The word “deep,” was first associated with ecology by Norwegian naturalist and philosopher Arne Naess at the Third World Futures conference in 1972. Naess remarked that environmentalism had already diverged into (1) a “deep,” ecocentric, long-range movement advocating respect toward wild nature for its own intrinsic value; and (2) a “shallow,” anthropocentric ecology that treated nature as a “resource” for human economics. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">

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Since the late Pleistocene, 100,000 years ago, when a few thousand Homo sapiens poked around Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, human population has doubled 22 times. We have one more such doubling left, and that’s it. Human population may level off at 10 to 14 billion sometime around 2100, if population does not crash before then, likely exceeding the earth’s carrying capacity. Mass human starvations are already underway in degraded environments.  < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">

Economists imagine that average consumption is going to increase, so we must also consider a projected annual world economic growth of approximately 1.5% in wealthy nations and 10% in China and other developing nations. Economists consider anything below 3% world economic growth to signal a global “recession.”

If we assume a “low” annual economic growth rate of 3.6%, then human activity will double in 20 years. (72 divided by the % growth = doubling time). Is this economic doubling possible?

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The season’s opening pair of little yellow, black-headed Wilson’s warblers arrived this morning, right on time, end of April for Western Canada, in the lilac rammage by the fence.

Hitting the wall

In energy news, the Alberta oilsands seeks public money to make it work. Imperial Oil scientist and advisor to the Alberta government, Clement Bowman — an accomplished oil-field expert, credited with "unlocking the commercial potential" of the tarsands — is lobbying the Canadian government to come up with the money to solve "the huge environmental problems associated with the resource," namely, carbon dioxide emissions, massive water divergence, a nuclear power plant, and an obliterated prairie ecosystem. He adds that unless these environmental issues are solved, "the oil sands have almost hit the wall."

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