A4 - Friday, November 2, 1984 - North Shore News HAT THE WORLD LOOKS Strictly personal by Bob Hunter Doom doesn't loom LIKE depends entirely — and I do mean entire- ly — on your point of view. In fact, there is a schoof of thought that says what the world ts also depends on your point of view, 1.e. we create the situations we experience. It as) doubly interesting therefore to notice that the environmental pessimism of the 70s 1s gradually giving way, acid rain, the Greenhouse Effect and the Pershing missile notwith- standing, to a public percep- tion that doom doesn’t necessarily loom As an. old gloom-and doomer, | must admit to be- ‘‘Despair, a sense of futility hopelessness — these are all crippling mental Stances.’’ Ce ee ing rather astonished at how much of a turnaround there has been in attitudes about the fate of the earth in the last decade. The simple fact that swarms of people are willing to march even in such peaceful backwaters as Van- couver to. protest nuclear brinkmanship is part of a new-found optimism, rather than despair. AMBLESIDE HOBBIES & CRAFTS Despair, a sense of tutihty, hopelessness — these are al! crippling mental stances. | know because that’s how | used to feel, particularly in the late 60s, early 70s, when, along with everybody else in Our soviety, | began to discover the perils of pollu tion, resource depletion, the general touling of the planetary nest that was tak- ing place. Since then it would seem that the nuclear arms race has escalated, water tables have fallen, the atmosphere has begun to warm, dozens of species of plants as well as animals have gone extinct, and forests and = farmland alike have shrunk, while population has nearly doubl- ed again Optimism? How could anyone be optimistic? This t§ where we return to viewpoint It turns out that for every ecological horror story you can tell me, | can find at least one matching piece of good news to the contrary. If you happen to be bullish on the future, you can see a million good reasons for sleeping well at night, despite the milhon good reasons for tossing and turning. B\ Fridays “th 3 p.m 1425 Marine Or. West.Van 922-3512 open 6 days a week 9:30:- 6 p.m, “A Show of Beauty” Informative Lectures oe caine” deerde a4 Skin Care Studio presents While nuclear stockpiles are up, actual megatonnage 1s down. Population may be “out of control’’, but it does mean more people are simply living longer, and = what's wrong with that? While tour million people are starving in Ethiopia, agricultural experts argue convincingly *° that Afmea alone could be pro- ducing enough tood to teed a world with 10 bilhon people The Giant Panda may be tn trouble ain China, but the alligators have recovered in Florida Anybody who remembers the original Club of Rome ducument, The Limits to Growth, or who read such bleak prophecies as Robert Bacco’s The Coming Dark Age and the Global 2000 Report, put out tn 1980 by the US. Couneal of En- vironmental Quality, un- doubtedly still carries residual nightmares around in his head. A good antidote, | suggest, isa recently-published tome called The Resourceful Earth, edited by Julian L. Simon and the late Herman Kahn. Marshaltling the in- tellects of 27 authors, they come up with a picture of the future about a century from now in which pollution has abated, resources have ac- tually multiphed because new ways have been tound to ex- tract and uulize them, energy sources are infinite, and the world’s population lives even longer, healthier, happier lives In a chapter on world food and agriculture, D. Gayle Johnson of the University of Chicago argues that ‘‘the tood shortage in most Third World countries are purely government-created.’’ The best example 1s India, which went from being a_ basket case tO a net exporter of grain after deciding to pay farmers what their products are worth. In Africa, the real problem is that most countries are dominated by urban political elites which rob the peasants by fixing agricultural prd- ducts at artificially low levels. So the bad news is that these kinds of megaproblems — Starvation, pollution, ex- unction, nuclear arms — are For Responsible and Fair Representation Norm Vipond N.V. District Alderman caused by human stupidity. The good news is that they are caused by human stupidi- ty, because stupid mistakes can almost always be recufied. There is nothing inevitable about apocalypse. And that’s the feeling that I have picked up on in my travels and reading in the last few years. Don’t worry, I'd tell you if | found otherwise. BATTERY SHOT? CHECK IT OFTEN. ANOTHER BCRICIN THE WALL FOR SILVER HARBOUR CENTRE! Provincial government restraint has greatly increased SILVER HARBOUR CENTRE’S need for self-sufficiency. During Silver Harbour Centre Week, Oct. 29th Nov. 3rd: [oust off thease chad Be RIG [ocorveater Chet boo cou North Shore senor brvery dotration bhedps Keep: Salven Maret Coe ret Brvery Gdormor well five Phirtbocrut Coeitre de tire Need rfias Nived flares foioof ofl brates Will oof ba otoc ee trbole '¢ 1 ¢ rypal al Perec lineg: col ape hal torre hk re there rater cope parle om other Mpa sat EN HIG (g Fon ° fot ‘ fe ! fon cay hoy rotor ta cor ’ Ov U eo Af. ' , Moyet ; e Sen ber 3-19 E1 : : n - , mos ro fone Ie mort ' Pemone the BCR, 3pm hes bo Pe ap rations go Way pO Popp Ng ° Retress Tours Sunday November 4 1964 Pe , ents a ee | reo yno ' , MAKING FACES 986-5133 he! 4 HELP BUILD SILVER HARBOUR ‘ yoy CENTRE’S FUTURE! ' foe ‘ net 1 iv \ ob Lonsdate N V 9BO 2474 an