Tag Archives: Extinction

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHY IS IT WE CAN’T ACT FOR THE COMMON GOOD?

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Politics., Sustaniability, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

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( A four-minute Read.)

Whatever Happened to the “Common Good”?

Our politics have become so polarized and increasingly volatile; and our political institutions have lost the public trust. 

There is (Almost) No Such Thing as the “Common Good”

We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where group selfishly protect their own benefits. Our most fundamental social problems grow out of a widespread pursuit of individual interests and greed.

Recommitting ourselves to the general welfare could solve the deepest problems the world now face.

The very idea of a common good is inconsistent with a pluralistic society like ours.

Different people have different ideas about what is worthwhile or what constitutes “the good life for human beings”, differences that have increased during the last few decades as the voices of more and more previously silenced groups, such as women and minorities, have been heard.

Given these differences, some people urge, it will be impossible for us to agree on what particular kind of social systems, institutions, and environments we will all pitch in to support.

It might seem that since all citizens benefit from the common good, we would all willingly respond to urgings that we each cooperate to establish and maintain the common good.

Examples of particular common goods or parts of the common good include an accessible and affordable public health care system, and effective system of public safety and security, peace among the nations of the world, a just legal and political system, and unpolluted natural environment, and a flourishing economic system.

Because such systems, institutions, and environments have such a powerful impact on the well-being of members of a society, it is no surprise that virtually every social problem in one way or another is linked to how well these systems and institutions are functioning.

So why is it that we are unable to act for the Common Good of humanity and the Planet?

Our culture views society as comprised of separate independent individuals who are free to pursue their own individual goals and interests without interference from others.

In this individualistic culture it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to convince people that they should sacrifice some of their freedom, some of their personal goals, and some of their self-interest, for the sake of the “common good”.

This combined with the fact that we have turned everything into a commodity to be bought or make profit on has blurred our values of the common good.

These days one might describe the common good as “certain general conditions that are…equally to everyone’s advantage”.

Even if we agreed upon what we all valued, we would certainly disagree about the relative values things have for us.

Such disagreements are bound to undercut our ability to evoke a sustained and widespread commitment to the common good.

In the face of such pluralism, efforts to bring about the common good can only lead to adopting or promoting the views of some, while excluding others, violating the principle of treating people equally.

Moreover, such efforts would force everyone to support some specific notion of the common good, violating the freedom of those who do not share in that goal, and inevitably leading to paternalism (imposing one group’s preference on others), tyranny, and oppression.

We left with cultural traditions, that in fact, reinforce the individual who thinks that she should not have to contribute to the community’s common good, but should be left free to pursue her own personal ends.

WHERE DOES ANY OF THIS LEAVE US?

A good questions but complicated because complete societies all with different laws, rules, and beliefs,(which we can call ‘polities,’ or ‘countries’) take many forms in different times and places but they always include some kind of rule ordering them to the common good.

This may well be so but the overriding self interest   Resulting in a planet of Inequalities, rampant climate change, conflicts, wars, pollution on a massive scale, corruption, and profit at any cost.

Not all people live under a state, but every [complete] human community by definition is a polity.» Polities enable families, local communities (‘villages’), and associations to flourish by realizing many common goods, but polities also allow for the achievement of greater common goods.

The good news is with modern-day technology we are on the threshold of discovering a new way.

  • It is possible for acts of individual humans armed with powerful technologies to make decisions that may affect the future survival of the whole human race.
  • We can imagine the possibility of extinction (whether by our own efforts or due to some external cause), and we can agree to work together to prevent such an eventuality.

Of course, even while we work on a common goal of preserving the species, we will still all be competing to maintain a larger share of descendants within the future population, and this may still result in technological developments that threaten the extinction of everyone.

Whether one goal (survival of the species) can win out against the other goal (relative reproductive success of the individual) is not a fore-gone conclusion.

For me it consists primarily of having the social systems, institutions, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people.

The internet revolution is transforming the way knowledge is disseminated and how people unite over causes. ( see post: The Beady Eye asks: Are we condemned to reaction politics for the foreseeable future)

This means that our out of date world organisations need to come up to speed.

Establishing a pro active chamber of Governance with non political expert representatives, immune from lobbing, that would be concerned with the long-term view to avoid potential threats or to capitalize on potential opportunities.

This Chamber actions subject to Social Media network electronic voting by the tax paying citizens.

Placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% ALL HIGH FREQUENCY STOCK EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS. ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS OVER $20,000. ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACQUISITIONS . ON ALL NEW DRILL LICENCES.

THIS WOULD CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND FROM PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE AND ALL OTHER WORLD PROBLEMS OF INEQUALITY.

WHY SUCH A FUND? Because appeals to the common good are confronted by the problem of an unequal sharing of burdens.

Our desire or desires are personal incapable of being satisfied because of our internal sense of imagination.

If good is the cause of desire, how can it be that people do not want what is good?

Indeed, all sense pleasures seem to be intended by nature to be connected to actions that lead toward the lower and more basic of the honorable goods such as the preservation and reproduction of life.

This is lost in large complex societies.

Is this the reason we are unable to act for the common good.

