Say goodbye to all the animals :-(

Emp_Fab

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29418983

We truly are the locusts of the world.  All the protests will amount to naught when faced with the power of human greed.  We will not stop until we've killed and polluted everything.  I genuinely believe the best thing that could happen now would be the extinction of the human race.  In the meantime, I'm going to vote Green at the next election.  Not that that will change anything, but at least it will be a protest.

As someone once said. "When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

Phil_aka_Pip

I don't like it either. I think the quote was from a chief of one of the Native American tribes.

frankus

I thought it was the Lorax - he speaks for the trees.

Cirrus

The thing is, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Humans are just horrible animals. Individually we may think ourselves enlightened and able to act in good ways, but cumulatively we're as set in our ways as any other species. As the good Indian said, by the time society cares enough to actually do something it'll be too late.

carlos

Cirrus said:

The thing is, there's nothing anyone can do about it. 

... but loads everybody could do. But we won't. Because our lives are short and we care only about ourselves and those close to us.

axisus

It's survival of the fittest and we are the most powerful animal by far. At least we can say that a massive percentage of the world population actually has a conscience.

ESBlonde

It's not as if the evidence wasn't there. We know of many cities or civilizations that have driven themselves to extinction, yet we modern humans know better! Or al least we destroy the earth on a global industrial scale.

Cirrus

axisus said:

At least we can say that a massive percentage of the world population actually has a conscience.

This seems like a good example of human hubris. Do you have evidence that other animals don't?

frankus

yeah - look at all the animals killed during the world wars - that war horse, those russian dogs, pigeons, florence nightingale all sorts of animals killed in wars..

but do animals wear a poppy on Rembrandt's Sunday? do they fook they do!! No conscience at all.

Karlos

frankus said:

but do animals wear a poppy on Rembrandt's Sunday? do they fook they do!! No conscience at all.

Not only that but pigeons shit on our cenotaphs - no bloody respect at all the feathery bastards. 

dafuzz

This is why I'm passionate about recycling, supporting sustainable industries, abolishing third world sweat shops and demonising rampant consumerism wherever I find it

sent from my iPhone

holnrew

dafuzz;365862" said:

This is why I'm passionate about recycling, supporting sustainable industries, abolishing third world sweat shops and demonising rampant consumerism wherever I find it



sent from my iPhone

Actually quite a sad refection of what people are really like. They want to be seen to be doing something and announce everything they do, not because they care about the planet, but because they want to be all superior. That's how you get people driving a Prius, but fly everywhere. Hollywood hypocrisy.

sinbaadi

If the population total was controlled, there might be hope, but the idea that Westerners are not free to reproduce as profusely as they wish is one of the few remaining taboos.  It would be political suicide to suggest it anyway.  We'll keep building, keep expanding, our volume of waste increasing exponentially despite all the gestures we might comfort ourselves with.  Someone has to say "no, we won't build any more homes and retail parks" at some point, right?  "No, we cannot sustain this population growth."

It will never happen with the current political system.  

Democracy doesn't really work, does it?  Nothing wrong with a dictatorship as long as they're good

frankus

Thing is, population is not the issue, the fact that we're hanging around on Earth like an indolent teen is the problem

Axe_meister

The thing is it is not the westerners that are breeding like mad, our number of children per head is going down.

It's the third world countries and the religions indoctrination around birth control.

But also our general waste and consumerism (and I am guilty as charged as are probably most people on here).

Quite ironic with dafuzz posting he talks about abolishing sweatshops, yet the sig says "send from iphone" (not a dig by the way),

and apple use companies that employ child labour in sweat shops.

thisisguitar

Axe_meister said:

The thing is it is not the westerners that are breeding like mad, our number of children per head is going down.

It's the third world countries and the religions indoctrination around birth control.

But also our general waste and consumerism (and I am guilty as charged as are probably most people on here).

Quite ironic with dafuzz posting he talks about abolishing sweatshops, yet the sig says "send from iphone" (not a dig by the way),

and apple use companies that employ child labour in sweat shops.

He wrote that in as a joke...

Axe_meister

Why can't I give myself a facepalm

thisisguitar

Sorry @Axe_meister ;-)

JayGee

Axe_meister said:

The thing is it is not the westerners that are breeding like mad, our number of children per head is going down.

It's the third world countries and the religions indoctrination around birth control.

But also our general waste and consumerism (and I am guilty as charged as are probably most people on here).

Quite ironic with dafuzz posting he talks about abolishing sweatshops, yet the sig says "send from iphone" (not a dig by the way),

and apple use companies that employ child labour in sweat shops.

There's an awful lot of evidence to suggest that if you want to drive down birth rates the most effective way of doing it is to improve living standards and improve access to education, in particular improve access to education for women and girls. 

Somewhat counter intuitively this means *more* factories and more of the worlds population having access to more of the sort of tacky consumer goods which we in the west who already have access to all the tacky consumer goods we can eat like to be so sniffy about...

Fretwired

I wouldn't worry. Nature has a way of rebalancing the planet ... our drugs have stopped working so no doubt we'll be in a biblical plague of some sort.

VimFuego

a plague of bibles? fuck, and I only just finished clearing out all them korans. Better tell mrs f to re-clear some space in the dining room. Again.