Earth Is Reaching The Point of No Return, Says Major UN Environment Report
The speed at which mankind is using and abusing the Earth’s resources is putting humanity’s survival at risk, scientists have said.
The bleak assessment of the state of the environment globally was issued as an “urgent call for action” amid growing concerns of worldwide waste, neglect and governmental inertia.
Fundamental changes in political policy and individual lifestyles were demanded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as it gave warning that the “point of no return” for the environment is fast being approached.
The damage being done was regarded by the UN programme as so serious that it said the time had come for the environment to be a central theme of policy-making instead of just a fringe issue, even though it would damage the vested interests of powerful industries.
Marion Cheatle, of the environment programme, said that damage sustained by the environment was of fundamental economic concern and, if left unchecked, would affect growth.
“The report provides incontrovertible evidence of unprecedented environmental change over the last 20 years that, unless checked, will fundamentally undermine economic development for current and future generations,” she said as the report was released in London.
The report, the fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4), assessed the impact on the environment since 1987.
It was drafted on the basis of reports by almost 400 scientists, all experts in their fields, whose findings were subjected to review by another 1,000 scientists.
Climate change was identified as one of the most pressing problems but the condition of freshwater supplies, agricultural land and biodiversity were considered to be of equal concern.
It came 20 years after the publication Our Common Future by the Brundtland Commission, the first attempt by the UN to provide a comprehensive review of Man’s impact on the environment.
The authors of the latest report said there had been progress on some environmental problems in the past two decades, most notably the international agreement to protect the ozone layer. But while maintaining that they wanted to avoid presenting a “dark and gloomy scneario”, they concluded: “There are no major issues raised in Our Common Future for which the foreseeable trends are favourable.”
They said the scale of the challenge was huge and highlighted a series of problems that need to be faced and tackled by people and governments around the world before damage to the environment becomes irreversible.
Increases in the world population, which has risen almost 34 per cent from 5 billion in 1987 to 6.7 billion today, have caused many of the challenges because of the demands on the Earth’s natural resources.
Demand, heightened by a three-fold increase in trade since 1987, means that more is now being produced than can be sustained in the long term. On average, each person needs 21.9 hectares of the Earth’s surface to supply their needs whereas, it was calculated, the Earth’s biological capacity is 15.7 hectares per person.
The report was critical of the lack of action by governments in protecting the environment. The response to climate change was described as “woefully inadequate” but it was regarded as one of several significant problems that need to be addressed effectively.
“We appear to be living in an era in which the severity of environmental problems is increasing faster than our policy responses,” it said. “To avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences in the future, we need new policy approaches to change the direction and magnitude of drivers of environmental change.
“The need couldn’t be more urgent and the time couldn’t be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations.”
Overfishing was singled out as an issue that needed to be tackled as a priority. Measures to protect biodiversity, with species being forced into extinction at a rate 100 times faster than any in fossil records, were regarded as equally urgent.
Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, said that the international community’s response to environmental issues was at times “courageous and inspiring”, but all too often was inadequate.
“The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged - and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay,” he said.
Mike Childs, of the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, said: “The steady degradation of the world’s environment threatens the well-being of everybody on the planet.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the report illustrated the importance of living sustainably: “It is the only way to improve global life expectancy and income inequality, beat climate change, reduce deforestation and protect biodiversity.”
© 2007 The Times Online
Trust the market! And God, don’t forget God. Oh, and don’t forget the “Invisible Hand.” Or the Invisible Man. Or the Invisible Guy in the Sky, oh yea, that’s God again. Or ET, we can trust ET. Oh, it’s just too complicated for us common people. We need to trust the economists on Wall Street. They know. They have all those complicated formulas because they are really smart. Yes, let’s trust them. They will make everything work out in the end. For somebody.
Oh, so you mean to tell me that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? That we can’t just take and take and take?
It’s time for the new revolution - the industrial revolution has proven its obsolescence (not to mention devastating consequences). The new revolution is modeled off of nature itself - everything must be a full cycle, to come full circle, and not to the devastation of the planet, products, people, and systems. Cradle to Cradle design, must be the new revolution. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7987612343225687713
It won’t fix all the problems but it will begin to work towards a balance as we fight through the extreme, and dangerous, imbalances the industrial age has caused.
Let’s see if I get what’s happening here:
We burned all this fossil fuel and put a lot of stuff into the air.
So the air is thicker and bad to breath and the climate is changing for the worse.
In making war we burn a lot of fossil fuels in our ships, planes and ground vehicles.
So we make war to get at more fossil fuels.
(So that everybody keeps his or her job.)
Man, it’s frustrating being so dull that I can’t see the big picture.
We are in the race of our lives. We were ready to do this to people a hundred years from now. Then it was being ready to do it to people in mid century. Then to our kids and grandkids but guess what? We who do this…are surprised to find that we have done it to ourselves and not only that but real bad and real fast. Time to get scared.
In this race to keep the world WE live in from becoming a hell… the devil take the hindmost… isn’t joking around. That’ll be us if we lose.
Oh yeah one more thing. We lag behind finding out what we haven’t wanted to know. In other words we are already late out of the starting gate and we even now we have yet to face that. rather than change they kind of cars we make tiny incrememntal changes in mpg requirements. Is taht a joke? Rather than infringe on industry we … walk instead of run. One hell of a race we run huh?
If money grew on trees, at least there would be reforestation to help us…
I’m not religious but the world is looking like Revelations more and more every day. And frankly that terrifies me!
