Reply to: Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF

[NotAllThere]

... We need to reach a point where human numbers begin to plummet so that the rest of the ecosystem can redress the imbalance.

You could take yourself out of the equation - that'd help.

The trouble with WWF and like-"minded" people is that they think so parochially and short-term. Sooner or later the Earth is going to get hit by a big asteroid, or be irradiated by a nearby supernova, or some such event. Even if that doesn't happen, in 4 billion years, the sun will turn into a red giant.

The only way all the fluffy bunnies are going to survive is if an intelligent species is around to head off the disaster, or in some other way mitigate it. One way is to leave the Earth and spread around the universe a bit. Unfortunately, initially that's going to require exploitation of the Earth's resources. So, we sacrifice 50% of the wildlife in order to prevent the extinction of 100%. Those mad anti-environment ravagers of the earth are actually doing us all a favour.

[pjclarke]

Its a very easy, but subjective question. What's your answer, Oh Optimist? How many degrees Celsius rise in the global average surface temperature would qualify as 'catastophic' in your book?

The term 'CAGW' was coined as a pretty transparent way of raising the bar/framing the debate, some scientists do use 'catastophic' it as a way of describing the consequences of the extreme end of the possible scenarios, but it has no place in the literature and does not appear, for example, in the IPCC reports.

As William Connolley said, in the linked article, 'if you can’t imagine anything between “catastrophic” and “nothing to worry about” then you’re not thinking.

HTH.

[EternalOptimist]

hey ho. another day, another link.
no thinking, no answers

just links. and edits.


so what is it pj ? catastrophic or not catastrophic ?


for crying out loud, it's not a hard question

[pjclarke]

If it isn’t catastrophic we’ve got nothing to worry about, have we? – Stoat

[EternalOptimist]

Oh I dont know.

One day you are asking me where the 'catastrophic' comes from. You must have thought that the sceptics invented it.
So when I show you a greenie using the term, you pretend it doesnt matter after all.

what we need from the greenie , eco-loonies is a bit of consistancy.

is it CAGW, or just AGW ?

[pjclarke]

Which part of 'possibility' is giving you a difficulty? But its just a Mail melange of quotes so I'm not going to waste any time with it ...

[EternalOptimist]

Quick pj, get over to the Brian Cox thread.

seems he believes in catastrophic climate change

'The physicist, 46, said that the possibility of 'catastrophic climate change'......'

[pjclarke]

in a few years time it will be harder to find a greenie who supports this policy

Well done. You just 'predicted' the past. Eg this, a mere decade old

Feeding Cars, Not People | George Monbiot

First and second gen biofuels, (EG Palm Oil, Ethanol from crops) make no environmental and little economic sense, better to use the land to grow crops to feed people or leave the jungle to the Orang-Utans. They may have started as a green enthusiasm but were quickly taken up by Big Agriculture, Big Agro-Chem and ironically, Big Oil, who could leverage their refinaries and expertise to exploit a new revenue source. George Bush in particular used greenwash about emissions reduction to justify a huge expansion in bio-ethanol, to reduce reliance on oil imports and subsidise his friends in Big Agribusiness.

Third generation biofuels, from algae and crop waste, which don't displace primary crops show some promise, tho'.

[EternalOptimist]

Interestingly one of the biggest threats to wildlife is renewables i.e. covering previously national parks with wind farms, or chopping down rain forests to replace them with plantations for biofuels.

Spot on.
How much habitat has been lost because of renewable fuels turning rainforests in Indonesia into biofuel plantations.
Talk about South America ? how much Amazon jungle was turned into renewable ethanol production?

As I said at the time, in a few years time it will be harder to find a greenie who supports this policy, than it was to find a nazi in germany after the war.

[BlasterBates]

Interestingly one of the biggest threats to wildlife is renewables i.e. covering previously national parks with wind farms, or chopping down rain forests to replace them with plantations for biofuels.

[original PM]

went to a city (sure it was called Nara) in Japan

deer roaming the streets and everything

very weird

[BrilloPad]

Disagree completely with all these doom laden predictions.

Just go back to the 70's or even further and look what the scientists were predicting. Most of it is "attention seeking bollox". A new religion.

Plenty of animals running around the cities. Still if it makes people happy to be depressed, so be it.

I agree. I saw a fox running round LOndon today. Shame I ran it over with my bike a few seconds later.

[BlasterBates]

Disagree completely with all these doom laden predictions.

Just go back to the 70's or even further and look what the scientists were predicting. Most of it is "attention seeking bollox". A new religion.

Plenty of animals running around the cities. Still if it makes people happy to be depressed, so be it.

[Mug27]

What we have now is out of balance and if something doesn't come along to redress the balance, then the Human Race will be living in a very boring, sterile place.[/QUOTE]

Canary Wharf then...

[stek]

What do a bunch of American Wrestlers know anyway?