Entry tags:
Bird 'flu 2
I wonder if it's worth making something clear.
I don't really want people to die, I empathise too much with the victims and their families for a start. It's why I can't watch the news, I just get really depressed at the waste of life and potential. And hell, I don't want to die, either.
But at this rate it's the only way we're going to be able to have a liveable environment for our grandkids. The human race is expanding too fast with too little regard for their eco-system and the limited resources around them. The thing is, the damage is not only done, it has momentum. It'll take decades for that to slow down if not stop, even if we all changed our ways from tomorrow.
And the changes to rectify this happen at a snail's pace.
I'd happily welcome solutions where the Earth's human population isn't cut in half. Please, anyone, I'm happy to hear them. But they need to be practical and realistically achieveable. Because when important changes are brought up, like Kyoto, they have nations like the US (and Australia!) saying they aren't going to do it. The governments make the decisions that keep them in office and please big business, they don't plan long term. If they did the Vic governments would have been building more trainlines rather than more roads for the last two decades.
I don't want or expect people to have to give up their luxuries. Hell, I like my DVD's and fast food and internet porn, too. But I do want people to appreciate where things come from, understand where they go, and realise the impact that has.
The Barrier Reef is dying.
I've been traveling the same stretches of road for almost twenty years and I've watched huge chunks of Australian forest slowly killed by salinity and poisons.
The biodiversity is dropping and many animal and plant species are dangerously close to dying out. How many do we have to lose before people think it's important enough to make big changes? Or do we just need to lose a few of the cuter, well-known ones? Two of the three species of wombat are endangered. I don't know about anyone else, but I like wombats.
I dunno, maybe I only care so much because I've seen it first hand. If I never went bush, didn't watch the damage creeping slowly across the land, didn't see the rubbish in our waterways and the debris in our bushland, maybe I wouldn't care either.
But I want my grandkids and your grandkids and everyone's grandkids to have the chance to live in a world where the forests aren't dead and where the resources aren't used up.
With three species of wombat, rather than one.
And for that, I'm happy to see our numbers thinned. It's a simple if drastic solution and it's a natural one. We get plagues and viruses from time to time that hit the humans. We're actually rather overdue. And I'm sure the planet could use the breathing space.
I'd love to hear from people with better solutions that can be as easily achieved.
I don't really want people to die, I empathise too much with the victims and their families for a start. It's why I can't watch the news, I just get really depressed at the waste of life and potential. And hell, I don't want to die, either.
But at this rate it's the only way we're going to be able to have a liveable environment for our grandkids. The human race is expanding too fast with too little regard for their eco-system and the limited resources around them. The thing is, the damage is not only done, it has momentum. It'll take decades for that to slow down if not stop, even if we all changed our ways from tomorrow.
And the changes to rectify this happen at a snail's pace.
I'd happily welcome solutions where the Earth's human population isn't cut in half. Please, anyone, I'm happy to hear them. But they need to be practical and realistically achieveable. Because when important changes are brought up, like Kyoto, they have nations like the US (and Australia!) saying they aren't going to do it. The governments make the decisions that keep them in office and please big business, they don't plan long term. If they did the Vic governments would have been building more trainlines rather than more roads for the last two decades.
I don't want or expect people to have to give up their luxuries. Hell, I like my DVD's and fast food and internet porn, too. But I do want people to appreciate where things come from, understand where they go, and realise the impact that has.
The Barrier Reef is dying.
I've been traveling the same stretches of road for almost twenty years and I've watched huge chunks of Australian forest slowly killed by salinity and poisons.
The biodiversity is dropping and many animal and plant species are dangerously close to dying out. How many do we have to lose before people think it's important enough to make big changes? Or do we just need to lose a few of the cuter, well-known ones? Two of the three species of wombat are endangered. I don't know about anyone else, but I like wombats.
I dunno, maybe I only care so much because I've seen it first hand. If I never went bush, didn't watch the damage creeping slowly across the land, didn't see the rubbish in our waterways and the debris in our bushland, maybe I wouldn't care either.
But I want my grandkids and your grandkids and everyone's grandkids to have the chance to live in a world where the forests aren't dead and where the resources aren't used up.
With three species of wombat, rather than one.
And for that, I'm happy to see our numbers thinned. It's a simple if drastic solution and it's a natural one. We get plagues and viruses from time to time that hit the humans. We're actually rather overdue. And I'm sure the planet could use the breathing space.
I'd love to hear from people with better solutions that can be as easily achieved.
no subject
Wombat's are very cool: I called Kerry a Wombat when I was 12 and it has stuck ever since.
no subject
Wombats are cool, and Kerry's kind of cool too, so it fits :)
no subject
* A requirement of a one/two child policy. Though with the increase in divorce and remarrage it could be difficult- someone who sees their kids twice a year could be prohibited from having more kids with a new partner.
* Banning of IVF/fertility treatments.
* Cutting government handouts to people who have kids (such as the "baby bonus", "family allowance" and tax breaks).
* Free sterilistation and contraception along with better sex education and education on how different forms of contraception work.
* Increasing security in developing nations (I mean food & health security not bombs and war security) would help, if you know your children are going to make it to adulthood and someone will care for you in your old age, you will have less children.
Just some suggestions that are more long term but have the advantage of people not dying from horrible diseases. They would be easily achived if society didn't have the mentality that was pro-breeder.
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So a whole pile of humans would die - probably a lot of very old and very young people - and we'd keep damaging the environment regardless. Bird flu isn't the solution.
no subject
I've never thought it was a good solution. But it is something that I can honestly see happening within our lifetime and if it takes out enough people to give the environment a break, then I can't be too sorry about that. I'll be sorry for the loss of life, and I'll probably cry everytime I watch the news, but I already mourn the areas that have been left wastelands and get pretty damned distressed when I hear about yet another on the endangered/extinct list.