In the meeting I had with the economists of CIEM (World Economy Research Center) on Tuesday, July 13, I talked to them about an excellent documentary film by the French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand which includes statements by the most farsighted and well informed international personalities about another terrible danger threatening the human species that is cropping up right before our eyes: the destruction of the environment.<\/p>\n
The documentary clearly and categorically asserts as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the great adventure of life on Earth, each species has a role to play; each species has its place.\u00a0 None of them is either useless or harmful; they all balance one another.\u00a0 And it is right there when you, Homo sapiens<\/em>, the intelligent human, come into history.\u00a0 You are the beneficiary of the fabulous legacy of 4 billion years provided by the Earth.\u00a0 You are only 200 000 years old, but you have already changed the face of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe invention of agriculture changed our history.\u00a0 This happened less than 10 000 years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAgriculture was our first great revolution. It produced the first surpluses and gave rise to cities and civilizations.\u00a0 The memories of the thousands of years spent looking for food faded away.\u00a0 Having turned grains into the yeast of life, we multiplied their varieties and learned to adapt them to our soils and climates.\u00a0 We are like any other species on Earth. Our main daily concern is feeding ourselves. When soils are less than generous and water becomes scarce we are capable of making incredible efforts to get enough from the earth in order to continue living.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHalf of mankind tills the land; more than three fourths do it with their bare hands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPure energy.\u00a0 The energy that comes from the sun has been captured by millions of plants for more than 100 million years.\u00a0 It is coal; it is gas, but, most of all, it is oil.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the last 60 years, the Earth population has almost tripled.\u00a0 More than 2 billion people have moved into the cities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNew York, the world\u2019s first megalopolis, is the symbol of the exploitation of the energy that the Earth provides human ingenuity with: The labor of millions of immigrants, the energy that comes from coal, the indispensable power of oil.\u00a0 The United States was the first to ride on the phenomenal, revolutionary power of \u2018black gold\u2019.\u00a0 In the countryside, machines replaced men.\u00a0 One liter of oil generates as much energy as 100 pairs of hands in 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey produce enough grain to feed 2 billion people.\u00a0 But much of that grain is not used to feed persons.\u00a0 Here, as well as in other industrialized nations, grains are transformed into animal feed or biofuels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFertilizers below and plastics above as far as the eyes can see. The greenhouses of Almer\u00eda, in Spain, are Europe\u2019s vegetable garden.\u00a0 Day after day, a city of vegetables, all of them the same size, awaits the hundreds of trucks that will take them to the supermarkets of the continent. The more developed a country is, the more meat its inhabitants consume.\u00a0 How could the world demand be satisfied without resorting to concentration camp-like cattle farms? Things move faster every time. It is like the life cycle of cattle; quite likely they never catch sight of a prairie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn these food plots, crowded with millions of livestock units, not even a blade of grass grows.\u00a0 A whole fleet of trucks coming from every part of the country bring in tones of grain, soybean food and granules of proteins that will be turned into tones of meat. As a result, 100 liters of water are required to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes; 4000 liters are required to produce I kilogram of rice and 13 000 liters are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef, not to mention the amount of oil burned during production and transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that the end of cheap oil is imminent, but we refuse to believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLos Angeles.\u00a0 In this city that spans more than 100 kilometers, the amount of cars is almost the same as the amount of inhabitants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDaytime is nothing but a faint image of the nights that turn the city into a star-spangled sky.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverywhere there are machines digging, extracting and grabbing the pieces of stars buried deep into the Earth since its creation:\u00a0 The minerals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Eighty per cent of that mineral wealth is consumed by 20 per cent of the world population.\u00a0 Before this century comes to an end, excessive mining would have used up almost all reserves in the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSince 1950, the volume of international trade has twenty folded; 90 per cent of trade is travels by sea; 500 million containers are transported every year; they are sent to the biggest consumption centers\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSince 1950, fishing has five folded \u2013from 18 to 100 million metric tones per year.\u00a0 Thousands of factory-vessels are leaving the oceans empty.\u00a0 Three fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, terminated or face the risk of becoming so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFive hundred million human beings live in the desserts of the world \u2013this is more than the total population of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael turned the dessert into arable land.<\/p>\n While these farms now have a drip irrigation system, water consumption continues to grow as much as exports.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe once powerful Jordan river is now only a stream.\u00a0 Its waters have flown inside fruits and vegetables crates to supermarkets all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIndia is facing the risk of becoming the country that would suffer the most in the coming century out of lack of water.\u00a0 Mass irrigation has nurtured its growing population and during the last 50 years 21 million new wells have been dug.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLas Vegas was built in the dessert.\u00a0 Millions of persons live there.\u00a0 Thousands arrive in every month.\u00a0 Its inhabitants are among the world\u2019s biggest water consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPalm Springs is another dessert city with tropical vegetation and luxurious golf courts.\u00a0 For how long will this mirage continue to thrive? The Earth can not withstand it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Colorado River, which supplies water to these cities, is one of those rivers that no longer make it to the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe lack of water could affect 2 billion people before 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll living matter is interconnected: water, air, earth, trees.