By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — So what’s the biggest time-bomb for Obama, America, capitalism, the world? No, not global warming. Not poverty. Not even peak oil. What is the absolute biggest, one like the trigger mechanism on a nuclear bomb, one that’ll throw a wrench in global economic growth, ending capitalism, even destroying modern civilization?

The one that — if not solved soon — renders all efforts to solve all the other problems in the world, irrelevant, futile and virtually impossible?

News flash: the “Billionaires Club” knows: Bill Gates called billionaire philanthropists to a super-secret meeting in Manhattan last May. Included: Buffett, Rockefeller, Soros, Bloomberg, Turner, Oprah and others meeting at the “home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan,” reports John Harlow in the London TimesOnline. During an afternoon session each was “given 15 minutes to present their favorite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests.”

The world’s biggest time-bomb? Overpopulation, say the billionaires.

And yet, global governments with their $50 trillion GDP, aren’t even trying to solve the world’s overpopulation problem. G-20 leaders ignore it. So by 2050 the Earth’s population will explode by almost 50%, from 6.6 billion today to 9.3 billion says the United Nations.

And what about those billionaires and their billions? Can they stop the trend? Sadly no. Only a major crisis, a global catastrophe, a collapse beyond anything prior in world history will do it. Here’s why:

Civilizations collapse fast, crises trigger, leaders clueless

“One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse,” warns Jared Diamond, an environmental biologist, Pulitzer prize winner and author of “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Many “civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power.”

Other voices are darker, shrill: “We’re past the point of no return.” “It’s already too late.” “The end is near.” As with Rome’s collapse, it happens fast. Clueless leaders are caught off-guard, like Greenspan, Bernanke and Paulson a couple years ago.

Call it “WWIII: The Population Wars.” A few years ago Fortune analyzed a classified Pentagon report predicting that “climate could change radically and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues” Population unrest would then create “massive droughts, turning farmland into dust bowls and forests to ashes.” And “by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening … an old pattern could emerge; warfare defining human life.” War will be the end-game: For capitalism, civilization, earth?

Diamond’s 12-part equation is very simple, fits perfectly with a global warfare scenario: “More people require more food, space, water, energy, and other resources … There is a long built-in momentum to human population growth called the ‘demographic bulge’ with a disproportionate number of children and young reproductive-age people.” And if the “bulge” stops for any reason, game over. Economic “growth” ends, killing capitalism.

So look closely: Diamond’s equation has 12 time-bombs. But note, the first two are the biggest triggers in the formula. The other 10 are derivative variables.

1. Overpopulation Multiplier

According to TimesOnline: A few months before the billionaires meeting Gates noted: “Official [U.N.] projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive health care, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion.” Still, that’s 23% more than today’s 6.6 billion.

Can it be stopped? In a recent special issue of Scientific American, population was called “the most overlooked and essential strategy for achieving long-term balance with the environment.” Why? Population’s the new “third-rail” for politicians. So they ignore it.

Yet, if all nations consumed resources at the same rate as America, we’d need six Earths to survive. Unfortunately that scenario is unstoppable. Because by 2050, while America’s population grows from 300 million to a mere 400 million, the rest of the world will explode from 6.3 billion to 8.9 billion, with over 1.4 billion each in China and India.

2. Population Impact Multiplier

Diamond warns: “There are ‘optimists’ who argue that the world could support double its human population.” But he adds, they “consider only the increase in human numbers and not average increase in per-capita impact. But I have not heard anyone who seriously argues that the world could support 12 times it’s current impact.” And yet, that’s exactly what happens with “all third-world inhabitants adopting first-world standards.”

Folks, we oversold the American dream. Now everyone wants it. Not just 300 million Americans, but 6.3 billion people worldwide are demanding more, more, more!

