This is scary - Climate Change

[Dave2002]

See https://www.theguardian.com/environm...han-it-absorbs

[Joseph K]

Can donate to this constructive project: https://act.progressive.internationa...XeiuXkkGDj-MGk

[Serial_Apologist]

If there were any excuse for foreign military intervention - ANY pretext - it would be to rid people, especially environent-protecting peoples, and the world, of men such as Bolsonaro. The Viet-Cong were right to invade Cambodia and rid it of the Khmer Rouge. Terrible, truly terrible though organisations like Islamic State are in their barbarism, they are not, to the best of my knowledge, undertaking wholesale destruction of earth's life sustaining systems. Take Bolsonaro out. Surgically. Removing the head like that will in all probability kill the organism/organisation it leads. Give the SAS something worthwhile to do. Thereafter, as with Islamic State, the rest is all about geopolitics.

Admittedly this is an emotional spasm on my part - feel free to put me right on this one.

[Dave2002]

I am tempted to construct a political "joke".

Country A president: Your idiots are destroying the world's habitats.

Country B president: Your morons are ruining the planet

Country A : Environmental activist

Your actions are ruining the world for everyone.

Country A President: Well at least they're our idiots!

[french frank]

If there were any excuse for foreign military intervention - ANY pretext - it would be to rid people, especially environent-protecting peoples, and the world, of men such as Bolsonaro. The Viet-Cong were right to invade Cambodia and rid it of the Khmer Rouge. Terrible, truly terrible though organisations like Islamic State are in their barbarism, they are not, to the best of my knowledge, undertaking wholesale destruction of earth's life sustaining systems. Take Bolsonaro out. Surgically. Removing the head like that will in all probability kill the organism/organisation it leads. Give the SAS something worthwhile to do. Thereafter, as with Islamic State, the rest is all about geopolitics.

Admittedly this is an emotional spasm on my part - feel free to put me right on this one.

Glad you said it, Serial (as in, I'm glad it was you who said it, not I'm glad it's been said). There were some signs that there might be a rebellion over the truly dreadful Covid statistics, but right-wing dictators are so much more difficult to dislodge by traditional force.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I still can't get past the idea that overpopulation is the cause of all this. Yes, we can adapt our lifestyles to tackle many of the issues, but the fact remains that every person on the planet is a net producer of CO2, so the more you have, the bigger the problem.

With more people needing a place to live, the amount of potential land for growing food is reduced. Climate change causes more flooding, reducing the number safe areas to live, further exacerbating the problem. Sea levels rising reduces available land area. And so it goes on.

In order to reduce the world's population, there needs to be acceptance that the age balance will be skewed, which in turn will require new ways of managing national and international economies.

With human greed being a major issue, I'm not optimistic.

[Cockney Sparrow]

EA - agree exactly with your view, on all the points you make. And add, just generally, human nature - for example, not wanting to confront awkward risks and realities, and much more.

The economic growth model needs to change. Does Japan lead the way - in my twilight years, should I accept a robot for part of the daily care I receive whilst the young are active in more vital roles. (I had care in the home for 6 months while I got over debilitating illness (thankfully never to return). A robot might be more reliable - on the whole the carers were good to very good, but there were times when it failed to materialise or it was delivered without much in the way of "care").

Also, the nutritional value delivered by the soils we do have have been depleted and that continues. As I left school, the debate launched by the publication of "Limits to Growth" was very active and I got quite depressed with the realistic view of overpopulation and finite resources. In the end I had to put that to one side - sorry I asn't going to become an early eco-activist - "my bad". Looking at the issues now, if an extension of the lease on the planet has been delivered since 1972 by science as population explodes, I can't accept that it will continue, even if it should.

Perhaps its time to join extinction rebellion (a neighbour on the allotment site goes off on the rebellion operations -e.g. Murdoch Hoddesdon printing plant blockade. He's waiting to be arrested but reckons he's either too elderly to be arrested or isn't taken to be in the running to be classed as a leader or organiser. He goes off to the Court hearings to support those up for Justice to be meted out).

**With two offspring, one doesn't seem cut out for parent-hood (whether absent or present) and the other is set to have a family - but is quite conscious of the ecological threat posed by the climate/planet crisis. I wonder what their decision will be when the time comes.......

On the other hand, it seems to me nurturing hope for the future is an important need for us humans to carry on with life, so its difficult on a purely personal level to proselytise or intrude - for example I haven't and wouldn't broach the "how many children" question - not that large family sizes is part of the past of their family, nor of the partners in question of my children.

[Joseph K]

I still can't get past the idea that overpopulation is the cause of all this. Yes, we can adapt our lifestyles to tackle many of the issues, but the fact remains that every person on the planet is a net producer of CO2, so the more you have, the bigger the problem.

With more people needing a place to live, the amount of potential land for growing food is reduced. Climate change causes more flooding, reducing the number safe areas to live, further exacerbating the problem. Sea levels rising reduces available land area. And so it goes on.

In order to reduce the world's population, there needs to be acceptance that the age balance will be skewed, which in turn will require new ways of managing national and international economies.

With human greed being a major issue, I'm not optimistic.

This article is good but ignores the elephant in the room: capitalism.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question

[Serial_Apologist]

I still can't get past the idea that overpopulation is the cause of all this. Yes, we can adapt our lifestyles to tackle many of the issues, but the fact remains that every person on the planet is a net producer of CO2, so the more you have, the bigger the problem.

With more people needing a place to live, the amount of potential land for growing food is reduced. Climate change causes more flooding, reducing the number safe areas to live, further exacerbating the problem. Sea levels rising reduces available land area. And so it goes on.

In order to reduce the world's population, there needs to be acceptance that the age balance will be skewed, which in turn will require new ways of managing national and international economies.

With human greed being a major issue, I'm not optimistic.

Yes but don't you think greed comes from the survivalist mentality? Where do you think that comes from? Were there to be a system where everyone wasn't at odds competing over available jobs, land, status etc. it wouldn't be necessary to perpetuate the infantile oral stage, whose only purpose is envy and fostering artificial wants into adulthood. How could society, indeed, the world, be organised and shared out so as to circumvent the perpetuation, nay the very promulgation of such vices as virtues? Who could possibly be against, apart from those whose interests lie in maintaining myths that perpetuate privilege and ever-growing inequality, often resorting to religious platitudes as an alibi? Wasn't that what colonialism was all about, the gun and then the bible, and now the nice big white daddy figure promising jobs and infrastructure? Isn't it about time to stand up and really start calling out all such falsehoods, pointing to the sources of their generation?

PS: Thanks for the salutary reminder, Joseph K.