"Emergency on a global scale"

The world is headed for "a humanitarian emergency on a global scale."

So says a panel of UN scientists in a "State of the Earth" report released today.  The combined factors of Global Warming, pollution, species loss, dwindling drinkable water, and skyrocketing needs for food are poised to come flying back in our collective faces.  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the combined factors "threaten human wellbeing and civilisation as we know it."

Panel members even suggested that the Earth has entered an entirely new era due to human influence, an era dubbed "The Anthropocene" from the Greek word for "human."  In light of all of this, the panel suggested a series of reforms.  One was called "polycentric," wherein governments and businesses on all levels of size and scope are involved in a joint amount of responsibility as caretakers of the world.  Another need, and the more interesting suggestion to my mind, is a redirection of thinking in that the GDP is no longer the biggest standard of progress.

"A crucial transformation is to move away from income as the key constituent of wellbeing and to develop new indicators that measure actual improvements in wellbeing at all scales," the UN declaration said.

Wow.  I've heard pie-in-the-sky schemes before but that's got to be among the most cream-filled.   And with a meringue on top.  I doubt highly that anyone will be able to get Americans to reduce their standard of living in order to help save the planet.  I mean, why would anybody do something so unpatriotic as that?  Unregulated capitalism got us into this, it can get us right back out...if there even is a problem to begin with.  After all, corporations will always act in the best interests of humanity.  Next thing you know, these people will be talking "one world government," all to bring about cleaner air and water and a pseudo-sense of eudemonia.   This is 'Merica, dagnabbit.

Like Malcolm X once said and I paraphrase, "the chickens have come home to roost."   I honestly cannot understand someone who believes that none of the chemical emissions caused by humans have had any real affect on the Earth.  We're headed for an ecological version of 9/11. 
It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, recognizes their role in it.

And before anyone asks, yes.  I'll be happy to put myself in the front of the line because I've been a consumer all my life.  I'm learning far too late of the consequences.


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