- People are a product of their environment..... very almost entirely.

- What people want and what they can expect from life is informed by what they percieve as possible. Therefore, use your imagination.  

- Use your imagination. Possibility is limited only by the audacity of your ideas. Therefore, apathy is death.

- Apathy is death.

- Think for yourself. You will never know any universal or 'real' meaning of life other than the meaning that you give yourself.

- There will never be forms of society nor the politics governing them which exhibit anything other than the possible characteristics and pretenses of men.

- If you want to know the history of man and his future, simply look for the typical patterns in the lives of men.  

- Everything we know is either natural or caused by natural effects. Cars, computers and microwave ovens are no exception. They are simply the logical product of our natural intelligence.

- Beliefs are a natural product of our imagination, our intelligence, our hope and above all, our ability to think for ourselves. It is a pity then that many beliefs today exhibit none of these characeristics.

First and foremost, in my adressment of God, I do not presume to understand with confidence or explain with hard evidence, the nature or question of His existence. Following, here after will be a projection of God, mainly the Judeo Christian version of Him, based on assumptions and a pretentious moral evaluation of the world, supplied by a critically premature mind.

So far, we have witnessed the success of capital growth most clearly through the exponential increase in the number of humans on Earth in the past 100 years. Keeping in mind that although most of the world's population growth has occurred in third - world countries such as China, India and various African countries, and that because these people are amongst the poorest people in the world with minimal consumption compared to first world habits, it is safe to assume that the rate and scale at which the earth's total resources are being consumed finds its foundations in the capitalist ideology.

Understanding this and observing that the total resources available to us on the earth are either finite, strained, already depleted or have an optimum (maximum) capacity of production; there indeed comes one ultimate foresight. Led by capitalism, we will eventually deplete everything. I don't know how you might react to that. It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't even flinch though. I'll put it in economic terms for you as well based on its own fundamental concept of "supply and demand". Demand - insatiable, unlimited, relative eternity of demand. Supply - resources are finite.

Finite =/= Infinite

Take one particular and very important example of a resource for which there is an infinite amount of demand for and to which there is a finite supply of. Crude oil. You've heard that "love makes the world go around"? Actually its more like oil makes the world go around. Take a moment to consider the pretty building in the city, the structure of a car, a computer chip or even the nuts and bolts of the factories that constructed those things. Humans don't craft such things with their own hands. It take machinery to create other, more complex forms of machinery. Ultimately, at the core of this phenomenon is, as always, the energy needed to drive them. To make it as basic as I can, I will say the following. Without oil powering machines, you don't have your sky scrapers or your automobiles or your microwave ovens.

Unfortunately and contrary to popular opinion doesn't simply and magically appear out of the ground in infinite abundance. Indeed, in the 200 or so years that oil has been extracted for industrial and private use, every major oil deposit in the world has been identified and depleted save one; the Middle Eastern plate which controls alone 70% of total world reserves. In perspective 30% for the rest of the world isn't very convincing. In the 1950's, America alone was the largest exporter of petroleum in the world (ever heard of the Texas oil fields?). Today it buys most of its oil from Saudi Arabia and has just acquired a new petroleum trading ally; a matter of speculation in popular perception.

The underlying problem is that without oil, our modern and industrial life styles grind completely to a halt. Only the pure carbon that is found in oil can provide us with the energy to fuel our society. Without oil, society and production become immobilised. With regards to oil reserves versus oil consumption, it becomes clear that eventually we will as I have outlined, run out eventually. What then happens to society?

This is precisely why the switch to alternative energy sources is necessary and inevitable. Independent of “Climate Change”, new energy sources must be identified. These days, scientists talk about a very special kind of energy – renewable energy. Renewable energy resources idealistically meet infinite demand. Realistically, renewable sources are not overly productive just yet. Instead of developing those technologies, it seems more appropriate to make ourselves dependant on some of the most dangerous and unstable parts of the world.

The point being in all of this is that many vital resources don’t just keep coming from the ground forever. Other vital examples include the essentials water and food. Only so much water available. Only so much land for agriculture (example; England). And in all the meantime this capitalist “success” lands us with a couple million more people, a new suburb and another big building towering in the city.

