Peterkin

for reference, I attempted to answer: Not: The answer to which is: It was rhetorical. Obviously, neither your solution of reducing craziness while population continues to grow, or mine of reducing population through reproductive freedom and improved living conditions, which I believe would incidentally reduce the craziness, will ever be tried by any non-existent collective humanity that could be encompassed by the theoretical "we" that should be doing what we each think should be done.

There is no "we". Each of us can try to to affect what we are able to reach. Voting, writing letters, protesting, getting arrested, turning off the air conditioner, donating money, eating less meat, practicing birth control, picking the slugs off our lettuces by hand instead of setting out poison traps. We can each do something.

We know exactly which organizations and individuals should be doing what. We also know that they are refusing or failing to do it in a timely and effective manner. It's just not in the immediate interest of the powerful to facilitate the long-term welfare of the powerless. In climate change mitigation, in population control, in economic reform, in political compromise or in the preservation of ecosystems. The only things be we can be quite sure of: a growing, hungry, threatened human race will not improve the situation.

Nolne of which you have supplied, any more than have all the overcrowded, overstressed civilizations - without even mentioning the enormous profits to be gleaned from the craziness. It happens automatically with improved living conditions, lower infant mortality, the liberation and education of women. Let's try both and see which works better.

Okay. How? Given the present state of politics, economics, religiosity and environmental conditions - who [bearing in mind there is no unanimous "we", only individuals and organizations] should be doing what, how where and with what resources?

Because we're using up the resources and killing every other species - that was happening before we heated up the atmosphere and threatened nuclear holocaust. The more crowded we are, the crazier we get.

Couple of things about that: Thing 1: Viruses already exist, and are already coming for the vulnerable; they don't need any help, though they're getting plenty from the lunatic right. Thing 2: Explain about resetting the economy - who is expected to do this, where, on what scale, by what measures? Not necessarily, if the remainder, bereft of human labour to create all the stuff for them resort to more and more mechanization, which requires energy production: an automated world of super-consumers can still be overheated. It would be wiser to reduce population voluntarily, by empowering women to control their own fertility. Not so very strangely, the same political entities that oppose reproductive rights also oppose ecological initiatives.

I can just about discern an overall trend. By no means conclusive, of course. If a patient's chart looked like that, without intervention we could say, "We won't have a definitive diagnosis until after the autopsy."

Especially if it takes that long for some people to pay attention!

Not so so "pure" speculation. Based a very large accumulation of evidence, all of which is available to anyone willing to look. Not so wild, either. deserts growing https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/climate-change-harming-deserts/ sea level rising https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html rivers drying up https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/03/receding-glaciers-causing-rivers-to-suddenly-disappear lots of places uninhabitable The video doesn't work . Now, that one is wild. Are you aware of how much of Canada and Russia are already burning every summer? Guess what that's doing to the oxygen production and carbon capture capability of forests. Or how much of the northern ecosystem is collapsing because it depends on permafrost, the thawing of which, incidentally, accelerates climate change. And that's before you even start factoring in the severe winter storms, spring floods and summer droughts, tornadoes all across the central plains reaching farther east; hurricanes along the coast, reaching farther inland, unpredictable wind and rainfall, and all the plant diseases and insect infestations. Good luck with that!

Why is everyone focusing on this one outspoken child? Because she got attention - by pointing. They were reasonable. They laid out arguments backed by meticulous research, published scientific papers in respected journals, held conferences, advised governments, NGO's, international agencies and the UN. They were heard, nodded-at, and ignored. They didn't point fingers. Or get arrested on mass media. They were not sufficiently desperate.

Not or; and.

Sure it is, once climate change really gets going - remember it's not linear or steady over time - the sea level rises, the climate refugees crowd into a dwindling habitable zone, more frequent famines, pandemics and wars break out, including, sooner rather than later, maybe the big one with all the nukes. Population of every kind will fall rapidly indeed. And now there is another dimension of technological rivalry and territorial confrontations.  

True. You can't have long term survival without short term survival. That doesn't make the situation any less urgent, since a great many people are already dying in climate-related events. The only up-side is that, due to more accurate forecasting and warning, the death toll per event is reduced. But the economic consequences are not.

While halving the area fit for human habitation. For one thing students in Tallahassee and Islamabad would be allowed to know that they have genitals, and might get access to textbooks and birth control. Might be worth a try, taking all the money and power away from those 82 people, several of whom are insane and/or evil.

Yes, it is a feedback loop: economic development causes climate change; economic development is rated as higher priority than extinction due to climate change; therefore economic development takes precedence over climate change mitigation, resulting in more and faster climate change. Yes, we are doomed.

Any subtropical tide pool. Maybe more than one.

Top 10 Countries in Which to Live (World Happiness Report 2022): Finland — 7.821. Denmark — 7.636. Iceland — 7.557. Switzerland — 7.512. Netherlands — 7.415. Luxembourg — 7.404. Sweden — 7.384. Norway — 7.365. Top 10 Greenest Countries in the World (2022 EPI): Denmark — 77.9 United Kingdom — 77.7 Finland — 76.5 Malta — 75.2 Sweden — 72.7 Luxembourg — 72.3 Slovenia — 67.3 Austria — 66.5 Switzerland — 65.9 Iceland — 62.8 Top 10 Countries with the Highest Personal Income Tax Rates - Trading Economics 2021: Ivory Coast - 60% Finland - 56.95% Japan - 55.97% Denmark - 55.90% Austria - 55.00% Sweden - 52.90% Aruba - 52.00% Belgium - 50.00% (tie) Israel - 50.00% (tie) Slovenia - 50.00% (tie) Seems like the Scandanavians are doing something right.

Nor do I . I could challenge each of the numbered statements for veracity. This one, however, is accurate, so far as it goes. Hence my skepticism as to the assertion that those struggling people are given a choice between short and long term survival. And, of course, my next question would be: Is it really the "extreme left wing activists" who control the circumstances in which those people struggle, or is it other, more power entities which could, were it in their own interests, effect an improvement in those people's lives and at the same time, the planet's?

No, that's what I have called people who express a high level of insincerity in public discourse. The guy has an agenda and a well known strategy. Listen to the catch-phrases, the dripping sarcasm, the innuendo. He knows his audience and how to play it. I don't believe he's reachable by means of argument, because his agenda is not fact- or reason-based; it serves a different purpose. But I do apologize to sharks! It won't happen again. Yeah, that's where I bailed, when the guy said poor people were given the choice. Not the billionnaires, not the global corporations, not the movers and launderers of vast quantities of crime profit, not governments - it's down to the non-white poor. Even if he eventually came up with a reasonable suggestion, his style was too odious for it to be worth waiting for.

That was never within the realm of possibility with sharks like this guy.

"combat racism by treating people based solely on the content of their character" "woke culture that we must all oppose" "our culture" "western values" Having made those points, three times, he will not make any of those points for the fourth time. "That's all." (He's just getting started.) "You wish to save the planet. And for tonight, and tonight only, I will join you." "in worshipping at the feet of St. Greta of climate change." "Let us all accept... that we are living though a state of climate emergency... I join you in this myth." "What are we going to do about it?" "It's going to be decided in Asia and Latin America by poor people who couldn't give a shit about the planet" Sorry, that's all I had the stomach for.

Any idea how much of the biomass represented there is from trees?

I'm rereading Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words - and it's even more chilling than the first time. No way am I revisiting Headhunter!