The Real “Inconvenient Truth”
Mar 06
- NASA Photograph
The intelligent solution would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would be poignant and distressing in ways, but not fatal. It would henceforth limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.
Alan Weisman The World Without Us
What Al Gore Has Accomplished
- I admire the book, An Inconvenient Truth. I admire its entire presentation
- I admire how it evolved into a film from a man’s quest to educate through a series of slide shows, traveling throughout the United States and other countries
- I admire Al Gore’s messianic zeal to tell a story that has to be told
- I admire his courage coming back from a questionable “political defeat” to center on a cause, which is critical for us and future generations
- I admire all the people; researchers, editors, producers, artists that worked on both the book and the film – it was all very well done
But Al Gore Failed to Acknowledge The Defining Issue
What I don’t admire nor understand is how Al Gore could have rejected the telling point of his journey.
Global Warming is certainly a major issue. It is extremely important, but that alone does not make it The Defining Issue.
- What is crucial to understand is that we are adding one million people to this planet every four days
- What is crucial to understand is that we have now burdened the planet and ourselves with almost 6.5 billion people; and 300 million plus live in the United States
- What is crucial to understand is that 300 million Americans are using and abusing 30% of the world’s resources, and the rest of the world is doing a good job of consuming what remains
- With an ever-increasing sea of humanity, it would seem irrefutable that a few adjustments here and there to our environmental footprint is not going to be statistically significant in reducing Global Warming or the rate of depleting natural resources
Consequently, the billions of inhabitants on this planet are most assuredly the root cause and The Defining Issue
Why We All Fail to Acknowledge The Defining Issue
- People shun efforts to reduce populations because we have already produced more than our fair share of children, so we ourselves are already part of the problem
- Therefore, we find it uncomfortable and somewhat disingenuous to be lecturing about population reduction when we ourselves have failed to live up to our own pleas for restraint
- Al Gore has four children, that is a significant increase from one or two
- When rereading the Gore book I could find only 6 pages out of 325 that spoke in any real way about overpopulation
What We Can No Longer Avoid
- Many Should Consider Having No Children, Most Should Consider Only One, a Very Few Only Two
- Let’s at least be realistic, we can’t possibly make any significant changes in our current environmental catastrophe-in-the-making until we are willing to be forthright about the fundamental cause
- Reducing populations is the only measure that can significantly impact and reduce Global Warming and stop the depletion of our natural resources
- Anything else is comparable to building more freeways that will be obsolete before they are completed. To be frank, that is “Don Quixote” stuff
Yes, but some would say the United States is a relatively small part of that 6.5 billion number. True, but we are also the greatest consumer of resources and products, and the greatest polluter and contributor to greenhouse gasses.
Reducing populations means we must be at least as committed as others, if not more so. We are the most powerful country in the world. As we go, so goes the world. To ask others to do what we are not willing to do is a formula for failure and eventual disaster.
In conclusion, what would you rather have: a world population of 3 billion in 2075 and a comfortable, livable environment, sharing equitably and sustainably our natural resources; or a world of 9 billion people in constant conflict and anxiety, with much of that population living in a poverty, pollution, toxic nightmare and governments fighting constantly for whatever natural resources remain?
