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discuss The Environmental Thread - Earth Matters, so what's holding us back?

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Are you concerned about Climate Change?

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    Yes

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    80.0%
  • 2nd

    No

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    20.0%
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    Undecided

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  • 3rd (tie)

    We have bigger problems

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  • 3rd (tie)

    God will save us

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  • 5 votes
  • Ended 3 years ago
  • Final results

Cannuck

420 friendlyTop Member
Impact
13,968
I believe everyone would agree on at least one point - planet Earth matters! For years, scholars and environmentalists have touted the idea - that the boundaries of life on our planet have been stretched to a breaking point by human activity. From a scientific perspective, the notion of climate change is no longer up for debate. Our species and life as it exists on planet Earth now depends on the choices we humans make. Each individual with a brain possesses the ability to contribute solutions to our common current dilemma, so what's holding us back?

Is it our lack of knowledge; a conflict of interest; the lack of will, and/or other priorities that define the human race? Do we possess the courage to take an initiative, to act upon our convictions and choose to help preserve the Blue planet? Have our environmental problems become too big for individuals to tackle that we must leave it for governments to handle?

Are we limited by our own self-interests, by the confines of our own box or bubble? Have we merely been caught up in our daily mundane existence, distracted by the media and current affairs, that we fail to consider the future? Is Climate Change simply a hoax? Is the human species destined to evolve or are we doomed to extinction?

Here is place to discuss any pertinent thoughts or ideas you may have on the subject. Every thought counts. Please be respectful.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I see you did a bit more building out of your blue planet website. Thinking to do something with it over the winter?

Yup, that project web-development is definitely on the 'to-do' list. I've been pretty busy building an off-grid cabin and sorting firewood over the summer. Now that part is done, I managed to hook up a signal booster & increased my data plan so I can use my cell-phone tethered to a laptop to better work remotely. (y)

Edit: It's not really fair to say the public is apathetic, perhaps they are unaware or simply don't know what they can do, or maybe they feel their contribution means little if anything. Having personally reduced my carbon footprint dramatically, I can honestly say that it is not do-able for everyone.

Green communities are the answer. :xf.grin:
 
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Yup, that project web-development is definitely on the 'to-do' list. I've been pretty busy building an off-grid cabin and sorting firewood over the summer. Now that part is done, I managed to hook up a signal booster & increased my data plan so I can use my cell-phone tethered to a laptop to better work remotely. (y)

Edit: It's not really fair to say the public is apathetic, perhaps they are unaware or simply don't know what they can do, or maybe they feel their contribution means little if anything. Having personally reduced my carbon footprint dramatically, I can honestly say that it is not do-able for everyone.

Green communities are the answer. :xf.grin:

Looking forward to seeing what your website thinking solidifies to.

Under your 'Mission', I'm wondering if a word like 'regenerate/regeneration' might work? A thought.
 
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One step forward, two steps back... the climate crisis is outpacing any government progress. Even if global greenhouse emissions were neutralized tomorrow, we would still face decades of destabilized climate conditions.

“We are getting to the point where the rubber hits the road, where we’re going to have to make, you know, tough decisions by government officials. I don’t, certainly do not, underestimate the difficulty of the task which is ahead of us,” said climate summit president, Alok Sharma.

e1a472c0355a6e75c2f2d8bc52ee20b7.png
 
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The era of exploitative throw-away capitalism will soon be over. It is essential we move to a new model of economics that prioritises wellbeing and sustainability over profit.

What is "greenwashing"? Companies that claim to be eco-friendly but are actually exploitive and environmentally negligent.


I found the footage at 2:33 to be rather poignant - using planet earth as a piñata.
 
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1320_effects-image.jpg


FACT: The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come.

https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
 
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Can You Solve Climate Change Better Than World Leaders?​


Thanks to nonprofit think tank Climate Interactive, you can role-play the UN Climate Negotiations or calculate the emissions reduction potential of your favorite “save the planet” policies and climate-friendly actions. Climate Interactive, in partnership with the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, created two tools to make climate science and climate action more accessible and less science-y:

  • En-ROADS (Energy Rapid Overview and Decision Support) is a free, online simulation tool that models warming based on input climate actions and policies focused on things like taxes, subsidies, economic growth, fuel mix, energy efficiency, technical innovation, and other factors.
  • C-ROADS (Climate Rapid Overview and Decision Support) is a climate change policy simulator that tests countries’ emissions reduction pledges to determine whether they are sufficient to stay within the planetary limitations scientists agree on.
Ellie Johnston, climate and energy program coordinator for Climate Interactive, shares more about Climate Interactive’s goals and the science behind these simulation models:

“Our goal is to help people understand the vast scope of possible actions we might take on climate,” Johnston says. “We synthesized the best available science from reports and institutions like the IEA (International Energy Agency), IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and the World Bank to create a free and easy-to-use model so people can quickly distill insights that would be incredibly difficult to glean from reading the reports.”

“En-ROADS and C-ROADS are tools to test out our mental models—does planting trees or implementing a carbon tax have as much impact as I think it will? I can plug in various scenarios and see which actions make a difference in temperature or sea-level rise, or species loss, or ocean acidification. They are like flight simulators,” Johnston explains. “Just as pilots use a simulator when training to fly an airplane, we can simulate different climate and policy actions, get feedback, and explore why some actions are more impactful than others. We only have one planet. We need to test theories to see what has the highest impacts.”

https://www.wired.com/story/can-you-solve-climate-change-role-play/
 
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Not finding another planet.

