Whole generations grew up with the images brought to us by marine explorer Jacques Cousteau, as he introduced new worlds to a global audience. Today his work and legacy live on in the Cousteau Society.
For almost fifty years now there has been a debate about pollution, climate change, overpopulation, over-consumption and whether or not we are bringing doom upon ourselves. It began as a whisper, but now the swell of voices is rising, and in the virtual absence of corporate and governmental action, more and more people – among them the young who will inherit the earth from us – are trying to force change. At the core of this movement is the admittance that, regardless of whether or not we are causing global warming, we are turning this beautiful planet into a gigantic garbage heap.
Parks were first created to offer much-needed green spaces and absorb city pollution. As the world’s urban centres grow ever larger and space is at a premium, we need to come up with new solutions to a growing smog and air quality problem.
Among the many creatures that have lived on this planet, humans are unique in that they not only tamed the wild and created large urban societies, but increasingly we are having an impact on the very fabric of the earth itself – and it’s not always for the better.
Words: Michel Cruz
When it comes to the ‘human planet’ we hear all sorts of things, many of them foreboding and some even seemingly contradictory – like there is too little space, too much development, that the population is exploding and the natural environment slowly dying, but also that the population is greying, that we’re not having enough children to replace ourselves. We consume and pollute too much, we are/are not contributing to global warming, that there is no global warming, that we will all have to work to 70 and beyond yet artificial intelligence will take our jobs away. We’re depleting the earth’s resources, that there will be land and water wars to replace today’s oil wars, that there is unemployment yet the labour force is shrinking. More immigration means economic growth but also more unemployment, and occasionally even that decades of overpopulation and over-exploitation have taken us to the cusp of a demographic collapse brought on by environmental decay and epidemics. (more…)
In an age when we desperately need visionaries to lead the way, Elon Musk is a multidisciplinary engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and futurist with the drive to do what today’s politicians can’t – change the world for the better.
Words: Michel Cruz
There have always been visionaries and inventors, from Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo to Jules Verne, but more than anyone else today South African-born Elon Musk is the renaissance man of the hour. This is an era where we look in vain to our leaders for answers to the pressing environmental, social and economic issues that beset humanity. Decade upon decade, there is no change, no action and no transparency. We seem to be locked in an ever-increasing spiral of uncontrolled technology development that has the potential to disrupt our economic system and the fabric of society. Global warming, population growth, pollution, growing disparity in wealth and the rise of artifiial intelligence are the spectres that stare us in the face, yet they are barely addressed by those in power. (more…)
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