One Lifetime To Oblivion??

By Donald A. Collins | 1 May 2020
Church and State

On my 89th birthday, April 27, 2020, Michael Moore and his colleagues released a free film on YouTube entitled “Planet of the Humans” which by the time my friend Madeline Weld, Ph.D. President, Population Institute Canada emailed access to me it had been viewed over 4 million times! Readers may recall my April 17, 2020 OP ED on this website entitled, “Endless growth is planetary suicide”.

Access to the Moore film appears at the bottom of this op ed and I strongly suggest to view it and second attachment which is an interview with the film makers which also appears at the end of this piece.

Having enjoyed a major bump up in my stock portfolio on Wednesday, April 28 as news of a breakthrough in finding help with the virus and a Fed commitment to keep money loose, apparently made many of us feel we are on our way to recovery. Fluctuations lately have been daily but not discouraging that all is ok.

Thus, we infer that our soon to be return to normal is now dubbed the “new normal” will be soon, as we are constantly advised by our leaders who tell of better times ahead.

Anyone who has been reading my recent offerings knows that is not my opinion nor is it the opinion of world class scientists who have studied and produced clear evidence of our planet’s deterioration as human numbers zoomed in my lifetime (89) to nearly 8 billion from 2 billion at my birth.

Perhaps the lack of world leadership on the core issue of overpopulation shouldn’t surprise anyone as the Washington Post tells our President has told documented untruths some 18,000 times and this is only part of his first term.

This also obviously speaks to the willingness of many Americans to ignore the situation as so many of us are justifiably scrambling to survive.

The numerous powerful photographer chroniclers of our planet have exposed us to graphic, gripping, very frightening examples of the growing consequences of human invasiveness but again folly prevails, inaction dominates and it would not surprise me to find us electing the current fox in charge of the henhouse for a second term.

It was to be hoped that the Coronavirus pandemic will awaken us to positive planetary action. Certainly to date the urgent threats posed by climate change don’t seem to get more than lip service against a flush of denials, the latter likely from the same mind sets that for decades assured us of the safety of smoking.

At the start of my life in 1931, so ironic the human race had all the tools to save itself if only it had had the will to do so.

While those who offer us statements of goodwill and kindness if we will only embrace their religious orthodoxy, the stone wall of resistance to family planning and choice makes safe early life planning education of young women restricted where it is needed most.

And while conservation of resources using recycling has been widely taken up by many corporations, much more remains to do.

As you will see, Moore’s major thesis is that the green revolution option can’t be adequate to save us and that capitalism is to blame.

His critics of course are quick to brand him wrong. Forbes writer, Robert Bryce joined other Capitalist pubs as follows,

Humans are like cockroaches. We need fewer of them. That’s the fundamental message of Michael Moore’s new documentary, Planet of the Humans.

To be sure, there is plenty to admire in Moore’s 100-minute documentary that was released on Tuesday on YouTube. Directed by Jeff Gibbs, the film skewers some of America’s most prominent environmentalists and environmental groups. But the film, which had more than 960,000 views by Thursday morning, is also unremittingly pessimistic. It offers no clues as to how we humans, all 7.8 billion of us, should be meeting our needs for energy, food, and shelter

…

… The film, which could easily have been 20 minutes shorter, concludes with this bit of Malthusianism: “We humans must accept that infinite growth on a finite planet is suicide,” Gibbs says in his dirge-like monotone. “We must accept that our human presence is already far beyond sustainability and all that that implies.”

That line would have been right at home in Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which, by the way, was published by the Sierra Club. It also sounds like it could have been written by Thomas Malthus himself, who predicted mass starvation in his An Essay on the Principle of Population, way back in 1798.

Altogether, after dismissing us doomsayers, he offers little hope for the possibility for safe survival of the 8 billion here by 2025 or the projected 10 billion by 2050. And certainly unless human numbers come down, our full survival is without a chance.

Of course when we hit 7 billion the Time Magazine author on October 26, 2011 did not fully “get” the problem either. You can read his dismissal here.

I rue the urgent facts alluded to in Moore’s film and in so many other environmental pronouncements and wonder the fate of those I will shortly be leaving behind hopefully to harken and hasten to achieve the many successful possible courses of action to address the overpopulation issue and its related effects.

The “new normal” after this current pandemic has subsided better not be dominated as now by the majority of arrogant selfish world leaders who have to date ignored the threat! In short we set the road to oblivion in only one lifetime. Sadly mine!

Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans | Full Documentary | Directed by Jeff Gibbs

Michael Moore, filmmakers respond to criticism of new bombshell environmental film

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.

From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013

By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
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