What you would like said and done on that day? Please consider writing your ideas and emailing them so they can be shared. Below are some thoughts of mine – Ricky
As you may know ICCM member Jere Locke has taken leave of Chiang Mai to campaign to Save the Earth and is presently working against Global Warming in Texas.
Jere’s latest report indicates the dire state we have reached and says unless radical cuts to carbon dioxide levels begin within the next 2 years it will become impossible to save civilization from destruction.
There are two human factors driving global warming. They are firstly population growth and secondly human use of energy intensive technology.
As examples of the first consider Australia a sometime major grain and meat exporter. Two decades ago a study concluded Australia’s human carrying capacity at 8 million. Today the population exceeds 20 million and governments there continue to promote immigration and population growth. Recent years have seen Australia’s worst drought since the British invasion of 1788 and great metropolises including Sydney and Melbourne are building fossil fuel driven desalination plants.
A second example comes from Arabia where the oil rich Gulf States and cities like Doha also depend on desalination of sea water to build unsustainable cities. The largest country bordering the Persian Gulf is Saudi Arabia with tiny areas of arable land and with a rapidly growing population of 27 million.
In contrast the World’s best performer in addressing over population is the Peoples Republic of China. China’s “One Family One Child” policy for its Han majority (one better than Vietnam’s Two Children means Happiness) over around 30 years, is reputed with having reduced China’s population growth by 400 million. Further this has possibly meant a halving in the death toll from the Sichuan earthquake and must be considered the greatest contribution to human rights and well being in 50 years.
China has shown itself to be capable of being the World’s foremost innovator in the struggle to save the World with its population policy. Now it is time to take the same radical approach to economic policy.
For 30 years China has been following the American model of capitalist growth, over consumption and inequality and has seen many of the same benefits and problems as did the USA in the past. China’s impressive industrial growth, a growth which has seen a substantial de-industrialisation of Europe and North America, puts the country in a position of great strength. Given this new strength and faced with looming World Human & Environmental catastrophe, China can now lead the World to salvation.
The time has come for China to reject the capitalist, energy extravagant model and to insist the whole World follows. By using mandatory population restrictions China has brought a great amount of happiness and prevented unimaginable misery for its people. The same approach applied to production and consumption is essential to solve the second human factor driving Global Warming.
Rather than hoping for a lead from a reluctant USA is time we asked China to return to a sustainable development model and lead the World.
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