A few thoughts about the future of this planet
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George Carlin put it best:
"We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!
We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”
Plastic… asshole."
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@stinkie said:
One cannot make this up.
If this isn't the most hijacked thread in the history of history...
...My original post was about my despair about the imminent demise of humans on this planet. (20 to 50 years?)...So...
That's irrelevant Stinkie. And who the fuck cares what a bunch of Neanderthals in DC thinks or does.
IMHO, it's pretty much too late anyway.Example: It seems that glaciers are hiving off huge chunks into the world ocean, making previous sea level rise predictions wrong by an order of two or more. Plus a bunch of other stuff to do with ice in temperate climes.
You guys OK with a 2 metre rise? Or how about 4 metres? (Thats 13.1234 feet in the good ol usa).I'll be fine, looking forward to having the boat at the end of the drive.
Example 2: I cant be bothered typing more examples, they are everywhere. Just Google 'The planet is fucked" and settle down for a couple hours reading.
You guys seem to be stuck in the past, which btw, has already happened.
Let us accept that human beings are a failed experiment, but the planet will most likely go on, barring nuclear mishaps, but with a much reduced ecosystem.
Your grandchildren will curse you for your complacency. Your great grandchildren will die of asphyxiation.
(The science in the movie 'Interstellar' is accurate, I think).C'mon guys, at least get your heads out of the sand and admit the reality of it. If you do, there might...just might... be a chance to turn this shitstorm around.
baz xx
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@baz said:
If this isn't the most hijacked thread in the history of history...
Nah.
@baz said:
And who the fuck cares what a bunch of Neanderthals in DC thinks or does.
I do, as they have actual power.
@baz said:
C'mon guys, at least get your heads out of the sand and admit the reality of it.
Oh, I do.
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@stinkie said:
@baz said:
If this isn't the most hijacked thread in the history of history...
Nah.
@baz said:
And who the fuck cares what a bunch of Neanderthals in DC thinks or does.
I do, as they have actual power.
@baz said:
C'mon guys, at least get your heads out of the sand and admit the reality of it.
Oh, I do.
Location:Yes.
You aren't actually an alien are you? -
"You aren't actually an alien are you"? Stinkie is not but I am, we are everywhere, including the bathrooms and rest rooms all over the world. Do you know how hard it is to find a rest room (As I believe you call them) when your commute is several thousand light years? All I have in my galactic transport pod is a pull out commode and some shiny, scratchy paper. It is enough to make an alien weep. BTW, you guys are the aliens, I have not had a screech climb out of my abdomen like, for ever.
If anyone is really concerned about the planet and the effects of human infestation, reduce procreation to a point where the planet can support the population and definitely prevent the stoopid from producing another generation. Actually just go for preventing the stoopid from the recreational use of biological replication. -
@mike amos said:
"You aren't actually an alien are you"? Stinkie is not but I am, we are everywhere, including the bathrooms and rest rooms all over the world. Do you know how hard it is to find a rest room (As I believe you call them) when your commute is several thousand light years? All I have in my galactic transport pod is a pull out commode and some shiny, scratchy paper. It is enough to make an alien weep. BTW, you guys are the aliens, I have not had a screech climb out of my abdomen like, for ever.
If anyone is really concerned about the planet and the effects of human infestation, reduce procreation to a point where the planet can support the population and definitely prevent the stoopid from producing another generation. Actually just go for preventing the stoopid from the recreational use of biological replication.Chill Mike. Everything will be Ok. Keep taking the medication.
“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342–ca. 1416), i -
@box said:
There were these three farmers that wanted to win the state fair contest for having the largest pig. They decide that they should stick a cork in the pigs arse and feed him for a month before the fair. The only problem was that none of them wanted to be the one to stick the cork in. So they bought a monkey and trained him to stick corks in bottles. After a week or two of this, they stick the monkey in the pen with the pig and a cork, and after a minute, the monkey did what he was supposed to do. The farmers fed the pig for a month and sure enough, they won first prize. Once they got home, they realized they still had to take the cork out. So they trained this same monkey to take corks out of bottles. They stuck the monkey in the pen with the pig, and the farmers woke up three days later in the hospital with a reporter sitting next to them. The reporter asked the first farmer, "What is the last thing you remember?" "Shit flying everywhere," the farmer replied. The reporter asked the second farmer the same question and got the same response. When she got to the third farmer and asked him what he could remember, he was laughing hysterically. The reporter asked, "What's the matter? What is so funny about being buried in pig shit" The farmer replied, "You shoulda seen the monkey trying to stick the cork back in."
