The state of the world? It is on the brink of disaster

[lovuian]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=624667

The state of the world? It is on the brink of disaster
An authoritative study of the biological relationships vital to maintaining life has found disturbing evidence of man-made degradation. Steve Connor reports
30 March 2005


Planet Earth stands on the cusp of disaster and people should no longer take it for granted that their children and grandchildren will survive in the environmentally degraded world of the 21st century. This is not the doom-laden talk of green activists but the considered opinion of 1,300 leading scientists from 95 countries who will today publish a detailed assessment of the state of the world at the start of the new millennium.

The report does not make jolly reading. The academics found that two-thirds of the delicately-balanced ecosystems they studied have suffered badly at the hands of man over the past 50 years.

The dryland regions of the world, which account for 41 per cent of the earth's land surface, have been particularly badly damaged and yet this is where the human population has grown most rapidly during the 1990s.

Slow degradation is one thing but sudden and irreversible decline is another. The report identifies half a dozen potential "tipping points" that could abruptly change things for the worse, with little hope of recovery on a human timescale.

Even if slow and inexorable degradation does not lead to total environmental collapse, the poorest people of the world are still going to suffer the most, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which drew on 22 national science academies from around the world.

more...

This is really ugly and sad!!!

[Maple]

1. Chicken Little syndrome

also known as Malthusian theory, is indeed ugly and sad.

Also hokum.

Apparently we didn't get the 'end of the world' stuff out of our system as we switched centuries...so just like they did a thousand years ago, we've decided to have a full-blown case of hysteria about the world ending.

The rightwing ApocolypseNow/Armageddon/Rapture/Headforthebunkers meme is catching on bigtime I see. :eyes:

[mirandaod]

3. The right wing fundy stand

is to actually accelerate the destruction - remember James Watt's famous quote about Jesus coming back when the last tree is felled. It's important to acknowledge the problems we're facing and actually do something to reverse it, itstead of saying, "Yay, wreck it completely so Jesus will come back sooner".

[Maple]

4. Well they can try

but it's a big world out there, and all their wishing won't make it so.

[Lindacooks]

6. It may be a big world, but it's all interconnected.

And the destruction talked about in the article IS making a difference. I think the article is right on.

[Maple]

8. People often look

for the worst case scenario, enjoy it even.

But it's very old news. People have been 'foreseeing' this same scenario for a couple of thousand years at least.

[Robbien]

10. Well then have fun and go on a consumer binge

You don't have to worry about conserving because to you there is always going to be more out there just for your consuming pleasure.

[Maple]

11. Sorry don't do binges

Consumer OR emotional

[Robbien]

12. Why not, the earth is abundently full of riches which will always

be there no matter what we do to it. Let loose and grab all you can because there will always be more.

[Maple]

13. I said that where....exactly?

If you read my posts you'll discover I said nothing like that.

That didn't even come into the discussion in fact.

What I said was that we are not on any brink of disaster, and that much of this is hysteria seeping in from the fundie Armageddon propaganda.

The planet itself is no different than it was four years ago, when you were all optimistic. Other countries have gone on with their lives, and are leading perfectly normal ones.

The world and the race, on the whole, are doing better than ever before in history.

This board is gloomy because of Bush.

However, Bush is transient...and soon forgotten.

Democrats are supposed to be selling hope and vision ya know...not giving in to every whim of the nutcases on the right.

[Robbien]

16. You believe that people who are worried about the environment

have all mysteriously appeared when Bush took office and are only here because their brains have been washed by the fundies?

And you really believe that the world and the race, on the whole, are doing better than ever before in history?

And if we would just shake off all our gloom and doom we will look around and see everything is rosy?

Well my concern about the environment goes back decades and has gotten much worse since this neo-liberalism has taken over the planet in the nineties. Your whirlwind of posts throughout this thread spreading denials and scorn on each comment changes nothing about what a bad shape the planet is in.

[Maple]

20. Nope, didn't say that either

Nobody gave a rat's patoot about the 'environment' until Rachel Carson's book. Then it became all the thing, and people began to clean it up. That was an improvement, not a death sentence.

And yes, we are doing better than ever before in history. Cave people died at 20. Romans didn't do much better. Victorian England was a horror of pollution and short lives.

The planet is not in 'bad shape'. What arrogance to think we can 'take out' an entire planet with the few people we have...and yes, we are few in comparison to the land mass involved.

Life is never 'rosy' and carefree, but you don't have to go to the opposite extreme, and insist the sky is falling either.

I read all this same gloom and doom in the sixties. And, had it been true, by now I should be standing on my one square foot of alloted land, barely able to wheeze. However, that didn't happen either.

