
we develop more and more dirty oil and build new pipelines to transport
it.
More and more people, like me, write editorials and make speeches about
all this “progress”, more and more people agree and less and less is
done about it.
The new economic powerhouses in the world, India and China, (the latter
of which virtually owns the United States) will, as North America
increasingly depends upon them for goods, demand and get the US and
Canada to relax immigration laws – which we’ll have no choice but to accept
– and we’ll build more residences and highways to accommodate them.
Areas like the Downtown East Side in Vancouver will become more and more
crowded creating an ever increasing demand for more social housing.
We’re on a runaway train and don’t know how to get off.
The trouble with BC and indeed the country as a whole is that, by
international standards, we have plenty of space for more people to
occupy even considering the weather factor as you get into northern
regions.
How do we deal with this?
There us no magic bullet and people must start thinking – we all must
realize that development has become a Ponzi scheme where we need new
development to bring in new batches of capital with each new arrival
resulting in another new batch able to come in, and on it goes.
It all starts at the municipal level and that’s where we must make
our concerns felt.
Humanity has yet to come face to face with a population crash that other species on this planet have experienced. Those that have studied population dynamics can point to countless examples of populations that have hit the wall (the limits to growth), and they can explain what intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors where involved in precipitating the crash.
It would be nice to think that we humans … the intelligent life on this planet … will find ways to prevent those intrinsic and extrinsic factors from controlling our numbers, in ways we can all agree on. Unfortunately it won’t happen. We will hit the wall, very soon and it won’t be pretty.
Humanity has yet to come face to face with a population crash that other species on this planet have experienced. Those that have studied population dynamics can point to countless examples of populations that have hit the wall (the limits to growth), and they can explain what intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors where involved in precipitating the crash.
It would be nice to think that we humans … the intelligent life on this planet … will find ways to prevent those intrinsic and extrinsic factors from controlling our numbers, in ways we can all agree on. Unfortunately it won’t happen. We will hit the wall, very soon and it won’t be pretty.
Humanity has yet to come face to face with a population crash that other species on this planet have experienced. Those that have studied population dynamics can point to countless examples of populations that have hit the wall (the limits to growth), and they can explain what intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors where involved in precipitating the crash.
It would be nice to think that we humans … the intelligent life on this planet … will find ways to prevent those intrinsic and extrinsic factors from controlling our numbers, in ways we can all agree on. Unfortunately it won’t happen. We will hit the wall, very soon and it won’t be pretty.
We have a world monetary system whose very existence depends on growth or it will collapse. It is a debt based economy where money is created through debt. When you borrow money the banks punch that amount into a computer and the money it created. The same with credit cards. And most debt is created through land development, whether residential, commercial, or industrial. The only chance we have to save the planet is to change our current monetary system, created by those with the most money for the benefit of the same.
John Fellowes
604 885 9591
jayfell@dccnet .com
Rafe, the inescapable fact is that all mankind is utterly dependent on our planet’s ability to supply renewable resources, freshwater first among those. Yet, since the late 1980’s we’ve been drawing down those resources faster than earth can replenish them and the deficit is accelerating. Anyone who doubts that can simply look to rapidly emptying aquifers, the collapse of fisheries, global deforestation and spreading desertification as once arable farmland is worked to exhaustion.
We now consume the planet’s production of renewables by early October. We’ve pared that down by two full weeks in just three years. We are writing cheques our planet simply cannot cash. For two decades we’ve become increasingly dependent on consuming our seed corn.
“Growth” is a concept of 19th century industrialization. That model is obsolete, dangerously outmoded. Once we reach 100%, further growth becomes a toxin.