I'm afraid we've technologically evolved a lot faster than we have socially and ecologically. We see evidence of advanced civilizations that disappeared. Usually they just sucked up the resources available locally and moved on. Now that we've gotten planetary we're still in the same loop. I've read that Easter Island cut down most of it's trees to made rollers for the statues. My statue is bigger than your statue syndrome? The morbidly rich will always feel they can buy their way out of it and the masses think God will save them because, of course, God made all this for us.... So I had to write a song. https://waynemillersongs.com/track/2999925/momma-don-t-care
During the 1970-2022 America's population has grown from approximately 209 million to 334 million people. The EU's population has increased from 656 million to 747 million. Canada's population has increased from 21 million to approximately 38 million. The projected immigration surge into the Western Developed areas is projected to add similar growth patterns by 2050, bringing the US above 400 million.
The impact these huge population explosions have are accurately described by Mr. Hartman. We are pouring asphalt over an increasing area of former farm land building mega cities, and nature is being destroyed as a result of our demand to live in urbanized areas holding millions and millions of people. The compounded stress factors experienced across Planet Earth by families and nature cannot be solved by just moving away from a petro-oil-and-gas economy to a sun and wind economy, unfortunately. We may already have exceeded the carrying capacity of Planet Earth with 8 billion - a number that is projected to reach 12 billion before 2100.
Many of us have been contributing to www dot kiva dot org to help people make a safe livelihood where they are, but ultimately, unless we stop all these wars, the EU, the US and Canada will be overwhelmed by people fleeing intolerable conditions. Educators across the US, Canada and the EU are already seeing a more and more of their K-12 classrooms populated by +50% of students whose first language is not English, or German, or French.
Thanks for an excellent and timely article, Mr. Hartman.
Good Morning and Thank You Thom! Your "Rant" today should be common sense to anyone with a basic education and half a brain. Unfortunately, it seems so many people around the world, not just Americans, have lost that common sense. They are so immersed in their "personal life" and the distractions presented to us daily by the corporate media that they can not see the "forest for the trees". Those who understand, or even attempt to understand, the situation are painted as "Woke" and therefore biased against capitalism, corporations, the average 'Murican, the surface thinking observer who only sees what they are propagandized with daily.
Those who are "Woke" need to wear that moniker with pride and think even deeper about how they can affect themselves and others in an environmentally positive direction. If it's putting solar on your house, discard your gas guzzler for an EV, replacing those gas powered yard implements for electric one, insulating your house more effectively, turn down your thermostat a degree or two, all of these are potentials actions.
Hopefully everyone who reads the rant today or listens to today's broadcast will be reminded that they can be part of the solution even if it appears to be only a small step but when multiplied by the thousands make a significant improvement for our environment.
Thanks again for your dedication and highlighting the opportunities for as all to improve.
Forgive me if I have mentioned this before in Comments. I mention it every time I can as I see it as the easiest, fastest and most comprehensive way we can find our way back and perhaps yet save the biosphere, or at least keep enough threads that it might regenerate itself.
That is "Regenerative Farming." It is also known as "No-Till Farming," but if you would like to look it up, and I encourage everyone to do that and spread the word, please use Regenerative Farming for your search string.
In a few words, it is organic farming to the nth degree. The key is probiotics for the soil. Without going into the whys and wherefores, the results are: No need for either pesticides or herbicides; after a few years if farming this way, the top soil becomes deeper, looser, and requires much less water as the roots can grow deeper; the yields first double, then triple - along with the mineral and nutrient levels; in most places, only in a severe drought would a field require watering, and that would be no more than once or twice, depending on how long the field had been worked this way; AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, THE SOIL ITSELF BECOMES A CARBON SINK, FROM WHICH IT MAKES ALL THE FERTILIZER THE CROPS WILL EVER NEED. If 2/3 of all farmers, globally, would adopt this pollution-saving (no tractors, no plowing, no furrowing, no pumps for watering) we could shortly reverse the atmospheric carbon load and begin healing the Earth.
P.S. Various insect surveys do indeed indicate a rapid decrease in population on almost all species except water-borne. The results vary from 43% decline in one German survey over 27 years, to 83% in a hardwood forest of New Hampshire over 40 years. My guess is that, just as climate change as a whole, the decline is on an exponential curve, and it just became much steeper. LET'S GO, REGENERATIVE FARMING! RAH! RAH! RAH!
As the fossil fuel connects the events and outcomes, it disconnects us from our roots and neighbors. I think the palaces, super-yachts, and private jets owned by the titans of these industries show us just how disconnected a person can get.
Putin never was connected to his people, but he sure put on an act for the Russians. The older psychopaths get, the better some get at acting. He is exhibit A; "his" people found out the hard way they didn't know him. Now, many Russians are on the move too, bad for them-bad for the planet.
Saving some little part of the flora and fauna should be on each person's agenda. Whether you do something small or enormous, it all counts. The 2022 Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike is coming up on March 25th. Google it to see if there is something in your area. It's a good way to meet the people working on local issues. Try to stay connected, please.
The problem is "we" don't have the power to act on what "we" know. The wilfully ignorant minority is all set up to make "us" irrelevant come November of this year, and every condition cited in the piece is pretty much done for from there on out. Bye bye, been nice knowin' ya.
