Good morning, it is now 9.00 am on Thursday 2nd January 2020, and I would like to start by saying Happy New Year to everyone. However, can you remember the number 306,059, please? It is a very, very relevant number, and also to start with I know people will write contentious articles, and this will probably be one of the more contentious I ever write on my site, but as always I am trying to write about facts and with nothing made up and so that continues with this article, whether people like it or not that is a different story, so there will be no apologies here!
I applaud the youngsters who are taking to the world stage to preach about global warming and climate change and bring this to our attention, even if they are being used as a puppet by other people, and again we all have opinions. I have listened to Greta’s speech, and I’m sorry, but I doubt a sixteen-year-old would have written that it is far too mature for such a young person – I may be wrong and again just my opinion! She shouldn’t be there, she should be back at school on the other side of the ocean, so I ask ‘who put her there?’ Surely parental control is relevant – or is it parental control?
As mentioned I like the fact that young people are taking an interest in their planet, although I’m not sure about going to the youngsters for hope, but in my opinion, ironically, the future of our planet and race does lie in their hands, because some of what she says is very true. She says ‘We are at the beginning of a mass extinction’. And that I’m afraid is close to the truth, but not necessarily directly through global warming?
It is all very well standing up and preaching about what we or previous generations have done wrong but let’s take a look at things realistically. Years ago we didn’t know that opening a smelting plant in Barnsley, Newcastle, Margate or anywhere else in the UK, or probably the world for that matter was having an effect on icebergs some 4,000 miles away and more. How were we to know, it wasn’t that long ago we took leaded petrol off sale, some could ask why we didn’t do this in the 1950s or ’60s, or even earlier, well probably because we didn’t know the damage it was causing, or certainly we didn’t have all the facts? We can say this about many things, how long ago was it that we finally realised that smoking caused cancer and how long have we been smoking? And more recently on a sporting front, there are now questions being asked about the dangers of heading a football with Scotland looking to ban heading the ball in Under 12’s training, so why wasn’t all of this looked into and stopped sooner? Well, I’ll repeat myself, probably because we didn’t know. But to add to this some of the news articles that I have read, are stating that heading will be banned in training, but surely that should be ‘banned?’ The purpose of training is to learn how to do things properly, but if they are still allowed to head the ball in matches they may be doing it wrong as they haven’t been taught in training and so potentially causing more, or other damage, so a ban should be a ban!
And so the same applies to problems that are poisonous gases, emissions, rising temperatures, ice melting and other climate-changing related issues, if we had been aware of this way back in the 1920s would we have continued to spoil our planet? I don’t think we would have. We as a human race have come a long way in the last 100 years with great strides made in the fields of medicine and the environment and more, but back then I’m sorry Greta, I don’t think we knew the problems that were being created, so are we to be blamed for our older generation not having the knowledge, intelligence and information to do something about it, I don’t think so.
But here is my point and one for Greta and her generation to have a serious think about. What drives the demand for these factories, machines and cars that omit all the dirt and fumes, what drives the demand for the planet to be dug up and forests to be cut down. What is it out there that makes industry build more factories and run more vehicles, and more machines and requires more utilities, what makes us build more roads and houses on green belt land? What makes us rake the planet for the ingredients for all our needs, whether it be food, synthetics or other natural materials. What drives the demand? Rather obvious really – it is us humans that drive it all because we need it for all of us to survive.
And the real issue is? Well, I’ll tell you in a few minutes. I am not a fast writer, I can’t just drop a few words onto a document and be happy with it, I take time and check, I re-check and check again, and along the way, I will be researching aspects using the World Wide Web so I am quite slow and how I wish I could say the same for the growth of the world population, but I can’t and that I’m afraid is the main issue out there, we as a race are growing too quickly, and it is probably too late to do anything about it, quite sad to think about but very true.
Let’s take a look at some facts according to www.worldometers.info. Remember the figure 306,059 at the start of this post, well that was the net rise in the world population this year – THIS YEAR, and it was only 9.30 am on the second of January when I wrote that. To put that into perspective if you live in the UK, it is a city approximately the size of Coventry, and Worldwide it is getting close to the population of Iceland and that is in one full day and 9.5 hours. And as I write this article the figure has increased by ten thousand people, yes that is 10,000 and I have only been at my laptop for one hour and ten minutes – let’s all stop and have a think about that statistic, shall we?
In more significant figures and according to this site, the world population was just one billion people in 1800, and today give or take a few hundred million, it is eight billion people. In 220 years we have increased the world population by seven billion people, and therefore at this rate in another two hundred years you would think we will have doubled that population to around sixteen or maybe seventeen billion. But that is wrong, with more people comes quicker growth. Our world population has increased by four and a half billion in only fifty years, so where will we be in fifty years time, I don’t know, but I have to ask as a race, how will we cope? I don’t think we will, because our planet cannot sustain such growth and expansion, it is unlikely that we will have the resources to support this growth.
