Why are we here?

@Frank Apisa,

Never tried golf. Bicycle is more my thing. Smile

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@spendius,

Quote:

There are approximately tree hundred trousered trillion ...

Let's make the system of math equations:
- On one side we have continuous deforestation (by various reasons) - 3-5% per year ... the reduction in the capacity of processing CO2 being almost the same
- On the other side we have 60 MN newly produced cars per year (that are added as new pollution capacity to the old ones)
- 68.3% of the electricity in the world is produced from fossil fuels generating 469 g/kWh of CO2 from natural gas; with production 50 GJ per capita per year; and 1001 g/kWh of CO2 from coal - world production 20 GJ per capita per year. Everything emitting CO2 is increased both as number and as pollution capacity, and everything processing CO2 fades away
- the world population is over 7 BN ... and increasing along exponent
- the CO2 is steadily above 400 ppm ... and increasing along exponent
- the newly diagnosed cases of cancer, diabetes and MS are continuously increasing ... and becoming more and more exotic as a pathology.
The dried trees (all over the planet) and the desertificated lands are only part of the story of what is going on.
With every day and in any way the Earth starts more and more looking like Venus, driving fast forward to the final destination - the Hell.
We are destroying our environment ... and our planet, undermine the quality of life and nobody has the vaguest idea when, how and if at all we will be able to 'fix the things'.

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@Herald,

Herald wrote:

Quote:
There are approximately tree hundred trousered trillion ...

Let's make the system of math equations:
- On one side we have continuous deforestation (by various reasons) - 3-5% per year ... the reduction in the capacity of processing CO2 being almost the same
- On the other side we have 60 MN newly produced cars per year (that are added as new pollution capacity to the old ones)
- 68.3% of the electricity in the world is produced from fossil fuels generating 469 g/kWh of CO2 from natural gas; with production 50 GJ per capita per year; and 1001 g/kWh of CO2 from coal - world production 20 GJ per capita per year. Everything emitting CO2 is increased both as number and as pollution capacity, and everything processing CO2 fades away
- the world population is over 7 BN ... and increasing along exponent
- the CO2 is steadily above 400 ppm ... and increasing along exponent
- the newly diagnosed cases of cancer, diabetes and MS are continuously increasing ... and becoming more and more exotic as a pathology.
The dried trees (all over the planet) and the desertificated lands are only part of the story of what is going on.
With every day and in any way the Earth starts more and more looking like Venus, driving fast forward to the final destination - the Hell.
We are destroying our environment ... and our planet, undermine the quality of life and nobody has the vaguest idea when, how and if at all we will be able to 'fix the things'.

'
Maybe this is some kind of test the truly intelligent species of our galaxy puts evolving species through...to see if they are fit to join in the conglomerate of species that made it through the test in the past.

If we destroy ourselves...we simply destroy ourselves. In the grand scheme of things...that may be no big deal at all. And IF we destroy ourselves...we may be doing the overall galaxy a big favor. We may be, as was suggested in the Matrix series, a virus. If we manage to destroy ourselves before we prove a danger to the greater life forms...it will save them the trouble of doing it to us.

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@Herald,

Ok so that's what you're about...

Well, you got that right. We ARE destroying our environment faster than we can think if any possible solution and global warming is upon us, whatever the deniers will say.

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I have a problem with the verb "to destroy." Certainly we are changing our environment, but hell, it certainly isn't the first time. Just over than two and half billion years ago, cyanobacteria appeared (at least, that's the earliest we know of them) and they began to produce free oxygen through photosynthesis. Anaerobes, especially obligate anaerobes, began to did off as oxygen increased in the atmosphere. The cyanobacteria rapidly changed the environment. From the point of view of the anaerobes (if one can say they had a point of view--i guess we'll have to take one for them), it was a disaster--it was the destruction of their environment. A very, very tiny handful of anaerobes survived (the non-obligate anaerobes). So one could allege that the cyanobacteria had "destroyed" the environment. Really, though, that's a subjective judgment. They certainly changed the environment. For the survival of the obligate anaerobes it was catastrophic. Whether or not one can say they "destroyed" anything is a matter of prejudice. Do you favor an oxygen-free atmosphere, or not?

