A human plague worsened by untrammelled growth

Pope Francis - he has spoken out
about untrammelled growth.

Humans are a plague on the earth and one of their constructs further worsens their presence.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being human rather it is our behaviour in that we have colonized most every available space, domineering earth’s resources, almost to the total exclusion of other species.

The dilemma of our untamed tumour-like growth – population numbers are rising exponentially; energy use is surging; debt, both private and public, has exploded; our consumption of food, and the chemicals needed to produce them, is alarming; species are become extinct at an unprecedented rate -  is evidence of our wilful denial of earth’s finitude.

Concerns about blindly pursing growth were raised by Pope Francis in his first papal exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel”.

He said, “While the earnings of the minority are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.

“The imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation…. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules…. “The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything that stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule”, the Pope said.

Freeing people from doing things to simply survive and so being able to make things they could profit from was a spin-off of the agricultural revolution.

That revolution brought a security guarantee and being released from the need to find food every day, people could then spend time producing a “luxury”, trade it profitably and then enhance their lives.

The idea of profit was born and further enriched by the discovery and understanding of fossil fuels and with that trade and consumption became an entrenched way of life.

There was however, as with everything, an unintended consequence.

In our rush to build and boost profits, we were blind, wilfully or otherwise, to those effects, with few ever talking about finite resources or the additional complication of greenhouse gases that were changing, quickly, the human-friendly climate.

The profits grew, the resources became even more finite, and the human-friendly atmosphere worsened and the troubles described by the Pope became more ingrained.

The surplus of energy that first arose from the agricultural revolution that was small by today’s standards, but sufficient to allow people to engage in non-subsistence activities.

That new and “free” energy distorted and disrupted our values, disconnecting us from the balance we had long lived within and extinguished our understanding of how to live a worthwhile, resilient and sustainable life using less exogenous energy.