At least from my humble perspective, you are somehow on the correct track (if there is such thing).

Let me add one point to your thinking about indebtedness. Consider the debt that my generation will leave for our children and coming generations to manage. I am a clinician not an economist; however, I can see the economy is going along great at the moment. That is great for me. Is it great for our children IF this seemingly endless expansion of economic activity overspreading Earth turns out to be organized as a “pyramid-like scheme” that is patently unsustainable?

This could be the time to merely consider acknowledging and accepting LIMITS TO GROWTH OF per human consumption of scarce resources, rampant economic globalization, and skyrocketing human population numbers worldwide. The “primrose path” of continuous growth that the predominant culture is so relentlessly and blindly pursuing could soon lead to a calamity for humanity, even in these early years of Century XXI.

In response to a question about what I mean by “private clubs and secret societies,” let me just provide several examples.

Bohemian Club and the interlocking Pacific-Union Club
Trilateral Commission
Bilderbergers Group
Council on Foreign Relations
“Encampments” of Bohemian Grove
World Economic Forum
Sun Valley Conferences

Both of you deploy a word I have not thought about. The word is nirvana.

The establishment of a sustainable human society looks to me like a difficult goal to achieve in a timely fashion. A sustainable world order, one that protects biodiversity and preserves the integrity of Earth, appears as an especially demanding challenge in light of the UNREGULATED human overgrowth activities ubiquitously occurring on Earth’s surface in this first decade of Century XXI.

If I had to point to people who are seeking nirvana, then I would like both of you consider the masters of the universe among us who wish to live their lives without regard to the limits supposedly imposed by biophysical reality. Certain rules of the planetary home we inhabit, so we are told, do NOT apply to the human species. These rules of God’s House, upon which ALL life depends for existence, rules that are known and accepted as they apply to other species, are rules only the human species can indefinitely sidestep and ultimately defy.

These rules of God’s Creation, the reality of which is denied by the masters of the universe, have to do with limits of growth of per human consumption, endlessly expanding economic globalization and absolute global human population numbers. Good scientific evidence remains unchallenged that appears to indicate the human species is not exempt from certain requirements of reality to which we know other species are subject.

In the strongest terms, I beseech the scientists in the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population as well as other scientists to carefully examine and objectively report their findings with regard to emerging data of human population dynamics and human overpopulation. The implications of these data could be profound.

At least to me, culturally derived ideas such as “living without limits” and “no limits to economic growth” and “bigger is better” predominate the thinking of those managing the political economy. Such ideas could be hubristic,unrealistic and potentially pernicious. Could the people who wish to live without regard to limits to growth imposed by God’s Creation be exemplars of those searching for nirvana?

Clearly, I might not yet understand well enough what the word nirvana means and have provided inadequate examples of seekers after nirvana as they might appear in the world. If both of you would be so helpful, say a bit more about nirvana.

There is one thing I would like to add now having to do with your view of what I am suggesting as being somehow a utopian view of the world, not a reality-oriented one.

You will recall that among a handful of classical descriptions of Utopia, there is one by Sir Thomas More. It is coincidental, but I invested a considerable amount of time in trying to understand T. More’s behavior near the end of his life, the behavior that ended up leading to his beheading. It was during these few years of research that I came to learn about his Utopia.

There is so much to say, but now is not the place for all that. It will suffice to say simply that there is nothing to which I am referring that would suggest the establishment of a utopian world.

What matters is the establishment of a SUSTAINABLE HUMAN SOCIETY THAT WE BELIEVE STANDS A REASONABLE CHANCE OF ASSURING A GOOD ENOUGH FUTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN AND COMING GENERATIONS TO THIS EARTH.

If I have understood well enough what you have taught all of us recently about the way the world work, then I suppose you would agree with the following probability: the adamant insistence of the predominant world order in the continuous UNREGULATED increase of unrestrained per human consumption, unrestricted economic globalization and unbridled human propagation, without other variables intervening, can be expected to lead to collapse.

