We just had a very noticeable tremor at 2049. Now it’s thundering and it’s hard to tell the difference! What if we have an earthquake and a tornado at the same time? Do we stay inside or run out of the house?
Archive for November, 2011
Another earthquake tonight at 2256. This was the strongest one I’ve ever felt. The whole house shook. I don’t see any damage, but it did knock over a steel water bottle. The three of us ran out in the front yard where it was windy. By then the ground had stopped moving.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) does not ignore the challenges we face as the global human population passes 7 billion, but does stress optimism in their 2011 State of the World Population (UNFPA, 2011). Positive thinking can be helpful, but the UNFPA is unfortunately stuck in the mindset of perpetual economic growth. We must acknowledge that global economic growth is inherently unsustainable if we are to understand the nature of the challenges we confront. Throughout the report there is the underlying assumption that economic growth is always the fundamental goal, even in industrialized nations. There is, however, a hint of the problem in the section on environmental issues tucked at the end. The problem, one expert notes, is not growing population but growing levels of consumption. Economic growth, if we fill in the dots, means an increase in consumption.
UNFPA, 2011. State of the World 2011, United Nations Population Fund, http://foweb.unfpa.org/SWP2011/reports/EN-SWOP2011-FINAL.pdf, accessed 31 October 2011.
The global human population reached 7 billion today, according to the UNFPA’s 2011 State of the World Population.
