Scientists warn a million species at risk of extinction

[Baerboxer]

4 hours ago, connda said:

The Earth as survived cataclysmic events in the past that surely wiped out millions of species.  New species fill in the evolutionary gaps, the Earth heals, and life goes on, albeit, in different forms than before.

Man's a temporary blip on Earth's radar.  Eventually a near-space object hit, Coronal Mass Ejection, super-volcano, or magnetic pole flip scourges the planet's surface again - and the Earth resets once more.  

Most humans have a built-in continuity bias - they think they are actually in charge and it all goes on forever.  <laughs>   The only constant in this universe is change.  At the planetary level it's often an extinction class event for surface dwellers - like humans. 

 

Guess it's being so cheerful that keeps you going ???? !!

[chilli42]

Nothing happens until too late.  People are dead and economies are in tatters.  Then the politicians step up and angle for votes.  This is such a big and complex issue.  So many fools do not buy in. We can’t even agree as a species or as a country that this is the biggest issue facing us.  It would take a leader from the USA or China (power, money and biggest polluters) to step up and ruthlessly Drive the needed change to protect mankind and the various flora and fauna we share this rock with.  I am appalled with my own inaction but truly don’t know what to do to make a difference.

[soalbundy]

1 million species, I can understand them wanting to do that.

[geoffbezoz]

9 hours ago, Emdog said:

"The key message: business as usual has to end."

My view is it won't, until it is too late.

Well whilst sympathetic up to a point, it is at the end of the day evolution. Been going on for millennia so the minuscule involvement of humans is hardly noteworthy in the scale of things. But still it gives the do-gooders something to shout about.  That's not saying we should not do everything reasonable to prevent pollution, ecological disasters  etc but at the end of the day we are just yet another small development and will end with our consequential extinction as our planet evolves.

[RickBradford]

These ecological scares come round every few years, when the UN figures that everyone has forgotten about the last one. They've probably put it into Google Calendar, it appears so regularly.

 

 

And featuring another historic meeting which "pledged world governments to an action plan to preserve the environment."

 

We haven't heard that one since the "We'll Always Have Paris" climate agreement of 2015.

[VincentRJ]

8 hours ago, jak2002003 said:

Seems the simple answer would be just to stop the huge birth rates.  If there was a way to sterilise each woman after she had one baby (could do it at the same time as she was in the hospital having her first baby).

 

If the human population was to keep decreasing we could keep polluting the planet, using fossil fuels, farming, fishing etc, as all the damage and pollution would thus also decreases as our population went down.

 

But, for some reason this is a taboo subject and inhuman for many.  Usually because of religion or countries governments wanting more and more people to make a bigger army and for war.

 

As we all probably know, several decades ago there was there was a big scare about future food shortages if the world population were to continue to expand. There obviously is a food shortage in certain parts of the world at certain times, but that is not due to an overall shortage of food in the world, but a lack of adequate transport and roads in certain regions to transfer food to where and when it is in short supply due to a famine or a war, and a lack of adequate storage facilities and refrigeration, and so on.

 

It's estimated about 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted each year, in both developed and undeveloped countries. In Australia we throw away around 30 million bananas each year from a total production of 80 million, not because those 30 million are diseased or rotten but because they don't meet the cosmetic requirements of the customer. They are too short or too bent, or have a few marks on the outer skin, and so on. But they are perfectly nutritious.

 

The problems mankind face can usually be solved through the sensible application of technology. Trying to solve environmental problems simply by reducing population size is as foolish as trying to stop climate changing by reducing CO2 emissions.

 

We should always address the real cause of any problem. We have the potential, with current technology, to provide a high standard of living for every man, woman and child in a world population which could be much larger than the current 7.7 billion. The total biomass of earth worms in the soil is several times the biomass of the 7.7 billion humans above the soil.

 

In Australia we have a fairly small island off the south coast called Tasmania. It covers an area of 64,519 square kilometres. I wondered if it would be technologically possible to house the entire world population on such an island, so I did a mathematical calculation. Here's the result.

 

I set aside 1/3rd of the area for roads, pavements, sophisticated rail transport in between the skyscrapers, warehouses, storage and maintenance places, shops and schools, an so on.
The remaining 2/3rds of the island would be covered with apartment skyscrapers. I allocated an average of 50 square metres of apartment space for each man, woman or child. An individual living alone could get more than 50 square metres, but a family of 6 could get less than 300 square meters, so an average of 50 square metres per person seems a reasonable quantity.

