Opinion Uncategorized #BTColumn – Ignorance is bliss Barbados Today Traffic21/11/20210259 views The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY. by Peter Webster “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. – Martin Luther King Republic is coming“Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy and ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance.” – John Rohn “Nothing in all of the World is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” – Martin Luther King Archaeological evidence indicates that since creation, big bang or otherwise, there have been five “ice ages”, the last ice age being 11,800 years ago, with lots of glacial periods in between. In other words, our planet’s environment has cycled unassisted between warm and cold with lots of global warming and climate change in between. So what is new? This time around our planet has almost 8 billion people inhabiting it that were not here before and the population graph continues to grow on a straight line despite all of the prophesies to the contrary. We the people have desecrated our pristine planet with “stinkeroos” scattered around like pimples on a golf ball, millions of tons of plastics in our oceans, 4 million tons of faeces flushed down our toilets daily (out of sight out of mind) and 10 million tons of “manure” produced daily by the animals being grown to feed us. So we focus instead on fossil fuels – a diversion! Can our planet heal itself this time around? Not likely! There is an even bigger question hanging over our heads. How long can we continue to feed a growing population (10 billion by 2050) with little unused or underused cultivable land left to exploit. It is now taking an average of 0.22 hectares (or half an acre) of intensively cultivated crops to feed each person on our planet. Barbados has less than 0.06 hectares of cultivable land per person and can no longer feed itself. The United Nations says that 1 per cent of the world’s population is already experiencing hunger and that the “crunch” is coming when the World will not be able to feed itself. The average individual does not seem to be able to conceive the massive amounts of food currently being consumed on an annual basis: Sugar 185 million tons; Wheat 780 million tons; Rice 510 million tons; and Potatoes 380 million tons; just to mention a few, all of which must be increased by 25 per cent by 2050. Yet none of the reports emanating from the recently concluded COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland even has the slightest reference to the underlying cause of our environmental problems – the planet’s growing population which already surpasses the likely maximum sustainable amount. All of our leaders still seem to be continuing to support “growth” which is nothing short of madness. Round and round we go…..our planet. Barbados has less than 0.06 hectares of cultivable land per person and can no longer feed itself. The United Nations says that 1 per cent of the world’s population is already experiencing hunger and that the “crunch” is coming when the World will not be able to feed itself. The average individual does not seem to be able to conceive the massive amounts of food currently being consumed on an annual basis: Sugar 185 million tons; Wheat 780 million tons; Rice 510 million tons; and Potatoes 380 million tons; just to mention a few, all of which must be increased by 25 per cent by 2050. Yet none of the reports emanating from the recently concluded COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland even has the slightest reference to the underlying cause of our environmental problems – the planet’s growing population which already surpasses the likely maximum sustainable amount. All of our leaders still seem to be continuing to support “growth” which is nothing short of madness. Round and round we go…..