“What really counts,” says Diamond, “is not the number of people alone, but their impact on the environment,” the “per-capita impact.” First-world citizens “consume 32 times more resources such as fossil fuels, and put out 32 times more waste, than do the inhabitants of the Third World.” So the race is on: “Low impact people are becoming high-impact people” aspiring “to first-world living standards.” The American dream is now the global dream.

Warning: The “Impact Multiplier” will drive the global “WWIII-Population Wars” equation even if there is zero population growth to 2050!

In Diamond’s masterpiece, “Collapse,” the two key variables are what we call the “Over-Population Multiplier” and “Population Impact Multiplier.” Now let’s closely examine Diamond’s other 10 variables that are driving our “WWIII-Population Wars” equation:

3. Food

Two billion people, mostly poor, depend on fish and other wild foods for protein. They “have collapsed or are in steep decline” forcing use of more costly animal proteins. The U.N. calls the global food crisis a “silent tsunami.” Food prices rise making it worse for the 2.7 billion living below poverty levels on two dollars a day.

In “The End of Plenty,” National Geographic warns that even a new “green revolution” of “synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation, supercharged by genetically engineered seeds” may fail. Why? A joint World Bank/U.N. study “concluded that the immense production increases brought about by science and technology the past 30 years have failed to improve food access for many of the world’s poor.”

Meanwhile, a Time cover story warns that America’s “addiction to meat” has led to farming that’s “destructive of the soil, the environment and us.”

4. Water

Diamond warns: “Most of the world’s fresh water in rivers and lakes is already being used for irrigation, domestic and industrial water,” transportation, fisheries and recreation. Water problems destroyed many earlier civilizations: “Today over a million people lack access to reliable safe drinking water.” British International Development Minister recently warned that two-thirds of the world will live in water-stressed countries by 2015.

Water will trade like oil futures as wars are fought over water and other basic essentials noted earlier in Fortune’s analysis of the Pentagon report predicting that warfare will define human life in this scenario of the near future.

5. Farmland

Crop soils are “being carried away by water and wind erosion at rates between 10 to 40 times the rates of soil formation,” much higher in forests where the soil-erosion rate is “between 500 and 10,000 times” replacement rate. And this is increasing in today’s new age of the 100,000-acre megafires.

6. Forests

We are destroying natural habitats and rain forests at an accelerating rate. Half the world’s original forests have been converted to urban developments. A quarter of what remains will be converted in the next 50 years.

7. Toxic chemicals

Often our solutions create more problems than they solve. For example, industries “manufacture or release into the air, soil, oceans, lakes, and rivers many toxic chemicals” that break down slowly or not at all. Consider the deadly impact of insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, detergents, plastics … the list is endless.

8. Energy resources: oil, natural gas and coal

Pimco manages $747 billion: equity, bonds and commodity funds. Manager Bill Gross recently described a “significant break” in the world’s “growth pattern.” He’s betting we’re past the “peak oil” tipping point. Consumer shopping will continue declining as economies grow very slowly in the future and “corporate profits will be static.”

A recent issue of Foreign Policy Journal warns of the “7 Myths About Alternative Energy.” Are biofuels, solar and nuclear the “major ticket?” No, they’re not, never will be.

9. Solar energy

Sunlight is not unlimited. Diamond: We’re already using “half of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity” and we will reach the max by mid-century. In “Plundering the Amazon,” Bloomberg Markets magazine warned that Alcoa, Cargill and other companies “have bypassed laws designed to prevent destruction of the world’s largest rain forest … robbing the earth of its best shield against global warming.”

Free market capitalism may be the enemy of survival.

10. Ozone layer

“Human activities produce gases that escape into the atmosphere” where they can destroy the protective ozone or absorb and reduce solar energy.

11. Diversity

“A significant fraction of wild species, populations and genetic diversity has been lost, and at present rates, a large percent of the rest will disappear in half century.”

12. Alien species

Transferring species to lands where they’re not native can have unintended and catastrophic effects, “preying on, parasitizing, infecting or outcompeting” native animals and plants that lack evolutionary resistance.

