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A Matter of Survival This Sunday is the second day of the 356000 days that make a Millennium, one thousand years. That's a long time, 40 generations of children and grandchildren and grand ... grand ... children. Tomorrow is the third day - Monday, back to work and normality. So much to do - if we only had time, only time ...... Yes, time flies by and before we know it, another year will have passed. But on the way to normality we must constantly be aware of the environmental trends: World population will rise to 8 or 9 billion before the middle of the century, if present trends continue. Fossil energy will run out within a few generations. Deforestation, Climate change, Soil erosion, Ozone layer, Depletion of minerals' resources, Wastes and Toxification, species extinction. Those are the major trends, that keep rising and are all dynamically linked. Extrapolations of the trends, made by scientists of the MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have modeled the trends in powerful computers. The results are extremely worrying. The point is that if we do not very soon stop growing we will face a total environmental collapse in the life time of our own children. Compare the graph on Limits to Growth. If in doubt we must follow the precautionary principle and prepare for the worst-case scenario. The outcome can then only be better. Better safe then sorry! All trends are a result of continued economic growth. The planet is finite, however. The unescapable answer is that we must stop growing, if we want to survive. The next few years of this dawning century will probably be decisive for humankind. If we make the right ecological choices, we will survive. We owe it to ourselves and to our children. Feedback to: <welcome@ecoglobe.org.nz>

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2 January ecoglobe news 2000

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