The Elusive "Big Picture" of Sustainability
Now clarified in a rare film -- FREE on YouTube
SOS #128 -- J. Morris Hicks -- (10-19-21)
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If you don't have time today to watch the 83-minute film featured herein -- please make sure that you watch it soon.
I am convinced that the more people who watch this film, the greater our chances for survival as a species.
A little background. In 2012, Dr. Stephen Emmott, Director of Computational Science at Microsoft in the UK at the time, delivered a powerful presentation about our future -- solo on stage -- in a theater in London.
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The title of his talk was Ten Billion. One year later, he published a small, powerful book with the same title.
I read that book several times and still recommend it to everyone. But, like our most recent book, Outcry, it was not a commercial success.
Why not? I suspect it's because most people don't really like hearing the truth about likely future events as terrifying as the collapse of civilization and/or the possible extinction of humanity.
They don't like hearing that their house is on fire either! But most people do understand that acknowledgement of that fire is the essential first step in saving the lives of their family.
In 2015, a powerful new documentary was produced that featured actual footage from Dr. Emmott's performance on stage in 2012 -- a one-man show that focused on the content of his 2013 book.
Importantly, the 2015 film below is much more powerful than his stage performance three years prior. How so?
Because it contains an abundance of video, graphics and illustrations that make the film more compelling. It's all based on nine-year-old data and the terrifying fact that things have gotten much worse since 2012.
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Now for the really good news!
That powerful 83-minute 2015 documentary is available for Free on YouTube
Just click the image below
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A must-watch video. Please return to this memo and take the time to carefully watch this exceptionally compelling film. You may choose to watch it on a big screen at home with a group of friends or family -- or maybe with several groups of friends.
In the meantime, I will share some of the text with you. As mentioned already, this information was presented by Dr. Emmott over nine years ago. Since then, conditions have steadily worsened in every category.
The film addresses three huge challenges that the world of 2021 still does not seem to grasp: animal agriculture, over-consumption and over-population -- coupled with a global economic system that demands eternal growth.
Tragically, the global establishment of today has convinced citizens in the developed world that all we have to do to survive climate change is shift 100% to green energy.
But that is simply not true -- as the film so convincingly reports. This text appears on the screen at the beginning of the riveting, 83-minute film:
- In 2002, Professor Stephen Emmott assembled a unique team of scientists from all over the world.
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Led by Stephen, their mission was to analyze the problems facing humanity and predict the future of life on Earth
In all likelihood, that "mission" remains the only such "big picture" mission of its kind ever conducted -- one that produced a trove of compelling information about which at least 95% of the world's citizens remain ignorant.
More about Dr. Emmott. In 2012, he was the head of Computational Science at Microsoft in the UK, Visiting Professor of Computational Science at the University of Oxford and Visiting Professor of Biological Science at University College London
In the film, he begins with this statement: The single most important project in my lab is to understand the future of life on Earth.
We already know enough to know that we are in trouble --and I think it’s important for someone in the scientific community to come out and say so.
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In other words, we know that we're in trouble but, unfortunately, there are no prominent leaders in the world who are willing or able to tell us the truth about the extent of that trouble.
Hopefully, we still have time to uncover the truth, broadcast the truth and rally around a global plan to save our civilization.
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In his solo stage performance in 2012, again in his 2013 book -- and once more in the 2015 film featured above, Dr. Emmott states this overall conclusion regarding the state of humanity and our prospects for the future. |
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Emmott's Closing Statement in Ten Billion (2012)
Let's look at it like this: If we discovered tomorrow that there was an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, and -- because physics is a fairly simple science -- we were able to calculate that it was going to hit Earth on June 3, 2072, and we knew that its impact was going to wipe out 70 percent of all life on Earth, governments worldwide would marshal the entire planet into unprecedented action.
Every scientist, engineer, university, and business would be enlisted: half to find a way of stopping it, the other half to find a way for our species to survive and rebuild if the first option were unsuccessful.
We are in almost precisely that situation now, except that there isn’t a specific date and there isn’t an asteroid.
The problem is us.
