One of the three hypotheses to which I referred on Tuesday is that capitalism is a Ponzi scheme based on the mathematical impossibility of permanent growth of profits whose con has thus far been hidden by abundant natural resources and a population explosion.
As noted, the population explosion continues and the resources continue to decline.
The problem is that there are already too damn many of us.
In the GUARDIAN, the biologist, Paul Ehrlich, suggests that the optimum human population on the planet is no more than 2 billion. We passed that number in 1927 and are now approaching 8.
Ehrlich notes that the solution I offered eleven years ago in ‘Last Born’ may be occurring by toxification lowering sperm counts.
I particularly admire his line: Perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell.
If you scroll down you will find images showing density of plastic in the ocean in 1962 and 2018.
I skirted the Pacific Ocean patch on the passage from San Diego to Hawaii in 2014 and sailed right through the one in the Indian Ocean in 2016. While I don’t dispute the findings, surprisingly I did not see much plastic in either ocean. I did see a sea of plastic off Costa Rica’s Cocos Island on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in 2009.
Wikipedia says plastic was invented in 1907 and went into mass production in the 1940s and 50s.
We’ve come a long way.
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I thank Michael for sending this.
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In response to a comment I made about being alone on a small boat in mid-ocean, Andy wrote:
A small boat on an ocean isn't in it's own world, it is the world, and everybody else is on the edge of it.
That is so good I wanted to share it and thank Andy for permission to do so.
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Snow due tomorrow.
I fly to Hilton Head a month from tomorrow.
These are not unrelated.
