This week finished a book from David Attenborough. It is impressive how much the population of the planet has increased since he was born (1937) until 2020. Based on the book is from 2.3 billion people to 7.8 billion. And how much the wildnerness has decreased in the same period (from 66% to 35%). Keeping mind we had two WW in XX century…
The first two parts are quite pessimistic with all the damage we have caused. But then he offers option for the present to save the future.
The main focus is recovering wildnerness in the world. We need to move to a more sustainable economy (it is not going to be pretty for the super rich and powerful countries) where growth can’t be the only measure (NZ has done something about it). We need to use less (the richest person is the one who has less needs said my grandmother), reproduce less (hello religions!!!). We need to use clean energy. This is a hard topic. Batteries and solar panels need to be more efficient, cleaner to fabricate and recycle. Most of the components have to be mined…. But yeah, the sun energy is a big deal. How much we can get from deserts?
For Nature itself, recover the oceans with policies to avoid over fishing and let recover the wildnerness. The book give the example of Cabo Pulmo and Palau as examples and the benefits of doing so. Better fishing, more sources of income. Win-Win.
Reduce the farmland footprint and let the forests recover their strength (with all the fauna included). This focus in meat consumption. I dont believe becoming vegan is the solution but eating meat every day is not needed. Our grand parents didnt eat meat everyday, that was a luxury. And not long ago, you had to pay the Church for eating meat (“la bula”) So I strongly believe in eating more green (but not manufactured stuff….). I dont see the point of cutting more trees to grow soy for producing meat-life products instead of raising cows. It seems 60% of farmland is dedicated to only beef, crazy. This is quite connected to the global populations too. Imagine if India were a beef-eating country….
Improve agriculture with regenerative farming. I believe in this, although I feel quite naive and romantic about this subject. It is a dream to have your terrain with several types of fruit trees producing good products every year, depending on the season, having your vegetables growing among them, and bees!. And not using any pesticide. Dream. I am pretty sure the yield wouldnt be very constant but this is built for balance. You have several crops… In a world with less people and not based in extreme-capitalism (surplus surplus!!!!) it would work (I hope)
The book says we are reaching our population peak but I dont believe, because religions dont want that, nationalism dont want that. But this is one of the last shift and I guess more difficult one. Changing/adapting ourselves.
If we allow it, life finds a way, like in they city near Chernobyl. It has been recovered by the forests!
At the end of the day, it is always the same solution. Balance. The virtue is in the middle (it seems Aristotle said that).