It is also important to note that the rate and scale at which resources are consumed;

-          destroys the biosphere

-          destroys the hydrosphere

-          destroys the atmosphere

-          exploits and destroys forests and native lands

-          drives animals to extinction everywhere at unprecedented rates

-          thrives on the misery of billions with unashamed self interest

I’m not questioning the functionality of this system. It’s clearly and obviously the single most effective vehicle of annihilation, tool of ultimate destruction and malicious driver of obliteration; all of which it achieves through its overwhelming success and its ability to feed human greed. I question the morality of this system. I question its morality in the exact same sense that I question the morality of the human soul, because capitalism is, at its very core based solely on the principle of self interest. This is precisely the reason for its success. Unequalled, unparalleled and exponential success.

I think that third world citizens look towards such things as the “American Dream” with desire. I think that terrorism finds its roots in this principle. The “Have’s and the Have Not’s” as my dad always told me. Who are you to deny them? Or are you more worthy than they are?

Personally, I know you don’t consider them any less worthy in your head. I also know you don’t want to help them either or are only willing to make loud noises like I do. So really, we're all just a step away from Nazism. I know you don’t like to hear that, especially from me, but it’s true. Your apathy doesn’t shield you from this truth. You do feed on their misery each and every day, passively or not. But I say to you that collective apathy only protects you for as long as someone with these ideas brings them to you. I doubt you will ever listen, but before the end you will hear.

Apathy is Death.

To those of you who understand, I extend my hand.

We have become a victim to our own success

A Crude Awakening

Resources increase linearly. Humans increase exponentially

Nathan Thomas

Capitalism is about negating individualism in favour of mass markets and morality in favour of growth.

Incubus Man

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7853579.stm

Obama urges quick economic action.

President Obama has said his administration will be held accountable for the success or failure of his stimulus plan.

He has described the US as being "in the midst of an unprecedented crisis" and has announced:

• More than 3,000 miles of new electricity transmission lines would be laid down to improve the US power network
• 75% of public sector buildings would be made more energy-efficient, saving taxpayers $2bn a year
• More than 2.5m homes would be "weatherized" (made more energy efficient)
• Funds would be made available to improve or renovate 10,000 schools

Other proposals include tax credits for firms that create jobs, tax cuts for 95% of American workers and extended unemployment benefits.

With his 90th birthday in July, a trip into space scheduled for later in the year and a new book out next month, 2009 promises to be an exciting time for James Lovelock. But the originator of the Gaia theory, which describes Earth as a self-regulating planet, has a stark view of the future of humanity. He tells Gaia Vince we have one last chance to save ourselves - and it has nothing to do with nuclear power

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It's absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt - that's an awful lot of countryside.

What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It's a crazy idea - and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.

Do you still advocate nuclear power as a solution to climate change?

It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures.

So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO₂ down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO₂ is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.

Do you think we will survive?

I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again.

I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings.

It's a depressing outlook.

Not necessarily. I don't think 9 billion is better than 1 billion. I see humans as rather like the first photosynthesisers, which when they first appeared on the planet caused enormous damage by releasing oxygen - a nasty, poisonous gas. It took a long time, but it turned out in the end to be of enormous benefit. I look on humans in much the same light. For the first time in its 3.5 billion years of existence, the planet has an intelligent, communicating species that can consider the whole system and even do things about it. They are not yet bright enough, they have still to evolve quite a way, but they could become a very positive contributor to planetary welfare.

How much biodiversity will be left after this climatic apocalypse?

We have the example of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event 55 million years ago. About the same amount of CO₂ was put into the atmosphere as we are putting in and temperatures rocketed by about 5 °C over about 20,000 years. The world became largely desert. The polar regions were tropical and most life on the planet had the time to move north and survive. When the planet cooled they moved back again. So there doesn't have to be a massive extinction. It's already moving: if you live in the countryside as I do you can see the changes, even in the UK.

If you were younger, would you be fearful?

No, I have been through this kind of emotional thing before. It reminds me of when I was 19 and the second world war broke out. We were very frightened but almost everyone was so much happier. We're much better equipped to deal with that kind of thing than long periods of peace. It's not all bad when things get rough. I'll be 90 in July, I'm a lot closer to death than you, but I'm not worried. I'm looking forward to being 100.

Are you looking forward to your trip into space this year?

Very much. I've got my camera ready!

Do you have to do any special training?

I have to go in the centrifuge to see if I can stand the g-forces. I don't anticipate a problem because I spent a lot of my scientific life on ships out on rough oceans and I have never been even slightly seasick so I don't think I'm likely to be space sick. They gave me an expensive thorium-201 heart test and then put me on a bicycle. My heart was performing like an average 20 year old, they said.

I bet your wife is nervous.

No, she's cheering me on. And it's not because I'm heavily insured, because I'm not.