In our time humankind is surely experiencing the fulfillment of a Chinese proverb: “We live in interesting times.” Many of our brilliant scientists report that God is a delusion. On the other hand, intuitive and gifted believers regularly tell us that these scientists themselves suffer from a form of delusional atheism. No one knows, I suppose, which of these groups is correct.

I am one of those people who believes the family of humanity can use God’s gift of science to take the measure of any global challenge and find solutions that are consonant with universal values. But, before we can move forward to reasonably address and sensibly overcome a challenge to human wellbeing and environmental health such as global warming, that challenge needs to be openly acknowledged and widely discussed. I suppose it is a function of my life experience to suggest that we accurately ‘diagnose’ whatever the challenge is before proceeding to implement ‘treatment’ options.

If great spiritual and scientific leaders are somehow on the right track when realizing, “The Earth has a human-induced fever and could overheat,” then at least one available treatment option is to carefully and skillfully examine the extant scientific evidence related to global warming and to make necessary changes in human behavior, both individually and collectively.

All of the above serves to set the stage for our consideration of a question. How can politicians and economic powerbrokers in the human community be empowered to muster the “political will” necessary for addressing human-driven climate change as well as for providing the substantial economic incentives and financial capital necessary to overcome this potential global threat to life as we know it and the integrity of Earth?

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

Humankind inhabits a tiny celestial orb that is miraculously set among of sea of stars. As far as we know, life as we know it exists nowhere else in the Universe. In the light of these circumstances, perhaps we of the human family have the responsibility of assuring the security for the future of life in our planetary home.

April 22nd is Earth Day. Our many Earth Day celebrations focus attention on the pressing need for human beings to protect and preserve the finite resources of Earth and its frangible ecosystems. If we fail to achieve this goal, then an unimaginably bleak future awaits our children.

If 6+ billion human beings live on Earth now and 9+ billion are expected to populate our small planet by 2050, then we simply cannot keep doing what we are doing now because the Earth has limited resources upon which all forms of life and human constructions like national economies utterly depend for existence. Without adequate resources and ecosystem system services of Earth, life as we know it and human institutions would collapse.

Now, some portion of the world’s human population conspicuously over-consumes the resources of our planetary home. Other people, in charge of huge multinational conglomerations, are doing business in a way that recklessly dissipates natural resources at a rate that these resources cannot be restored for human benefit. Still others in the human family are overpopulating the planet. The leviathan-like scale and rapid growth of global human consumption, production and propagation activities are putting the Earth, life as we know it, and the human community in grave, clear and present danger.

Since Chapel Hillians live in the overdeveloped world, we are among the people who are ravenously over-consuming Earth’s resources. We could choose to consume less. People in the developing could choose to limit overproduction of unnecessary things and contain industrial pollution. People in the underdeveloped world could limit their number of offspring. Perhaps these are ways the family of humanity begins to respond ably to the human-induced global challenges that loom so ominously before humanity in our time.

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

The chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change was in Raleigh last month to speak at the Emerging Issues Forum and to receive a six-figure award for his distinguished service.

My good fortune was to join the panel chairman, Rajendra K. Pachauri, and others for a reception-luncheon in his honor on Feb. 11 at N.C. State University. Here is what I learned from this great man.

The family of humanity appears not to have much time in which to make necessary changes in its conspicuous over-consumption lifestyles, in the unsustainable overproduction practices of its big-business enterprises, and its overpopulation activities. Humankind may not be able to protect life as we know it and preserve the integrity of Earth much longer.

If we project the anticipated growth of unbridled per-capita consumption, rampantly expanding economic globalization, and 70 million to 75 million newborns annually, then human civilization and life as we know could be put at risk soon.

According to my admittedly simple estimations, if humankind keeps doing just as it is doing now, without doing whatsoever is necessary to begin modifying the business-as-usual course of our gigantic global political economy, Earth could sustain life as we know it for a relatively short period of time.

Unfortunately, top rank scientists have not found adequate ways of communicating to humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the dissipation of Earth’s limited resources, the degradation of Earth’s frangible environment, and the destruction of Earth’s body as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, appear to be proceeding toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world’s colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic ‘wall’ called “unsustainability” at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth’s ecology is collapsed.

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

Scientific evidence is springing up everywhere that indicates the massive and pernicious impact of the human species on the limited resources of Earth, its frangible ecosystems and life as we know it.

Guided by mountains of carefully and skillfully developed research regarding climate change, top rank scientists issued a Code Red emergency declaration this month to leaders of governments and to the family of humanity proclaiming the necessity for open discussion and action by politicians and economic powerbrokers.

From my humble perspective, many leaders of the global political economy are turning a blind eye to human over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities that can be seen recklessly dissipating the natural resources and dangerously degrading the environs of our planetary home. The Earth is being ravaged; but it appears many leaders are willfully refusing to acknowledge what is happening.

