Is the grass dying yet?

[dwardo]

Population growth is the huge problem right enough. Sooner or later, exponential growth bubbles burst. Nothing can grow faster that the ability to support it. House prices cant grow faster than incomes forever - or nobody can buy a house - so that bubble burst. More and more people can't live in the same crowded island using more and more oil from a finite reserve and claiming the way out is a "growing economy" - i.e even more people buying even more things.

Sadly a population bubble burst will make a property price bubble bursting seem trivial.

But population will correct itself.

Yup awful as it sounds but war or disease usually sorts that out. I love the fact that we think we are ruining the planet, we are simply ruining it for our selves and long after we are gone it will just be happy to see the back of us and move on as usual. I hold out hope for renewable energies and the hopeful evolution of man from ape bashing another ape to a species of tollerance and understanding for a common good. Startrek utopia

 

[blacktimberwolf]

I think this thread illustrates the major problem with mankind..............we consider this planet as ours & all resources destined for human use, ....we are currently loosing, on average, a 100 species of plant & animal ....a day!!!!.directly as a result of our destructive activity.............doesn't seem to bother most people.

 

[Andy BB]

I think this thread illustrates the major problem with mankind..............we consider this planet as ours & all resources destined for human use, ....we are currently loosing, on average, a 100 species of plant & animal ....a day!!!!.directly as a result of our destructive activity.............doesn't seem to bother most people.

Species have died out since the primordial swamp era - its called evolution. Species like the Giant Panda "evolve" into dead ends and die out. Sure, mankind has helped along the way, but then so did other species in other eras. Admittedly, we're doing a better job than most, but then we're more intelligent!

Sorry, but I just don't go along with all this "woe is me" stuff. I hear stories that if the CO2 rises any more the seas will become acidic and everything in them dies. This of course ignores the eras when the CO2 was at a multiple of levels it is today, yet sea-life is still abundant! Making up numbers is easy - two hundred plant and animal species a day are springing into existence - see? Piece of cake, and just as scientifically valid as the 100-a-day dying....

Actually, the number of new species is quite esy - at least to get a lower end take. how many new plant hybrids are registered annually? how many new strains of viruses etc are bio-engineered annually? See? We're increasing bio-diversity, not reducing it!

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Species have died out since the primordial swamp era - its called evolution. Species like the Giant Panda "evolve" into dead ends and die out. Sure, mankind has helped along the way, but then so did other species in other eras. Admittedly, we're doing a better job than most, but then we're more intelligent!

Sorry, but I just don't go along with all this "woe is me" stuff. I hear stories that if the CO2 rises any more the seas will become acidic and everything in them dies. This of course ignores the eras when the CO2 was at a multiple of levels it is today, yet sea-life is still abundant! Making up numbers is easy - two hundred plant and animal species a day are springing into existence - see? Piece of cake, and just as scientifically valid as the 100-a-day dying....

Actually, the number of new species is quite esy - at least to get a lower end take. how many new plant hybrids are registered annually? how many new strains of viruses etc are bio-engineered annually? See? We're increasing bio-diversity, not reducing it!

Where to start !..............Since you brought up the Giant panda I'll start with that. Pandas haven't 'evolved' into a dead end. Their existance is threatened by man's destruction & invasion of thier habitat. If you think that rendering species extinct is a sign of 'intelligence' then we don't share the same definition of the word.

True, in the past periods of the earth's history, the levels of CO2 were much higher than today but the earth was populated principally by marine & amphibious arthropods at the time, Mammals & even reptiles had yet to come into existance...bio diversty was far poorer than in later.periods.....
When you say " two hundred plant and animal species a day are springing into existence - see? Piece of cake, and just as scientifically valid as the 100-a-day dying."..........I assume that's a joke.

As for the cultivated plant varieties created you mentioned, do you really believe that these can be compared to wild plants that have evolved with a web of inter-dependant species, all with specific functions & interactions ?....

Sorry to tell you, that not only are we decreasing worldwide bio diversity (despite your micro-organisms ) but we are doing it at a faster rate than any natural disaster in the Earth's past.....
We don't yet know the consequences, for humans , of the destruction of such vast numbers of species & in such a short period of time.... prehaps man could survive on a planet populated only by humans but that's all he would do....survive.

I have grown fond of the wildlife we have in our era & it pains me to see it disappear for no other short term reasons than money & greed...hopefully we will still have internet & books to show future generations how the earth was.before we it up.

 

[Tengu]

Next time someone boasts about their brand new baby can I be negative about it?

 

[mountainm]

Pandas don't exactly help themselves out tho'. A frigid carnivore that refuses to eat meat...

 

[British Red]

Next time someone boasts about their brand new baby can I be negative about it?

I usually am.

 

[wattsy]

Sorry to tell you, that not only are we decreasing worldwide bio diversity (despite your micro-organisms ) but we are doing it at a faster rate than any natural disaster in the Earth's past.....

nonsense
the permian-triassic extinction event (250 mya) wiped out around 96% of all marine life, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates and is the only known mass extinction of insects. 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct. THAT is decreasing bio-diversity on a large scale, nothing we could do shy of all out nuclear conflict could do that kind of damage.

incidentally before the event there was a genus of pig sized early reptiles called lystrosaurus that were pretty thick, not very specialised and wholly unremarkable. after the event, because they were unspecialized, up to 95% of all terrestrial vertebrates on the planet were lystrosaurus they dominated the early triassic for about 30 million years. and then died out because the sprawling gait they had (like modern lizards) meant they were not very good at running away from dinosaurs.

all through earth's history there's been periods of global warming and cooling, greenhouse gases are emitted, earth warms up, ice caps melt, resulting floods kill off life, greenhouse gases go down, earth cools down, certain adaptable species survive the resulting ice age, increasing their numbers, giving off more greenhouse gases, warming the earth back up again (massive simplification). humans have accelerated this process undoubtably but the planet will fix it, whether we can adapt is a different matter