Cradle to Cradle, yes. I watched the film “Waste = Food” on Sundance one evening, and was blown away. It’s a “cradle to cradle” concept whereby everything is recyclable forever and ever. Recycling as we practice it now is only recycle for two or three cycles. But cradle-to-cradle just keeps going round and round and round forever. So the need to mine for resources to build — anything, or make anything — even clothing, shoes, autos, chairs, furniture — is vastly vastly reduced. China will be using this new science (created by a German scientist and collaborated with architect William McDonough) to build 7 new cities in 7 years using this cradle-to-cradle concept to house 430 million people. Because if they used bricks, as China mostly uses to build, they would have to remove all the topsoil in the entire country for bricks, and that would destroy land for agriculture. Ford and Nike are using this concept in their buildings, and shoes. The Netherlands also is way ahead of the rest of the world, since they are privvy to green living and practice it like a religion. This concept ought to be a priority everywhere.
okay, so the frikin world is doomed. can we just get over it and get on with it? i’ve been on the planet long enough to have heard this way too many times. if it’s not peak oil, it’s the oceans that aren’t absorbing enough carbon. It’s always something “outside” of ourselves. I would have thought the Pogo cartoon caption, “we have found the enemy, and it is us” would have made it into the learning curve by now but that would be discounting the power of basic denial. Our current president/emperor, the Bush, says he’s going to “stay the course” even is Barney and Laura are the only ones supporting him. Well, way to go mein dictator. Have you forgotten that you and congress are supposed to be representatives of “we the people?” Of course you haven’t. You’re just ignoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights because you want to keep us safe from those bad bogeymen, the terrorists. Ooooooooh, i cringe, on cue when you speak those words.
okay, so the frikin world is doomed. can we just get over it and get on with it? i’ve been on the planet long enough to have heard this way too many times. if it’s not peak oil, it’s the oceans that aren’t absorbing enough carbon. It’s always something “outside” of ourselves. I would have thought the Pogo cartoon caption, “we have found the enemy, and it is us” would have made it into the learning curve by now but that would be discounting the power of basic denial. Our current president/emperor, the Bush, says he’s going to “stay the course” even is Barney and Laura are the only ones supporting him. Well, way to go mein dictator. Have you forgotten that you and congress are supposed to be representatives of “we the people?” Of course you haven’t. You’re just ignoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights because you want to keep us safe from those bad bogeymen, the terrorists. Ooooooooh, i cringe, on cue when you speak those words.
Someone said it: Revolution. Not guns, but brains. To use a cliche, “we have the technology.” What we’ve got now is what happens when the stupid people are in charge. Or at least people who think the world is all about their own little power schemes.
The article about Bioneers is a good one. No point in dissing the Bioneers conference — there is a place where people are actually working on solutions the this madness.
My neighbor screamed at SUVs on the freeway for years; went into a hissy fit every time she saw one anywhere. Then one day she bought a new car - guess what she bought. You’re right. An SUV. She rants about what’s being done to the earth, about what’s coming. And she fills her garbage can every week with paper, cans, bottles, etc. She runs her air conditioner day and night. She uses a dish washer, does loads of laundry several times a week - there’s only her and a small pet - and I could go on and on. We saw Al Gore’s film together, and as she carried on about it, I asked her if that meant she was was going to give up her SUV. Her answer was a dirty look, and an excuse.
There’s so many people doing exactly what she’s doing - paying lip service to our coming extinction. I guess we each have to follow our own dictates, and hope we can live with the consequences.
For myself, I’ll continue to take the two - three minute showers a week (I’m old, retired, and a loner, so I have only myself to offend); I wear the same clothes for several days, unless I work in the yard. My clothes don’t get dirty and I don’t sweat. I do one or two small loads of laundry a week. I’ve probably watered my postage stamp “lawn” six times in the past three years. It’s mostly clover, so it stays green whether I want it to or not. I keep it cut and it looks like a lawn. I continue to “save” every small living creature in my domain, allowing them to live and pursue their purpose on this planet that belongs to none of us. I haven’t used pesticides or herbicides in over ten years.
My outlook for the destructive inhabitants of planet earth is grim. I think the time is coming soon - again - when she’ll get fed up enough with the ‘gnats’ causing her such irritation and she’ll do a bit of house cleaning.
Good thing the Naderites didn’t let the “perfect” (I use this term loosely to describe Ralph Nader) be the enemy of the good! Good thing we have Al Gore in the White House! You know, the guy who devoted his political career to the environment many years before it was trendy? Right, Naderites?
Oh, that’s right. The Ralph Nader brigades thought Al Gore was the same as a drink soaked southern governor who mocked death row inmates. Nice job, Naderites. Nice job.
Lewis Smith wrote:
“Demand, heightened by a three-fold increase in trade since 1987, means that more is now being produced than can be sustained in the long term. On average, each person needs 21.9 hectares of the Earth’s surface to supply their needs whereas, it was calculated, the Earth’s biological capacity is 15.7 hectares per person”.
Just more of the same anthrocentric thinking. Guess what…the earth need 0 hectares of human beings to supply its needs.
ah, the hippies had the right idea way back in the 60’s. it may be a mindset we are now forced to accept.
As horible as it looks, we can’t just throw up our hands and do nothing! We can’t think the task as hopeless and beyond our control.
Every journey, no matter how long and overwhelming, begins with one step!
Talk to your politicians! Tell them it is all very well and fine to hear their view on Iraq, but what you really want to hear from them is what are they going to do, what are they doing now to save our planet. It has to become the #1 issue in politics, in business and in our lives! These other issues pale in comparison.
I, for one, haven’t given up hope.
I can’t, we can’t, afford to give up.
If you do your part, if I do my part, if our neighbors do their part, if we all do our part, we CAN do it!
