Wake-up call, humans!

Wolfville Rotarians had a thought-provoking speaker last week. Mike Nickerson from Lanark, Ontario has spent 35 years studying cultural evolution. He is currently communicating a sustainability message based on his economic studies via about 200 talks across Canada.

Nickerson has written four books. His most recent is called Life, Money and Illusion: Living on Earth as if we want to stay. He urges people to think about changing the customs and institutions that aim to benefit from material expansion to ones capable of maintaining long-term well-being while decreasing impacts on the planet and each other. Nickerson contends that when, as a society, we wholeheartedly choose the new direction we will find ourselves moving toward a promising future.

For thousands of years, the earth has provided us with a practically infinite environment into which to grow, he pointed out. “Today we have grown so big that we are overwhelming our planet. It is now time to acknowledge that we have reached maturity and to accept the responsibility that comes with that power.”

He explained the odd situation whereby our biggest problems result from our size: depletion of natural resources; conflict over remaining supplies; and pollution from expanding consumption. Yet governments and industry strive for more expansion.

A wake-up call is necessary and Nickerson suggested that the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and resulting financial institutional collapse in the U.S. might just be that call. He pointed out that trouble started after 9/11 when a frightened nation hunkered down at home.

So President Bush told people to go out and shop. Interest rates plummeted and mortgages flowed, he said. The system balanced until oil prices spiked and interest rates rose.

“My concern is we start to rearrange how we manage the world as if we want to stay here.” Just one lifetime ago, basic food, clothes and shelter made up the bulk of our needs, Nickerson noted. “Today, individually and collectively, we consume vast quantities of metals, chemicals, pesticides, fertilizer and, to make it all possible, a lot of energy. Our mushrooming consumption stretches the earth's ability to absorb our waste.”

With global warming, we need to change the underlying assumption that well-being is the product of material expansion. “Perpetually expanding production and consumption cannot serve our children's children. Indeed, such expansion, along with the military adventures necessary to keep it supplied, are the greatest dangers that we face,” he said.

The fundamental change is well illustrated by the east coast fishery. Since people began to fish, he said, we could always catch more fish by applying more effort, more boats and more nets to the task. This is no longer true.

Fish catches are no longer limited by how much we invest; they are limited by the number of fish in the sea. “Once so abundant they could be caught with buckets, the east coast cod is now an endangered species. This is a wake-up call, which we ignore at our peril. Similar limits are looming with forests, fresh water, soil fertility and energy.”

We must govern ourselves with respect for the limits of our planet, Nickerson says. He suggested taking the creativity swallowed up by style and consumerism and applying it to durability and sustainability.

The man talks a great deal of sense to me. Some day I want to have grandchildren and a green and blue planet for them to live on.