Polymath Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) wrote in 1950 that the best we can hope for the role of progress is that "our attempts to progress in the face of overwhelming necessity may have the purging terror of Greek tragedy." [America's] resources seemed inexhaustible [in 1500] … However, the existence of the new lands encouraged an attitude not unlike that of Alice's Mad Tea party. When the tea and cakes were exhausted at one seat, the natural thing … was to move on and occupy the next seat. … As time passed, the tea table of the Americas had proved not to be inexhaustible … What many of us fail to realize is that the last four hundred years are a highly special period in the history of the world. … This is partly the result of increased communication, but also of an increased mastery of nature which, on a limited planet like the earth, may prove in the long run to be an increased slavery to nature. (Wiener, 1950)

The fifth revolution will come when we have spent the stores of coal and oil that have been accumulating in the earth during hundreds of millions of years. … It is to be hoped that before then other sources of energy will have been developed, … but without considering the detail [here] it is obvious that there will be a very great difference in ways of life. … Whether a convenient substitute for the present fuels is found or not, there can be no doubt that there will have to be a great change in ways of life. This change may justly be called a revolution, but it differs from all the preceding ones in that there is no likelihood of its leading to increases of population, but even perhaps to the reverse. (Darwin, 1953)

It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only. (Sir Fred Hoyle, 1964)

Perhaps the most widespread evil is the Western view of man and nature. Among us, it is widely believed that man is apart from nature, superior to it; indeed, evolution is a process to create man and seat him on the apex of the cosmic pinnacle. He views the earth as a treasury that he can plunder at will. And, indeed, the behavior of Western people, notably since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, gives incontrovertible evidence to support this assertion. (Ian McHarg, 1971)

Oh really? Please drop by later. Thank you

The EF of the world average back in 1999 was 2.3 hectares per person (dry land) or 20% above the earth's biological capacity of 1.9 hectares per person. Don't worry we can survive temporarily by eating everything in sight and, for example, using up all of the trees as well as any of the other available resources. (I'm leaving oil out of this pretty picture - the fun is yet to come....). Neither of these activities are what we call sustainable in the long term - what we could term as grandchildren for example.

Let's look quickly at our "effort" grades. Hmmm. We humans are moving away fom achieving our minimum requirement for sustainability - not toward it. The global ecological footprint has grown from about 70% in 1961 to about 120% in 1999. For the future we're talking anywhere in the 180% to 220% value by the year 2050. Uh Oh!

Teachers' Comments:Of course, it is very unlikely that the Earth would be able to run an ecological overdraft for another 50 years without some severe ecological backlashes undermining future population and economic growth (and I don't mean money here!). But I think it would be far better to control our own destiny than to leave it to big bad mother nature. If we are to return to a sustainable developmental pathway, it means making changes in four fundamental ways. First, it is necessary to improve the resource efficiency with which goods and services are produced. Second, we must consume resources more efficiently, and redress the disparity in consumption between high and low income countries (Whatever that might mean). Third, population growth must be controlled through promoting universal education and health care. And finally, it is imperative that we protect, manage and restore natural ecosystems in order to conserve biodiversity and maintain ecological services, and so conserve and enhance the planet's biological productivity, for the benefit of both the present and future generations of all living things.

Let's all relax. Living is easy and a lot of fun. It's a simple thing to fill up our cars with a large amount of inexpensive gasoline. We can venture wherever we wish. Keep that in mind.

It is certainly hard to deny that all things do not live - or their offspring - all of the time. What happened to them? Why did they die prematurely – in such a way that they have now officially not existed any further. I specifically do not want to sound morbid or in any way to disparage our own lives or, perhaps, our very influence about our very existence.

According to the various scientific general knowledge, the scientists have identified five major extinction events or periods in this earth’s entire history. In a major portion of these identified extinction periods were so severe that greater than 90 percent of all life forms were killed off or have died by so-called “natural” events. The last such extinction type thing occurred in what is called the Cretaceous-Tertiary time period which was about 63 million years ago that managed to kill off most of the dinosaurs. In fact, short of nasty green things that float about in your given marsh, there just aren’t any more of these dinosaur things. A popular potential problem that killed all of them was a big rock known as an asteroid that was hurled through space and landed smack in the middle of our world and that was that.

