We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us
Years ago Pogo said: “we have met the enemy and he is us”. No truer words could apply to the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While British Petroleum and U.S. government regulatory agencies have, deservedly, been criticized for their actions, or inactions, the cornerstone blame lies with individual Americans.
Many Americans felt sorrow or anger upon learning of the harm being done to the Gulf environment and coastal communities, but we wonder how many also experienced a feeling of guilt. Because the compulsion to drill for oil in dangerous places, or in treasures such as a pristine Ecuadorian rain forest, ultimately stems from the profligate consumption of oil by those who use internal combustion vehicles – in other words, by virtually all of us.
For full article and to see the cartoons that were distributed with it, visit:
http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp
September 10th, 2010 at 6:18 am
If Pogo is correct and “the enemy is us”, then there is an urgent need to examine the science of human population dynamics. The topic of human population dynamics has not been and is not now being openly discussed.
Let us imagine for a moment that the growth of the human population today is the “mother” of human-driven global challenges looming before humankind and knowledgeable people willfully refuse to speak about it. How can that behavior be construed as correct? On what authority is silence in response to science condoned? Who has the right to deny the existence of knowledge of something that threatens all of us? Is there no one who has determined that experts have a “duty to warn” humanity in such dire circumstances as exist when the very future of children everywhere could be put at risk soon?
Before I started the AWAREness Campaign, I fully anticipated that the publication of peer-reviewed scientific evidence regarding human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth would be rigorously scrutinized, carefully examined and objectively reported by appropriately trained and educated experts. To my astonishment that did not occur. The experts remained mute. The evidence from two outstanding scientists, Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel, was neither sensibly refuted nor affirmed. There was only a deafening silence. After some months passed, I concluded that experts must not believe the evidence regarding the human population but could not rebutt it either. So the AWAREness Campaign began. Even now, years later, I believe the silence of so many indicates that the research is virtually irrefutable on the one hand and unbelievable on the other. It appears that we are in need of a transformed scientific imagination by means of which scientists with appropriate expertise are freed from inadequate thought and time-honored theory…freed to carefully examine and skillfully report new, unforeseen and unfortunately unwelcome scientific research regarding the human population.
So here we are in 2010. With the rare exception of a pre-eminent scientist like Professor Emeritus Gary Peters who is willing to speak truth-as-he-sees-it to the powerful, elective mutism is effectively vanquishing science with regard to extant evidence of human population numbers.
If the research to which I have unsuccessfully tried to draw attention for so long is fatally flawed and completely wrong, then the PMC community is invited to expose me for the fool that I surely am. On the other hand, if the scientific evidence is somehow on the correct track, then there is plenty of work for everyone in the human community to begin doing in earnest. It appears to me that there is just enough space-time for us to transform human consciousness, adopt sustainable lifestyles and right-size business enterprises, but we need to get started now.