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Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas
ring writes "The United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) has released a new atlas 'One Planet Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment', to mark World Environment Day (WED). It compares and contrasts spectacular satellite images of the past few decades with contemporary ones." From the BBC article: "Among the transformations highlighted in the atlas are the huge growth of greenhouses in southern Spain, the rapid rise of shrimp farming in Asia and Latin America and the emergence of a giant, shadow puppet-shaped peninsula at the mouth of the Yellow River that has built up through transportation of sediment in the waters."
Where can I find more picture comparisons?
Get your Unix fortune now!
What a waste of effort. This whole "UN" fantasy is a joke. We should just let the US do the global work, because we've got all the big bombs, and no quaint old "ethics" to stop us from using them to spread peace and liberty.
--
make install -not war
Why is this bad?
.. population growth won't explode (although personally really I dont have a problem with more humans)
.. I'm more afraid of the hippies who want developing countries to starve to death and prevent their economies from developing.
a) I want to see this happening on a global scale
b) I want the dates to reflect the same season
As the economy of these countries improves they'll be able to replant the trees and irrigate the lands again. Without economic boom, this is unaffordable and people suffer.
Possible future solutions:
a) Fusion based power plants to draw sea water inland and irrigate the land (after desalination).
b) Ocean farming
c) For those afraid of human beings, with increase in financial strength
I'm not worried
For a moment I thought it read: United Federation of Planets... Too bad it wasn't about the next Star Trek movie or TV series, or William Shatner's bald spot. :P
Geologic evidence supports that earth was in a steady state before the emergence of Homo sapiens and all change begins after that. Change has brought about all problems, and the quicker we can make things stop changing, the better.
Does the atlas show the climate changes from the last few 1000 years?
Does it show what things looked like when you could grow olives in the UK?
Does it show that Hastings was much much closer to the shore in 1066 than it is now?
Does it show the human settlements on the Mediterranean that are now underwater due to sea level changing hundreds of years ago?
Or does it take a myopic temporal view specifically chosen to "prove" their political point?
For years I have been looking for an atlas that shows both the ancient political boundaries and the ancient geographic boundaries. To fully understand history you often need to understand the geography that formed it. Instead we perpetuate this myth that the Earth has remained static throughout human history until those evil Americans came along to create climate change.
Look at the devastation of the forest on Brazil and Paraguay sides of the border, compared to the forest that Argentina has been able to preserve.
Soylent Oceanographic Survey has an odd ring to it.
On a global scale this would effectively kill all life...so if you 'see' this...it's too late.
Kapitalism is not the awnser to all problems, my friend.
You cannot 'trust' in possible future solutions....they may not be a solution...got to work with things we know now...not in future...cause:
DIFFICULT to 'see'...the futue is!!!
But can it tell that my lawn service came today?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I was curious to find that 5th picture, talking about using insects to control a green swirl of something that appeared somewhere.
I wish they could visit our lake. Last year it had a huge crop of lemna, shown here.
What you see is not a tennis court but a big piece of the lake being covered in the thing. This lake is lake maracaibo in venezuela.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Have you thought the inverse? Have you thought about how ridiculous YOUR points are? What exactly will the earth run out of? Ok sure I understand the global warming deal .. but how can we run out of minerals?? It's illogical .. go look up how much of any given element is in the earth's crust .. whatever we "use" remains on earth .. unless we blast it out to space .. Are you really worried about that???
.. but we are nowhere NEAR that amount .. The earth's resources are NOT limited in any rational sense.. it can easily sustain a population of 5 trillion. Yes, that's trillion. You see .. we have all the minerals .. and more than enough energy. Humans need to consume 2000 kilocalories a day and ingest a certain amount of elements/minerals. These all exist. The only problem is providing the energy .. which can be solved by fusion plants (energy from this can be used to produce food). There is no point in forcing people to have a designated number of kids and making them poor. Of course Human Haters will also have the added problem of "overcrowding" which is more of an inconvenience than a problem. That's actually why I limited it to 5 trillion .. after all maybe we do need parks and forest areas.
Call me when the price of stuff starts going up because we've run out of it!
How can we "use up" the earth's water? It all remains here doesn't it?
Fine, when there are ten trillion humans on earth then you may be having a point
In North America at least, the trend has been going largely in the opposite direction. We are seeing REforestation rather than DEforestation. This is in despite of an increasing population.
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It can be a little tough to find good data given all the bullshit flying around but here's a map that shows the amount of forest land in the US from 1620 onwards:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg96rpt/chap7.ht
The interesting things is that we are see a dramatic resurgence of forest land here in the US. A big part of the reason, apparently, is more efficient farming practices which have allowed us to restore a lot of farmland back to forests. Here's a map showing the trends from 1982 to 1997:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LandUse/Gallery/
A move to more densley packed cities is also a contributing factor to reforestation.