The question isn’t about humanity’s survival, but civilization’s. Don’t worry about the planet. It will be just fine. Wasn’t there some hullabaloo about 65 million years ago with a meteorite wiping out 99% of all life on the planet? A few million years later, you wouldn’t have known it.
We are a blip in geological time, a momentary rash. Parallel to any efforts toward ameliorating global warming, we should be doing what we can to store our knowledge in analog form and set about relearning the skills necessary to live through an agricultural phase.
Aren’t the hippies the ones who grew up to buy SUVs?
The “almost” syndrome strikes again! Earth is “almost” at the point of no return; oil has “almost” peaked; our economy is “almost” falling apart; Iran “almost” has nukies; Iraq is “almost” an unmitigated success; the Constitution is “almost” completely irrelevant; and, of course, the classic: the Illegal Occupation budget “request” is “almost” another $200 billion (196.99.)
How f**king stupid are we again?
Since when is the earth the human species? It is precisely this kind of anthropomorphic bullshit that has caused everything negative on this planet.
The earth is going to be just fine.
Our destructive species will be flushed.
I say GOOD RIDDANCE.
And in Charlotte NC they are squabling about a new drag strip!
http://76.12.72.97/wfae/audio/CT20071024.m3u
The Bush-Cheney Crime Syndicate and their fascist supporters continue to deny that there is any problem with global warming. They want to continue to rape Mother Earth and get rich off of nature while they destroy it. They are world class criminals, the worst of the worst.
There was a movement in the 1960’s and ’70’s called ZGP, which stood for ZERO GROWTH POPULATION. Back then, we (as in we HIPPIES)at least talked about being kind to the planet by not bringing more and more children into an already over-taxed world. I find it very interesting that people today don’t want to even entertain the thought of human beings not reproducing at will. A world wide moratorium on having babies would help the planet immeasurably. You want to take real and lasting responsibility in regards to the health of our planet Earth? Don’t reproduce! Driving an SUV can be regarded as being selfish and callous behavior. What about having children, and contributing to the real threat of overpopulation? If it’s people who are bringing the planet to the brink of destruction, wouldn’t it make the most sense NOT to bring more people into the world? Think about it. Really think about it. Being a resposible human being may entail making one of the biggest sacrifices you may imagine; not having children!
Maybe it’s time to think Amish.
Commander n chimp..The attendants are looking for you…go quietly, be a good little boy or girl. Everything will be fine. Don’t be scared! The cell is nice and cozy. Bye Bye now!
Corporate governments are busy calming the sheep by redacting the truth. Will we be given ersatz bars of soap to keep us obediant as we are hearded to the showers?
Here are maps of land outlines at “the end of (and in the midst of) global warming”.
http://resumbrae.com/archive/warming/index.html
There’ll be surfing in Memphis and Baghdad will be under water due to the melting of the polar ice caps.
I don’t think too many of the people who frequent this site are that surprised by this news. Nor would be people who have studied a little about the patterns of collapse of past civilisations.
Looking at civilisations that diverted collapse, there seems to be one of two political structures that have made it through the threat of collapse to a sustainable path. One is top-down totalitarian control (not a very appealing system) that admits that the health of the environment is the premier requirement for existence, or a small scale tribal society that comes to the same conclusion.
We (of the over-developed world), of course, have a political system that marches us faster and faster into collapse and a populus in great denial of the imminent collapse, the signs of which need effort to miss.
Pity. As I am all to fond of repeating on these pages, repair of the Earth takes far less time and effort than destruction of the Earth.
I just do not understand it. We know what is happening, We know how we could save our human species for a few more thousand years.
Some newspaper Cartoon once stated “We Have Met The Enemy And It Is Us”
It seems that cartoon is still right today even on this subject.
oh I could say that we still have a chance.That is if just that 65 percent of climate Change believers even did one thing each day to lessen their impact on this Earth.
But we all know that will never happen.
We are all waiting for some savior be him Religious or Politcal to come and poof all the environmental problems are gone.
We deep in our thoughts know what to do, but nobody wants to do it first.
So People get in line cause Soylent Green Is Tuesday
Reuse Today For A Better Earth
genaman
If you love children, don’t have any!
Two paths diverge before us: war to control the remaining hydrocarbons (and rack up obscene profits for our corporate masters) or world cooperation around saving the environment and creating a sustainable world economy.
The task before the American people *right now*, *this year*, is critical to the survival of our species: we must block the war on Iran and salvage American representative democracy. The lifespan of a fascist dictatorship (unless destroyed by the wars it brings on) appears to be about 25 to 40 years, before it collapses from its own internal contradictions. Human civilization won’t survive 25 to 40 years of American fascism, even it it doesn’t lead to world thermonuclear war. The science is clear: we don’t have that long.
We have no right to give up, no right to despair, no right to blame this mess on the people or on human nature. Let posterity (if there is any) be the judge of that, but let its judgment also be that we saved humanity from a train-wreck or that we did our damnedest to avert it.
I think the phrase “the earth is reaching the point of no return” is extremely small-minded. The earth will do just fine. It’s the species that inhabit it that will have to adjust to changes wrought by homo sapiens. Organism will survive, some might well thrive in the new climate that results from the by-products of human activities. If homo sapiens doesn’t thrive, well, that will be too bad for our descendents. The planet will not shed a tear. It isn’t altruistic to try to avert the climate changes, it’s pure self-interest. Funny how that doesn’t seem to sell.
Thanks Anney and 2Lyons
Yeh. The situation is tough. Usually it takes all out disaster to mobilize the masses. Will we have to go that far? Maybe the Bioneers can help forestall it and get shift going before then. I hope so.
Our repeatedly manifested collective human species death urge can not be denied. We can only hope that we become conscious enough of it to harness it for transformation, not suicide, before it has us.