The causes of the other major extinctions are not well understood because we just don’t understand many things in detail. A lot of our knowledge is comprised of tiny little rocks that come from the ground known as fossils. The largest extinction ended the Permian epoch as few as 250 million years ago. Apparently about 4% of living things continued and prolonged the Earth’s history. There were three more extinction periods that were known even less about: The Ordovician of 435 million years ago; the Devonian – 357 million and the famous Triassic of a little as 198 million years ago.

There are reasons for our current extinction thingy – do we know why? I believe that we do.

Of the 250,000 vascular plant species, 170,000 are tropical endemics. In the U.S., states with the highest plant richness, except for Hawaii, which has the second highest number of endemics but the fourth lowest number of native plant species. This high degree of endemism is a direct consequence of Hawaii's intense isolation, which has enabled unique and complex ecosystems that include large numbers of endemics to evolve. Because the endemics on oceanic islands have evolved in relative isolation over thousands of years, the are particularly vulnerable to change wrought by humans and introduced species.

More than a third of the native plants of the Hawaiian islands are currently at the risk of extinction.

And what about the poor Nene.

A selected scientist following the zoologist and geochemist strategy by the name of paul Martin (University of Arizona) says," We are in the middle of a sixth extinction event with the expanding role in the world of human beings."

Stuart Pimm, an ecologist as Duke University, said in Science that the British study results " show that we have likely underestimated the magnitude of the pending extinctions."

Scientists have pointed to the hundreds of species, most large animals and birds, that already are gone, some wiped out directly through human action.

Martin said the fossil records show that the disappearance of many animals in Australia, Madagascar and North America started about the time that humans arrived at those sites. Gone from the natural North American environment, for example, are mammoths, camels, giant sloths and saber-toothed tigers.

For tens of millions of years there were much larger animals on this continent. We have to settle now for deer, antelope and bison. But there was much more before humans came.

When it comes to it, if there is x amount of space for everything. The "we" is the what or the whom will have the choices to space and food and reproductivity. More on this later.

The final point is that this is just an incredibly horrible disaster for the earth. None of this is news. None of this is all history now either. We all should know. What we want to do anything about it is, well, nothing spectacular. The following is a minute collection of the creatures which are soon to be existless. I don't have enough time or space to picture the so-called probably doomed. Does it matter that some of the following are actually the cuter ones? My answer is: Not in the least. They are apparently no longer of our concern. I won't even mention that our ocean living existence is disappearing rapidly as well. Now, there is something that does concern us. Why?

African Wild Dog, Asian Elephants, Bats, Black Footed Ferret, Blue Whales, Bowhead Whales, Burrowing Owls, California Condors, Chatham Island Taiko, Cheetahs, Dama Gazelles, Dhole, Eastern Tiger Salamanders, Elf Owls, Ethiopian Wolves, Florida Panthers, Gorillas, Humpback Whales, Hyacinth Macaws, Jaguars, Kakapo, Kermode Bears, Loggerhead Shrikes, Manatees, Mangabeys, Nile Crocodiles, Numbats, Orangutans, Pandas, Phillippine Eagles, Prairie Chickens, Proboscis Monkeys, Prosimians, Pupfish, Quolls, Red Colobus Monkeys, Red Wolves, Rhinoceroses, Saimaa Ringed Seal, Salmon, Sawfish, Sea Otters, Sea Turtles, Snow Leopards, Spotted Owl, Swift Foxes, Tapirs, Tasmanian Devils, Thorny Devils, Tigers, Vancouver Island Marmot, Vicuñas, Whooping Cranes

There is one animal that does favor excellent chances for its extended life. I will feature that one in my final series piece. After that let's get back to the fun first.

