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Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
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Large part of the lifestyle we have become accustomed to here in the West, or the North, whichever you prefer, the United States and Europe, anyway - depends on imperialism. It depends on our stealing the resources, both material and human, from less developed parts of the world. Their populations doubled every 15-20 years while ours was at zero growth from the '70s. Yet our countries were the most "overpopulated" in the world because of their consumption and polution.
Now that technology has made it possible to manage production and manufacture from the other side of the world we have a global economy. Loyalty to native nation state is no more a pragmatic necessity for business and manufacturers and the ruse of the significance of national divisions between people - that was more an implement to divide the global working class than anything else - has been dropped and the real operant division between people, class, has been frankly, if not brazenly, revealed on a global scale. India and China are industrialized and acquiring a large and ever growing middle class and the United States is becoming a third world country.
Ours, here in the West (or North), will not be "the most overpopulted countries in the world" anymore when everybody in India and China has a car and a refrigirator and air conditioning - when they adopt our extravegant, imperial lifestyle. We, flaunting our extravegance in their faces for so long, have created their expectations and those expectations are a major impediment to their reverting to a more "sustainable" lifestyle, which they resisted and refused in climate talks, for example.
To them it sounds outrageous, like we want them to go back to their mud huts and shanty towns. They, pretty understandably, say, "Fuck you, YOU go live in mud huts and shanty towns if you want somebody to!" Sustainability will indeed have to be not at all inconveniencing of that lifestyle of that developing, burgeoning, consuming global middle class if it is to succeed.
Never mind, I found it.
Never mind, I found it.
Thom's gallery has some pictures featured more than once and some neat and popular ones, that were on the site before its reconstruction, not at all. One in particular that was a favorite of mine - and, I'll bet, of a lot of other folks - was the one of Thom at 17. I'm glad I saved that one to my computer and to the cloud.
leighmf -- I was mostly kidding about the bigotry. I think the key cause of both bigotry and bad parenting is economic inequality. Do you know of any animal other than humans that have to deal with the effect of economic inequality?
I have never heard that about head shape. That is very interesting. I know I have an unbelievable amount of love for my children and granchildren. Do you think some of that is due to their head shape?
I assume drugs could effect that instinct to protect. Economic inequality does lead to more drug use.
Anytime, Alice.
chuckle8
Isn't bigotry the biggest cause of lack of parenting? -
Bigamy, maybe. Babies having babies, general immaturity, and substance abuse I think interfere more with the natural instinct to protect the young. All animals have an instinctive recognition of babies according to head shape which tells them not to kill the young ones.
Humans who see a baby or a child's head shape and don't feel the instinct to protect have something unnaturally wrong with their entire perception of the world and themselves.
So would Florida have negative growth- retirees come and die and new ones come and die.
Of course, things have changed since Malthusian theory. The things I read which altered the theory have no way to account for multiple births from multiple egg implantations, people having babies using surrogates, fertility drugs, and longer expected life spans.
Malthus is said to be flawed because he only considered population growth vs. food supply.
Perhaps we have interfered with natural population dynamics which in the past was affected by the inability to conceive, more miscarriages, and higher infant mortality, or fewer people making it to adulthood and conception.
Whether linear or geometric, more people means more garbage and more pollution, and ultimately depletion of non-renewable resources.
If we exhaust our soils there' ll be a lot less food to go around.
Got my water bill and it shows that, for the last two months, I used only about 40% of what I did last year. It would have been less than that except I tried to have a garden again this year which was a flub as I began to cut back on watering. But, I have to water my trees..at least. Gardens are yearly, my fruit trees are far more important.
I've noticed, a number of times, that Starbucks employees waste a lot of water in their sinks. They turn the water on full blast and let it go down the drain while they do other things.
Great interview. Riveting information.
I remember the days when the generation of the enlightened were going to stop war and find a way to end hunger. An idea whose time has come. I was a junior high school student and believed in the promise of the first Earth day celebration. The streets and universities were full of students demanding change - and some died in Ohio. I attended seminars and read Buckminster Fuller talk about spaceship Earth.
The protestors eventually became parents and found jobs. The economic boom and futuristic promise of tomorrow silently gave way to S&L securities fraud. The Sherman Anti Trust Act was disbanded. A fictional Wall Street icon told us "greed is good..."
In my lifetime of a mere 50 years the world population has doubled to 7 billion.
