The Biology of Peace

Consumption Friday is upon us and the news will tell of whether it was a good one or not by the volume of things consumed. It will show people waiting in line for bargains... it will seem all normal.. except it all represents consumption and its subsequent waste. Goods are needed and gifts are fun to give.. but focus will not be on how to make our world saner, it will be on how our corporations did today... as if they are not subject to the laws of physics too..the laws of limited natural resources..... so I wrote this in defiance of a world we still have the power to change, if we want to badly enough...


I know the president who I helped elect is very busy preparing his speech for why we should send more troops in Afghanistan, but maybe someone can steer him to this poem and the feeling I have that as a progressive my only choices are to either be devastated by a leader I completely disrespect or be disappointed by a leader I like... I think he will be making a huge mistake one that is costly, unproductive and a drain our limited resources...


The Biology of Peace
By Karen I. Shragg

Now that we know
Now that we can prove
That we are all related
Thanks to the success of those brave
few who ventured out of
Sub-Saharan Africa just a second ago
Earth time
Its time to let go of all of the lies
Which tell stories of difference
Which plant the seeds of violence
Which perpetuate war

Now that we know that our kind left the trees
When the forests dried out to find food
Just a few Earth minutes ago
Its time to stop treating them like
Strangers forcing their ultimate extinction
As if we don’t owe them more than a ride on a
Circus train for they share all but a fraction of our DNA

Now that we know our power to make all ecosystems
Bow to our wishes and break in the process
Its time for full throttle focus on stewardship
Which is not a sacrifice
But a sacrament
The kind with real consequences here on
Our planet which science is telling us doesn’t
Have long to support us
All of us
In numbers which far exceed its ability to give

Now that we know our planet’s limits
Now that we know we can exhaust them
with our numbers alone
Its time to admit we have limits of our own.

Population is STILL our number one problem

The Economist opinion in November 2nd’s Star Tribune paper was right on several accounts but fatally wrong on several others. It is true that lower fertility has helped to spur economic growth in much of the world, but population growth remains a serious problem in sub-Saharan Africa and much of Southern Asia. Yes, global fertility rates fell sharply in the latter half of the 20th Century, but fertility rates remain stubbornly high in some of the poorest developing nations, and in some countries--like Kenya--fertility rates are climbing back up.

The bottom line is that though globally we have gone down globally from approximately 93 million additional people (births minus deaths) per year to 73 million we are still in serious overshoot of our natural resource base, as we have enough natural resources to keep only 2 billion people living on Planet Earth at a modest existence. On our current trajectory we are dangerously headed to 9 billion inhabitants of this limited place and beyond. The Economist article is as comforting as it would be to tell the passengers of the Titanic that the iceberg will hit next week instead of tomorrow.

Ten years ago, The Economist ["Drowning in Oil"] were completely of base on their forecast of oil reserves when they infamously declared that “The world is awash with the stuff and it is likely to remain so.” Now we are past peak oil and getting the remaining goo out of the ground is much more expensive and that’s before you look at its contribution to greenhouse gases.

Declarations in 2009 that “Population growth is already slowing almost as fast as it naturally could” or "worries about a population explosion are themselves being exploded," are equally false. This whole take on the issue throws a political monkey wrench into the efforts that must be done to educate people on the way our planet continues to rapidly grow while our natural resources continue to decrease.

In addition, the article declares that we can do no more about population growth so we need to focus on green technologies. This hopeless analysis is also false. Once we truly get the population issue we will be able to find many humane ways of solving this crisis, from tax incentives to education. If one truly understands that in the time it takes you read the Star Tribune ( assuming that is one hour) 9,000 additional people were added to the planet, then you will understand that no amount of green technologies can get us out of the hole we are digging for ourselves. The basics of life’s essential needs are in limited supply. Water is one of the main limiting factors, and solving how many people will need it in the future is where our efforts need to be, not on whether or not we can all drive electric cars.