In spite of the clear message in Diamond’s 12 time-bombs, he still says he’s a “cautious optimist.” What fuels his hope? Our leaders need “the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they reach crisis proportions.”

Unfortunately, history tells us that cautious leaders are myopic, driven more by self-interest and nationalism than courage and long-term thinking. Eventually they’re caught off guard and their worlds collapse, fast. They only respond to crises.

And, yes, out of crisis may come opportunity. As Nobel economist Milton Friedman put it in his classic, “Capitalism and Freedom:” “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change” because in the aftermath of crisis “the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” Too many, however, delay and respond to crises with too little, too late.

Bottom line: The betting odds are 100% that global leaders will wait for a Pentagon-style “black swan” crisis before acting. Unfortunately, that delay positions the “WWIII: The Population Wars” dead ahead.

Signatories of a statement issued by leading thinkers in development include five World Food Prize laureates, former heads of development agencies, former Ministers of Agriculture, and heads of the world’s leading alliance of agricultural research centers.

“No credible or effective agreement to address the challenges of climate change can ignore agriculture and the need for crop adaptation to ensure the world’s future food supplies,” according to the statement.

Crop adaptation refers to agriculture’s ability to withstand climate change. Farmers will encounter problems they have never before experienced: much greater weather variability, higher average temperatures, increased numbers of extremely hot days, shorter growing seasons, higher solar radiation, much greater moisture stress, added salinity from salt water incursion and irrigation systems, and new combinations of pests and diseases.

“The negative impact of climate change on agriculture, and thus on the production of food, could well place at risk all other efforts to mitigate and adapt to new climate conditions,” the signatories said. “The magnitude of change now being forecast, even in relatively optimistic scenarios, is historically unprecedented, and our agricultural systems are still largely unprepared to face it.”

The group called on negotiators to recognize the importance of crop diversity conservation and use as an essential element in the commitments they will make for climate change adaptation.

“It may be becoming more widely understood that agriculture will have to adapt to climate change, but just because it has to adapt, it does not mean it will,” said Gebisa Ejeta, winner of this year’s World Food Prize and Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University. “Adapting crops to unprecedented conditions cannot be taken for granted. It requires rigorous research and complex, painstaking work and a serious commitment of public funding. This needs to be made an urgent priority for the sake of the billions whose future depends upon it.”

Studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) predict that climate change will have dramatic impacts on food production. Some estimate that crop yields in some regions could drop by as much as one third in just two decades without immediate investments in developing new crop varieties.

“Getting agriculture ready for such dramatically new growing environments is not a trivial matter,” warned the signatories. “For agriculture to adapt, crops must adapt, but there is no ‘climate change gene,’ no single characteristic, that can ensure that they will retain, much less increase, their productivity in new climates. Concerted adaptation efforts will be required crop-by-crop, country-by-country, and internationally.”

The basis for crop adaptation is the genetic diversity found in more than 1500 seedbanks around the world. This irreplaceable resource is under threat due to poor funding and institutional politics around access to seed collections. The issue of crop diversity received worldwide attention in 2008 after the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a fail-safe, safety back-up facility in the Arctic.

“Current institutional and financial arrangements, however, are inadequate to guarantee conservation of this priceless resource,” according to the statement. “Indeed, diversity is being lost—diversity that almost certainly holds the key to future crop adaptation. Moreover, the time required to integrate new traits into crop varieties can be a decade or more. We cannot wait for disaster before initiating action.”

The group is calling for small investments now that could easily ensure the availability of crop diversity. “Billions of dollars were promised this year for food security. Billions will likely be promised for climate change at Copenhagen. We ask the negotiators at Copenhagen to recognise how interwoven these issues are. Without effective investment in agricultural adaptation right now, future food security will quickly fall victim to climate change,” said Cary Fowler, Executive Director, Global Crop Diversity Trust.

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To view the full statement and list of signatories, please visit: www.croptrust.org/climateadaptation.

