I
watched the documentary of Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs. I have to
agree with its critics: there are too many mistakes and unfounded
assertions in it. This discredits the film and its makers. But,
unfortunately, one problem it touched, but left without analysis, is
overpopulation and overconsumption. It's risky to say that there are
simply too many of us and too many of us can get what they want. At
once you are accused of racism, sexism, etc. But sooner or later we
must honestly ask the question: „Can our civilization continue as
it is, and for how long?” It's nice to accuse white men to ignore
the living conditions in the poor countries and deny to women the
right to have as many children they want. But... When I was a little
boy, just after the Second World War, my granddad told me there are
two and a half billion of us in the world. Now we are nearly eight
billion, and quite probably close to ten billion in 2100. It means
that for every human being, there will be four times less resources,
including arable land and fresh water, than in the 1940ies. At the
same time, the living standards of more than a billion of people have
drastically risen, and, accordingly, their use of world resources.
How far can we go this way? In my childhood, we had ca 0,06 km2
of land per person,
including deserts and areas perpetually covered with ice. It is about
6 hectares, a small plot. Nowadays it's four times smaller – 1,5
hectares. And roughtly a half of it is „habitable”, and even a
smaller part of the habitable land we can use for producing food and
some other things we need (or think we need), as cotton. As to food,
we can get a part of it from water, nowadays e.g.from
acquaculture. We can grow crops on our roofs, although we need the
roofs for solar panels, too. It's certainy hypocritical to accuse the
Africans, Indians and South Americans of having so many children.
It's our Western civilization that gave them this possibility, and
our way of life and our living standard is something they are
striving to. Who can deny them to want to live a better life, to
imitate what they see every day from our TV serials? The good
solution would possibly be: for us, to have a much lower living
standard, and for them, a higher one? Is such a compromise feasible?
Could a sensible majority of people agree with it? What would a
sustainable standard of living concretely mean? I am nearly convinced
that without a radical change of our way of life, of our values, we
are approaching an ecological catastrophe. To avoid it, we need
something our secularist, consumerist world has forgotten to take
seriously. We need what the Pope Francis has written about: a
repentance and an ecological conversion. Here, I am sure, religion
and science speak with the same voice. And we have no other way than
to take their warnings seriously.
jeudi 30 avril 2020
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