MANKIND'S SUICIDE

[mchughcb]

What are humans going to mine on the moon?

 

[csl]

Wensleydale cheese?

 

[rab19]

there in lies the problem.......

 

[rab19]

As well as doomsday programmes David Attenborough voices over etc, he is a patron for an overpopulation group that is looking at ways to control numbers through education, birth control etc.

Population Matters

Our vision is of a future in which our population co-exists in harmony with nature and prospers on a healthy planet, to the benefit of all.

populationmatters.org

 

[CarlW]

I don't see this plateauing theory as a cause for hope. So we get to 10 or 11 billion and then level out? What's to celebrate in that? It's heIlish already at 8 billion. IMO 2 billion is the absolute maximum number of human beings this planet can sustain.

I loathe the way this subject is always discussed from the perspective of what industrial human societies desire and what they think they can get away with, as though that's the only parameter. "There's still room for more yet. We can shove a few more in here, build another megalopolis over there. We'll eat insects, build wind turbines, desalinate the oceans, irrigate the deserts, mine the moon. We'll live in urban termite mounds communicating feverishly [and pointlessly] through screens about nothing". Really...?

The vanity and self-centredness of it all turns my stomach. What about other forms of life FFS? What about wilderness? It isn't "empty" or unused. It's busier and employed to better purpose than anything we've created. We have no moral right to claim dominion over this planet. It isn't there for our convenience. We have non right to colonise it, monopolise it and strip it bare and turn it all of it exclusively to our purpose, and then celebrate the ruin we've wrought as though it were some sort of perverted evolutionary achievement. There is not a human being ever born who was worth any more than a single blade of grass.

I'm out of this thread now. It makes me too angry an too despairing.

Great post, @Finch. I agree completely.

Thinking about wildlife on a global scale in the current context can cause great despair. I have given up on that. All one can do is pick an ecosystem over which one has some degree of control and do one's best to curate it. I find as much - if not more - hope in the muddy puddle in a wet corner of one of my fields as I do on a landscape level in Africa.

That puddle, only a couple of square metres across, teems with life. At a microscopic level, it contains more creatures than humans exist on the whole planet. It is incredible! They are not very entertaining, but they give me hope. Nature will win long after we have gone. In the meantime, we can all care for our compost heaps and our window-boxes, knowing that they will inherit the earth.

 

[mchughcb]

I don't see this plateauing theory as a cause for hope. So we get to 10 or 11 billion and then level out? What's to celebrate in that? It's heIlish already at 8 billion. IMO 2 billion is the absolute maximum number of human beings this planet can sustain.

I loathe the way this subject is always discussed from the perspective of what industrial human societies desire and what they think they can get away with, as though that's the only parameter. "There's still room for more yet. We can shove a few more in here, build another megalopolis over there. We'll eat insects, build wind turbines, desalinate the oceans, irrigate the deserts, mine the moon. We'll live in urban termite mounds communicating feverishly [and pointlessly] through screens about nothing". Really...?

The vanity and self-centredness of it all turns my stomach. What about other forms of life FFS? What about wilderness? It isn't "empty" or unused. It's busier and employed to better purpose than anything we've created. We have no moral right to claim dominion over this planet. It isn't there for our convenience. We have non right to colonise it, monopolise it and strip it bare and turn it all of it exclusively to our purpose, and then celebrate the ruin we've wrought as though it were some sort of perverted evolutionary achievement. There is not a human being ever born who was worth any more than a single blade of grass.

I'm out of this thread now. It makes me too angry an too despairing.

What about other forms of life? So you are all up for rewilding the UK then? Bring back the lynx, bears and wolves?

 

[bluesako]

I don't see this plateauing theory as a cause for hope. So we get to 10 or 11 billion and then level out? What's to celebrate in that? It's heIlish already at 8 billion. IMO 2 billion is the absolute maximum number of human beings this planet can sustain.

I loathe the way this subject is always discussed from the perspective of what industrial human societies desire and what they think they can get away with, as though that's the only parameter. "There's still room for more yet. We can shove a few more in here, build another megalopolis over there. We'll eat insects, build wind turbines, desalinate the oceans, irrigate the deserts, mine the moon. We'll live in urban termite mounds communicating feverishly [and pointlessly] through screens about nothing". Really...?

The vanity and self-centredness of it all turns my stomach. What about other forms of life FFS? What about wilderness? It isn't "empty" or unused. It's busier and employed to better purpose than anything we've created. We have no moral right to claim dominion over this planet. It isn't there for our convenience. We have non right to colonise it, monopolise it and strip it bare and turn it all of it exclusively to our purpose, and then celebrate the ruin we've wrought as though it were some sort of perverted evolutionary achievement. There is not a human being ever born who was worth any more than a single blade of grass.

I'm out of this thread now. It makes me too angry an too despairing.

im with you finchy got better things to do than worry about mankind and this thread bs

 

[sikamalc]

Its a complex issue in my opinion.
No doubt there are increasing amounts of people in every corner of the world. Times have changed a great deal since I was a boy. I often re visit my home town on the north Kent coast to see my mother and sister. All of the areas I explored and played in when I was a boy have gone. Many of these areas are where I collected butterflies, lizards, newts etc. Now under a huge coat of concrete with a Tesco store on top.

The local forestry commission wood was a few miles further on with a large expanse of farmland leading up to it with hedgerows and a stream with an island in the middle. Now cut in half by a bypass, and the once hardly visited wood, now full of dog walkers, bikers etc. This wood contained a huge number of Nightjars and glowworms. We often camped in there over a weekend whilst fishing the old steam pond, situated in the middle of the wood. Now its just a mud hole with nothing growing around it, nothing as it was when I was a lad. This had all three species of newt in it, along with grass snakes and a multitude of other wildlife.

Much the same is happening on a huge scale across the world. Wilderness areas are becoming less and corrupt governments who care little for their country or the environment are the big problem, along with big business. One only has to look at the ongoing problems in the Amazon, which I am concerned about. The total destruction of the rainforest will and is making an impact on the planets weather. Corruption in government again along with cattle farming and palm oil and soya are the main issues. Plus illegal logging and then poaching.

 

[mchughcb]

Today Greta was asked about Biden. Her view not enough.

When asked what would she do if she was in power, listen to her answer it is very revealing. I won't be coming to her for hope.