It is one thing to work for a better world, to see problems and try to fix them...it is another thing to be overwhelmed by similar things to what previous generations have had to face, and just give up and assume the world is ending.

It's not.

[Robbien]

23. "rules of online debate with liberals"

Learn how to ridicule the beliefs of others: When you debate online, you can be quite contemptible in your choice of verbiage. Don't just respond to your opponents, ridicule them. If you merely respond, they can just fire back a response, but the ridicule will strengthen your argument and there's not really a good way to respond to being ridiculed.

Repeat yourself: Keep going over the same ground over and over again. The most talented online debaters say the exact same thing repeatedly in a slightly different way. In doing so, they force their opponents to become equally repetitive, which can help you in winning the debate.

You have the rules down pat.

And now I quit the debate, which by the rules means you win.

[Maple]

24. Sorry, the only rules I am following

are the standard DU ones.

But if you wish to leave, and contemplate a horrible end to humanity in peace and quiet, with no optimism breaking your mood, it's your choice.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. We've already increased carbon dioxide by 30% in the atmosphere

over the entire earth. We're using between 40 and 50% of all the available freshwater. We're cultivating 24% of the land. We've already done things like wipe out fish stocks in parts of the world, and are likely to do it again.

Yes, it's quite possible that we can take out the entire planet.

But who talked about giving up? Certainly not this report:

Walt Reid, the leader of the report's core authors, warned that unless the international community took decisive action the future looked bleak for the next generation. "The bottom line of this assessment is that we are spending earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," Dr Reid said.

"At the same time, the assessment shows that the future really is in our hands. We can reverse the degradation of many ecosystem services over the next 50 years, but the changes in policy and practice required are substantial and not currently under way," he said.

And yet you call it hokum. You just say "the world's a large place". It's your view that is ignoring reality.

[Maple]

42. 'Experts' have predicted disasters

of many kinds for generations...and still been wrong.

Some people only believe the experts they like. The rest they ignore.

Try promoting 'expert approved' GM foods on here, and see how many people believe 'experts' when they don't like the verdict.

[Lindacooks]

33. Oh, baloney.

Who are these 'people' who have been forseeing global warming for thousands of years? That's patently ridiculous.

[Maple]

41. I said

foreseeing disaster.

There is always some diaster or other being predicted

[yebrent]

58. Do you find it at all strange...

that humans regularly see disaster in their future as a result of how we are living? This was not always the case. Humans as intelligent as you or I have been on this planet for a few hundred thousand years and it has only been in the last couple of thousand that we regularly foresee disaster. Coincidentally, it has been during the same time period of unsustainable conversion of natural resources to create exponential human population growth. Perhaps our subconscious recognizes a danger in how we live and manifests itself in apocalyptic visions? Maybe with the advent of science, we are finally getting a glimpse at what our subconscious has been warning humans about for a few thousand years.

[Maple]

59. No, people always did it

Hence burnt offerings, and sacrificing virgins and all that.

There is simply a crowd that goes by the 'fear factor' instead of knowledge. Early Luddites. :D

[yebrent]

69. Human and animal sacrifice was not common in "prehistory"

It would arise in regional civilizations that were on the verge of collapse or were collapsing. It was a way to appease the gods. If the gods needed appeasing, that meant that things usually weren't going well. Regional resources were being depleted at unsustainable rates to give rise to ruling classes. Eventually the oppressed classes would walk away from the regional civilization and return to old ways of tribal survival. In the past unsustainable civilizations would collapse long before they could effect the entire planet and threaten longterm human civilization.

[alittlelark]

74. From an Anthropologist who understands your argument

Welcome to DU!!!

[yebrent]

78. Thank you!

Sorry for the late reply. I've been away from DU for a few days. Your response was good timing as I was beginning to worry that far fewer people at DU understood these ideas than what I had hoped.

[phantom power]

36. Let's try discussing a specific problem

1) The snowpack in the Rockies is steadily decreasing. There's every reason to expect it will continue to decrease, since winter temperatures are warming. The southwest gets a lot of it's water from snowpack that melts over the summer. Rain in the winter is not a substitute.

Do you think a long-term water shortage in the southwest is a big deal, or not a big deal?

[Maple]

43. It is for the people in the Southwest

but we have these kinds of things occurring on the planet all the time. And always have had. Floods, droughts, heat, cold...

The Ice Age was kind of a big deal too.

Didn't cause it, couldn't stop one happening even now, if we tried.

So we'd have to deal with it as best we could.

My point is, that while 'natural' or man-made problems do occur, with regularity in fact, we try coping with them, or preventing them, or fixing them....we don't just give up and announce the end of the world.

