C
The use of our planet is no longer sustainable
- Thread starter MoldyFrogToe
- Start date
MoldyFrogToe
Member
Here's the thing though.
WWF (I too disagree with their stupid polar bear ads, it does more harm than good because it puts off skeptics) is just the messenger.
It's common knowledge that our planet is about to reach the tipping point in numerous ways among the majority of reputable professionals who do this for a living: ecologists, biologists, conservationists.
When we talk about resources, it doesn't just mean oil and water, it means indirect resources too.
Resources like the global ecosystem, global biodiversity, etc, which are affected by our oil and water use, for example.
When biodiversity & ecological systems reach their tipping points, the damage is permanent.
Runaway cascades ripple throughout the ecosystem, and feedback mechanisms combine
to make the problem's effects exponential in an evolutionary blink of the eye.
For example, sea otters in the pacific off the US coast get killed off to low levels.
The sea urchins they eat explode in population
The sea urchins now devour kelp forests (seaweed) in the ocean.
Those kelp forests provided shelter like a nursery for baby fish
Those fish in turn crashed in population
Now fisherman who rely on them have no $$ to live on.
This actually happened, the article is on the net.
A perfect example of ecological cascade, of how everything is interconnected.
I think there should be more emphasis placed on global biodiversity & habitat loss,
because those things are the paramount issue here, aside from the global climate.
It's those 2 things which get affected every time, no matter if it's oil drilled or trees cut for wood.
Those 2 things are what we need to live & we're destroying them at exponential rates.
This is simple personal responsibility on a global scale & we're failing.
At this rate our kids & grandkids realistically won't have much to bank on.
We used to have a system that absorbed us, now we absorb it.
This won't last very long at all.
We have made a lot of progress, which is important to note, but global demand of resources is putting up a good fight.
It's hard to quantify and estimate what's going on and what will happen.
So this report isn't like a golden standard of course.
But it's an idea of what we're experiencing to highlight what scientists have been watching for years.
If there's anything that receives low funding, or suffers from lack of corporate interest/support, it's conservation.
WWF (I too disagree with their stupid polar bear ads, it does more harm than good because it puts off skeptics) is just the messenger.
It's common knowledge that our planet is about to reach the tipping point in numerous ways among the majority of reputable professionals who do this for a living: ecologists, biologists, conservationists.
When we talk about resources, it doesn't just mean oil and water, it means indirect resources too.
Resources like the global ecosystem, global biodiversity, etc, which are affected by our oil and water use, for example.
When biodiversity & ecological systems reach their tipping points, the damage is permanent.
Runaway cascades ripple throughout the ecosystem, and feedback mechanisms combine
to make the problem's effects exponential in an evolutionary blink of the eye.
For example, sea otters in the pacific off the US coast get killed off to low levels.
The sea urchins they eat explode in population
The sea urchins now devour kelp forests (seaweed) in the ocean.
Those kelp forests provided shelter like a nursery for baby fish
Those fish in turn crashed in population
Now fisherman who rely on them have no $$ to live on.
This actually happened, the article is on the net.
A perfect example of ecological cascade, of how everything is interconnected.
I think there should be more emphasis placed on global biodiversity & habitat loss,
because those things are the paramount issue here, aside from the global climate.
It's those 2 things which get affected every time, no matter if it's oil drilled or trees cut for wood.
Those 2 things are what we need to live & we're destroying them at exponential rates.
This is simple personal responsibility on a global scale & we're failing.
At this rate our kids & grandkids realistically won't have much to bank on.
We used to have a system that absorbed us, now we absorb it.
This won't last very long at all.
We have made a lot of progress, which is important to note, but global demand of resources is putting up a good fight.
It's hard to quantify and estimate what's going on and what will happen.
So this report isn't like a golden standard of course.
But it's an idea of what we're experiencing to highlight what scientists have been watching for years.
If there's anything that receives low funding, or suffers from lack of corporate interest/support, it's conservation.
I think the severity of the issue is exaggerated. Nature will balance itself, one way or another. We will run into severe economic and industrial downturn before that ever becomes a problem. It's already happening.
The economics are even less sustainable than the resources and ecosystems in question.
The world isn't going to end, you can take off your tinfoil..
The economics are even less sustainable than the resources and ecosystems in question.
The world isn't going to end, you can take off your tinfoil..
M
Marywanna
I am already old and have had a good life.
So who wants to volunteer first to die to save the Earth so that special interest can maintain control?
Anyone? Somebody is going to have to go. The chart is pretty clear about it. Somebody has to save us from ourselves so sacrifices are going to have to be made. That means you.
Nature won't be deciding this though, we've put our faith into a bunch of people to save us. No different from the Germans creating their master race. Much more nicely packaged and sophisticated though IMO.
I'll do it.............only if POTHEADS GET TO RULE THE EARTH
MoldyFrogToe
Member
With regard to the data that's not relevant to me as much as it may be to you.
Just like with finance, the numbers are what matter, not whether Kramer (Cramer?) on cnbc or Man-Who-Wants-To-Be-Virus is telling you or not.
The WWF is really, despite the polar bear & man virus reincarnations, a vastly extensive and valuble network that carries out a lot of good research.
