Answer: 38.5 years.
What if your teacher asked you to complete one billion homework questions? How long would it take at the same 100 questions per night, five days a week and 52 weeks a year? Answer: 38,461 years.
We’re adding one billion people to the planet every 12 to 15 years! Anson illustrates in his book the gargantuan aspects of this “Human Katrina.” He shows by scientific facts that eco-systems can only take so much consumption and waste. He sites Professor Myers: “Ecosystems can absorb a certain amount of stress without noticeable effect, but once a critical level is reached the disruption may be cataclysmic.”
“To picture the impacts of our present human avalanche,” Anson said, “we might imagine a boxing match in Madison Square Garden. In one corner stands the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. In the other corner stands a fragile old lady, “mother nature.” Each fist of the champion is fitted with a boxing glove labeled “one billion additional people.”
“With the bell, round one begins—it lasts for twelve years. A huge right fist smashes her with a crushing blow. Down she goes, bruised, bloodied and dazed. She staggers to her feet as the first round ends.
Mind you, at round two, the human race with two billion people invented the internal combustion engine, trains, cars, natural gas usage, 72,000 chemicals and plastic.
“Round two sees another fist of an added one billion hit her with a round house smash to her face…the champ taunts her to get up…round three, the champion shows no signs of mercy, no signs of tiring, and no signs of weakening…the world’s leaders show no inclination to stop the assault when the profits are so enormous…it’s obvious to everyone watching that the repeated blows—a staggering one billion followed by another and another are too much for the old lady…today’s young people are living at a time when humanity crushes earth’s natural systems with the impacts of one billion additional people every dozen years…the possibility exists that one of those fists full of a billion people will be the final blow.”
“Wecskaop: What Every Citizens Should Know About Our Planet” can be found at www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnoble.com or by calling Arman Publishing at Ph. 386 673 5576. ISBN 0-933078-18-8.
In part two of this three part series, we’ll examine waste systems and limits to production. Be cautioned that although you may think the United States sits smugly in the bleachers exempt from those ‘fists full of a billion added people’, that would prove the same fatal mistake as Captain Edward J. Smith of the Titanic.
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