How To Save The Planet

[Olly]

I've been giving this a lot of thought over the last few minutes and I wonder if it's time for the nuclear option in order to save the planet. Let's be honest, people are getting bigger and there are more of them. That means more people are using resources like coal and lights. But medicine is getting better and people are being saved when nature says they shouldn't be.

Do we need to take a hit for 100 years to clean out the human race and only having the fitter ones living? Dogs and cats are murdered if they're not right. I'm not suggesting murder but I mean maybe we need to stop giving people flu jabs and TB and injections for allergerics etc.

There's no point in being outraged about this because we can be all nicey-nicey and say every life is sacred etc but what's the point in all that if in 100 years the planet is a boiling mess of people screaming etc all because of our stupidity or making more people because the centre cannot hold. Our madness is selfish. Saving people is selfish and not very far-thinking in my book. We're not going to save the planet by not using aerosols etc. We can save the planet by a survival of the fittest clean-out.

And lets be honest, businesses are not going to stop max producing and using chimneys and coal. It's just blind leading the blind and those who can see are called callous and cold hearted. But the misery in Ireland in 2100 is cold hearted and callous by the people saying no no don't not give injections to the man who has been bitten by the dog.

[Hereiam]

Olly humans will have little effect on the future of this planet. If everyone had a chance to see earth from the moon they would realise how insignificant we really are.

[Olly]

But why is the arctic circle getting a lot smaller now and the place getting warmer etc

The moon is also a place to send all the weak. That's actually a brilliant idea. You'd find people stopping complaining if they thought they'd be sent to the moon.

[Hereiam]

Olly go a soak ur head under a cold tap for a while.

[BennyCake]

I see they've got to you, Olly.

Flu jabs are helping kill off quite a few people so I'd be in favour of not giving them to people.

Yes we are all so selfish. Turn off your lightbulbs now folks, those polar bears are fecked!

[Asal Mor]

Olly humans will have little effect on the future of this planet. If everyone had a chance to see earth from the moon they would realise how insignificant we really are.

That's far crazier than anything Olly has ever come out with. It's demonstrably the case that humans are destroying this planet. I can marvel at the wonders of the Earth in all those brilliant David Attenborough documentaries, but I also feel sadness that in a few years most of them will be wiped out.

Some couples fart out 8 or 9 kids and think they're doing the world a service, but all they're doing is making their very own huge contribution to the destruction of everything.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Olly humans will have little effect on the future of this planet. If everyone had a chance to see earth from the moon they would realise how insignificant we really are.

That's far crazier than anything Olly has ever come out with. It's demonstrably the case that humans are destroying this planet. I can marvel at the wonders of the Earth in all those brilliant David Attenborough documentaries, but I also feel sadness that in a few years most of them will be wiped out.

Some couples fart out 8 or 9 kids and think they're doing the world a service, but all they're doing is making their very own huge contribution to the destruction of everything.

Mankind is going to max out around the 10bn mark, we're around 7bn at the moment IIRC. Should be doable if we reign some stuff in.

[Asal Mor]

You're right about the population leveling off at 10 billion Croi, but I wouldn't be taking that as a source of optimism, given the damage that 7 billion are doing already.

I don't think the planet will sustain 10 billion or anywhere near it for long. The oil has to run out sometime.

[tiempo]

What about the subliminal bumper sticker method
"Save the world, kill yourself"

[BennyCake]

Ok so, the oil is running out. Dump your car and walk to work then. Don't put the heat on, just buy a few extra jumpers. Kiss me arse, you'd say and rightly so.

People are just trying to survive and provide for themselves and their family. I don't feel guilty for having a car, using electric etc, and not should any of you. The end of oil will only end modern life as we know it, but the planet is designed to feed and water us. Billions of us. If we all grew our own food, kept livestock etc we could survive no problem. That's the way nature intended.

[seafoid]

You're right about the population leveling off at 10 billion Croi, but I wouldn't be taking that as a source of optimism, given the damage that 7 billion are doing already.

I don't think the planet will sustain 10 billion or anywhere near it for long. The oil has to run out sometime.

I don't think it'll reach 10bn
175 m people in India are dependent on water from an unrenewable aquifer.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jul/06/water-supplies-shrinking-threat-to-food

India's population is not going to hit 2bn.
And food supply is not going to grow sufficiently to feed 10bn people

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a7ffe730-47a0-11e3-9398-00144feabdc0.html

Global food production has been heading in an unsustainable direction for decades. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that we will need to double global food production by 2050 to feed the growing population. We continue to clear tropical forests to bring more land in to use, and we try to squeeze ever greater yields from existing land by heavy use of fertilisers and pesticides, creating vast crop monocultures. Yet our efforts are undermining the ability of land to produce food. Agricultural practices are causing soils to be rapidly eroded – washing away in rain or blowing away into the sea – so that 40 per cent of farmed soils are already degraded, and some estimates suggest many countries will have little soil left within 60 years. Aquifers used to irrigate arid soils are fast being depleted. Salt build-up, from poor irrigation practices, is affecting 320m hectares of agricultural lands – an area the size of India.

Extreme climate events expected as a result of build-up of greenhouse gas emissions are likely to cause catastrophic crop failures. Wild fish stocks are being depleted; many have already collapsed. Species are going extinct at about 1,000 times the natural rate, many of which have vital roles in recycling nutrients, storing carbon, creating soil, controlling pests and, of course, pollinating crops. Bees may be canaries in the coal mine, warning us that we must find ways to produce food without destroying the environment on which we depend.

[omaghjoe]

Holy smokes Didn't Phillip Monbatten-Windsor have a similar idea?

Firstly to quell some fears. The population of the world has always been a challenge to feed, for example the Egyptians inovated agriculture with new technology like irrigation so that they grow their expanding population.
So to has unsustainable pollution, for example in the 19th century it was estimated that the centre of London would be 3feet deep in horse dung by the year 1920

Humans have shown remarkable adaptability through the ages and no doubt we will adapt to the current challenges, necessity is the mother of invention after all.
One thing that has shown to be necessary in all that time though is reproduction, aside from the obvious benefit replacing and expanding the population reproduction also feeds tradition the lifeblood of society. Tradition passes on cumulative knowledge, and skills for living and thriving in a functioning society, without it we would be screwed.
If we start decreasing in population we will start to lose that lifeblood and therefore our society will begin to come apart at the seams.

So my advise is stick with it, pass on the traditions and way of life to your kids that you were taught and our innovation will take care of the rest.

[Asal Mor]

That's a good article seafoid.

I don't think anyone should feel guilty about driving a car, using electricity or flushing the toilet after taking a pee Benny, but couples should stop having more than two kids. If they don't, they're contributing to the problem.

We are extremely innovative Joe, but that won't save us when nature is destroyed. If we erode the soil, destroy the water supply and kill off most of the species as we are doing we'll have to innovate a way to conjure food out of thin air.

[omaghjoe]

The point i was trying to make Asal was that our innovation will allow us to develop new ways to create food that is more sustainable
My previous examples of the Egyptians with irrigation and London developing the tube and cars alluded to that.

I do completely disagree with you about people having more than two kids are being irresponsible, that level of reproduction is just not sustainable for a functioning society.

[Olly]

But surely we do produce food out of thin air