 

[blacktimberwolf]

nonsense
the permian-triassic extinction event (250 mya) wiped out around 96% of all marine life, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates and is the only known mass extinction of insects. 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct. THAT is decreasing bio-diversity on a large scale, nothing we could do shy of all out nuclear conflict could do that kind of damage.

incidentally before the event there was a genus of pig sized early reptiles called lystrosaurus that were pretty thick, not very specialised and wholly unremarkable. after the event, because they were unspecialized, up to 95% of all terrestrial vertebrates on the planet were lystrosaurus they dominated the early triassic for about 30 million years. and then died out because the sprawling gait they had (like modern lizards) meant they were not very good at running away from dinosaurs.

all through earth's history there's been periods of global warming and cooling, greenhouse gases are emitted, earth warms up, ice caps melt, resulting floods kill off life, greenhouse gases go down, earth cools down, certain adaptable species survive the resulting ice age, increasing their numbers, giving off more greenhouse gases, warming the earth back up again (massive simplification). humans have accelerated this process undoubtably but the planet will fix it, whether we can adapt is a different matter

Read Wikipedea & become an expert !


I'm well aware of the 5 major 'extinction events' in the Earth's history but what you didn't tell us about the 'Permian-Triassic 'was how long it took nor the variety of the bio-diversity at the period compared to todays......

I'd be interested to learn how you think the planet will 'fix it' ......

 

[wattsy]

Read Wikipedea & become an expert !


I'm well aware of the 5 major 'extinction events' in the Earth's history but what you didn't tell us about the 'Permian-Triassic 'was how long it took nor the variety of the bio-diversity at the period compared to todays......

I'd be interested to learn how you think the planet will 'fix it' ......

you need to work on your attitude i don't know whether its intended or not but the tone of your posts is offensive. i was truly unaware that i had to Harvard reference all of my posts

 

[blacktimberwolf]

you need to work on your attitude i don't know whether its intended or not but the tone of your posts is offensive. i was truly unaware that i had to Harvard reference all of my posts

Nope, no offence intended & the Wikipedia quip was not directed at you in particular but as a generality.................as for attitude, calling something someone else has posted as 'nonsense', ain't exactly friendly now, is it ?

 

[HillBill]

The water issue is more a population issue than anything. We havent built a reservoir in 37 years, and the population has increased by 10 million since then. Build more reservoirs in suitable locations and that should sort the problem for the next 50 years. I havent seen the lake district having a water issue, none of the lakes are low that i have seen lately, so is there a water issue? The natural lakes aint suffering.

 

[Adze]

Apparently, if you could gather and store all the water which falls on Cumbria in an average 12 months, it would supply drinking water for the World population for the next 50 years.

We have huge rainfall in this country, what we don't have is limitless storage. Especially not when so much treated drinking water is wasted cleaning Studly McNonut's BMW 318is and making sure his Mum's peonies come up lovely.

Best we leave the golf courses, cricket, rugby and football pitches and the lovely grass in the local 'park' you're not supposed to walk on out of it and heaven forefend than I mention a horse racing track or I may be misunderstood as advocating cruelty to animals.

 

[t1234]

I blame privitisation. Short term profit orientated companies should not be trusted with strategically important resources. If we need to build more reservoirs or create a method of moving water from the wetter regions to the dry regions than this is precisely the sort of thing a nationalised water company should be doing. If the water demand is increasing then we have to meet the demand. There simply is plenty of water in the country but the regions are being run independently by private companies.

What is the point of government and taxation when they can't even guarantee water to the areas that need it? The most basic human need.

 

[Adze]

The most basic human need.

...after air (yes I mean Oxygen).

 

[nickliv]

We're just a virus with shoes, a virus with shoes.

 

[cbr6fs]

Always strikes me as funny that living in Nottingham we had rain pretty much at least once a week yet come every July we had a hosepipe ban.

Yet here i am living in Athens a city that doesn't receive a drop of rain for almost 4 months and in the 13 years i've lived here we have not had one hosepipe ban.

Problem with the UK is a crumbling infrastructure and folks being lazy and turning the tap on to water their gardens rather than save money and collect it themselves.

 

[Stringmaker]

I blame privitisation. Short term profit orientated companies should not be trusted with strategically important resources. If we need to build more reservoirs or create a method of moving water from the wetter regions to the dry regions than this is precisely the sort of thing a nationalised water company should be doing. If the water demand is increasing then we have to meet the demand. There simply is plenty of water in the country but the regions are being run independently by private companies.

What is the point of government and taxation when they can't even guarantee water to the areas that need it? The most basic human need.

The reason the water supply was privatised was precisely because no government had been investing in it.

To properly maintain the leaking pipe network plus investing and upgrading for the future would have been billions which would have come from general taxation. We're still paying for it via the prices the water companies charge but this time the shareholder takes a slice too.

I live near the coast and we are aflicted with useless offshore wind turbines; if the focus of building them was to power de-salination plants then I'd be all for them.

 

[t1234]

If the infrastructure needed fixing through general taxation then so be it, there is nothing more important than water. As you point out we pay for the infrastructure costs anyway through water bills.

What is happening now is a state licensed monopoly, we have no choice but to pay water bills and there is no free market, but now someone is making a nice fat profit out of it.

Some things it makes sense to have a free market and privitisation for, water is definitely not one of them.

With all these privitisation plans we were promised more efficiency but I haven't noticed the savings, we are still paying for them, in the case of rail we are paying massively more through both ticket prices and general taxation subsidies. Unfortunately profit and greed have been running this country for the last 30 years.