 

2/3rds of 54,519 is approximately 43,000, or 43 billion square metres. Divide 43 billion by the world population of 7.7 billion and we get 5.6 square metres per person. In order to get 50 square meters per person, we need each skyscraper to be 9 storeys, on average. If you think an average of 50 square meters per person is not enough, then make the skyscrapers 12 storeys.

 

Of course, it would be impractical to concentrate the entire world population on a small island. The concept here is the total area required for the habitation of 7.7 billion people. A similar concept applies to solar energy. If the entire Sahara Desert were covered with solar panels, it would generate about 20x the amount of energy that the world population currently consumes, converting all forms of energy to kilowatt hours, but it wouldn't be practical or sensible to concentrate the entire world's power supply in one location.

 

[ivor bigun]

When i was born there were 3 billion of us,now 5 billion,by 2050 they reckon 12 billion,, the exodus of the have nots has started ,soon it will get far far worse,and thats only the start,i fear my grandchildren will live in a terrible world,but nature has a way of getting rid of species and thats all we are .
Its not going to be nice,but most of us will never see it, Wonder what the next species will be like after we are gone.?

Sent from my SM-A720F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[VincentRJ]

5 minutes ago, ivor bigun said:

When i was born there were 3 billion of us, now 5 billion....
 

Check your facts. The current world population is 7.7 billion, and a lower mass weight than the worms in the soil.

[OneEyedPie]

Super volcano, cataclysmic tsunami, or asteroid strike are entirely plausible wiping out mankind but there's more chance of a virus / disease finishing us off.  More plausible than an asteroid strike.  The overuse of antibiotics might play a part but matters little as we won't be here to investigate the aftermath.

[ivor bigun]

Check your facts. The current world population is 7.7 billion, and a lower mass weight than the worms in the soil.

Sorry i stand corrected, nearly 8 billion already, so getting even worse

Sent from my SM-A720F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[attrayant]

52 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

There obviously is a food shortage in certain parts of the world at certain times, but that is not due to an overall shortage of food in the world, but a lack of adequate transport and roads in certain regions to transfer food to where and when it is in short supply due to a famine or a war, and a lack of adequate storage facilities and refrigeration, and so on.

 

Shrug.  You could say the same thing about wealth.  There is certainly a "distribution problem" with that too.  What's the solution?

 

 

53 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

In Australia we throw away around 30 million bananas each year from a total production of 80 million, not because those 30 million are diseased or rotten but because they don't meet the cosmetic requirements of the customer. They are too short or too bent, or have a few marks on the outer skin, and so on. But they are perfectly nutritious.

 

If Australians are really doing this, they're unbelievably stupid.  However I don't think they are doing that, and therefore they're not stupid.  Nobody throws away perfectly good food ingredients.  Banana bread, banana muffins, banana cookies, banana smoothies and all other banana-processed foods don't come from cosmetically perfect bananas, and ketchup and salsa don't come from cosmetically perfect tomatoes.  Likewise, bruised apples don't get thrown away.  They get turned into applesauce, apple juice, apple butter, apple pies and more.

 

The reason misshapen bananas and other "ugly" fruit gets pulled out of the supply chain is not because of consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, but because it won't survive distribution.  Odd-shaped fruit doesn't fit into the machines or the pre-formed packaging.  If you try putting a misshapen banana into the processing equipment, it'll get smashed or its peel will be cut or punctured.  It'll start to rot and that rot will quickly spread throughout the box, ruining the entire box.

 

But this "ugly" fruit does not get thrown away unless it's actually rotten.  It goes into soups, sauces, salsa, jam, ice cream and those other things I mentioned above.  I don't have any figures for Australia, but in the USA the amount of produce wasted because of labor problems (can't get a crew to harvest) & bad weather (watermelons that sat in a wet field too long and soaked up so much water that they became tasteless) WAY outstrips produce thrown out because it's "ugly."

[VincentRJ]

40 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

Shrug.  You could say the same thing about wealth.  There is certainly a "distribution problem" with that too.  What's the solution?

The solution is clear. Don't waste money. The problem with being rich is that rich people tend to use their wealth inefficiently, buying useless goods just to boost their ego, spending money on a private jet just to transport themselves in private, to boost their ego, when they could buy a much cheaper 1st class seat on a regular airline, which would serve the same purpose of getting them to their destination, and so on.