Because the emerging global challenges that could soon be presented to humanity appear to so many fine scientists as human-induced, leaders have responsibilities to assume and duties to perform, ready or not, like them or not.

Perhaps leadership in our time has too often chosen to ignore whatsoever is somehow real in order to believe whatever is politically convenient, economically expedient, socially agreeable, religiously tolerated and culturally prescribed. When something real directly conflicts with what leaders wish to believe, that reality is denied. It appears that too many leaders are content to hold tightly to widely shared and consensually validated specious thinking when it serves their personal interests.

Is humanity once again finding life as we know it dominated by a modern Tower of Babel called economic globalization? That is, has human thinking, judging and willing become so grievously impaired by our idolatry of the artificially designed, manmade, global political economy that we cannot see or speak intelligibly about anything else except economic growth and profits without sounding like blithering idiots?

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

The leaders in my generation apparently wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, increasing per capita consumption of scarce resources and skyrocketing human population numbers worldwide; their desires are evidently insatiable; they choose to believe anything that meet the ’standards’ for political convenience and economic expediency; and they act accordingly. But, despite all their widely shared and consensually validated specious ideas and soon to be unsustainable production, consumption and propagation activities, Earth exists in space-time, is relatively small and bounded, and has limited resources upon which the survival of life as we know it depends. Whatsoever is is, is it not?

What worries me is this: the elder guarantors of a good enough future for the children appear to be leading our kids down a “primrose path” along which the children could unexpectedly be confronted with sudden, potentially colossal threats to human and environmental health that are directly derived from human-driven, converging global challenges such as pernicious impacts of global warming and climate change, pollution of the air, water and land from microscopic particulates and solid waste, and the reckless dissipation of scarce natural resources. All the while, the leading elders remain in denial of the fulminating ecological degradation by willfully declining to acknowledge, much less begin to address, humanity’s emerging, human-induced predicament. One day, perhaps sooner rather than later, our children could have extraordinary difficulties responding ably to that with which they could soon come face to face; that is to say, because their elders have so adamantly refused to recognize God’s great gift of good science, our kids will not even know what “hit” them, much less why it is happening.

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

Congratulations are due Nobel Prize Winner, Al Gore. By raising awareness of the scientific consensus on climate change, he favors a good enough future for our children. At least to me, the “powers that be” are in denial of reality and unwilling to openly and honorably express their understanding of Al Gore’s concerns with regard to the ominous human predicament that is looming before the human community. That many too many politicians and economic powerbrokers adamantly support the soon to become unsustainable global enterprise of endless big-business expansion, does not favor our children’s well-being or safety, I believe. These leaders appear to have pledged their primary allegiance and reverent devotion to the short-term ‘successes’ of unbridled economic globalization, regardless of the long-term potential for catastrophe that such a recklessly unrestrained and unrealistic pursuit portends. For leaders to conspicuously ignore the carefully and skillfully obtained scientific consensus on climate change and global warming, in particular, is incomprehensible.

Plainly, what is necessary now is clarity of vision, intellectual honesty and courage as well as a willingness among leaders to begin “centering” their attention on the distinct probability of threat(s) to humanity that is posed by the gigantic scale and patently unsustainable growth rate of the over consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities of the human population worldwide in our time.

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

Bravo to Winston Kirby for his CHN letter of August 8th, “Candidates ignore pressing problems”. Many too many politicians and corporate CEOs are ignominiously disregarding consistent and overwhelming scientific evidence of global warming and other pernicious forms of climate change. Everyone understands the importance of technology in addressing global problems that are looming before humanity. What is woefully inadequate, what is unconscionable, is the dearth of reasonable and sensible leadership by those who have assumed positions of power in the political economy. Business-as-usual that adamantly and relentlessly favors unbridled industrialization and unrestrained economic globalization could be approaching a point in history when the huge scale and rapid growth rate of endlessly expanding business activities become patently unsustainable on a relatively small, finite, noticeably frangible planet the size of Earth.

Perhaps now is the time for national leaders to follow the wisdom of Mr. Kirby by at least acknowledging “a nest of world problems,” the reality of which most leaders remain in denial. Given the probability that certain clearly identifiable global problems can be expected to fall into the laps of our kids, it appears somehow not quite right both to willfully leave these problems unattended and, even more disturbing, to fail in the exercise of our duty to warn the children: a duty to warn them of potential dangers to life as we know it and to the integrity of Earth.

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Steve Salmony
Chapel Hill

May 27 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson, a woman of distinction who is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and brave scientists in modern history.

Some people have called Carson the mother of the contemporary environmental movement. She could rightly be compared to other great 20th-century women like Rosa Parks, the mother of the racial equality movement, or to Maria Montessori, a mother to teachers of children.

If, as Carson and so many other great scientists have courageously held forth, human beings evolved on Earth (did not descend from heaven or come here from some other place in the universe) and the emerging data of the environmental destruction of the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit are somehow on the right track, then humanity could soon confront daunting global challenges.