To define the good as ‘what all want’ is therefore a definition not of an effect by its cause, but just the opposite: a definition of a cause by its effect. The good is a cause. It is the final cause, the end or purpose.

If you get what I mean.

Hunger is the desire for food, but food is not good because there is hunger. Rather, there is hunger because food is good and necessary for the preservation of one’s substance.

The good is desirable as known, and therefore as long as it is unknown it is powerless to cause desire.

Many economists claim that in any free exchange each party must think that they are getting something better out of the deal.

But people are not such fools.

Whoever wins, others must lose.

Therefore, for humanity, there is no “Common Good”.

Other than the continued survival of the human race as a species.

Unless, perhaps, we can avoid the finiteness by expanding into outer space.

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Historically, our darkest hours on Earth have given birth to some of our most brilliant moments—our brightest ideas and most illuminating conversations.

The challenges we’re facing can spur us towards brilliance—and prompt a course correction. We must be both far-sighted and courageous in our thinking.

Our house is on fire. What will we save?

Not the redistribution of wealth by governments Tax to create greater equality.

Especially insofar as they are only concern with interior acts power rather than the outward behavior which directly affects other people.

We must also support thinkers and leaders who can help expand our collective understanding of what’s valuable beyond the narrow one-dimensionality of a profit margin.

We may never find a truly satisfying and conclusive answer.

Maybe its the wrong question altogether.  You will never really know what it is to be me and I will never really what it is to be like you. And this very unknowability of other humans beings is what is the common good.

The human common good—now understanding that phrase without restriction to the state’s or political community’s good is impossible.

ALL COMMENTS WELCOME.

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THE BEADY EYE WISHES YOU A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR.

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Humanity., The Future, The world to day., Uncategorized

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THIS IS WHERE YOU LIVE.

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ITS WORTH SAVING. 

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THE BEADY EYE ( PART FOUR) ASK’S WHY IS THE WORLD LIKE THIS.

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Corruption., Humanity., Life., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Paris terrorist attack., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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Our painting now has a wash of money, a random application of religion and the Gun with a transparent over wash of humanity.Afficher l'image d'origine

I think it would be a grave injustice to speak of the human species ( Other than ISIS and their like) as in some sense evil, even though we are destroying the environment so efficiently at the present time.

The nature of humankind is to expand its population, to gain security, to control, to alter. For millions of years that paid off without undue damage.

But then what happened was, as we developed a modern industrial capacity, and then the techno scientific capacity to eliminate entire habitats quickly and efficiently, we succeeded too well and at long last we broke nature. And now, almost too late, we are waking up to the fact that we have overdone it and that we are destroying the very foundation of the environment on which humanity was built.

Its time to add a healthy dollop of Earth to our canvas.

One frequently quoted piece of evidence against a Christian green ethic is the command to our first parents to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28).

How should we interpret this?

Does this mean we should be thrilled at increasing populations?

Well, to start with, ‘filling’ is not the same as over-filling. We should also remember that it is only in the last 100 years, that over-populating the world has become a real prospect.

In giving us “dominion”, God appointed us as His stewards or care-takers, and will hold us accountable for the way we discharge our responsibility, just like the husband-men and talent-holders in Jesus’ parables (Mat. 25:14-30, Luke. 20:9-16).

It does not matter whether you are a believer or not the ‘State of the Planet’ makes clear that we are unique in terms of our destructive potential, and we alone must change our behavior in response to moral beliefs and challenges.

People with or without religious belief can (and do) recognise and accept that we have a role as Stewards. It is agreed by ALL RELIGIONS that humans are not simply answerable to future generations for their management of nature, but that they are answerable to the one God who created them in his image so that they would manage the earth on his behalf.

The key or ethical argument – an argument of stewardship, an argument of handing on a world as rich as the one we inherited does not need any religious belief.

The rate at which species are becoming extinct as a consequence of human activity is staggering.

The problem is all around us and we are all part of the problem.

The problem now is recognising this fact. It can be the first step in becoming an active part in the solution

Human beings have created derelict industrial sites, open-cast mines, scrap yards and polluted rivers and beaches. Our current actions are producing greater and more rapid changes than ever before.

There is some pallet of colors to pick from. Soil erosion and loss of fertility. Deforestation Water-quality pollution Waste. Generation and global toxification. Human and cultural degradation.  Alterations of earth’s energy exchange with the sun – green house gasses keep in too much heat resulting in global warming.

Our life-styles tend to keep us isolated from the awesome power and beauty of creation. Consequently we loose sight of its wonder, and as a result, we have a poorer understanding of the mess we ARE ALL IN.

Most of us are disconnected from our actions and their environmental effects.

We seldom if ever see our food growing, because it comes from shops. Few people who buy petrol from garages have ever seen an oil production platform or refinery. We may claim to deplore environmental damage, but by acquiescing in the system makes us accomplices in the crime.

We can just continue with the inevitable consequences of ignorance and greed, thoughtlessly bending the world to creating more bits of garbage to amuse ourselves…

No matter which course we take knowledge does not lead automatically to action.

The time has come… to destroy those who destroy the earth.

Why is it that the activities of our one species, aiming at no more than living in reasonable comfort and avoiding hunger, should cause such devastation on the rest of the natural world?

