Excerpt from:This Time We're Taking the Whole Planet With Us
By Chris Hedges
Globalization is the modern articulation of the ancient ideology used by past elites to turn citizens into serfs and the natural world into a wasteland for profit. Nothing to these elites is sacred. Human beings and the natural world are exploited until exhaustion or collapse. The elites make no pretense of defending the common good. It is, in short, the defeat of rational thought and the death of humanism.
The march toward self-annihilation has already obliterated 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans and wiped out half of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet. At this rate by 2030 only 10 percent of the Earth’s tropical forests will remain. Contaminated water kills 25,000 people every day around the globe, and each year some 20 million children are impaired by malnourishment. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now above the 350 parts per million that most climate scientists warn is the maximum level for sustaining life as we know it. [Editor’s note: The preceding sentence has been revised since this article was first published here.]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the measurement could reach 541 to 970 ppm by 2100. At that point huge parts of the planet, beset with overpopulation, droughts, soil erosion, freak storms, massive crop failures and rising sea levels, will be unfit for human existence.
Link to complete article:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_time_were_taking_the_whole_planet_with_us_20110307/
Big dose of reality... thanks (I think...)
ReplyDeleteMight it be too much to ask Chris to include in future articles the phrase "Here, now, the good news..." If you were told you were going to die in a year, I'm not sure most of us would appreciate being reminded of it each of the 364 preceeding days. And while I am not a big fan of sticking my head in the sand (or anywhere else for that matter) as a fellow activist, it would nice to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning that's not centered around looking for a rope to hang myself. Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteThe primary reason I like to read Chris Hedges is that he and I tend to generally see things the same way. His clarity and historical insight help me to better understand what is happening in this country and the world.
ReplyDeleteIt might feel like being punched in the face sometimes but there's nothing like pain to wake you up.