OVERPOPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
LET YOUR KEYBOARD SAVE THE PLANET.
By JASON DREW.
Let your keyboard save the planet. Let me first explain why we need to bother. The credit crunch has shaken our global economy, but it will recover. ‘The Protein Crunch’ is far more serious and, if we open our eyes, it is unfolding right in front of us.
Our food – protein – comes from three sources: our water, land and seas. All of these natural resources are under increasing pressure from our burgeoning population: when more demand meets less supply, we arrive at ‘The Protein Crunch’.
Every day, newspapers cover some element of this looming issue: mine water pollution in Johannesburg, Chinese land purchases in the Congo to grow food for China, a single tuna sold for 0,000 in Tokyo, floods in Pakistan and the food price riots that ignited North Africa. Few of us understand the causes of these crises and events, are all connected to the deterioration of our environment and its ecosystems.
Just 100 years ago it would have been inconceivable to think that the human impact on the environment might become so great as to threaten the Earth and our own survival.
We now stand at a turning point in our history and in the history of the Earth. Mankind has acquired the scale and the power to wreck the biosphere on which we depend – yet also the knowledge to fix it. The environment has shaped our past and will determine our future. Capitalism may have caused many of our existing environmental problems, but is also be the best tool to get us out of our predicament.
With nearly one billion people hungry or starving and another billion people overweight or obese, something clearly isn’t working. With food demand outstripping supply, food prices will inevitably increase. Food price inflation brings with it civil unrest and political turmoil, as we have witnessed in recent months.
It seems that our brains are wired to react to emergencies, but if the threat is not immediate we find it hard to galvanise ourselves into action. It is as if we are floating down a river heading towards a waterfall, ignoring the roar of the water and waiting until we see the foaming water, before we react and then look for someone else to blame for our predicament.
What the Earth needs is for many more of us to understand our predicament, and start the sustainability revolution we need to survive. There will be no time to waste looking for scapegoats: we will need to move and make change happen fast.
How can your keyboard save the environment? Why not switch your browser to www.ecosia.org – powered by Bing and Yahoo it is a superb search engine. 80% of its revenues are donated to reforestation projects – over £800,000 in its first year.
The second thing you can do is join the 10 million of us already members of www.Avaaz.org today. The site organizes online petitions – amongst its many causes are some great environmental campaigns. A campaign launched to petition the president of Brazil on the rain forest preservation has attracted 700,000 signatures in just 48 Hours. Whether targeting politicians or business people – we can make a difference by making our collective voice heard.
We can all learn and share more about our world. We are in a race between education and catastrophe. We need to get up to speed then act. There are already over a million local organisations doing things to help fix our planet, join the revolution!
Let’s get busy repairing the future.
About the Author
Jason Drew is author of “The Protein Crunch – Civilization on the brink” See: www.theproteincrunch.com.
Jason Drew is an international business leader, serial entrepreneur and former CEO of a JSE listed business he founded. Following two heart attacks he retired early and became an eco-entrepreneur, futurist, and author. He chairs a number of organisations including www.AgriProtein.com his latest green venture.