Middle Class Lifestyle: Fatal Environmental Consequences

By Jon Van Loon

This book is conceived as to demonstrate just how deeply embedded the now rapidly growing problems destabilizing our environment are ingrained in the common functions that constitute daily life particularly related to the upper and middle class. These range from our personal life style ritual through the various societal, political, business and other infrastructure that ticks and tocks relentlessly in the course of a typical day worldwide. It is important to stress that this book will likely annoy a large variety of sections of our society and it was designed to do just that. My hope is that the annoyance will be the ‘bur under the saddle’ so to speak that will introduce into our minds the real gravity of our environmental problems. More importantly might this keep concern for the real fundamental problems of maintaining a mankind sustainable biosphere constantly in our thoughts?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Van Loon
• Release date: Nov 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311524324

Jon Van Loon

My life has been complicated by 3 factors. A severe learning disability and a bipolar condition could have easily doomed me to a troubled, non productive existence. However a prodigious unrelenting manic drive was the burr under my saddle that propelled me to unexpected achievement in academia. Of interest here in this regard was that developments in my laboratory at the University of Toronto lead me to opportunities to work, teach and live for short periods in many locations on the 6 continents over a 25 year period. During these intervals, I chose to live in local category accommodation thus maximizing my exposure and participation in parochial experiences. In contrast to the calamitous relationships dogging present world interrelationships my experiences were entirely welcoming and solicitous.I was born in Hamilton Ontario Canada. My interests include jogging and other fitness programs having run in and completed 4 marathons together with numerous 5, 10 and 20 km events. My prowess in sport to say the least was very average. Non-the-less I participated in and then later coached ice hockey both in Canada and Australia. My reward for all this activity is that I have a healthy cardiovascular system and have endured 3 knee replacement operations. Most particularly I have a passion for work related to environmental concerns. In this regard I have 120 peer reviewed research papers in Environmental Chemistry, one of which nearly landing me in jail.

Book preview

Middle Class Lifestyle – Fatal Environmental Consequences

Jon Van Loon

Copyright 2013 Jon Van Loon

Smashwords Edition

Preface

This book is an attempt to demonstrate just how deeply embedded the now rapidly growing problems destabilizing our environment are ingrained in the common functions that constitute daily life particularly related to the upper and middle class. These range from our personal life style ritual through the various societal, political, business and other infrastructure that ticks and tocks relentlessly in the course of a typical day worldwide. Trouble is in these crucial spheres NOBODY REALLY CARES. Think that this is crazy? Please do me the kindness of reading on before passing judgment.

Lest the reader think that I am writing embedded in a democratic political system and that the material herein is a condemnation of this particular ideology; I must firmly at this early stage allay this misconception.

Yes I am a ‘child’ of the democratic system and have headquartered therein. However my pathway throughout my professional days has deposited me in political jurisdictions in many lands. Thereby I was required to interact and work with political systems that ranged from Communist to Dictator to the extreme right wing. I was also exposed to the problems of working among opposing religious entities and sects and could observe the evils that were wrought by colonialism and particularly the disasters this evoked on indigenous populations.

It is important to stress that this book will likely annoy a large variety of sections of our society and it was designed to do just that. My hope is that the annoyance will be the ‘bur under the saddle’ so to speak that will introduce into our minds the real gravity of our environmental problems. More importantly might this keep concern for the real fundamental problems of maintaining a mankind sustainable biosphere constantly in our thoughts?

What is presented here is often linked to the topics and material from my other books. This is essential. The material in these former books covers accurately most of the subject matter crucial to the fate and eventual collapse of a mankind sustainable worldwide ecosystem. Thus their validity holds and can still be recommended to those seeking the straightforward overview of our deteriorating environmental situation. There is also much new material presented and most of the former material is focused on the most culpable determinants and hence reformulated in a manner appropriate for this purpose.

It has recently become frighteningly clear to me just how intimately the significant and often even the seemingly inconsequential aspects of our existing lifestyle has become the driving force of worldwide environmental collapse in the long term. Mankind’s intractable mindset focused on short term wellbeing results in the inability to sense the need make drastic fundamental changes to our current patterns of daily living worldwide and will be our downfall.

What is so disturbing is that ensuring our current wellbeing is such a natural and seemingly humanly commendable practice that even I in my recognition of its pitfalls find myself therein enmeshed. What this suggests to me is that humans may be organisms incapable of or unwilling to unleash the foresight required for effectively sensing the essentials to protract our existence on this planet. Even assuming this foresight exists humans also appear powerless to make the fundamental change.

The argument presented above is the abstract of our present dilemma. This manuscript must now delineate using well recognized examples of mankind’s current daily living and the establishment shortcomings that prove these contentions. The latter are in large part direct consequences of having been shaped by middle class public demand.

Here and there will appear personal stories illustrate of my own worldwide experiences related to the points I am attempting to make. These have both the frustrating facts plus they have not been altered and contain material that makes them feel more humanly interesting and even at times amusing.

