Is the world being destroyed?

* Switzerland holds two votes on June 13

* One referendum seeks to outlaw synthetic pesticides

* Other vote aims to improve Switzerland’s drinking water

* Opinion polls show both are likely to be close

ZURICH, June 7 (Reuters) - Switzerland could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides in a June 13 referendum which backers of the initiative hope will trigger similar prohibitions elsewhere.

Globally, only Bhutan has a complete ban on synthetic pesticides, according to supporters aiming to outlaw the use of products made by agro-chemical giants such as Switzerland’s Syngenta and Germany’s Bayer and BASF.

Supporters of the ban say the artificial products cause serious health problems and reduce biodiversity. Manufacturers say their pesticides are rigorously tested and regulated, can be used safely and crop yields would slump without them.

Another initiative to be voted on the same day aims to improve the quality of Switzerland’s drinking water and food by stopping direct subsidies to farmers who use artificial pesticides and antibiotics in livestock.

Switzerland has been starkly divided by an unusually bitter debate over the initiatives and the votes look set to be close. A recent Tamedia poll showed 48% of voters favoured the drinking water initiative and 49% supported the pesticide ban.

If adopted, the proposals give farmers up to 10 years to make the transition, which would allow Switzerland to become a pioneer in organic food as well as an example to the rest of the world, Swiss wine maker Roland Lenz said.

“Clean water, one of the foundations of life, is endangered,” said Lenz, a 51-year-old organic farmer, whose vineyard is surrounded by farmers opposing the initiative.

Syngenta, which is headquartered in Switzerland and owned by China National Chemical Corporation, opposes both initiatives, saying a ban would reduce agricultural yields by up to 40%.

“The consequences of not using them are clear: fewer regional products, higher prices, and more imports. This is not in the interest of consumers, nor is it in the interest of the environment,” a Syngenta spokesman said.

LIFE UNDER SIEGE
The clean water initiative also wants farmers to stop using imported animal feed, to restrict the numbers of cows, pigs and chickens in Switzerland along with the manure they produce that can pollute drinking water.

“People have been sold a romantic image of farming in Switzerland, which is far removed from reality,” said Pascal Scheiwiller, a backer of the clean water campaign, which estimates 1 million Swiss people drink contaminated water.

The Swiss Farmers Union said many of its members feel their way of life is under siege.

“A lot of people in cities think if they have two tomatoes growing on the balcony of their apartment they understand farming,” said Martin Haab, president of the Zurich Farmers Association.

“I look back 200 years ago when we couldn’t protect our plants and animals, and we had hunger in Switzerland and all over Europe,” said Haab.

Martin’s son Dominic, who runs a dairy farm outside Zurich, said the consequences for the rural economy would be brutal, with local businesses also being hit by a fall in animal numbers to comply with the fodder restrictions.

Wine maker Lenz, however, said to continue using pesticides was “sheer lunacy”, especially when it was possible to use methods such as growing fruit with thicker skins to make them fungus resistant.

“With a ‘Yes’ vote on both initiatives, we will finally move from the chemical age back to the organic age,” he said. (Reporting by John Revill; Editing by David Clarke)

Quote:

* Switzerland holds two votes on June 13

That actually should be better "two votes which have already caused controversy" but I quoted Reuters in original.
There are five votes.

Human cultural deterioration – political instability, economic fragility, and societal unrest – is becoming increasingly prevalent globally, and increasingly debilitating. Unfortunately, most people understand neither the fundamental cause underlying our deteriorating cultural circumstances, nor the inevitable consequence.

For the vast majority of mankind, who view human existence through the anthropocentric perspective, humanity is plagued by an array of increasingly severe political, economic, and societal problems, which are caused by our increasingly dysfunctional political, economic, and societal behavior – and which can be favorably resolved through "enlightened" political, economic, and societal reforms.

While the anthropocentrists correctly perceive industrial humanity's deteriorating cultural circumstances, they necessarily misperceive the fundamental cause, which they mistakenly attribute to our flawed political, economic, and societal behavior.

They therefore respond inappropriately to our deteriorating cultural circumstances with an incessant barrage of increasingly desperate political, economic, and societal expedients – which is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

To those who view human existence from the broader ecological perspective, humanity's deteriorating cultural circumstances are correctly perceived as the inevitable consequence of our unsustainable Earth exploitation behavior.

Humanity's persistent and increasing depletion of Earth's finite, non-replenishing, and increasingly scarce NNRs (nonrenewable natural resources – the fossil fuels, metals, and non-metallic minerals that enable our industrial existence – is causing our deteriorating natural environment, which is causing our deteriorating cultural environment.

It is not the case, therefore, that our cultural environment is "broken" and in need of political, economic, and societal "fixes". Rather, our cultural environment is "dying of starvation" for lack of sufficient economically viable NNRs,– a geological reality that cannot be fixed.

Viewed from the ecological perspective, humankind has existed in a terminal disequilibrium with Nature since the inception of our industrial revolution nearly 300 years ago. Suffering the catastrophic consequences associated with our unsustainable relationship with planet Earth was therefore only a matter of time. Unfortunately, that time is now.

His argument that GDP is decreasing globally is simply false (you can check that for yourself with a simple google search)

Every element in the Earth’s crust is finite, and some are rarer than others. With lithium-ion batteries a vital enabler of many national decarbonization efforts, the pivotal nature of the element could jeopardize the global energy transition.

From mid-century onwards, near-comprehensive recycling, vehicle-to-grid applications and battery substitutes must be developed, according to a report by Peter Greim, Solomon Asfaw and Christian Breyer, of the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT), in Finland, and the University of Augsburg, in Germany, which appeared in the academic journal Nature Communications.

“The present production trend of lithium batteries shows that in the short-term the supply and demand are well balanced,” said Asfaw, a post-doctoral researcher at LUT. “The sustainability of the long-term supply of lithium, however, and consequently maintaining the energy transition at high levels of electrification, particularly in the transport sector, is at risk. Lithium battery demand is the main driver of the observed deficit.”

The USGS estimates that global phosphorus use will increase to 50.5 million tons by 2022 a increase from 47.0 million tons in 2018. Scientists disagree about how much more food will be needed to feed the planet in coming years, with numbers ranging from 25 to 56% more. Man-made climate change will negatively affect farms in a number of ways, from heat waves to increased pests. Those changes could force farmers to use even more fertilizer, further increasing phosphorus usage.

Unlike man-made climate change, an issue on which the science is settled, there is a scientific debate on "peak phosphorus," a point at which the global amount of phosphorus will decline. Some scientists warn it could come as early as 2030, while a group from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) has found that there could be enough phosphorus to last hundreds of years.

But one thing's for sure: even without hitting peak, a phosphorus shortage could significantly affect the world's food prices. Thanks to the mineral's uneven distribution, events like a political crisis or growing demand could cause prices to radically fluctuate. The increase in the cost of rock phosphate rose "from about $80 per U.S. ton in 1961 to up to $450 per ton in 2008. Prices since then have fluctuated but are now at about $700 per ton," a study from 2015 showed.

The only cause is that you are starting out with a rather extreme political viewpoint...