Mass Plankton Die-Off

[hpeer]

No problem.

And besides, Nature has decided to take matters into her own hands.

Here is a breaking news development in the battle between Man and Marine life.

[hpeer]

Here is the caption to the above photo.

This photo was taken at the entrance to KatlianBay at the end of the road in Sitka .

The whale is coming up to scoop up a mouthful of herring (the small fish seen at

the surface around the kayak).



Yep, that is me in the picture. Yep that is a whale that was just around the corner

from the ferry terminal. "Paddle really fast" is the only thing I could think of at the

time.......Also thinking that I don't look like a herring, don't smell like a herring but

with the same herring instinct of "get the hell out of the way of that big mouth!!"
Still living to tell yet another story........Rich K

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by markpierce

We need to reduce personal consumption to save the world? If so, aren't we hyper-consumers by being involved in boating? Seems to me, anyone with a boat with the view a high standard of living is a crime against the universe, is a hypocrite.

Rubbish! Anyone in the west can reduce their environmental impact quite easily.

- Insulate your home
- Don't get a new car every two years
- Buy a fuel-efficient car, not a gas-guzzler
- Recycle materials such as aluminium, steel, glass and lead
- Fix, mend and repair rather than replace
- Give stuff in good condition away rather than dumping it

etc, etc, etc.

Originally Posted by markpierce

They should forswear the material life and live natural without clothing, shelter, and grocery stores, and thus help reduce the human population to a sustainable million or so.

Don't be silly.....

[osirissail]

There is no end of "simplistic" solutions to any and every problem - problem is, there are also many, many unintended consequences that are totally ignored or denied.
- - Simplest example was the recent world financial collapse - USA markets collapsed putting millions of USA workers out of a job - which put many millions more workers in all parts of the world out of a job as the USA could not consume the volume of products/services it had been before the collapse. Virtually every part of the world economy went into a tailspin as a result of the USA initiated collapse.
- - Think about what cutting the USA consumption in half or going "eco" would do for the rest of the world's people and producers of the vegetables, cars, steel, TV/Ipods/MACs/etc. The USA does not really have any internal manufacturing base anymore, it is all located outside. Taking the sublime to the ridiculous, going "green" in the USA would most probably initiate mass collapse of the world's economies resulting in mass starvation and collapse of governments around the planet.
- - Simply put, we have been living in a "house of cards" and removing one or some of the bottom cards will bring down everything. Retrogression of inter-dependent economies is a very tricky business not responsive to simplistic solutions without massive disruptions.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by osirissail

... Think about what cutting the USA consumption in half or going "eco" would do for the rest of the world's people ...
... Simply put, we have been living in a "house of cards" and removing one or some of the bottom cards will bring down everything. Retrogression of inter-dependent economies is a very tricky business not responsive to simplistic solutions without massive disruptions.

The economics of reducing climate change -a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection:

“... what if a deal between consenting adults imposes costs on people who are not part of the exchange? What if you manufacture a widget and I buy it, to our mutual benefit [sic: a free marker exchange], but the process of producing that widget involves dumping toxic sludge into other people’s drinking water? When there are “negative externalities” — costs that economic actors impose on others without paying a price for their actions — any presumption that the market economy, left to its own devices, will do the right thing goes out the window. So what should we do? Environmental economics is all about answering that question...”

Much more
"Building a Green Economy"
➥ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/ma...pagewanted=all


Now, let's think about what we have done to the rest of the world’s people.

How Goldman gambled on starvation

“... At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions." ...”

More ➥ http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...n-2016088.html

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by osirissail

...Taking the sublime to the ridiculous, going "green" in the USA would most probably initiate mass collapse of the world's economies resulting in mass starvation and collapse of governments around the planet.

Indeed, and continuing to accelerate until we run out of road and smash into the wall is no solution either. Or not much better.

I'm not advocating that we all go out and buy hair shirts and settle down for some nice, painful, mortification. I'm suggesting that we start changing things in such a way that our economies have time to adapt to more sustainable mechanisms whilst we consume less.

Those on the better side of things can always frame an argument as to why their lifestyle shouldn't change....

Personally I'd rather see us building nuclear power planets and getting tidal power going too. Solar thermal plants in those parts of the world with copious sunshine and a move to an electric economy rather than an oil/coal economy.

What's the world's most recycled metal? Go on - guess. Aluminium? No. Steel? No. Copper? No. It's Lead. We have made the disposal of car batteries into such a straightforward process that 98% of lead in use is recycled. If we can do it with lead, then we can do it with copper, steel, etc. If you want to see why metal recycling makes economic sense then have a look here.

[osirissail]