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@Setanta,

"Destruction" of our environment has been the root cause of a huuuge new series of industries, including those that innovate new techniques for "Cleanup" and treatment of all these pollutants.
As it stands, several of the twenty or more states in the Eastern US actually have MORE TREES than they did in the 1800's
We were, as we know, the worlds major source of ship woods and mast and spar lumber.

Tropical raingorests are , of cource being decimated (In the real meaning of that word). As we approach a 10% removal of tropical forests per decade, we do need to try to convince the owners of the real estate that replanting and reforestation has merit to our planet. Most transpirative reactions occur in marine algaes, and as we eutrophicate the waters around us, we need to find ways to lessen the impacts by
1 reduction of the biochem mass going out of our waste plants (a very mature industry)

2create new classes of chemicals that don't cause eutrophication

3 employ "end of the pipe techniques"

4 enforce existing laws and try to get rising economies to recognize that their environments have economic values.

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@farmerman,

My point is simply that a claim of "destruction" is a subjective judgment. In the court of biotic opinion, the destruction of the human race might well be seen as a good thing.

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@farmerman,

ehBeth wrote--

Quote:

it is an insanely sparkle-filled day today

And Goethe said that the trouble with mankind is that we cannot sit quietly in our rooms.

Guess which quote will be the one Media approves of. Getting disillusioned with life when our days are not insanely sparkle-filled is a mental condition resulting from the disconnect between life as Media portrays it and life as it really is. The false picture of life that Media has portrayed is so successful that it is now a truth.

Media will not only deny its enormous contribution to pollution but will point the finger at any and every other suspect with as much alacrity as it can muster. Which is very much.

It cannot be denied that the pollution pouring out of our systems is mainly in the service of providing more and more insanely sparkle-flled days at a faster and faster rate and with increasing levels of sparkle and the concomitant insanity.

When the two prime estates of all known societies, the nobility and the priesthood, fall into disrepute risks are being taken.

1 Reply

@spendius,

It seems to me to be an interesting philosophical question as to which of those states of being is justified in telling the other to "get a life".

Felix Happer or Ben Knox in that perfect movie Local Hero.

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@spendius,

All this other bullshit you are reading has no other purpose than to look concerned and compassionate and responsible whilst arranging and performing more and more insanely sparkle-filled days.

It is the basic theme Jane Austen picked over.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

All this other bullshit you are reading has no other purpose than to look concerned and compassionate and responsible whilst arranging and performing more and more insanely sparkle-filled days.

It is the basic theme Jane Austen picked over.

Sounds like the projections of someone who is basically unhappy and ill-content with his life...claiming that everyone else is basically unhappy and ill-content.

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@Frank Apisa,

Sounds like someone with no answers apart from the insulting grand gesture containing the implied claim of being happy and content.

It is a hallmark of discontent to be seeking more and more insanely sparkle-filled days. And the more money they cost, and the more agony involved, are guides to the level of discontent.

I think it will eventually destroy democracy to the extent it is not a shipwreck already.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Sounds like someone with no answers apart from the insulting grand gesture containing the implied claim of being happy and content.

It is a hallmark of discontent to be seeking more and more insanely sparkle-filled days. And the more money they cost, and the more agony involved, are guides to the level of discontent.

I think it will eventually destroy democracy to the extent it is not a shipwreck already.

Your life sounds like a shipwreck, Spendius.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I think it will eventually destroy democracy to the extent it is not a shipwreck already.

Excuse me, but hiding critical information from the public and at the same time tapping the communications 24/7 doesn't seem much like democracy.
If you are curious to know, some people have had already in the 1950s technologies that could save the energy problems. Tesla had a proposal for electric power supply grid that is 10 times more efficient than the power supply network used today.
Even today there are developments of solar thermal generators with high efficiency which are not used, because they are too expensive.
And what is the price of the increase of CO2 from 250 ppm to over 400 ppm in the last century nobody is talking about.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Your life sounds like a shipwreck, Spendius.

All lives are a shipwreck. The more you try to talk your spirits up the more obvious it becomes.