I'm afraid we've technologically evolved a lot faster than we have socially and ecologically. We see evidence of advanced civilizations that disappeared. Usually they just sucked up the resources available locally and moved on. Now that we've gotten planetary we're still in the same loop. I've read that Easter Island cut down most of it's trees to made rollers for the statues. My statue is bigger than your statue syndrome? The morbidly rich will always feel they can buy their way out of it and the masses think God will save them because, of course, God made all this for us.... So I had to write a song. https://waynemillersongs.com/track/2999925/momma-don-t-care
During the 1970-2022 America's population has grown from approximately 209 million to 334 million people. The EU's population has increased from 656 million to 747 million. Canada's population has increased from 21 million to approximately 38 million. The projected immigration surge into the Western Developed areas is projected to add similar growth patterns by 2050, bringing the US above 400 million.
The impact these huge population explosions have are accurately described by Mr. Hartman. We are pouring asphalt over an increasing area of former farm land building mega cities, and nature is being destroyed as a result of our demand to live in urbanized areas holding millions and millions of people. The compounded stress factors experienced across Planet Earth by families and nature cannot be solved by just moving away from a petro-oil-and-gas economy to a sun and wind economy, unfortunately. We may already have exceeded the carrying capacity of Planet Earth with 8 billion - a number that is projected to reach 12 billion before 2100.
Many of us have been contributing to www dot kiva dot org to help people make a safe livelihood where they are, but ultimately, unless we stop all these wars, the EU, the US and Canada will be overwhelmed by people fleeing intolerable conditions. Educators across the US, Canada and the EU are already seeing a more and more of their K-12 classrooms populated by +50% of students whose first language is not English, or German, or French.
Thanks for an excellent and timely article, Mr. Hartman.
Good Morning and Thank You Thom! Your "Rant" today should be common sense to anyone with a basic education and half a brain. Unfortunately, it seems so many people around the world, not just Americans, have lost that common sense. They are so immersed in their "personal life" and the distractions presented to us daily by the corporate media that they can not see the "forest for the trees". Those who understand, or even attempt to understand, the situation are painted as "Woke" and therefore biased against capitalism, corporations, the average 'Murican, the surface thinking observer who only sees what they are propagandized with daily.
Those who are "Woke" need to wear that moniker with pride and think even deeper about how they can affect themselves and others in an environmentally positive direction. If it's putting solar on your house, discard your gas guzzler for an EV, replacing those gas powered yard implements for electric one, insulating your house more effectively, turn down your thermostat a degree or two, all of these are potentials actions.
Hopefully everyone who reads the rant today or listens to today's broadcast will be reminded that they can be part of the solution even if it appears to be only a small step but when multiplied by the thousands make a significant improvement for our environment.
Thanks again for your dedication and highlighting the opportunities for as all to improve.
Forgive me if I have mentioned this before in Comments. I mention it every time I can as I see it as the easiest, fastest and most comprehensive way we can find our way back and perhaps yet save the biosphere, or at least keep enough threads that it might regenerate itself.
That is "Regenerative Farming." It is also known as "No-Till Farming," but if you would like to look it up, and I encourage everyone to do that and spread the word, please use Regenerative Farming for your search string.
In a few words, it is organic farming to the nth degree. The key is probiotics for the soil. Without going into the whys and wherefores, the results are: No need for either pesticides or herbicides; after a few years if farming this way, the top soil becomes deeper, looser, and requires much less water as the roots can grow deeper; the yields first double, then triple - along with the mineral and nutrient levels; in most places, only in a severe drought would a field require watering, and that would be no more than once or twice, depending on how long the field had been worked this way; AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, THE SOIL ITSELF BECOMES A CARBON SINK, FROM WHICH IT MAKES ALL THE FERTILIZER THE CROPS WILL EVER NEED. If 2/3 of all farmers, globally, would adopt this pollution-saving (no tractors, no plowing, no furrowing, no pumps for watering) we could shortly reverse the atmospheric carbon load and begin healing the Earth.
P.S. Various insect surveys do indeed indicate a rapid decrease in population on almost all species except water-borne. The results vary from 43% decline in one German survey over 27 years, to 83% in a hardwood forest of New Hampshire over 40 years. My guess is that, just as climate change as a whole, the decline is on an exponential curve, and it just became much steeper. LET'S GO, REGENERATIVE FARMING! RAH! RAH! RAH!
Great stuff and unfortunately gut wrenching to hear. I choose to use it an incentive. TY Thom.
As the fossil fuel connects the events and outcomes, it disconnects us from our roots and neighbors. I think the palaces, super-yachts, and private jets owned by the titans of these industries show us just how disconnected a person can get.
Putin never was connected to his people, but he sure put on an act for the Russians. The older psychopaths get, the better some get at acting. He is exhibit A; "his" people found out the hard way they didn't know him. Now, many Russians are on the move too, bad for them-bad for the planet.
Saving some little part of the flora and fauna should be on each person's agenda. Whether you do something small or enormous, it all counts. The 2022 Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike is coming up on March 25th. Google it to see if there is something in your area. It's a good way to meet the people working on local issues. Try to stay connected, please.
The problem is "we" don't have the power to act on what "we" know. The wilfully ignorant minority is all set up to make "us" irrelevant come November of this year, and every condition cited in the piece is pretty much done for from there on out. Bye bye, been nice knowin' ya.