David Attenborough-Climate Change
21 April 2019, 08:20 PM
#1
Scooby Regular
Thread Starter
David Attenborough-Climate Change
Used to like him. He is now on my hit list of bore you to tears.
Yeah whatever Dave. Boring and utter tripe. And you aren't a scientist or clever. Just a man on the telly
Get's right up my nose now
Yeah whatever Dave. Boring and utter tripe. And you aren't a scientist or clever. Just a man on the telly
Get's right up my nose now
Last edited by lozgti1; 21 April 2019 at 08:23 PM.
22 April 2019, 07:42 AM
#4
Originally Posted by lozgti1
Used to like him. He is now on my hit list of bore you to tears.
Yeah whatever Dave. Boring and utter tripe. And you aren't a scientist or clever. Just a man on the telly
Get's right up my nose now
Yeah whatever Dave. Boring and utter tripe. And you aren't a scientist or clever. Just a man on the telly
Get's right up my nose now
YOU. ABSOLUTE. MORON.
22 April 2019, 09:10 AM
#5
I’m all for reducing human impact caused by our ever increasing careless attitude in what or how all our trinkets and fads have become part and parcel of a throwaway lifestyle, I’ve always hated that, friends will attest to my long resentment of folk that bumble through their life without one iota of a clue of the impact of their ‘usual’ activities (as well as my skip diving and junk hoarder antics).
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
22 April 2019, 09:36 AM
#6
I’m all for reducing human impact caused by our ever increasing careless attitude in what or how all our trinkets and fads have become part and parcel of a throwaway lifestyle, I’ve always hated that, friends will attest to my long resentment of folk that bumble through their life without one iota of a clue of the impact of their ‘usual’ activities (as well as my skip diving and junk hoarder antics).
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
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22 April 2019, 11:34 AM
#8
What I find really perplexing is Attenborough knows this, and in the past has held speeches often quoting the likes of Malthus etc. But when fronted with the likes of the UN in climate summits, it seems to be put on the backburner.
Likewise we had London being bothered by some climate protesters and I am yet to find one pointing the blame at the fact that London’s increasing pollution problems is linked to its increasing population.
Likewise we had London being bothered by some climate protesters and I am yet to find one pointing the blame at the fact that London’s increasing pollution problems is linked to its increasing population.
22 April 2019, 11:38 AM
#9
Originally Posted by dpb
I reckon a One child policy across the western world would be even more difficult implement than removing right to drive a gas guzzler
Babies were being flushed down the drain and all sorts of nasty stuff was going on in an attempt to hide the extra children were being born, so they abolished the law.
Something has to be done though.
22 April 2019, 03:32 PM
#10
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What I find really perplexing is Attenborough knows this, and in the past has held speeches often quoting the likes of Malthus etc. But when fronted with the likes of the UN in climate summits, it seems to be put on the backburner.
Likewise we had London being bothered by some climate protesters and I am yet to find one pointing the blame at the fact that London’s increasing pollution problems is linked to its increasing population.
Likewise we had London being bothered by some climate protesters and I am yet to find one pointing the blame at the fact that London’s increasing pollution problems is linked to its increasing population.
Last edited by dpb; 22 April 2019 at 03:33 PM.
22 April 2019, 08:11 PM
#11
Scooby Regular
22 April 2019, 09:30 PM
#13
Completely agree, population growth is the single biggest contributor to the destruction of the planet. Unfortunately it's the elephant in the room and the media, politicians and tree huggers target things much easier to talk about to maintain their popularity.
population growth is staggering, 1st billion by 1800, now approaching 8 billion and Mother Earth can no longer rely on wars, plagues and natural disasters to keep a lid on things.
might not be popular but we need to stop pi55ing about changing the odd LED bulb and get after the real issue
population growth is staggering, 1st billion by 1800, now approaching 8 billion and Mother Earth can no longer rely on wars, plagues and natural disasters to keep a lid on things.
might not be popular but we need to stop pi55ing about changing the odd LED bulb and get after the real issue
22 April 2019, 10:17 PM
#14
I think the population issue will sort itself out over time.
I'm talking from a point of almost complete ignorance here, but IMO if you look at how many kids people used to have leading up to the early 1900s, even in the Western world litters of 10 kids were not unusual. Basically, everybody had lots of children. Reason being, of course, that most of them died in young age.
Along comes modern medecine (or at least antibiotics, sanitation, clean water etc), and all of a sudden a lot of the children that would have previously died either at birth or in young age make it to adulthood. I.e. all of a sudden, in the "developed" world (I mean the 1920-1930 onwards in a big parts of the world), the children survive, and we get rampant population growth. We're seeing this kind of process playing out in the less developed world at the moment, e.g. we used to have high birth rates in parts of Africa etc until very recently.
Anyway, fast forward to today in the developed world: People don't need to have as many kids to have a couple of kids that survive into adulthood, so... people don't. Now that kids are relatively unlikely to die at a young age, people often do not have more than one or two. We're not even running at replacement rate in large parts of the world anymore.