The answer is in our back ground wash, and how it has being applied with greed and corruption of power by all societies.

By now we  should understand which of humanity’s activities inflict the greatest damage on the diversity of animal and plants of this planet.

But the problem is we are self centered and look like remaining so.

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The average American consumes 40 times as much energy as the typical third-world inhabitant and the average European some 20 times as much.

One European uses as much energy as 20 Bangladeshis.

In short, a change to our societies, our economics, and our politics and our world organisations is needed.

Here is a snap shot of what the Paris Climate Change Conference 2015 is up against.

Qatar :

Qatar’s carbon emissions per capita are the highest in the world and three times as high as the United States’. Qatar, gas prices in Kuwait are among the lowest in the world, while GDP is among the highest. This, coupled with a lack of public transit infrastructure, makes road travel the sole means of mobility for both citizens and businesses moving goods. According to the Global Footprint Network, the average Kuwaiti uses 22 times more resources than the country provides per person.

Ireland:

A fuel farm on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, grows rapeseed (canola) plants to ultimately make biofuel.

In 2008, however, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita were the second highest in the European Union.

Agriculture is the largest source of emissions, but emissions from vehicles have more than doubled since 1998.

However, there have been improvements in recent years: 2009 was the second year in a row in which transport emissions declined, and an increase in renewable sources of energy in the early 2000s reduced emissions from the energy sector by 10 percent in 2009.

The United Arab Emirates:

Despite being the world’s fourth largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran), the United Arab Emirates has publicly pushed for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol (the agreement among industrialized nations to cap emissions), announced a plan to increase renewable energy production, and even launched a 1-gigawatt concentrated solar generation project.

Yet Dubai, a city of 1.5 million people (many of whom are immigrants seeking their fortunes, like the workers pictured above), the world’s largest shopping mall, and an indoor ski resort, currently gets all its energy needs from the burning of natural gas, which is why it ranks third on Global Footprint’s list.

Denmark :

A Danish farmer surveys his Christmas trees shortly before they are sold in December 2008.

Denmark’s carbon emissions are half that of the United States’, but its cropland (the amount of viable land that can be used to produce crops)  requirements are much higher. Because so much meat is eaten per capita in Denmark, the country must import a large amount of grain—so much that it would take up 215,000 square feet (2 hectares) of land per person, or 2.5 times more land than the country has.

United States :

New York City twinkles at night, with Fifth Avenue and Broadway clogged with cars.

If everyone lived like the average American, the Earth’s annual production of resources would be depleted by the end of March, the Global Footprint Network’s report said.

Americans’ love of road trips, suspicion of public transit, and growing energy demands fuel the country’s high per-capita carbon emissions.

Belgium :

A Belgian farmer drives his tractor in this undated photo.

Belgium’s biocapacity of cropland is extremely low, so much of its food must be imported. This begins to explain Belgium’s high ranking on Global Footprint’s list.

Australia :

A lumberman cuts down a karri tree, a type of eucalyptus, in Western Australia.

Australians emit 28.1 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person, one of the highest per-capita rates in the world. In addition, the country’s demand for wood, food, and pasture uses the equivalent of 753,000 square feet (7 hectares) of land per person, nearly four times greater than what is available on average around the world.

Canada :

Canada’s biocapacity is 14.92 hectares per capita, 5.5 times average global consumption. So if the world’s resources were as abundant everywhere as in Canada, we’d have more than enough to go around.

Even so, Canada’s cities are energy hogs. The country has the seventh highest rate of carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Total greenhouse gas emissions in Canada rose 24 percent between 1990 and 2008.

The Netherlands :

Sheep near a village in the Netherlands will go toward feeding Dutch citizens, yes, but for the most part, the Dutch consume more than they produce.

The small country, with its high population density and relatively little land area for crops and pasture, consumes six times more resources (energy, food, and more) than it is able to produce, and about three times more than the Earth overall is able to sustain.

God only know what China, India, and Russia and the rest of the world would add.

What ever it is we must spread the riches of World more evenly.

This can only be achieved by making Profit for profit sake create a World Aid Fund ( see previous posts) to tackle the Inequalities, Correct the damage to the climate, and protect what is left.Afficher l'image d'origineAfficher l'image d'origine

We all know that there is little point to any thing if we are not alive.

Its time to change from selfie square heads, and like button pressers to searchers.

Where there is poverty we must find it. Where there is pain we must find it. Where there is abuse we must find it. Where there is modern day slavery we must find it. Where there is inequality we must find it. Where there is pollution we must find it.

In fact its time to find what is of value to us all.     

Don’t be a square head contribute. All comments are valued.

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You might think our canvas is now completed but you be wrong. There is one more color to add and that is Woman.

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THE BEADY EYETHE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WORLD ORGANISATIONS . PART SIX – THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (WWF)

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Sustaniability, The world to day., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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This is the first World Organisation in the series of posts that can hold its head up high, because we cannot separate the well-being of people from the well-being of the ecosystems where they live.

World Wildlife Fund was conceived in April, 1961, and set up shop in September, 1961, at IUCN’s headquarters in Morges, Switzerland. H.R.H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands became the organization’s first president.