How strange…
Do you all realize that there have been extinctions of millions of life-species on earth, but in all probability Homo Sapiens is probably the only species able to foretell the conditions for its own extinction with some degree of accuracy? The rest of life is sentient to some degree but has not been thinking reasoning animals who can imagine a path from where one is to the future. So the final extinction of others came upon them unawares, with their numbers getting smaller and smaller in difficult conditions. Nature was more powerful and implacable than their will to survive.
Will this be true for human beings? Hard to tell. But, as someone here said, if we could just correct the self-imposed conditions that are leading to our own species-death, human beings might be on the planet for some more thousands of years.
Will the corporate will-to-profit with its accompanying refusal to honor and protect the environment destroy us all with killing toxins? Or continuing overpopulation? Or the nuclear war desired by madmen Bush and Cheney?
Are we sentient enough to stop our headlong careering down the steep slope of extinction and turn it aside for a few millennia? These are the questions we must face and answer. If we can’t, then everyone will act as if they’ve a right to live their own lives for the moment without a thought for the future and in so doing, accept their looming extinction just there at the horizon — nobody will change a thing.
Here in Central PA. many of the Amish seem to be going main stream. I’ve been casually letting my new Amish neighbor,(a young man that works for an Amish construction company)know that he may not want to get to tied up in this new found life style that he’s entering into.
Oh yeah they ‘ve got NASCAR plates on there trucks .Starten to dress all sports fan like. A bunch a guys show up for monday night football. All that shit.
Meanwhile I’ve been gettin back into canning stuff from the garden and thinking about a greenhouse, solar panels on the roof and design for my roof run off into systrine.
Stop feeding the monster please!
Oh yeah a year or so ago I quit using my cloth dryer,put in flourecent bulbs and put tv and computer on switchs that cut off power to monitors when not in use saves me $25.00 to $30.00 per month . Plus of course cloths last much longer.
By the way tv is for vidios and dvds only.
Humanity is not going to go extinct.
The Earth is not ruined forever.
We are not going to be swallowed up by a sudden catastrophe, unless it’s nuclear war.
What is going to happen is that we are running out of oil, and global warming is going to cause a huge amount of displacement, in the worst case flooding coastal areas where a billion people live. The environment is generally getting trashed, and lots of species other than humans are going extinct. All of this will lead to misery, death, and displacement for billions of people, and may lead to war, fascism, and even nuclear war.
However, there is hope for muddling through, with new technology, conservation, management, consensus-building, and throwing the warmongers out of power. There is no reason the Earth cannot sustain a population several times the present human population with a standard of living better than that enjoyed today by the American and European middle classes, and be restored as a garden for all (surviving) living things.
We can do it. Let the message of reports like this one be that we must do it, not that you may as well give up.
Does anybody know where the hell we can get a copy of the report mentioned in this article? I searched on the UN web site. No luck. There are too many things with “environmental audit” in the title.
Mark Abram and other population cornucopians, some of the critical faults in your world-view are:
that religious belief in “new technology will save us” - better technology might come, might not; humans tend to create tech with short-sighted benefits but long-term bad consequences; advances in human personal and social wisdom do not tend to keep up with the pace of tech creation; we are constantly repairing the damage and assimilating the change caused by previous tech;
the implicit belief that a constantly increasing population crammed onto the earth is somehow a good thing - no, more density creates more conflict and environmental resources are finite; no matter how “efficient” we become, there’s already Too Many Damn People; the belief that this number needs to keep increasing must be examined by all its adherents on fundamental scientific, logical, and psychological levels; the capitalist economic mindset must be particularly challenged.
We can’t have it all. We can’t have a “garden” at the same time that we have “several times” the current population. This century’s global crises should herald an era of sober evaluation, common sense, and scaling back. The last thing we need are fantasies of utopia, of being able to do it all, which would likely have the effect of leading us down ever blinder paths.
Can you measure your own carbon footprint? We will continue as usual until the basic necessities are rationed and then we will squeel loudly about the unfairness of it all. For all of our combined intelligence we are pretty dumb. At least learn how to swim.
Environmental collapse has been predicted for many years. We can’t say that we weren’t warned.
M Abram said:
“There is no reason the Earth cannot sustain a population several times the present human population with a standard of living better than that enjoyed today by the American and European middle classes, and be restored as a garden for all (surviving) living things.”
The UNEP report said:
“Increases in the world population, which has risen almost 34 per cent from 5 billion in 1987 to 6.7 billion today, have caused many of the challenges because of the demands on the Earth’s natural resources.”
I admire your optimism M Abram, but why should we believe you instead of a UN report by 1400 scientists?
Finally, we have reached greed fueled escape velocity.
O yea of little faith, you mean to say that the market won’t save us?
Although climate change is only a contributing factor to these fires, they underscore the need to implement measures for reducing carbon pollution. This can never happen while we have an administration that focuses on voluntary reductions and manipulates science to degrees never before experienced in order to conceal the real effects of global warming.
The right wing has been effective in concealing the dangers and sidetracking meaningful mitigation measures only because of a complacent congress and electorate.
Wow.. let’s blame those who voted for a candidate they believed in who stood up for radical change for the failings of a government controlled by corporations.
I still don’t believe Gore would have done anything radically different. I just don’t believe it.
But that’s me. I’m cynical. Maybe I’m wrong… but then again his record as VP doesn’t prove me wrong. Let’s see, NAFTA, media consolidation, the watering down of Kyoto, sanctions in Iraq that killed thousands of kids… need I go on?
Don’t you think the Naderites would have voted for Gore if he would have said anything to change their minds about him being just another Democrat? The only reason he’s done anything at all decently since then is because he hasn’t been in a public office.
