I do not know ‘forum rules’… in this matter.
My own feeling is that starting a thread creates an ‘obligation’, to oversee it and take care of it. I don’t engage any poster in particular, but if I have time, I hope to reply to everyone kind enough to comment. And usually regret that I don’t have enough time to write more, or rep!y to everyone. At this minute feel pretty bad because I know there are posters who have commented on other topics, to me, and I’ve lost their comment or can’t remember which topic it is in. Helen is one, Adam another. I try to make up for this by reading everyone’s comments, and giving all those I read a green heart for appreciation. I think different kinds of “appreciate” emoticon, could help. Or maybe the possibility of more green hearts, than one!
For those people who are not interested in my comments, I always advise using the poster “block” which I think will work, even on the person who started the topic, and I wouldn’t mind, at all, if you cut my comments out of my own topics, in that way.
I feel Ezri made an interesting point about Greta losing her childhood. I immediately agreed but later thinking about it I realise that I was very similar at her age. A bit like when a child has to go through the 'terrible two’s" stage you know, when they are obnoxious and question just about everything ? Well the same thing happened to me when I was about 16 for a couple of years until I matured a bit. My crusade wasn’t the environment but communism and equality for all etc etc. I became passionate about such things and only had a change of ideas when I actually visited the USSR and Poland and other places later in my life. The point is, I was passionate about something which certainly didn’t spoil my childood IMO, the contrary in fact.
I still managed to find time to do all the normal things like sport, sex and booze…
And, if the comments drift away from the original thread, that is not an unusual occurrence, it happens often …as far as I can judge. Why not start your own thread?
Good point Peter, but I already feel she is mature beyond where many of us reach. I hope she doesn’t “mature” out of this passion and zeal. She acknowledeges herself she is different and I hope she never loses this difference.
I have just read a news report where NASA claims that the earth’s solar orbit changes are solely responsible for climate change and global warning and that mankind has had no effect whatsoever. And the Australians are now claiming that diesel exhaust fumes are actually encouraging cleaner air. All reports are by experts, apparently. So now it l;looks like we all need to rethink the whole story or maybe pressure governments to arrange definitive scientific studies to try and find definitive answers. The scientific world can’t agree with one another anyway. So it is no wonder there are so many differing opinions on the subject.
Mmmm? I wonder? I understood that the consensus opinion of scientists now is that we are contributing to / accelerating climate change, even if there are natural cycles. And in fact that we are under-reporting the impact.
Reference @Kingsley_Bosma’s post, here is a short extract from the NASA item on the role of sunspots on global warming:
"For more than 40 years, satellites have observed the Sun’s energy output, which has gone up or down by less than 0.1 percent during that period. Since 1750, the warming driven by greenhouse gases coming from the human burning of fossil fuels is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval."
I don’t disagree with you Sue - but the ‘population’ argument on climate/ecological breakdown has to be treated circumspectly.
The number of people is a minor factor in comparison with lifestyle. The richest 10% of the world produce about half of all the CO2, the poorest 50% only about 10% of CO2. The same holds for every other measure (energy consumption, waste, etc).
Moreover, in the hands of some this can be an argument complicit with environmental irresponsibility: it enables the worst polluters, etc, to say ‘it’s not us, it’s all the others’ - an argument from privilege.
If I’ve understood you correctly Geof that’s exactly the point the woman is making in the article. She lives in the US and worked in the Peace Corps in Malawi and …
(From the article) “In the developed world the carbon footprint of a child is roughly 58.6 metric tonnes annually, whereas that of a Malawian child has consistently been estimated between 0.07 and 0.1 metric tonnes annually.”
Hence her awareness of the damage to the environment a baby born in the US can make.
How does the Chinese per-capita rate of pollution compare with that of other population ‘blocs’, I wonder?
Arguably that is at least as valid as the level of pollution per national ‘bloc’, and perhaps more telling.
Also I understand that the one-child limit has been lifted on grounds that the financial and hands-on burden of care for an ageing Chinese population could not be borne by the shrinking population of young and productive people needed to support them. Seems to make a kind of sense to me.
Not sure Guy that chart tells the whole story. According to Wiki, the US is 16.5 metric tonnes per capita. The BBC article I quoted says 58.6. We need to know more!
As I said, I don’t disagree with this specific point - but I do think it has to be approached very, very carefully, because in the hands of right-wing ideologues it is sometimes - at best - a distraction from the most important issue (that the lifestyles and economies of rich and privileged people/countries need to fundamentally change) - and at worst genuinely chilling: our exploitative lifestyles are fine, there are just too many other people…
That’s the main reason that the worlds resources and destruction is taking place, the world has too many people , we are destroying everything, what is the Answer? I don’t know but in the past it’s always been a war or a pandemic to cut the numbers.
The governments are not taking it seriously, and without a global effort the world is really doomed for the next generation.
China is slowly populating the rest of the world, they are taking the south China seas, nobody is really stopping them, the China/ India border is moving into India by conflict, with the mass confinement of over a million Muslims in camps in the north, and destruction of Christian churches they will either become the dominant force by trade and selling cheap plastic crap to us, if that doesn’t work then the will begin invading countries, and who can stop them?
Rant over.