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On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote:
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
This is sad and true at the same time.
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Insanely cold here as well (but might be that I'm just not used to living in the middle of Norway as opposed to the south where it's warmer)
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By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell! No worries kiddo, global warming will save ye.
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you could describe the human race as a plague to the earth, thats true and describing us as a parasite is really not a new way to look at things.
i guess we should just strive to be more symbiotic with our environment otherwise we just create an uninhabitable environment.
and i dont know why people always have to say, oh this winter is so cold, how can there be such a thing as global warming? does nobody realize how stupid it is to say something like this?
and ye.. i dont see anything new here what would be worth of a discussion?!^^
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On January 24 2013 23:35 Wordsmith wrote:This is what naturalist, scholar, and media-celebrity Sir David Attenborough said of mankind and its nature of unsustainable over consumption of resources in his latest interview. Show nested quote +We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” “We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.” (The full interview is available only in print, but you can read the report here and here He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this. He is among the strongest voices on population control and sustainable development, but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce. Of course there those who say he is wrong. Critics claim that he has such a grim outlook in life and is ironically out of touch of the nature of ecosystems. Indeed, others claim that as long as a balance is struck, nature will always find equilibrium, regardless of how many people there are in the world. The critics point the problem not in population control or agriculture, but in the economic model we have. What is you opinion on this matter? + Show Spoiler +By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
If I remember correctly, I heard somewhere that we have more than enough resources to adequately feed and take care of every human on this planet currently; the problem is distribution. Developed countries waste an incredible amount of resources on luxury (don't ask me for the sources though, just remember hearing this in one of my philosophy classes).
That said, it's not exactly a groundbreaking claim to say that we have an overpopulation problem in parts of the world.
And yea, it's -23C here in southern Minnesota, USA.
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
This is a little ridiculous. First, we are part of nature, so when people separate us and put nature on a pedestal, it really doesn't serve much of a point. Second, we are the most intelligent species in the known universe, doing an incredible array of things no other species can. To say that we're just a plague is naive and it makes you sound like an obnoxious hippy with no appreciation for what humanity is. Yea, we're pretty bad at taking care of the planet, but we've been getting steadily better at it for the past couple decades, and there's no telling how it will turn out by the time we master space travel.
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On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote:
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame. That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Except we dont know any other place but Earth, where life found a way. It would be terrifying if it was the only place of life, because we suck at preserving it.
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Minnesota has been at -20C in the morning, and generally this week there has been a -40C windchill to compliment that. Pretty awesome.
It is no secret we need a culling of the proverbial herd, I am not talking Logan's Run or anything but Attenborough is really just pointing out the obvious. There is little we can do with this observation, it isn't like western nations will adapt birth policies or other forms of population control.
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Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 00:05 Nekovivie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on. Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
Hell, we're even exploiting ourselves by forcing our bodies to do labour evolution never accounted for. So I'm extremely curious what's gonna kill us first - ourselves or this planet?
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On January 24 2013 23:42 sorrowptoss wrote:
What does he expect us to do once we realize this? Start killing ourselves? What solutions does he propose to "cure" this "plague" that apparently is us?
The solution is to set laws the control population size, and prevent the world's population from continuing to dramatically increase.
Show nested quote +but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce. So... what is the problem?
The problem is that we're already at an unsustainable level. If the population stays exactly where it is right now, food will still become more scarce and harder to distribute because we're running out of oil, which is used in fertilizers, pesticides, and of course to transport the food all around the world.
It's a simple fact that at some point, the world will have to deal with overpopulation, and either set strict reproductive laws or deal with mass starvation and insanely expensive food prices. It isn't a massive crisis just yet, but you can't just increase the population of the world endlessly without running out of food at some point.
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On January 25 2013 00:22 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:05 Nekovivie wrote:On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on. Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward. Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again. We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
We're just going to have to get better at controlling it, because without nuclear energy it might be hopeless. It's arguably worth having instances like Fukushima had, if it can continue to bring us cheap energy post-oil.
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On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote:
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame. That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "extinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
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On January 25 2013 00:17 SpikeStarcraft wrote:
you could describe the human race as a plague to the earth, thats true and describing us as a parasite is really not a new way to look at things.
i guess we should just strive to be more symbiotic with our environment otherwise we just create an uninhabitable environment.
and i dont know why people always have to say, oh this winter is so cold, how can there be such a thing as global warming? does nobody realize how stupid it is to say something like this?
and ye.. i dont see anything new here what would be worth of a discussion?!^^
I face-palm every time I see this. The point with global warming is not that every place on the earth will be warmer (it won't, especially in the short term) but that looking at the earth as a giant eco system (hence the word global) it will.
