Earth Day '09
We seem to have made it through the whole winter without contracting anything vile, but now, as the spring begins in earnest, Spooky and I both appear to have come down with something unpleasant. Which just figures.
Yesterday, I wrote a very respectable 1,451 words on "At the Deeper Gate of Slumber." It's coming out a sort of sequel to Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark" (1935). I think I'm liking where it's going. Anyway, it'll appear later this month in Sirenia Digest #41.
We had rain last night, and it was a fine, hard rain. The sort I just want to lie in the quiet and listen to for hours. The sun's back this morning. There was a moderate seizure late yesterday. Which I should have seen coming, after two nights of bad insomnia (and last night made night #3).
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In last year's Earth Day entry, I noted that as of "...14:57 GMT (EST+5) today, the Earth's human population had reached 6,662,970,347 (with the US population accounting for 303,912,188 of those humans; that's one birth every 7 seconds in the US)." This year, the human population has risen, as of 14:35 GMT (EST+5), to 6,775,017,443 worldwide, with the US population weighing in at 306,268,833*. Humanity has radically outstripped the carrying capacity of its environment. "Carrying capacity" is defined as the population of a given species that can be supported indefinitely in a defined habitat without permanently damaging the ecosystem upon which it is dependent. For humans, the Earth’s carrying capacity is estimated by ecologists to be about 2 billion people. And we passed that number 4,775,017,443 people ago. As I wrote last year (quoting my entry from 4/22/07):
"And today is Earth Day. And it seems to me that people are more concerned with finding 'green' solutions that will permit business as usual, and continuing technological escalation, rather than drastically scaling back this runaway civilization, which is the only truly 'green' solution. The only solution at all. I might as well be asking for world peace, and I know that. Humans hate. Human breed. Humans consume. Humans spoil. There are other things that humans do, and some of them are wonderful, but the global effects of these wonderful capabilities pale by comparison with all the hating, breeding, consumption, and spoilage. I do not hate humans, and I don't want to give that impression, but I see no point in denying that today, on this Earth Day, I'm rooting for the other team."
* courtesy the US Census Bureau's US and World Population clocks.
Yesterday, I wrote a very respectable 1,451 words on "At the Deeper Gate of Slumber." It's coming out a sort of sequel to Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark" (1935). I think I'm liking where it's going. Anyway, it'll appear later this month in Sirenia Digest #41.
We had rain last night, and it was a fine, hard rain. The sort I just want to lie in the quiet and listen to for hours. The sun's back this morning. There was a moderate seizure late yesterday. Which I should have seen coming, after two nights of bad insomnia (and last night made night #3).
---
In last year's Earth Day entry, I noted that as of "...14:57 GMT (EST+5) today, the Earth's human population had reached 6,662,970,347 (with the US population accounting for 303,912,188 of those humans; that's one birth every 7 seconds in the US)." This year, the human population has risen, as of 14:35 GMT (EST+5), to 6,775,017,443 worldwide, with the US population weighing in at 306,268,833*. Humanity has radically outstripped the carrying capacity of its environment. "Carrying capacity" is defined as the population of a given species that can be supported indefinitely in a defined habitat without permanently damaging the ecosystem upon which it is dependent. For humans, the Earth’s carrying capacity is estimated by ecologists to be about 2 billion people. And we passed that number 4,775,017,443 people ago. As I wrote last year (quoting my entry from 4/22/07):
"And today is Earth Day. And it seems to me that people are more concerned with finding 'green' solutions that will permit business as usual, and continuing technological escalation, rather than drastically scaling back this runaway civilization, which is the only truly 'green' solution. The only solution at all. I might as well be asking for world peace, and I know that. Humans hate. Human breed. Humans consume. Humans spoil. There are other things that humans do, and some of them are wonderful, but the global effects of these wonderful capabilities pale by comparison with all the hating, breeding, consumption, and spoilage. I do not hate humans, and I don't want to give that impression, but I see no point in denying that today, on this Earth Day, I'm rooting for the other team."
* courtesy the US Census Bureau's US and World Population clocks.