The mission of the Global Crop Diversity Trust is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. Although crop diversity is fundamental to fighting hunger and to the very future of agriculture, funding is unreliable and diversity is being lost. The Trust is the only organization working worldwide to solve this problem. For further information, please visit: www.croptrust.org.

(NaturalNews) According to the latest research, species around the world are going extinct faster that previously thought, at a rate not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Living Planet index which was released today shows that due to destructive human activity, the diversity of all life on earth has decreased by over 30%, nearly a third in fact in the past thirty-five years.

The Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network also gave the following statistics: land species have declined by 25%, marine life by 28% and freshwater species by 29%. The reports editor Jonathan Loh stated that to see such a sharp fall off in the species of the planet was “completely unprecedented in terms of human history”. “You’d have to go back to the extinction of the dinosaurs to see a decline as rapid as this… In terms of human lifespan we may be seeing things change relatively slowly, but in terms of the world’s history this is very rapid.”

To us, the extinction rate may seem slow or almost non-existent, but in terms of life on a historical time line, the rate is 10,000 times faster than the rate at which the planet normally loses species. The nations of world who set to make so called “significant reductions” in species loss by 2010 will be virtually useless. So much loss has already occurred due to lack of concentrated and focused effort and inaction that it is no longer possible to make any significant reductions in such a short time frame.

Ben Collen, who is an extinctions researcher at the Zoological Society of London: “Between 1960 and 2000, the human population of the world has doubled. Yet during the same period, the animal populations have declined by 30 per cent. It’s beyond doubt that this decline has been caused by humans.” The study pinpointed five major factors in the rapid decline of nearly 4000 species between 1960 and 2000; they are the human behavior of: climate change, pollution, the destruction of animals’ natural habitat, the spread of invasive species, and the overexploitation of species.

A case in point can be seen in the Yangtze River dolphin that scientists have been searching for and have been unable to locate any of the species, they now believe it is extinct. Some of the reasons for its rapid decline are; collisions with boats, habitat loss and pollution. All of these factors are man made in origin.

James Leape, who is the director of WWF (World Wide Footprint) said; “Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply… No one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming. The industrialized world needs to be supporting the global effort to achieve these targets, not just in their own territories where a lot of biodiversity has already been lost, but also globally.”

Unfortunately there is coming a time in the not so distant future when the very survival of life on earth will be at stake. If we continue to overuse all of our resources like a virus consumes its host until its very source of survival is gone, we will eventually be destroyed right along with the very planet that is the true source of our substance and life force. According to the Tao (The Way of Nature and the Universe), we can not continue to abuse, overuse and rip the earth of her elements and natural resources faster than earth can replace them and expect all things to remain in balance. This is common sense logic and also the universal laws of balance, yin and yang, light and shadow, male and female, etc.

The power of earth’s magnetic field has decreased significantly in the past 100 years or so. Much of this can again be blamed on mans’ activities. You would not normally think it, but the laying of world wide power lines, the explosion of wireless communication devices including satellites beaming information to and from orbit are all affecting the earth’s magnetic field, including it’s very power.

All our foods get part of their energies, their life sustaining chi from a combination of earth (yin/water) and the sun (yang/fire). If we weaken one, the other is thrown out of balance. We already know that due to acid rain, overuse of the land, pesticides and other factors that the mineral content of the soil is dangerously low. I’ve written before that approximately 2/3 of the earth’s tillable soil is completely devoid of Selenium, a vital trace element and power mineral required not only for the production of SOD (Superoxide Dismutase) but also one that is a powerful immune booster, cancer fighter and longevity mineral too, that most people have virtually no selenium in their diet which is another great reason to make sure that you’re taking the true RDA of 200mcg per day. Eating just three Brazil nuts a day gives approximately 200mcg, or you can take a supplement of Selenium daily.