My approach as usual will to keep statistics to a minimum in a subject where such material can be overwhelming. When it is necessary to use data Instead of quoting single sources it is my habit to survey the material in several reliable sources and crunching said material to provide representative values. Here and there at the head of topics will be a 1 line statistic. These come from www.worldometers.info/ which is a unique, real time data free reference website that covers important topics such as Population Count, Environment, Energy, Health, Food and Water. It is owned by Dadax with Sir Thomasson as Chief Project Coordinator and is run by an international team of developers, researchers and volunteers, with no political, governmental or corporate affiliations. The quoted data are rounded figures for Nov 7 2013

Introduction

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself (The Long Goodbye-Raymond Chandler, Hamish Hamilton Press, 1953). I would like to paraphrase this cogent quote as follows because it so well describes the essence of the environmental disaster that we are about to enter. Thus I would say ‘There is no trap so environmentally deadly as that which we have been unremittingly setting for ourselves’.

We live in an already overpopulated world and this destabilizing fact together with the flow of technology, its consequences largely untested, citizens have evolved lifestyles both here and abroad that are largely environmentally unfriendly. The trap is that there is little we can now do of consequence quickly enough to reverse the problems that will surely lead to a worldwide biosphere unsuitable for the preservation of mankind.

My challenge in this treatise is to demonstrate the truth of this thesis. I sincerely hope someone can prove me wrong.

My Credentials

I possess a double major BSc degree in Geology and Chemistry and a PhD in Chemistry. Thereafter I became a Full Professor at the University of Toronto and was cross-appointed to 3 divisions, the Departments of Geology, and Chemistry and The Institute for Environmental Studies. In the case of The Institute of Environmental Studies I am a founding member. In addition I was involved closely with guiding graduate students in the Department of Botany.

My research team was focused mainly towards environmental chemistry. But a factor that really broadened my perspective relating to environmental problems was being a contributing member of several multidisciplinary teams that studied and produced recommendations that related to a broad range of environmental problems. As examples those teams included ‘The Lakeshore Capacity Study’ and the ‘Toronto Lead Study’.

As a result of research from all these sources I published over 150 Peer reviewed research papers and 6 research text books. In this regard it is important to acknowledge the contribution to these publications the efforts of a variety of talented co-workers and co-authors.

I must stress 3 factors of greatest import to the content of this book.

Firstly, the multidisciplinary teams at the Institute for Environmental Sciences having been formulated from a large pool of world ranking professors typical of a university the size and high standing of the University of Toronto provided an unusually authoritative perspective on environmental problems. These studies involved such abroad range of disciplines including not only all relevant branches of pure science and engineering but also for example medics, economists, sociologists and lawyers. Thus it provided a uniquely capacious educational perspective to all members and an important opportunity to view, discuss and report on environmental problems in a uniquely comprehensive and meaningful manner. I should add that a group in the university setting has the important advantage over similar groups formed in governments and at worldwide agencies of being relatively free from partisan political pressure as well as lacking undue influence from lobbyists and other especial interest groups.

Secondly, I was accorded the rare experience of for short periods of time living and working in a variety of jurisdictions on 6 Continents worldwide. This came about because of the development within my own research group of unique relatively inexpensive equipment and uncomplicated methodology for chemical determination of particularly noxious metals and their compounds in complex environmental and clinical samples. My involvement in these instances was sponsored by various scientific bodies, UNESCO and the World Bank.

Thirdly, it was my passion to avoid living in typical North American accommodation such as that provided by the well-known mega hotels that abounded in the larger cities. Thus I insisted that I should stay in accommodation, usually small local hotels, to maximize my exposure to the people and practices of each location. This occasioned not only these desired objectives but resulted in amusing and sometimes heartrending stories some that I have written about separately in a widely available free eBook entitled Brief Encounters with Real Life

Chapter 1

Perspective

Time Log of Earth History and Mankind’s Miniscule but Terribly Destructive Interval Herein

When we think about the time frame over which we can maintain a sustainable biosphere in which mankind can live with a good quality of life are we thinking in terms of millions, 100 of thousands, 10 of thousands, thousands or hundreds of years or possibly even less? One thing can be predicted with certainty without drastic changes in middle and upper class lifestyle and in areas such as economic, political and social practices such conditions cannot be maintainable for very much longer.

Let’s remember that the age of the earth is in the 5 billion year range. In round numbers and ignoring the many existing disputes modern Homo sapiens (us) have been around for no more than about 200,000 years, Hominids in general about 4 million years. But it dates back to only to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1830 and a world population of only about 1 billion, when modern man began the evolution to what we are today. So in less than 200 years and a phenomenal increase in population to 7 billion in 2012, we have raped the earth of vast quantities of resources and in doing so have caused desperate environmental problems, social and economic inequities and damage. Now this population of 7 million and still increasing, depleting resources at ever increasing