My university is holding an international conference about the environment on november 26-27: Consuming the Environment. It's open for anybody to join. Follow the link for more detailed information in both Swedish and English. There will be a science seminar on the 27th only in English, with scientists from different countries that will be there both in person and via Skype. I will be there assisting this project. It will be like a warm-up before the big conference in Paris in December. Sign up and come to Sweden for a few days. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! How can we save the environment from being totally destroyed by mankind? What actions are necessary? Why is the process so slow? Do we need to change how we think about environmental issues?
Three words: Made In China. Ok it's not entirely that simple and it's not only or even mostly China's fault, but it captures the gist of the problem. Earth has been building up resources for billions of years, and we've been spending them like drunken sailors ever since we figured out how. The question is, how many people are willing to go childless and/or live like the Amish in order to rebalance everything?
Free contraceptive for everybody would help though and perhpas a limited monthly electricfund for every household, and of course focus the commercialism towards energy saving resources and products.
Interesting point, makes me wonder if that is how AI will view us in the future. What is natural indeed? We are all products of nature. The term "natural" is perhaps even irrelevant. What behaviour is most likely to generate a "good"/"bad" future is a better question.
I tend to feel that the main issue is our inability to prioritize properly. Our difficulty in clearly identifying our "collective" needs as distinct from our collective or individual wants. For example the need for a sustainable environment would have to be a higher priority to say, a second car. Our need for a sustainable environment has a higher priority to the earning of profit etc... I guess once our ability to know our priorities and adhere to them is achieved the rest falls in to place. Collective "Needs" first before the luxury of "wants". The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) for example was mankind's first serious attempt at prioritizing basic and fundamental needs for sustainable human co-existence. Perhaps we need a Universal Declaration of Environmental Rights as well.
Very good suggestion! Allthough there is little to no hope that humanity will learn to make even that simple distinction in time to save itself and the environment as we know it from extinction.
One problem is the poor cultures, because of TV and internet, want the good life that is enjoyed by first world cultures. Think of it; if first world culture use a lot of resources for only a small fraction of the world's population, then if all the poor countries want this, then the rate of resources used will go up in a drastic way. For example, if 10% of the world's people use 80% of the resources, then if 100% of the world had the same life style, then resource usage would need to be 800% of the current. China is a good example. As more and more people enter the middle class, the rate of consumption of resources and the amount of pollution will increase. Say we turn all of Africa into a growing middle-class, the rate of consumption of natural resources will escalate. The rich cultures that use more resources are learning to conserve, recycle, etc., allowing then to get more with less. But the poor countries need to consume the seed resource to reach that steady state, where resources begin to level off.
I don't know if that is a correct estimation, but something in that direction perhaps. We could stifle this by offering free contraceptives as I mentioned earlier and a lot of the first world products are already produced in developing countries. The amount of products exceed the number of people living on the planet, so it's not like the developing countries must go through the same process "we" did, but can instead use the readymade items,solutions and infrastructure available.
Supply and having them actually used especially when in some cultures contraception is not acceptable ( traditional values and religious values) are two very different things... yes? Also We already consume way to much of this planet even with out Wellwisher's point being considered. Maintaining the status quo will not provide any solutions what so ever... The impact of Globalization is far reaching and certainly more "negative" effects are yet to be realized. Even as we chat massive land clearing fires are being deliberately lit in Indonesia, the forests of the Amazon are being decimated and so on... so how to manage the rampant "consumerism" on this planet, as you have already pointed out, is a mind boggling conundrum. One that I seriously doubt we as a race are up for. and I agree totally:
Also I fear that the predicted time available is far less than the scientific community are publicly anticipating. Peak temperatures, both cold and hot being experienced of late appear to be trending seriously, posing a more immediate threat, in that, we may only have a few years left before major "natural" adjustments in human population numbers start happening. ....and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
That's the tragedy, but still it's not an excuse to give up hope and do nothing. The things we do to at least try to save the planet are valuable, I hope. Sometimes humanity does learn from its mistakes. To firmly believe there is nothing we can do about it is perhaps the most dangerous mindset to have, to just sit back and watch it happen. Apathy has never saved anyone, or has it? I'm sure it has somewhere sometime, but finding excuses to not do anything because it would never work because of this and that ? Who cares about culture and religion, in reality? If given the choice many people would use contraceptives regardless of religion and culture and they should at least have that choice, to decide for themselves. The upcoming Declaration of Environmental Rights , who will see to that it's being followed? UN? UN should withdraw all their "peacekeeping" forces from warinfested areas and protect the forests from being burned and ravaged instead. Let those warmongers kill eachother off, nobody cares anymore why they are at war, the only ones jubilating is the weapon industry. And everybody know this, and still it continues under false pretences.