In its first year, the Board approves five projects totaling $33,500.

TO DAY IT is one of the largest environmental and conservation groups with worldwide affiliates. The panda drawn for the first time in 1961 by Sir Peter Scott, artist and co-founder of WWF, remains until today the organization’s symbol.

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Its mission is to use scientific knowledge and advance that knowledge; to “work to preserve the diversity and abundance of life and the health of ecological systems by protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species”; to promote “sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources”; and to promote “efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution.”

In 1973 WWF grants $38,000 to the Smithsonian Institution to study the tiger population of the Chitwan Sanctuary in Nepal.

WWF begins awarding the annual $50,000 Getty Prize for outstanding contributions to wildlife conservation in 1974. The Prize increases to $100,000 in 1999, and now focuses on the education of future conservationists.

During the first three years of its existence, “WWF raised and donated almost US$1.9 million to conservation projects.”

HUMANITY’S FOOTPRINT IS OUTSTRIPPING EARTH’S ABILITY TO PROVIDE

Already, 60% of ecosystem services—things like water supplies, fish stocks and fertile soil— are in decline because of human impacts on the environment.

Already, we need the equivalent of 1½ Earths to meet the demands people make on nature. We are eating into our natural capital, making it more and more difficult to sustain what will be needed by those who come after us.

THE PLANET IS CHANGING. WE ARE TOO. EVERY DAY, THE THREATS FACING THE PLANET BECOME MORE STARK.

TARGETING SPECIFIC PLACES AND SPECIES IS NO LONGER ENOUGH.

Fortunately, making connections—between the health of the planet and the health of humanity, between sustainability and a strong bottom line, between the sources of energy we choose and the water we drink—is one of WWF’s greatest talents.

Today, the WWF International is focused on six global issues, each critical to the health of our world and its inhabitants. The organization’s Web site lists the focus and need for each of the six programs.

The challenge comes in establishing that connectivity in a way that inspires action from people everywhere, on all levels.

ONE IN NINE PEOPLE ON THE PLANET SUFFERS FROM HUNGER.

90% OF THE OCEAN’S FISH STOCKS ARE OVER FISHED OR BEING FISHED TO THEIR LIMITS. AMERICANS CONSUME NEARLY 5 BILLION POUNDS OF SEAFOOD A YEAR NOT TO MENTION JAPAN, SPAIN. OCEANS FEED MORE THAN 1 BILLION PEOPLE. THEY GUIDE US TO ADVENTURE AND CONTEMPLATION, ABSORB CO² , AND HOLD THE PLANET’S GREATEST DIVERSITY OF LIFE.

GLOBALLY, OVER FISHING IS HAVING A DEVASTATING IMPACT ON THE SEA.

WILDLIFE POPULATIONS AROUND THE WORLD HAVE DECLINED BY AN AVERAGE OF 52% OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS.

BY 2030, GLOBAL DEMAND FOR FRESH WATER IS PROJECTED TO EXCEED CURRENT SUPPLY BY MORE THAN 40%.

573 MILLION ACRES OF FOREST WILL BE GONE BY 2050 IF WE DO NOTHING TO STOP DEFORESTATION.

THE CONCENTRATION OF CO² IN THE ATMOSPHERE IN 2013 WAS HIGHER THAN IT HAD BEEN IN AT LEAST 800 THOUSAND YEARS.

FORESTS ARE AT THE HEART OF LIFE ON EARTH. BILLIONS OF ANIMALS, PLANTS AND PEOPLE DEPEND ON THEM. THEY PROTECT OUR WATERSHEDS AND SUPPLY THE OXYGEN WE BREATHE. BETWEEN 46,000 AND 58,000 SQUARE MILES OF FOREST ARE LOST EACH YEAR ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT TO 36 FOOTBALL FIELDS EVERY MINUTE.

FRESH WATER IS CENTRAL TO OUR SURVIVAL. RIVERS, WETLANDS, LAKES AND STREAMS SUPPORT MORE THAN 10% OF ALL KNOWN SPECIES. WATER IS A CONDUIT FOR HEALTH, ENERGY AND FOOD. VIRTUALLY NO FRESHWATER SYSTEM REMAINS UNAFFECTED BY HUMAN ACTIVITIES.

WILDLIFE INSPIRES US. ANIMAL POPULATIONS ANCHOR A WEB OF LIFE THAT IS INTEGRAL TO EVERY HEALTHY ECOSYSTEM ON EARTH. IN THE SPAN OF JUST TWO HUMAN GENERATIONS, HALF OF EARTH’S WILDLIFE HAS DISAPPEARED.

FOOD SUSTAINS AND RENEWS US. ITS CREATION, PRODUCTION, PACKAGING AND TRANSPORT ENCROACH ON NATURE IN HARMFUL WAYS.

IF CURRENT TRENDS CONTINUE,WE WON’T BE ABLE TO REPLENISH THE WORLD’S FOOD SUPPLY FAST ENOUGH TO KEEP UP WITH DEMAND.