No matter the mineral content of any food, what gives all foods their true power to heal and sustain life is not their pure vitamin, mineral or chemical compounds or make up themselves, it is the specific type and amount of chi (life force) in those elements and foods that are their real power to sustain life and heal. That is why chemical drugs can and never will be equal to the medicines that God’s earth provides, because science has no belief in or ability to manipulate or use chi. Science doesn’t even acknowledge that it exists as the Chinese and other Asian and ancient cultures have stated for millennia, but it surely does exist.

The more we allow and contribute to the destruction of life’s incredibly diverse life forms, the more we are killing ourselves in a very slow way. We are tied to the earth in an unbreakable way, but mankind with his technological know how thinks that “I know better than nature itself”… never! Even a great many of the drugs that man thinks that he “invented”, up to nearly half of them he learned how to make by chemically synthesizing the active ingredients from various plants, herbs and other natural compounds. Herbs and other life saving medicines are constantly being destroyed, all in the name of the greed of a worldwide collection of billionaires who can’t wait to get richer and richer so they can beat their friends’ yearly and lifetime earnings, and corporations who only care about their stock prices on the world market and more. They truly believe and live by the motto: “The person who dies with the most toys, wins!” That is their religion, their mantra and money is their god. How sad for the world and all the rest of us who live on this planet. These people are truly insane and drunk with power and greed and it seems as though they could care less if the entire earth is destroyed and all human and animal life on it is eradicated, as long as they die with the most money and toys to beat their other billionaire friends, that’s all that seems to matter at all to them.

Many prophecies, including those found in the Bible, mention a time when the earth will be ravaged by so much wars, death, disease, greed, destruction and mans’ inhumanity against man and his very environment itself that he will be brought to the very brink of annihilation unless God Himself steps in to stop it. Here it is starting right before our eyes, but everyone is just so busy having their fun, making their money and going on with their lives that most people, especially those in power and responsible, could care less to stop it or change their high flying, jet setting lifestyles for something that to them is a long way off or likely will never even happen, at least not in their lifetimes.

The destruction of earth’s environment, our food supply as well as the weakening of earth’s magnetic field or chi are reasons why practicing energy medicine and learning to cultivate one’s own chi through the breathing and meditative practices of Chi-gung are so important today, probably more so than at any other time in human history. To learn to increase our own protective chi field called Wei Chi that surrounds our body, as well as increase our overall chi levels and flow within the body will greatly help us to recover and make up for the chi and energy that we’re not getting from our foods or even the earth itself. Organic food has more nutrients and chi than conventional food and that’s one thing we all need to eat much more of. Organic foods also help slow down the rate of destruction of the earth’s ecosystem as does eating more locally grown foods too. Taking supplements is another way to help keep ourselves healthy since we have to make up for the nutrients that our diets can no longer supply.

But even these are secondary actions compared to the most vital and important source of our life, the primary source of all life, our chi. It is only through breathing and meditation that we can truly build up and extract many times the chi that we used to be able to get just by eating natural foods and breathing in times past. Even the oxygen content of the air is about 25% less than it was just 200 years ago. Due to the destruction of plankton in the earth’s oceans which makes up about 60% of the oxygen on earth, deforestation as well as all of mans’ pollution has contributed to lessen the amount of oxygen and sunlight available to us (and our crops) with each breath that we take. This is why practicing deep breathing techniques such as the 8 Pieces of Brocade, Tai chi, and other energy work exercises and learning to use our minds through true meditation to build up and extract even more chi from the earth and universe, has never been more important than at this most critical time in earth’s history.

In time through these ancient and powerful techniques we can greatly increase the amount, the flow, the balance and the strength of our life force flowing through and around our bodies, thus helping to protect our health and stave off illness and disease in a powerful way. They take work, but in order to remain healthy, vibrant and strong in these times they are very necessary and effective. Proven through thousands of years of practice by the fighting monks, martial artists and traditional doctors of China, practicing chi-gung and careful attention to diet and nutrition are becoming ever more necessary in today’s ever more polluted environment.