 

If a billionaire were to own lots of factories, or farms, employing people and paying them wages, and used the profits from those business to build yet more enterprises employing yet more people, then wages would gradually rise, due to a shortage of labour supply. There's no harm in being rich. It's what the rich person does with his wealth that counts.

 

If Australians are really doing this, they're unbelievably stupid.  However I don't think they are doing that, and therefore they're not stupid.  Nobody throws away perfectly good food ingredients.  Banana bread, banana muffins, banana cookies, banana smoothies and all other banana-processed foods don't come from cosmetically perfect bananas, and ketchup and salsa don't come from cosmetically perfect tomatoes.  Likewise, bruised apples don't get thrown away.  They get turned into applesauce, apple juice, apple butter, apple pies and more.

The reason misshapen bananas and other "ugly" fruit gets pulled out of the supply chain is not because of consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, but because it won't survive distribution.  Odd-shaped fruit doesn't fit into the machines or the pre-formed packaging.  If you try putting a misshapen banana into the processing equipment, it'll get smashed or its peel will be cut or punctured.  It'll start to rot and that rot will quickly spread throughout the box, ruining the entire box.
But this "ugly" fruit does not get thrown away unless it's actually rotten.  It goes into soups, sauces, salsa, jam, ice cream and those other things I mentioned above.  I don't have any figures for Australia, but in the USA the amount of produce wasted because of labor problems (can't get a crew to harvest) & bad weather (watermelons that sat in a wet field too long and soaked up so much water that they became tasteless) WAY outstrips produce thrown out because it's "ugly."

 

Of course it's stupid, and I'm sure that at least some of that cosmetically unattractive food is not dumped as waste and is used for other purposes, such as feeding animals, producing fruit juice and smoothies, and making banana bread, and so on. It's a problem which is being tackled, according to the following article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-05-12/food-waste-innovators/8521160

 

However, there are many articles on the internet which report that huge quantities of bananas are being dumped, for cosmetic reasons. Here are a few. If you think these are 'fake news' items, then please provide links to the research that debunks these articles listed below.

http://www.dscribe.net.au/2017/08/28/its-time-australia-declares-a-war-on-food-waste/
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/war-on-waste-craig-reucassel-reveals-the-shocking-truth-about-our-bananas/news-story/ddd59b65712f4649fc74b3f803520776
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/war-on-waste-craig-reucassel-confronts-supermarkets-over-ugly-bananas-20170510-gw16i1.html
https://www.smh.com.au/business/growers-go-bananas-over-waste-20100106-lu7q.html

[spidermike007]

20 hours ago, Dek Somboon said:

Nearly all politicians all over

the world suck, because they are elected by ignorant,

greedy, selfish citizens who are more interested in the People section of the news and what the Kardashians, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are up to, rather than boring, serious sideline news like this.

 

It’s just that Americans get VIP front-row seats to the World Freak Show.????

Americans created the freak show. Reality TV is the single most destructive force in contemporary culture today. It has contributed to the decline of America. It has weakened the nation, the minds of the average American who watches this drivel, and has given rise to a fake instagram, and youtube culture of celebrity. Cardi B? Who are we kidding?

[Stargeezr]

In Canada our GREEN dictator Trudeau is imposing the cash cow, Carbon Tax on the Canadian population. Meanwhile the worst polluter India, still builds coal fired power plants. China, Russia and other more polluting countries do not have this ridiculous tax. Even the USA do not penalize their population.  Yes we have man made pollutions, like all the jet airliners and cargo planes that fly all over the world, cruise ships, and freighters that pollute in many ways. Old vehicles in many countries that are still on their streets and roadways.  There are ways that many countries that can do way better. Some countries still burn crops , especially in Asia that pollutes every year.

  The worlds countries have to do better to clean up the garbage, especially plastics, that are

killing off our sea life. A note to the Green people that think oil should be left in the ground, Dream on, look in google and see just how many things are made from oil. It is incredible,

So much of the cars and trucks, so many things in your homes, sports clothings, and sneakers, sports equipment, electronic items, like cell phones, computors, tablets, TVs, the petro-chemical industry is massive.

Geezer

[Stargeezr]

With so much fake scientific reports being believed, I am surprised that all the countries in the world, are not doing better to try help some of the animals that are in danger. Zoos are being frowned upon, but in Africa people are killing animals for money.  Way to go greedy Africa.

