Environmental Crisis – Human Dimension

Imagine there is a frog which is sitting in a pan full of water on a burning gas stove. The water is warming up and soon will start boiling. The frog is warming up accordingly but is unable to feel any discomfort. The question is: “What should happen or what should be the force to make the frog jump out of the water before it’s too late?” Let me suggest the answer: the frog does not have a chance to escape unless there is a noticeable threat coming from outside or a superior order to evacuate. The problem is that we do not consider global warming to be a decisive threat like for example an asteroid colliding with our planet on a given day and time simply because no one can give us the exact deadline and there is still no global government which will give us orders. Let’s hope the extraterrestrials will help.

In other words we don’t believe something really bad will happen, we don’t believe we will die. Now getting from frogs to humans and assuming that we are more sensitive and sensible than frogs let us see what we can and should be doing in the wake of the global catastrophe.

When faced with a change in our environment, we have just three choices: move or migrate, adapt or degenerate, and perish. In the wake of a disturbance, such as draught, famine, epidemics or any other natural disaster, animals including humans always react in one of these three ways. Two of the choices offer survival and if these options are not available an individual, tribe and finally mankind will face death and extinction. At the current rate of resource use, pollution output, and overpopulation it is very unlikely that the planet Earth will continue to exist in its current state for much longer.

In case of chronic disturbances such as resource depletion or pollution humans normally would move to a better habitat. First they move within the country and if it does not help they cross the country borders in order to leave polluted area for a better environment. Clearly environmental migrations will grow but it is also clear that tensions resulting from massive migrations will grow in proportion. When we amount to 9-10 billion in just 40 years there will be very little place to take refuge and the receiving party will offer no welcome kits.