It's time we remembered the "eco" in "economics".
He spoke well, he spoke a lot, and he spoke quickly.
I tried to remember what he said but my memory is selective.
Here goes:
Scientists recently found that the oldest human remains are from Africa.
I cannot wait to be invited by the KKK so I can tell those pointy characters that we’re all from Africa.
Can you imagine being living the life of our ancestors?
Mammoths were around and we had no physical advantage except for a 2 kg organ that granted us massive memory. Gave us the ability to be curious and inventive. The brain learned through trial and error.
By looking ahead we could imagine the future and work towards it in the present.
In biology there is a rule relating the number of a species is related inversely to it’s size.
For example the blue whales being so large, only has 10,000 in number or so.
Humans have broken this biological feature.
And ever since World War II we’ve gained an appetite for stuff.
We love stuff.
But the global economy hides the REAL cost of goods.
We have become a new force.
We’ve begun to alter the planet physically, chemically in a geological scale.
In ancient times, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes were considered punishment from the Gods.
They are no longer “wrath of the Gods”, and we can say that humans now play a huge part for them occurring.
Supercomputers and scientists are talking about a dark path.
About opportunities we can take.
We see the world through our experiences.
If I ask a Palestinian about Gaza and an Israeli about the same matter.
A street person and businessman about economy and welfare.
Man or woman about love.
The simple reality is that since the minute we left our mother’s body we took a breathe and announced our arrival we’ve been living on borrowed air.
We are air, we share air.
When I tell that to kids they go “Yuck”, like they own a personal bubble of air.
I’m air.
You’re air.
I’m you.
You are me.
A few years ago a scientist decided to trace a breathe of air and see where it goes.
About 2% of the air we breathe is Argon, which for those of you who still remember Chemistry class is an inert gas which made it easy to track.
So in a single breathe, there are about 3 x 10^8 atoms of Argon.
A year later, regardless of where you are, there are about 50 atoms/breathe.
Oh there. Air.
I see now.
So whatever are we thinking polluting the air?
What we do, we do it to ourselves.
We’re water. Basically a blob of water with enough organs so that we don’t dribble away.
We say we’re intelligent?
What intelligent creature would spray the soil with chemicals, soil in which we grow the foods we eat.
What intelligent creature would inject chemicals into food that we consume.
We forget our own biological nature.
Earth, air, fire, water.
These are the elements
We must protect them.
I would think they’d be our highest priority.
What is incredible is how other creatures cleanse and replenish our resources.
Point is, the web of life these other species makes the planet livable for us.
We say that we are intelligent?
How can we take over the planet as if it were our God-given right?
How can we throw our stuff and drive these species towards extinction?
What we’ve learned in recent years is that the economy is greater than environmental principles.
A few years ago the environmental minister of Alberta said, “Environmentalists like Suzuki ought to know we can’t afford to do what they ask.”
The bottom line is, it’s time to put the ECO in economics.
Capitalism.
Economics.
These aren’t forces of nature!
We created them.
We’ve drawn boundaries across the globe.
But nature doesn’t care.
A dust storm in the US isn’t going to stop at the US-Canada border because of visa requirements.
At the Copenhagen conference, 192 countries got together to talk about the environment.
Something that doesn’t belong to any nation.
We CANNOT think of the environment in human constructs.
They talk about growth.
What is growth?
It there a limit to the economic growth they talk about?
This is suicidal.
Where are the matters in the elections?
We underestimate exponential growth.
We always have.
In a test tube experiencing exponential growth.
It reaches it’s carrying capacity at 60 minutes, when it runs out of resources.
When is the test tube half full?
59th minute mark.
So if you were a bacteria trying to warn the other bacterias, they would ask, “what are you high on?”
And if we somehow manage to find 3 more test tubes between the 59th and 60th minute mark.
That grants us 2 more minutes.
How can we accelerate down a suicidal path?
We are exploiting the planet and giving up our legacy.
