Is the world being destroyed?

This thread is a type of Outrage Porn. Every disaster, every story about fires....

- BPA from plastics is found in the Artic Sea Cucumber (fap fap fap)
- Water shortages in the Middle East (fap fap fap)
- Sex nurse gives full treatment to grandfather (fap fap fap)
- Farmers have resistant weeds (fap fap).
- And the bees are dying (fap).

Each of these issues is a serious issue. We have to deal with them, and in most cases we are dealing with them. People love the stories about the bees dying. No one cares when the bees stop dying.

This thread isn't talking about issues. It is painting a picture that humans are horrible and that everything is going to **** with the goal of titillating aging liberals. Evidence of human progress, of problems being tackled or of things getting better are a real buzzkill.

If this thread isn't about promoting an extremist political ideology (and my objection to said ideology), then what are we doing here?

Someone, anyone, we have had 25 pages now, so tell me in one sentence...

What is this silly Thread supposed to be about?

Of course, as a non-native speaker, I may not have understood the nuances of the question.

But I found the choice of words understandable, "5 by 5"/"loud and clear"/"Lima and Charlie".

Good Walter, I don't think it is your intention to support me. But, you are making my point for me

The claim that the World is being destroyed is a ridiculous proposition. The planet is not being ripped apart. The idea that life will cease to exist on Earth is not any more likely than it was 10,000 years ago. The idea that human life or human civilization will cease to exist is more likely... but for a reason that hasn't even been mentioned on this silly thread. The fact is that humans are healthier, more peaceful and more prosperous then at any time in history.

But the laundry list of outrages on this thread have nothing to do with the world being destroyed.

- The death of honey bees in the US is an important and worrying trend, but it isn't the end of the world.

- The detection of plastics in sea life is sad, but it isn't the end of the world.

- The massive reduction of poverty across the globe is great news, and it isn't the end of the world.

If the question is "Is the World being Destroyed?". The only sane answer is "No! It is not being destroyed". That could have been answered in the first page. Humanity is facing problems as we always have, and we are better equipped to face them than ever.

But this thread has become politically motivated outrage porn. That is why I am still responding. All people have to do is stop posting this silly stream of unrelated disaster stories designed to convey that they world is going to ****.

Or... heck, maybe someone on the left could post a story acknowledging progress or a way that people are making a positive contribution.

I was answering your question.
And to make this clear, I have once again copied, enlarged, marked and posted the original text.
That was neither intended to be supportive nor unsupportive.

As said, English isn't my mother tongue. Thus, I wasn't aware that a "question" is synonym with a "claim".

And then, there's the question mark - I'd never guessed that could be the sentence end mark of a proposition.

That is a cute turn of phrase Walter.... I see what you did there.

I am under the impression that Hightor, Edgar, Farmerman and you are all arguing that yes, the world is being destroyed. This is clearly a political ideology that you all are pushing.

So Walter, I will only ask you to speak for yourself. Do you believe that the world is being destroyed?

If this is what you actually believe (other than just the political game), and this is what you want to discuss... then say so clearly. And just to be clear... is just one thing destroying the world... of is this politically one-sided laundry list of partisan grievances all causing the world's destruction?

The idea that the world is being destroyed comes from a place of political extremism.

I don't think that I'm an extremist - not political either (but I vehemently resisted e.g. georgeob calling me 'centrist').

But "yes", I believe that nature is being destroyed at a rate never seen (and expected) before. And that the human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth's natural life.
We should begin drastic changes (we should have done that a lot earlier). Business as usual with small adjustments won’t be enough.

What "drastic changes" do you suggest. My objection to this thread is that it is mostly an ideological rant with no balance and no solutions.

I have no problem with "drastic changes", in fact some significant changes (i.e. a switch to renewable fuel) I believe in at least as much as you do.

However, if you are going to suggest changes....

1) You need to understand the downsides (there are costs to every solution) and you need to be able to show that the benefits outweigh the costs.

2) You need to understand who will benefit from these changes and who will be hurt by them. Take plastic for example... third world countries rely on plastic a lot more that Western Europe does. A wealthy country with resources can use natural plant fiber or wood or glass a lot more than a poor country can.

3) You need to compromise and give up some ideologically extreme positions. It is amazing to me how unwilling the far left is to even consider GMOs even if science says they are helpful in combatting climate change.

4) The political left (if they are sincere in addressing climate change) has to do their part in stopping this "us vs. them" mentality. Any time you spend telling Trump supporters how stupid and racist they are is time you aren't spending convincing them that you have to work together on climate change.

