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ONLY viable pathway to Sustainability
Just one of the 4 primary drivers of depletion can be reduced soon enough.
"Big Picture" of Food
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Essential Science

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Cleveland Clinic MD

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Food Consequences

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The two books below do a great job of describing our horrifying dilemma.

As for the solution---we are certain it will be impossible without changing what we eat.
 
Planetary Emergency

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Sustainability

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I have met all the authors in this column and know most of them personally.

TEN BILLION is for leaders only. If you're ready to lead, I challenge you to read it.
---J. Morris Hicks


What's most important to you? What are you willing to do in order to provide those things for your grandchildren?

Things that we value most---family, health, freedom, happiness, peace and wealth---do not exist without sustainability. In other words, if we don't quickly learn how to live in harmony with nature, life will be nothing more than a hell on Earth for those few of us who survive. --- J. Morris Hicks

For the past year, I have been writing about the near certain collapse of our civilization before 2100---unless we begin to make some radical changes soon. And we need to make those changes in four critical areas.

The problem is that we simply don't have the necessary time to address the first three---as we're rapidly running out of water and land NOW. And the experts agree that we're rapidly approaching tipping points, beyond which there is no possibility of avoiding the worst effects of climate change---a problem that exacerbates ALL other environmental dilemmas.

The good news is that one of those four critical areas can be addressed quickly, easily and inexpensively. Why is that not happening? Read on. Here's that list of four:

1. Overpopulation. As a species, it took us 200,000 years to reach the one billion population mark in 1800. Just 100 years later, we hit the two billion mark. Since then, we've added another five billion in just the last century and continue to add almost one million people every four days. Since 1800, we've grown from one billion to a population of 7.2 Billion.  This problem will take many decades, if not centuries, to bring under control---unless Mother Nature chooses to do it herself. And that would not be a pretty picture. 

2. Over-consumption. We now have a global economy that encourages infinite consumption in a finite world. We have long since passed the Earth's human carrying capacity---as we head down the same path as the settlers of Easter Island---rapidly destroying our natural resources---as we all maximize the consumption of more STUFF. Any third grader can tell you that this simply cannot continue. This problem will also take many decades, if not centuries to resolve.

3. Dependence on fossil fuels. Over 80% of the world's energy consumption is provided by fossil fuels---and that percentage hasn't changed much in the last twenty years. Further, if we actually burn ALL the known reserves, experts agree that there is no way we can avoid the worst effects of climate change. Even if we were urgently working on replacing fossil fuels with renewables (which we're not), it would take us twenty years and $18 trillion dollars to switch over to renewables.

That leaves problem #4 as our ONLY viable pathway!

4. We're eating the WRONG FOOD! Back when we were only one billion strong, we could eat almost anything we wanted, and it didn't seem to make much of a difference. But, at 7.2 billion and growing quickly, our food choices now determine how the entire planet is used.

And the way we have chosen to eat in the developed world, on a per calorie basis, requires over ten times as much land, water and energy as do plant-based calories. Not only are there more people everyday, more people are eating more of the grossly inefficient foods---meat, dairy, eggs and fish.

Eventually, we must also deal with overpopulation, over-consumption and our dependence on fossil fuels---but those tasks will take many decades, if not centuries. Taking urgent action NOW with our food choices can buy us the time we need to address all three. 

JMH photo in BW with shirt

Continue reading the entire article on this crucial topic. The ONLY viable pathway to SUSTAINABILITY

Finally, my printer-friendly, one-pager on this topic, One-Page Recipe for Saving our Ecosystem 

Sincerely, J. Morris (Jim) Hicks

PS: For more info, take a look at the six books in the left column. For a wake up call right now, take a look at the rapidly moving World Population Counter