We do not, and cannot, live as the independent tiger, or orangutan, coming together only to mate briefly, all child care and education provided by the mother. … Sustainability is a matter of not taking resources faster than they renew. You cannot cut trees faster than they grow, or net fish, or burn fossil fuels. You cannot pollute faster than pollution breaks down. There is a balance of resources, using too much energy to take resources tilts the balance away from sustainability. … Reproduction should be done in balance with resources. It takes a society to raise a child, children are energy expensive, and even adults cannot take care of themselves without the support of a larger society. So the number of children born should logically be an affair of society, not of individuals or couples. … It is often proclaimed that people are beyond further evolution. Or that the universe sometimes acts not according to reason, that cause and effect can sometimes be set aside, that miracles can happen. If one accepts the premise that miracles don’t happen and that it is not energy efficient to try to force behavior, then really there is not much more to say or do. As a social creature who wants to live, then I feel the desire to at least tell people the logic of these things. If they can hear it, good, we can work together. If not, I’ve done what I can. (01/25/02)
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Recently, I had the first dream about someone who is still alive – someone who is still moving and shaking the world as we know it. Someone who can still make a difference to what we will live through during the next few decades. In my dream I was a central banker. THE central banker. In it a certain objective, a goal that has become what other people may call obsession, casts a long shadow that stretches back to the early days. It is this objective and what lies beyond it that perhaps need to be mentioned – not as a statement of fact, but merely as an element in a dream, one that might bear no resemblance to reality. But, then, just perhaps it does, in which case it has a strong bearing on how we should view the future. (01/25/02)
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