Earth's oceans on course for mass extinction
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Monday, September 26, 2011 06:09
VIEWED: 3627
PAGE 2 of 6
The only events/actions that will make things better is a massive reduction in human population PLUS greater awareness of our ecological dependence. But, since humans are clever- not smart- neither is likely to happen. I have long resigned myself to the fact that we are our own worst enemy and that we'll not only create our own destruction, we'll take a lot of other species with us. Fortunately, nature will still be there to roll the dice after we're gone.
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Sig, we have to work with the conditions that we have, and that includes existing population numbers for humans and the fact that all animal species, including humans, are hardwired to reproduce. The average human being is at least ignorant, and really shouldn't be punished for the greed and power-thirst of the higher ups that have mostly contributed to the big screw-over.
Now, we could actually easily solve a bunch of problems if we started creating city-sized space stations in orbit capable of supporting large populations of people with minimal support needed from planet side, all without imposing any particular restrictions on anyone. But that's more dependent on whether TPTB will LET us leave, since we've had the technology to pull this off for about twenty, thirty years and haven't acted on it. Which pisses me off probably more than anything else involved in this issue.
But until developers, investors, and the global governments wake up, all we can do is encourage people on their own for self-benefitting reasons to switch to self-sufficient and sustainable practices. And there are plenty of benefits to both. The only thing standing in our way are corporate and government entities that don't want people to be self-sufficient or sustainable.
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"Now, we could actually easily solve a bunch of problems if we started creating city-sized space stations in orbit capable of supporting large populations of people with minimal support needed from planet side, all without imposing any particular restrictions on anyone."
Hello,
It is possible to build virtually self-contained, carefully planned Arcology cities here on Earth. Saves the fuel to get it into orbit.
But it costs a lot of money and there's no greed-based incentive to do so.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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That's where the space thing comes in. See, people have already populated the Earth except for Antarctica. Even a fully self-enclosed Arcology city, most people are just going to think "just another housing development" no matter how impressive or technologically advanced you make the features.
But say you've found a new frontier, and you need labor to make it accessible (railroad vs building spaceships in orbit as a comparison). You offer food and housing to people who'll come and work on the farms and metal working to bring about the possibilty of getting their own property somewhere on a space station or maybe even as part of a colony on another world.
People can, have, and will sell all their possessions just to.make such a trip, and have a chance at the next big thing.
THAT'S how you make the big leap forward, and the first investor to have the guts to try it and be successful will make out like a bandit.
Side benefit: saving the planet and human progress TO THE STARS.
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We could just force people to only have 2 children.
Like, you can't have children unless you've been married for 5 years, have a stable home, and money to pay for them..
Also, use science to make sure that you will always have a girl and a boy. One of each.
Then, you can start working on boosting their "abilities" Curing inheritable diseases, while also leaving enough diversity so we don't bottleneck ourselves...
At the very least, it would get rid of Octo-moms, and welfare queens...
But Im sure you guys have already thought of this.
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"
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...I honestly can't tell if you're serious or not, Wulf.
Also, I'm not sure your proposal would address either problem at hand? Even if you're pro-population reduction, a two-child limit would result in no population reduction because that replaces both parents.
Okay, I mean sure, birth control is a much better option for population reduction than other measures I could think of (e.g. deliberate mass extermination and warfare), but I don't understand why people think we should go that direction when we have a whole great big sky hanging over our heads we could go to instead. It's right there! So close I can taste it!* Why aren't we going?!
*Meant metaphorically, as sucking hard vacuum not exactly pleasant taste or experience
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Byte, I can't tell if Wulf is teasing either.
I want to stay here on earth, but making space an option sounds like a good idea.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Uh, NewOld, I'm glad you read the article. It's not a "theory", it's scientific fact.
The bee thing isn't gone,by the way, you're just not hearing much about it. I guess it's out of fashion or something, the MSM being what it is. The bees are still dying off. As of January of this year:Quote:
[Researchers] documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.
"We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported ... calling the findings "alarming." http://www.grist.org/article/food-2011-01-04-bumblebees-join-the-die-o
ff bees are still doing THEIR thing, too, and it's increasing. As of a few days ago:Quote:
The horrors we're wreaking on this planet are happening every day, we just don't know about them or don't pay attention to them uless it's on the MSM.
They are famed as being the angriest insects in the animal kingdom.
But now experts believe killer bees have gotten even more furious in 2011.
Reed Booth, who calls himself the Killer Bee Guy and works with sheriffs' offices and fire departments to remove hives, had to this week take out a 200lb hive holding 250,000 killer bees on a farm in Bisbee, Arizona.
The bees killed a 1,000lb hog and sent a pregnant 800lb sow into a coma, leaving all her piglets dead.
'This is the worst I've seen in 10 years,' Booth told KOLD-TV. ‘They're much ornier this year for some reason.'
The massive find came after man in Wilhoit, Arizona, died following a bee attack and hives of 100lbs or more were discovered in homes in Phoenix.
Speaking on the Bisbee incident after he had removed the hive, Mr Booth said: 'A thousand-pound pig is a huge thing. I'm kinda surprised that they did kill it.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038687/Killer-bees-getting-an
grier-say-experts-hive-250-000-kills-1-000lb-hog.html?ITO=1490
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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You also have to watch out for bees that have been affected by some parasites, because they'll be laying around on the grass enfeebled but still very much alive and ANGRY.
My brother's dog happened to discover this unfortunate fact.
And turned out to be allergic to bee stings. That was pretty scary. Since then whenever we see bees near the dog we very quickly get him away because he's not quite smart enough to realize that "eating the stingy angry bug things" is a dumb idea.
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Wulf is being sarcastic...or trying to anyway. He's trying to make a point about extremes, I believe (as that's the only way it makes ANY sense, albeit not much). In other words, he's snarking, nothing more.
Population limiting as seriously suggested WOULD mean population decline. Not everyone gets married, not everyone lives long enough to have children, much less two--obviously it's not workable, I'm just point out that it WOULD create a decline in population.
We may not have to worry about that--well, if we had time, that is. Considering the rate at which some countries are populating, it's already too late. But I think Sig's remark about sperm count is right on target (it's already happening), and I agree with her every point.
Which means we will continue to be two of the few voices crying out in the wilderness, and things will go on just as they are. I'm just grateful I'm as old as I am; if I'm lucky, I won't have to watch.
Space isn't the answer. Mankind has always fucked up his environment, then either died out or moved on. We'd do the same in space, and you need raw materials to do any of that; earth only has so many, and what we DO have is being seriously depleted. How do you provide materials enough to start a colony such as suggested, much less keep it going and start others, when earth's material is less and less even with the population we have NOW?
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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