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It's inherent in Science that making new discoveries means solving one question, but finding 2 or more new ones, that's the basis of our gathering of knowledge. The fantastic result of this is that we tend to multiply our collective knowledge not only for each generation even faster than that.
I am not saying that it is a bad thing that science creates questions, but the more you learn, the more you realize that we have a rather shaky understanding of how the universe works... unless of course the conspiracy people are right and the government is in cahoots with aliens running black ops.
The knowledge about health and illnesses easily available and understood today for instance, is far superior to the knowledge of a doctor 200 years ago.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death. Source
These are just children, not counting adults... At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day, most of the world has NO access to healthcare.
For this reason, I think it's important to realize that Science finding more questions than answers isn't a bad thing, it's an absolute necessity.
I also don't agree that it's painfully evident that we as a race can't take care of ourselves, if anything, most of the problems we face today are because we are too good at it.
Too good at it? We are terrible at it. The source I am using for numbers (above) mostly focuses on children, so keep in mind this does not count the adults in poverty and squalor.
When you have ~400 million children without access to safe drinking water, you are not "too good" at taking care of the race... this is more than the population of the United States.
Worldwide,
10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
We are dismal at best at tending to our own race, unless of course you are talking about the richest 20%... we are taking care of them just fine.
"The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income."
In our modern society, hunger is on the decline, a larger and larger percentage of the world has access to amenities previously only available in a select few industrialized countries. The avg life span has more than doubled in a very short amount of time and deceases that was killers just a few years or decades ago are consider minor issues today.
It was getting better for a while, but we are in a decline right now, the whole global economy is barely hanging on. We are not as modern as you imply... We are greedy, dumb, and brutish.
"Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen."
"Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names."
Those select few industrialized countries are still the only ones on top. “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.” Many, MANY more people don't have access to electricity.
I'm not by any means blind to the challenges we as a race face both now and in the near as well as distant future. Our modern society is not without it's faults, our reliance on oil, as you point out, is one of them, but if one were to take a sober approach, far more of us are far better off today than we were at any point in the past.
Actually the exact opposite is true, the disparity between the rich and the poor has only been growing, same with population. So not only do we have far more people that are worse off today, but also a higher percentage of people who are worse off.
"In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much."
"A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World."
"For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:
Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years)."
There's a saying "Straw that broke the camel's back", and it could be relevant in the discussion at hand.
You argue that the world has been around for a long time, compared to humans, and even in humans history, we've only polluted (been industrialized) for an incredibly short amount of time, this is all true of course.
The earth has a very finely tuned Eco system, where the elements that play a part in maintaining our Eco system are well balanced with each other, and for a long time this system has worked harmoniously. In that sense, couldn't our sudden and at the very least noticeable pollution be the "straw that broke the camels back"? Considering how finely tuned the Eco system appears to be, why is it such an impossibility that a sudden change (and 200 years would be very sudden, considering the time line, don't you think?) in in one of the factors cause changes to the whole system, and that those changes might not be preferable?
Have you ever considered that the ecosystem may appear so acutely tuned because life is versatile enough to adapt specifically to the Environment? Life adapts to the environment, this is just fact. If we have a higher percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere, life will adapt to it and the environment will appear just as finely tuned.
Life has thrived throughout history, and history is filled with far more sudden and far more devastating events. Any of the multiple super-volcano eruptions are far, far greater in scope and change to the environment. If the atmospheric changes caused by the ash released from these eruptions was akin to a broken bone for the planet and environment, our pollution would be comparable to a scrape or a splinter.
So if something as minuscule as our impact can "break the camels back" we are screwed anyway, because much bigger events always have and always will occur.
I agree that our planet is sturdy, and that the probability of it outlasting the human race is high. But when most people talk about climate change or pollution or waste, the issue isn't as much the continued presence of "Terra Mater" in the solar system or universe, but rather the continued livability on our planet for our species, or life in general.
The idea is that for better or worse, we, the human race have developed past any other race we know of, and were starting to have control over the sustainability of our earth, or lack thereof.
We have no control over anything on a scale comparable to our Earth, control its sustainability? Not a chance... Control ours as a species? You would think that we could, but we are rather poor at that as well.
Even if the Earth was in trouble in terms of its life supporting capability we could not fix it... we are not the gods that we think we are.
Put simply: We have a responsibility to "hand over" an earth in as good of a condition as we got it, to the next generation, right now, we don't appear to be doing that.
No we don't. There is no responsibility what so ever, humans made that up. And who are we to decide whether we are leaving it in better or worse condition? The world is constantly evolving, in the future plastic will be an important part of ecosystems as they adapt to use it, this may be a better world, we don't know, we can't see the future.