[phantom power]

53. You seem to adhere to the view that humans can't affect

climate on a global level. The consensus among climatologists is that we can, and do. Our activities, such as greenhouse gas emissions, massive deforestation, or overfishing, etc, are now conducted on scales that have planet-scale impact.

It's also true that these kind of events have (and will) occur independent of human activities, but the fact remains that now *we* are causing, or augmenting, such events on the planetary scale.

That isn't a reason to give up, or assume the end of the world. But it is a reason to take responsibility for the things we do.

And I also agree that we can choose to use this power to try and make things better, instead of just allowing them to get worse.

[Maple]

60. We can't

We can only do things on a local or regional level so far.

The solutions lie at the global level...which is the level we're struggling to reach. Beyond tribalism. Even if it's a big tribe.

For example, lots of countries, but not the US, have signed on to Kyoto. But even assuming everyone else goes 'clean'...the US will still be putting out high levels.

By all means, take responsibility, and do something about it.

[Lindacooks]

7. This isn't about 'the world ending'

this is about man's abuse of the environment: "...the considered opinion of 1,300 leading scientists from 95 countries who will today publish a detailed assessment of the state of the world at the start of the new millennium."

Read 'The Tipping Point' to learn more about this - we can't keep on polluting and destroying wetlands and forests forever.

[Maple]

9. Our environment

has often been much worse.

Yet people are living longer, healthier, more prosperous lives today than ever before in history.

[The White Tree]

28. People living longer has nothing to do with the state of the Earth

Many countries have life expectancies that are very low. Additionally, 200 years ago many people lived long lives into the 80's and 90's.

People are living longer, healthier lives because of technology and knowledge that allows them to do things like treat disease, treat water, live in more controlled environments, etc.

That has nothing to do with the condition of the Earth.

Scientific evidence suggests that the condition of the Earth is steadily worsening and that is correalated very much with the rise of humanity. Even without science that is pretty much common sense, there are more humans on Earth then at any time in it's history. To assume we have no affect because we can absoluely measure it would seem to be folly.

Also, you stated that no one cared about the Environment until Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. That is patently unture. Long before Rachel Carson, people like Ansel Adams, John Muir, Audobon and a host of others advocated for the environment within the context of their understanding at the time.

Rachel Carsons book was more a catalyst that crystalized peoples understanding of the problems in her time as more was known about the dangers of environmental degradation.

[Maple]

45. I didn't attribute it to the condition of the planet

I said that in spite of all the things we've been through as a species, and all the disasters we've had, we are still here, and in fact, flourishing.

The planet was in much worse shape before humans ever arose...volcanos, earthquakes, massive storms, ice ages...things have actually quieted down over eons. Not due to us of course, but the planet before our arrival was no Paradise by any means.

Yes, I'm aware people complained about the environment before Rachel Carson...however her book made the concern mainstream, and led to specific laws and practices.

[Lindacooks]

32. That's because of modern medicine, not the environment.

When before in the history of the earth have there been warnings about eating fish because of high mercury content? How about the rate of autism, which is skyrocketing? And asthma rates are through the roof. All of these things are most probably caused by pollution.

[Maple]

46. Medicine, sanitation, agriculture, education

all of them have contributed to our well-being.

As to current concerns...species are regularly overtaken by parasites, fungus and so on and kill people.

The potato famine is one well-known example.

We don't know what causes either autism, or asthma as yet. We are trying to discover the cause. We don't even know our rates are up as compared to say, the Middle Ages...since such things weren't known about or measured then.

[tabasco]

80. Baloney.

Every new billion people on this planet creates more stress on the environment. Population has continued to explode and hence greater pressure on ecosystems. Your statement that the planet has been in worse condition since inhabited by humans is nonsense.

You seem to utterly disregard population growth in your rosy outlook.

Come back when the planet has eight billion and tell us how swell everything is and how it is getting better.

[rooboy]

14. What do you know about the phenomenon of Global Dimming?

Can you debunk it?

[Maple]

18. Doesn't need debunking

It's just pollution and dust clouds. There is also a 'brighter sun' theory.

Local stuff. Different from place to place. Like the weather.

[rooboy]

19. Please provide an answer of substance - that's just gibberish. n/t

[Maple]

21. Google is your friend

And had you looked up both theories, and read the relevant information you'd know that in some areas of the world, there is a cloud of pollution that blocks sunlight. In other areas, people are speculating about a stronger amount of sunlight. The areas shift to some degree, but it's not planetwide either way.

It's a big planet. Nothing is worldwide.

Even the Little Ice Age was a relatively local phenomenon. And temporary.

A few years ago we were all going to die because of the hole in the ozone...way too much sunlight. Now we're having fits about blocking the sunlight and getting too little.

A little realism, not to mention balance, in our perception would be nice.

