Brian/All,

I can't begin to compete in this titanic argument between you and Werner,
but my profound thanks for a fascinating and very educational insight into
this supremely important field of endeavour. It's one thing, though, to
find out the effects that mankind, in its ever-increasing numbers, is
having on this still beautiful planet, quite another to determine the cures
and put them into effect. Our numbers and our generally destructive nature
make this a very high hurdle to jump. Mankind tends to like taking the easy
route to achieving what he wants, especially where money is involved -
fastest buck, least effort and practically no consideration of, or concern
for, the consequences if he can get away with it; this has been the normal
modus operendi unless some greater force has curbed him.

My life has nearly always been spent in the country - I live there, I take
holidays there, and I take almost no pleasure at all from even briefly
visiting large cities. They are a completely alien environment to me - I
find them claustrophobic and their inhabitants increasingly blinkered and
divorced from the natural world 'outside'. I have recently come to live and
work in Singapore, which is all city. As cities go it is a beautiful one;
trees and lawns form a very integral part of the architecture and city
planning, so that from the air, you can't really tell how big it is. It's
not the concrete jungle that describes so many other cities, there is some
real albeit very managed jungle as well. Singapore is big and bright and
clean with trees and birds mixed in. Even so,  to city dwellers, here in
Singapore as everywhere else, the 'natural' world is as alien an
environment to them as cities are to me. In general, they only see it on TV
as a remote set of images, overlayed with a commentary that belongs to
someone else trying to get his own message over to the masses. No longer do
many or most of us know from first-hand experience what it is to live in
the country with all the diversity, challenges (and inconveniences) it
offers. They have already become very sqeamish about their food -  if it
comes ready prepared and wrapped in plastic, that's 'natural'. If it comes
with head, eyes and guts that have to be removed and cleaned, they suddenly
lose their appitites. Unfortunately, most people live in cities and it's
these people who legislate over what happens in the countryside (might is
right) without always truly understanding or appreciating it's importance.
As the population continues to grow, the cities will grow too, especially
if more and more people live on their own through rising divorce rates, or
choosing to remain single and living alone. As the cities grow, it will be
increasing difficulty for those living in their centres to get out and
experience the countryside, and a decreasing amount of countryside left for
them to be able to go to anyway.

Too much damage has already been done by man to the world's ecology as he
plunders renewable and non-renewable resources to maintain his largely
unchecked reproduction rate. Forests the size of whole countries have gone
to provide timber for our houses, or farmland in slash-and-burn economies.
Once slash and burn was sustainable, but with increasing population again
in some of these places, too many people want farmland and the forests a)
don't get a chance to recover before they're burned again and b) there is
less space available to them as time goes on, because it's being used by
man.

Just how far can we go before we saturate this planet, and either leave it
behind as a barren ball of rock to find another pretty ball to ruin, or
kill ourselves off? Long before we do that, we'll have become so
overcrowded that the inner city violence that is so common in all large
cities already, will become a global phenomenon. What value will our
'civilisation' be then?

All the chemical control imaginable might stop damage to the atmosphere,
but we have to stop damaging the lungs of this planet, too. The forests are
what regenerate the breathable atmosphere we need, and support much of the
diversity of plant and animal life we rely on for our medicines and even
some of our engineering inspiration. What models, and what quality of life
will our children have in the future if we destroy it all now through
overpopulation and self-centredness.

My thought for the day!

Pete Duncan

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