There seems to be strong evidence that global warming is with us and is likely to get worse. The effects, according to my readings, is not that the climate will get enormously hotter, but that it will get much more unreliable and maybe even violent. It has been suggested that some of the fairly recent tumultuous weather that has devastated some Caribbean islands is the early stages of the climate change. We have only to look at some of the planets of our solar system to see what nature is capable of achieving when it comes to wind speeds.
Now what can we do about it? I am not at all certain, but almost all authorities suggest that the cause is manmade pollution of one sort or another. We know that the USA is the greatest cause of global pollution, but China and India seem to be catching up very fast.
So is there a remedy? I think there is, but it is a very drastic one that I fear will not be accepted until we are on the brink of disaster, maybe even over the brink. The whole of mankind wants to have the "toys" that North America and Europe have. Namely motor cars and central heating and the opportunity to travel (by air).
And it would be possible if there were a lot less of us. Nature has the ability to clean up after some of the excesses of man; but she has her limits. If there were, say. a hundred million people on the globe, it is very probable that Nature would be able to cope with humankind. But the enormous number of people who are alive at present, it is just too much for Mother Nature to handle. And we are seeing the beginning of, what I believe, will be disaster. China is the only country on the planet that is making any effort at limiting its population. But had the Tiananmen Square protest succeeded and China became a democracy, we would be in an even worse situation than we are already in. One of mankind's natural instincts is to breed, and that instinct will eventually lead to our doom. What seems to be the most stupid moves on the part of our political leaders is the amount of public money that is spent of trying to get even more births than natural instincts call for. When nature declares that a pair of persons cannot breed, our government goes to great lengths to thwart nature. This country is already over-populated, so to increase the numbers artificially looks close to madness. The Ancient Greeks declared "that the gods first make mad those whom they wish to destroy. Those ancient thinkers were as great as any we have today.
On top of artificially expanding the population, this and previous governments have shipped in huge numbers of people from other parts of the world. The ludicrous claim is that we do not have enough people to meet our needs in the Social Services world. Crackpot politicians seem to believe as they did in June 1948 that the people they shipped in would help staff the Social Services but they would not need them themselves. Also these folk would never grow old Germany had a similar philosophy and allowed hundred of Turks to join the indigenous population, These people were not to be given citizen ship of the host country, so they would leave as soon as they were not wanted. We sometimes think the Germans are rational clever people. It it now obvious that they are just as stupid as our leaders. What do you do with the children who are born in the country that their parents have no claim to citizenship? Shipping them to the mother country of their parents MIGHT just work, but it would be draconian in the extreme, and the mother country may well refuse to accept them.
But there is a faint hope. It looks as if Mother Nature may have a negative feedback card up her sleeve. Just look at the evidence:
Parts of the world where population increase is at its greatest are the same parts where natural disasters seem most prone. When Krakatoa was first known to have blown its top in 1883, the area was sparsely populated and a comparatively small number of people were killed. It must have been the biggest bang that had occurred in recorded history as the sound is know to have been heard in Australia. When it blows up the next time (not IF but WHEN), the death toll will be enormous. The Asian tsunami chose a part of the globe where population density is extremely high.
Central Africa seems to be a fairly stable part of the world from a seismic point of view, but Mother Nature has another way of thinning out the over-population there -- AIDS.
It really does make one wonder whether there is a natural negative feedback system at work. To my mind, the present grossly over-populated globe, simply cannot survive as it is
An interesting question then arises in North America. Does Lady Gaia consider that part of the world is outside of her remit. I doubt that. But there is a possible way that mother nature may decrease to overpopulation. It id know that Yellowstone Park had an enormous bang a few million years ago. And a million years is not a lot of time in geological scales. If it goes pop anything like it did last time, this will certainly thin out the population. If the Muslims are still trying to blow up the USA when this happens, they will claim it is Allah's way of working. It won't be nice, but it just may save the planet as we know it.
"The end of the world" is a common expression. But I have no delusions that it will end anytime now. Aunty Earth has seen several large sets of animals go extinct very rapidly, and we may be part of the next extinction. But the planet will survive unless we get a heck of a lot more clever than we are now. Don't worry, you may be dead but the planet will go on for a long time yet.