  Yes man kind could do much better.

Geezer

[geoffbezoz]

1 minute ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

With so much fake scientific reports being believed, I am surprised that all the countries in the world, are not doing better to try help some of the animals that are in danger. Zoos are being frowned upon, but in Africa people are killing animals for money.  Way to go greedy Africa.

  Yes man kind could do much better.

Geezer

But the Japanese are too now killing mammals for money - Whales.  Africans in the main have little choice due to poverty so hence any income can in their eyes be justified by any means.  But an educated nation like Japan ?  killing whales for profit and hastening the end of the worlds largest creatures, then that is more appalling.   Guess their logic is if we don't kill them then the plastic will !! sad

[attrayant]

11 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

However, there are many articles on the internet which report that huge quantities of bananas are being dumped, for cosmetic reasons. Here are a few. If you think these are 'fake news' items, then please provide links to the research that debunks these articles listed below.

 

 

I don't have the resources to chase these down, but in the US I have some contacts in produce supply chains, and this always turns out to be nonsense.  I see no reason why it would be any different just because it's Australia.

 

The Herald link shows a guy giving grief to a supermarket produce manager, but produce goes to a packing house after it's harvested, not to the supermarket.  The packing house is where they wash, sort, & package it.  If there is any waste, this is where it's happening, not at the supermarkets.

 

Here's a packing house that has 51 channels and ten packing lines:
 

"Packout rates at Geos average 80 percent. Of the remaining 20 percent, about 18 percent is packed bulk in large, cardboard bins, according to Humml. Less than 2 percent of the fruit at the packing house is graded as “industrial” and sent to the juicer. Growers make an initial presort in the field to cull out the industrial grade, bringing such fruit into the packing house in separate bins from their higher quality fruit."

 

From the Herald link:

 

"Cavendish bananas can't be too straight but Lady Fingers can't be too bent."

 

As I've said before, this is because of the packing equipment, not because people won't eat a banana that's too curvy or too straight.  Here's a documentary on the Cavendish banana, which says at one point (paraphrasing):
 

"To replace the Cavendish banana with some other cultivar, the entire infrastructure network for transporting bananas would have to be replaced.  The entire banana supply chain is designed for the Cavendish banana."

 

I also note that the Herald article says unacceptable bananas are "discarded", which could simply mean they're removed from distribution centers and directed to some other supply chain. 

 

There are unquestionably some ridiculous consumer demands that are counterproductive to efficiency, the whole "organic" and "clean food" movement is an excellent example of this.  But very little farm produce goes into the compost heap unless it's actually inedible.

 

I can only speak from experience.  I've been in enough trendy supermarkets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and seen all the perfect, beautiful bananas.  I've also been in the local chains where the poor folk shop and they sold plenty of odd-shaped produce.  This whole "ugly fruit" thing seems like a classist movement.

 

Something that, for logistical reasons simply can't go to a supermarket at all (like a 2 kg potato) becomes potato soup or french fries.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by attrayant

[jak2002003]

1 hour ago, geoffbezoz said:

But the Japanese are too now killing mammals for money - Whales.  Africans in the main have little choice due to poverty so hence any income can in their eyes be justified by any means.  But an educated nation like Japan ?  killing whales for profit and hastening the end of the worlds largest creatures, then that is more appalling.   Guess their logic is if we don't kill them then the plastic will !! sad

Apart from Japan with the wales / tuna and other sea life being unsustainably exploited, I see China seems to be the worst country when it comes to causing species to go get to critically low numbers and potentially extinct.. and that's not from pollution or habitat destruction.... that is from them using various parts of endangered animals as traditional 'medicine'.

 

When I read about some animals smuggling, poaching, endangered animals.. time and time again it pops up that they are being used for Asian (not PC just to say Chinese) medicine.  

 

Look at all the truck loads of pangolins they keep finding here.. and nearly all the words tortoises and freshwater turtles are endangered now... most going to China to be consumed.  What animals are found by customs are only the tip of the iceberg for sure. Its scary the numbers that are taken.  When one animal goes extinct or is too low in numbers to get anymore, they just move on to the next one.

 

 

[utalkin2me]

On 5/7/2019 at 9:52 AM, attrayant said:

 

Too many people think science is out to kill them.  I am being totally serious here.  Scientists come up with a way to grow twice as many crops on half as much land, and people scream "POISON!" and "CANCER!" even though cancer mortality is on the steady decline.  People are impervious to facts and evidence.

