As a systems thinker, I am concerned that most messaging about climate change and sustainability is too simplistic to promote useful individual action – simplistic and short sighted. The biggest problem is that we leave human population growth out of the equation. We urge people to make changes in their daily activities as if that will be sufficient to arrest anthropocentric climate effects. We fail to point out that even if they live more simply and burn fewer fossil fuels, our bloated population will still spend the Earth’s natural capital at a rate that exceeds the ecosystem’s ability to replenish itself. We need both population control/decrease and reduced per capita consumption to erase the human impact on global climate.
An additional concept that I encounter frequently is the idea that climate change damages the Earth. This is human-centric shortsightedness. On a millennial time scale, Earth’s climate is continuously in flux. Today’s changes are inconvenient for humans, especially those who want the future to be like the past. Ancient humans, living under low population conditions, picked up and moved when the local weather or climate became inhospitable. But we have grown so numerous that there are no more unoccupied, human-friendly habitats to move to. People we used to call ‘nomads’ have been renamed ‘climate refugees’ and niches for them to fill have become scarce. Even if we succeed in reducing human generated global warming there will still be naturally occurring climate change. Our success as a species has been based on our ability to adapt to whatever conditions we encounter. This will longer be possible if population pressure requires us a) to stay in one place, b) to deplete needed local resources such as fresh water and clean air, and c) to adopt social attitudes that resist change in the cultural practices that permit us to adapt to new conditions.
I understand that these are complex ideas which are difficult to craft into short sound bites. But the problem is complex. I hope you will agree with me that these messages are important.
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Calling all climate change spokespeople
As a systems thinker, I am concerned that most messaging about climate change and sustainability is too simplistic to promote useful individual action – simplistic and short sighted. The biggest problem is that we leave human population growth out of the equation. We urge people to make changes in their daily activities as if that will be sufficient to arrest anthropocentric climate effects. We fail to point out that even if they live more simply and burn fewer fossil fuels, our bloated population will still spend the Earth’s natural capital at a rate that exceeds the ecosystem’s ability to replenish itself. We need both population control/decrease and reduced per capita consumption to erase the human impact on global climate.
An additional concept that I encounter frequently is the idea that climate change damages the Earth. This is human-centric shortsightedness. On a millennial time scale, Earth’s climate is continuously in flux. Today’s changes are inconvenient for humans, especially those who want the future to be like the past. Ancient humans, living under low population conditions, picked up and moved when the local weather or climate became inhospitable. But we have grown so numerous that there are no more unoccupied, human-friendly habitats to move to. People we used to call ‘nomads’ have been renamed ‘climate refugees’ and niches for them to fill have become scarce. Even if we succeed in reducing human generated global warming there will still be naturally occurring climate change. Our success as a species has been based on our ability to adapt to whatever conditions we encounter. This will longer be possible if population pressure requires us a) to stay in one place, b) to deplete needed local resources such as fresh water and clean air, and c) to adopt social attitudes that resist change in the cultural practices that permit us to adapt to new conditions.
I understand that these are complex ideas which are difficult to craft into short sound bites. But the problem is complex. I hope you will agree with me that these messages are important.
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Filed under Climate Change Commentary, Media
Tagged as climate, climate change, population, sustainability