I'm doing my part, I'm working towards the extinction of the human species. That should give other species some breathing space down the line.

Personally, going on past experience, I don't think mass extinction, climate change, environmental destruction etc will ever be combatted. The modern world on which much of this is based is what makes life worth living. It's what separates us from the previous 200,000 years of human existence, much of which was unbearable when compared to our modern lives. It's possible that we might find cleaner ways of producing our energy at some point down the line, nuclear fission being one of them, but we're very, very far from achieving that right now. Renewable sources of energy do help, but at the moment, they don't generate nearly enough for our needs. Anyone who thinks we're likely to simply reduce our consumption of energy in the meantime is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Unfortunately, I see these issues as something we will learn to live with rather than make any serious effort to prevent. The only ways this could possibly be tackled would mean either paying more taxes to discourage / offset energy consumption or strict laws being introduced which will inevitably have an effect on people's standard of living. Good luck to any government wanting to be democratically elected with manifesto's like that.

The only thing that will really make people sit up and take action is when there is no road left to continue kicking the can down.

The fucking elephant in the room, global overpopulation! If nothing is done to halt or decrease the human overpopulation of this planet no amount of clean energy or recycling will save it. We are currently in the grip of a global pandemic and are hell bent on defeating it and keeping as many people alive as possible, why? when they will only continue to contribute to the pressure on the worlds resources, same as we keep doing with droughts/famines (are they not nature’s way of telling us we’re too numerous?)
Mass extinctions are inevitable, if we don’t end up eating all the animals, or if they do not go extinct due to their habitat being concreted over for housing or turned over for growing the ever increasing amount of crops being grown to feed the continually growing population, those animals still remaining will need to be eradicated anyway to protect those crops. It’s either us or them, we cannot continue as we are and have both.
Anybody seriously concerned about the planet should commit to not having more than 1 child or preferably none (if it’s too late for you, then convince your children & grandchildren to abstain) it’ll do way more good than fucking riding a bike to work or recycling water bottles.
Regarding pandemics, droughts/famines etc. would it not be better to let them run their course and thin out the population thereby reducing pressure on the planet and its resources?

xandreu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:40 am Personally, going on past experience, I don't think mass extinction, climate change, environmental destruction etc will ever be combatted. The modern world on which much of this is based is what makes life worth living. It's what separates us from the previous 200,000 years of human existence, much of which was unbearable when compared to our modern lives. It's possible that we might find cleaner ways of producing our energy at some point down the line, nuclear fission being one of them, but we're very, very far from achieving that right now. Renewable sources of energy do help, but at the moment, they don't generate nearly enough for our needs. Anyone who thinks we're likely to simply reduce our consumption of energy in the meantime is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Unfortunately, I see these issues as something we will learn to live with rather than make any serious effort to prevent. The only ways this could possibly be tackled would mean either paying more taxes to discourage / offset energy consumption or strict laws being introduced which will inevitably have an effect on people's standard of living. Good luck to any government wanting to be democratically elected with manifesto's like that.

The only thing that will really make people sit up and take action is when there is no road left to continue kicking the can down.

I understand the temptation to start thinking this way, Xanadu. But don't give up.
The world, particularly in the West, is littered with examples of how we have turned back the tide
- only in part, but still significant improvements, for sure.

Clean air and water regulations.
Better land management practices across all natural resource industries..
Cleaner manufacturing.
Banning of thousands of the worst chemicals.
Species bought back from the brink.
National parks, marine parks and other protected areas preserving whole eco-systems.
Meaningful responses to carbon emissions, finally starting to kick in.
etc etc etc

Every single example of every one of those ^^^ was because some ratbag said
"Hey, there are better ways" "Hey, we can do this"
And the results... well, certainly far better than if nobody had lifted a finger.

Sure, it's breaking bad, but for some reason we got this thing that keeps driving us to improve our living room, planet Earth.
And, the results are concrete - the nature that is still all around you right now.
But we gotta lift a finger, or it is back to the worst days of the dark satanic mills.

Chad Sexington wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:15 pm The fucking elephant in the room, global overpopulation! If nothing is done to halt or decrease the human overpopulation of this planet no amount of clean energy or recycling will save it. We are currently in the grip of a global pandemic and are hell bent on defeating it and keeping as many people alive as possible, why? when they will only continue to contribute to the pressure on the worlds resources, same as we keep doing with droughts/famines (are they not nature’s way of telling us we’re too numerous?)
Mass extinctions are inevitable, if we don’t end up eating all the animals, or if they do not go extinct due to their habitat being concreted over for housing or turned over for growing the ever increasing amount of crops being grown to feed the continually growing population, those animals still remaining will need to be eradicated anyway to protect those crops. It’s either us or them, we cannot continue as we are and have both.
Anybody seriously concerned about the planet should commit to not having more than 1 child or preferably none (if it’s too late for you, then convince your children & grandchildren to abstain) it’ll do way more good than fucking riding a bike to work or recycling water bottles.
Regarding pandemics, droughts/famines etc. would it not be better to let them run their course and thin out the population thereby reducing pressure on the planet and its resources?