The same thing will hopefully play out in the sections of the world where population growth is still high, and eventually the world will reach some kind of population equilibrium. I don't believe we're going to go exponential any-time soon - the massive population growth 'hump' has already happened. :-)
IMO.
I'm talking from a point of almost complete ignorance here, but IMO if you look at how many kids people used to have leading up to the early 1900s, even in the Western world litters of 10 kids were not unusual. Basically, everybody had lots of children. Reason being, of course, that most of them died in young age.
Along comes modern medecine (or at least antibiotics, sanitation, clean water etc), and all of a sudden a lot of the children that would have previously died either at birth or in young age make it to adulthood. I.e. all of a sudden, in the "developed" world (I mean the 1920-1930 onwards in a big parts of the world), the children survive, and we get rampant population growth. We're seeing this kind of process playing out in the less developed world at the moment, e.g. we used to have high birth rates in parts of Africa etc until very recently.
Anyway, fast forward to today in the developed world: People don't need to have as many kids to have a couple of kids that survive into adulthood, so... people don't. Now that kids are relatively unlikely to die at a young age, people often do not have more than one or two. We're not even running at replacement rate in large parts of the world anymore.
The same thing will hopefully play out in the sections of the world where population growth is still high, and eventually the world will reach some kind of population equilibrium. I don't believe we're going to go exponential any-time soon - the massive population growth 'hump' has already happened. :-)
IMO.
22 April 2019, 10:21 PM
#15
Worldometer agrees with me:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
11 billion at the turn of the next century still sounds like a lot of people, but things could happen to change the rate of growh (both up and down).
Population in the world is currently (2018-2019) growing at a rate of around 1.07% per year (down from 1.09% in 2018, 1.12% in 2017 and 1.14% in 2016). The current average population increase is estimated at 82 million people per year.
Annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years. It is estimated to reach 1% by 2023, less than 0.5% by 2052, and 0.25% in 2076 (a yearly addition of 27 million people to a population of 10.7 billion). In 2100, it should be only 0.09%, or an addition of only 10 million people to a total population of 11.2 billion.
World population will therefore continue to grow in the 21st century, but at a much slower rate compared to the recent past. World population has doubled (100% increase) in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion). It is now estimated that it will take another nearly 40 years to increase by another 50% to become 9 billion by 2037.
Annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years. It is estimated to reach 1% by 2023, less than 0.5% by 2052, and 0.25% in 2076 (a yearly addition of 27 million people to a population of 10.7 billion). In 2100, it should be only 0.09%, or an addition of only 10 million people to a total population of 11.2 billion.
World population will therefore continue to grow in the 21st century, but at a much slower rate compared to the recent past. World population has doubled (100% increase) in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion). It is now estimated that it will take another nearly 40 years to increase by another 50% to become 9 billion by 2037.
11 billion at the turn of the next century still sounds like a lot of people, but things could happen to change the rate of growh (both up and down).
23 April 2019, 03:15 AM
#17
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23 April 2019, 03:16 AM
#18
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23 April 2019, 11:40 AM
#20
Scooby Regular
Many a radio phone in etc. refuse out blank to talk about it. I listen to LBC quite a lot and the Human Plague has come up on quite a few occasions in the last couple of weeks due to the protests in London, but on each one I've heard, the presenter has moved the conversation on, in some cases, belittling, the person who raised the issue. On one particular call I heard, a guy raised the point that nearly every economy in the world is based on growth, which as he pointed out, is not sustainable. They basically cut him off and said that's not what the conversation was about. Well if the Human Plague is not the cause of current protests in London, then I don't know what is. 2 kids, 2 bricks is the way forward 
I’m all for reducing human impact caused by our ever increasing careless attitude in what or how all our trinkets and fads have become part and parcel of a throwaway lifestyle, I’ve always hated that, friends will attest to my long resentment of folk that bumble through their life without one iota of a clue of the impact of their ‘usual’ activities (as well as my skip diving and junk hoarder antics).
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
However...
Why does not one single environmental lobbyist challenge or at the very least acknowledge the one prime cause of our increasing pollution and environmental problems...
The constant increase of the Human population.
What are they so scared of? If you have more than two children you are part of creating a global problem. Attenborough by his own admission is not a climate scientist but he is very much qualified in natural sciences and zoology, and any zoologists will tell what happens to a ecosystem when it is affected by a plague of aggressively invasive species. Its common sense, so why isn’t there any admission of it?
23 April 2019, 01:09 PM
#22
Scooby Senior
Environmentally unsustainable population growth is an area that I've been aware of for a long time and have long held the view that I would prefer not to have any children or certainly no more than 1 child for environmental reasons.