The more we multiply, the more we need, the more houses and cars we will need the more food we will need. Ironic that as we build more and more houses to cope with the population growth, the more farmland we take up that grows the food and feeds the animals we need to help us to eat and survive.
The more we need, the more demand will be put on the planet for natural ingredients we need to make and build daily essentials. Everything we need creates more demand, and the more people we have creates more demand. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it is something that is not being spoken about, it is just being ignored as irrelevant.
With a population of eight billion people, we could easily lose four or five billion and still survive as a race, let’s be honest we were doing ok for ourselves back in 1960 when the population was just over three billion. I can’t ever recall anyone jumping on trains or blocking routes into our major cities with their placards because we were going to become extinct as a human race! But think about the 1960 figure, 60 years ago the world population was nearly five billion people less than it is today!
But what we do seem to be doing is ignoring this aspect of global warming and all the related issues. It is all created by demand, the demand comes from the world population, and the world population is growing at an uncontrollable rate. Another recent irony was the guy seen recently in the media lying on the ground, crying while holding a picture of his children, I wonder if he realised that this growth in population including his children are one of the main reasons we as a race and a planet are in such a mess.
I don’t have the answers as it is natural for us to breed, I am a Father, but it doesn’t help that there are systems whereby governments pay child benefits, and people have families of fifteen children or more as is often seen in our media. I don’t understand why child benefits are even paid at all. But then again, that is just me!
Every time there is a humanitarian crisis with people dying of hunger, we still see lots of young children walking around in front of the cameras for the world to see, and so even when people can’t feed themselves, we as a race insist on breeding and bringing more children into that world. A world where they won’t be fed and will be lucky ever to see adulthood! I recently went to the cinema, usually reserved for new 007 or Mission Impossible films. However I decided I wanted to see 1917, and quite good it was too. However considering my interest in this matter, one advert that attracted my attention was put on by the World Food Programme. And it stated that around 3 million children die each year from starvation and that is a sad fact, the question I have to ask, I have pretty much already asked. ‘Why are they even brought into the world just to die at such a young age, the parents and the Government must know there is no future for them.’
Is it all too late? Well, in my opinion, it probably is, but this is what Greta and her generation need to be looking at more closely, not telling us we have stolen her childhood when she is still young enough to have one.
That is how the world is in my eyes, and why I can say through anxious eyes, because with the demands put on people, and with all the issues people can have, again I can understand why people can become anxious if they let these things get to them. After all, our world is a major issue and a concern for many, I’m not too concerned as I believe I am too old ever to have this population growth affect me, but who knows. We are talking about ten years to save the planet and I’d like to think that in ten years I will still be about but who knows, but it certainly doesn’t affect my anxiety but I know it will affect others.
I have mentioned previously that different situations make people anxious. I have mentioned my underlying issues, which if you ever chose to read ‘My Story’ and look at No3 you will know what they are, I’d imagine those issues will always be there, and so I talk about other issues adding to the underlying ones and bringing anxiety back or making it worse. Fortunately, I am still ok! But maybe it is a story about world problems that make people anxious, maybe there isn’t much else going wrong for them, but this is just bad enough.
These aren’t the types of issues that will raise my levels as there is nothing I can do about them, apart from my own little contributions, it is things that affect me directly that cause my problems, but things are still OK at the moment, and my levels are low, and all is good. But importantly, we are all different and affected in different ways, remember there are different types of anxiety and different types of Mental Health Issues.
On an ironic note, as I re-write this for the site relaunch on the 31st January at 5pm, the world population has grown by nearly seven million, yep seven million people this year, and it is not yet February, however close. Again putting it into perspective, the population of London is 8.9 million, so nearly there, and it is the same as the population of Bulgaria! It is now February 1st as I actually post this and I will let you look at the figures to the left! On this occasion, I will apologise if some people find this post concerning, but again there is facts in there and maybe an opinion that few can argue with.
The one fact no one can really argue with is that however you look at it, the root cause of global warming is people, and the number of people on our planet just grows, and grows and grows. With that, the demand just grows and grows and grows, and all related global warming issues get worse and worse and worse, and so our problem is simply people and the population growth, that cannot be argued!
So let’s finish on a related, light-hearted but relevant note, The Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges is probably my
favourite comedian, and in Scotland, an ‘empty’ is usually a situation whereby the parents have gone away for some time, and the youngsters have a house to themselves and take advantage of the situation with a few friends coming round, or worse. I say this because I ask you to go to Youtube and type in ‘Kevin Bridges, God’ and have a listen and a laugh!
Thank you for reading and stay safe
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