 

Ironically, the "industrial farming" decried by the OP is the very thing that has allowed us to become such a successful species.  But it seems like we don't want to put the brakes on it now.  Going back to smallholder farms isn't the solution unless you want to see 40% of the population working in the farming sector.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

 

 

The USA has the National Science Foundation, which was created to advice congress on complex scientific issues.  It was they, in concert with NASA and NOAA that guided congress and world governments to enact policies to curtail the use of chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete atmospheric ozone.  Now the NSF has become useless as congressmen stand on the floor of their chambers holding up snowballs to "prove" that climate change isn't real.

 

Elect scientists to positions of political power.  We took a good first step in 2016, electing a dozen candidates with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering or medicine to the house of representatives.  That's the only thing that will work.

Thank you for the reply. I do not think knowledge among our representatives is the problem however. You can fill up the house and senate with Stephen Hawkings, and still what would run things is the big corporations and lobbyists. 

 

Maybe I do watch too many movies, I will admit. But what do you think is going to happen when a righteous senator stands up to large corporations? Let's say there are billions of dollars at stake. He is either gonna be leveraged some way to vote how they want, voted out, or who knows what. 

 

It is all a sham. It is essentially just like Thailand in the USA... The US is just better about putting a bow on it and making it look sorta good. The only way to curtail it is limiting contributions and lobbying power. 

[thaibeachlovers]

Tell us something we don't already know.

Humans have been exterminating other species since they learned to use a stick or a stone as a weapon.

Sad thing is the people that could stop it won't, and the people that want to can't.

Edited May 8, 2019 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, utalkin2me said:

You can fill up the house and senate with Stephen Hawkings, and still what would run things is the big corporations and lobbyists. 

That's the reality. We can probably live with it, but countless other species will not.

In the end, when all the planet is covered with humans and everything else is dead and gone, humans will live on processed seaweed, live in mile high towers and go to the zoo to see animals like sheep and cows.

[Dek Somboon]

17 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

As we all probably know, several decades ago there was there was a big scare about future food shortages if the world population were to continue to expand. There obviously is a food shortage in certain parts of the world at certain times, but that is not due to an overall shortage of food in the world, but a lack of adequate transport and roads in certain regions to transfer food to where and when it is in short supply due to a famine or a war, and a lack of adequate storage facilities and refrigeration, and so on.

 

It's estimated about 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted each year, in both developed and undeveloped countries. In Australia we throw away around 30 million bananas each year from a total production of 80 million, not because those 30 million are diseased or rotten but because they don't meet the cosmetic requirements of the customer. They are too short or too bent, or have a few marks on the outer skin, and so on. But they are perfectly nutritious.

 

The problems mankind face can usually be solved through the sensible application of technology. Trying to solve environmental problems simply by reducing population size is as foolish as trying to stop climate changing by reducing CO2 emissions.

 

We should always address the real cause of any problem. We have the potential, with current technology, to provide a high standard of living for every man, woman and child in a world population which could be much larger than the current 7.7 billion. The total biomass of earth worms in the soil is several times the biomass of the 7.7 billion humans above the soil.

 

In Australia we have a fairly small island off the south coast called Tasmania. It covers an area of 64,519 square kilometres. I wondered if it would be technologically possible to house the entire world population on such an island, so I did a mathematical calculation. Here's the result.

 

I set aside 1/3rd of the area for roads, pavements, sophisticated rail transport in between the skyscrapers, warehouses, storage and maintenance places, shops and schools, an so on.
The remaining 2/3rds of the island would be covered with apartment skyscrapers. I allocated an average of 50 square metres of apartment space for each man, woman or child. An individual living alone could get more than 50 square metres, but a family of 6 could get less than 300 square meters, so an average of 50 square metres per person seems a reasonable quantity.

 

2/3rds of 54,519 is approximately 43,000, or 43 billion square metres. Divide 43 billion by the world population of 7.7 billion and we get 5.6 square metres per person. In order to get 50 square meters per person, we need each skyscraper to be 9 storeys, on average. If you think an average of 50 square meters per person is not enough, then make the skyscrapers 12 storeys.