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On January 25 2013 00:22 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:05 Nekovivie wrote:On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on. Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward. Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again. We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
Chernobyl's reactor type was not designed exclusively for energy production (it also produced weaponizable materials), and had substandard safety mechanisms all of which failed. See RBMK Reactors
Fukashima should tell us, not to build reactors near areas prone to seismic activity. I agree with the sentiment that we aren't completely capable of controlling as far as waste goes, but your description implies that man is holding a match near gasoline and hoping to control the blaze which is not the case.
I am for sustainable energy, despite the fact that wind farms can interrupt wildlife and scenery or even kill endagered birds. Nuclear technology shouldn't be written off completely, it has potential.
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On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
I don't think that is relevant. As others have pointed out, nuclear energy is much more efficient than any other form we've encountered yet. The technology is still new as, and safer reactors are being designed and built. Once the possibility of catastrophic failure goes to zero, this is effectively the cleanest energy,
On January 25 2013 00:02 PerryHooter wrote:
The population growth rate is decreasing, which is unknown to a lot of people it seems. That combined with advances in technology makes it unlikely that there won't be food enough to sustain the population. Carbon dioxide emissions on the other hand, that's a real threat.
While this is true, the amount size of the population isn't. The population itself is still growing, and so is the number of people to support. Hopefully it will go down eventually, but I doubt it will happen systematically, in the sense that global catastrophe will be involved. I'm in the opinion that certain people need to be more 'career focused' and not have a family while others focus more on raising their children, to create a more efficient society with a controlled population. However I doubt this will happen, I haven't met many woman who just ''don't really want to have kids.''
Then, it's not only a matter of population increase. People just aren't dying, with the ever increasing capabilities in health science. Increase in life expectancy is does affect population growth positively and it means a lot more mouths to feed.
We have to increase efficiency by a lot in order to sustain the amount of people we already have on earth, let alone in the future. There's going to be a shortage of food, water and energy unless technology can fix it because I doubt a change in first world dwellers is likely. Until they start to starve that is, which will happen very late in this timeline. There will be war unless we find an alternative that satisfies every country capable of waging war.
I have faith in technology though. Hopefully we discover FTL travel, otherwise we'll die off sooner or later. And then nothing really matters now does it? Sooner rather later.
Also it was -30 C yesterday in montreal, almost died.
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I guess we should better off making our own earth from scratch and leave this ball of stuff alone then.
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People really should learn that global warming affects temperatures in more ways than just warming during the summers:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Bpac36W.png)
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To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes.
Plague of the earth, i can see your argument.
Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
my 2 cents
About -10 btw.
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Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 00:25 Chocobo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:22 DarkLordOlli wrote:On January 25 2013 00:05 Nekovivie wrote:On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on. Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward. Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again. We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet. We're just going to have to get better at controlling it, because without nuclear energy it might be hopeless. It's arguably worth having instances like Fukushima had, if it can continue to bring us cheap energy post-oil.
I'm not exactly educated on this subject except for basic high school chemistry education but it just seems impossible to me to ever control that reliably. It's a process that is obviously natural in some form but we're taking that to an extreme to produce an enourmous amount of energy.
Besides, seismic activity is something FAR beyond our control. And on top of that, we're not exactly as peaceful folk so there's ALWAYS that danger of terror involving nuclear facilities.
I'm not saying write it off completely, I just think that it might be better to keep our hands off it as long as possible until we find a way to reliably control it (if that's possible). And it's not like there's no alternatives as energy created through solar, wind and water facilities produce clean energy as well. It's just a little more expensive I guess.
Which takes us back to an age old question - why the fuck does 1% of the population own the money that might decide all of our fate?
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On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote:
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
No, humans have not been damaging earth for ages.
We are changing some aspects of earth on a verry small scale.
If this is good or bad is a matter of personal opinnion, personally i think its good cause in general the changes we bring are beneficial for humankind.
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On January 25 2013 00:17 Stratos_speAr wrote:
This is a little ridiculous. First, we are part of nature, so when people separate us and put nature on a pedestal, it really doesn't serve much of a point. Second, we are the most intelligent species in the known universe, doing an incredible array of things no other species can. To say that we're just a plague is naive and it makes you sound like an obnoxious hippy with no appreciation for what humanity is. Yea, we're pretty bad at taking care of the planet, but we've been getting steadily better at it for the past couple decades, and there's no telling how it will turn out by the time we master space travel.
Yes, we're part of nature. So is the mold that turns an orange into a fuzzy green husk. It doesn't matter how you look at the situation, we're doing a lot of damage to the rest of the world and it's a simple fact that we'll ruin much of the world if we continue what we've been doing without restrictions endlessly.
It doesn't matter if we're intelligent or "special"- what matters is how we affect the planet and the other life on it.
BTW space travel is no solution. At best we'll establish small enclosed bases on the moon and Mars. Transforming them into livable planets isn't happening, and neither is travel outside of the solar system (barring a miraculous discovery of "warp speed" travel that breaks all known laws of physics).
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EPT
