https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/15/rebellion-prevent-ecological-apocalypse-civil-disobedience

I agree 100% but where to start? Just stop buying shit we don’t need? Stop paying taxes until something happens? We’re (me and my OH) are doing all of the small stuff we can but capitalism needs to end for real change to occur.

It ties in nicely with this thread-

SaveThePlanetTrackWorld

Home

Think Global, Act Local.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/
Simple solution

Yeah but he’s got an iphone and leather shoes.

Think Global, Act Local.

Think Local, Start at home. 🤔

Genuinely, I think there’s nothing can be done, an ecological collapse is inevitable. I’ll keep doing my bit in the spirit of Think Global, Act Local, but it’s in vain. Those ‘with’ are not prepared (in sufficient numbers) to give up the lifestyles they lead, those ‘without’ aspire to those lifestyles.

It would be nice if we could persuade enough voters to stop electing governments which either don’t do anything to change climate, er, change or worse, actually get rid of environmental legislation because of jobs, economy etc. Since more people vote for these short sighted leaders, it is difficult to see how a rebellion could possibly work.

Until someone can define what a sustainable lifestyle is in terms of consumption / materialism, we’re in the dark as to what needs doing. So as a privileged westerner who consumes significantly more than the average human across the planet what do I have to stop doing to make the planet sustainable and everyone one else have the same standard of living that I have.

I would suggest IHN is pretty accurate with his assumption that those of us ‘with’ are under no circumstances going to moderate our lifestyle sufficiently. Even if we did the (understandable) desire of those without to aspire to our current lifestyles would also need curtailing, also not going to happen.

As an anecdote to the underlying issue, we had our waste contractors in to renew our contract at work. We were told that all the segregation we do (and it could be better) apart from vardboard, wood and metals was pretty much irrelevant as everything else now goes for incineration or waste to energy as the industry likes to describe it, since the Chinese stopped taking our waste. 25 years on from recycling becoming a thing, the EU still hasn’t been able to create a market where recyclable plastics are in demand. If the EU can’t do it I doubt Russia / USA / China has the willpower.

Great article, thanks. Getting rid of the Tories would be a start.

^^ 100% agree. On a moral and ecological level.

But I won’t take this ot with anymore comments.Lol ….

What we need is a vast global war machine, shouldn’t take much to establish it as the worlds’ #1 consumer of fossil fuels to slaughter innocents in far off lands and perpetuate the oil based economy, due to the war machine’s need for fuel.

Though the numbers killed will stretch into the millions, their deaths won’t have sufficient environmental impact in their own right, since their relative poverty doesn’t promote such intense consumption of the planet’s resources…

However, on the plus side, the pollution from the continuation of the oil based economy and the related levels of plunder will eventually reduce global population sufficiently to nullify any threat to what’s left of the environment.

Then the super rich elite that are left among the ashes can don breathing apparatus and patrol the oceans in their superyachts, admiring the fading garish colours of the plastic landmasses that their wealth was built on.

Getting rid of the Tories would be a start.

…and….? Labour’s no better right now, and show little sign that in power they wouldn’t turn into more of the same, ecologically speaking. Greens have the right idea but it’s just not going to happen.

If there was proportional representation there might be better options (more coalition government so more potential for governments to take on board Green focuses)

Do you ever wonder if Miley Cyrus holds you responsible for her house burning down?

We’ve already reached peak oil and peak phosphate. Peak lithium is about 50yrs away. We’re on a massive population overshoot like yeast cells in a rich agar jelly. With luck after the initial human population collapse, caused by resource wars and starvation, our population curve will follow the classic dampened oscillation seen in every other pioneer population curve. Without luck we’ll nuke the planet and that will be that. I ride my bike to forget about it. You can all recycle your plastic and argue about Brexit if you think it helps.

…and….? Labour’s no better right now, and show little sign that in power they wouldn’t turn into more of the same, ecologically speaking. Greens have the right idea but it’s just not going to happen.

Yep this is another major problem for left right splits, people want jobs, unions want jobs and change will cost jobs in traditional labour heartlands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia
Almost the textbook ripping yourself apart in politics example

Nothing in party politics will make a blind bit of difference. We needed a total paradigm shift about 20 years ago.

I totally agree with IHN but I’d add that we’re on the verge of economic and societal collapse too. It makes no difference which political party you vote for they’re all funded by warmongers and leeches (except the Greens)

In the last 50yrs alone we’ve killed 60% of all wild animals globally and there’s been a massive insect population collapse in the UK over the past 30yrs. We may have a chance of extending the effects for a couple of years but nothing we do now is going to have an impact. I’m sure the cock roaches will do a better job

Lets put it into perspective – proxy data in relation to global temperature reconstruction suggests that 95% of measurable temperatures throughout history were warmer than it is today the same can be said about atmospheric Co2 concentration. There is no climate emergency.

Yet we are still managing to kill just about every other living thing on the planet & we’re busy making sure we can’t feed our own…

How do you square that circle?..

There is no climate emergency.

Have you published any papers on the subject, what’s your qualification in climate science?

We’re on a massive population overshoot

Population is actually declining at the moment isn’t it? Is it it just the growth that is declining?

The growth will be the only thing that is slowing (If indeed it is but its a fairly easy fact to check)
Population continues to grow.

