Welcome to a new and obscene geological epoch

Can anyone detect the outlines of the gigantic elephant in the room? Here are some clues – Darren Blakeley’s “killing of our oceans” and “destruction of our forests; Diane Cornelius’s “millions and billions” of slaughtered animals. And there are more. Take a look at the Growth Section (aka Business News) of The Nation and what do we see? Dams on the Mekong, the Eastern Economic Corridor, Belt and Road, coal plants at Thepha, deep-sea port at Pakbara. And that’s just Thailand – it’s worldwide and it’s all about growth, growth and more growth. Every such “development project” (what a horrible phrase) represents a loss of green space, trees, free-flowing rivers, undisturbed oceans and places where animals establish their homes.
The monster elephant is called overpopulation. The United Nations revises its global population forecasts upwards every couple of years and our present unsustainable 7.6 billion is now expected to rise to a staggering 11.2 billion by 2100. So in the prevailing mentality of “predict and provide”, humans will need 50 per cent more dams, economic corridors, belts, roads, power plants and all the rest of the filth. And 50 per cent more food, including meat. Sustainability? Ha! The worst thing about this is that the greed-fuelled, anthropocentric growth-ists who govern the world don’t care. What hope is there for the remaining mountain gorillas (less than a thousand), Sumatran rhinos (220), Amur leopards (60) and vaquita (30)? Never heard of a vaquita? Well soon you won’t have to – it’s a kind of porpoise and it’s waving goodbye.
The growth-ists are killing the planet. If you are thinking of starting a family, think again – your wretched children will have to deal with the consequences long after we’re all dead. Scientists have declared that planet Earth has moved from the Holocene epoch into what they call the “Anthropocene”. I think they got the spelling wrong – it should be the “Anthr-Obscene”.
Nigel Pike
Phang Na