Unfortunately, he was right in other respects.

The population of the earth has continued to grow in a geometric fashion over the last couple centuries and although food production has generally kept up, there are other pressing matters that should concern us all. Actually, I don’t know if they should concern you, because I don’t think there is anything we can do about it. Don’t waste your life being concerned, but I feel you ought to have an awareness of how things are going to go down in a few decades.

Here is a fact that I have only recently come to accept: We have squandered the opportunity to live sustainably on earth as a species. Let me amend that to say that the chances are not completely gone for the species as a whole, but I would hazard a guess that at least 60% or so of the people alive now are doomed to remember the end of the 20th Century as the peak of civilization. This is the only conclusion that a rational look at the state of the world can come too.

I have struggled with this issue for a long time, namely because when I looked, all I saw was how fucked up it all is but I still had this assumption that it would all work out somehow. I struggled because I could not for the life of me figure out how we were going to pull out of the tailspin we are in.

Then it dawned on me. My assumption that everything would work out was mistaken. There is no way that we can redeem the world as we know it. There are too many people, too much pollution, too much destruction without enough preservation and restoration. Its that simple.

Do you know how much land the human species physically occupies? Say we were to give each human on earth, figuring the current population at 6,000,000,000 people, give each person 4 square feet to stand in. That’s a 2 x 2 foot square box for those of you educated in the American school system, about 40 square decimeters (I had to look it up) for the metric folks. Not a lot of space by any means, but enough to stretch out a little bit.

So how much land do you think that all of us would take up if you put all 6,000,000,000 people’s 4 square feet in one spot?

A) one city block
B) an average U.S. city
C) a major U.S. city
D) an average county in a Midwestern State
E) an average New England State
F) an average MidWestern state
G) California
H) Texas
I) Alaska
J) the entire U.S.
K) China
L) Europe
M) North America
N) Asia
O) All of the above

Think about it before checking out the answer. I think you will be surprised.

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Answer: D) an average county in the Midwest. I did the math and you could fit all 6,000,00 people inside a square only 30 miles on a side. That’s 900 square miles, but it's only 30 miles on a side. You could drive around this square in an hour and a half, easy. I was pretty damn blown away when I first heard this. I actually didn’t believe it so I did the math, about 15 times. It’s a fact.

The point of this exercise is to help you realize that it really isn’t the population per se that is the problem, but the energy use of the population. The earth can’t support us at current usage levels. Think about this: the U.S. has about 1/25 of the world's population but uses about 1/4 of the total energy produced. Now realize that the American standard of living is seen as the goal for everyone in developing countries. When it comes to standards of living, everyone will want the highest possible. Whether it is human nature or good marketing, everyone will eventually become a consumer and just drive energy consumption up even more.

There is not enough energy available on earth, at least in a way that we can use it today, to support a worldwide standard of living equal to current standards in the U.S. Factor in the rising energy costs associated with computing, which are immense, and you might be able to start to see the picture.

They say that we have maybe 80 years of oil left. That means that in about 50 years things are going to get really sticky. Although up to 90% of crude oil is processed for fuel, its real value lies in lubrication. We can come up with alternative fuels and indeed are working on that even now. However, we can’t get by friction and if we run out of oil to use for lubrication, everything shuts down. No manufacturing, no turbines, no nuthin.

90% of the rainforests are gone. Destroyed. Plowed under. Never to return. If we were to stop cutting the forests immediately, in a few centuries or millennium they may grow back. If we cut them down completely, they are gone forever. Diversity aside, the value of the forests as air cleaners can not be overestimated. As we continue to pollute the air with carcinogens, health quality will drop, contributing to decreased worker productivity and increasing net energy consumption.

We are also running out of water. The water we have is being polluted or consumed at an alarming rate. More and more people are going to be drawing from smaller and smaller wells until it is all gone.

And I haven’t even touched on global warming and how it will wreak havoc on our system.

Nothing that I say here is a secret and I know you are all familiar with it. However, I think many of us have this assumption that somehow it will all work out. But things are being destroyed at such an incredible pace, a pace which is only accelerating as well, that I don’t see how we can be saved. If we were to stop current industrial practices immediately and put human and earthly health and longevity as our primary priorities, maybe, just maybe, we could avert a disaster. Financially it would be ruinous by today’s standards and for this reason this type of change will not be implemented. But we don’t have time to continue to piss in our bed, shit on our plate, and take, take, take. It doesn’t work out like that. We are living on borrowed time, people.

There will be massive drought and famine when there is no water and no arable land. The rich will procure the available resources and the people will riot. The rich will eventually run out of oil and their "well-oiled" machine will grind to a halt. Perhaps there will be enough remaining for people to begin to put it back together and rebuild in a sustainable manner.

Then again perhaps not. Either way, I think we are all going to get to see how it works. It won’t be too long now.

I’d start learning how to hunt, fish, and farm if I were you.