A HEALTHY CLIMATE IS A PRECARIOUS GIFT. CLIMATE CHANGE IS UPSETTING THE BALANCE THAT PEOPLE AND WILDLIFE NEED TO THRIVE.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Paris is fast approaching—and with it, our best chance to secure meaningful global climate change action. But the decisions that define our day-to-day lives have a huge impact as well.

Now, the 21st century and social media have ushered in a new set of trends. Younger generations respond less to formal affiliation and gravitate to supporting stand-alone causes and initiatives to get things done. The same is true of some sectors of philanthropy. Increasingly, successful individuals, along with foundations and corporations, see giving as a tool to confront and mitigate some of the biggest problems of our day.

Taking into account the above conditions that are currently prevalent  to our plants and the consequences to all living creatures, included us, you would think that our World Governments and Large Multinational Corporations would be funding the WWF work and projects.

You would be wrong. It has to beg, steal and borrow.

84% of WWF’s spending is directed to worldwide conservation activities.

(32% of its Funding comes from Individual Contributions, 19% from Government grants & contracts, 19% from in-kind and other revenues, 10% from other/non operating contributions, 9% foundation contributions,7% WWF network revenues and last 4% from corporate contributions.)

There is a lot of room for some corporation like Apple, Microsoft, or Banks to step up to the plate or it could be funded by the establishment of a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, and Drilling Licences. (see previous posts)

(WWF’s FY14 financial performance remained steady, with total revenues and support at $266.3 million. WWF’s programmatic spending represented 84% of total expenses, with management and administration costs accounting for a modest 5% of total expenses. Total net assets of $357.9 million represented a 12% increase over FY13.)

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE HIPPOCRATIC NATIONS SELLING ARMS.

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Arms Trade.

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There is no doubt that the gun has had more influence in changing the course of history than any other competitor – money/Capitalism, Credit, or the Internet and the good news is that the international arms trade is still booming to this day. story-thumb-nail-image

In September this year the Docklands in East London will play host to DSEI 2015, a biennial government-sponsored arms fair that is among the biggest in the world.

DSEI, which will be unimpeded by the Arms Trade Treaty, will bring hundreds of major arms companies and arms dealers together with some of the worst dictators and warmongering regimes.

At the same time 300,000 are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, while ISIS flattens world heritage, destabilizes, beheads with American arms all that come in its path, while Israel grabs Palestinian land and Americans have the right to arms to kill each other,

This deadly carnival of the grotesque could not take place without the practical and political support of government ministers and their departments.

The promotions don’t stop at hosting arms fairs and trade missions.

Britain even has a government department dedicated to the promotion of arms sales: the UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organization (UKTI DSO). Despite its obscure name and low profile, UKTI DSO is right at the heart of the government’s support for the arms trade, employing 128 civil servants for the sole purpose of boosting international arms sales.

Arms sales, which fuel insecurity and abuse around the world, only account for 1.4 per cent of British exports and just 0.2 per cent of the jobs.

On top of that, the industry receives an annual public subsidy, which one study estimates to be around $1 billion. The mindset that puts helping companies secure lucrative (for them, not the taxpayer) deals before all else.

The simple fact is that Britain, and other countries, could stop arming tyrants right now.

Britain has consistently pulled out all stops to try to maximize them.

Every year the government publishes its Human Rights and Democracy Report; the most recent report listed 28 ‘countries of concern’ and yet in the last 12 months it has licensed weapons to at least 18 of them.

That doesn’t need an Arms Trade Treaty. It needs the political will.

Soldiers patrolling Monrovia, Liberia, 2003

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.”

The boundaries between the formal arms trade and “the shadow world” are extremely fuzzy.

The arms industry is unlike any other. The industry is hardwired for corruption. It is responsible for 40% of all corruption in world trade. It operates without regulation. It makes its profits on the back of machines designed to kill and maim human beings.

Armed conflict was responsible for 231m deaths last century.

Respect for human rights is often overlooked as arms are sold to known human rights violators.

These weapons land up in places you don’t want or expect them to.

You might say that the arms trade may not always be a root cause, because there are often various geopolitical interests etc. However, the sale of arms can be a significant contributor to problems because of the enormous impact of the weapons involved. Furthermore, some oppressive regimes are only too willing purchase more arms under the pretext of their own war against terrorism.

This rush to globalize arms production and sales ignores the grave humanitarian and strategic consequences of global weapons proliferation.

Industrialized countries negotiate free trade and investment agreements with other countries, but exempt military spending from the liberalizing demands of the agreement. Since only the wealthy countries can afford to devote billions on military spending, they will always be able to give their corporations hidden subsidies through defence contracts, and maintain a technologically advanced industrial capacity.

And so, in every international trade and investment agreement one will find a clause which exempts government programs and policies deemed vital for national security. Here is the loophole that allows the maintenance of corporate subsidies through virtually unlimited military spending.

So who profits most from this murderous trade?

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. Together, together with Germany and Italy  are responsible for eighty-eight per cent of the arms sold between 2004 and 2011.

Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales are agreed.  That is $235 for every person on the planet.

Most of these sales (something like 75%) are to developing countries.

World military spending has now reached one trillion dollars, close to Cold War levels. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.7 trillion. 2012 saw the first dip in spending — only slightly —since 1998, in an otherwise rising trend.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for almost two-fifths of the world’s spending, more than the rest of the G7 (most economically advanced countries) combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined.