Scientific research from Chapel Hill’s very own Russell P. Hopfenberg indicates population scientists, demographers and economists in our time could be widely sharing and consensually validating inadequate understandings of the way the world in which we live works. By so doing, they appear to have failed to appreciate and communicate to the human community the necessity for regulating certain global human “overgrowth” activities. That is to say, humanity could soon be presented with an unacknowledged, unannounced and abhorrent predicament produced by increasing and unchecked per capita consumption of limited resources, seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities in a finite world, and unbridled species propagation.

Perhaps these unrestrained activities are occurring synergistically at a scale and growth rate that result in the needless loss of wildlife and wilderness, the reckless consumption of scarce resources, and the pernicious destabilization of the global ecosystems.

Huge and leviathan-like are the potential threats posed to humanity by certain unregulated, distinctly human consumption, production and propagation activities now overspreading our planetary home. Even so, we can take the measure of whatsoever the looming global challenges and find solutions to our problems that are consonant with universally shared values.

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Steve Salmony
Chapel Hill

Each human culture presents its many members with knowledge of reality and with longstanding, adamantly held perceptions that are illusory. For example, unverified cultural transmissions can give rise to widely shared distortions of the world whenever mistaken impressions are consensually validated as if they represent what is real.

In these instances, humans ubiquitously emit culturally biased and scientifically unsupported communications that confuse human reasoning and often promote a certain cortical conceitedness that is not useful in acquiring an understanding of the practical requirements of reality.

Over long time periods, preternatural ideas are passed down from generation to generation, with an unintended result. Distorted perceptions of reality are shared among people, thereby confounding the efforts of humanity to share an adequate awareness of what is real.

When good science emerges, it is initially disturbing because the new science usually challenges well-established but unrealistic ideas about what it means to be human, the “placement” of the human species within the natural order of living things, and the requirements of biophysical reality. New scientific facts of this particular kind are uniformly difficult for people to see because unexpected data expose hubris to view by the human species.

Since humans are shaped early and pervasively by a superabundance of culturally derived transmissions in our perception of reality, it becomes an evolutionary challenge for human beings to see the world as it is and to gain knowledge of the human species as one of many miraculous creatures to inhabit so wondrous a planetary home as Earth.

When a scientist-practitioner of psychology such as myself thinks a patient is suffering from mental illness, that determination is an evidence-based clinical judgment. However, cultural standards of normalcy are not as carefully and rigorously developed as are clinical judgments, but instead are casually agreed upon and promulgated as social norms and conventions that include scientifically validated perceptions of reality as well as misperceptions of what is real.

Because some distorted impressions of the world are valued by those who share them, these misperceptions are readily passed from member to member within a culture, among both peers and the generations.

Deeply disturbed mental patients distort reality so drastically that their incorrect impressions of reality do not become established by being passed along to other people. By contrast, “normal” people in instrumentalities of governance, social organizations and cultures appear not to misperceive reality so sharply, yet distortions of what aggregations of normal people perceive do remain.

A term of art in psychology is useful here, folie a deux. The term means that two people share an identical distortion of reality. This understanding leads to other terms, folie a deux million for a government agency or political party, folie a deux cent million for a social order or folie a deux billion for a culture. These terms refer to misperceived aspects of reality held and commonly shared by many people of a government, a society or a culture.

At least one way to define the highest standard of normalcy for people in these aggregates is in terms of being able to adequately distinguish what is illusory from what is in scientific fact real.

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill

Time magazine’s Person of the Year is YOU. That’s right. You and me and every other person on the planet have been chosen as “person of the year” in 2006. We are becoming aware of people power, we are told.

This could mean that almost 6.6 billion human beings have been picked because all of us comprise an extraordinary force of nature within the world in which we live. The magazine article reports a de-emphasis of the “great man theory” of history in favor of a recognition that a large mammal species with so many members and so much influence is worthy of high status.

This favorable notice is long overdue. However, such belated awareness of the powerful global presence of 6-plus billion humans is not a fact about which we can simply take pride. The unbridled growth of certain distinctly human activities of Homo sapiens overspreading the Earth looms ominously before humankind on the far horizon and could soon pose profound challenges for humanity.

The unregulated growth of absolute global human population numbers could literally overwhelm the limited resources and ecosystem services the Earth provides to humankind for its benefit. Because we have adequate knowledge that the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit is finite.

The current scale and rate of growth of per-human consumption in the United States alone has passed beyond “conspicuous consumption” and now approaches the obscene. If the undeveloped countries of the world were to follow the U.S. example of increasing and unrestrained per capita consumption of natural resources, scientific data indicate that before the close of the first half of the 21st century the human population worldwide can be expected to dissipate those resources to the point when our species will be literally “eating itself out of house and home.”

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Steven Earl Salmony
Chapel Hill