GordMay's quotes and links are good examples of unintended consequences although some like the Goldman Sacs is a bit "iffy" as other sources have the food spike caused by such things as (from Wikipedia) "Oil price increases also caused general escalations in the costs of fertilizers, food transportation, and industrial agriculture. Root causes may be the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries (see also food vs fuel),[1] and an increasing demand for a more varied diet across the expanding middle-class populations of Asia."
- - Problem with cause and effect is that it takes hundreds if not thousands of years for the real causes to be definitively determined. It's the old "butterfly effect" principle.
- - The general flood of "solutions" to this eco-problem or that ACC problem all are wonderful except for one underlying requirement in order to work - - a world dictatorship government. Any one or group of well meaning countries is not going to change or enforce any "requirements" on another country without war and conquest.
- - Look at the USA economy - we, with the greatest good intentions, wanted to "clean up" out industries and reduce pollution. So what happened, the factories and jobs that could move went elsewhere to other countries that haven't the slightest interest in environmental or human welfare.
- - So now we import everything for two reasons, first, we don't have the factories anymore, and the other, the products are cheaper when environmental/human welfare considerations are ignored/discarded. Did you or your neighbors stop buying or the US government prohibit the importation of such foreign made goods/services? (Rhetorical question).
- - The world is now enmeshed in a world-wide economy with no authority to enforce prohibitions on harmful practices or production methods. Short of the establishment of a world dictatorship government there is little of anything "green" countries/populations can do to affect the juggernaut of human history of world resources and people exploitation.
- - We can turn our 1st world countries in "green and clean park-lands" but what are we going to do with our population who now have no work and subsequently no money?
- - Economics 101 - to generate wealth you must have conversion of raw materials into products of value - this equates to farms, smelters, natural resource extraction (oil/gas), factories that make things people need - you get the idea. The service industry - banks, stores, bureaucracies, education, think tanks, and worst of all, politicians only circulate existing money/wealth that was initially created by raw materials conversion.
- - The greatest economics debate of the last five decades has been - can a service economy survive without a raw materials conversion base economy? It was generally agreed that no, it cannot survive - at the time they were specifically talking about the changes in the US economy. What they did not factor in was that the USA economy was going global and had "corrected" the problem by extending itself to the four corners of the world sucking back into itself the raw materials conversion base.
- - So by extension you could/might consider that we do have a world dictatorship government in a form of economic control of the world's production of consumption materials. That would explain a lot about why when the USA economy farted, it was felt around the world.
- - Problem is there is no single intelligence controlling the world economy which is commonly referred to as the "free market." Anarchy at its best!

[mintyspilot]

Lots of points there that I will not argue about. They all make perfect sense and they also reinforce my belief that population is the only way to "shrink" the economy whilst retaining the "per capita" levels.

The irony of the situation is that the one system which - supposedly - would have run a planned world economy (communism) has failed miserably. I loathe socialism simply because it tries to run my life.

So I'll stick to my position that breaking the existing social model in populous countries by empowering females is the way to go. If women can be given the *choice* between big families and no career or small/no family and a career they usually choose the latter.

I also have a question for the biologists, but I think I'll start a new thread for it.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by mintyspilot

. . . The irony of the situation is that the one system which - supposedly - would have run a planned world economy (communism) has failed miserably. I loathe socialism simply because it tries to run my life. . .

Just a small point - communism was a dictatorship form of government hiding behind the idea of socialism. There wasn't much "socialism" practiced within communism.
- - But the most important concept that the eco-do-gooders and others with grand or grandiose plans to solve/save the world ignore is the last part above - humans all over the world share this trait to varying degrees. For the whole history of intelligence in homo-erectus this one aspect has brought down kingdoms and governments time after time.

[beowulfborealis]

Interestingly, the Copenhagen meeting tried to address the whole earth resources and fairness issue, via carbon trading. The draft agreement was leaked right before the meeting by someone who wanted to sabotage it. Essentially, all nations had to cap their carbon emissions, and the only money available to offset any economic downturn would come in the form of loans from the World Bank. The meeting collapsed within hours.

Nobody wanted to give up their extra cow grazing in the commons for a deal.

I highly recommend the book Freakonomics if you get the chance. Its a hard-core look at economics. They study everything from Chicago street gang finance to sumo wrestlers fixing fights. Jared Diamond's book Collapse was good but he makes some major mistakes. And I can tell you what that Easter Islander was thinking as he chopped down the last palm tree: "If I don't do it, someone else will."

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by ReMetau

The biggest threat to our way of life is our way life.

Heh.
Yep.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by osirissail

You need to remember that 1,000 / 2,000 / 4,000 years ago your same statement was being voiced with earnest by folks back then. And - we are still here.
- - It is likely we humans will be here for a few thousand years more baring any external event like an asteroid, super-nova, skinny green guys with death rays, etc. (Lots of good Hollywood movies on the subject).
- - Planet Earth has shrugged off many species before humans with several "mass extinctions." But none of them have been 100%. There is always survivors (more good Hollywood movies on this) and life on earth has flourished. Add the potential for humans to migrate off the earth (still more good movies) and I am confident the human specie will be around for a very long time one place or another.
- - But in any case, "And with that, I think I'm gonna go on a "sailabout" and see the world." is a damn good idea.

I'm gonna go to the movies. (till I don't have to support two leeches, errr......college students.) Did I actually say that?

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by markpierce

We need to reduce personal consumption to save the world? If so, aren't we hyper-consumers by being involved in boating? Seems to me, anyone with a boat with the view a high standard of living is a crime against the universe, is a hypocrite. They should forswear the material life and live natural without clothing, shelter, and grocery stores, and thus help reduce the human population to a sustainable million or so.

Right!

Who is going to be first in that line?

While I may well be willing to go I don't want to be first.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by mintyspilot

So I'll stick to my position that breaking the existing social model in populous countries by empowering females is the way to go. If women can be given the *choice* between big families and no career or small/no family and a career they usually choose the latter.

.

That would just prove that women want all the nails, polish and purses and "stuff" and none of the work they are best suited for, chromosomaly speaking.

Surely another thread.

Probably another forum.

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by Therapy

That would just prove that women want all the nails, polish and purses and "stuff" and none of the work they are best suited for, chromosomaly speaking.

I have daughters, no sons.'Nuff said.....

Originally Posted by Therapy

Surely another thread.

Probably another forum.

Preferably sound-proof