[rooboy]

66. I know the theory of Global Dimming very well...

I'm asking you to prove that YOU know what you're talking about. And global dimming IS WORLDWIDE, if you bothered to use Google.

The hole in the ozone layer was not about too much sunlight. It's about too much ultra-violet radiation, which is why I and almost every other Australian now needs to get out bodies scanned every 6 months to try and detect melanomas before they become fatal. I've already lost one friend to melanoma, but hey, that's just hokum as you say, isn't it? Everything's just fine...

[Maple]

26. Here's another theory for you

Planet Earth dims then brightens

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3756751.stm

or this one: Solar Waxing

http://www.harvardmag.com/issues/mj98/rightnow.html

[mhr]

27. Actually, Malthus Was An Optimist Compared To Reality

eom

[Maple]

51. Malthus was wrong

and so are our modern day versions of him.

[mhr]

57. No Proof, No Credibility With Me

Malthus has been proven right from my perspective.

Your saying so does not change his findings.

They are only your unsubstantiated opinions.

Frankly based on your posts, you appear to have an axe to grind over Malthus.

[Maple]

64. LOL I don't care

Oh yes, I'd really have an axe to grind over someone long dead, that I never knew, and whose predictions were wrong...as you can see all around you.

You just drank Repub Koolaid is all, and they've now convinced you Armageddon is coming.

The rest of the world will continue during the Luddite breakdown in the US.

[Maple]

65. Well the verbal tennis has been fun folks

That's the problem with these studies...instead of acting as a call to arms, it tends to produce surrender on the part of many.

However, I ain't into surrender.

Or Armageddon, or fantasizing about some mythical Golden Age in a garden. Strikes me as boring anyhow.

I will point out though...things are booming in the rest of the world, and people are very optimistic.

The only reason many on here aren't...beyond the usual Luddite faction of course...is your local political atmosphere.

Change that, and you'll find that most of you feel much better about the planetary future of us all.

Ciao.

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

72. That one sure was a freak.

Ostrich syndrome confused as optimism.

[mhr]

68. LOL I Don't Care Either - Enjoy Your Malthusian Future!

eom

[mogster]

75. I see your point in this

> You just drank Repub Koolaid is all, and they've now convinced you Armageddon is coming.

But how can you just look away from the fact that all these scientists are worried? Sounds like koolaid to me when you debunk science for what YOU are believing to be right ;-)

I live in Europe and can tell you that the armageddon is very far away from our thoughts, except for the * rapture movement.

How can you put yourself on the side of the corporate hired 'scientists' against free science?

[barb162]

35. these are scientists, not rapture types

[spooked911]

39. Peak Oil is a scary reality though.

see here;
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

[JohnnyRingo]

2. And yet they tell me ...o'er and o'er again, my friend.....

that we're not on the Eve Of Destuction.


-Barry McGuire

[Maple]

5. We weren't then

and we aren't now.

[OneBlueSky]

15. don't worry . . . the Earth will survive . . .

WE probably won't . . . nor other species . . . but the planet itself will, after rejecting the parasites that are trying to kill her . . .

[Maple]

17. We are not parasites

We belong here. This is our home planet.

And we will survive, and thrive, as we've always done.

We've been through far worse than this as a species, and yet here we are, flourishing.

Jeepers, you get one bad local politician and you're ready to throw in the towel for the whole world.

[ProgressiveConn]

22. Please provide a prior example of a species changing their own

environment as we have.

IMO we will deal with even the worst case scenario if we can start to make some real differences. If we put it off for fifty years I'm not so sure about being able to fix it without a catastrophic collapse.

[Maple]

25. All species

change their environment. They usually go through the food supply, and have to move on. Some have learned to move in a set routine, so the environment has time to recover from their appetite.

Have you ever seen what just beavers, or deer or locusts alone can do to an area?

And there is nothing sacred about a specific environment in that we have to leave it exactly as we found it.

Think where, and how, you'd be living if that was true!

People are working on the environment every day, and improving it.

Somehow you seem to have gotten the idea that no one is doing anything to clean the place up. Not true.

The worst case scenario is the planet being hit by a massive meteor...and then even the Garden of Eden wouldn't survive.

Anything short of that...the sky literally falling...is manageable.

[The White Tree]

29. So then could we assume that in the managing any crisis

it would be okay to you if yours was one of the lives that was deemed expendable in the effort. Thanks for your sacrifice.

This sounds like one of the things Bush the elder used to say, "Do we have to save every species?"

Every environment that has evolved into a steady state has millions of years to reach the point where it is at today. In and of itself there is an intrinsic "sacredness" to that which warrants respect and reasonable every effort to save it. Otherwise why would people bother.

