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On January 25 2013 01:55 Vandrad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 23:49 GrimmJ wrote: People are having fewer and fewer children, so eventually this will all balance out.
-32 C Here, so a little cold. Typical Canadian weather. That is totally wrong. You're just looking at first world countries here. This is an interesting link on the subject: http://www.breathingearth.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
Read. Overall, human population growth is slowing.
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yes. it is bloody fucking cold. we havent been above the freezing point all week.
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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.
Our earth planet is just one random terrestrial planet. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it has no health, it's just a mass of silicate with an iron center gravitating around the sun. Choose your words more carefully.
If by nature you mean "animals" or "life" as a whole, then you're also wrong. Living species (with the exception of human) don't conceptualize their existence. They just live, devouring each other to survive and raping/copulating to perpetuate their genes. They've no history, philosophy or complex feelings. They know nothing of the current and past world, except their own existence and their pack members. They don't care about us, they adapt to the environment as a whole, or die trying. Humans are just another unknown environmental factor for them, which might accelerate their extinction or development. We're about 0.1% of the total biomass of animals on earth (we're among the very very top), thus it's quite normal we have a huge impact on other species.
In fact by "nature" what you mean is beautiful forests, cute polar bears and all that jazz. In other words, your view of what nature should be. It's a part of yourself that you're defending, not "nature" in itself, which as I just demonstrated it, doesn't mean anything. Words are not innocent.
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On January 25 2013 01:18 S:klogW wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote:I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity). P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png) ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere. So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat?
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On January 25 2013 01:07 TricksAre4Figs wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction? Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
we because we are part of a bigger system.. i drive to get to work therefor i need "gas" thus help fund the oil companies. I buy food from tesco (your version of wallmart) which uses 1000's of lorries farms and other resources which cost energy and land which also destroys the ecosystem.. YOU yourself are using the internet which runs on electricity (unless you are using some sort of crazy carrot juice ) to reply to my post and yes you guessed it , that electricity comes from a huge power plant which is also destroying the eco system.
if you lived outside grew your own fruit and farmed your own food and collected your own water then no, you would not be destroying the ecosystem but i highly doubt that (since you replyed using the internet )
its just facts man, we are all part of a big machine and sadly that machine is messing up the planet.. but hey it will take a few more 100 years to really screw it up so we are all good ^_^
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Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:34 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:18 DarkLordOlli wrote:On January 25 2013 01:13 TricksAre4Figs wrote:On January 25 2013 01:08 DarkLordOlli wrote:On January 25 2013 01:07 TricksAre4Figs wrote:On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction? Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!! Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible. I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague". Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it. Calling someone a kiddo after being called out on a illogic statement doesn't make your point look any better. "Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible." - It conveys an attitude of "no matter what you do you are part of the evil system, you're damaging the world!!!1". You might as well say "A single drop of rain makes your clothes wet!", which, while entirely correct, is also utterly irrelevant when someone asks you whether it's raining or not. The only two things that matter is making people aware of consequences of their actions and then letting them themselves decide as for how much they want to contribute to make the negative impact they - inevitably - have as small as possible. Obviously using your bike to get to work is "better" than using the bus which is "better" than using a car. Telling the guy who uses the bus that what he does is irrelevant because it's not 100% optimal is utterly counterproductive to the actual concept of trying to get people to use a "better" option.
Good, that's what I was going for. That and only that. Why? Because the only purpose of my argument was to make him understand this "retard logic" as he called it. At no point was "being productive" even discussed between me and him. So this whole post by you is a giant straw man argument that fails to address what was actually being discussed. If you're trying to debate about better options with me, I left other replies in this thread as well.
If he's gonna call people out for having a certain point of view he should at least try to understand the logic behind it.
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On January 25 2013 02:05 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:18 S:klogW wrote:On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote:I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity). P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png) ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere. So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat? Because that ecosystem is something we have control over. (LOL) In any case, I shall volunteer you to be put to a canon to intercept an asteroid in the future.
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Earth will be fine. Some over-specialised species will die, some others will survive, and most of them will just adapt.
I just hope the human species will be one of the surviving ones...
But seriously, even the worst nuclear exchange will just make the surface of the earth unable to sustain advanced life for lilke 20k years. That is NOTHING in geological scale. Life will begin to re colonize seas and earth, as they are already doing in Chernobyl, for example.
Don't worry about our planet. Worry about ourselves.
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On January 25 2013 02:14 S:klogW wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 02:05 Cheerio wrote:On January 25 2013 01:18 S:klogW wrote:On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote:I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity). P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png) ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere. So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat? Because that ecosystem is something we have control over. (LOL) In any case, I shall volunteer you to be put to a canon to intercept an asteroid in the future.
Implying we don't have any influence/control over whether an asteroid will impact the earth?
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A plant's-eye view
Basically the above Ted talk. Every rational species would view itself as the sole cause of environmental damage, and (nearly) all other species as domesticated servants they've turned to that task. I see no reason that humans are doing any worse than species before us, even if our changes look huge to us. For anyone who want's to assert otherwise, I suggest you first calculate how long before every single environmental/chemical change could be reverted (to negligible levels, I realize the next idiot non-flying bird wont be quite the same as a dodo) by natural selection and normal decomposition, now compare that number to the age of the earth, or even the age of life. Better yet, find the fraction of earth those changes would even seriously impact in 1000 years if it were all to stop today.