Article such as the one Zonk cited are a favorite of the hard left environmental movement. These 'studies' cherry pick data to paint an alarmist picture. The media usually swallow these article whole with little crtical thought. In the end, these distorted pictures don't do anything to help real environmental progress.
The UN estimates war, pests and salt have destroyed 14 million palms.
All that good Rosie luvin gone. Tragic.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
To see more photos than the BBC offers, you can either order the book here (and murder another tree), or view some of the images in these PDF reports.
I'm all for raising funds for sustainability of ventures like this however a project of this magnitude should be far more accessible to the public than having to drop $250 on the book. A significant problem beyond our negative impacts on the planet is the ignorance surrounding subjects like climate change, pollution, and toxic contamination. If people have only a vague idea that what they use is causing so much damage then limited access to usable information is certainly a problem. The biggest problem though is that consumers really aren't all that aware of what they do, and don't care to think about of how big an impact they have on the environment or geopolitics. Unfortunately climate change is apathetic about apathy. Scenarios range from big storms to sea level altitude causing a super-volcanic event but the real data generated does show clear reaction to the industrial revolution.
Increasing wealth in places like China is the reason for a lot of the environmental destruction we are seeing now.
The world simply can't support 6.5 billion people living at 1st world standards. So, in the long run, more humans = lower standard of living for everyone.
Compare the state of mind of humans now with how it was 60 years ago. It's getting worse every year. What do you mean 'evolution'? It's the other way around.
Did the laws of physics disappear? We have unlimited resources wherever there is mass. It is only our ability to use those resources that is limited. Stop playing a fear-mongering victim and start innovating.
We have unlimited resources wherever there is mass.
Even if we had the technology to utilise that mass as you are clearly thinking, the resources are obviously limited by the amount of mass available.
The laws of physics have not disappeared, and so there is no such thing as "unlimited resources".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Clearly there is a limit. But that limit is soo far away it may as well not exist. The "limit" cannot even be REACHED by the limits of our greed and technology for a hundred thousand years.
.. let's not forget that the interior of the earth is molten hot lava as weell)?
Assuming we dont leave Earth.
I challenge someone to prove using the laws of physics, that there it is impossible to sustain humans given an arbitrary growth rate (the growth rate must comply with rational possibilities).
Why should we kill people by forcing them to live shit lives and starve so for some irrational expanded fear??
Give me some science to say taht we'll run out of resources given a certain growth rate.
i) what is the growth rate? Is such a growth rate happening, and if not is it rational to assume? What's the highest growth rate of any country today?
ii) what year will there be no more food and water given the above growth rate combined with total available energy and mass of the earth (forgetting solar, nuclear and wind energy
You can see how Iraq has changed over the years. I heard stories of how beautiful and green a lot of Iraq was, before Saddam.
It wouldn't be so bad if people in first world countries didn't waste so much resources. Everytime I see someone commuting to work in an SUV, I think, wow, what a a waste of resources. There's no reason they couldn't be driving a smaller, more efficient vehicle, except that driving an SUV makes them feel special. Which they aren't, because everybody has one. There's a lot of other waste going on too. With energy and all that. There's no reason to have the A/C on to 15 Degrees Celcius. You can live in 30 degrees. Just drink more water. Oh, and in the winter let it be 15 Degrees in your house. Just put a sweater on if you are cold. I'm not a saint when it comes to the environment, but at least I try. I use public transit, and even ride my bike when possible. At least give it a little effort. Most people don't even try to help the environment. It almost seems like they are trying to see how much damage they can do to the environment.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Hi, may I react on this, as i think i know where i am talking of.
I am wanting to preserve some 50 square KM, yes KM of forrest down in the chaco Paraguay.
However everyone calls me a nut.
The problem is that it is almost impossible to control. to get there is a 2 to 3 day travel. up and down a week.
It is not people in paraguay cutting there but bolivians and yes your beloved argentinians stealing the trees. As they have good roads on the other side of the borders. (check the maps)
A big problem is that the border ad forest police is so coccupt and it is very easy to steal trees.
Then there are the farmers without earth. That always claim new land. Funny that they alwas claim a forest and never an empty farm land. Well if it is not cut while they are present there, it is very fast cut after they got their will and then they are gone again. A better name would be farmers without trees
Luckely the politics here are slowly shifting their position on these matters
I even thought of hiring several of these farmers to replant trees, but they rather don't it takes effort.
Then there is another maybe bigger problem
Soja delivers a 10 times higher profit then forest, meat (cows) a 5 times. Unless people will pay the real price for wooden it will be cut and not replanted
Well so if you are not going to invest from ideology, likely loosing your investment anyway through stealing, having a lot of headacke yes i have to agree with them, I would be a nut.