If you truly believe that climate change is a world crisis, turning it into another part of the eternal political battleground is simply stupid.

I support a serious response to climate change (whether this counts as "drastic changes" is a matter of semantics). However... I don't support an ideologically one-sided response that pushes beyond the science.

I do support

1) A fast move away from fossil fuels along with robust economic incentives to switch to renewable energy.

2) A balanced policy on managing natural resources (although I don't see this as the "world being destroyed").

3) A science based approach to agriculture that includes GMOs as found appropriate by research.

4) Policy that recognizes the importance of plastics to human beings, but puts in place measures to minimize the damage to ecological systems.

I want policies that are fact-based, grounded in science, and balanced. If you don't consider both the benefits and costs of a technology/policy, you aren't being thoughtful or reasonable.

One of the most important things that human beings need to do is to control our population growth. I suspect everyone will agree with me on this point. Again, there is a strange defiance to the facts any time the extreme left is confronted with progress.

The human race has made great progress in reducing population growth in the past few decades. We have done this in all of the right ways. We have cut the number of people living extreme poverty on the planet in half. We have invested in education of women. We have promoted family planning across the planet.

This is great news. Is there anyone here who even admit that this is happening?

We're living in an era of unprecedented destruction of the natural world, all of it caused by one species. There's already a thread specifically about climate change, but in my reading I often come across other unsettling indicators of the stress which will be put on human civilization which is already beginning to come apart at the seams.



No, I didn't "forget" them. I don't perceive those qualities in your posts and I wouldn't apply them to you for that reason.



There's nothing "pornographic" about it. That may be how you react to it but I'm sure no one else does. How one-dimensional.



You're really out of touch if you think this stuff is "titillating" or has anything to do with "aging liberals". It's a topic of urgent concern among many young people. Maybe you've heard of Greta Thunberg? But I guess that's what fits your "ideological narrative©".



It was, in the very first reply:



It's a question, as I've explained to you countless times. I'm simply providing the examples which lead people to ask those sorts of things. And I'm not "terrified by what 'might' happen" or overcome with 'doom and gloom". Just disgusted with our inability to see the consequences of economic growth at the expense of everything else and having ignored the warnings when there was more time to address these problems. . No one's stopping you from posting articles which reflect your "up with people, everything will be fine" perspective. Ideally you'd start a specific thread for that sort of thing, but you're welcome to post them here. I'd prefer that to your repetitious attacks on this subject and your personal attacks on me.

Questioning your narrative is not a personal attack. When you said my replies are "defensive and self-righteous", that isn't a personal attack either.

Implying that I'm simply distributing porn is. I don't have time to dig up more examples but I could.

I think you understand what "outrage porn" is. And the fact that you are now acting "outraged" that I called it that is kind of funny.

Yes, the decline of fertility in the wealthier nations is good news but many governments have expressed alarm over this and are trying to increase birth rates.

The problem is that this decline isn't occurring in "third world" countries. (Is that term still allowable?) The decline is the result of a certain degree of affluence which characterizes the Western democracies and makes it a viable choice for couples. Such is not the case in poor countries and trying to achieve the affluence we enjoy will simply put a greater strain on natural resources and wildlife habitats. Increased demand and consumption means more waste and more carbon pollution. Waiting until those countries are "wealthy enough" to allow people the choice to have smaller families may take fifty years under the best of conditions. And conditions aren't predicted to improve. Many of these countries are experiencing civil conflicts, even as destructive large-scale wars have decreased. As with most of these problems the solutions aren't simple.

Not "outraged", just insulted. I happen to take this topic seriously.

I take this topic seriously too.

This is a political ideology that promotes narrative over facts and outrage over solutions and sees science as a partisan tool rather than an objective process. Any problem must be solved through compromise, reaching out across the political spectrum to find consensus. The ideology on this thread plays to the extremes and makes finding solutions more difficult.

That is the reason that I keep posting on this thread.

It really isn't. I've tried to explain this to you so many times. The subject I'm interested here is stories and articles concerning the many threats to plant and animal species and the "biosystem", which refers to water availability, the atmosphere, ocean currents, weather sy stems, etc, which combine to create an environment which supports various life forms from the primitive to the complex.

I'm not "promoting" narrative over facts: most of my links – all cited – are from more-or-less reliable media outlets, experienced environmental journalists, international climate organizations, and universities. And I post an occasional essay, usually either exceptionally trenchant or presenting a novel perspective. I purposely try to avoid posting from sources which tend to aggregate articles which reflect a clear and intentional political bias. I'm not "promoting" outrage over solutions: whether one is outraged over a story depends on his own response; it doesn't come prepackaged. As I said, my own response is not outrage, but one of disappointment and disgust.