Mathematically, its quite simple, an average of 2 children per family represents the equilibrium, more than 2 results in population growth and less than 2 would result in population decline. Most western countries are currently seeing population decline - the UK is currently (2016 figures) running at an average of 1.8 births per woman! The problem of population growth is therefore not a problem of western/developed countries, but more with non-developed countries.
There are also factors which make population decline rather a bad thing. Our economic system is based on population growth, requiring younger generations to pay for the pensions of the previous generations whilst also creating larger markets to sustain economic growth. When you have a declining population due to the birth rate, then the response is to increase population through immigration which then leads to an increase in anti-immigration sentiment in the general public and eventually Brexit! The result in the UK is despite a decreasing domestic population through births, we have a 0.6% annual population growth due to immigration. Its not a conversation that many governments want to have as it messes up the whole economic sustainability of a country.
Migration from undeveloped to developed countries does somewhat balance out the population growth through the planet, but the worldwide total is still growth and that is a problem that cannot be sustained. Our planet only has a certain amount of resources and a certain capacity to reprocess our waste. Our demand for food also leads to unnatural increases in the population of animals which we use for food as they benefit (in terms of population growth) from efficient farming techniques and medicines.
Ultimately, unless we change our economic model to remove the dependence on population growth, we're heading for disaster. I don't think one child policies do the trick as you see what happens in China. The decision to have less children is one that is best not enforced, but rather encouraged. Offering tax breaks to families without children for example, rather than to families with more children would be one such encouragement.
In the end, governments are more interested in protecting their economies than they are about saving the planet, so environmental policy is driven by areas where green policy also achieves economic growth - renewable energy, electric cars etc. - while factors which harm economic growth, such as over-population, consumerism, deforestation, over-fishing etc. tend to get swept under the carpet. Until we start putting the environment before the economy, the Earth will continue on the path of doom!
What David Attenborough and the Blue Planet 2 team have done to raise awareness of the damage of plastics to our oceans and waterways is really quite phenomenal. They have started a wave of though in the mainstream about the environment and the damage we are doing to it that has not for the first time has not come from economically protective government policy, but has highlighted a major problem which when addressed has negative economic consequences. It has created a level of public opinion capable of forcing government policy and has now resulted in an EU wide ban on single use plastics such as drinking straws and plastic cutlery. Sure, it's only one small piece of a much bigger puzzle, but its a start and David Attenborough has perhaps started a change in direction which if its able to gain momentum could result in a much bigger change and offer some hope for the future of our planet.
Mathematically, its quite simple, an average of 2 children per family represents the equilibrium, more than 2 results in population growth and less than 2 would result in population decline. Most western countries are currently seeing population decline - the UK is currently (2016 figures) running at an average of 1.8 births per woman! The problem of population growth is therefore not a problem of western/developed countries, but more with non-developed countries.
There are also factors which make population decline rather a bad thing. Our economic system is based on population growth, requiring younger generations to pay for the pensions of the previous generations whilst also creating larger markets to sustain economic growth. When you have a declining population due to the birth rate, then the response is to increase population through immigration which then leads to an increase in anti-immigration sentiment in the general public and eventually Brexit! The result in the UK is despite a decreasing domestic population through births, we have a 0.6% annual population growth due to immigration. Its not a conversation that many governments want to have as it messes up the whole economic sustainability of a country.
Migration from undeveloped to developed countries does somewhat balance out the population growth through the planet, but the worldwide total is still growth and that is a problem that cannot be sustained. Our planet only has a certain amount of resources and a certain capacity to reprocess our waste. Our demand for food also leads to unnatural increases in the population of animals which we use for food as they benefit (in terms of population growth) from efficient farming techniques and medicines.
Ultimately, unless we change our economic model to remove the dependence on population growth, we're heading for disaster. I don't think one child policies do the trick as you see what happens in China. The decision to have less children is one that is best not enforced, but rather encouraged. Offering tax breaks to families without children for example, rather than to families with more children would be one such encouragement.
In the end, governments are more interested in protecting their economies than they are about saving the planet, so environmental policy is driven by areas where green policy also achieves economic growth - renewable energy, electric cars etc. - while factors which harm economic growth, such as over-population, consumerism, deforestation, over-fishing etc. tend to get swept under the carpet. Until we start putting the environment before the economy, the Earth will continue on the path of doom!
What David Attenborough and the Blue Planet 2 team have done to raise awareness of the damage of plastics to our oceans and waterways is really quite phenomenal. They have started a wave of though in the mainstream about the environment and the damage we are doing to it that has not for the first time has not come from economically protective government policy, but has highlighted a major problem which when addressed has negative economic consequences. It has created a level of public opinion capable of forcing government policy and has now resulted in an EU wide ban on single use plastics such as drinking straws and plastic cutlery. Sure, it's only one small piece of a much bigger puzzle, but its a start and David Attenborough has perhaps started a change in direction which if its able to gain momentum could result in a much bigger change and offer some hope for the future of our planet.
23 April 2019, 03:22 PM
#23
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Worth a watch
)
26 April 2019, 06:48 PM
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