Through academic & govt institutions a lot of monitoring and assessment goes on to give us a good idea of these things.
They aren't the only ones to be doing this research.
I could bring info from the UN, but of course, everyone would go crazy over that. Or maybe the US gov't, but people would go crazy over that because the US + ICMAG General Population don't seem to mesh well. Then I could pick a source no one's heard of, but no one has heard of it...And then the BBC, but nobody likes them, right?....
Anyways the point is that this report is pretty comprehensive, I'm sure it isn't perfect, but,
The data's there, attack it with some data that says the contrary, I dunno.
I did. Thoroughly. One has to only look to the market (and be able to understand it). Secular prices are almost always downward.
The people that you are quoting have an agenda, not unlike the Nazis, and they rely on those who blindly accept their half-truths and pseudo-science without question. The quote that I posted is quite apropos as it shows the underlying agenda and intent.
Y'know, you can believe what you would like to. I won't argue the point any further because over the centuries up until today, people much smarter than any of us have proven this Malthusian nonsense to be just that.
ToughGirl
Member
Made it a zombie apocalypse this time!! Yeah! Thin out the weak a little! Besides, zombies don't use petroleum products, they don't breath our air, and they don't breed.
MoldyFrogToe
Member
Sorry, I meant to attack the data of the report itself.
You & I interpret their ecologic/economic analogy differently, I ignored that for that reason.
I know the population thing has been said before.
Only difference is that now the risks are more apparent and real than ever, so you make my point, in a way.
Will technology support the burgeoning population?
Even if it does, how much loss for the earth will be 'worth it'?
Anyways, that's more of a philosophical discussion, which doesn't have much to do with attacking the data in the report published.
Telling me what the head of WWF in 95 thought about his spiritual life or what he ate for breakfast doesn't count to me.
Telling me what they did wrong with the data or how they collected it incorrectly counts.
Showing me data that contradicts theirs counts. Etc.
It surprises me that you dismiss this on a)Virus Man and b)Malthus being ahead of the game by a matter of years.
You just posted that finance planning strategy in my other thread but here it's dismissal upon the above...that's a contrast and a half wouldn't you say?
So what I say is look, there is data here published in this report.
Lets push aside Malthus, and all of that. Even the analogy. Both are philosophical flufftalk.
Lets look at the data from any source we can get that we think is reputable and post em up when we have some free time.
I think we could all then at least agree that habitat loss & biodiversity are declining at unprecedented rates.
The next step would be to determine when it's going to tip/crash. From the looks of it, at the rate we're going, pretty soon.
love?
Member
Indeed. But what if that means extinction of the human species?
Some of us see the Forest for the Trees, some of us don't. We don't need to disprove the data to demonstrate the point that there are much more important things that we as a society need to deal with.
On a side note, our supposed technology is what enabled to us to overpopulate this planet (Well, this SYSTEM of operating the planet.. Who's to say what the planet can and can not sustain?) so to expect technology alone to get us out of this mess is faulty, IMO. What's needed is an agricultural revolution.
- "The use of the planet's resources is no longer sustainable.
A recent study by WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network revealed that humans now use in excess of 25% of the productive capacity of the biosphere and that two planet Earths will be needed to support our projected demand."
- 77% of us are in 'ecological debt'
- "...people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."
- "Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot - the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity - by about 25%."
- "The Living Planet Index measures trends in the Earth’s biological diversity
Since 1970 the index has fallen by about 30%.
This global trend suggests that we are degrading natural ecosystems at a rate unprecedented in human history."
http://www.wwf.org.au/news/living-planet-analysis-shows-looming-ecological-credit-crunch/
http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/lpr_2008/
This is sad. What are we gonna do about this.
This is absolutely correct. Overpopulation and it's intrinsic environmental destruction is our number 1 problem, even if our leaders don't want to discuss it, and even if some people on this board, who think they are educated beyond everyone else, don't agree.
Numbers don't lie.
It's just a numbers game, and we are losing.
In the very near future, France will be a muslim state, along with the rest of Europe.
The United States will be an Hispanic country. These are not theories.
It's simple math.
Watch this short video which illustrates the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU
Indeed. But what if that means extinction of the human species?
How do you imagine that will happen? Overpopulation does not extinction make, sir.
K
Kush_Dreams
It's all about Communism through Environmentalism
It's amazing how stupid people are. Common sense is dead!
It's amazing how stupid people are. Common sense is dead!
MoldyFrogToe
Member
What Im saying is, you need stronger arguments -
Telling me what a past president who left in '96 said and referencing Malthus doesn't do enough to address the data of the study in the original post.
Hey Retro-grow, I know your pointed comment was aimed at me. I never claimed to be "educated beyond everyone else." But what you are saying has been said since the 2nd Century and has been proven false time and time again. Market prices prove otherwise. Learn about Eugenics and you will see why these people want you to believe their pseudo-science so badly. It is beyond me why people take shit so personally on this board. I'm trying to help.
What do you propose we do about the population problem, MoldyFrogToe?
We are in the midst of a baby boom, after all..
We are in the midst of a baby boom, after all..
