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More Than 15,000 Scientists From 184 Countries Issue 'Warning To Humanity' (www.cbc.ca)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: More than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a global warning: there needs to be change in order to save Earth. It comes 25 years after the first notice in 1992 when a mere 1,500 scientists issued a similar warning. This new cautioning -- which gained popularity on Twitter with #ScientistsWarningToHumanity -- garnered more than 15,000 signatures. William Ripple of Oregon State University's College of Forestry, who started the campaign, said that he came across the 1992 warning last February, and noticed that this year happened to mark the 25th anniversary. Together with his graduate student, Christopher Wolf, he decided to revisit the concerns raised then, and collect global data for different variables to show trends over the past 25 years. Ripple found: A decline in freshwater availability; Unsustainable marine fisheries; Ocean dead zones; Forest losses; Dwindling biodiversity; Climate change; Population growth. There was one positive outcome, however: a rapid decline in ozone depletion. One of the potential solutions is to stabilize the population. If we reduce family size, consumption patterns don't rise as much. And that can be done by empowering girls and women, providing sexual education and education on family planning.

4 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW? There is tons of talk, but all of it seems to just be blaming people.

    It reminds me of the town I live in, where water rationing was killing property values, because the older oak trees were dying. However, it was found that the golf court down the road was using 75% or more of the water, so all the losses in dead trees and cracked foundations due to ground shrinkage did nothing. Similar with the rice paddies.

    The people who can do something won't... and promptly blame it on the people who can't do anything about AGW.

  2. Missing the obvious other solution by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you actually look at some of the statistics published at COP25, you'll see that US and EU emissions are down but GDP is up.

    The most rapid growth in emissions is in India, which still has less emissions per person than China does. The rapid increase in pollution, greenhouse emissions, and climate impacts is mostly due to China and India, but even if we reduce it now, some of the gasses take 100 years to clear out of the atmosphere, although other shorter lived gasses are more impactful but have shorter lifespans.

    The most obvious other solution is not population growth, which isn't driving either of those top two contributors to the environment, but is literally faster phasing out of harmful energy and food usage including farming, by more efficient energy sources and cracking down on illegal overuse of pesticides and crop waste burning. Note that crop waste can be processed into stored fuel with minimal impacts, but the open burning of crop waste accelerates many other processes.

    Solution for this means artificial price supports for crop waste, so that it is converted into appropriate fuel, and reducing all tax exemptions and exclusions for all fossil fuels.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. 15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Among those included in this list of Climate Scientists:

    Davis, Joanne - Australian
    Daweti, Nokuthula - Student
    de Clercq, Deon - Earthling
    Hamilton, Ava - independent documentary producer/citizen scientist
    Jara, Andrea - Colombian
    Thapa, Lal - Asst. Professor of Alien Invasion

    It is very hard to take this (or their agenda) seriously when they won't even do the basic science of vetting a list of "scientists".

    1. Re:15000 Scientists by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This would carry more weight if:
      You weren't AC
      You cited your source, because I searched and can't find the official list of names to verify

      Well, here I am and here's the source -- amazingly enough, one click on a link from TFA. You didn't search very hard at all, did you?

      There are tons more fun ones, like:

      Thalmayer, Isaiah: Restoration Project Manager, Point Blue Conservation Science
      Swanson, Diana: medicine
      Swanson, John: Social Sciences - Psychology, Retired
      Swanson, Patrick: Professor, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University

      It's crystal-clear this is just 15k+ random people signing a feel-good petition. Any claim that these signatories are "scientists" in general, much less ones in appropriate fields to make authoritative comments about the subject matter, is unadulterated horseshit.