So population growth is slowing up

But with that % and the population as it stands the number we are adding is going to keep going up, even slowing up, even slowing down to 0.1% still see’s it going way up.

As for temperature and sea level what would the impact of the UK losing some of it’s most fertile farming land? That is significant

If only that were true! As usual different measures have different outcomes. Generally the bulk agree that growth has been slowing or declining for a while. Some even claim since the 60s/70s.

A lot of western counties are declining in poplualtion but they measure differently so ndot necessarily comparable. Events like Syria either reduce or displace large numbers of people but it is really hard to track which. So you can get any result you want when you google it, depending in what source you choose

losing some of it’s most fertile farming land? That is significant

Too true. Read a book recently looking at that sort if effect if climate change. As he said we’ve foughtt wars over all sorts of things in all sorts of ways but the next big ones will be new – it’ll be over potable water and arible land.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/people/will-earths-population-decline.aspx
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/science/article/2016/07/13/four-reasons-global-population-will-level-soon
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98371&page=1

I’m looking for some evidence of that, unfortunately a population of this size events like Syria are just noise that doesn’t tickle the line as it rises. I’d like to see some evidence you have but throwing stones at the method of counting isn’t that valid.

95% of measurable temperatures throughout history were warmer than it is today the same can be said about atmospheric Co2 concentration

And how was the earth doing in those times? Did humans exist? Did it get that hot this quickly?

Weirdly, climate change will probably be good for Scotland. A little warmer won’t hurt, a little wetter might, but loads of open, habitable space that climate refugees will want to come live in.

Scotland could be the new French Riviera

Superdez, it’s not just about climate change. Open your eyes.

Just in case anyone needs a name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial

throwing stones at the method of counting isn’t that valid.

I am not doing anything of the sort. I’m pointing out that different methods get different results and like most questions of this nature there is no definitive answer. The more results you get that generally agree using either similar methods or different tmethods the more valid the results are judged to be. That’s the scientific method.

There is a growing body of work showing that popluation projections are too high because the way they are calculated is possibly not valid, plus the assumptions that underlie them are flawed. E.g. the assumption that economic growth is always desirable, and that it is best achieved by continuing to expand the workforce. The former is in question and the latter failed to account for things like robots and automation.

There is a growing body of work showing that popluation projections are too high because the way they are calculated is possibly not valid, plus the assumptions that underlie them are flawed.

Which doesn’t change the current levels being measured though does it, as I said like to see some of your evidence or sources there

I couldn’t even begin to list all the different sources out there and presenting one source as definitive isn’t useful, it just becomes a battle of conflicting sources without knowing how good they are. Trends of multiple sources is much more useful. This will give you an idea why.

How Is The Global Population Counted?

Nice classic sceptic/debunk article there, yes there is uncertainty in the method of counting but how can you be sure it’s all in the downward direction?

I assume you would all be the same sort of nutters who were building bunkers in the 70s and 80s, or preparing for the end of days in the medieval period. Humans love a good apocalypse yet are stunningly bad at accurately predicting them.

Before you start heckling me, I’m not denying climate change is happening, or that it’s an issue. The destruction of society by the measures proposed by the self appointed eco warriors just doesn’t sound like a great solution, though (just as an example, have they ever thought what would happen to the economies of countries reliant on tourism if air travel were seriously limited, as they propose?)

Malthus was wrong, as was the nameless Tory MP from the Victorian era who extrapolated from contemporary data that London would be 6ft deep in horse excrement by the end of the 20th Century, yet most of the apocalyptic predictions are based on the same flawed logic. People have been predicting peak oil for about 30 years now, and no, it hasn’t happened (check out a graph of Brent crude over the last decade if you don’t believe me (warning: this requires a basic understanding of economics).

And if you want to talk about overpopulation you should, perhaps look into what contemporary demographers are actually saying about population growth (clue: it’s not what you learnt in geography at school 30 years ago):

https://medium.com/s/story/by-the-end-of-this-century-the-global-population-will-start-to-shrink-2f606c1ef088

We’re in a transition zone at the moment between two ages – ultimately technology will provide the solutions rather than our returning to some dark ages style subsistence society.

JP

Nice cherry picking there JP, just to check you do know that if the world population starts to shrink by the end of the century it’s been growing for another 80 years. It’s just about what the chart I posted above showed, by then another 4bn people will be living on the planet

Where are your sources? Where are you sources?

Nice classic sceptic/debunk article there,

Oh. I disagree with them.

It isn’t possible to know, in isolation. It is possible to know that birth rates are declining, with reasonable certainty. It is possible to determine, with reasonable accuracy, that people are having less kids and having them later in life in developed countries. So there are some trends which suggest that population may be trending down not up. It is possible to determine that there are areas if china with a lot of houses but no people, despite their claims Etc, etc. Also points out that any number prior to 1946 is highly suspect.

This might be more your speed

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

Oh. I disagree with them.

o I disagree with the conclusion, it was a very cleverly written piece, it listed several facts that could not be disputed, it then goes on to make speculative conclusions that try to debunk an accepted view that population has been growing and is still growing.
It’s accepted that the rate is slowing and will continue to but it’s still growing, 0.1% of 7bn is still 7 million people which is just shy of the population of London, your analysis bit requires everything to fall in your favour….

JP what about the ecological collapse currently happening? Is that also a prediction that isn’t based on reality?