I see another generation rising up from the dust of the planet. Will it be this world wide generation find themselves marooned on a blue planet exhausted of once plenishible oil, water, fish, and clean air. Will this generation find ways to move beyond destructive ethnic and religious hate, redefine workable economics for all people and in step with the planet - or through either intentional or accidental nuclear will be set in motion to destroy most if not the entire planet.
Nothing less.
rich in ffolsom
In memory of Robin Williams
Reality is that we human beings are misusing and overusing the resources available to us on this planet to the degree that we are rendering the planet incapable of sustaining us; and, if we comtinue to do that, we will become just another species that survived for a period of time and then became extinct. However, in the case of our species there is a difference -- we will be the first species to ever exist on this planet that could have prevented its extinction but did not.
Robert4Reality 505-821-3798 Babedudeg@aol.com
72 You got your opinion in ! Wondering ..on what basis do you disagree ?
YES but lets not hold our breath till that occurs . Billionaires- Powerful corps will fight it till the death !
The solution, lacking as it is, is leadership to put us on a path resource sustainability and renewability while empowering the tools of technological innovation to save and nourish our planet. The platform of the Unite America Party provides such solutions and the leadership to prevent our destruction.
Support the Unite America Party Platform, published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/platform-of-the-unite-ame_b_547... as well as Nation Of Change at http://www.nationofchange.org/platform-unite-america-party-1402409962 and OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Platform-of-the-Unite-Amer-by-Gary-Rebe....
Folks who have 19 kids and counting are selfish The Planets resources are finite . Lets all do our part by recycling, composting, planting trees, reusing , donating to Goodwill and others.
Palsimon, it’s typical for white folks to minimize the significance of racism by characterizing it as just one of many issues, while over-simplifying the remedy for it, and in a way that seems dismissive to me.
Racism itself is divisive. Calling attention to it is not.
I agree that coming together across racial lines towards common goals is a great way to overcome “tribal instincts” (which is just a polite reference to racism). But that is not the only response needed to counter this huge social ill.
It’s also way too easy for whites to claim racism isn’t our most important issue when we’re not the ones being targeted, dismissed, bypassed, refused and abused, and it’s not our kids being shot down like dogs in the middle of the street. - AIW
Living sustainably isn't magic or rocket science. It also isn't unbearable. It takes simple planning, commitment and ingenuity; but, in the end, it really is the easiest way to live and literally pays for itself.
Palindromedary ~ Very well said! In fact, composting is not only the way to make your own--super rich--soil, it is also a way to make your own energy. In the future, I foresee people growing their own crops in home gardens, and extracting their own energy in their compost heaps. Yes, in addition to solar energy, simple compost can also generate energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVCaczil4W4
leighmf ~ Very well said! In fact, that is the essential ingredient to the survival of mankind isn't it? God said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Have dominion over the Earth, subdue it and replenish it."
The key word here is "replenish." We've done quite well at subduing and multiplying haven't we? However, we have done little to replenish. The time has come to obey all the commandments. For without total obedience, there is nothing more than disobedience. (BTW, nice avatar!)
leighmf -- My prediction of the world poplulation in 50 years is less than a billion (yes, it is a very pessimistic estimate). Do you realize that the exponential growth we have witnessed has now turned into linear growth.
California would have a negative growth rate if it were not for immigrants.
SueN -- In the first paragraph, it should be think tank not "think thank"
bentley72 -- Isn't bigotry the biggest cause of lack of parenting?
I think married couples should be considerate about the number of babies they contribute to the population explosion. Because ultimately we will have to think in terms of rations and what's fair. I can hardly wait for that!
We can all, in fact, help to limit the sustainability overload by reducing the amount of personal garbage we generate, daily, and over the years. Look at your weekly trash container and multiply it by the approximate world population now. Multiply your and the present population's personal trash x 52 weeks x 50 years.
Find out what the world population is projected to be in 50 years. What will they do with the garbage?
This must be the answer! We must learn to convert garbage to energy or earth will die of pollution.
Will there be space for gardens? Multi-family, zero-lot line housing is the trend. It would take serious cooperation to maintain a community compost pile which might then be useful. You never know who is going to put what in the compost, or what they are flushing down the toilet to our wastewater treatment facilities.
Some garbage can be used to generate compost for the garden.
Thom, you're such piece of work. Nice poll you fair minded prog. No choice for opposition? Like "No I don't think we need to impose a carbon tax. I respectfully disagree."