I agree that the hyperbole can sound loudly on both sides of the climate change debate, and sadly, I think key figures in the "green movement" do more to hurt the "cause" than they do to help it.
No, we won't make the earth disappear, and yes, we might not even be killing all the life on it (though I accept and see how it's probable that we can be). What is undeniable is that we consume natural resources at a rate much much higher than they're being made, we pollute at a level that's unprecedented in our races history, and that it would be beneficial for a life sustaining Eco system to reduce our dependency on both.
As I said earlier in the thread, we are absolutely fine. If pollution and depleting resources becomes an actual issue, we will adapt... this is a natural process and it is always happening. Remember, Earth does not share your bias towards pollution, it came from the Earth, it is a child of mother nature, and you better believe that life and the planet both do not share our view of "plastic is evil".
Matter on Earth has been constantly changing form since the beginning, just because we cause a new formation of the existing matter does not make it "bad", we turn oil into plastic and it gets assimilated into the system, a bear turns food into feces and it gets assimilated into the system... are bears polluting? Are they killing the planet? Sure it is on a smaller scale, but it is the exact same concept. I can only assume, with our rudimentary understanding (at best) of how this world works, that we are doing more harm than good trying to interfere with nature and bend it to our will.
The question then isn't whether or not the earth will be here when we're gone, and the state we leave it in, we won't be around to care about it, but rather to maintain it to a level where human life remains for the foreseeable future. And with that in mind, what's wrong with having an Earth Day and having an environmental movement trying to find less polluting ways to live our lives?
Finding more sustainable practices is fine... this is humans following the natural course and adapting.
What I am against is all the hyperbole and fear mongering of the environmentalist movement. WE ARE FINE, yet people will tell you how periless the situation is to get you to spend money on stuff we don't need, all whilst ignoring the fact that a majority of the world is living in anguish.
And we are going to "save the planet?"
If nothing else this is about priorities, I think we should try to figure out how to spend 40 Billion dollars to provide basic education, water and sanitation, women's reproductive health, and basic health and nutrition for ALL of the people in developing nations, that is all it would take. That is 10 billion less than is spent every year on cigarettes in Europe alone.
I am not finding any reliable numbers but the best estimate I have found is 15 Billion dollars being spent world-wide each year on environmentalism. With our Earth in NO immediate peril, should we not spend that money on the people who ARE in immediate peril?
Environmentalism is not the only offender in my book of course, but it is a giant waste of time, money and resources.
I put my responses bolded in red so that I could respond to each point individually. I am not trying to be abrasive or anything, so please don't read any of this as an attack.
I just can't stand the fact that people will waste resources and money on problems that are trivial at best, but we have problems that we know exist and that we know how to fix, yet we don't. We are a type zero civilization on the Kardashev scale. Source
We need to work on ourselves and obtaining Type 1 status first and foremost, as it is the most difficult transition, once we are Type 1, we will be able to control the planet, and "saving" it would be feasible.
But if we don't focus on ourselves as a race there is a huge chance we will never achieve Type 1 status.
So I guess I am combating your "straw that broke the camels back" with another common saying, people who are trying to save the planet are "Putting the cart in front of the horse."
Last edited by Xander_Crews; 04-23-2011 at 02:59 PM..
I always find these types of discussions rather humorous.
There are people whose sole driving belief is that they know more than anyone else, and that they should control other peoples' behavior. They are convinced that they know best. So convinced that they will give up their own homes, their own lifestyles, deny their own parentage and family history, to demand that others make changes. It is about control. You see it everywhere, from the people who snatch cigarettes out of other peoples' hands to "save" them, through the people who murder abortion doctors, to the people who insist that humans can and should change an entire planet back to its healthy primitive state. Having no control over their own lives, they are driven to control others, to prove to themselves that they matter. The latter 'environmentalists' don't realize (or won't accept) that people were having children at 12 and 14, and dying in their 30s and 40s of old age when we were in that 'primitive' state.
Cows fart methane. Cows contribute to the environmental breakdown. We must eliminate the beef-growers and beef-eaters, because they are killing the planet. Yet cows produce natural fertilizers; they eat only the tops of the grasses, not the roots, and contribute to the ecosystem by fertilization as well as the spreading of seed through their feces. If you eliminate cows by eliminating the beef-eaters, what impact will you then have on the eco-system? Are chemically-manufactured fertilizers for the purely vegan lifestyle so much better for the environment in both their manufacture and their application?
