Wooley: Greed multiplies the risk of causing more damage to our beautiful planet

Growing pains sure won’t do us a world of good, writes Charles Wooley

Charles Wooley believes the peaceful Central Highlands is a far better and safer place for his children to raise their families. Picture: SAMUEL SHELLEY/ Tourism Tasmania

The sermon today takes as its text Genesis 1 (28):

And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,

and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,

and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth.

The Book of Genesis was written about 3400 years ago.

Whether the entity that the old biblical prophets knew as God was ever around, or is still around, is a moot point and not to be debated here. Voices, divine or secular, are vexatious. Supporting or opposing them always leads to contumely and ridicule, so let’s try to be agnostic and keep it nice.

But if God is out there somewhere (He hasn’t shown up in the James Webb Space Telescope, which looks back as far as the luminous afterglow of the Big Bang), He certainly wasn’t in Derna in Libya recently.

But just in case we are looking in the wrong place, I would like to respectfully report: “God, we have followed your instruction. We have subdued the Earth. Sorry that, somehow, we overlooked the bit about replenishing it.”

Our tiny blue planet was once a miraculous oasis of diverse and vibrant life in the vast empty indifference of the swirling universe. I have travelled widely, courtesy of Mr Kerry Packer (whom I doubt you would have met), and in terms of subduing the place I can say in the immortal words of your servant George W. Bush, “Mission accomplished.”

Charles Wooley, in a forested section of the Styx Valley, is concerned we’ve done such a good job in subduing the joint that we've stuffed up the planet. Picture: Frank MacGregor

Yes, we have done a job on the joint. We have subdued it to the point of completely stuffing it up.

Some biblical scholars suggest that the prophet Moses was the author of Genesis, others reckon it was written hundreds of years after his time. Whoever wrote it, they may not have meant us to so enthusiastically follow the first part of the old injunction to be “fruitful and multiply”.

There are now eight billion of us. And still we pursue growth economic models. I

have been shown first-hand the melting of ice and glaciers in both the Antarctic and the Arctic. I have seen the vain attempts by European governments to wrap their glaciers in plastic insulation. I have seen the desecration of great forests in South America and Africa and, most disturbingly, even here in Tasmania, in one of the richest countries in the world.

Here we destroy not to survive, as is often the case in the Third World. We do it to get even richer.

We have displaced the old bloke on the throne in the clouds with an even scarier and colder deity. Economic growth.

We are greedy worshippers. We want more and more stuff, but we value none of it. There’s always a bigger and better television, a flasher car, a smarter dishwasher, built-in oven with microwave, inverter direct-drive washing machine, stick vacuum, titanium iPhone, six-burner outdoor kitchen – the catalogue of things you didn’t even know you needed is as unending as it is tempting.

Flyfishing guide Greg Beecroft and Charles Wooley's dog Dusty enjoy the cool, calm waters of Bronte Lagoon. Picture by Charles Wooley.

And if it breaks down, we chuck it away, partly because the warranty is useless unless you can live without the indispensable device until the spare part arrives on a slow boat from China.

The folly is abundantly clear. Globally, eight billion humans can’t have a dishwasher, there’s not enough energy and water in the world, but that won’t stop the manufacturers, the retailers and the governments arguing for consumption as a glorious celebration of the growth-God.

Now for the mea culpa. I am looking at the source of the problem in the mirror. My generation presided over the fastest doubling of population in the history of the world. In a mere 37 years, between 1950 and 1987, the global population doubled from two and a half to five billion people.

After that, getting to eight billion was just doing what comes naturally.

I have multiplied myself five times – three girls and two boys – and although I started this column with a bit of bible-bashing, no, I am not a Catholic.

I might be better accused of being a careless atheist.

I have also accumulated one other boy in my passage through the uncharted waters of matrimony. They are all splendid kids, any of whom might save the world, or at least kick a few goals.

Charles Wooley believes the peaceful Central Highlands is a far better and safer place for his son Dave Wooley, above, to raise a family. Picture Jim Wooley

They respect nature, are good citizens, separate their recycling, they compost, and they vote. But most are circumspect about having children. Two have produced two each and called it quits. The others … well, it remains to be seen.

They read and are well informed. I can understand why they might think twice about having kids.

In the case of my 30-year-old son who runs a bar on a beautiful lake in northern Italy, he and his partner live only a day’s drive from Kyiv. As he tells me, “Well within Russian ballistic missile range.”

That must concentrate the mind when considering whether or not to bring young Carlo into the world.

So, I’m recommending the couple move to the safety of the Tasmanian Central Plateau, where I started out. Bronte Lagoon isn’t quite Lake Como, but there is a shop with daily papers and a barbecue.

It is notoriously difficult to estimate future population trends.

Demographers guesstimate that in the next century the world will level out at about 10 billion people. That’s barring the not unlikely prospect of an environmental apocalypse or a nuclear war. The prospect of either (or both) might discourage the better-informed from breeding, but does that really matter?

Clearly, we don’t need clever people in order to continue with business as usual.

Charles Wooley is a Tasmanian-based journalist.