The Waking Up Syndrome

[Joanne98]

by Sarah Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzell

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality." — T. S. Eliot

Just dealing with our daily lives keeps most of us too busy to worry about whether or not the sky is falling. We focus on getting to and from work, paying our bills, doing our errands, and, if our time-stressed schedules allow, enjoying a little time to relax with friends and family.

But we’re deluged of late with dire pronouncements from high-profile newscasts, documentaries, and scientific reports about global warming, melting ice caps, dwindling oil supplies, and a looming imminent economic collapse. Closer to home, we’ve experienced climate-related disasters: floods, wildfires, hurricanes, wildfires, and severe droughts.

While the sky may not be falling, this day-after-day onslaught of alarming news is making it more difficult simply to overlook the triple threat of environmental, climatic and economic concerns. It’s leaving many of us feeling like Alice in Wonderland, being sucked down a Rabbit Hole into some frighteningly grotesque and unfamiliar world that’s anything but wonderful.

Few of us are eager to contemplate, let alone truly face, these looming changes. Just the threat of losing chunks of the comfortable way of life we’re accustomed to (or aspiring to) is a frightening-enough prospect. But there’s no avoiding the current facts and trends of the human and planetary situation. And as the edges of our familiar reality begin to ravel, more and more people are reacting psychologically. A noticeable pattern of behavior is emerging.

We call this pattern the Waking Up Syndrome, and it unfolds in six stages, though not necessarily in any particular order.

Stage 1 - Denial.
When we first get an inkling of the shifting environmental reality and its potential impact on both the national economy and our daily lives, most people begin by denying it. We slip into one of four common ways to discount things we’d rather not deal with:

“I don’t believe it.”
We simply deny the existence of any such concerns and refuse to consider them. This might include latching eagerly onto any few remaining naysayers for confirmation and comfort. But as the number of reputable naysayers dwindles, more people are forced to face the fact that “something” is happening.

“It’s not a problem.”
We may admit there’s a change taking place, but deny that it’s significant, seeing such things as climate change and economic fluctuations as part of a normal pattern that is nothing to concern ourselves with. Or we may incorporate the changes we see happening into our spiritual and religious beliefs, regarding them not as a problem, but a test of faith, a sign of a global spiritual awakening, or evidence of a long-awaited Apocalypse. Some may believe focusing on such problems makes them worse and that we should instead visualize, meditate, or pray for the world to be as we want it to be.

Continued>>>
http://www.hopedance.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=32

[lapfog_1]

1. The real problem is one that was predicted many decades ago

and dismissed as "ivory tower nonsense"...

It's population growth. The world cannot sustain 7 billion people. Especially 7 billion people that see the western lifestyle and aspire to duplicate it in their own countries. The world does not have the resources (oil, food, minerals, and land for wildlife and oxygen production) to sustain even 3 billion people living the "American dream".

We cannot take the United States of, say, 1995... and replicate it 12 times for the entire planet... much less 26 to 30 times for the current population of the world.

A lot of people talk about conservation as the answer... but it's not. If we saved 50 percent of the energy we use by employing every conservation measure known (plus a few that aren't known), in 40 years we will be right back to using the same amount of energy as we do today. And then what?

Population growth will not continue indefinitely... it will come to a halt one way or another.

[chknltl]

2. I am in agreement with you. Over population is our biggest problem.

The bfee may be trying hard to remedy this though. This might explain our use of depleted uranium, (DU), throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bosnia. There may be a nuke strike on Iran, which could be used as an excuse for the future radiation related malformations and deaths due to DU contamination throughout the region.

Over-population 'control' might also explain why there is little hurry to save the innocents of Darfur, or all those refugees from our fiasco in Iraq. There is potential for many millions of deaths between the two.

A stretch but perhaps this may be a reason plagues like Aids or Cancer have yet to be cured. I have even heard an argument that Aids was started for just this very reason...that is a bit too much tin foil for me but I could maybe accept that both Cancer and Aids should have been resolved by now.

It would be interesting to see world-wide population trends graphed out on a time-line stretching back from say the 1960s through 2008. I wonder what impact the bfee has actually had, (if any) on population growth worldwide.

[Karenina]

3. Thirded! Unlimited reproduction is simply unsustainable.

K&R!

[Hannah Bell]

4. The US uses 1/4 of the world's resources. Conservation

certainly would make a big difference, as it did after the 70's oil shocks.

Global births/woman = 2.54. Within 30 years, pop growth is expected to flatline, then decline. 1st-world conservation & 3rd-world development of basics would bridge that gap.