Have you ever wonder why we start Xstmas more or less in October these days but Easter has just about the same importance in US as ... President Day or Flag Day. It comes, hardly anyone notices, and .... well, that's just about as much attention anyone pays to this holiday.
Too pessimistic for America? Too religious? But Christmas is also religious ...
What's the deal? Where is the dam bonny coming from? Eggs?
Maybe the pagan truth is so mixed into this holiday, so much more than Wine God celebration associated with Xstmas, that we are too embarrassed to push on this holiday and make it more or less the same commercialized BS as Xstmas is in US?
Six centuries before the birth of Christ, the great capital city of the Assyrian Empire, Nineveh was surrounded by rich irrigated farmlands and supported population of 120,000 people. Civilizations disappeared throughout humanity while others appeared elsewhere on earth. If our civilization consumes its entire natural global earth base, where will we go? The scale of human enterprise is now so gigantic that people are significantly altering even the gaseous composition of the atmosphere and changing the climate.
Biggest problems: 1) Deforestation. 2) Water: Overdrawn and underappreciated. In developing regions more than 2 billion people survive on inadequate supply of water for household use. 3) Oceanic Resources. We are depleting our natural capital for short-term gains with help of our inadequate accounting system.
Is humanity a planet-wide poison? After the invention of agriculture population growth accelerated. From 5 million or so people when farming first started, the world’s population rose to perhaps 250 million by the time of the Roman Empire. While overall population growth slowed to 1.2 percent, the world population will reach 9 billion in 2050.
While population of Europe and other developed countries slowed, the dense population of Rwanda is dependent almost exclusively on the resources and ecosystems of that small, desperately poor country’s own territory whereas the even more dense population of the wealthy Netherlanders is able to draw resources form all over the world.
Paul & Anne Ehrlich points out the major culprit of human predicament: not just number of people but their conspicuous consumption. Of course our accounting system does not record those costs.
We need to develop sustainable agriculture and sustainable living that does not deplete the nutritive capacity of the soil or the biodiversity of natural habitats. Nation’s gross national product (GNP) fails to account for lose of natural base. Humans are incapable of thinking globally. Most people are still focused on the classic social, political and economic problems. Few people realize that we’re living in what agricultural economist Lester Brown has called an “environmental bubble economy,” an economy in which “output is artificially inflated by over-consumption of the earth’s natural assets.”
In summary, humans and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources.
I liked the book and how Paul & Anne Ehrlich tie all together painting gloomy picture based on past civilizations, overused and under appreciated natural base of today. I particularly liked their pragmatic solutions, be it difficult to implement, often almost Utopian. The one aspect I dislike was a bit disorganized material and some aspects such as overpopulation repeated over and over again throughout the book. Want to see longer 6 pages version?
Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.
Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.
Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.
Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck and I will buy you one if he comes by.
Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.
Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.
Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.
Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.
Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.
Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.
Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.
Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.
I will think about the mothers And fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can't handle it anymore.
And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer. It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask Him for nothing, except one more day............
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