Green consumerism will not save us. Driving a Prius will not save us. The only thing that will save us is abandoning civilization for a new social structure that works.
Anything else will just prolong the inevitable.
Ecology means, “The study of the home (Earth).”
Economy means, “The management of the home.”
How do we bring our management practices back in line with what we know from our knowledge of our home?
It does take faith. It takes even prayer. No, not to that angry sky god of Near Eastern Abrahamic tradition, but to the union of opposites, both Father Sky, and Mother Earth. To the Grandfathers, and the Grandmothers.
There IS hope. We know how to do this. We know deep in our bones, deep in our ancient traditions, deep in our DNA… We lived here for thousands of generations in ways that did NOT bring us to the brink of annihilation. We lived here in balance. We have forgotten, most of us. But the knowledge is still just right there, just waiting for us to turn back to it. It can be found in so-called “Indigenous cultures.” It can be found in our own lost myths, which are waiting to be re-lived. We, no less than the four-legged, the winged, the creepy crawlers, the ocean dwellers, belong here, but not exclusively so.
We were most decidely NOT given domonion over them, but were given the gift to speak for them.
So dig deep. Do it now. Pray. Cry for a vision.
A-ho! Matakoyusin! ALL MY RELATIONS!
Guess what? Earth will do just fine after we’re gone. It may take a while, but it will recover — without us. I have no kids, so, quite frankly, I don’t give a rats ass if your kids live with clean water, air, or drown from rising tides. You had ‘em, now do something besides voting for these same criminals over and over again. Most of the people (here) will vote democratic until they draw their last breath of crappy air, and some, go to their grave blaming Ralph (of all people) for their situation. All I can say is Z-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Well, what can I say?
Military expenditures worldwide are somewhere in the range of Three Trillion Dollar.
US alone $623 Billion for FY 2008.
As long as 6.5 Billion people allow some hundred thousand corrupt politicians to take care of their well being, humans will die sooner than later.
Evolution is a strange thing. It contains the law of attraction as much as Karma.
Regarding the small piece of rock traveling with 20,000+ MPH
through space, who cares?
According not only to the Buddho but increasingly to myself as well, temporality is the order of the day.
There was a time without Earth. Then there was a time on Earth.
Then there was no more Solar system.
Another painfully true word of wisdom is that every country has the government it deserves. Disgustingly though I would like to change that into:
Humans have the Earth they deserve.
No whining there. Like stated earlier, Americans were never great in Loving Kindness. They prefer the Military Industrial Complex with its entirely on death focussed Army and their mercenary servants.
They love wars. No other people on this planet are as war-horny as the Americans.
Even though the first SUV was the Range Rover, Americans believe they came up with it. Like the Saturn rocket. Well the truth was never a strong trade of any US government.
The greatest blasphemy of all is the American Philosophy “Bigger Is Better”. That utter BS still creeps around in some hopelessly dried out brains.
And with ‘Dumb And Dumber’ in the White House the notoriously deluded citizenry gets what it really deserves.
America is the biggest nail in Homo Sapiens’ coffin. Nothing that Americans touched in the last 200 years turned to ‘Gold’.
Still feeling great about the air lifts into a Berlin under siege. No need to ask why t.f. it turned out to be that way in the first place.
Like going to war based on deceit and lies.
Like ignoring the ‘Global Climate Change’ (That’s what it was called before the Americans duped it ‘Global Warming’ - just to ridicule scientists and environmentalists.)
Like protesting against abortion but not against the use of Depleted Uranium in Iraq and its consequences to ‘playing’ children.
It can be all said in one short sentence:
America Once the Great has become the global leader in Hypocrisy, Nepotism, Oppression and abuse of Justice and Truth,
piling up Nuclear Waste, consuming instead of using and wasting instead of humbleness.
The Face red of Shame Liberty would puke on America. Just like in good old Nazi Times. Where a German intellectual icon said:
“One cannot eat as much as one would like to throw up.” (Painter Max Liebermann as he witnessed the SA [’Sturm Abteilung’ - ‘Storm Troopers’] Hitler’s brutal servants marching through the Brandenburger Tor.)
Well guess what Max, 70 years later we need to eat even more,
because the urge to throw up about all the deadly lies the government comes up with, is unbearable.
The scent of puke is lingering over America. The mass puking is just around the corner.
Shoots, this was about ‘the point of no return’ of the planet.
The point of no return for Americans came 2000.
Maybe You should start practicing Your death, the reaper is already patiently waiting for You, as Dumb And Dumber are going to Iran next.
As if there was never a botched up and against all Geneva Conventions perpetrated war based on Greed.
America has some filthy Karma accumulated and it’s time for some serious ‘…Comes Around”
I love America as a principle of Freedom and Justice, whereas I have to admit, that America has died a slow death, witnessed and knowingly accepted the rise of the second ‘National Socialism’ movement. This time the SA is called Blackwater and I am sure they have a different name for the Concentration Camps too.
I go conform with commenters here that know the earth does not need us. We need the earth.
In the Seventies, the peak of the ‘Anti-Nuclear-Energy’ movement, the Club Of Rome made some predictions about what will happen in the future if mankind continues to saw the branch it is sitting on.
As much as a No-Brainer as all this is, obviously there are enough No-Brainer’s out there to spoil mankind’s ascent into the next level.
The higher level a few people have talked about before:
‘Love Thy Neighbor…,
…turn in the other cheek…,it has all been said before and nothing can be added.
There is no substitute for LOVING KINDNESS.
Without it You just disappear. Like all those idiots that died in idiotic wars for idiotic reasons, with idiotic support by an idiotic Populous Americanus.