While international attention is focused on the need to control weapons of mass destruction, the trade in conventional weapons continues to operate in a legal and moral vacuum.

  • More and more countries are starting to produce small arms, many with little ability or will to regulate their use.
  • Permanent UN Security Council members—the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China—dominate the world trade in arms.
  • Most national arms controls are riddled with loopholes or barely enforced.
  • Key weaknesses are lax controls on the brokering, licensed production, and ‘end use’ of arms.
  • Arms get into the wrong hands through weak controls on firearm ownership, weapons management, and misuse by authorised users of weapons.

Arms sales (agreements) by the Leading Recipient Developing Nations, 2004-2011 (in billions of current U.S. dollars)

Ranked Country               Amount spent               Percent of total

1 Saudi Arabia                       75.7                            21%
2 India                                  46.6                             13%
3 UAE                                    20.3                               6%
4 Egypt                                 14.3                               4%
5 Pakistan                             13.2                               4%
6 Venezuela                          13.1                               4%
7 Brazil                                  10.9                                3%
8 Algeria                                10.3                               3%
9 Israel                                  9.5                                 3%
10 South Korea                      9.2                                 2%
11 All other developing countries 145.168                  39%

Arms sales (agreements), by Supplier, 2004-2011 (in billions of constant 2011 U.S. dollars)

Supplier                     Total Sales in US Dollars(billions)                    Percent                                                                                                            of Total                                                                                                              Sales

United States Sales to Developing countries: $151.644bn (69%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $68.964bn (31%)220.608 44%
Russia Sales to Developing countries: $79.078bn (95%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $4.245bn (5%)83.323 17%
France Sales to Developing countries: $27.491bn (66%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $14.469bn (34%)41.96 8%
United Kingdom Sales to Developing countries: $25.869bn (96%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $1.168bn (4%)27.037 5%
China Sales to Developing countries: $17.601bn (99%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $0.207bn (1%)17.808 4%
Germany Sales to Developing countries: $11.046bn (51%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $11.022bn (49%)22.068 4%
Italy Sales to Developing countries: $8.652bn (61%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $5.626bn (39%)14.278 3%
Other European Sales to Developing countries: $26.999bn (56%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $21.26bn (44%)48.259 10%
Others Sales to Developing countries: $19.887bn (74%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $7.222bn (26%)27.109 5%

Perhaps at the forthcoming Climate Change Summit in Paris we should arm all the delegates. As we all seem bent on self-destruction why wait for climate change to start off the wars that are inevitably on the horizon.

To stop Wars,  ” We must take the profit out of war by taking the profit out of arms deals.”

If you are interested here is what is happening to your Planet.

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THE BEADY EYE WRITES AN OTHER OPEN LETTER TO THE PARIS SUMMIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

31 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, European Union., Humanity., Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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31st August 2015.

Dear Delegate,

When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time.

There is no point in spending a lovely week in Paris talking about what should be done about Climate change and coming up with an agreement to cut emissions by placing A Price Tag on carbon.

The true financial costs of climate change is away beyond any price tag or unenforceable agreement.

What value do we place on the ocean’s coral reefs and the myriad animals they support, and how do we weigh their loss against other values? What price tag do you put on a species of bird or fish or mammal which, once gone, will never return?

How does humanity weigh moral accountability if our own carbon emissions contributed to that destruction?

Isn’t it about a sustainable planet? A sustainable and biologically diverse planet?

Most likely our descendants will be left to adapt to a warmer world where greater climatic uncertainties, depleted resources and human migrations, amongst other, will be the norm.

If climate change affects not only a country’s economic output but also its growth, then that has a permanent effect that accumulates over time, leading to a much higher social cost of carbon than any price tag agreed.

The economic damage caused by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions – often referred to as the “social cost” of carbon – will actually be far higher than any of us can imagine.

There is no solution to an event that is all ready taking place.

There can only be a change to the event or a confinement to the end result.

If there is no solution to how the world is going to finance this change your and you fellow delegates might as well go home and bask in the sunshine of an agreement that is as porous as the paper it is written on.

In his fascinating book “Catastrophe: Risk and Response”, published in 2004, Richard Posner argues that we do not do enough to hedge against catastrophic risks such as climate change, asteroid impacts or bioterrorism.

In light of the “competition” of existential risks, how much should humanity invest in the mitigation of climate change?

The answer is:  Human extinction is a risk we all share—and it would be an unprecedented event that can happen only once.

Growth at all costs is the mantra of the technological world we live. Climate policies that require public sacrifice and limiting economic growth are doomed to failure.

Believe in the current pledge-and-review mechanism is a farce.

From current projections we know that climate change will pose a serious challenge by 2040 for many organisations. Putting a true economic cost on these risks can act as a catalyst to taking action today in order to help organisations better prepare for the future.

There is only one way to achieve this and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission or tax on profit   for profit sake.

Would you rather have a one percent tax increase on everyone in the country or kill one percent of the population?  This will not work as the cost of collection and administration, or culling, would out weigh any benefits.

The solution is a Universal 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions and on all Drilling Wells.  

