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Environment Taking A Beating


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What do you guys think about environmental issues, do you think about it much? 

The Great Barrier Reef's Death Is Inevitable and It's Sad AF

 

 

"The Great Barrier Reef is currently on track to continue its heartbreaking descent into death. New research published this month shows that stopping forthcoming "mass bleaching events" will only realistically be achieved by taking drastic climate change measures worldwide, the Guardian reported Wednesday. The research was authored by a team of 46 scientists and published in Nature this week."

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And the last paragraph on the page that you reference speaks volumes of how humans are destroying the very planet that they live on.

Back in the States, shit doesn't look good for future climate change efforts. Unfortunately, the guy currently tweeting and shitting from the comforts of the White House once tweeted (and still hasn't deleted!) that climate change was a hoax invented by China. 

It is sad to see our species pillaging Mother Nature all for a myopic short term insignificant gain called 'money.'

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Some of the wealthy who support Trump and the GOP think that they can escape the worst of environmental problems, or they are just as idiotic and ignorant as their political base. We have a "so-caled" president who has contempt for science and thinks that global warming is a hoax! Same with the top Repub in the Senate, Inhofe (Oklahoma), says God told him it's a hoax too. His book, "The Greatest Hoax", is almost sold out on Amazon... 

We collectively get what we deserve I reckon.

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The problem, the elephant in the room is always population and yet it's hardly discussed.  It's the stuff of nightmares for economists and politicians who are fixated and addicted to the concept of perpetual growth.  Enough to make the blood drain from their faces.

Before technology, I'm talking even before the Agricultural Revolution, the population of humans could only get so big.  Humans roamed where they roamed and required a certain amount of space just to survive.  A small group of people, say 100, could require many square kilometres of land just to find sufficent food.  But the Agricultural Revolution changed everything.  Technology allowed the population of the human species to grow far beyond what it would without it.  And since then each technological leap has allowed for an increase in numbers.

This is sustainable, in a sense, but at a cost to the environment.  There are only so many square kilometres of decent agricultural land, only so many fish in the sea, only so much of everything and that is just one problem.  The other problem is limiting damage to the environment.  Just imagine, 7 billion people every day need to eat!  That's a lot of food, and even so, the damage we cause now is lessened by the fact that the standard of living for the majority of the 7 billion is quite low.

As to what should be done, that is an extremely tricky question.

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If we are to raise the living standards for humanity, there has to be population reduction. Even if you could, by magic, wanted to raise every human to the level of affluence in the US, you couldn't do it. You'd need 3 more earths. Technology can do so much, but there's a finite level of resources. One way to improve the world and reduce birth rates is to raise the status of women.

In advanced countries, life spans doubled in the last 100 years! Doubled! But, the problem of population growth is in poor countries. Religion, culture, and economics in those countries perpetuate the problem of overpopulation.

By the way, we farm very close to 100% of arable land, and there are water shortages worldwide, especially water for human consumption. A couple billion of people don't have access to clean water. Polluted water isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly. Some 1.8 million people die every year of diarrheal diseases like cholera. Tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable.

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3 hours ago, athinaios said:

A couple billion of people don't have access to clean water. Polluted water isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly. Some 1.8 million people die every year of diarrheal diseases like cholera. Tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable.

And we sit here whining about football.  Good lord, ha ha.

Having a gradual population reduction is the ideal scenario, but how to implement it is another matter.  It would be complicated to get it right.  For the very poor having large families is almost necessary since their child mortality is so high.  For some it would be considered a massive invasion of liberty.  Good luck getting bible belters to agree when they have been instructed to go forth and multiply.  It's funny that God (or the guy impersonating him) didn't think to have a clause in there saying maybe when we should slow down.

Some nations will just baulk at the idea and others would use it as a bargaining tool.  I hate to say it but I think the most practical way would be to incentivize with cold hard dollars.  Then there is the question of if "x" is the target, how is it made up per country ?  What if a certain country just doesn't want to comply.

Then there is the economic cost.  Business LOVES growth.  Our economic way of thinking would have to change.  I always smile when I hear people saying "who is going to pay for MY pension when I get older".  Yep, cool, that's your biggest worry ha ha.

Still, it's something that needs to be discussed so that people can start at least thinking about it.

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3 hours ago, athinaios said:

Raise the status of women. When women get education and access to economic opportunity, they start having fewer children. Of course culture and religion are against gender equality.

It will/would require different approaches for different situations.  In extremely poor countries, where finding food and water is a day to day uncertainty (I'm thinking Africa here), only food and medical security would help.  When you know that some of your children will die to disease and malnutrition before the age of 5 it changes the equation.  But yeah I agree once you can get past that hurdle, the next one is education and the status of women.

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  • 2 years later...
29 minutes ago, Soprano76 said:

Humans are destroying the planet. Makes me so sad.

The planet will heal itself again long after humans end up making it unlivable for ourselves and our future generation(s)..

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The planet will heal itself, no doubt, but in the meantime we will have exacted an enormous toll.  At least people are talking about it now.  There are so many angles to it, but in the end the only thing that will make it get serious attention is when it affects "us" humans directly, often and in a very serious way.  Until then, the mantra of perpetual growth remains.

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