We all have to die sooner or later.
I am afraid a many will die sooner than later. But don’t blame the planet unless You want to align Yourself with the idiots in this world!
Sorry, I know I should write a book instead of posting thoughts here. Publicity is the best Anti-Torture insurance out there.
Bless You all and thanks for sharing the planet with me if Your IQ is larger than Your shoe size.
wilmoor, so the question is who is responsible - the individual who buys the SUV or the corporation that produces it?
Sure, the power and responsibility are the people’s. But the capitalists make it very very hard for the people to do the right thing. If we want to have a society of mostly responsible citizens, we have to suppress the capitalist propaganda.
See the devilish consequences of not abolishing the Electoral College! The people clearly wanted Al Gore seven years ago, but we got the man that the people rejected….pretty stupid.
Surprises here? Raping Nature has been the “engine of progress” since men took over Western culture (by violence of course), a mere 4000 years ago out of tens of thousands of years of human living. We still use the vocabulary: Israel is planting “settlements” in what we’re to believe is “empty, uninhabited” land called Palestine, which was named after the first people to be wiped from it (Old Testament’s Philistines). And THEY were the direct archaeologically-linked descendants of the West’s longest continuous period of peace and progress in Minoan Crete—about whose incredibly advanced and long-lasting civilization WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW….http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com
Re: population
Every year 15 million children die of starvation. Approximately 1/3 of the world is starving now. About 1/3 is well-fed.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm
Some countries have a high percentage of arable land (land that can be or is cultivated for crops). For instance, 18% of US land is arable. Others have no arable land and food from crops must be gotten some other way.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/geo_lan_use_ara_lan-geography-land-use-arable
So there’s no way the world’s population can increase even more and survive. Inadequate sanitation alone would cause the spread of disease like wildfire.
Human “domination” of earth has ruined its ecology.
rtdrury: you say, wilmoor, so the question is who is responsible - the individual who buys the SUV or the corporation that produces it?
I believe at this critical juncture, both are responsible, and since the corporation is looking only at the bottom line of profits, while the individual is struggling with survival, then it rests with the individual to take responsibility for that survival.
WE ARE DAVID - CORPORATIONS ARE GOLIATH!
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BALL LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Its not that this story is untrue or non-plausible. But the timing is disconcerting. Our government is using psy-ops to control the masses, and it is not like the “bushies” to allow this radical information out at this time. They’re up to something for sure. Perhaps wiping out half the planet…..is the only logical solution? Buckle in.
wilmoor
If we had a progressive government in the US, or even a reasonable government, corporations and auto manufacturers, for instance, could be forced to eliminate ecological pollutants from their products. Remember Bush’s “Clean Air Act”, an egregious cover-up of no effective controls or checks on corporations. Then we wouldn’t have such terrible options in the first place. I think governments, world-wide, could first do more to protect the earth than any other entity by reining in or even eliminating industrial and auto pollution. Then individual responsibility could kick in to make things even better.
It’s just my opinion, but I do believe that until corporations stop their polluting, there isn’t *much* individuals can do to affect anything except on a pretty small scale, and that won’t turn the tide.
If the bees and other pollinators are getting wiped out, then we may be facing an immediate catastrophe, and the ones predicted to happen in the next 30-100 years will become moot. This is the most serious shit to ever hit the fan, but too many leaders are in the dark or just don’t care. My local paper ran an editorial bashing Al Gore yesterday and calling environmental problems “liberal globaloney”. These kind of people are in the vast majority, here where I live and I don’t know how to get through to them.
I don’t think a policy can be created or inforced to mitigate what is happening. If its buckle in - well - basic survival skill requires a viable source of water and methods of hygene that we can’t imagine outside of our modern living. Doomed? no. Earth is a giver. The future is just going to be very very different.
it is not overfishing you fools, it is habitat destruction in the wetlands
plenty of gd golf courses and condos
golf, men chasing a little ball because they do not have any
surfing fishing diving is for MEN with two…..
wake up ’sheeple’
Impeach and hang all NOW!
in public
1776 needs to be again to remove the tyrants see Thomas Jefferson’s words
Viva El Frente/Verde
turn them into soylent ‘green’
I think we have to take a philosophical and spiritual perspective on all of this. Self-loathing or fatalistic Revelation-based end times talk isn’t helpful.
I think humanity is on the brink of another Renaissance, a potential quantum leap forward in our evolution and development as a species. Before we whip ourselves too badly, we should recognize that much of the technology that has allowed us to create these environmental problems was developed from a motivation to make our lives more comfortable, not to rape and pillage the earth (not to deny the element of greed involved in this too). So, I think we should realize that we have come so far along this road, it has led to some major problems, and now it is time to take another road.
This, at root, requires a philosophical and/or spiritual shift in what humans see as their goals in life. Sustainability, modest living, care for our planet and its other inhabitants etc. now should be our driving paradigm instead of conquering nature or getting rich or whatever.
For those spiritually inclined, if we believe that humans are “made in the image of God”, then it would seem that we could rise to the occasion and make the changes necessary to actually move farther toward godliness rather than destroy ourselves. If we despise ourselves for the mess we have gotten ourselves into, aren’t we indirectly despising God? If we are so foolish as to destroy ourselves, aren’t we negating whatever element of the devine we supposedly carry?
I have to remain optimistic and believe that humanity can make this transition and move on into a new era. Otherwise, we might as well despair, and our existence becomes meaningless. I have faith that this life is not meaningless. And I have faith that this challenge can bring out goodness, as have many other challenges throughout human history.
Anney - what you say about the corporations is true enough. But I don’t believe your statement that there isn’t *much* individuals can do to affect anything except on a petty scale.
