For too long we human beings have treated this earth as a horn of plenty. This it aint! It certainly has provided an abundance of good things to sustain us, but t here aren’t any gods replacing what we take from it. In addition, we have been pinching, stealing, breaking off little bits of the horn itself by removing forests and causing the extinction of other life forms, all of this urged on . . . by our ‘gods’.

Our gods are the geniuses who push global capitalism with its hyper speculative growth, its inherent requirement for growth, growth, growth, being fed by privatisation, rationalisation and urging us all to buy, use and buy. These geniuses are ably supported by the media, the advertising industry and others.

This idolatry of growth runs counter tot he first rule of the universe where everything is governed by coming into existence, growing, declining and going out of existence. We humans have brought this planet to the decline stage prematurely by our simplistic greed. Simplistic because few ever question where this ‘must-have’ ideology is going. Fewer still believe something should or can be done about it.

I and some others believe that we have to start learning to live more simply, this to not only spare the earth but to share its remaining assets far more fairly than we have so far. I speak of ‘we’ – the affluent societies or sections of them. The necessities or goodies of life aren’t available to everyone in our country and certainly not to a huge proportion of humanity to world over. Our greedy system robs them, demanding that they work longer for less, that they produce goods that we want even at the expense of growing food for themselves. In addition, as happens in South America, if the people resist they have the World Bank or the IMF leaning on them, egged on by the USA, a country which even today bribes and supplies arms to crooked governments or brigand armies so that WE get what WE want, whether it be oil, coffee, ores, timber or cocoa.

Humankind has built great cities, has gone to the moon and transplanted hearts but we’ve yet to prove we can live equitably and peacefully, and above all more simply. We need to resist these ‘must have, gotta have’ feelings implanted by this greedy system. We need to learn how to tread more lightly on the earth. Put it this way:

How much earth is there? 50.4 billion hectares.

How much bio-productive land and sea? 12.36 billion hectares.

Current human population: 6 billion.

How much bio-capacity is there per person, leaving nothing for other species? 2.08 hectares.

How much do humans use on average globally? 2.8 hectares.

So leaving nothing for other species we are using more than is available. If we are getting enough (or more), others must be getting less, and species must inevitably become extinct. We need to rethink our wants as against our needs, and try to live more simply so that others may simply live.

If we could make our footprint on the earth smaller, that would be some feat.

-Jim