By so doing, in my humble opinion, we will have succeeded in the turning a marvelous human achievement into a modern day Tower of Babylon; we will have taken a good human invention called the political economy too far; and along this path we are so relentlessly and thoughtlessly pursuing, we will inadvertently precipitate the massive extinction of biodiversity and left this blessed Creation of God we now enjoy as a place unfit for human habitation. Please forgive me, but we could be approaching a point in human history when more of the same, good ol’ boys, ‘might makes right’, bigger is better, business-as-usual is simply unacceptable because even God’s miraculously robust, resilient and beautiful Creation will not retain the capacity to sustain the lives of the human species and many other large mammals, among others.

I don’t think it hurts to imagine a “nirvana” on Earth, even if one can never come to pass.

I think if we can imagine it, we can at least aim for that, even if we never quite get there. That’s got to be what people did before creating the great life we have now in the USA.

Ruby

As I recall, you recently made some of the best, reality-oriented comments I have read anywhere on the subject of the way the world in which we live works. Thanks for all of them.

Please forgive me for not agreeing with your logic in this instance. To view the way human beings organize the world is this “split” way, as you do, makes it difficult to consider better ways of organizing the world economy than what we have now.

Why does it have to be “the one right way” or else admittedly horrible examples in which power has been perniciously centralized. We learned painfully in the 20th century that communism and nazism were political constructions that were actual enemies of people everywhere. These are widely seen now as unacceptable ways of organizing, even though a few examples of such structures still exist. Democracy, on the other hand, is surely one of God’s great gifts to humanity.

What worries me now is that UNBRIDLED capitalism will become widely recognized as an enemy of God’s Creation because it is simply unsustainable. It is the widely shared and consensually validated belief in seemingly endless growth of certain distinctly human overgrowth activities that gives me pause. How is this small, finite planetary home we are blessed to inhabit going to support a presently determinable human population of 9 billion in the year 2050? Please help me understand how such a possibility could actually occur in light of your view of how the world works. Such an outcome appears unfortunately to be patently unsustainable to me.

Given what we see happening on the surface of Earth in 2006, how does the human family add 2.5 billion of our species to community of life on this planet without massively extirpating biodiversity and irreversibly degrading the Earth as a place fit for human habitatiton by our children and coming generations.

Perhaps between now and 2010 we could find new and different ways of assuring human and environmental health through universal education and the humane regulation of per human consumption, economic globalization and human reproduction, based upon universally shared values.

Please know that I welcome good scientific evidence that challenges the perspective humbly and tentatively presented here.

No one will take care of you other than you. Government will try to centralize everything leaving the horrors of nazi germany, north korea and the soviet union. That is reality.

The idea of virgin environments means you will be eaten by carnivores bigger than you. With no means of protection you are the hunted. The pristine environment will deliver epidemics of all sorts of wonderful disease such as bubonic plague and small pox.

Dirt farming will result in widespread starvation.

Quite feeling and start using your logic circuits.

Please, please accept my thanks for speaking about a taboo topic, especially one that is so easy to see. I cannot imagine that there are many dedicated members of the Earth & Sky community who would argue with what you report.

As I understand it, there is a game being played by rich ‘benefactors’ and their powerful political ‘friends’ who share interlocking memberships in private clubs and secret societies……..and all we ask is to be left alone to play. Please, do not even suggest that we ground our private jets! These days you have to have one to be “in the game.” Also, please do not disturb the game by bothering us with problems of the real world. We have established our own world for our benefit and simply prefer to benignly neglect and care little about the other world, you know, the one that concerns you. Poverty and starvation are completely unintended effects of the game. Sorry about that. Of course, as you recognize, global challenges are present and await our attention; however, to actually focus on these big problems would be immediately disturbing and disruptive AND to do anything meaningful about them would obviously require changes in the rules of the game we are playing. We like having the Earth as our playground and have agreed never to speak about changing the rules of our game.

Also, we know that what we are doing is patently unsustainable. But, hey, playing the game is too much fun. Want to play?

And if you ever want to have so much as a hope of receiving the secret handshake and becoming a member of our elite group of unconcerned world travellers, you need to begin by demonstrating that you can keep quiet about all of this.

For the moment I will stop. Thanks for providing this opportunity to comment on The Game…..the one we want everyone else to believe is “the only game in town.”

Steve