Saturday, April 07, 2007

Population Growth And Climate Change

Yesterday the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change released it's 1572 page report. The report concluded".... a high confidence- about 8 in 10 chance- that human-caused warming over the last 3 decades has had a discernable influence on many physical and biological systems."

The report talks about the buildup of greenhouse gases that come from smokestacks and tailpipe emissions. It also points out the exacerbation of these effects by the human clearing of forests and population patterns that ravage delicate ecosystems. The report clearly shows the link between population growth and world climate change. But it stops short of advocating a maximum human population to mitigate and reverse this urgent problem. Why? Maybe because it would be politically incorrect. Also maybe because our world-wide civilizations are modeled on a monetary-based " In Growth We Trust" philosophy.

But the metaphysics of our planet and indeed the universe doesn't care about political correctness or monetary-based schemes. So the day of reckoning is at hand. The salvation of the 50,000 year old homo sapiens will require a lesson in limitations and humility like every other non-human specie abides by.

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