This will create a perpetual Fund to tackle the world problems.  

 

The expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is so large that it cannot be reliably estimated.

Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort. People are willing to bear costs to reduce emissions, but they are only willing to go so far.

The Dangerous Underestimation of Climate

Change’s Cost and the

financing of any agreement is self-evident.

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The Beady Eye looks at “biology as technology”

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Big Data., Environment, Humanity., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Artificial intelligence is all around us.

But what is the most powerful technology on Earth?

You may think of a B-2 bomber, or a nuclear reactor, or maybe even far-reaching social media platforms.

But there is only one technology known to man that can heal itself, adapt to its environment, sustain itself for decades, replicate, and evolve:

The living organism.

Biological systems have the ability to do things that no human-made machine or chemistry can begin to approach: the ability to replicate, to learn, to scale from one to billions, to adapt, and to evolve.

By gaining control over biological systems and their biochemical pathways — and designing new pathways by rewriting the DNA “software” in cells — synthetic biologists are ushering in the “Biological Age.”

Creating substances with not only superior electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, but with properties that we have never seen before in man-made materials: materials that can regenerate, that respond to the environment, that learn and evolve.

We’re “on the cusp of revolutionary change” coming much “sooner than you think.”

Sugar-fueled biological actuators for hybrid robotics are on the horizon, all grown in “living foundries.

You might think that this is science fiction but it is becoming tangible due to the rapid, simultaneous development of genome-scale engineering tools, enormous data sets of genome sequences, new imaging and analytical capabilities, and the convergence of advances in information science and engineering with biology..

While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict future consumer applications.

If we could harness the power of biology in a predictable manner, then we could create living materials that perform functions seamlessly, cheaply, and with very low energy requirements, like walking, talking, dancing, killing, Robots.

A goal along these lines, of course, raises a lot of questions:

Better for whom? Better in what way? For biological humans? For all conscious beings? If that is the case, who or what is conscious?

Evolutionary biological changes move every which way with no apparent direction.

Yet, we continue nonetheless to see a movement toward greater complexity and greater intelligence, indeed to evolution’s supreme achievement of evolving a neocortex capable of hierarchical thinking we are now on the verge of  creating  a “post human” stage of civilization.

This stage may be only a few decades away.

Unfortunately if all the AI systems decided to go on strike tomorrow, our civilization would be crippled: Primitive human societies might then remain on Earth indefinitely but not to worry we’ll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years.

Ray Kurzweil - director of engineering at Google - claims that by 2045 humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity

The simple act of connecting with someone via a text message, e-mail, or cell-phone call uses intelligent algorithms to route the information. (The number of people using Twitter and Facebook daily is around 1,138,000,000)

So a digital brain will need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human.

I could at this stage give your brain a more ambitious goal, such as contributing to a better world which is badly needed considering that we are well on the way to extinction. However there is no justification for thinking that our own species will be especially privileged or protected from future technological disasters.

We tend to view the existence of our race as constituting a great ethical value when in fact our existence in a biology sense it is not worth the steam off our piss.

Why?

Because in the future almost every product we touch will be originally designed in a collaboration between human and artificial intelligence and then built-in automated factories.

Because we will continue to pollute our planet and the sky’s above to appease the Stock Exchange.  

Because there will be many ways in which humanity could become extinct before reaching post humanity by wiping out what we should be rely on.

Perhaps the most natural interpretation of disaster is that we are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but dangerous technology to combat climate change. We would do well to remember Robert Oppenheimer words when he first viewed an atomic explosion ” Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”

Extinction might be the best option.

It is not clear that creating a new human race is immoral.

As non biological brains become as capable as biological ones of effecting changes in the world—indeed, ultimately far more capable than unenhanced biological ones—we will need to consider their moral education.

The question is can they have any morals and if so what left of us will have to dumb itself down considerably. For any post human stage system that displayed the knowledge of Watson, (Watson is technology that works to understand us) for instance, would be quickly unmasked as non biological.

So what does the Future of Tech Robots.

The power of computing doubles, on average, every two years quoting the developments from genetic sequencing and 3D printing. Technological singularity is the development of  ‘super intelligence’ brought about through the use of technology.

Itself imply that we are likely to go extinct soon, and we are unlikely to reach a post human stage.

What would be left of humanity would be zombies or “shadow-people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious.

HOWEVER ALL IS NOT LOST

This possibility of a post human stage  is compatible with us remaining at, or somewhat above, our current level of technological development for a long time before going extinct.

We are still lacking a “theory of everything”, but we cannot rule out the possibility that novel physical phenomena, not allowed for in current physical theories, may be utilized to transcend those constraints.

If we could create quantum computers, or learn to build computers out of nuclear matter or plasma, we could push closer to the theoretical limits. At our current stage of technological development, we have neither sufficiently powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in computers.

Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously in feasible, unless radically new physics is discovered.

As we gain more experience with virtual reality, we will get a better grasp of the computational requirements for making new worlds appear realistic to their visitors.

These shortcomings will eventually be overcome.

At the moment the amount of computing power needed to emulate a human mind can be roughly estimated. Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing power.