For everything environmentalists insist upon, there is another argument that refutes their hypothetical improvement/reversion. Then of course there are the people who will profit immensely on the touted improvements. These latter people not only seek fame and accolades for their 'do-goodism' but the fortune that comes from their investment in such 'improvements'. They become adept at manipulating the political and social landscape to their own profit, all the while insisting that they are only doing it because they care. Again, they assist indviduals and governments to control a segment of the population, or even entire populations, even taking money from them that could be better used to actively support their own families or to actually invent real improvements. From the warlords in Africa to the politicians in the 'developed countries', their goals, their missions, are the same.
Is the world changing? You betcha. Has it been changing for millions of years, on its own thousand-year cycles, moving everything from its crust and the winds and waters that lie on its surface, to its atmosphere and its magnetic poles? Of course. People who think that the earth is ever in stasis have no grasp of real science. Those who think that they can cause a serious and permanent change in the earth for any reason or any real length of time are either fooling themselves - or trying to fool others for power, control, and personal gain.
We are nothing and nobody in the grand earthly, much less the galaxial history. We are only scurrying ants with a sparse and imperfect knowledge of the world or the worlds around us. It is natural to demand, insist that we are greater, to seek something greater than ourselves, when we are so small and ineffective. Some seek gods. Some seek knowledge. Some seek power and control over their little neighborhoods, their little countries, their little political and social spheres, because the overwhelming truth that we are nothing is offensive and frightening. We fear death almost as much as we fear life, because we are terrified of the unknown; so we build our beliefs on something greater than ourselves, to empower ourselves and to feel worthwhile No one really wants to accept the truth - that we are all inconsequential, that our lives don't really matter in the grand and glorious scheme of things, or that there may not be a scheme at all.
It is what it is. We are what we are. Our needs and wants vary, but every one of us has a purpose, built into our cells - to survive. That can mean reverting to growing one's own food, by performing a cycle of cow/meat/fertilizer/plants/food/ fodder/cow, or by shrieking from the nearest stage, tank, or soapbox to "Follow ME! I'm your next leader!" Once you let go of the desperate driving need to rule, to overcome, to lead, to be noticed and exalted in your brief lifespan, and choose to simply do the best one can, to create and work and survive, the freedom is amazingly self-satisfying. Too bad most humans will never know it.
JMHO.
Last edited by SCGranny; 04-25-2011 at 08:46 AM..
Reason: an addition for clarification
If we die out, it will again be a natural process. We would be just another drop in a sea of failed evolutions. I am not against developing more sustainable ways of life, but this "save the planet" hype is ridiculous.
True from a functionalist perspective, but it's still like someone killing themself upon the realization they are just one of billions of hairless bipedal apes on a speck of rock in an incomprehendably large universe.
Should we all just kill ourselves because our existence is meaningless from that perspective? I don't think so, because we are not operating at a unversal perspective. There is beauty and wonder in small things... ask any microbiologist.
Anyway, I think the environmentalist movement is more propaganda than inspired living. Evironmentalists never take into account certain fundamental lessons of nature when they create and try to implement their schemes, and this is why they usually fail.
First: We ARE animals. Humans are evolved natural life from this planet and are not above or apart from it in any way. Everything we do is already "natural" by default... (You are hitting the nail on the head when you ask: WTF is so important about us anyway? The fact is, we are only important to ourselves) Seeing ourselves as apart from the world around us changes our relationship with the world and opens up all sorts of morally ambiguous options for use and abuse of the planet.
Second: The "tragedy of the Commons" and basic self-serving nature of all animal life on this planet. Animals will seek to protect and preserve their lives as individual units. Animals will do what is best for themselves and their immediate kin, and will not make unnecessary sacrifices for non-kin.
It is completely against our programming to live in a tiny ecobox the size of a walk-in closet with still rather unreliable, expensive and uncomfortable "green" technologies, put an hour of work a day into growing our own veggies and pedal a bike to work through rain or snow or 100 degree heat everyday when our neigbors can live in a 3000 sq foot mcmansion with all the toys and drive climate-conditioned hummer to work or the grocery store every morning for the same outlay of cash resources.
We will not alter our lifestyles to be more efficient and environmentally sustainable until we have to as a matter of survival. How convienient that our insanely wealthy middle class (by historical standards) is slowly but surely being totally gutted by the powers that be.
I think that "Save the Planet" is a much more sellable slogan than "Save Ourselves from Ourselves".
Life, when it comes upon a wealth of resources, burns it up as fast as it can. Human beings are no different unless we choose to be. When every other earthly life form succumbs to their basic drives human beings can overcome themselves. The result is a vigorous occupation of every part of this planet.