Oh please do not get me wrong. I do have hope for humanity yet! The problem is we are trying to avoid "paying" for our mistakes by way of denial and other defensive strategies, and it is the very nature of mistake denial and cost avoidance that is at stake here. For example: Recently we had two Australians executed for drug trafficking in Indonesia. They openly admitted they had made a mistake, and yet there was a huge effort to avoid the outcome of making such a mistake. Admission alone does not prevent a cost from being incurred. Pleading guilty to murder and demonstrating remorse doesn't normally prevent someone from going to jail. I think mother nature ( God or destiny etc) is by far the most ruthless pragmatist when it comes to ensuring balance is maintained. We ( if one takes the anthro GW position) upset her balance and she is simply correcting it regardless of whether we acknowledge our lack of vision or not. It is up to us individually and collectively how we survive paying for our mistakes, if survival is possible, and what we intend to do that is different in the future to ensure we avoid repeating them. We can not avoid mother natures adjustment, we can only work with her for our collective and individual survival. We must form that symbiotic relationship and that is the inescapable lesson whether we like it or not. Mom does not care about stuff like culture or religion... if religion or culture prevents the forming of that symbiosis then religion and or culture will cease to exist.
ever heard of that four letter word "Abstinence" or the other four letter word " Self - restraint"... what??! Expecting men to control their gonads ..Egad are you kidding!
What do you mean? That contraceptives and sexual urges are not compatible? That there is not time to put on a condom, or what? If women got birthcontrolpills for free then it would at least help them control how many children they wanted regardless of male testosterone level.
Yes, you are right there, like religious people think they only have to ask God for forgiveness and then are freed from guilt and can continue make the same "mistakes". I more a believer in karma, cause and effect. Even if we don't want to pay, we will. If you risk getting evicted you will pay your rent. If not you will be homeless. Humanity is at risk of becoming homeless. The planet will survive, unless we succeed in blowing it up. I'm more concerned about the animals we torture to extinction. Most likely humanity will suffer great losses after several natural catastrophes and the few left must find a way to survive, but then again, chances are we get to move to Mars before that happens. A small colony of inbreeds will travel the galaxy.
Yet until man learns some self restraint regarding his "gonads" and his avarice, greed and therefore violent tendencies he wont survive on Mars either. Handing out contraceptives may aid in treating the condition but will only perpetuate the problem as the contraception allows man to go on with out learning the necessary self restraint tools needed for long term survival.
This of course raises another question: who gets to go to Mars? What qualificiations and personality traits are most valuable on such a mission? It's going to be highly educated people I assumem with documented self discipline to finish an education at least, and that could be symptomatic to the rest of their basic selfcontrol issues, don't you think? Or do you see Mars as the future rape- colony?
hee hee, why go to Mars to establish a colony, when you have a perfectly good planet like Earth to colonize instead... Establishing minimal environment impact colonies on Earth is exactly what we need to do... Certainly even with severe climate change, Earth would be a better place to "colonize" than Mars... My guess would be that as climate change becomes more and more severe, with peak heat and cold etc, cities ( communities ) will start moving to live under ground. It would not be surprising to see what is left of the worlds population in say the year 2040 mainly existing in large caverns dug out under ground.
They are already creating Earth colonies in order to practice for Mars, so if needed the knowledge already exists. But, spacetravel is part of the human evolution imo, and would be a relief to the planet Earth aswell: *big sigh* - Finally they're leaving.....
