The evidence is compelling, so compelling that no rational person can deny it - our world is in a mess.
We are facing potentially catastrophic worldwide problems: climate change, environmental destruction, rising sea levels, pollution, species extinction, pandemic threat, and more. Scientists warn we have twenty, maybe thirty, years before these problems become irreversible. If that happens, the prognosis is disaster on a global scale.
It’s an obvious truth that global issues require global solutions; but therein lies the fundamental problem for humankind. We are not structured to solve problems of a global magnitude. We are a worldwide population divided into competing tribal units of nation, religion, ethnicity, clan, class, and political persuasion. We are a fractured species. Our divisions run deep; so deep they may be irreconcilable even in the face of universal calamity.
Disharmony is endemic amongst the peoples of the World. It has been with us for so long it is now ingrained in our culture. Our past is the greatest threat to our future; our history, the most potent contributor to our inevitable demise.
Where in the world is there accord? Where is there agreement on anything that really matters? Where is the coming together of nations, religions, and ethnic groups? Where is the understanding that long-term survival depends on all of us working together as one human race?
Without unity, we have no chance of resolving the issues that threaten all of us. Without an absolute commitment to one cause and one course of action, we are condemning ourselves to catastrophe. Without let or quarter, we must now all stand shoulder to shoulder against a relentless foe that is of our own making, an enemy that will bring us all down if we cannot unite to confront it.
As a species, we are unique in our inability to live naturally in the environment that surrounds us. We are not equipped with feathers, fur or hide to keep us warm. We have no natural burrows or dens to shelter in. We cannot survive without agriculture and manufacturing. We need processed food, clothes, medicines, houses, transport, and a zillion other things to make living a possibility.
Our presence on Earth comes at a terrible cost to our planetary host. In order to live we have to interfere with nature. We have to adapt our environment, pillage natural resources, and consume vast amounts of energy. We have become the parasites of planet Earth, insatiable takers that give nothing in return but plastic rubbish and pollution.
We are placing our hopes for the future on renewables and recycling. They will help, but they won’t eliminate the problem. The practical reality is we cannot overcome our dependence on production - production of food, clothing, housing, transportation, communication, entertainment, and all the other things we can’t do without. We can talk about reducing consumption as much we can, but it won’t be enough to achieve a sufficient reduction in our energy and raw material demands for one simple reason – there are far too many of us.
For human beings to live in balance with nature, our total worldwide population needs to be around four billion people. The current human population is almost eight billion; that’s already twice what it needs to be. If population growth continues as expected, there will be ten to twelve billion of us by 2050 and approaching twenty billion by the end of the 21st Century. Such figures are unsustainable; planet Earth cannot support that many people.
If we don’t halt population growth and start to reduce population numbers, we will helter-skelter into Armageddon, and far sooner than you might imagine.
We are currently in the midst of a viral pandemic. Quite rightly, our resources are focused on getting it under control with social restrictions, medical interventions, and vaccination programmes. Yet even as we struggle under rapidly rising infections, hospitalisations, and deaths; we are plagued by national squabbles over vaccine supplies, arguments over lockdown strategy, organised anti-vax propaganda, and ethnic and religiously based vaccination refusals.
The pandemic is here in our face, but we still can’t unite as one to solve it. That hardly augurs well for our ability to tackle the far greater problems, relating to climate and the environment, that will confront us in the years ahead.
Those with an eye to the future, are trying to keep the focus on carbon emissions as the solution to the climate and environmental problems that will come to the fore when the pandemic is over. Whilst they are right to some extent, they are missing the crux of the problem which is uncontrolled population growth.
No one seems to want to confront the delicate problem of reducing population numbers, probably for fear that the only solution is a dystopian one. The simple truth though, is if we can’t solve the population crisis, it will solve itself through famine, disease, warfare, and natural disaster – and that won’t be pleasant. We will go the way of the dinosaurs if we can’t live in harmony with the natural world we rely upon for our survival. If we carry on as we are, extinction awaits us – nothing is more certain.
We are facing disaster. We should be worried; we should be terrified; we should be motivated to do everything we can as quickly as we can. Yet we will probably do nothing until it’s too late to do anything.
Our epitaph, after our inevitable demise, will read, “Too little, too late.” Why is this? Why will we delay when the need to do something is so obvious and so urgent?
The reason is we are programmed that way. We may be the most advanced animals on Earth, but the biology that makes us work is inherited from our animal ancestors.
Human beings have evolved from other primates who themselves evolved via a continuous process that goes all the way back to single-celled organisms. We, like the rest of the animal kingdom, are driven by a basic desire to survive that is programmed to instinctively react to imminent danger. Our fright, flight, fight trigger is an unconscious response to immediate threat. It prepares us to react instantly, to give us the best chance of surviving attack by a predator or other immediate danger.