Why are you so obsessed with being happy and contended? Happy and contented people never think about such things much less rage on about them constantly as if they have something to prove.

It makes not the slightest difference to me what you think of my life. But I can see why it makes a difference to you.

It ought to give you pause for thought that I don't go in for such ignorant and uncouth remarks. Not ever.

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@Herald,

Quote:

And what is the price of the increase of CO2 from 250 ppm to over 400 ppm in the last century nobody is talking about.

They wouldn't dare.

Quote:

Tesla had a proposal for electric power supply grid that is 10 times more efficient than the power supply network used today.

I don't believe that. And what does "efficient" mean?

Quote:

Even today there are developments of solar thermal generators with high efficiency which are not used, because they are too expensive.

You could say that the judges at the supermarket check-out are choosing the alternatives because they are too cheap in the sense that they are not paying the full cost of the items in the basket as they are subsidised in return for a vote and are dressed up to hide what they really are.

A survey showed that US urban children think milk comes from a shop.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Quote:
Your life sounds like a shipwreck, Spendius.

All lives are a shipwreck. The more you try to talk your spirits up the more obvious it becomes.

More projection, Spendius. My life is certainly not a shipwreck. But I am delighted you are acknowledging that yours is.

Quote:

Why are you so obsessed with being happy and contended? Happy and contented people never think about such things much less rage on about them constantly as if they have something to prove.

I am not obsessed with being happy and content. It just happens that I am. That seems to bother you. Why is that so?

Quote:

It makes not the slightest difference to me what you think of my life.

Yeah...I can tell by this long response of yours.

Quote:

But I can see why it makes a difference to you.

Really?

Quote:

It ought to give you pause for thought that I don't go in for such ignorant and uncouth remarks. Not ever.

You constantly make ignorant and uncouth remarks to me...coming out of nowhere to do so. You instigate these kinds of confrontations.

For you to suppose you never do is ludicrous. Wink

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

They wouldn't dare.

Maybe you mean they don't care. BTW who are 'they' and who are 'we'. We are one species living on one and the same planet. You are talking about the decision makers as if they are aliens from another planet.

spendius wrote:

I don't believe that. And what does "efficient" mean?

It doesn't matter in what you believe or not. Just find the project and read it. BTW it is not only Tesla lost in the archives of 'too dangerious to our prifits'.

spendius wrote:

You could say that the judges at the supermarket ...

What I am saying is that the proposal to use Helium 3, collected on the space station, to develop low-radiation, risk free NPPs dates back to the 1950s.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I am not obsessed with being happy and content. It just happens that I am. That seems to bother you. Why is that so?

It does not bother me in the least. What interests me is you keep going on about it.

I am at a loss to imagine why my life is a shipwreck any more than anybody else's is. Will you explain what a shipwrecked life is as you use the term.

I gave up golf off a low handicap because I had an epiphany regarding the older members behaving like Prof. Skinner's pigeons. All of which looked happy and content too.

A sudden epiphany (eureka like), and I have never struck a ******* golf ball since. I took to the game in which there is no need to place a flag in the hole to guide players as to its location. Making money I mean. I see making money as the foreplay to making love.

And I think the young, educated Arabic citizens have decided to surrender to the seductive money making of the west and are being resisted by the old guard for obvious reasons.

The essence of the epiphany was that if those dimwits ever stopped talking and playing golf they would be faced with the stark realities of domestic bliss. They were escaping into a grown up playpen where keeping their heads down was rule no. 1.

I am not a shipwreck. I am an elderly, battered hulk being gently towed into the breaker's yard. No storms have ripped my sails to shreds. And no happy pills have passed my lips.

Have you seen the stats. on happy pills? Abandoned boats moored in a marina.

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@Herald,

Quote:

BTW who are 'they' and who are 'we'.

The "they" are those who are not talking about "the increase of CO2 from 250 ppm to over 400 ppm in the last century". Was that not obvious. And "we" are those who do dare to mention it despite it being impolite to do so in social gatherings which are not only the direct cause of it but wallow in it with inordinate pride.

There you are Herald. I answered both questions.

Now you answer mine about what you mean by "efficient".

1 Reply

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