One way to balance the cost would be payment for greenhouse reduction, but polluting countries see saving trees not as a way of reducing greenhouse gasses. (I do monitor the COP Conference of Partys on these issues)
But if you have a 100.000$ laying around be my guest and save the world, yes 50 square KM of naitive forrest is likely cheaper then your house you are living in.
Do your calculus
geetings
ing. John van der Pol
If people want more info feel free to reply and i will answer
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
/spends far too much time on the internet
I am trolling
The link in the article just goes to the press release.
The actual book (full content for both screen and printer resolutions) is here
My brother works for http://new-chapter.com/ - they carry medicinal mushroom products and do a lot of research in that area. There is a certain species of mushroom that releases a high level of nutrients into the soil, accelerating the growth of plants and trees growing near the mushrooms. I don't feel that it would be such a difficult task to re-forest the world if we really wanted to.
Do the world a favor, and go jump off a bridge!
Unless that would add to the sediment of some river...
Maybe the point to be highlighted is one of judgement. If you're crossing a rope bridge, over an abyss, and, you think it's showing signs of giving way, do you sprint for the other side or do you go gingerly, testing as you go, looking for more proof of what's happening? In the first world, the infrastructure that maintains our lifestyle is not ruggedly robust, or, highly redundant. Redundancy as a concept is, historically, only yesterday's news. The internet is an example of an infrastructure built with redundancy in mind. So, if the biosphere is showing signs of change, do we hope for benign change and/or for science to sprint to the rescue? Sir Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of deductive reasoning, suggested we had to wrest the secrets of life from nature, like a mythological hero wresting a prize from some monster. I think many, maybe all of us, are subject to living, in part, in the heroic age, and, I think that is the greatest danger. The ancient Greeks fostered the idea of hubris as one of mankind's greatest weaknesses. The philosophy of the heroic age doesn't hold in an indeterminate universe and science shouldn't be seen as the ultimate big stick that will beat back the threats of nature.
Life, as we know it, is characterzed as an non-equilibrium, open-system. The sun rains down ~10^24 calories per year on the biosphere. Carbon based life forms, in the perfect mileu of water, harness this energy in various ways.But it's a system of systems and subject, as much as we know, to Systems Theory. If we know change is in the works do we risk positive feedback and trust in science to carry us past any threat?
There is a strong consensus that climate change is happening. Will climate change force a parameter shift that will invite a runaway state? The concept of key species tells us that specific species are necessary to maintaining the ecology of an eco niche. Could climate change destroy key species and cause collapse of ecosystems. This brings on the old bogey man of the domino effect.
Change is inevitable, so it's really a matter of placing your bet on science as the ultimate super hero, or, do we begin to exercise caution now to mitigate against change. After all there's no place like home.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Earthshots http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/tableofc ontents from the U.S. Geological Survey shows satellite before/after images showing environmental change around the world. The site started back in the 90s, they've been adding more information since. Pretty neat stuff
So we have absolutely plenty of space left on Earth; the question is how well we use it. Clearly with the current problems of the world, we're not doing so efficiently.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
For years I have been looking for an atlas that shows both the ancient political boundaries and the ancient geographic boundaries.
Agreed -- an ancient/modern atlas would be instructive and interesting.
Perhaps best implemented as a digital atlas? Flash animation, something like that, with a slider for timeline so you can cruise the centuries?
-kgj
-kgj
The world can support significantly more people, at an American standard of living, given the available resources. Energy certainly isn't a problem once you start ignoring the anti-nuclear luddite fucktards.
You'll have to provide some sort of definition here. I'm sure the word I'm familiar with is spelled "capitalism". Or, is that an attempt at snide political humor?
Capitalism is a better answer than communism. Why? We have observe that capitalism works better than communism in the real world with real people. Socialism is demonstrating the same end result as communism right now.
Now, it won't answer questions along the lines of "what is 2 + 2", but I don't think that's what you meant.
Your third line is self-contradictory. A solution is a solution. If, however, you mean we might think something is a solution when it's not, then all your thoughts and conclusions are in that basket as well. You have no magic knowledge.
anyone...Ferris...?
Hmmmmmm, greeeeen.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The BBC are quoting the UN, your own quote from TFA starts with "The UN estimates...". Also the quote includes the word "salt", in other words Saddam's water plan. Your post makes it sound as if Saddam were the only "leader" to ever deliberately fuck up the enviroment to enforce his will. Maybe you don't realise it but sprinkling depleted uraninm all over Iraq is also considered to be an environmentally unfreindly thing to do.
Here is a list of BBC articles concerning the marshes, even the oldest article from Mar 2003 describes in detail the plight of the Marsh Arabs. You will also note that besides reporting many times on Sadam's input to the problem they also have an article about the US aiding in thier restoration.
If you look at the facts instead of the posters on the wall of your own political bubble, you will find an infinte number of shades nestled between black and white.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.