If humans were to go away, species would go through huge adaption and then be fine. If humans stay (as most assume they will) then species will adapt to the rapidly changing ecosystems and be fine.
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Hm, those links don't seem to work.
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Welcome to the desert of the Neo-Mesolithic. I live in a town in the rural Midwest. Yeah I have a very loud opinion on this issue. So here it is.
-When I go for a walk after working hours, I don't see anybody outside. They are watching TV. It's like they're all inside plugged in to the gas line. When it's summer they're too hot, winter they're too cold. If it isn't between 65-80 inside their house, they have the HVAC on. I rarely do see other people outside but if you start a walking routine you won't see them because it was a fluke chance you met them the first time.
-Nobody grows their own food. There's maybe one greenhouse here that isn't part of a big department store (Lowe's, Wal-Mart) and it grows non-food plants. There are two "local" organic food shops and a small farmer's market but really that's probably 20-30 people creating that local food in a 50k population area.
-People rake their leaves and burn them or dump them in landfills. This one is controversial because people like their grass to be pretty. Leaves are the trees' gift back to the earth. When plants grow they need nutrients and sunlight. They get their nutrients from people and from the earth. Tree leaves are one of the best things to put in the soil for nutrients for stuff to grow. So why do people rake their leaves, the gift from the trees to the earth? Why do people ostracize? "Because it looks dirty. It's like sweeping the house," they say. I see a drying earth. Most people need to buy fertilizer to have a chance at growing their own food. I don't know the percentage of composting people in this area but a fair guess is below 10%.
And now I'll tell you the real secret. We're not going to win this environmental war. People don't like to change. And they won't.
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United States41965 Posts
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. On the contrary, calling us a plague is a nonsense. A plague isn't objectively bad, it's a species reproducing and surviving as best it can like any other. A plague is unfortunate for the host but equally a lion is unfortunate for a zebra. The earth is a rock and nature is a concept, we can anthropomorphise them as much as we like but it will still be a fiction. The Earth is no healthier than Mars or Venus, both of which have their own unique systems, albeit devoid of living things. We are what makes Earth special and condemning ourselves ignores the incredible triumph of nature upon which the ability to condemn anything rests.
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On January 25 2013 02:02 SiroKO 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. Our earth planet is just one random terrestrial planet. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it has no health, it's just a mass of silicate with an iron center gravitating around the sun. Choose your words more carefully. If by nature you mean "animals" or "life" as a whole, then you're also wrong. Living species (with the exception of human) don't conceptualize their existence. They just live, devouring each other to survive and raping/copulating to perpetuate their genes. They've no history, philosophy or complex feelings. They know nothing of the current and past world, except their own existence and their pack members. They don't care about us, they adapt to the environment as a whole, or die trying. Humans are just another unknown environmental factor for them, which might accelerate their extinction or development. We're about 0.1% of the total biomass of animals on earth (we're among the very very top), thus it's quite normal we have a huge impact on other species. In fact by "nature" what you mean is beautiful forests, cute polar bears and all that jazz. In other words, your view of what nature should be. It's a part of yourself that you're defending, not "nature" in itself, which as I just demonstrated it, doesn't mean anything. Words are not innocent. It's funny reading this and made me think off topic about animals are true to their nature. They are programmed to what they are supposed to be doing. Humans can't do that and we're supposed to be the superior complex beings. Always trying to please others and our own self image, ego by being something else we are not by nature. Sorry off topic.
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On January 25 2013 00:08 Dreamer.T wrote: I did notice this winter is ridiculously cold compared to the previous ones.
It has been unseasonably warm for New England for most of the winter. We had 60 degree days just a few weeks ago in winter and yesterday on top of Mount Washington here in New Hampshire, it was -85 degrees (of course it was just -1 last night at sea level)! Today it is bone chilling, but I heard after the weekend it could be in the 40's.
Extreme and unpredictable weather is an unfortunate consequence of global warming.
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At 86 years old he is one of the worst offenders and he should just kill himself. Fucking hypocrite.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 02:29 Hdizz wrote: At 86 years old he is one of the worst offenders and he should just kill himself. Fucking hypocrite.
So if I made the exact same argument, would it hold more value?
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On January 25 2013 02:29 Hdizz wrote: At 86 years old he is one of the worst offenders and he should just kill himself. Fucking hypocrite.
a little harsh, huh?
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Isn't like... every organism a plague if let be? And nature will always balance things out again. We should just let it happen.
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On January 25 2013 02:29 Hdizz wrote: At 86 years old he is one of the worst offenders and he should just kill himself. Fucking hypocrite.
lol wow. Whats the cutoff age for when people should start killing themselves in your opinion? What a joke.
On January 25 2013 02:36 Passion wrote: Isn't like... every organism a plague if let be? And nature will always balance things out again. We should just let it happen.
Or work to balance it ourselves....in a less brutal way.
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