 

Of course, it would be impractical to concentrate the entire world population on a small island. The concept here is the total area required for the habitation of 7.7 billion people. A similar concept applies to solar energy. If the entire Sahara Desert were covered with solar panels, it would generate about 20x the amount of energy that the world population currently consumes, converting all forms of energy to kilowatt hours, but it wouldn't be practical or sensible to concentrate the entire world's power supply in one location.

 

Paul Ehrlich’s predictions in “The Population Bomb” were mostly accurate, apart from their time delay. And when the Club of Rome issued their dire warning, nobody could have predicted Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution that solved that one single problem.

 

Same with the depleted ozone layer and the Montreal Protocol - only one single problem, efficiently solved.

 

Yet with the myriad threats posed by climate change, how exactly do you propose to “technologize” our way out of this mess?...

[Krataiboy]

One could be forgiven for doubting the reliability and objectivity of the IPCC, since it is was mandated by the UN only to focus on "a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate change variability".

 

Even more dubious, however, is the role of Al Gore and other members of the wealthy elite who, in the wake of the latest IPCC findings, are using their billions to exploit children's marches and other "save the planet" events designed to manufacture consent for a global “Green New Deal”.

 

Their intervention has nothing to do with saving the earth from the deliberately-created myth of imminent extinction. It is all about further lining their already-bulging pockets and rescuing a dying capitalist system with a fourth industrial revolution based on providing climate change “solutions".

 

The architects of this scheme - which, ultimately, will further degrade resources and exacerbate global warming - are seeking taxpayer funding, and even covertly lobbying for permission to plunder 100 trillion dollars tied up in our pension funds. 

 

For the full, inconvenient truth about the shady activities of Gore & Co: 

 

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Krataiboy

[bapoboy]

If we all pay more taxes the problem will be gone, taxes solves all the problem these days....????????

[VincentRJ]

20 hours ago, Dek Somboon said:

Yet with the myriad threats posed by climate change, how exactly do you propose to “technologize” our way out of this mess?...

Good question. First we must clearly identify the specific impacts on specific populations, in specific locations, that could be attributed to climate change and which are of great concern. I would suggest that such impacts are of the nature of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves in summer, and unusual cold spells in winter.

 

As I understand, even climate-alarmist scientists admit that we cannot attribute the cause of any particular extreme weather event to human-caused climate change. Why is this? Because the historical records clearly show that extreme weather events have been a normal occurrence on our planet, whatever the fluctuations in temperatures and whatever the gradual change in levels of atmospheric CO2. 

 

These are the facts which we can be confident are true and undeniable. The claim that the small increases in CO2 levels, from 0.028% to 0.04% of the atmosphere during the past 150 years, has caused extreme weather events to become more frequent and/or more extreme, are not facts. They are projections and hypotheses. There is no sound, empirical evidence that supports the claim that extreme weather events are becoming worse on a global scale. The AR5 IPCC technical report admits this. They use the phrase 'low confidence'. There is 'low confidence' that floods, droughts and hurricanes have increased on a global scale during the past 50 years (as at 2013 when the report was released).

 

So, it is clear to me that the issues to be addressed are:
(1) The relative certainty that extreme weather events will continue into the future and be as bad as they have been in the past.
(2) The uncertainty that such extreme weather events might get worse as a result of mankind's emissions of CO2.

 

Which of these two issues should be given priority? We have the technology and the energy supplies to build houses that are resistant to hurricanes, and/or that can be raised above previous flood levels. We have the technology to build dams, desalination plants, and long water pipes to transfer water from wet regions to dry regions, and so on. Problem solved. The next question is, why aren't we doing this?
 

[nausea]

If you have kids you should worry. Otherwise, what the hell, enjoy the benefits of unsustainable growth and broken business models while it lasts - yeah, I've heard the howler monkeys in the jungle, and swam in the rivers of Guyana teeming with life. Better hurry up though, your time is limited. As for me, I'm gonna be long dead before these things hit.

[mauGR1]

8 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

We have the technology and the energy supplies to build houses that are resistant to hurricanes, and/or that can be raised above previous flood levels. We have the technology to build dams, desalination plants, and long water pipes to transfer water from wet regions to dry regions, and so on. Problem solved. The next question is, why aren't we doing this?

Because money rules.

[RickBradford]

On 5/8/2019 at 1:30 PM, Dek Somboon said:

Paul Ehrlich’s predictions in “The Population Bomb” were mostly accurate, apart from their time delay.

That's weapon-grade, ocean-going delusion, on a par with Ehrlich himself.