The difficulty for us, as we look ahead to the longer-term problems that confront us, is we have no automatic response mechanism to future threats. We are short-term activists. If danger is not immediate, if it’s not in the here and now, we have no biological or physiological trigger to make us respond to it. Hence, we long-finger future issues because they do not fall within our instinctive response horizon.
A further problem arises because our instinctive reaction is based on survival of the self. We are biologically programmed to protect ourselves, even at the expense of others. Yet the problems relating to climate and the environment necessitate a universal response which requires an element of self-sacrifice.
In some ways, we have been able to successfully mitigate the focus on self-survival. We have learned to live in social confines where the needs of the community outweigh the individual survival instinct and restrict individual freedoms.
Unlike our self-survival response, which is physiologically instinctive; the development of community living is the result of psychological evolution. Social conscience has augmented the physiological survival instinct, but it hasn’t replaced it. The difficulty going forward is that the physiological response remains dominant over the psychological one, which is why individuals still instinctively revert to selfish acts when organised society is threatened.
Confronting the long-term problems of climate change, environmental destruction, and over-population requires a dominant desire for social as opposed to individual survival - our reasoned psychological response needs to be able to control our instinctive physiological reaction. In simple terms, humans need to evolve a higher level of ‘we’ consciousness to overcome the instinctive ‘me’ response to threat.
Throughout our world, humans live in sophisticated social structures which include varying elements of community spirit. They are all focused though on the specific needs of a tribal, national, or religious unit, rather than on the global needs of the human population. Ergo, we have a multitude of communities whose natural instinct is to compete with each other rather than complement one another. The result is a fractured species of Homo sapiens unable to come together as one to resolve the problems that face all of us.
A further complexity arises because our basic psychology, both as individuals and as communities, is dominated by ego. Nowhere is this problem more acute than in our leaders who are motivated by power. The problem with power is it has to be exerted which makes it unstable. This instability leads to short-term expedient actions rather than long-term resolutions. This is a particular problem in democracies where the need for re-election every four or five years shortens the decision-making horizon.
In my book, Numosapienism - a new human way of being human, I describe the situation facing us as the Human Anathema:
“The stark truth is we are confronted by a paradox … the ‘Human Anathema’ – the curse of humankind. We have evolved to live in localised communities that served us well in the past; but now, by their very nature, threaten our ability to live as a global community. The problem is one of parochialism versus globalisation. We are one human species, yet we act as a multitude of individual competing societies.”
The problem of tribalism is made worse because we still carry the natural instinct of the herd. Without thinking, we behave like sheep, following one another wherever we are led. The combination of an ‘alpha-male’ style leadership and a herd of followers runs completely counter-productive to our needs going forward. Yet for much of the world, that is what we have to deal with. It’s OK for those in the Western democracies to demand change, but what hope is there of dictators, despots, fanatics, fundamentalists, and ruling parties taking the difficult decisions that could make a real difference?
To summarise, we are facing catastrophic problems created by climate change and environmental destruction that threaten our long-term survival. They are not the cause of our problems though; they are the consequence of a more fundamental issue – population growth which we seem hopelessly unable to confront.
Our problems are exacerbated by characteristics in our physiological and psychological make up:
· Our instinctive survival response mechanism is focused on the immediacy rather than the long-term, and on the self rather than society.
· The social structures we have created are competitive rather than co-operative, and act as a barrier to us coming together to resolve problems of a global nature.
· The overriding dominance of ego in our psychology makes us ‘me’ rather than ‘we’ focused.
· Our leaders are focused on reactive expedient actions to preserve power, rather than long-term programming for the future.
· Our herd mentality means we are unlikely to buck the trend and really make a difference.
Our current approach to solving the problems of climate change and environmental destruction, is to look to governments and big business to solve them for us. Given the nature of the problems though, and the inability of our tribal institutions to come together and unite as one, the primary responsibility for solving our problems must transfer to us. The solution to our problems is a response from all of us as individuals acting separately but collectively. It is the individual purchasing, recycling, voting, and family planning activities carried out by the billions of people on Earth that will have the biggest collective impact on changing the future.
It’s down to us to lead the way, to force change across the world; not by being told what to do by our governments and religious leaders, but by showing them what we want of them. To use a Biblical metaphor, the sheep need to lead the lost shepherd to pastures green.
Our individual actions, taken together by as many of us as possible, will determine our future. It’s up to all of us to make the difference, and to make it now. The question is will we? Let’s hope the answer is yes.
Read Numosapienism by David Michael Jones available on Amazon or at www.davidmichaeljones.com