BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 06:47 PM

As illustrated indeed. Come and join us, SRS. Just pretend he's not here. We're still working on Jim...

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Iains
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 12:00 PM

Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.

communism a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

It always seems that those on the top of the pile need the most, those at the bottom get shat on.

You do not have to very sophisticated to appreciate that truism.

As I said dachas for the needy/greedy, the gulag for those at the bottom.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 10:58 AM

Unsophisticated responses to the term "Marxist" are always what push those good ideas to the back burner. As illustrated.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 10:13 AM

of course, life is a struggle between those with the power and the wealth and the rest of us (this leaves out the gullible, the fore-lock tuggers and those more interested in heaven/hell than this world - but we should presume they are happy enough with their lot) Currently trump is awaiting instruction from the saudi arabian king on whether to start a war with Iran. unimaginable human cost, environmental destruction and astronomical financial consequences could result. a war will be good for business for a tiny minority and the dictators will attract a few more arse-lickers, knuckle-draggers, turnips and bullies to their foul cause.
would the british government back saudi arabia/trump? i'm sure without this lust for war or the mediaeval religions we could work out ways to live together with understanding and compassion. save each other and the planet! you may say i'm a dreamer, that's ok - but it has to be better than having nothing good to hope for

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Iains
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 04:17 AM

a marxist solution if you like, but very necessary

Dachas and Gulags? or perhaps Mao's Great Leap Forward ?
The latter only killed 35 to 50 million, depending on who you believe.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 03:40 AM

i've always thought the problem isn't so much population as politics. not children but greed. in the vast differences between obscenely wealthy and dirt poor individuals and countries. we spend massively on weapons -particularly in countries where they can't afford it. if only we could sort that - it's the perennial and most pressing problem of all. a marxist solution if you like, but very necessary

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 03:34 AM

We shouldn't be rearing meat on land that can grow food crops, or which supports rain forest,

There was a radio prog in the 80's that advocated Brazil should be rearing capybara which are better suited to the area.

The real problem is population. The more of us, the more land we need for food, and that conflicts with the ecosystem that gave us the clement weather that allowed us to proliferate.

Ants and cockroaches will survive, we won't unless we recognise rock bottom before we hit it. I say we, it will be our great great great grandchildren who will reap the results of our profligacy. It will be the slowest car crash of all time.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: mg
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 08:10 PM

overpopulation. biggest problem of all. with climate change and turmoil, massive numbers of people will have to be moved from place to place..good luck with that. first of all make sure that men and women are allowed to choose their family size, which probably won't be ten kids. get any religions to quit making people suffer in poverty when their lives could be bettered. unless there is wwiii, which could happen..we have many ingredients to turn things around..birth control, internet, charity water, free energy coming..smarter construction..better education, cell phone throughout populations bring improved agriculture and medicine...robots for most dangerous work...it all can be improved if populations don't exceed resources...

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Iains
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 01:30 PM

Mountainous or hilly areas, or land with thin or rocky soils,
In theory perhaps in practice it does not work. You either reduce numbers in winter(traditionally by salting down the meat) or by supplementary feeding. (Where do you think that comes from?)or you have a much lower headcount for a given area.
To make the idea even remotely feasible you have to deal with the massive overpopulation problem.
The problem no one wants to articulate, much less deal with.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 01:21 PM

There are sustainable ways of raising beef that are actually better for the landscape, but it involves the old-fashioned cowboy kind of work, moving them to a space, letting them graze it down, then move along to the next space. Think American bison and how robust the Great Plains were till pioneers came along and put up fences and killed off the bison.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 09:53 AM

The no-meat furore is a bandwagon eagerly jumped on by the more evangelical veganistas. We shouldn't be rearing meat on land that can grow food crops, or which supports rain forest, and we shouldn't be growing half our cereal crops (as we do in the UK) for animal feed. But that still leaves a lot of land that is far better suited for animal-rearing than for crop-growing. Mountainous or hilly areas, or land with thin or rocky soils, or land that is difficult to irrigate all lend themselves to animal husbandry. In poorer countries, animal manure may provide most or all of the fertiliser for subsistence farmers, chemical fertilisers being both far too expensive and far too ruinous of the soil. It all means less meat, but not no meat. And we do have omnivore teeth and guts.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 07:01 AM

...the question is how we all deal with each other to work together for the good of our communities and our planet. love thy neighbour, plant a tree and ....
WHAT?   ...don't eat meat ....   NO!