You sound like you are familiar with the writings of Greg Easterbrook, author of The Progress Paradox. At least he is the most prominent person I know who espouses something similar to what your saying.

I've never bought into that argument because, in my opinion the central premise is flawed. Call it the "Don't Worry Be Happy" philosophy. Anything short of the sky is falling is okay because somebody somewhere is working on making sure that there is a solution to any disaster short of the sky falling.

While that may in some sense be true, what is the point of the argument? The more successful your are at convincing people that all our problems will be solved by somebody, the less likely somebody is to step up and try to tackle those problems.

[Maple]

47. I don't recall saying

that anyone or anything was 'expendable'. However, it will happen whether you and I like it or not.

I certainly have no problem with trying to save species...but that doesn't mean we'll be able to save them all.

I've never read Greg Easterbrook, but I'll check out that book.

I don't recall saying 'don't worry, be happy' either.

I said 'don't give up.'

By all means, work towards a better world. It's the only one we have for now.

But that won't get done by anybody, if we all convince ourselves there is no point, and that we are all doomed anyway.

[The White Tree]

52. Fair enouugh. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya

"You keep using these words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean"

Inconceivable.:sarcasm: :yourock:

Peace.

[yebrent]

38. Re

All species change their environment. They usually go through the food supply, and have to move on. Some have learned to move in a set routine, so the environment has time to recover from their appetite.

Yes, humans used to do this quite nicely. However, we forgot that this was necessary for our own survival. If you apply this scenario to our current human culture, (who create their own food supply), this means that we will increasing turn the world into our food supply until their is no more room to do so. The population has to crash. The longer we prop it but by altering our environment to feed more people, the harder the crash will eventually be.

Have you ever seen what just beavers, or deer or locusts alone can do to an area?

Yes, and and with deer and locusts, their population explosion is immediately followed by a population crash. The ABCs of ecology is that our food supply determines our population levels. We keep turning more wilderness into humans food, which results in yet more humans. Eventually we will run out of wilderness, or sometime before that we will have massive crop failure resulting in a population crash. Those of us who bring this to the publics attention are simply trying to avoid the crash and instead work towards a soft landing. You are right that humans may survive, but the crash won't be a fun time, especially since unlike the deer and locusts, we have nuclear weapons and other dastardly devices that countries and humans may find necessary to use in a period of hyper competition for the world's remaining resources.

And there is nothing sacred about a specific environment in that we have to leave it exactly as we found it.

except that it must still be functioning in a way as to support humans. Cut down all the rain-forest, and suddenly the world's major oxygen generator is gone.

People are working on the environment every day, and improving it.

not if everyone believed you that their is no need for concern.

Somehow you seem to have gotten the idea that no one is doing anything to clean the place up. Not true.

Can we just clean up depleted fisheries with increasing populations? Can we just clean up a 100+ years of CO2 emissions? And when was the last time you checked the superfund site list? It isn't shrinking. Can we just clean up extinct gorillas, extinct tigers and other soon to be former glorious wonders of the living world?

The worst case scenario is the planet being hit by a massive meteor...and then even the Garden of Eden wouldn't survive.

well if were gonna get hit by a massive meteor, then we might as well just not get out of bed. Why bother eating then? This kind of message allows people to just ignore the problem and make the successive generations deal with it. If humans are still around in a couple of hundred years, they will view our point in time as containing some of the most short sited and selfish humans in all of history.

Anything short of that...the sky literally falling...is manageable.

This is the core of the problem. We are animals and part of the system. We are not gods or managers of the system. The belief that we can manage it all is what is leading to our destruction. The world doesn't need our management, and was doing quite nicely without it for billions of years. Humans were doing quite nicely without attempting to manage the world for hundreds of thousands of years. It is only the last few thousand years and especially the last 100 years that this dangerous myth that we can manage our environment on a dramatic scale has been at the heart of our consumer culture.

The world needs humans to quite the role of manager and once again return to being a participant of the living world.

[Maple]

48. The world has plenty of room

and we've long since learned about rotating crops, and birth control.

I didn't say there was no need for concern...I said there was no need for giving up, on the premise we are all doomed anyway.

The world wasn't 'doing quite nicely' without us. Neither is any other planet in our solar system.

We have never had a belief we can 'manage our environment'. We've believed we can fight and subdue it.

We had better START learning to manage it.

[yebrent]

55. Re

The world has plenty of room

for what? 6 billion? 12 billion? how many extinctions are acceptable? how many extinctions until ecosystems begin to collapse?

and we've long since learned about rotating crops, and birth control.

what does this mean? how will rotating crops prevent an eventual population crash? what happens when there are a few billion people starving and no one want to wait patiently for land to rejuvenate for crop growth? Birth control may have an effect, but this seems to work only with increasing standards of living. Once resources become more scarce, standards of living will actually decrease, causing less incentive for using birth control, and less means for production of birth control. Natural birth control wisdom is all but gone from human culture.