Only an idiot would deny that there is a limit to how many people our Earth can support. The question is, is it seven billion (our current population), ten billion, or twenty-eight billion? I think we’ve already gone past it. Well past it.
We could change the situation we are now in. Probably not by technologizing our way out of it, but by radically changing our behavior. But there is no sign that this is happening, or about to happen. I think it’s going to be business as usual for us.
As a scientist, what do I think about our current situation? Science is essentially organized skepticism. I spend my life trying to prove my work wrong or look for alternative explanations for my results. I hope I’m wrong. But the science points to my not being wrong.
As I said at the beginning, we can rightly call the situation we’re in an unprecedented emergency.
We urgently need to do -- and I mean actually do -- something radical to avert a global catastrophe. But I don't think we will.
I think we're fucked.
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Dr. Emmott's rare, straight-forward "big-picture" thinking and courage earned him a position among an elite group of nine scientists who were featured in Chapter Four of OUTCRY, published in April of 2020.
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That said, my gift to you today is a copy of that entire chapter, the longest one in the book.
Click on this Chapter 4 image and feel free to share it widely with friends, family and colleagues.
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Update from Emmott in 2020. One year ago, I posted SOS Memo #74 that featured what I refer to as sort of an update of Emmott's 2013 book in this 2020 article in the British press:
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In that update, featuring this caricature image of Dr. Emmott, here's what he had to say in 2020 about our progress toward saving our civilization and our species:
- Eight years after 2012, as we approach those environmental and ecological tipping points beyond which there is no return, he sees no reason to change his bleak conclusion that the world is "fucked".
- Emmott concludes,"Everyone chose to ignore, and still does, the warnings in the book, even though almost every single thing I predicted is unfolding yearly before us."
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My meeting with Dr. Emmott. Shortly after his book, Ten Billion, was published in 2013, I had the opportunity to visit one-on-one with him in London.
Eight years ago this month, our meeting took place over tea at the Berkeley Hotel, pictured here.
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Toward the end of our chat, I specifically remember asking him this question:
If everyone in the developed world reduced their annual consumption of animal-based foods in 2014 by 75%, would that be enough to influence you to change the last two words in your book? (Those two words were: We're f_ _ _ ed!)
He replied that he would need to perform a great many computations to answer my question properly -- but he volunteered that he was certain that it would be an "unbelievably huge step in the right direction."
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The Bottom Line. We are running out of time. We cannot wait another eight years for the world's leaders to step up and begin urgently addressing the historic sustainability dilemma in which we find ourselves.
A fundamental problem here is that so few people in this world have been able to grasp the severity of that dilemma.
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This powerful film can help billions of adults 18+, to quickly grasp the crucial BIG PICTURE of the global dilemma in which we find ourselves -- and what can be done about it.
If 500 million people watch this film before November 1, then I suspect that the discussions at COP26 would be far more productive.
Of course, that almost certainly will not happen. That's because, to date, that free version of the film has gone virtually unnoticed.
At last count -- it has been seen just 5,000 times in the six months that it has been available.
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Closing today on the topic of
Human Rights vs. Human Responsibilities
In the aforementioned 2020 piece about Dr. Emmott, this paragraph appeared toward the end. It encapsulates the primary problem with us humans and our utter failure to accept the responsibilities that come with being the planet's dominant species.
Dr. Emmott summarizes his thoughts on that topic in these three sentences as he advocates replacing human "rights" with human "responsibilities."
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“Personally speaking, I think there should be no such thing as human rights.
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There should be a charter of human responsibilities, and if we were focused on human responsibilities rather than human rights, we would be in a totally different place to where we are now.
- The root of this is about our collective responsibilities to each other and to other species we share the planet with.”
Can you imagine where we would be now had we begun thinking seriously our responsibilities two hundred years ago?
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Sadly, the short answer to that last question is that COP26 will very likely NOT matter as far as our future is concerned.
That's because, there will likely be zero progress toward addressing the elephant in the room -- our love affair with animal-based foods.
The leaders of COP26 are also not likely to mention these two other ongoing barriers to sustainable living: over-consumption and over-population.