These movie get togethers happen each and every Saturday and Sunday evenings. In this particular instance, our gang was joined and hosted by a couple of older guys with last names that I believe hearing were Hynson and August and were happily saying that they had partly worked to bring us the new movie - Step Into Liquid - and that they were all pleased to be part of the indicated sport.

I and a few others around me did remember those old guys. I am something of a sprite myself but I do some surfing and I do remember circa 1966 when these guys brought out their own movie called Endless Summer and I do remember that theirs was a great movie. What can I say? There weren't any other movies of their kind with which to compare themselves... Hmmm.

The only thing that I have ever noticed about the difference in the people occupying the beach seats and those in more plush theatres is very strange but simultaneously very noticeable. For the most part - none of the local Hawaiians have left any litter behind themselves on the beach. Would I rather spend a lot of money to attend a more plush entertainment on my Saturday night together with the common knowledge that trash can be left behind on the floor. My obvious answer is that there isn't anything that I can find anywhere any more fun than I am having right here.

Curiously, children growing up in Hawaii were in the presence of some of the best wave structures that are available in the whole world and always on just the other side of their front doors.

It is certainly hard to deny that all things do not live - or their offspring - all of the time. What happened to them? Why did they die prematurely – in such a way that they have now officially not existed any further. I specifically do not want to sound morbid or in any way to disparage our own lives or, perhaps, our very influence about our very existence. Let’s get started summarily because, maybe there is a clue. (This paper is still in progress. Oh rats)

According to the various scientific general knowledge, the scientists have identified five major extinction events or periods in this earth’s entire history. In a major portion of these identified extinction periods were so severe that greater than 90 percent of all life forms were killed off or have died by so-called “natural” events. The last such extinction type thing occurred in what is called the Cretaceous-Tertiary time period which was about 63 million years ago that managed to kill off most of the dinosaurs. In fact, short of nasty green things that float about in your given marsh, there just aren’t any more of these dinosaur things. A popular potential problem that killed all of them was a big rock known as an asteroid that was hurled through space and landed smack in the middle of our world and that was that.

The causes of the other major extinctions are not well understood because we just don’t understand many things in detail. A lot of our knowledge is comprised of tiny little rocks that come from the ground known as fossils. The largest extinction ended the Permian epoch as few as 250 million years ago. Apparently about 4% of living things continued and prolonged the Earth’s history. There were three more extinction periods that were known even less about: The Ordovician of 435 million years ago; the Devonian – 357 million and the famous Triassic of a little as 198 million years ago.

Well, that preamble is about it for now. Yes, I will continue and my story will become part of my latest very unpopular series. That being what it is, have a great day. You see (and a lot feel) that the period of the sixth major extinction in the world is happening right now. Yep, we’re all part of it. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

There are reasons for our current extinction thingy – do we know why? I believe that we do.

What is that little number at the bottom of that picture? Is that number correct?

When that number reaches zero, will George Dubya’s picture go away and will he find some other job consequently? Distressingly I can not guarantee anything toward that ongoing hope. But, yes, I do guarantee that that particular photograph will disappear.

Well , let’s see. That number is the actual count of days until Jan 20, 2005. The 20th amendment to the American Constitution specifies that the term of each elected President of the United States begins at noon on January 20 of the year following the election. Each president must take the oath of office before assuming the duties of the position.

Preceding our last witness to the debauch in the year 2001, that same inauguration oath has taken place 68 different times by some 43 presidents of the United States. It all seems to have taken place on the 20th of January except on the rare occasions when that date occurred on a Sunday. I rest assured that this date will fall on a Thursday.

Does it matter that the population elects one president but that president is lawfully actually elected by the American electoral whose votes are somehow not connected directly to the population’s popular or should I say decisive vote? Why yes, apparently that scenario has occurred once in the past. Should I worry about that kind of thing happening a lot?

Let’s all wonder about that....

P.S. I am aware that those of you who have entered a zero for the “days left” number and have complained that there is still a border left. Please be patient – I will erase that annoying frame as well.