Deluded, Greedy And Obese: 'The Brightest And Best'
In One Generation Ravage Their Children's Birthright
By Steve Salmony
01 June, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Perhaps it is not only our fate as elders to confront certain obviously emerging and rapidly converging global challenges, it may also be that we elders are the last best chance for humankind to save itself and life as we know it from itself by choosing to change our ways and go in a different direction --- along a path less traveled by --- before it is too late for human action of whatever kind to protect and preserve what really matters most. There can be no excuse given, no logic contrived, no false promise made and no hopes deceitfully raised that can hide for long the willful blindness, hysterical deafness and elective mutism of those elders who see the human-driven global predicament that is present before our eyes and choose to do nothing but the unsustainable things we are doing now. Elders of my generation have responsibilities to science and duties to humanity that are being left unattended. Many too many leaders and experts are shrinking from the task at hand by playing the role of Nero, who fiddled while ‘his home’ was ruined. To have taken so much from this world, as my greed-mongering generation has taken, and to be ready and willing to leave so little to its children, come what may for coming generations, that my friends is beyond the pale.
The silence of so many elders is pernicious because our elective mutism serves primarily to promote the narrow and private interests of self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us. It is precisely this arrogant, foolhardy, outrageous minority who human beings with feet of clay have unknowingly permitted to rule the world so absolutely in our time. What if these masters of the universe have taken the wrong road to the future, and have selfishly chosen to direct humankind down a “primrose path” to some sort of unimaginable global ecological wreckage? What if their 'guidance' is mainly self-serving and leads to the extirpation of global biodiversity, the irreversible degradation of Earth's environment, the wanton dissipation of its limited natural resources and the ruination of our planetary home as a place fit for children everywhere to inhabit?
If we keep following the masters of the universe down the road they have so adamantly advocated and relentlessly pursued, at some future moment in space-time leaders and experts are not, definitely not going to like what they are seeing occur on the surface of Earth. At such a time those human beings with responsibilities to assume and duties to perform will look back in anger and utter disbelief at what the leading elders in my greed-mongering generation did so stupidly and failed to do so magnificently.
Never in the course of human history have so few acted in ways that are detrimental to so many. Never has a tiny minority in a single generation consumed so ravenously and hoarded so avariciously, come what may. It does not have to be this way. Yes, we can change and if we choose necessary change, then the future is open. There is much to do, much that can be done.
As things stand now here and in many other time-spaces, the silence of human beings with knowledge of what is somehow real could not be more deafening, nor the dark clouds gathering before us more forbidding. Elective mutism by the knowledgeable has vanquished 'the light' and real hope for the future that science can provide to the human family. At the very same time, the mainstream media employs overly educated sycophants and absurdly enriched minions to broadcast support for all human activities that return profits and promote seemingly endless, but soon to become patently unsustainable economic growth.
If the global overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities of the human species have indeed precipitated the global predicament looming ominously before the family of humanity now, then the capability and power to do things differently resides within us, too. The opportunity presented now here is not one to be missed. Who knows, perhaps the children with thank us if we at least try to stop the greed-mongering; start doing the right thing; stop doing what is patently unsustainable and start moving in a new direction toward sustainable lifestyles and right-sizing "too big to fail"corporate leviathans before the world is ruined. After all is said and done, it appears beyond any questioning or reasonable doubt that our earthly home is not too big to fail; that the gigantic scale and worldwide growth rate of human overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities cannot be sustained much longer by planet with the size, composition and ecology of Earth.
Steve Salmony is a self-proclaimed global citizen, a psychologist and father of three grown children. Married 39 years ago. In 2001 Steve founded the AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population to raise consciousness of the colossal threat that the unbridled, near exponential growth of absolute global human population numbers poses for all great and small living things on Earth in our time. His quixotic campaign focuses upon the best available science of human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth, in order to save the planet as a place fit for habitation by children everywhere. He can be reached at [email protected]
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