That is not only unfunny Box, it is insultingly trivial. Love your work usually tho'.
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On the piss again eh Baz.
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@baz said:
@mike amos said:
"You aren't actually an alien are you"? Stinkie is not but I am, we are everywhere, including the bathrooms and rest rooms all over the world. Do you know how hard it is to find a rest room (As I believe you call them) when your commute is several thousand light years? All I have in my galactic transport pod is a pull out commode and some shiny, scratchy paper. It is enough to make an alien weep. BTW, you guys are the aliens, I have not had a screech climb out of my abdomen like, for ever.
If anyone is really concerned about the planet and the effects of human infestation, reduce procreation to a point where the planet can support the population and definitely prevent the stoopid from producing another generation. Actually just go for preventing the stoopid from the recreational use of biological replication.Chill Mike. Everything will be Ok. Keep taking the medication.
“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342–ca. 1416), iCompletely chilled mate, any increase in chilled status would include icicles. Have a good one dood.
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Trying an Indian (Asian) Whisky called Amrut this week and it really is quite decent if overpriced. I paid £40 for it a few years ago and to be honest there are plenty of cheaper products around but it is not bad. Smoky black from Grouse and a couple of the Asda variants, Highland for example at less than £20. Going down rather nicely waiting for the Lord of the rings film on the idiot box later, (the fellowship of the ring). Apart from an oven to make Pizza and garlic bread that is.........
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Maybe its with innovations like this that we might have a hope of leaving the planet as we found it when we transition.
This high-quality ink is made from air pollution harvested from vehicle tailpipes
http://www.treehugger.com/culture/project-turns-air-pollution-ink.html
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We are probably more and more going to be mining our own garbage. That looks like a fine solution if safe in itself. When I used to work on the farm I mused that the way to make a weed harder to grow is to transform it into a crop.
(BTW RE earlier discussios... Trump has begun first steps against net neutrality this week.)
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Considering the money charged today for things thrown away one or two hundred years ago, not a bad idea to mine our waste tips and clean the land. We can burn a huge amount of household waste at high temperatures and get usable energy as a result. Packaging of food items was addressed about thirty years ago but the industry cried that it would take twenty years to achieve good results so not worth doing for them. In other words, we could have had less waste ten years ago. What we need to change is the mentality of throwing things away in ever shorter cycles so big business can keep growing the profits. As another part of the win-win, we could get the generational unemployed to do the mining, or lose their benefits. Nice.
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From Reuters ... Again: one cannot make this up.
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@stinkie said:
From Reuters ... Again: one cannot make this up.
I'm glad you're paying attention. I just wish more people in the US were actually paying attention. Still coming to grips with just how "low-information" many voters here are. (And they "elected" the lowest information bobble-head possible!) If they are paying this little attention to what these sorts of political activities mean, you can imagine how little they care about the future of the planet.
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Unless there is some cosmic event (which we cannot prevent, anyway), I doubt the Earth will become uninhabitable in 100 years, or the extinction of the human race is nigh. In it's long history the Earth has already seen 5-20 (depending on how you define them) mass extinction events, and yet life found a way to continue. Two completely different catastrophes illustrate the tenaciousness of Mother Nature; after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, and the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, scientists discovered returning life much sooner than expected. And homo sapiens have shown themselves to be most adaptable.
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I agree Daniel, except this extinction underway is one of our own making, that we might help slow if not prevent. Life is by it's nature persevering, and yet, though we may be "survive" for a while longer, what sort of world do we want for our progeny, and how hard will that survival be?
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