Brody's Scribbles... Adjusting The Deck Chairs

By Bart Vogelzang | VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C., CANADA -- Have you ever had it happen, that something has been thrown at you, figuratively, that grabs your attention, and you just cannot let it go? You get fixated on it, you relive it, you imagine changes, you imagine the impact on your life, and you pass by countless other things and opportunities, because you are now too ‘hung up’ on what you were told.

Sometimes it can be really nice, such as someone revealing that you are attractive to someone; and you get totally obsessed with the whole scenario…imagining getting together, doing ‘the nasty’, and generally having a great time. I like it when that happens. Sadly, that’s not what caught me up this time.

Unfortunately, I caught the ‘doomsday bug’. It’s not a real bug, nor even a virus or bacterium…it’s a state of mind brought about by seeing the disaster awaiting all of us just around the proverbial corner. Global warming, which should more correctly have been called global energization, so that there wouldn’t have been so many who could conveniently ignore it by pointing out that temperatures have been colder in some locations, is what caught me moderately unaware.

It seems that recently a major scientific group which had been scoffing at ‘global warming’ for decades, has finally admitted that it was wrong, and that global warming is real, and that it is affecting us RIGHT NOW. I only wish they had stated that 2 decades ago, so that those lost years, and their opportunities to act, would have been used for actually doing something about the situation. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and we are decades late in taking action. What action? Uh, that is the real problem, since the actions we are taking are to finally start TALKING about it.

Frankly, what we are talking about is how to adjust the deck chairs on the Titanic…not even actually adjusting them…which, as we all know, wouldn’t have done any good anyway. If that wasn’t bad enough, I just had to watch a BBC special by Richard Attenborough entitled “How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth?” While he did an admirable job making this show entertaining as well as informative, he totally destroyed any hope I had for humanity and maybe the rest of the planet.

Listing one item essential to human beings after another, water, food, air, energy, he quickly showed that we have nearly depleted all of those, and that is with the population to date. Sadly, if every teenager currently alive has only one child, in 20 years we will have 3 BILLION more people than our current 9 billion. No matter how much we try to increase food production, we cannot do it without diverting water, which is a critical mistake to make. We also cannot do it without increasing use of fossil fuels, which in turn produced more greenhouse gasses, increased the temperature, increases droughts and storms and destroys crops.

What is comes down to, is that the ONLY way to ‘fix’ things is to decrease the birth rate (or, I suppose, increase the death rate…although he never went into that). Experiments in forcing people to have fewer kids haven’t been effective, and the only way that has is education of the womenfolk around the world, and then providing them with contraceptives. Education has been the only workable method.

What Sir Richard Attenborough didn’t say, at any time, speaks volumes to me. He never once mentioned the maniacal determination of religions to get ever more babies born. Anything at all that might decrease the birth rate is fought tooth and nail, and that includes homosexual love and sex.

Figures were shown about where the birth rates are highest, and indeed climbing, and it occurs mostly in places having religious zealots running the show, and women with barely any say in what they can do with their own bodies.

And yes, we can all decrease our expectation, and therefore our impact on the earth, but in the long run, no matter what we do, if the catastrophic climb in population isn’t curbed, nothing will help.

So, combined with the news that not only isn’t America able to increase food production, but may have a 60% reduction this year, I’ve been left wondering why we are trying to adjust the deck chairs by discussing same sex marriage, when the shipwreck of complete collapse of civilization and humanity as we know it is likely to happen in less than 50 years, maybe even less than 20.

Do we really want to choke to death from poor air, die of thirst, and starve from hunger? Is marriage to your partner of choice really important enough to ignore the bigger picture?