I’m sure the original David must have felt his efforts against the mighty Goliath wouldn’t do much either.
Consumer greed feeds corporate shareholders’ greed for more, and that greed causes the corporations to demand more of, for less, of the slaves under them. If the individual were to curb their greed; learn to live with what they need instead of what they want; stop the mindless shopping we’ve been instructed to do; cut off the propaganda box, and teach our children the truths they aren’t getting in school or on the TV, and stop giving in to their out of control wants, the corporations would start hurting. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the mess we’re in. A chip at a time, can level a mountain, or dig a canyon. As a saying I’ve had on my wall for decades says, all it takes is “One step at a time …”
In my early childhood, my mom talked about how God had destroyed the earth by water the first time, and the next time would be by fire. Until I was nearly twelve years old (kids were much more innocent for a lot longer then than they are now), every evening at sunset - and Washington has some amazing sunsets - I was sure God had set the world on fire, and I was scared to death until the sunset began to fade. The fact that it hadn’t really been fire didn’t make any difference, because I knew “this time it could be real.”
Kids have been very scared by Al Gore’s movie, and by all they do see on TV. They believe their eyes rather than what Bush and Company tell them. They’re beginning to do things like getting their schools to recycle, save water, and anything else that might make the danger go away. Maybe they’ll be the ones to save us in the end.
What’s happening in the world?
http://www.Share-International.org
—–
“Man must change or die.
There is no other course.”
The World Teacher
wilmoor
Yes, consumer greed certainly drives corporate expansion. Yet I can’t help but think about the disappearing middle class in America. Fewer and fewer people can “mindlessly shop”, as Bush encourages Americans to do — they simply don’t have the money to do it. Most of OUR income is spent on housing, food, and utilities and we don’t even heat the house in winter anymore — we simply can’t afford it. Instead we dress in layers and use space heaters if it gets too cold for dressing warmly to work. I suppose global warming will obviate the need for heating energy for many, so not to worry, right?
I certainly do see enough “comfortably middle-class” people to be driving SUVs around, yet these same people are losing their homes left and right due to foreclosures because they can’t afford the downside of balloon and adjustable rate mortgages.
I really do wonder who the people are who “shop mindlessly”. They may include those in and above the high middle-class, but it becomes fewer and fewer people as more and more wealth is concentrated at the top. Instead, I think the average American income is eaten up pretty quickly with shelter, food, health care costs, and utilities. It may appear that people are buying nonessentials at higher rates, but I really don’t think so.
In the context of a balance between corporate and individual responsibility for the earth’s ecology, I really believe that a quicker reparative effect is achieved when corporations are forced by governments to stop polluting while citizens also do their part. It certainly won’t accomplish anything if corporations are allowed to continue polluting the earth. THIS is the source of the most deplorable devastations to life, heavy metal and toxic chemical corporate runoffs that are now affecting birth rates for boys in Inuit communities, now half of what it normally is. Everybody thought the far north was safe from pollution, but air and sea pollutants from neighboring countries have concentrated in the northern regions now.
Now, so you don’t think I’ve missed your point entirely: Perhaps what you mean is that many people contribute to corporate goals and aims by either ignoring them or purchasing their products, and these are the people who will join those who are now concerned about the Earth. This may be true to some degree, though as stated above, I don’t believe the average American is a mindless shopper anymore. But we will always have recklessly spending fools in our midst, and I don’t know if you can ever reach a fool (we all know some of those people in the government).
I guess I’m just far less optimistic that some people will voluntarily be good stewards of the Earth if there’s no penalty for not being this good steward, even if a lot of people do their part voluntarily. That’s why I think the corporations need to be tackled head-on first. Perhaps only when everybody’s money is worthless will everybody pull together.
“The rest of life is sentient to some degree but has not been thinking reasoning animals … the final extinction of others came upon them unawares, with their numbers getting smaller and smaller in difficult conditions. Nature was more powerful and implacable than their will to survive. Will this be true for human beings? Hard to tell … human beings might be on the planet for some more thousands of years.”
Or may-not, yet may still survive and continue to Evolve. As you note, humans may be truly-unique — perhaps even Universally-unique? There are uncountable other planets waiting to be despoiled/exploited, until we can ‘grow up’. While possibly before we were yet-ready, we have already set about consuming the easily-available resources on this planet in achieving the Technology/Civilization required to ultimately break free of it’s restraints and risks — we cannot now return to any lesser-stage, then later ‘get to this threshold again, when more-prepared’. The Farm is mostly-sold, so to speak. Our next-steps must be to master a controlled nuclear-fusion — perhaps utilizing the Helium-3, so-conveniently in abundance (and awaiting-us) on our Moon. That can be the plentiful clean-energy which can fuel our continued and outbound advancement — the core energy-source readily-seen in Nature. It alone could sustain us, within our ill-planned and multitudinous-Civilization (such as it is) in our sole-habitat. Such could provide what we now need until we can explore/populate/understand the remainder of this solar-system. Then no single/inevitable Extinction-Level disaster can result in making our rather-insignificant birthplace also our tomb (and negating all of the sacrifice and contributions countless-generations of our own and many-other species [and some obscene-and-astronomical ‘Luck’] have combined to result in ‘who we are’ and, hopefully, what we may-yet become).
This is the only Path towards an infinite and varied Future that can spread to endless solar-systems and the ’space’ betwixt, and the prime Challenge to any life-form worthy of ‘Success’. Once freed from a ’some thrive, some don’t — but all someday-perish’ within the limitations of any given- World, all possible paths to ‘Evolvement’ can be tried and become Pass/Fail in-turn, as appropriate and self-evident over time. But, the primary stumbling-block for any ‘unique-species’ to so-evolve/Succeed is to firstly/finally socialize as-required in attaining that prerequisite Technology, with the attendant Rapine (though-necessary) depletion of those available and stepping-stone resources and all environmental-consequences.