I didn't say there was no need for concern...I said there was no need for giving up, on the premise we are all doomed anyway.

Who said anything about giving up?

Most of your messages come across as "this talk of collapse is all nonsense, just go about your daily routine" Whether this is your intention or not, it is how I read your posts. And I'm not sure where you were during the Clinton administration, but there were a lot of people trying to raise the awareness of our unsustainable ways of living.

To say The planet itself is no different than it was four years ago, when you were all optimistic. Other countries have gone on with their lives, and are leading perfectly normal ones. is just ignorant BS. I wasn't even a democrat four years ago. I was a member of the Green party that got tired of losing and instead decided to see what effect I could have on the Democratic party. I was talking about this stuff four years ago. Perhaps you are noticing more of this stuff in the news because the drum beat is getting louder. The danger greater.


The world wasn't 'doing quite nicely' without us. Neither is any other planet in our solar system.

Our neighbors in the community of life were evolving, and perhaps if we stopped trying to manage things so much, several of them would continue to evolve to our level of consciousness. Who made humans the be all and end all of human creation? Perhaps the bear or gorillas are next in line for our level of self awareness or greater. But instead, the bears and gorillas will have no ecosystem with which to evolve in.

We have never had a belief we can 'manage our environment'. We've believed we can fight and subdue it.

We had better START learning to manage it.

IMO this will surely lead to failure. For the first couple of hundred thousand years of homosapiens existence we believed we were part of the world. The last 10,000 or so years we grew to believe we could fight and subdue it. Now we think that we can fix all the damage by managing it. You can't measure the outside of a box from the inside. In other words, you can't understand every aspect of a system you are part of in order to manage is successfully. We are not the gods.

We must give up managing and begin to once again participate. We were thrown out of the garden for eating the fruit of the god's knowledge. How about we spit out the fruit and walk back in the garden?

[Maple]

61. Yes, we have plenty of room

6 billion isn't that many. We'll have far more, before we have less.

So we'd better learn how to cope, and not to give up the ship. Spaceship Earth.

We won't be having billions starve...we have a surplus of food for the planet right now. First time in history in fact.

Politics holds back the distribution...but we have plenty of food. More than enough for everybody. We even throw tons of it out. Wasteful and unnecessary.

Do you know what you're called if you use 'natural' birth control?

Parents.

I speak excellent English, so if you are reading "this talk of collapse is all nonsense, just go about your daily routine" then it's your reading comprehension. I said nothing of the sort...and I spoke in plain language.

"Other countries have gone on with their lives, and are leading perfectly normal ones"...I live in Canada...the rest of the world is carrying on, and solving world problems, and doing fine. Caught in the gravity well of US politics, you may not know that.

I am not in the least interested in helping bears or gorillas evolve to the next state of consciousness. I'm still working on humans. The bears and gorillas will have to learn meditation on their own.

We have NEVER managed our environment, and we need to learn how...what to do, what not to do.

How about we search out and learn the knowledge we need, and leave fantasy gardens behind in mythology? There is no Garden of Eden, and even if there were, I for one would never choose to live there.

[yebrent]

70. Living in the garden of eden is a state of mind.

It is about giving up control and shattering the illusion that we are something other than animals profoundly connected to all living things and the Universe. Eating from "God's tree of knowledge of good and evil over all living things" is a metaphor for our change in worldview thousands of years ago from one of participation with the Universe to one of attempted dominance and now attempted management of the Universe.

I am not in the least interested in helping bears or gorillas evolve to the next state of consciousness. I'm still working on humans. The bears and gorillas will have to learn meditation on their own.

I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I have higher goals, to live in an evolving world where so much more is possible than petty human materialistic achievements.

To each his own. I'll just try to convince your grandchildren instead.

[yebrent]

37. Yes we do belong here.

Humans are not toxic to the living world, but our current global culture and worldview may be.

And we will survive, and thrive, as we've always done.

maybe, but this is not a certain, unless of course you think that God is on our side as a species and is always looking out for us.

We've been through far worse than this as a species, and yet here we are, flourishing.

Length of life and quality of life are not the same thing. I think not having lived in other times it is impossible to compare things like contentedness, satisfaction, happiness and desperation. However, most people I've spoken to would easily admit that their is a deep feeling that something just ain't right with how we are living.

Increased isolation from groups, whether it be tribes, families, or communities is not healthy. Increased isolation from the community of life we depend on is not healthy either. Suicide, something not found in indigenous cultures until they come in contact with civilized culture is now rampant in humans (and no other species). Anti-depression and illegal drugs are abused at an increasing rate.

