One day, the machine will stop

That's a quote taken from John Gray's piece in Sunday's Guardian CIF.

I found the article quite interesting, mainly for the plethora of viewpoints that the usual gamut of posters on CIF bring, but also for Gray's analogy of our planet being an obese patient hooked up to a life support system.

"To some extent, technology may be able to replace the biosphere that has been destroyed, but, like an obese patient hooked up to an artificial life-support system, we will be living on borrowed time. One day, the machine will stop."

He also manages to hint at the policy that dare not speak its name.

"Far more than fantastical schemes for renewable energy, we need to ensure that contraception and abortion are freely available everywhere. A world of fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change than the heavily overpopulated one we are heading for now."

Oh, by the way, you'll need a good 20 minutes spare if you want to read all the comments posted.

And, just for balance, as I found the article interesting reading, one poster terms Gray "a flip-flopper who has perfected an incredibly irritating style of writing which is best characterised as 'smugism' : statement of large philosophical beliefs expressed with loads of magisterial certainty, without any argument."

Ouch!