When we don't overcome our base instincts, we waste our resources, foul our home, and become discontented.
You're right; we are subject to the conditions Mother Earth sets forth, not the other way around. HOWEVER, environmental sustainability is a social issue, and we want to leave a future of progress and kindness for the future generations as our forefathers have left for us.
Earth has been here for billions of years and is just doing it's thing. We (humans) will be long gone and Miss Earth will still be doing her thing.
We only have data back a certain amount of time, who is to say what Earth does and does not do......or what can do.....................we are human, we are not God, we do not know everything, otherwise we would have a cure for the common cold, and we don't.
Earth does it's thing, we are the ones that are in the way!!
I always find these types of discussions rather humorous.
There are people whose sole driving belief is that they know more than anyone else, and that they should control other peoples' behavior. They are convinced that they know best. So convinced that they will give up their own homes, their own lifestyles, deny their own parentage and family history, to demand that others make changes. It is about control. You see it everywhere, from the people who snatch cigarettes out of other peoples' hands to "save" them, through the people who murder abortion doctors, to the people who insist that humans can and should change an entire planet back to its healthy primitive state. Having no control over their own lives, they are driven to control others, to prove to themselves that they matter. The latter 'environmentalists' don't realize (or won't accept) that people were having children at 12 and 14, and dying in their 30s and 40s of old age when we were in that 'primitive' state.
Cows fart methane. Cows contribute to the environmental breakdown. We must eliminate the beef-growers and beef-eaters, because they are killing the planet. Yet cows produce natural fertilizers; they eat only the tops of the grasses, not the roots, and contribute to the ecosystem by fertilization as well as the spreading of seed through their feces. If you eliminate cows by eliminating the beef-eaters, what impact will you then have on the eco-system? Are chemically-manufactured fertilizers for the purely vegan lifestyle so much better for the environment in both their manufacture and their application?
For everything environmentalists insist upon, there is another argument that refutes their hypothetical improvement/reversion. Then of course there are the people who will profit immensely on the touted improvements. These latter people not only seek fame and accolades for their 'do-goodism' but the fortune that comes from their investment in such 'improvements'. They become adept at manipulating the political and social landscape to their own profit, all the while insisting that they are only doing it because they care. Again, they assist indviduals and governments to control a segment of the population, or even entire populations, even taking money from them that could be better used to actively support their own families or to actually invent real improvements. From the warlords in Africa to the politicians in the 'developed countries', their goals, their missions, are the same.
Is the world changing? You betcha. Has it been changing for millions of years, on its own thousand-year cycles, moving everything from its crust and the winds and waters that lie on its surface, to its atmosphere and its magnetic poles? Of course. People who think that the earth is ever in stasis have no grasp of real science. Those who think that they can cause a serious and permanent change in the earth for any reason or any real length of time are either fooling themselves - or trying to fool others for power, control, and personal gain.
We are nothing and nobody in the grand earthly, much less the galaxial history. We are only scurrying ants with a sparse and imperfect knowledge of the world or the worlds around us. It is natural to demand, insist that we are greater, to seek something greater than ourselves, when we are so small and ineffective. Some seek gods. Some seek knowledge. Some seek power and control over their little neighborhoods, their little countries, their little political and social spheres, because the overwhelming truth that we are nothing is offensive and frightening. We fear death almost as much as we fear life, because we are terrified of the unknown; so we build our beliefs on something greater than ourselves, to empower ourselves and to feel worthwhile No one really wants to accept the truth - that we are all inconsequential, that our lives don't really matter in the grand and glorious scheme of things, or that there may not be a scheme at all.
It is what it is. We are what we are. Our needs and wants vary, but every one of us has a purpose, built into our cells - to survive. That can mean reverting to growing one's own food, by performing a cycle of cow/meat/fertilizer/plants/food/ fodder/cow, or by shrieking from the nearest stage, tank, or soapbox to "Follow ME! I'm your next leader!" Once you let go of the desperate driving need to rule, to overcome, to lead, to be noticed and exalted in your brief lifespan, and choose to simply do the best one can, to create and work and survive, the freedom is amazingly self-satisfying. Too bad most humans will never know it.
JMHO.
Great post, I agree with all of it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango
True from a functionalist perspective, but it's still like someone killing themself upon the realization they are just one of billions of hairless bipedal apes on a speck of rock in an incomprehendably large universe.
Should we all just kill ourselves because our existence is meaningless from that perspective? I don't think so, because we are not operating at a unversal perspective. There is beauty and wonder in small things... ask any microbiologist.
