onlooker wrote: Now if we were 500 million on the planet perhaps what Onlooker says could be true. But with almost 8 billion on the planet what we are doing here does not represent even in the remotest sense a solution.
I never meant to imply that what you Ibon or others around the world are doing are at this point making an actual difference in the trajectory. I used the word example. This is because it sets the tone for what remains of hope for the human race to live in a way commensurate with a renewable sustainable existence. I like some of you know that barring something unforeseen we are headed for an immense correction. But any actions or ideas (like Hawk mentioned) now while not conducive to preventing this correction nevertheless will be something to take forward beyond to a different world which will absolutely require the remaining humans to maintain a balance with and respect for their surroundings.
I will share something personal. My father took me hunting and fishing as a small child, every year we did a trip to remote areas and camped in his old green canvas military tent. A little older, around 12 years old, my older cousin, a mentor for me, woke me up at 3AM on misty rainy summer nights and took me up a 4WD road in state forest land in eastern Pennsylvania where a communication tower with bright lights attracted millions of moths. This was my first initiation into the rich biodiversity that is out there. My cousin became an entomologist. Years later I was into serious back country wilderness trips throughout north america and Canada.
Back in the 70's I was pretty arrogant towards most people who lived domesticated and tamed lives. I already then rejected the status quo. Suburbanites for me were people living diminished lives, their eyes dulled. Coming back from a 600 kilometer canoe trip in Northern Canada do you guys know what consensus reality looks in suburbia or a shopping mall when your soul and eyes and ears have been opened in the wilderness? From that point on I have always stood outside the mainstream.
I must have hitch hiked a dozen times across North America and Canada. I often left for wilderness trips hitch hiking on an inner state highway until I managed to get to an entrance point of The Appalachain Trail or a national park out west. I am deeply thankful for having spent nearly a decade on the open road before aged tamed me, I got married, two kids, got more professional, traveled a couple decades through latin america in business and in every spare moment while doing so I was visiting nature lodges and national parks. I was a fanatic and serious bird watcher. All of this in my past lead me to where I am today owning and managing this private reserve here in Panama.
The point of sharing this? I am not doing what I am doing as an example. Also not for political reasons. I am also not trying to represent a sustainable alternative. What I am doing today stems from the passions that were instilled in me immersed in nature as a child, enabled by mentors like my father and cousin, later professors in college and experienced wilderness travelers who taught me. This deep relationship with nature was cultivated during a life time. I never was politically engaged, never an environmental activist. In fact looking out at the world through years spent in wilderness if I would meet an urban member of The Sierra Club or Green Peace who spewed out all kinds of sustainable or political rhetoric but never really spent time in the fields or woods I would say to myself...."What a clueless asshole".
Now I am older. I see a young generation emerging with even more abstract relationships to the natural world. A global population more urbanized and suburbanized than ever. How many out there have gone through an initiation into nature and the wilderness that I was so fortunate to have as a child. I was privileged and still am.
I am a little less arrogant than I was in my 20's but I am just as distant to the status quo today as I was back then. A little more compassionate perhaps toward our species dilemma. But I still recognize a Kudzu Ape when I see one which is all of us living in the early 21st century. Which is what Pstarr is mostly saying in his opening post of this thread.
Nature and wilderness was and always has been my church. It has given me great insights and has made me quite misanthropic as well toward 21st century humans. I remain ever hopeful that in my lifetime The Overshoot Predator ramps up his arsenal. The sooner the better. On the surface this sentiment seems quite misanthropic but it is the road we will take by default to get to a place where my optimism rests, somewhere on the far side of the correction when we plateau at a third or a fifth or a tenth of our current population. Our global population will then be diminished but those who survive will no longer be.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com