As to solutions, I'd love to see some. I occasionally come across stories about efforts to restore tree cover by some nations – I know this is done in China and in some of the countries in the Sahel. And I know efforts are being made to lessen the negative impacts of plastic, both on the world and within the bodies of vertebrates. There are many positive things being done, more being planned. Occasionally there are even constructive compromises. But a piecemeal approach won't head off the confluence of many negative factors. Planting a million trees is great but it does not "make up" for the loss of healthy forests elsewhere, either those harvested unsustainably or those which have gone up in flames. Clean energy, reduced population growth, and resource conservation in one country are great accomplishments – and negated by new coal-fired generators, bans on contraception and abortion, and reckless exploitation of natural resources in another.

What I'm looking for is international cooperation on a scale of action never before seen. I'm talking about environmental laws with teeth, enforced across borders; national sovereignty has to be sacrificed in this one area. And this is the big problem: humans just seem loath to cooperate outside of their tribe (even within the tribe can be a struggle). It's hard to see political leaders like Erdogan, Orban, Bolsinaro, or Trump accepting the loss of the slightest degree of autonomy or yielding to the dictates of an international authority. I don't how this can be settled other than "politically" but if there's any ideology standing in the way it's the ideology of the "nation-state". And we're stuck with that. Hence, while I see reasons for short-term optimism because some good things are being done I harbor long-term pessimism, because of the damage already done, its increasing pace, and because of the short-sighted and fractious nature of our species.



That's nice, but I don't see what it has to do with our discussion here. We aren't policymakers, we're not consultants, we're not public figures with wide influence. We're the same few people, identified by our avatars and (for the most part) pseudonyms, interacting via computer monitors, on a somewhat obscure message board. We can bat around ideas that would never even be presented before a legislature, let alone adopted by lawmakers and accepted by the public, maybe simply to provoke discussion or test out an idea. Seriously, I don't think this is the sort of place where pressing global issues are expected to be solved and settled.



Then I think you should start a thread that is actually about solving problems through compromise, and reaching across the political spectrum to find consensus. Because that's not the point of my reviving this one. I appreciate having a place where I can post articles and studies which specifically address the environmentally destructive effects of the human enterprise, especially since the Industrial Age, as these effects aren't "natural cycles","caused by sun-spots", or a part of a "hoax" as the deniers assured us. Obviously you are free to post articles and studies here which counter any presented opinion, but since this thread is more tuned into the negative effects of the "Anthropocene", it might be more useful on another thread, something like "Good News on the Global Environment" or something. Honestly I'd be happy to post articles there about saving endangered species, the circular economy, and cleaning micro-plastics from our environment, our diets, and our blood. And I would't accuse you of promoting an "ideological narrative©".

This thread would be much improved if there were less endless personal arguments about minutia. If I post an article which you don't like, you have a few options.

You could ignore it.

You could give it a thumbs down.

You could criticize specific claims or ask that they be explained.

You could explain what you see as any potential source of bias.

However,

You don't have to repeatedly bring up the "ideological narrative©" of other users (as if you were privy to their deepest thoughts) and suggest that it invalidates a posted opinion written by somebody else.

You don't have to simply assume that the quoted article is a one hundred per cent reflection of the person who posted it and must be rigorously defended.

You don't have to pose a complicated issue as a yes/no question and demand it be answered in order to establish another user's integrity.

You don't have to interpret any agreement among other members as proof of some partisan effort to shout you down.

I'm only telling you this stuff, maxdancona, because you seem to rely on personal animosity as a way of propelling a discussion which you then attempt to dominate. Because you pursue direct personal confrontation you're harder to ignore than someone like oralloy; even though you both incessantly repeat the same arguments using the same terms and often the same phrasing, oralloy tends to make generalized statements. You show up to a thread you consider to be extreme, politicized clap-trap, condemn its premises, insult other members, and it turns into a **** show. If you consider that your goal, I have no problem with your declaring victory. It just seems so pointless.

Well, some posters are even called to promote extremism ... when posting what is (at least more or less) the view of most (European) political parties.
Left alone science (on a specific subject it would perhaps be a good idea to visit the library of an agricultural science institute, in person or online).

The Southwest’s most important river is drying up

The Colorado River irrigates farms, powers electric grids and provides drinking water to 40 million people. But as its supply dwindles, a crisis looms.

This is a long and detailed examination of a problem that's been developing for quite a while, right in front of our eyes. Way too many charts and interactive features to transcribe here but definitely worth a read.



link to the story