Anyway, I think the environmentalist movement is more propaganda than inspired living. Evironmentalists never take into account certain fundamental lessons of nature when they create and try to implement their schemes, and this is why they usually fail.
First: We ARE animals. Humans are evolved natural life from this planet and are not above or apart from it in any way. Everything we do is already "natural" by default... (You are hitting the nail on the head when you ask: WTF is so important about us anyway? The fact is, we are only important to ourselves) Seeing ourselves as apart from the world around us changes our relationship with the world and opens up all sorts of morally ambiguous options for use and abuse of the planet.
Second: The "tragedy of the Commons" and basic self-serving nature of all animal life on this planet. Animals will seek to protect and preserve their lives as individual units. Animals will do what is best for themselves and their immediate kin, and will not make unnecessary sacrifices for non-kin.
It is completely against our programming to live in a tiny ecobox the size of a walk-in closet with still rather unreliable, expensive and uncomfortable "green" technologies, put an hour of work a day into growing our own veggies and pedal a bike to work through rain or snow or 100 degree heat everyday when our neigbors can live in a 3000 sq foot mcmansion with all the toys and drive climate-conditioned hummer to work or the grocery store every morning for the same outlay of cash resources.
We will not alter our lifestyles to be more efficient and environmentally sustainable until we have to as a matter of survival. How convienient that our insanely wealthy middle class (by historical standards) is slowly but surely being totally gutted by the powers that be.
Killing ourselves because everything is meaningless is going to far to the other extreme... there is nothing wrong with a middle ground, ha.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geofra
I think that "Save the Planet" is a much more sellable slogan than "Save Ourselves from Ourselves".
Life, when it comes upon a wealth of resources, burns it up as fast as it can. Human beings are no different unless we choose to be. When every other earthly life form succumbs to their basic drives human beings can overcome themselves. The result is a vigorous occupation of every part of this planet.
When we don't overcome our base instincts, we waste our resources, foul our home, and become discontented.
My preaching is done.
Exactly, the progression of nature applies to us just as it does to the common bacteria.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lndigo
You're right; we are subject to the conditions Mother Earth sets forth, not the other way around. HOWEVER, environmental sustainability is a social issue, and we want to leave a future of progress and kindness for the future generations as our forefathers have left for us.
Our forefathers could not have destroyed the planet if they tried, they had extremely little to do with leaving us a clean earth... had they the option to pollute they would have been just as bad as us.
A future of progress and kindness sounds great, but we have never achieved that and it will be a very long time until we do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightcrawler
I think all this saving the planet is crap.
Earth has been here for billions of years and is just doing it's thing. We (humans) will be long gone and Miss Earth will still be doing her thing.
We only have data back a certain amount of time, who is to say what Earth does and does not do......or what can do.....................we are human, we are not God, we do not know everything, otherwise we would have a cure for the common cold, and we don't.
Earth does it's thing, we are the ones that are in the way!!
To the Earth we are just a surface nuisance. And you are right about not knowing everything, we are still quite stupid as a species.
I put my responses bolded in red so that I could respond to each point individually. I am not trying to be abrasive or anything, so please don't read any of this as an attack.
I just can't stand the fact that people will waste resources and money on problems that are trivial at best, but we have problems that we know exist and that we know how to fix, yet we don't.
So I guess I am combating your "straw that broke the camels back" with another common saying, people who are trying to save the planet are "Putting the cart in front of the horse."
For future reference, cutting up the quoted post and commenting on each bit individually makes answering a lot less time consuming
I also don't think people are rude or abrasive simply because we disagree, that said, I'm sure you'll keep your temper even though I respectfully think you are wrong, and that you possibly didn't grasp what I tried to convey in my post. I will try to clarify in this one.
You said:
Quote:
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.
These are just children, not counting adults... At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day, most of the world has NO access to healthcare.
Too good at it? We are terrible at it. The source I am using for numbers (above) mostly focuses on children, so keep in mind this does not count the adults in poverty and squalor.
When you have ~400 million children without access to safe drinking water, you are not "too good" at taking care of the race... this is more than the population of the United States.
Worldwide,
10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
We are dismal at best at tending to our own race, unless of course you are talking about the richest 20%... we are taking care of them just fine.
"The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income."
I am, as most "socially interested" western citizens, painfully aware of the challenges we face in this day and age. Too many die of hunger and diseases that are easily treatable (like Malaria and Pneumonia), womens rights in some parts of the world are abysmal, and even in modern western societies like the US, corporal punishment of children is still legal and accepted. Source
I am not blind to these challenges.
What I meant by the statement "I also don't agree that it's painfully evident that we as a race can't take care of ourselves, if anything, most of the problems we face today are because we are too good at it.", is that a lot of the challenges that cause unrest, and socioeconomic issues today, comes from the western worlds wasteful lifestyles and our ever increasing knowledge on how to stay alive for longer (coupled with lowered birth rates). All of this create problems that eventually trickle down and affects those less fortunate. Yes, we might have to pay a little more for gas these days, but in South America, people die from cancer because the oil companies we depend on allows toxins to be dumped and spilled in the millions of gallons range, the same is happening in Africa, where international companies reserves the rights to extract natural resources by striking deals with corrupt government officials, the result being that none of what should be a national wealth comes to the aid of the population, and as an added insult, the oil companies pollute drinking waters, fishing grounds and otherwise further the difficulties of what's usually already impoverished people.
What I was trying to exemplify, was that many of the problems we face today, both environmental and social trickle down from the way we, as westerners live our lives.
I then go on to say that the inequalities in our world is on a decline. This is true.
The presence of inequality, sometimes severe, does not negate that fact.
More people have access to basic health care. Source, One
And less people are hungry, an estimated 80 million less than in 2009. Source, One
None of this undermines the fact the we face monumental social problems, but it does support my statement that we are moving forward and that more people are in fact better off today that they were in the past. The fact that the disparity between rich and poor has increased does not mean there are more people worse off, there can be less poor, and the poor can be better off than they were 2, 3, 5 or 10 years ago even when this happens. More than anything it simply proves that the rich have gotten richer, not that the poor are poorer. We can of course argue that comparably they have, but when it comes down to the simply life sustaining facts, there's no getting around that more people are fed, more people go to school and more people have access to basic health care.
In your rebuttal, you then go on to claim that we have "no control over anything on a scale comparable to our Earth". I believe this to be wrong. The depletion of the earths ozone layer for instance, has been very effectively combated by the ban on CFC's and similar substances. This proves that we can in fact control environmental changes that occur on this scale. Source, Wikipedia
You also argue that we have no responsibility to "hand over" an earth in as good a condition as we got it, because this is a responsibility "man made up. True, we did make up this responsibility, just as we made up the responsibility of working towards bettering the living conditions for those in this world who are less fortunate (an issue you seem to be interested in), or the responsibility not to kill each other. Just because man "makes" something up, does not mean it's wrong.
In the end of my post, I argue that we pollute at a rate thats unprecedented in our race's history, this is fact. I argue that reducing the rate of these pollutants will be beneficial to us, regardless of it's impact on the earths "life", because it's highly affective when it comes to the sustainability of humanity and other living creatures.
I even agree with you that the hyperbole on both sides of the debate draws attention away from real issues, which is why my point is this: Lets ignore those who shout the loudest and look at the facts.
The facts are that we pollute and waste, this pollution and waste, regardless of how it affects the world in the long run, affects us as humans very much, and it affects us very negatively, therefor, why focus on the hyperbole, why not focus on the positive sides of the green movement and earth day?
At the end of the day, those who are really affected by the pollution and waste isn't as much us in the western world, though the effects are clearly seen here too, but the poor, and deprived in developing countries that you care about.
These two problems are very directly linked.
Our dependency on oil is causing massive problems in the third world. Our wasteful use of food and farming practices is a major contributer to world hunger. Our production of trash, often ends up in Africa (southern European nations sell ship their waste to African nations who get paid to receive it.), so to stop world hunger, the grossly unbalanced access to clean water, access to education and clean air, health care, so on and so forth, we also need to directly address the issues that cause the problems, and pollution and environmental change most definitely is one of those problems.
For future reference, cutting up the quoted post and commenting on each bit individually makes answering a lot less time consuming
I also don't think people are rude or abrasive simply because we disagree, that said, I'm sure you'll keep your temper even though I respectfully think you are wrong, and that you possibly didn't grasp what I tried to convey in my post. I will try to clarify in this one.
You said:
I am, as most "socially interested" western citizens, painfully aware of the challenges we face in this day and age. Too many die of hunger and diseases that are easily treatable (like Malaria and Pneumonia), womens rights in some parts of the world are abysmal, and even in modern western societies like the US, corporal punishment of children is still legal and accepted. Source
I am not blind to these challenges.
What I meant by the statement "I also don't agree that it's painfully evident that we as a race can't take care of ourselves, if anything, most of the problems we face today are because we are too good at it.", is that a lot of the challenges that cause unrest, and socioeconomic issues today, comes from the western worlds wasteful lifestyles and our ever increasing knowledge on how to stay alive for longer (coupled with lowered birth rates). All of this create problems that eventually trickle down and affects those less fortunate. Yes, we might have to pay a little more for gas these days, but in South America, people die from cancer because the oil companies we depend on allows toxins to be dumped and spilled in the millions of gallons range, the same is happening in Africa, where international companies reserves the rights to extract natural resources by striking deals with corrupt government officials, the result being that none of what should be a national wealth comes to the aid of the population, and as an added insult, the oil companies pollute drinking waters, fishing grounds and otherwise further the difficulties of what's usually already impoverished people.
What I was trying to exemplify, was that many of the problems we face today, both environmental and social trickle down from the way we, as westerners live our lives.
I then go on to say that the inequalities in our world is on a decline. This is true.
The presence of inequality, sometimes severe, does not negate that fact.
More people have access to basic health care. Source, One
And less people are hungry, an estimated 80 million less than in 2009. Source, One
None of this undermines the fact the we face monumental social problems, but it does support my statement that we are moving forward and that more people are in fact better off today that they were in the past. The fact that the disparity between rich and poor has increased does not mean there are more people worse off, there can be less poor, and the poor can be better off than they were 2, 3, 5 or 10 years ago even when this happens. More than anything it simply proves that the rich have gotten richer, not that the poor are poorer. We can of course argue that comparably they have, but when it comes down to the simply life sustaining facts, there's no getting around that more people are fed, more people go to school and more people have access to basic health care.
In your rebuttal, you then go on to claim that we have "no control over anything on a scale comparable to our Earth". I believe this to be wrong. The depletion of the earths ozone layer for instance, has been very effectively combated by the ban on CFC's and similar substances. This proves that we can in fact control environmental changes that occur on this scale. Source, Wikipedia
You also argue that we have no responsibility to "hand over" an earth in as good a condition as we got it, because this is a responsibility "man made up. True, we did make up this responsibility, just as we made up the responsibility of working towards bettering the living conditions for those in this world who are less fortunate (an issue you seem to be interested in), or the responsibility not to kill each other. Just because man "makes" something up, does not mean it's wrong.
In the end of my post, I argue that we pollute at a rate thats unprecedented in our race's history, this is fact. I argue that reducing the rate of these pollutants will be beneficial to us, regardless of it's impact on the earths "life", because it's highly affective when it comes to the sustainability of humanity and other living creatures.
I even agree with you that the hyperbole on both sides of the debate draws attention away from real issues, which is why my point is this: Lets ignore those who shout the loudest and look at the facts.
The facts are that we pollute and waste, this pollution and waste, regardless of how it affects the world in the long run, affects us as humans very much, and it affects us very negatively, therefor, why focus on the hyperbole, why not focus on the positive sides of the green movement and earth day?
At the end of the day, those who are really affected by the pollution and waste isn't as much us in the western world, though the effects are clearly seen here too, but the poor, and deprived in developing countries that you care about.
These two problems are very directly linked.
Our dependency on oil is causing massive problems in the third world. Our wasteful use of food and farming practices is a major contributer to world hunger. Our production of trash, often ends up in Africa (southern European nations sell ship their waste to African nations who get paid to receive it.), so to stop world hunger, the grossly unbalanced access to clean water, access to education and clean air, health care, so on and so forth, we also need to directly address the issues that cause the problems, and pollution and environmental change most definitely is one of those problems.
I understood what you were saying, but as it is true that more humans have access to healthcare and such, the number of those without is growing as well and at a greater rate... as our population expands both categories will expand with it... so yes, there ARE more people with access to modern advancements, but there are also more without access.
The population of Earth is growing ,correct? So if the population is growing, and the rich own a higher percentage of resources, how do the poor not get poorer, for they are increasing in numbers but their share of resources is shrinking? More people are worse off... this still leaves room for the numbers to grow on the higher quality of life side, but as population grows so does the poor population (Usually at a higher rate). At one point there were less people on Earth than live in poverty now, they didn't all live in poverty... more people are worse off.
80 Million people being less hungry is laughable... do you know how small that number is?
Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific... This does not count the hungry in the developed world.
You said "I then go on to say that the inequalities in our world is on a decline. This is true.
The presence of inequality, sometimes severe, does not negate that fact." This is completely false... In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much. This is an impressive rise in inequality.
An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
3 to 1 in 1820
11 to 1 in 1913
35 to 1 in 1950
44 to 1 in 1973
72 to 1 in 1992
Even if the rich are just getting richer, and the poor stay the same, the inequality is on the rise.
I agree with the problems that you present, they do exist. But they have nothing to do with the planet... they are problems with our species... you just proved how terrible we are at looking after ourselves. CFC's? Earth does NOT care about CFC's it would adapt if need be... WE care about CFC's.
What you are talking about is not "saving the planet", it is learning how to take care of ourselves... the planet does not care where we dump trash, it has almost NO affect on the planet in the long run... it affects us, learning how to deal with all of the issues that you mention is simply learning how to take care of our species.
I think we are agreeing with each other more than it appears... we just have different terminology... I view your version of environmentalism as nothing more than progressing as a species, we are learning to take care of ourselves (slowly). The planet does not need saved, it is completely fine, with our best attempt we would have trouble bringing it down... though I do agree that we need to take care of ourselves, and that does involve cleaning up a bit.
Last edited by Xander_Crews; 04-28-2011 at 06:23 PM..
I understood what you were saying, but as it is true that more humans have access to healthcare and such, the number of those without is growing as well and at a greater rate... as our population expands both categories will expand with it... so yes, there ARE more people with access to modern advancements, but there are also more without access.
The population of Earth is growing ,correct? So if the population is growing, and the rich own a higher percentage of resources, how do the poor not get poorer, for they are increasing in numbers but their share of resources is shrinking? More people are worse off... this still leaves room for the numbers to grow on the higher quality of life side, but as population grows so does the poor population (Usually at a higher rate). At one point there were less people on Earth than live in poverty now, they didn't all live in poverty... more people are worse off.
80 Million people being less hungry is laughable... do you know how small that number is?
Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific... This does not count the hungry in the developed world.
You said "I then go on to say that the inequalities in our world is on a decline. This is true.
The presence of inequality, sometimes severe, does not negate that fact." This is completely false... In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much. This is an impressive rise in inequality.
An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
3 to 1 in 1820
11 to 1 in 1913
35 to 1 in 1950
44 to 1 in 1973
72 to 1 in 1992
Even if the rich are just getting richer, and the poor stay the same, the inequality is on the rise.
I agree with the problems that you present, they do exist. But they have nothing to do with the planet... they are problems with our species... you just proved how terrible we are at looking after ourselves. CFC's? Earth does NOT care about CFC's it would adapt if need be... WE care about CFC's.
What you are talking about is not "saving the planet", it is learning how to take care of ourselves... the planet does not care where we dump trash, it has almost NO affect on the planet in the long run... it affects us, learning how to deal with all of the issues that you mention is simply learning how to take care of our species.
I think we are agreeing with each other more than it appears... we just have different terminology... I view your version of environmentalism as nothing more than progressing as a species, we are learning to take care of ourselves (slowly). The planet does not need saved, it is completely fine, with our best attempt we would have trouble bringing it down... though I do agree that we need to take care of ourselves, and that does involve cleaning up a bit.
80 million in two years adds up to a decline in world hunger of 7.8% over the course of two years, if it continues at this rate, we'll have abolished hunger in little over 20 years, which, looking at the history of it, is quite good, so no, I don't agree that the number is laughable, I think it's a solid and good step towards solving one of the bigger challenges we face.
What I'm proposing is not only that "saving the planet" is a term they've chosen to use which really means "maintain human life on the planet, or save the planet for us", but I'm also saying that whether they are right or not, about the world becoming unlivable (which is the case, anyone will know the earth will still physically be here if we die out) we should still focus our efforts on reducing our pollutive footprint. If Earth Day helps illuminate the problem, all the more power to it.
What I'm talking about isn't only maintaining life on earth, or saving it for ourselves, true, I'm also well aware of the direct cause and effect relationship regarding pollution and socioeconomic issues, that does not however mean that we aren't effectively making life less and less sustainable with our current trends.
I think addressing pollution and the environment is of utmost importance, because the sustainability of everything else in our societies depend upon it. You cannot have a more equal world, or feed everyone if there's nowhere to grow food.
And I agree I was unclear when I used the term "less inequality", when speaking of wealth, you are correct, I was referring to access to basic human necessities (as acknowledged by the UN), things such as basic health care, food, water and education. All studies and history itself points to the fact that prosperity follows these things closely, and with prosperity, lower birth rates.
The numbers about health, and hunger are definitive. Hunger is not rising faster than it's going down, 80 million less that the total number, including anyone new born into it, go to bed hungry tonight. That's good progress.
To continue that progress we need to make sure we address the environmental challenges we're facing so we can continue to produce enough food to allow more people to have access to basic human rights.
So no, I don't think we agree more than we disagree, because I think Earth Day and the Green movement, even with all it's flaws, serves an important role in pushing for more sustainable ways of living.
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