[maxsolomon]

31. a lot of people are going to have to die

2 problems:

finite resources
exponential population growth

burning fossil fuels willy-nilly until they run out is a given. the climate change is inevitable at this point.

but when the ocean ecosystems collapse from over-harvest &/or climate change, that's when the human population will self-regulate.

we'll be eating squab for lunch again.

[Maple]

49. No they won't

Our resources aren't finite for one thing, and we could handle a bigger population than what we already have.

We could all live in Texas and have single family dwellings, and leave the rest of the planet to plants and animals if we wanted to.

Our climate has always changed, and yes we've lost millions to famine and disease before.

But predicting we'll all go back to living in caves isn't going to solve anything.

Solutions, not dire predictions, or just giving up, would be of much more use to the world.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Do you even understand the meaning of 'finite'?

Of course our resources are finite. We have one planet (the energy required to get off it, and then convert anywhere else to a livable habitat, is too much for that to be an answer to an increasing population).

You keep pretending that the report has said the world is going to end. It didn't. Go and read the article (again? Or for the first time?) It said we have to change the way we're using up the capacity of the world to support us.

No, we couldn't all live in Texas. There's not enough water. We're using nearly half of the world's usable fresh water already, while living spread over the entire planet.

Surprisingly, we want to avoid losing to millions to famine and disease. Those things are what are known as 'disasters' - ie what the report says we could avoid if we modify our behaviour. You might as well point out that billions have died of something before, so why bother when anybody gets killed? We all have to go sometime, after all, eh?

[Maple]

62. Yes, dictionaries are even available online

No, our resources aren't 'finite'.

We can make oil and gas, although actually the planet has plenty of both. It's simply very expensive to do either. So we move to an alternative as we've always done.

I'm not 'pretending' anything. I am aware of what the article says. I'm also aware of how people on here reacted to it.

The article was a call to action...not an excuse to raise yet another white flag, and hide under the covers.

Yes indeed we could all live in Texas. There is plenty of room. Water is also available on a planet that is 70% water. If you're so worried about Texas...move to Ontario where I live. It's 3 times the size of Texas, and has fresh water in the Great Lakes surrounding it.

The PLACE isn't the point...the point is that 6 billion isn't that many people compared to the size and resources of the planet.

We've often lost millions to famine and disease, and I'd like ....as I have said repeatedly on here in the posts you must have skipped over...I'd like to prevent that from happening again.

So instead of sobbing over all this, try doing something about it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

73. Go and read your own post #1

where you called the report 'hokum'. You weren't criticising the responses on the board - you were insulting the report itself. It's an international report - but throughout this thread, you've been claiming this is all a local reaction to Bush. It's not. Get your facts right, for once.

You are also contradicting yourself. After saying that "the earth is abundently full of riches which will always be there no matter what we do to it" was a misrepresentation of your position, you promptly claim that our resources are infinite!

Sobbing? No, we're shouting that foolish views like yours will screw up the environment all over the world. You want to paint us as useless emotional beings. In fact, it's your knee jerk reaction in the very first reply that's useless - you were the one who dismissed the report as hokum and hysteria, and thus something that should be ignored.

You digust me. Rarely have I seen a long time DU poster with their head in the sand so completely, who seems intent on disparaging others, rather than recognising problems.

[yebrent]

79. wow

I was holding back, but it is nice to read what I would have liked to say. Thank you! I thought I was the only one disgusted.

[yebrent]

34. The living world is quickly turning into humans...

and our food. Everything else has become expendable. Nice to look at and spend a weekend in, but not as important as fueling our population growth. Ecosystems cannot survive this way. We cannot survive without healthy ecosystems.

The world will survive the 6th great extinction, but humans may not. I know that Maple will just say that animals always effect their environment, like beavers and locusts, but we are the first animals to cause such wide spread and permanent damage. We are the first animals to cause such massive extinction.

Humans used to live as harmless as beavers, deer and locusts. Now, not so much. Something changed in the way we view ourselves in relation to the rest of the living world. IMO, believing that we are made in God's image has created a mass illusion that we are immune to the consequences of our actions. Striving for short term material wealth has replaced the value of living well closely connected to the world we depend on.

[spooked911]

40. Unfortunately, it is impossible to stop "progress"

even if progress ends up killing us.

[yebrent]

44. Yes, the problem is with how we define progress or success.

Is unsustainable conversion of the world's resources into material wealth progress? Depends on the time frame? If we are thinking only of ourselves and our generation then yes. If we are thinking of children, grandchildren and seven generations into the future, then no. We are leaving them a world of increasing humans and decreasing resources with which they depend on. Not to mention all the painful symptoms of living in a global culture in the process of collapse.

