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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."
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.
Hah, I love the amusing hippie consipiracy theories. It seems as though some people really beleive that environmentalists are making all this stuff up. That myopic view wasn't chosen, it's all we have. Try not to see motives where you should be seeing circumstances.
I think common sense is evidence enough. This is happening on a world scale, unless you can point out areas of the planet's surface that have been devoid of human interaction over the last 20-30 years. As far as seasons go, the effects that the study concentrates on tend to be long-term rather than seasonal, so seasonal evidence would be pointless.
Look at the basic facts; we are on a planet with finite resources. World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.
Long term, the math doesn't work out. It's not a case of if we screw up this planet, it's a case of when, and more people equals acceleration towards that point, more space used, more fuels used, more products consumed.
The main problem is that as a planet, we all have to act to make it a sustainable environment. This means actually reducing what we use, not slowing down, or keeping it the same, but actually reducing the amount of resources we use. If one country *cough* decides to ignore this fact, it undermines the point of the exercise.
As far as your comment about hippies who want the developing countries to starve to death; well, they already do starve. But if world poverty was wiped out tomorrow the world over, the developed world would have to change its consumptive habits overnight for the world to sustain itself.
At the end of the day, everything on this planet is not okay, and all of our eggs are in one basket.
Did you even look at your own link?
For those who haven't, it shows tons of virgin forest spread over the US in 1620 and 1850, then a dramatic reduction by 1920, and recently some regrowth, but still only perhaps a quarter of what was here pre-massive deforestation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This is a great argument for the work of environmentalists.
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)
One critique of these maps is that they are not comparing like with like. The forest clearing shown in http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LandUse/Gallery/m ap1.htm
is happening mainly in the old growth forest in the rockies.
New planting in the east is often plantations of pine trees and other
commercial forestry.
While it is good that total forest cover in the US is increasing
an old growth forest has a much greater biodiversity than a
comercial plantation. Old growth forests will have many different species
of trees at a variety of different ages, they will support many sorts
of wild-life, bears, wolves, rare owls, and all manner of other plant and insect life. A conifourous plantation can be close to monoculture with rows
and rows of a single species, often the dense planting and the blanket of needles supresses any low growth. Thankfully there is a trend towards better forest management today, but an old growth forrest is ireplacable.
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
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
Get it right: Environmentalism is NOT really about saving the Earth or saving the environment. Why? Because the Earth can exist quite happily without humans. But humans can't exist without clean air, water, food, and healthy land to grow it on.
The environment doesn't need humans, but humans need the environment.
Environmentalism, then is misnamed, because saving the environment is just a means to the actual end: saving humanity. Any "people-first" right-winger should figure that out someday.