So who gets to decide which diseases / conditions we treat and which ones we allow nature to take it's course? I have a stent in the artery entering my heart and 3 titanium screws holding an elbow together. Without modern medicine the past 20 years of my life would have been fairly unpreductive and the last 4 wouldn t have existed. Have you decided this solution applies to you? Do you carry a card stating you do not want medical care or are you relying on others to offer their lives first.

Logically suicide prevention would be the first casualty. Why prevent someone from helping out with the overcrowding problem. However these statistics are soberin.
The average cost of one suicide was $1,329,553. USA
More than 97 percent of this cost was due to lost productivity. The remaining 3 percent were costs associated with medical treatment. USA
https://www.sprc.org/about-suicide/costs

You have china fishing fleets claiming gps problems as they fish in protected waters around The Galapagos.
Nelson Mandela's party raised money for decades through illegal ivory trade- while he was in prison.
A rtger Buddhist Temple in Thailand was raided for having freezers full of tiger parts and selling tiger parts to chinese and other buyers.
Without hunters paying for licenses and stamps and farmers planting sanctuaries many species of game would of been long gone.

I am old enough to remember a leader of the liberal and cutting edge voice years ago.
A fellow named George Carlin.
His take on man's egotistical belief it can save or harm the planet was quite interesting ..
He believed the planet could sneeze tomorrow and wipe out mankind in a heartbeat.

I don't think people in asia where a vast percentage of the population lives give a shit.
Even eggs at my market are in plastic containers..here in Cambodia.
What is wrong with the recycled paper ones?
I grew up when glass was used and deposits placed and the bottles were washed and refilled.
I grew up in a city where I could drink out of the tap.
This insanity of plastic water bottles is sure not the fault of my generation.

The comment about de-funding suicide prevention is the cruelest thing I have ever read in my life.
You could work at a death camp with a smile on your face.

Anthony's Weiner wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:00 pm

Chad Sexington wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:15 pm The fucking elephant in the room, global overpopulation! If nothing is done to halt or decrease the human overpopulation of this planet no amount of clean energy or recycling will save it. We are currently in the grip of a global pandemic and are hell bent on defeating it and keeping as many people alive as possible, why? when they will only continue to contribute to the pressure on the worlds resources, same as we keep doing with droughts/famines (are they not nature’s way of telling us we’re too numerous?)
Mass extinctions are inevitable, if we don’t end up eating all the animals, or if they do not go extinct due to their habitat being concreted over for housing or turned over for growing the ever increasing amount of crops being grown to feed the continually growing population, those animals still remaining will need to be eradicated anyway to protect those crops. It’s either us or them, we cannot continue as we are and have both.
Anybody seriously concerned about the planet should commit to not having more than 1 child or preferably none (if it’s too late for you, then convince your children & grandchildren to abstain) it’ll do way more good than fucking riding a bike to work or recycling water bottles.
Regarding pandemics, droughts/famines etc. would it not be better to let them run their course and thin out the population thereby reducing pressure on the planet and its resources?

So who gets to decide which diseases / conditions we treat and which ones we allow nature to take it's course? I have a stent in the artery entering my heart and 3 titanium screws holding an elbow together. Without modern medicine the past 20 years of my life would have been fairly unpreductive and the last 4 wouldn t have existed. Have you decided this solution applies to you? Do you carry a card stating you do not want medical care or are you relying on others to offer their lives first.

Logically suicide prevention would be the first casualty. Why prevent someone from helping out with the overcrowding problem. However these statistics are soberin.
The average cost of one suicide was $1,329,553. USA
More than 97 percent of this cost was due to lost productivity. The remaining 3 percent were costs associated with medical treatment. USA
https://www.sprc.org/about-suicide/costs

I’m not asking anyone to offer their lives, and the only card I carry is for organ donation (I’ve always been an advocate for compulsory donation and am registered for donation in more than one country) you seem to imply that I am against medical intervention, but you are incorrect. I’m quite prepared to take my chances regarding the current pandemic and the people who care about me are well aware of my wishes that should I fall ill (or be injured) and attempting to save me would result in a compromised quality of life, then those attempts should not be made.
My main point is that unchecked global overpopulation combined with keeping everyone alive for as long as possible (in some cases against their will) clashes with desire to save the environment.
I’d rather population growth was checked/reduced by birth control than by pandemics, but without one the other is inevitable. If the population continues to increase at the current rate, sooner or later there has to be a mass die off either from famine, pandemic or wars fought over the remaining limited resources. My point about letting the pandemic run its course, is that if we will not reduce the population by other means, we are only delaying the inevitable.