[Maple]

50. And thank goodness we can't stop progress!

Nor would anyone want to!

[yebrent]

56. How do you define progress?

good for you? or good for you and your descendants long into the future?

[Maple]

63. I have grandchildren

and expect to have great grandchildren...and great great great great great...etc...grandchildren.

The future is very important to me.

THAT is why it's so annoying to hear all the doom and gloom and defeatism and Aramageddon nonsense.

Or worse yet, some kind of retreat to the caves, to live simply and accomplish nothing, eating mammoth by the campfire and dying at 20.

We did that already. Never again.

[yebrent]

67. I never mentioned retreating to the caves.

And for you to keep thinking that is what I am writing makes me believe that you really won't understand whatever I write. Besides, your knowledge of the life of indigenous cultures is very uninformed, and I don't have time right now to give you a prehistory lesson. Let's just say that archeology has made a lot of progress from whenever you adopted your view of prehistory.

What I will say is that there is no going back, but we can adopt a new worldview based on ancient indigenous wisdom that would greatly apply to our current situation. By changing our cultures most basic underlying understanding of our relationship with the Community of Life, we can once again live as harmlessly as any other animal. But that doesn't mean the end of technology, just the end of destructive technology. It is a message of hope, not defeatism. Anyway, good luck up north.

[chlamor]

71. Militarism- Consumerism -Growth -Wealth- Overpopulation=Goodbye Earth

There is no story more important than this one.

When one is heading towards the edge of a cliff a step backwards is a step in the right direction.

Old Ways-Simplicity

[struggle4progress]

76. kick

[InformedSource]

77. The world (or "the planet"] is fine, human civilization is collapsing.

The earth and the biology it produces will take the hit and, in a few million years, will recover. Human society is circling the drain. Can't be saved. There are too many trendlines all pointing in the same direction, down the tubes.

[dArKeR]

81. Rome or Athens - from a European friend

America is often compared to those two mighty cities of the past.

Identifying America with Athens pleases the admirers of the U.S.while antiamericans rather see America as Rome.Why?

From its beginning Rome was an expansionist city. The most important thing for Rome was military power. All the rest was secondary (political life, economy, art). Athens was a city of merchants and thinkers, the
Birthplace of philosophy, tragedy and democraty. Its military destinity was thrust upon itself by the persian aggression of Greece which resulted in Athens and Sparta taking the lead of the coalition of greek cities fighting against the persian invaders.

After Persia's first defeat, Sparta (a territorial city) withdrew from the coalition while Athens (a naval power) kept on the fight through the organisation of the League of Delos. The most powerful cities supplied ships and the smallest ones gave money. Athens
established a kind of democratic leadership through its spehere of influence similar to America's "soft leadership" of the western block during the cold war.

America from its beginning was mostly a naval power and can't be accused of territorial expansion as it was an isolationist nation until Pearl Harbour. NATO was set up with european allies that were originally willing to
participate in that organization. There can be a parallel in the Delos League and NATO with
the former Soviet Union playing the role of Persia.

Athens collapsed as the Delos League quickly degenerated : the greek cities
got fed up with supplying troops and ships and ended up giving money instead. Athens used its military superirioty to force grek cities into paying protection money that was used for building temples in Athens...

Finally those cities got so fed up that they called Sparta (not a model of democracy but a military dictatorship that refused land conquest) to
Defend them against Athens. Athens was defeated by Sparta (greek liberties defended by a dictatorship...).

The attitude of greek cities that lost interest in the League is very reminiscent of the attitude of most european countries that don't give any more much support (except moral support) to NATO and are not willing to have a substential military budget themselves (with the two exceptions of the UK and
France). The way some european countries are now getting close to Russia to escape America's hegemony is also quite striking. After having played the
persian invader's role, Russia could turn out into a new Sparta, an authoritarian continental power that is not interested in invading others...

Those who see America as a new Rome argue that America's sphere of influence after WWII (Western Europe and Japan) was the result of a military
victory. Rome's power in the mediterranean aera was also established after the defeat of its naval rival Carthage : Rome had then access to unlimited
resources in lands, slaves and money.. It seized all those ressources to pay for imported goods so that italian farmers and workers had no more role to play in
this "globalized" mediterranean economy. Roman society soon explosed into a large lower class econnomically useless and a small overclass. The middle class
that for 200 years was the backbone of the Republic simply vanished. Isn't the same happening in America which is relying on foreign central banks to buy US
Treasure Bonds to finance both deficits and domestic consumption while destroying american local industrial production? What's left of the large US middle class?

Strangely, Rome was a Republic for 200 years and transformed intself into an Empire after its victory after Carthage. America was a Republic for almost
that period until it took the roman path after WWII!