I hope I am wrong about COP26 -- but I have seen no indication of even a remote likelihood that those 195 nations in attendance will get around to talking about the crucial topics that so radically impact the future of our children.
Another major UN ecological conference took place last week -- an event that has not received much attention. It was held in Kumming, China, and was all about the horrific biodiversity loss that is happening all over the world. You can read about it on Reuters or in the New York Times.
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As with COP26 in Glasgow, this Biodiversity COP15 in China -- in all likelihood -- will address a great many topics, but will avoid topics that relate to changing the way we live -- beginning with the global replacement of animal agriculture. |
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In Outcry, we stressed the urgent need to totally reinvent the way we live on this planet -- beginning with the way we are eating.
Why? Because changing our food choices is the single most powerful step that most humans in the developed world can take quickly.
The problem is that this world-changing topic will probably not even be mentioned in Glasgow, Scotland or in Kumming, China.
If we don't address the global food problem first, we will not have time to address the many other unsustainable aspects of the way we live.
The chart below is featured in Outcry. Urgently changing our food choices now may buy us the time needed to carefully address the question at the top of this slide.
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In case you want to refer back to some of the data in this memo, here are four links that you might want to keep handy:
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What can you do? For starters, you can buy the new documentary -- Eating our way to Extinction for $6 -- and watch it several times with your friends and family.
Also, you can:
- Share this SOS Memo with everyone you know.
- Inform all the young people in your world that you are deadly serious about this topic.
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- Completely stop eating meat, dairy, eggs and fish today and tell everyone why you are taking such a "radical" step. You're doing it for the innocent children of the world.
- As you take the above step, do yourself a favor and make sure that your plant-based meals of the future consist of whole plants -- the kinds of foods that prevent or reverse most chronic diseases AND enable your body to effortlessly seek its optimal weight.
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A final word. Hopefully, the kind of crucially serious "conversations" expressed in this SOS Memo will soon replace the trivial topics that dominate a ridiculously large percentage of all of the conversations in the world.
We must all start talking much more about what's really important: doing everything possible to maximize the chances of a meaningful and pleasant life ahead for the young people of the world.
I volunteer to help you do that. For Free. Invite me to collaborate with you and your friends via Zoom. To help you jump-start that all-important conversation with your group, I will be happy to present and discuss this topic. Here's an advance link to my 62 slides.
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The image above is a clue regarding the essence of my "family game plan" that is revealed only in my talks. I do not put that in writing.
Want to share some of my SOS Memos with others? Visit my SOS Memos page where the most recent ones are listed first.
Finally, I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested OUTCRY, that there might at least be a more robust conversation taking place about our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world -- and what it will take to get us focused on maximizing our chances of survival as a species.
To be sure, we must do a lot more than change what we eat -- and OUTCRY helps explain the "why" and the "how" of that proposition.
To my knowledge, OUTCRY remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable, future way of living for humans -- along with ideas for how we might get there as quickly as possible.
J. Morris (Jim) Hicks
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PS: Regarding the free Zoom conferences with your group, Send me an email and let's get started.
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Our book, for a host of environmental reasons, is only available as an e-book on Amazon. As such, it contains hyperlinks to hundreds of references and videos, is less expensive, does not kill any trees and does not have to be manufactured and delivered.
The links below to earlier SOS Memos will help you understand how these ideas unfolded since 2018.
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As always, I am just trying to help spark the all-important "conversation" about what is needed. By sharing a vision of what I believe is possible, I hope to influence others to think bigger, faster, better and bolder.
You will find that there aren't many books that cover both the health of your body and the health of your planet. This is one of them -- a book that my son Jason assisted me in writing. It was published ten years ago this month.
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What else can you do to help? Two things:
1. Live as greenly as possible while doing all that you can to raise the awareness of "big picture" solutions that are crucially necessary for saving our civilization.
2. Share this BSB and my "Mama Ain't Happy" BSB with prominent journalists, thought leaders and/or elected officials whom you respect. They need to learn a lot more about the many reasons why Mama ain't happy.
Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth
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