With the abysmal failures of the western slash and burn methods of surgery and drugs to prevent illness, learning to cultivate and use the true source of one’s own life force via the vehicle of various chi-gung techniques and exercises to increase your own store of chi within the body, is really one of the best methods and options that exist in the world today. The Chinese have given mankind a great gift in the form of its incredible repertoire of Chi-gung techniques and understanding of the human energy systems through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). They are only proving themselves over and over again in this modern age as they continue to succeed in restoring and maintaining people’s health time and time again where western medicine has repeatedly failed.

This is especially true as we see the rate of both the destruction of the earth itself and its tens of millions of species occurring at an ever increasing rate. It is for this and many other reasons that I am producing my own health video to teach a number of these breathing and meditative techniques, including proper physical training, nutrition and more on my Chinese Health and Fitness video. If you can, learn all that you are able to about chi, Chinese and natural medicine, energy work, meditation, nutrition and natural health and healing, since they are our best bet to restore and protect our health and those of our loved ones as the world gets more and more polluted. Moreover, the energy that they teach you to use is all provided free of charge by the very universe and earth itself with no hidden fees and no side effects… other than good health and long life that is.

Recommended reading:

“Harnessing the Power of the Universe” by Daniel Reid

“The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing” By Daniel Reid

“The Root of Chinese Qigong” by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming

“Awaken Healthing Energy Through The Tao” by Mantak Chia

Source Article: ((http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen…)

About the author

Rich Stacel is a natural health, Qigong and Chinese martial arts practitioner for over twenty four years. Having read scores of books on Chinese medicine, health, nutrition, supplements, meditation, martial arts, healing, science, astronomy, physics, Einstien, general health and more. Rich has helped numerous people achieve their health and fitness goals over the years. Rich is also interested in health freedom including spreading truth on health, fitness, spiritual truths and more. You can learn more about breathing, meditation, what foods to eat, avoid, food additives, chi-gung as well as get more info about his upcoming Chinese health video at http://www.chinesehealthandfitness.com/

Reprinted from NaturalNews.

Osvaldo Sala, director of the Environmental Change Initiative and the Sloan Lindeman Professor of Biology at Brown, and Pedro Flombaum, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown, said the results confirmed tests charting how biodiversity affects aboveground plant productivity in artificial ecosystems. Aboveground plant productivity (ANPP) is the amount of biomass, or organic material, produced by plant growth.

But the Brown team also learned that the correlation between plant species richness – the number of plant species in a unit of area – and ANPP in a natural ecosystem was greater than had been expected. What that means, the researchers wrote in a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that the greater the number of plant species, the more productive the ecosystem.

Conversely, species loss has a decidedly negative impact on ecosystems. This is especially true in light of the role ecosystems play in capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide: The fewer the plant species in a given natural environment, the less carbon dioxide they capture.

“It’s a double whammy,” Sala explained. “We not only are disturbing our planet by putting more carbon into the atmosphere, but we’re reducing the ability of ecosystems to capture and store it.”

Sala and Flombaum conducted their experiments in the Patagonian steppe, a semiarid grassland located on the east side of the Andes Mountains in Argentina. They marked 90 plots, each containing three species of native grasses and three species of native shrubs. The team then removed a certain number of species from the plots and measured each revised plot’s productivity.

“The water is the same, the nitrogen is the same, the sunlight is the same,” Sala said. “What is different is the diversity of the plants.”

What the researchers also learned in their experiments, which ran from 2002 to this year, is that plant productivity in a flourishing ecosystem is enhanced because each species assumes a specific niche. Ecologists call this “niche complementarity.” The plants use the resources available to the whole system harmoniously, such as extending their roots at different depths in the soil, using different forms of nitrogen, and staggering when they photosynthesize.

“We are deeper into understanding the mechanisms of an ecosystem’s productivity,” Sala said.

Brown University, the InterAmerican Institute for Global Change Research, Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica and Argentina’s National Research Council funded the research.  

Reprinted from Brown University.