I was prepared to go along with you but that's a step too far.

DC

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 05:26 AM

Tree planting is of course A Good Thing, but, acre-for-acre, there is no substitute for tropical rain forest for soaking up carbon dioxide. That's where we urgently need to start. It would help if we could desist from electing climate idiots as presidents in Brazil and the US.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 04:48 AM

The problem is that everyone ignores potential efforts in their own way. I use the bus a lot, but on a Saturday I might drive 1 hour to a Folk event. For all the mixed efforts I can at least look to Lundun (innit?) and question the "upto" 2 hour commute and label it (truthfully) madness. And look at the Chelsea Tractors going to work.
The car industry has given us ever more economical cars and "battery &/or hybrids" that still pump out CO₂ somewhere in the chain. And then gives us gas guzzlers with ever more power (to guzzle). And cute phrases like "Self Charging Hybrids" that hide the truth.

And then there are the ever greater numbers of people who want what we have. Science and Technology will sort it, but only when it is so bad, and we won't like the results that it implies. Predictions won't tell you all! Brace yerself.

My Canadian cousins, on a visit to Europe (air miles?) commented on lack of UK efforts to re-cycle - obviously not registering the green houshold bins and maybe hidden public bins in pretty Cotswold places they "had" to visit. But they had a point, is it enough?

how do we go from here? - it requires a climate of puritanism. But like the Victorians who signed the "pledge" - it didn't close the pubs. It has to hit rock bottom, and that is a long way down.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 01:42 PM

i read recently that at the start of the 20th century in n america there were up to 4 billion chestnut trees lost to a blight. (book was 'overstory' by richard powers. great book, by the way) though it is a small world , it's also massive

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 12:30 PM

Free planting=tree planting.

Blummin spill chucker.

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 12:29 PM

There are massive free planting programs in the east. Over a billion planted in Pakistan and huge military type operations in China. I don't know if it will make up for tropical deforestation but we have to try. We also need to reforest parts of the UK and Europe to help to prevent flooding and make a start on offsetting CO2 emmisions. Algae and lichen are also massive CO2 absorbers which need to be explored. Of course all this time we need to start reducing the use of fossil fuels and, as I see it, getting rid of private transport would be a huge help.

As a tecnophile I am hopeful of a technical solution being found. Whether that is safe nuclear power, hydrogen based or something entirely different is beyond my ken! All in all though, I am optimistic. Maybe falsely but at least it stops me getting depressed :-)

Subject: RE: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 07:19 AM

the 'get out of the way' thing was more of a political choice really. if you look at the 'team photos' of heads of government at any conference it is invariably men of a similar age in similar suits and probably very similar ideas. and angela merkel. for all of us trying so hard to look and think like everyone else , with minor variations, this can only lead to a lack of imagination and a reduced capacity to empathise with many millions of poverished people, a frying planet ...or peace.

when original thinkers get any space in the debate they are usually ridiculed or disregarded as hopeless idealists but listening to them and to what nature is telling us has to be way more hopeful than listening to yet another clone in a suit or religious mediaevalist (is that a word? you know what i mean....)

Subject: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 06:29 AM

i don't know if i've seen a similar thread before and wonder if we are too concerned with the small stuff to address the bigger picture. maybe the question is how we all deal with each other to work together for the good of our communities and our planet. love thy neighbour, plant a tree and don't eat meat....etc. those of us who are getting on a bit (63) have a responsibility to do no harm and get out of the way for more positivity. or something.