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPrimitive forests provide a habitat to three fourths of the biodiversity of the planet \u2013that is, three fourths of the whole life on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026in only 40 years, the Amazon, the world\u2019s biggest rainforest, has shrunk by 20 per cent to make room for cattle farms or soybean fields; 95 per cent of this soybean is used to feed livestock and poultry in Europe and Asia.\u00a0 Thus, a forest has been turned into meat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 2 billion people, almost one third of the world\u2019s population, still depend on charcoal.\u00a0 In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, charcoal is one of the population\u2019s main consumer goods.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUp in the mountains of Haiti, only 2 per cent of forests remain\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvery week, the cities of the world increase their population by more than one million persons. One out of six human beings lives now in a precarious, unhealthy and overpopulated environment, deprived from \u00a0daily needs such as water, sewage or electricity.\u00a0 Hunger is expanding again.\u00a0 It is affecting almost 1 billion people.\u00a0 All over the planet, the poor are struggling to survive, while we continue digging for the resources we can no longer live without.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur actions cause the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide.\u00a0 Without even realizing it, we have affected, molecule by molecule, the climate balance on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe ice cover of the Arctic is melting away as a result of global warming.\u00a0 After 40 years it is now 40 per cent thinner.\u00a0 This area shrinks year after year during summer time.\u00a0 It could disappear by the summer of the year 2030.\u00a0 Some say it could disappear by the year 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy 2050, one fourth of the terrestrial species could be facing the risk of extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Since Greenland is warming up very quickly, the fresh water of a whole continent is flowing into the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe ice of Greenland accounts for 20 per cent of all the fresh water of the planet.\u00a0 If it melts away the sea level will increase by almost 7 meters.\u00a0 Our planet\u2019s atmosphere is an indivisible whole.\u00a0 It is an asset we all share.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLakes are becoming part of Greenland\u2019s landscape.\u00a0 The ice cover is melting at a pace not even the most pessimistic scientists could have predicted 10 years ago.\u00a0 More and more these rivers, nurtured by the glaciers, are merging and emerging to the surface. It was thought that, deep into the ice, water would freeze.\u00a0 Quite on the contrary, water flows under the ice, pushing the ice cover into the sea, where it breaks up and become an iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly in the 20th<\/sup> century, the expansion of warmed up water caused a 20 cm sea level increase.\u00a0 Everything becomes unstable. Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in water temperature.\u00a0 Thirty per cent of them have disappeared. They are an essential link in the chain of species.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf the sea level continues to rise quicker and quicker, what will big cities like Tokyo \u2013the most densely populated of the world- do?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026in Siberia as well as in many other parts of the world it is so cold that the soil is permanently frozen.\u00a0 This phenomenon is known as permafrost<\/em>.\u00a0 Beneath that surface lies a climatic time bomb:\u00a0 methane, a greenhouse effect gas that is twenty times more powerful than carbon dioxide.\u00a0 If the permafrost<\/em> melts, the release of methane could cause the greenhouse effect to go out of control, the consequences of which no one could predict.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwenty per cent of the world\u2019s population consumes 80 per cent of the world\u2019s resources.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe world invests twelve times more in military expenses than in the assistance to developing countries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFive thousand persons die everyday after drinking contaminated water; 1 billion persons do not have access to potable water.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAround 1 billion are afflicted by hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 50 per cent of the grain that is marketed in the world is used for animal feed or biofuels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSpecies are dying one thousand times faster than the natural pace.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThree fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, diminished or are dangerously decreasing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe average temperature during the last 15 years has been the highest ever recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe ice cover is now 40 per cent thinner that it was 40 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n During the final minutes of the documentary, director Yann Arthus-Bertrand uses a milder language to praise some positive actions by countries he was forced to mention \u2013and I don\u2019t mean to offend or hurt anyone.<\/p>\n His final words went as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is time for us to be all together. What matters now is not what is gone, but what still prevails. There are still half of the world\u2019s forests, thousands of rivers, lakes and glaciers and thousands of successful species. Today we know that solutions are right here.\u00a0 We all have the power to change.\u00a0 Then, what are we waiting for?<\/p>\n It is up to us to write what comes next, together.\u201d<\/p>\n The topic that has absorbed most of my efforts \u2013the imminent risk of a war that would be the last in the prehistory of our species-, to which I have devoted 9 Reflections since June 1st<\/sup>, is a problem that becomes more and more serious by the day.<\/p>\n Obviously, 99.9 per cent of persons entertain the hope that elemental common sense would prevail.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, based on all the elements from the reality I perceive, I don\u2019t see there is the slightest chance that this could be so.<\/p>\n Therefore, I think it would be far more practical for our peoples to be prepared to cope with that reality.\u00a0 That would be our only hope.<\/p>\n The Iranians have done precisely that, just as we did in October 1962, when we would rather disappear than put down our banners.<\/p>\n Out of mere chance -and not because of the merits of the intelligence or the individual history of anyone of us- things are evolving today just as they were then.<\/p>\n News coming from Iran everyday are not even one millimeter away from their announced position to uphold their just rights to peace and development, but they include a new element: they have already managed to produce 20 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium \u2013an amount enough to produce a nuclear artifact-, which is making all those who long ago decided to attack them to go even crazier.\u00a0 I discussed this with our ambassadors on Friday 16.<\/p>\n Not even Obama could change that decision \u2013nor has he given so far any indication he would be determined to do that.<\/p>\n