No one appreciates being frightened about anything. So I have decided to switch tactics and ask everyone to be aware of some statistics that have been bandied about. Generally, some folks say, the world on which we live has resources to sustain only about seven percent of the current population. Well, that's a fine howdy do that should have been brought forward awhile back don't ya think? Truth of the matter is that this fact has been brought forward. But folks keep pushing it away. Prophets trying to enlighten the world do not fare well. A good piece of reading on this point is David Korten's presentation at the Seattle Green Festival in April of this year. His presentation is available at http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2640 .
The facts, however, continue to stare us in the face whether we ignore them or not. We cannot get around the fact that there more folks living today than the world can sustain. Just go to http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
to see the clock there and watch time go by. It will get your attention. Note that the clock shows the number of deaths to be less than the number of births. Note that diseases are increasing. Couple this information with shrinking world resources and I suspect we shall eventually see a change in the rates of birth and the rates of death.
What should we make of this information, you may well ask? Korten says in the article at the site referenced above:
Well, we need to grow strong caring communities in which we get more of our human satisfaction from caring relationships and less from material goods. We will need to end war as a means of settling international disputes and dismantle our military establishment. We need to reclaim the American ideal of being a democratic middle class nation without extremes of wealth and poverty. And we need to encourage and support the rest of the world in doing the same. To do all this we will need [to] create democratically accountable governing institutions devoted to the well-being of people and nature.
It is road that we must travel. We dare not refuse the challenge of tomorrow, les soon there be no more tomorrows.
2 comments:
The great spiritual teachers say that we are poised to take a giant leap in our collective consciousness and that this crisis is just what we need to force that evolution. We will either evolve spiritually in order to cope with the impending crisis or we will destroy ourselves. We are being called to a higher consciousness, and by we I mean you and me.
The way we react to this is up to us. We can choose to hunker down and wait for the worst, or we can choose to start creating the world that we wish to live in.
The worst may come and it may come soon, but what if it doesn't? What if is still time to transition to sustainability? We loose nothing by dedicating our lives to creating sustainable community.
If the nightmare dose become reality and the world falls down around me I will never loose hope that out of this our collective consciousness will transformed.
For more on higher consciousness read *A New Earth* by Eckhart Tolle. For more on what we can do to usher in the era of the sustainability read *The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience.*
Mustard Seed
Mustard seed..
very wise thoughts. Hope you are correct. Research seems to indicate however, that Collective Consciousness and Community necessarily require enhanced human relations. Dawkins in the greed gene book raises questions about the feasibility of such relations. We all know for example in all relationships, there is eventually a power struggle. Anybody out there who has been married very long or has children can provide examples? But...
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
Thanks for the book references. i will take a look. My doctor has been complaining about my current method of reaching a higher consciousness and i need to find an acceptable alternative.
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