How To Survive The Coming Century

New Scientist, 25 February 2009 by Gaia Vince

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126971.700-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html

ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C.

Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.

I ran across this article this morning. I found it interesting, certainly I can make that statement because I will surely have died before 2099. Yet, my grandchildren may be alive and if they arrive, my great-grandchildren will almost certainly experience the end results and my children will likely be alive to live through the run-up.

I thought this might be an interestiung discussion-piece, especially in regard to the recent requests for a "Science" forum. Is it possible that what Al Gore called "An Inconvenient Truth" may actually be a rather terrifying truth for our descendants within the next century?

N~

"Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything" by Daniel Goleman

An interesting book on the full impact of our lives.

Before we can fix the problems we need to understand the true facts. Something our leaders such as Al Gore are unwilling to give us.

People are to busy trying to make a profit to care about the future of other people's children.

That's the thing,..
When people talk about preserving nature or saving the planet, they aren't talking about saving "nature" as in something separate from human beings, they are talking about saving ourselves.

We are dependant on nature for our survival. We think we're not because we raise our animals in man made shelters, but the animals are still "nature".
We also need water to survive, and perish quickly if none can be had.

Nature can survive without us, but we can not survive without it.

So when we talk about preserving it, we talk about preserving our own habitat, our own needs, our own eco system.

Me, I think we're headed head first into a pile of mess, and sooner or later we, ourselves, will alter the balance of the planet's own systems to a degree which makes the planet unable to support large populations of human life.
But 'till then, I'm just gonna carry on living, as worrying about tomorrows disaster doesn't change that we still got to make dinner today. 

Quote from: lisagurl on May 16, 2009, 11:46:28 AM
"Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything" by Daniel Goleman

An interesting book on the full impact of our lives.

Before we can fix the problems we need to understand the true facts. Something our leaders such as Al Gore are unwilling to give us.

People are to busy trying to make a profit to care about the future of other people's children.

This from Amazon's blurbs about that book. Sounds interesting for the interested and certainly the point is true about how "chic" ecology and our buying habits around "green products" are often more harmful to the eco-system than helpful. Nice reference, Lisa.

From Publishers Weekly
Two years ago, British fashion designer Anna Hindmarch produced the must-have accessory of the season: a bleached, organic cotton tote manufactured in fair-wage factories, subsidized with carbon offsets and emblazoned with the slogan, I'm NOT a plastic bag. But according to Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), the people who bought the bag were advertising their ecological ignorance, not their consciousness. In this thorough examination of the inconsistencies and delusions at the core of the going green effort, the author argues that consumers are collective victims of a sleight of hand, helplessly unaware of the true provenance and impact of the products they purchase: they reassure themselves by buying environmentally friendly tote bags that, upon ecological assessment, reveal some uncomfortable facts, e.g., 10,000 liters of water were required to grow the cotton for one bag, and cotton crops alone account for the use of about 10% of the world's pesticides. Goleman's critiques are scathing, but his conclusion is heartening: a new generation of industrial ecologists is mapping the exact impact of every production process, which could challenge consumers to change their behavior in substance rather than just show. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Goleman, best-selling author of such groundbreaking works as Emotional Intelligence (1995) and Primal Leadership (2002), brings his invaluable behavioral insights to our most urgent dilemma: how to halt environmental catastrophe. What's required, Goleman believes, is ecological intelligence, which he defines as understanding the "hidden web of connections between human activity and nature's systems, and the subtle complexities of their intersections." More concretely, Goleman encourages readers to learn about the many invisible threats to our health and the health of the environment caused by product manufacturing. Wisely focusing on the one element we can control, what we purchase, Goleman calls for higher "green" standards and "radical transparency" regarding how products are made. An enlightening foray into industrial ecology reveals how new forms of analysis determine precisely how the manufacture of such disparate items as toys, shampoo, and paper contributes to natural resource depletion, chemical pollution, and global warming. Brimming with intriguing, useful, and galvanizing information, this is an exceptionally sharp, innovative, and realistic approach to raising the demand for environmentally safe merchandise. Given Goleman's track record and the pressing need for smart strategies, this fascinating treatise has tremendous potential for reaching and motivating a large and diverse audience. --Donna Seaman


The Amazon page is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385527829

All this climate change business...

Either I am oblivious to something chronically obvious, or everyone else is.

It's going to happen. Yes, that's true. We can't stop it happening.
We can, arguably put it off by x number of years with all our Carbon preventing stuff.

OR we can make some kind of practical preparations for the inevitable.
We need to start moving people, making plans for places people can move to inland, getting the infrastructure in place. NOW. You know, so as few people drown as possible. Does that not make sense?
No politicians seem to be saying anything about this. I'm concerned sometimes that it's genuinely not occurred to anyone other than me, or, more likely, it's not flavour of the month unlike stupid electric cars.

Imagine, for the purposes of this thought experiment, that we have 9 billion people to save - 2 billion more than live on the planet today. A wholescale relocation of the world's population according to the geography of resources means abandoning huge tracts of the globe and moving people to where the water is. Most climate models agree that the far north and south of the planet will see an increase in precipitation. In the northern hemisphere this includes Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia and newly ice-free parts of Greenland; in the southern hemisphere, Patagonia, Tasmania and the far north of Australia, New Zealand and perhaps newly ice-free parts of the western Antarctic coast.

I don't know if society as a whole is prepared for this situation of mass relocation.

QuoteDoes that not make sense?
No politicians seem to be saying anything about this. I'm concerned sometimes that it's genuinely not occurred to anyone other than me, or, more likely, it's not flavour of the month unlike stupid electric cars.

There is not enough evidence or knowledge to warrent any action. The politicians are making decisions on how much the lobbyists are contributing to their campaigns.  More people should demand facts not political marketing.

The problem with Global Warming had been shoddy research. Some models neglected to account for the roles of our cloud cover. Ocean temps that were measured after going through a ship's engines. Drawing conclusions based on really well thought out guesses that proved to not hold true for everywhere in the world.

Then it became politicized. Then a cash cow for certain researchers.

However, one now cannot escape that it is indeed happening and that we are contributing to it. The argument instead shifts to what can we really do to fix it? And will taking steps now to help our future just be delaying the inevitable and why worry if it will come anyway?

Having watched the skies dim from pollution, people relocate to other parts of the world because their bodies could no longer tolerate the pollution in the urban centers in which they lived (and some for allergies too), living through smog level alerts, gas crunches, etc, etc I welcome thought out efforts to decrease what we have been releasing into our atmosphere, water, and lands.

Species are going to die off and we are watching it happen. The question is that is the world as we know it and want to envision it worth preserving?

As for relocation, the change will be slow and people will naturally gravitate to perceived safety and I say perceived only because we truly do not know exactly what will happen, only make educated guesses that may or may not pan out generations from now.

QuoteHowever, one now cannot escape that it is indeed happening and that we are contributing to it.

There are many factors such as the wobble of the earth and sun spots as well as normal weather cycles. How much and what we are contributing is an unanswered question. No one knows how much effect a ton of CO2 has on the environment or temperature, they do not even have an educated guess. There are no facts to preform the calculation. It seems that all pollution is making the environment less livable. No one factor is the cause or will be the fix.

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QuoteIn Gustavus, where Mr. DeBoer's property is, the land is rising almost three inches a year, Dr. Molnia said, making it "the fastest-rising place in North America."

Some interesting facts are that as the ice melts it makes the land rise. The weight is reduced and it is like a cushion that rises after you sat on it.

I wonder if the floor of the ocean will sink from the added weight of water?