Was listening to public radio last night (good distraction from the active act of driving a car) where David Suzuki (Canadian environmentalist) spoke about the paradox of constant growth.
Today people from all countries are conditioned to think about growth as the only imperative, progress in all manners of systems whether economic, monetary, agriculture et al.
The reality though is that there is a limited resource called Earth and by simply making a better mouse trap we are not going to find new mice to trap. There are only 99 mice left (metaphorically paraphrasing).
He uses a test tube full of bacteria that exponentially multiply to elaborate his point. That when supply is constant and demand exceeds a tipping point we are screwed. He indicated that we are already in the last inning but we kid ourselves (through our acquired arrogance) that we can outdo this cycle.
Truly the only outcome I personally see is for places like India to retard and eventually cull their enormous populations while for the so called developed world to figure out a brand new concept called 'Conspicuous Abstinence'. That would simply mean not buying an iphone or new car every 2 years as an example.
Can we do that?
Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
If we were to examine growth of our brains/intelligence instead, we will discover that there is negative growth happening...
ReplyDeleteMust be all that MSG messing up the messages our brain is processing
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