What's killing the reefs and diminishing our fish?

[kalakoa]

The oil companies have had the US in their pockets for a long time.

Were those oil companies "R" or "D"?

Did it make a difference?

[Guest]

Climate change is caused by people.

People create CO2 as an inevitable consequence of living the lifestyles of human beings.

There is nothing inherently wrong with how people live. People have always done the things that people are now doing; farming, herding livestock, starting fires, making stuff, etc. There has been no radical technological change in the basic equation that people = CO2. They just emit more of it now as a consequence of living more comfortable, energy intensive lives. There is really nothing wrong with that either, within reason.

The problem is that over the last century there has been a sudden, massive and historically unprecedented increase in the number of people in the world. Massive economic output is devoted entirely to expanding human population and different ethnicities and ideologies attempt to out-breed and displace one another via demographics. This has resulted in failed states and mass migrations that are accelerating. A graph of global human population goes vertical around the year 1900. If current trends continue, the earth will be a sphere of human flesh expanding outward at the speed of light in only a few thousand years.

Unfortunately, no climate change mitigation strategy addresses the issue of human overpopulation. It is a Taboo subject. Approaching climate change as a CO2 problem is like approaching deforestation as a chainsaw problem.

A world of up to a Billion people could live the current lifestyle of the USA, Europe and NE Asia indefinitely, with reasonable constraints on use of petroleum and coal and expansion of Solar. The coal and oil could last indefinitely and geologic processes would sequester carbon as fast as it was emitted without impacting global systems.

A population of 7+ Billion is headed for Collapse and mass-extinction. There exists no technology or lifestyle based mitigation strategy that can deal with those numbers. Politicians are lying. Turning the Earth into a human feedlot will wreck the climate and make Earth uninhabitable.

This is a problem that could be fixed in two generations if people would voluntarily limit reproduction. Unfortunately, those who practice birth control will simply be overrun by those who do not. That is what is happening in Europe and the US mainland.

I'm old and I got to see the last of the wild, old world. Some of the last tattered shreds of it is here. I feel so sorry for the young. Basically, we are totally screwed.

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You can't fix Samsara.

[birdmove]

quote:

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Originally posted by kalakoa

The oil companies have had the US in their pockets for a long time.

Were those oil companies "R" or "D"?

Did it make a difference?

---

Don't think the R and D make a whit of difference.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[kalakoa]

There exists no technology or lifestyle based mitigation strategy that can deal with those numbers.

Emigration from Earth would deal with the problems nicely. Unfortunately, we're too busy arguing about "which political party to blame" instead of developing the required technologies.

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by imagtek

Climate change is caused by people....

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imagtek,
Thank you for saving me some time - you are, IMHO, absolutely correct and most everything preceding in this thread was sanctimonious HS. We are not approaching a population tipping point, we are well past it and on the downhill slide.

We are headed for a population collapse - whether it will be retroactive birth control by starvation (as in the olden days) or by nuclear arms (people get trigger happy when they're starving) is only a matter of chance. When will it happen? That too is a matter of chance: a couple of bad crop years in breadbasket countries, and "free" countries (being defined as those holding fair elections) will be electing leaders who will make Trump the Stump look like a choir boy - and then the fun begins...

And all the uber environmentalists who perpetually whine about environmental impacts of anything someone (other than themselves) wants to do, while cranking out more mouths to feed, make me want to laugh.

[knieft]

geochem:
We are headed for a population collapse - whether it will be retroactive birth control by starvation (as in the olden days) or by nuclear arms (people get trigger happy when they're starving) is only a matter of chance.

I prefer to be proactive:

http://www.vhemt.org

They have a nice teeshirt as well.

http://www.cafepress.com/vhemt

Cheers,
Kirt

[MarkP]

I pretty much agree with imagtek and geochem. There may be room to quibble about some of the details but we would have to dial back our consumption and carbon emissions by a degree that does not seem even remotely possible given that the majority of the worlds population has not yet begun to consume.

[shockwave rider]

quote:

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Originally posted by kalakoa

The oil companies have had the US in their pockets for a long time.

Were those oil companies "R" or "D"?

Did it make a difference?

---

I don't know if you are really that ignorant, or are just trolling, but the data on contributions by the oil and gas industries by party is out there, and while they do give to both parties, the bulk of the donations have been to the GOP for a very long time.

[Punatic007]

The earth(crust) as we know it is a sinking ship even though the majority of humans are in denial of this fact or are uneducated and uninformed, as in illiterate with no access to scientific studies. You can speculate all day everyday how it will go down, my guess is environmental collapsing.

It's impossible to have this conversation with people who think there's still a chance. We are done, put a fork in it. Enjoy life to the fullest, live conscientiously and kindly, and be grateful for everyday of beauty and peace we have here in Puna. We may have a few more decades, we don't know.

edit to add: and do what you can to ease the suffering of those around you, now and in the future.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Let's play devil's advocate and go back a few decades.
The 1970's were filled with predictions of "The Coming Ice Age." Click the link for a cover of Time Magazine, and a video narrated by Leonard Nimoy (on leave from his duties as Science Officer of the Enterprise?).

How about this prognostic quote from a scientist of the era:
"We will be forced to sacrifice democracy by the laws that will protect us from further pollution." - Dr. Arnold Reitze

http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02...rmism.html


“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky