debate Environmental Thread does anyone care that Amazon Rain Forest is burning down to the ground

GILSAN said:

Their carbon footprint isn't as small as you might think. Don't forget that a high % of rural Africans have moved into the big cities, which have become among the most polluted in the world.

Almost half the African population does not have basic sanitation, resulting in contaminated and extremely polluted water streams and rivers which help transmit diseases like diarrhea, cholera, dysentery and typhoid.

Sub-Saharan Africans also have a tendency to litter a lot, resulting in garbage accumulating in the streets that attract rats, flies, mosquitoes etc. which is such a danger to public health.

South Africa...

Poverty in Africa can be the result of political instability and ethnic conflicts, but mostly thanks to the massive corruption by it's ruling class who really don't give a crap about about the population.

Yes indeed China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia are still the biggest polluters, but at the rate their population is increasing, Africa will catch up in a decade or so.

India...

China...

Click to expand...

I agree that Africa (and the rest of the World for that matter) has a long way to go to become fully environmentally conscious and friendly to the point that not only that the environment is not being damaged any more, but to actually see some of the existing damage being reversed and corrected. And I agree that the ruling class has an essential role to play in leading the population towards becoming more green, but do you see any improvement in Africa compared to the past, it looks like a few African countries have been taking the initiative to becoming more modern and democratic and as such do you see any hopes for the situation in Africa to get better.

As bad as some of the other polluters are around the World such as China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia that you had mentioned, which ones do you see getting better as far as having some plans to fix their pollution problems, and which ones do you think are getting worst by ignoring the situation.

offthehandle said:

I was looking and really never have been able to find any data on deforestation in the EU..... No idea if they were ever really heavy forested, do you?

Click to expand...

Europe used to be heavily forested a few thousand years ago, but as the population grew and the need for agricultural land increased, the forests diminished.

In the past 100 years however, forest land has actually increased in Europe and today about 40% of the land is forested.

oldtimer said:

I agree that Africa (and the rest of the World for that matter) has a long way to go to become fully environmentally conscious and friendly to the point that not only that the environment is not being damaged any more, but to actually see some of the existing damage being reversed and corrected. And I agree that the ruling class has an essential role to play in leading the population towards becoming more green, but do you see any improvement in Africa compared to the past, it looks like a few African countries have been taking the initiative to becoming more modern and democratic and as such do you see any hopes for the situation in Africa to get better.

Click to expand...

In some countries, democracy has sort of improved, while in others it deteriorated or gotten worse.

The Youtube Video "Hope in a Changing Climate - by John D. Liu (2009)" I posted in the previous page shows countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda have started a reforestation and water conservation plan that has had excellent results, especially in Ethiopia.

In the near future I don't see too many positives coming out of Africa. It all depends on the masses changing their habits and especially the ruling class starting to pay more attention to their people instead of themselves.

The west has poured over 50 TRILLION $ in the last 40-50 years into Africa and what are the results? The ruling class got stinking rich while the vast majority is still filthy poor.

NGO's with good intentions come to African villages, build boreholes and pumps for the locals, only to return a few years latter and find no boreholes or pumps. Someone had stolen them to sell to scrapyards.

oldtimer said:

As bad as some of the other polluters are around the World such as China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia that you had mentioned, which ones do you see getting better as far as having some plans to fix their pollution problems, and which ones do you think are getting worst by ignoring the situation.

Click to expand...

China seems to be taking the initiative to clean up, but it's a massive undertaking. Lets wait and see. When the masses start protesting for cleaner air and water, maybe the governments will start to do something.

As important as it is to find a balance between a healthy Environment and a healthy Economy at the present time it might be worth mentioning that if the World can survive through the next few decades it will be much easier to find this balance in the future as I strongly believe that with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (one with general intelligence that is a force for good) the economy in the future will no longer depend on the number of jobs as I believe that the majority of people will no longer have to work in the future as AI will tend to all our needs, not as our slaves, but more like as our caretakers.

Right now we are going through the most critical time in the history of the World and I believe that if we can manage to find a way out of our current societal and environmental problems things will get much easier and better in the near future. Although this requires for the whole World to reform its ways of thinking and attitude in a way that allows humanity to ascend to a higher level of existence and overcome its bad characteristics that have brought the World on the verge of collapse both as far as the society and environment are concerned.

As with any of the other important issues that we have to deal with, tackling the problems with the environment requires for us to try to end all the political, religious, and racial divisions and animosities that have been wasting our time and energy and that have been distracting us from seeing the right path by putting everyone against one another.

As I make this post on the anniversary of the tragedy of the 911 , I urge everyone to try to find a common cause in saving the World from all that’s evil by following common sense that is based on logic, compassion, and the Universal rights and values that we all believe in. Hostilities, conflicts, and War will only distract us from paying attention to the Environment and could make us lose this last window of opportunity to be able save this Planet. IMO

PS: I have been expressing my thoughts and views on different issues here at NamePros that are excerpts from what I plan to write in my own book in the near future about the right path for humanity to get to salvation.

oldtimer said:

As I make this post on the anniversary of the tragedy of the 911 , I urge everyone to try to find a common cause in saving the World from all that’s evil by following common sense that is based on logic, compassion, and the Universal rights and values that we all believe in. Hostilities, conflicts, and War will only distract us from paying attention to the Environment and could make us lose this last window of opportunity to be able save this Planet. IMO

PS: I have been expressing my thoughts and views on different issues here at NamePros that are excerpts from what I plan to write in my own book in the near future about the right path for humanity to get to salvation.

Click to expand...

Common Sense... that's the keyword that unfortunately is disappearing at an alarming rate and it's such an easy thing to practice!








Oh BTW.... best of luck with your book. Hope it has lots of easy to understand common sense stuff in it!

GILSAN said:

Oh BTW.... best of luck with your book. Hope it has lots of easy to understand common sense stuff in it!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn't invent common sense, but I am going to use it to the best of my ability to create awareness about the problems that the humanity and the environment are facing. I just hope that the whole World won't get mad at me for using true common sense the way a good AI might use common sense in the future.

Unfortunately right now most people have blinders on due to their political, religious, and racial affiliations and loyalties that makes them look at common sense only as what servers their interests and agendas. If we are to be a force for good it requires that we base our common sense on logic and compassion and the Universal rights and values that we all believe in. IMO

oldtimer said:

Unfortunately right now most people have blinders on due to their political, religious, and racial affiliations and loyalties that makes them look at common sense only as what servers their interests and agendas.

Click to expand...

And those blinders will continue for a long time, as long as some try to impose their values on others.

1/3 of the worlds population eats with chopsticks, 1/3 with their hands and the rest with fork and knife. Who is is doing it the right way? Or are they all right?

GILSAN said:

And those blinders will continue for a long time, as long as some try to impose their values on others.

1/3 of the worlds population eats with chopsticks, 1/3 with their hands and the rest with fork and knife. Who is is doing it the right way? Or are they all right?

Click to expand...

Having diverse cultures is a good thing, and people with different customs and traditions should be respected as long as their ways are compatible with the Universal rights and values that are derived from logic and compassion and that are accepted by the majority of people around the World.

I am sure that there are some Universally accepted norms and etiquettes that are used at the dinner table at International conferences in the United Nations, people from around the World might have to make certain compromises and sacrifices in their local customs and traditions in order to be able to attend, that is not one person or group forcing their ways on another, but more like people coming to a consensus as to what is the right behavior and as long as that consensus is based on common sense that is derived from logic and compassion then everyone should be required to respect it and to abide by it. IMO

This country isn't just carbon neutral — it's carbon negative | Tshering Tobgay
Deep in the Himalayas, on the border between China and India, lies the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time. In this illuminating talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares his country's mission to put happiness before economic growth and set a world standard for environmental preservation.

GILSAN said:

This country isn't just carbon neutral — it's carbon negative | Tshering Tobgay
Deep in the Himalayas, on the border between China and India, lies the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time. In this illuminating talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares his country's mission to put happiness before economic growth and set a world standard for environmental preservation.

Click to expand...

As we see the ice caps and glaciers start receding on the surface gradually the more alarming effect is going to be what we can’t see as far as the fact that the ice is losing its structure from deep within which is going to cause the melting to accelerate once it goes beyond a certain point, so we might have even less time than we originally thought before the low lying coastal areas and islands around the World start going under water because of the rising oceans. The forced migrations that are going to take place due to the loss of so much habitat will certainly have an adverse effect on the global economy and can cause animosities and conflicts all around the World. So even those who are trying their best to be green will be indirectly affected due to all the social and economical stresses that are going to be caused by global warming. When it comes to the environment there has to be a united effort on behalf of all the countries small and large to make the whole World carbon neutral (or better yet carbon negative) otherwise if the larger countries continue to pollute all the efforts by the smaller countries who are doing their best to be green is going to go to waste. IMO

One of my favorite Canadians...
Professor Jordan Peterson on climate change and climate policy at the Cambridge Union

GILSAN said:

'Never mind the heat, climate change is hoax by gravy-train scientists'

Click to expand...

Even if we gave those scientists the benefit of the doubt and assumed that there was a 20% chance that Global Warming was a hoax, that would still leave an 80% chance that Global Warming is real.

Now the question is should people bet their life and the life of every living thing on this Planet on the 20% chance that Global Warming is a hoax or the 80% chance that the Global Warming is real.

oldtimer said:

Even if we gave those scientists the benefit of the doubt and assumed that there was a 20% chance that Global Warming was a hoax, that would still leave an 80% chance that Global Warming is real.

Now the question is should people bet their life and the life of every living thing on this Planet on the 20% chance that Global Warming is a hoax or the 80% chance that the Global Warming is real.

Click to expand...

Like I said before, most of the western world is doing it's fair share to make the world a better place. Now it's up to the African and Asian continent to do theirs. How long that will take is dependent on various factors, especially the cultural factor, but I have a feeling it's gonna be a long, long time!

GILSAN said:

but I have a feeling it's gonna be a long, long time!

Click to expand...

I estimate that this Planet will be past the point of no return in about couple of decades (if not sooner) so East, West, or anywhere else has to put their efforts into high gear before we run out of time. So far it seems like the World is going in the wrong direction as hostilities rise and push the Environment to the background. IMO

This building in smoggy Beijing looks like a scene from Blade Runner...


Same building, after a very windy day cleaned up the atmosphere...

GILSAN said:

This building in smoggy Beijing looks like a scene from Blade Runner...

Same building, after a very windy day cleaned up the atmosphere...

Click to expand...

A good representation of what ignorance and greed can do.

It baffles the mind as to how the World has been allowed to get to this point in the first place. But in the interest of fairness we should expose all Environmental shortcomings and faults from all around the World the same without bias or prejudice. Focusing only on countries that might be considered to be one's Economical, Political, or Racial competitors or adversaries will only give the impression that there is a hidden agenda involved that is going beyond the Environmental issues. When it comes to the Environment we have to treat everyone the same and expose their faults regardless as to whether they are considered to be one's adversary or ally. IMO

In addition to the worsening Smog and reduced air and water quality around the World we should also be deeply concerned about the Storms and Hurricanes that seem to be getting stronger by the season causing more and more destruction with no end in sight. One solution is to move everyone out of the known vulnerable areas, but that might not be very practical at the present time considering the scope and scale of the situation, although it's something that we eventually have to do for low lying areas that might go under water. The other alternative is to rethink the way homes and other buildings are made or rebuilt in this areas. We might as well build these homes to be strong enough as if they are in a nuclear strike zone, it might be expensive, but when you consider the cost of rebuilding over and over after each storm it might actually save us money in the long run. Every time I see people boarding up their windows with plywood before a storm it makes me wonder when are they going to come up with a more permanent solution. Now obviously those people can't afford to turn their home into a bunker by themselves so that's why we need a Global initiative to start a reconstruction program to try to solve this problem once and for all. The same can apply to other places that are at high risk due to natural disasters such as Earthquakes or Tornados. Correcting all these problems by creating such massive reconstruction program will also definitely help the economy and will keep people busy for many years to come. A lot of this would have been easier if they had been planned correctly to begin with in the past, but we can't blame the previous generations too much as they didn't know better back then and so they failed to predict the problems that we are facing right now as they built and expanded their habitats. Now we can at least learn a lesson from all this by considering what problems we can prevent for the future generations by planning things correctly now that we are at the beginning of certain advancements and expansions such as Space Exploration, Genetics, or Artificial Intelligence and Automation just to name a few. IMO

PS: Rebuild the homes only if they can withstand category 6 Hurricanes (category 7 might not be out of the question either in a few decades if Global Warming is not brought under control now).

UN Climate Action Summit:

September, 23 , 2019

(Some programs start ot the 21th)

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/index.shtml

^^^^ That's great, we don't need more dumb people in this world, we have too many of those already...

These have a more radical and violent solution...

GILSAN said:

^^^^ That's great, we don't need more dumb people in this world, we have too many of those already...

These have a more radical and violent solution...

Click to expand...

The UN Climate Summit Youth Program is on Saturday September 21, 2019

Getting the younger generations involved in the Climate Change and Environmental debates in a Positive way is a good thing, after all they are the ones who have to live on this Planet in the future. (The older generations seem to be just too caught up in politics and their own agendas). IMO

oldtimer said:

The UN Climate Summit Youth Program is on Saturday September 21, 2019

Getting the younger generations involved in the Climate Change and Environmental debates in a Positive way is a good thing, after all they are the ones who have to live on this Planet in the future. (The older generations seem to be just too caught up in politics and their own agendas). IMO

Click to expand...

By NOT having children? That's the height of stupidity!

I'm part of the older generation and I know that I pollute considerably less than the vast majority of the younger generation... and I've been doing it since I was young, long before we even heard the term "Global Warming"

GILSAN said:

By NOT having children? That's the height of stupidity!

I'm part of the older generation and I know that I pollute considerably less than the vast majority of the younger generation... and I've been doing it since I was young, long before we even heard the term "Global Warming"

Click to expand...

I said:

"Getting the younger generations involved in the Climate Change and Environmental debates in a Positive way is a good thing"

I don't condone every way that is promoted by some such as by not having any children at all as they say.

Revealed: 90 Percent of Plastic Waste Comes from Asia and Africa
A groundbreaking study conducted by a team of researchers at Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research poured over data on debris from 79 sampling sites along 57 rivers and found that just a handful of rivers in a couple of countries account for an overwhelming majority of the pollutants piling up in our oceans.

“The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88-95 percent of the global load into the sea,” Dr. Christian Schmidt, a hydrogeologist who headed up the study, told the Daily Mail after the research was published in 2017. “The rivers with the highest estimated plastic loads are characterized by high population – for instance the Yangtze with over half a billion people.”

The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, said that by cutting plastic pollution in the Yangtze River — the third-longest in the world and located in China — and the Ganges River, located in India, ocean pollution could be reduced by half.

Of the top ten rivers that produce the most pollution, eight of them are in Asian and two, the Nile River and the Niger River, are in Africa.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...-of-plastic-waste-comes-from-asia-and-africa/