Is it too late? Are we just too selfish as a race, to deserve to live on this planet? Would the rest of the creatures / plants etc be better off without us?
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Is it too late? Are we just too selfish as a race, to deserve to live on this planet? Would the rest of the creatures / plants etc be better off without us?
I think we are too late @punkdoc, I just can't see how everything can be reversed, especially when you consider that so many people just don't care. I pick up the rubbish on the local ex railway line every morning, I go up to the far end and come back down - sometimes more rubbish has appeared between me going up and then down. It absolutely makes me rage! I do what I can but it is hard; you think you're doing something good but then it turns out you're damaging something else instead! I switched onto shampoo bars to reduce plastic, turns out some of them have palm oil in argh!
I do my bit and if that makes me an environmentalist then jolly good! My new year’s resolution was to reduce my use of plastic. I had a soda stream as a Christmas present as I drink a lot of bottled fizzy water and for my birthday a rice cooker as I was using those microwave sachets. I reuse plastic cleaning spray bottles and have ordered bamboo toothbrushes. Every little helps. In the garden I use no weed killer or insecticide and I try to help birds by feeding and insects by providing clean water and planting bee friendly flowers. I admire anyone with the willpower to do more, especially younger family members who are now vegan and dressed in recycled clothing. Well done to all the younger people fighting to save the environment. If Greta was my daughter I would be very proud of her. That said I would also praise my neighbours, mostly elderly ladies, who recycle assiduously! If you do anything at all well done you!
There's no easy answers. We could carry on flying or even expanding the aviation and tourism industries as we are and chances are large parts of the world will become uninhabitable within my lifetime due to climate change. Tourism funds conservation work in the Galapagos and then climate change caused in part by tourism drives species there to extinction https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/about-galapagos/conservation/climate-change/
Almost the worst case scenario though is everyone deciding it's too late to do anything and just enjoying peak capitalism while we can.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
By the way, although I said I think it's too late, I still am quite obsessive about saving the planet, I'm still going to try!
You know the planet will be all right, right? It's really all very people-centric. I can see people disappearing and taking 50% of species or more with us but once we are gone, there will be new life and new species. I am sorry for being philosophical and cynical but I am not sure if there is any value in life anymore. Are the disappearance of humanity and 50% of species sad? I don't know. Sometimes old has to go for the new to appear. Dinosaurs had to disappear to "make space" for most of life as we know it now. Too much conservationism and you have stagnation. Nature really isn't conservationist, that's us and our values. Nature also isn't in some kind of balance, it was evolving without us and it will be evolving after us. So it's about either conserving the environment or making it otherwise usable/habitable for the future generation of humans. Doing "our own bit" really isn't about saving the planet or about some long-term solution, it is just buying time for our kids and grandkids. One option is to stop all scientific progress or even regress to the pre-industrial level. I am sure some "environmentalists" would love that. The other way is to find other places for us, like Mars. Something in-between could be possible only if there is a much smaller population. BTW I visited Galapagos and it got me really thinking about conservationism. When you are there, it's very visible that the species there survived only because it was so isolated and now they are surviving only because of tourists' money. It's also quite evident that they are losing this battle. And the biggest threat isn't climate change but people living on the islands, their agriculture, and domestic animals.
so let's say we all stop flying. Tourism is the biggest industry on the planet. What about all the Greek islands , for example,which rely on tourism? What about entire countries which rely on Tourism? I'm sure London or Florida would survive but would countries like The Gambia or Cambodia ? or is an entire nation going bust a price worth paying? What about places like the Galapagos Islands etc where tourism funds conservation work, do we just let the poachers move in and kill the last elephants and rhinos because poor African countries have lost " the tourist dollar"?
There's a scheduled ferry service that takes all the goods, etc between the Greek Islands. Get the boat and enjoy the scenery.
If you packed up every October and got the train to Almeira and a boat to Morocco, then hung out there for a while until you could then get a boat or perhaps a shorter flight to the Gambia, stay there for 2 months, then make your way back home again in time to get the agapanthus out of the polytunnel in March, all the places on your route would benefit from you passing through, you'd still get your 6 weeks in the winter sun and whilst your carbon emissions wouldn't be zero, they'd be dramatically less than if you fly straight there. You'd love it
Our holiday patterns are a very recent habit. Many people don't fly once a year, they go 3 or 4 times a year, and often long haul. It's not critical to our survival. We watch David Attenborough programmes about bats dying of heat stroke in Australia and koala bears being burned alive and say 'gosh how terrible but I NEED 3 holidays a year so it must be someone else's job to do something about it'.
Until we have to pay what it actually costs, it's hard for people to make a sound judgement. Cheap flights have a very high price but it's just soo tempting when you're facing November nights drawing in, isn't it?
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Posts
Are we just too selfish as a race, to deserve to live on this planet?
Would the rest of the creatures / plants etc be better off without us?
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I do what I can but it is hard; you think you're doing something good but then it turns out you're damaging something else instead! I switched onto shampoo bars to reduce plastic, turns out some of them have palm oil in argh!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I am sorry for being philosophical and cynical but I am not sure if there is any value in life anymore. Are the disappearance of humanity and 50% of species sad? I don't know. Sometimes old has to go for the new to appear. Dinosaurs had to disappear to "make space" for most of life as we know it now. Too much conservationism and you have stagnation. Nature really isn't conservationist, that's us and our values. Nature also isn't in some kind of balance, it was evolving without us and it will be evolving after us.
So it's about either conserving the environment or making it otherwise usable/habitable for the future generation of humans. Doing "our own bit" really isn't about saving the planet or about some long-term solution, it is just buying time for our kids and grandkids.
One option is to stop all scientific progress or even regress to the pre-industrial level. I am sure some "environmentalists" would love that. The other way is to find other places for us, like Mars. Something in-between could be possible only if there is a much smaller population.
BTW I visited Galapagos and it got me really thinking about conservationism. When you are there, it's very visible that the species there survived only because it was so isolated and now they are surviving only because of tourists' money. It's also quite evident that they are losing this battle. And the biggest threat isn't climate change but people living on the islands, their agriculture, and domestic animals.
If you packed up every October and got the train to Almeira and a boat to Morocco, then hung out there for a while until you could then get a boat or perhaps a shorter flight to the Gambia, stay there for 2 months, then make your way back home again in time to get the agapanthus out of the polytunnel in March, all the places on your route would benefit from you passing through, you'd still get your 6 weeks in the winter sun and whilst your carbon emissions wouldn't be zero, they'd be dramatically less than if you fly straight there. You'd love it
Our holiday patterns are a very recent habit. Many people don't fly once a year, they go 3 or 4 times a year, and often long haul. It's not critical to our survival. We watch David Attenborough programmes about bats dying of heat stroke in Australia and koala bears being burned alive and say 'gosh how terrible but I NEED 3 holidays a year so it must be someone else's job to do something about it'.
Until we have to pay what it actually costs, it's hard for people to make a sound judgement. Cheap flights have a very high price but it's just soo tempting when you're facing November nights drawing in, isn't it?
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”