And if we did, that planet would merely become another source of raw material... extract, rinse and repeat.
 
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Another Record: Ocean Warming Continues through 2021 despite La Niña Conditions


The world ocean, in 2021, was the hottest ever recorded by humans, and the 2021 annual OHC value is even higher than last year’s record value.

The world has eight years to hit targets

With the latest analysis, it seems that there is a 66% chance of the Earth warming by 2.7° by the end of the century. If warming reaches this height, it will become extremely difficult for the poorest communities in the world to survive.

What are the odds we'll meet global targets? :unsure:
 
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Global Plastic Pollution Agreement: A historic moment​



On March 2 2022, Heads of State, Ministers of environment and other representatives from 175 nations endorsed a historic resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi to End Plastic Pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement by 2024. The resolution addresses the full lifecycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal.

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/video/global-plastic-pollution-agreement-historic-moment
 
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Owning one's own property affordably, security, farming and sustainable living: Is it a possibility or just a radical thought?

Wilderness seekers in Northern Ontario plan to do just that... http://www.borealvillages.ca/

Read more
 
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This Ancient Fertilizer Is a Skeleton Key for Saving Earth​


Biochar, long championed by soil scientists, has become a darling of the climate mitigation movement as well for its ability to sequester carbon, as the impacts of climate change have grown increasingly apparent and destructive.

“It’s really an ancient technology,” said Rebecca Ryals, an agroecologist at the University of California, Merced. For generations, Indigenous communities in the Amazon put charcoal into the ground, transforming the region’s notoriously nutrient-poor soils into pockets of dark, fertile earth known as terra preta.

Today, biochars are created by burning wood, crop, and other organic waste at high temperatures and low oxygen—a process known as pyrolysis that creates a super stable structure that can lock up carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years. Of all the “negative emissions technologies” that the United Nations climate panel said humanity needs to pull carbon from the atmosphere and avoid catastrophic global warming, biochar is currently the only one that is technologically and economically feasible.

In 2010, research from Cornell University’s Johannes Lehmann suggested that as a soil amendment, biochar could drawdown up to 12 percent of global annual emissions—all while improving soil health, water retention, and crop yields for farmers. But so far it has not lived up to that potential.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ancie...a-solution-to-fight-climate-change?ref=scroll
 
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Life is holding us back, we have to live , until better means become available for humans to survive , as of right now, there aren’t better means for humans to exist on earth IMO
 
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Life is holding us back, we have to live , until better means become available for humans to survive , as of right now, there aren’t better means for humans to exist on earth IMO

Humans survived the Ice Age, we are adaptable. Our species will continue in some corners of the planet or in space IMO. Many will never reap the economic spoils of modern society, nor will other species be so lucky.
 
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Humans survived the Ice Age, we are adaptable. Our species will continue in some corners of the planet or in space IMO. Many will never reap the economic spoils of modern society, nor will other species be so lucky.
The world evolved before our time to using fossil fuels as means to evolve , oil, natural gas , coal , phosphorus and many many other natural resources, thus making countries through out the world bare an economy based on these natural resources and minerals. To just stop using these resources would virtually shut the complete world down, other means are being introduced to substitute for these fossil fuels and minerals . It is going to take time, perhaps another 25 years to be able to phase out fossil fuels and minerals.

For instance , EV is great idea theoretically, but batteries have earth barring contaminates that can produce the same results as petrol fuels , we don’t know to what extent yet as battery has never powered the world before .

The large use of trees is equal in evolution , glue, our housing, paper and on and on, is the worlds way of producing these goods.

We first have to know what these other means of producing goods with different materials will do to the environment before just releasing them as a new means .

Look at oil , natural gas , minerals , coal, the grass root natural resources that were used in evolution , all earths natural resources, not good for planet and contaminate.

It’s no different with new resources that are being used to substitute, they had no idea that the natural earth resources would contaminate like they have when they invented petrol fuel, coal burning factories and ect .

What we “Might” think is eco friendly today from the new resources being implemented, may very well be as bad for the earth as what we are using right now, only time tells the fallout in mass use of these new resources IMO

In the mean time, the world must continue to operate in the manner it knows IMO
 
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It’s no different with new resources that are being used to substitute, they had no idea that the natural earth resources would contaminate like they have when they invented petrol fuel, coal burning factories and ect .

What we “Might” think is eco friendly today from the new resources being implemented, may very well be as bad for the earth as what we are using right now, only time tells the fallout in mass use of these new resources IMO

In the mean time, the world must continue to operate in the manner it knows IMO

We can get the same or better results by doing things differently. Renewables are significantly undercutting fossil fuel companies for producing energy - the cost of energy is falling, not going up - like at the pumps. Old dinosaur powered coal power plants are less competitive and polluting, they need to be phased out. Fracking is another issue, using massive amounts of fresh water and contaminating local rives, lakes and groundwater in the extraction, releasing hydrocarbons and greenhouse gasses when burned.

If we do what we always done, we'll get what we always got.
 
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If we do what we always done, we'll get what we always got.
What, you mean we won't get different results by doing the same thing? Insanity.
 
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