Economic growth has only delivered dilution of human values, waste, pollution, climate change, fresh water shortages and irreversible degradation of the environment and extinction of entire species.
Economic growth has only delivered dilution of human values, waste, pollution, climate change, fresh water shortages and irreversible degradation of the environment and extinction of entire species.
since 1969 hundreds of thousands of dolphins have been brutally slaughtered at Taiji, Japan. Dolphin pod communities hundreds strong have been decimated or even annihilated and countless dolphin families torn apart in what can only be described as an ongoing genocide.
Tiger populations down from one hundred thousand to under four thousand in the last one hundred years.
Humanity’s, relationship with Earth is dysfunctional as confused as we are about the reason and the purpose of our presence on this Planet.
“For years, we thought that the oceans were so vast and the inhabitants so infinitely numerous that nothing we could do could have an effect on the future of our oceans. Now we know we were wrong.”
All beings, including humans, are born in nature and from nature. Nature provides for all our needs and fulfils our dreams. Nature provides the life supporting ecosystems that make the Earth habitable, hospitable and friendly for us humans. When we die we go back to nature. This is why we call it Mother Nature.
We have this idea, we humans, that the Earth, all of it, the oceans, the skies, are so vast and so resilient that it doesn’t matter what we do to it. That may have been true 10,000 years ago, and maybe even 1,000 years ago but in the last 100 years the acceleration of destruction and killing by humans has brought the planet to the 6th mass extinction of life on Earth.
The Ocean helps us breathe; the ocean helps to regulate climate; the ocean is an important food source; the ocean has incredible biodiversity; the ocean creates tens of millions of jobs.
Worldwide 80% of plastic waste ends up in landfills and the environment. There it multiplies by breaking down into smaller pieces, up to sizes that are measured in microns (1000 microns = 1 mm). All the plastic ever manufactured still exists somewhere on Earth, most of it too small to see. It enters the food chain via packaging, water, agricultural produce and other species we consume, and ends up in us.
We are forced to deal with plastic pandemic with urgency as it has now reached global proportions. It is estimated that there was the equivalent of 200 million garbage-truck-loads of plastic in the oceans and landfills at end 2015 and that this will become the equivalent of 500 million garbage-truck-loads by 2050.