There can be no second-chance or possible ‘do-over’ — once commenced, its either do, or die-having-failed — regardless the costs-involved or any regrets that such a dire-commitment wasn’t begun at later-staging or in a better-time. These ‘hard-won lessons’ of “How Best to Live” should and may inform those carrying the fruition of our Seedings, elsewhere…but our lot is already cast.
What to do?
Maybe we should have a non-violent protest where we hold up little hand-made signs: Honk if you love the earth.
Imagine an endless line of Hummers going by, and all of them honking like crazy.
MeAlsoToo
Earthlings better get going, then, if settling on other planets is a rational goal. And the politicians need to get out of the way. It’s been decades since space projects have been focused on even bare-bones exploration instead of military domination of others on Earth. Humanity needs to set up a politically-free self-sustaining moon-colony before we dream of populating other planets to save ourselves from ourselves.
Don’t worry, be happy. If you’re a good little boy or girl, the rapture will take you long before it becomes uncomfortable down here on earth.
“Earthlings better get going, then, if settling on other planets is a rational goal.”
Agreed, but no claim, here, as to “rationality” — just the observation that ‘going forth’ is the only-way to act against an inevitable-extinction (via murderous-suicide, environmental-decay re: population or staging-Tech, asteroid-collision, or solar-flare/’burn-out’, among many-others).
Failing to continue towards this ‘goal’, and now-soon, is indeed an absolute-Failure — as the process required to Succeed will be denied any future-rehabilitation/attempts, since we’ve ‘invested’ the easy/limited-resources required, and have sustained much of its damage, already.
[BTW, I am NOT taking-bets on ‘Success’…!]
However, one can hope that population/development/”Rising-Expectations”-pressures, bracketed by environmental risks and looming “tipping-points” will happily-coincide with a project (similar to Oakridge) for development of Fusion Power (even if conducted as ‘necessitated by National-Security’ or inspired by Greed or ill-Interest in ‘Control’).
itsjustkarma, that was almost poetry.
MeAlsoToo
I guess I agree with you about the unlikelihood of human beings having enough time to go elsewhere in the universe, but I’m one of those individuals who LOVES the idea of exploring it, just to satsify my curiosity. I really wish it were possible to find new habitable planets to live on, not to escape ourselves and the mess we’ve made of Earth, but for the wonder of knowing a totally new natural environment, new life-forms, different skies.
Wonderville…
anney:
In the Planet Earth series, the announcer said that we know more about the moon than we do about our earth and living things.
Hey, I`m not worried about the planet.
I`m not even worried about life on earth.
Not even if it metabolizes oxygen or methane.
With Hillary pulling in more cash from the pentagon then dubbya his self, oil consumption still rising, the barrel at 100$ by `08 and the financial markets teetering like a drunk looking for more booze, national personal debt average vs yearly income at 150% and enough “end timers” to scare the Crips I think I have 2 choices. Move to Denmark, yes I AM serious, or aquaint myself with the use of firearms.
As for our precious pearl, 3rd from the sun, it was ciao bella since Renquist elected Bush.
ezeflyer
I’ve no doubt it’s true that we know more about the moon than about earth and life here. There are still literally millions of unstudied forms of life on earth — many of them insects and many plants.
But grievous are the number of animal species that are becoming extinct from loss of habitat before we even got to know them well. We certainly don’t need more human beings on earth, since our numbers and uneven distribution of wealth have created more and more encroachments on the living space of other creatures by desperate and/or greedy humans. Remember GHW Bush’s throw-away of the spotted owl? Nearly extinct then, he firmly believed that “men’s jobs” in the logging industry outweighed any need to protect them.
Australia is having an election. And so in Brisbane the government (like your repugs) are crowing about the fact that a great big new freeway is built. The opposition (like your democrats), on the other hand is saying how, if elected, they will make the freeway even bigger. I suppose that they have both done their numbers and know what people want. No party seems to be saying that we will do public transport instead of more freeways. There is a lot of rhetoric about public transport because of global warming, and the fact that it seems to have caused a drought. But it is only rhetoric that is completely ignored when actual decisions are to be made. People say “I want a freeway for less traffic jams”, and big money wants to give it to them.
I think that non binding climate agreements will change not one decision. I think that even a binding one would be ignored. The part of the brain that says what mankind needs to do collectively and acts accordingly does not really exist in most people. What they understand is “I want”.
Therefore we simply cannot stop using the petrol until it becomes uneconomic to do so. We will have to wait for the oil to run out, before we can stop the consumption. The human race (along with so many other species) is therefore doomed.
But running out of fuel may work for oil, but oil can be made from coal. So this just wont work, in the long run, because the planet has enough coal for more than 100 years.
I read and hear few people referring to the population explosion as the root cause of most of earths woes. by not addressing these issues we are abandoning the poor of all the earth to death by starvation and disease. Unless this is solved the other changes we make to our consumption of the resources of the earth and the effluents we produce will in the end mean little.
edda, I agree 100%. Birth control should be mandatory in countries where children are starving to death. People in those countries are healthy enough to have sex even though their children suffer from malnutrition. Why would people want to bring babies into the world to live in poverty and starve? China has the right idea by limiting births to one or two.
lillulu, most every species responds to threats to existence with an increased birthrate, humans behave no differently here.
Birth control? Yes. But it would do far more for the planet to have birth control in places where people consume a disproportionate share of resources (namely OECD countries).