A moral climate
- 27 Apr 06, 10:35 AM
It is interesting to see how the debate surrounding global warming and environmental issues is shifting from one based on science and statistics to one that includes morals and ethics. It is becoming increasingly clear that the state of the earth will affect the poorer nations first - desertification, crop failure, disease like malaria and increasing violent weather. The Archbishop of Canterbury was the first public figure to stress the moral side of the issue and that is now gaining ground. Concern for the environment is no longer purely the realm of NGOs and greenies, it is infiltrating all levels of society. When the Dalai Lama spoke directly to Tibetans denouncing the use of animal skins and the illegal trade in animal products people burnt their priceless furs in the street. In one bold statement the Dalai Lama did what NGOs had been trying to do for decades, put a serious dent in the illegal fur trade. It will be interesting see if, in the months to come, other religions take this issue seriously and start changing hearts and minds.
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I welcome your new effort and wish you (and all of us as recipients) well.
Just to note, that as our leaders begin to recognise the moral dimension of the rape of the earth, we continue to increase our percapita load in the 'developed world', ehwer we are already taking several times as much as the global percapita load.
I have on several occasions, including paraphrases of Lovelock and directly from the Chancellor's mouth, the sentiment that we in Britain can't do much on our own, because we only contribute some 2% of global GHG emissions. I await some sharp interviewer's response pointing out that we in Britain only amount to 0.1% of global population and are thus polluting at some twenty times our weight.
While one fifth of the world's folk continue to draw four fifths of the benefit of an unsustainable 'harvest', what hope can we have that the other four fifths will exercise restraint?
And every day bring's some 200,000 new living, breathing humans (nett!)to share the shrinking Earth. - a Tsunami's worth every day, and every five days another million.
It's hard to be optimistic under the burden of such awareness.
Love and kisses and all the best in your endeavours.
Vaya con Gaia
Ed
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Presumably the poster is a keen supporter of AIDS, famine and global terrorism, as these things all help reduce the world's population - just like the odd tidal wave.
Famine was widely predicted as the world's population grew quickly after world war 2. In reality better agricultural techniques meant that food production outstripped this growth and the mass famines never happened.
India and China under Mao once saw millions die in famine, now as free markets have unlocked their potential, they are seeing massive economic growth. This growth means that Indians and Chinese people now worry more about which type of IPOD to buy, rather than if they'll still be alive tomorrow.
It's free markets and economic growth which has saved people from famine, and yet it's free markets and economic growth which are so hated by the green lobby, which see them as destroying the earth.
Do you see the contradiction here? Growth is what prevents starvation, rather than causing it.
Furthermore, women in developed countries always have far fewer babies then women in the developing world. The more money and freedom women have, the fewer children they bear. Birth rates in Europe and Japan have collapsed for example. If you want to see birth rates to decline you should be in favour of economic growth, as it's the best birth control there is.
I'm sure arguments like these will at least be mentioned in your impartial programme on the totally unbiased 成人快手.
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I'm afraid 'the poster's point was that even famine, pestilence and tidal waves aren't even denting the rising tide of humanity. The general understanding is that increasing population follows increasing food supply as 'the other poster' notes without understanding.
Another point missed (or ignored) was that as 'economic growth and free markets' reduce population growth, they more than compensate for this gain with an exponential increase in percapita loading on the Earth's resources, i.e. we in the 'developed world' have an ecological footprint many times the size of those folk in the 'developing world'.
"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a
finite world is either a madman or an economist." --Kenneth Boulding
"Anyone who believes we can continue indefinitely having several times our natural share must be either amoral or a fool." -- I said that!
"....But there is no glory in the threat of climate change. The story it tells us is of yeast in a barrel, feeding and farting until they are poisoned by their own waste. It is too squalid an ending for our anthropocentric conceit to accept."
-- George Monbiot
Vaya con Gaia
Ed Iglehart
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The morality is far worse. The developing world will suffer the most and has contributed the least.
In the late 21st and 22nd centuries a new form of environmento-imperialism will become apparent, and war will inevitably result.
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