Climate Change Concerns: Our growth has limits PT 3

Do you feel as if you’re on your own?

I.e., if you want climate change concerns to be addressed in your lifetime, do you feel as if you’ll have to address them by yourself?

I read the following recently:

“Human activities are imposing enormous costs on the Earth’s climate and other life-support systems... Whether one looks at the loss of forests, fisheries, species, or climate stability, the level of environmental destruction is very high and, in almost all cases, rising rapidly.” (The Limits of Growth, essay by J. G. Speth)

After reading the essay I thought, not enough is being done. And it’s almost as if we’re on our own in finding solutions.


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However, although Gwynne Dyer recently wrote, “ ...the developing countries refuse to accept limits on their emissions for fear of stunting their economic growth. They also resent the fact that the past emissions of the rich countries have brought us all so close to the point of no return...” he also feels there is some hope for positive change in “the longer run.”


["Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"]

Humankind has a history of coming to the end of, e.g., an entire natural resource, before realizing there are limits to growth.

If we could travel back a few centuries and travel to Easter Island we would see islanders carving stone statues, or moai, out of volcanic rock while surrounded by thick woods of Chilean wine palm, “a fine timber that can grow as big as an oak.” (R. Wright, ‘A Short History of Progress’)

To move the moai into a standing position on an altar of stone, however, several wine palms had to be cut down and used as wheels and levers.

The moai grew larger as their numbers increased over time and the wine palms decreased in numbers, and the soil, held in place by the trees, decreased in fertility and eroded away. Still more statues were built.


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However, the last and largest moai never was raised onto its altar. There was not enough timber. At some point in time, whether for moving a moai or for building a wooden floor or house beam, the last tree was cut down.

In ‘A Short History of Progress’ we can read about the result:

“In the epilogue to their 1992 book, Easter island, the archaeologists Paul Bahn and john Flenley are explicit. The Islanders, they write, carried out for us the experiment of permitting unrestricted population growth, profligate use of resources, destruction of the environment and boundless confidence in their religion to take care of their future. The result was an ecological disaster leading to a population crash... Do we have to repeat the experiment on a grand scale?...Is the human personality always the same as that of the person who felled the last tree?”

In our lifetime we may learn the answer to that last question because we do not know yet that our growth has limits.

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Please read Our growth has limits PT 1 for more context.

Please read Our growth has limits PT 2 for more context.

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