 

Ehrlich stated:

 

"The oceans will be as dead as Lake Erie within a decade" [Note: Ehrlich is referring to the 1970 declaration that Lake Erie was "dead". Within a decade, it was once again a commercial and recreational success]

 

"America will be suffering from water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980".

 

Yes, that one worked out well.

 

Things worldwide are not getting worse; generally speaking, they're getting better.

 

 

 

 

 

[WeekendRaider]

On ‎5‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 12:22 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

Tell us something we don't already know.

Humans have been exterminating other species since they learned to use a stick or a stone as a weapon.

Sad thing is the people that could stop it won't, and the people that want to can't.

hey thaibeachlovers!  it's even better than that!!!! right?
 

every hominin there ever was.  anything that left the trees and looked like it could cook it's own food. 

and then a few million years later we made up stories about how we are so special.  there are no other creatures like us! 
well, maybe "The" [one and only, scary and hairy low life] "Neanderthals".   Christians especially like that story.  the primitive, one and only exception to humans and not even close to being as good as us.  as "blessed" as we are.

 

yet we are "blessed" and are a high order animal because we killed anything else that left the trees 8 mya... that looked like it could cook it's own food.  and we now believe we know why.  and it's quite funny:  a change in atmospheric concentration of Co2.  Oliver Morton.  'Eating The Sun'.  around page 287 in the paperback, as one citation on that.  of course, none of this is a safely shared perspective.   except maybe on a blog  ????  

Edited May 9, 2019 by WeekendRaider

[utalkin2me]

9 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Good question. First we must clearly identify the specific impacts on specific populations, in specific locations, that could be attributed to climate change and which are of great concern. I would suggest that such impacts are of the nature of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves in summer, and unusual cold spells in winter.

 

As I understand, even climate-alarmist scientists admit that we cannot attribute the cause of any particular extreme weather event to human-caused climate change. Why is this? Because the historical records clearly show that extreme weather events have been a normal occurrence on our planet, whatever the fluctuations in temperatures and whatever the gradual change in levels of atmospheric CO2. 

 

These are the facts which we can be confident are true and undeniable. The claim that the small increases in CO2 levels, from 0.028% to 0.04% of the atmosphere during the past 150 years, has caused extreme weather events to become more frequent and/or more extreme, are not facts. They are projections and hypotheses. There is no sound, empirical evidence that supports the claim that extreme weather events are becoming worse on a global scale. The AR5 IPCC technical report admits this. They use the phrase 'low confidence'. There is 'low confidence' that floods, droughts and hurricanes have increased on a global scale during the past 50 years (as at 2013 when the report was released).

 

So, it is clear to me that the issues to be addressed are:
(1) The relative certainty that extreme weather events will continue into the future and be as bad as they have been in the past.
(2) The uncertainty that such extreme weather events might get worse as a result of mankind's emissions of CO2.

 

Which of these two issues should be given priority? We have the technology and the energy supplies to build houses that are resistant to hurricanes, and/or that can be raised above previous flood levels. We have the technology to build dams, desalination plants, and long water pipes to transfer water from wet regions to dry regions, and so on. Problem solved. The next question is, why aren't we doing this?
 

Plastic is one of the problems that seems to get a bit swept under the rug. There have been some good reports on it lately though. There is a GREAT video of the president of the Phillipines telling Canada he is sending back their plastic and that they can "eat it if they want". I loved it. I am not singling out Canada by the way, everyone does their damage. 

 

I believe plastic is going to be a huge issue. Every single day it gets so much worse. We do not see it so much so it does not get its due attention. It is piling up in strange, offshore oceans current eddies however, piling up underground, being sent illegally to smaller countries who have yet to regulate its importation effectively. 

 

Here is the best part... it is a no brainer. No more plastic bottles. Done. So easy. There are countries who currently have glass recyclable bottles for everything... beer, coke etc. Why not make all manufacturers do this? Outlaw or tax to such an extent nobody will buy the plastics. Water delivery in the five gallon reusable containers should be mandatory. 

 

That right there would put a huge dent in the plastic problem. The reason it will never happen of course is i am sure the corporations make more money by cheaply manufacturing the plastic bottles and then letting the rest of us deal with the disposal. Same story with every issue, the rich control it and they are not about to let their profits be cut in order to achieve such an unimportant directive as saving the earth. 

Edited May 9, 2019 by utalkin2me