Our current understanding impose theoretical limits on the information processing attainable in a given lump of matter. We can with much greater confidence establish lower bounds on post human computation, by assuming only mechanisms that are already understood.

One candidate is molecular nanotechnology, which in its mature stage would enable the construction of self-replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter – a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, designed for malicious ends, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet.

So we are able to gain an insight into how an apparently purposeless and directionless process can achieve an apparently purposeful result in one field (biological evolution) by looking at another field (thermodynamics).

In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between both.

As you cannot create energy or destroy it and energy can only move from a state of higher activity to one lower activity it stands to reason that biological evolution, simple put, is descent with modification.

To acknowledge that history is not deterministic is to acknowledge that it is just a coincidence that most of us believe in nationalism, capitalism, and human rights. There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans.

Now you might think that all of this is hog wash, but every point in history is a crossroads and sometimes history- or the people who make history – takes unexpected turns.

How we using and develop Technology will determine the forming any new Monotheism Global Society.

Are we heading towards ecological disaster or technological paradise?  Both do not seem bound by any deterministic laws.

You may rest assured that when Cognitive computers and Quantum computers get together with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality along with the Arms race, biochemical pathways will not enhance human well-being.

Because human brains suffer from minimal development.

Instead of concentrating on developing technologies beneficial to mankind we are developing  autonomous weapons with no accountability to select, to kill, or destroy ( which means no deterrence of future crimes, no retribution for victims, no social condemnation, no meaningful human control)

Individual humans like me are far too ignorant and weak to influence the course of history to my own advantage. It for some mysterious reason like all of us follows one path then another like a gene that has no awareness, or consciously seek to survive.

The next effort of science will be to create a new body for the human being. It will have a perfect brain-machine interface to allow control and a human brain life support system so the brain can survive outside the body.

A computer environment into which human minds can be uploaded.

These are daunting challenges, to say the least.

Each will require the commitment and individual efforts of literally billions of our fellow humans, as well as many careful, specific programs put into effect by entire populations. But there is one action that we must take, individually and as a world, if any of the others are to be successful. It directly contradicts some of our deepest evolutionary programming, but if we are to survive as a species, we must stabilize or even reduce population size.

God forbid. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.

However it is conceivable to imagine history going on for generations upon generations while bypassing the Scientific Revolution as modern culture and science have to rely on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its existence and scientific research.

So the below fellows might be the very thing to complete the Job. Rid the world of the very thing that is destroying it. 

One last thought try not to join the shadow people by pressing the like button.  Leave a comment. When you comment, you inspire, when you press the like button you expire.

Here a few links that might open your eyes.

https://youtu.be/XNbaR54Gpj4            https://youtu.be/PVXQUItNEDQ

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This is where you Live.

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Education, Environment, Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future

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The other day I was wondering how one would describe Earth to an alien or a classroom of our modern-day interconnects kids.

Where would one start.

Is it round?  Not quite it is an oblate spheroid instead of a perfect sphere. It takes the Earth on solar day to rotate upon its axis.

An alien might come to earth and attempt to understand the planet by reading the literature of the planet, or just the dictionary. Looking up the word “earth” the alien may be surprised to see the this term has multiple meanings, referring to a planet and to a substance (soil/dirt).

May be the best place to start is to give an perspective of where we are in space.

As you look outward into space, you’re actually looking backwards in time. The light you see from your computer is nanoseconds old. The light reflected from the surface of the Moon takes only a second to reach Earth. The Sun is more than 8 light-minutes away. And so, if the light from the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) takes more than 4 years to reach us, we’re seeing that star 4 years in the past. There are galaxies millions of light-years away, which means the light we’re seeing left the surface of those stars millions of years ago. For example, the galaxy M109 is located about 83.5 million light-years away.

A radio signal to travel once around Earth in 1/7 of a second.  To get to the moon from Earth, so the round-trip time is twice this or 2.46.

From the sun to earth at the speed of light  seconds.https://youtu.be/Bw-I9JimhOM

If aliens lived in those galaxies, and had strong enough telescopes, they would see the Earth as it looked in the past. They might even see dinosaurs walking on the surface.

Only a few of us have ever seen Earth from afar.  It’s mankind’s rarest view of all.

To see it without borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, we would all have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from space you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth….”Earth, our home planet.

It is a beautiful blue and white ball when seen from space.  the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life.

All of the things we need to survive are provided under a thin layer of atmosphere that separates us from the uninhabitable void of space.

HERE IS HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE IT;

It was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Earth is made up of complex, interactive systems that are often unpredictable. Air, water, land, and life—including humans—combine forces to create a constantly changing world that we are striving to understand.

It is the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest in the solar system.

About 71% of its surface is covered by water; the rest by land.

It is orbited by one satellite, the Moon.

Earth’s total surface area is 196,950,000 sq. mi. The area covered by the oceans is 139,480,000 sq. mi. Total land area is 57,470,000 sq. mi.

Earth’s diameter is just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents.

Our planet’s rapid spin and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape. The magnetic field does not fade off into space, but has definite boundaries.

Our planet completes its elliptical orbit around the sun in an average solar year, 365.24219 days. Its average distance from the sun is 80,777,537.8 n.mi.

The Earth’s axis is tilted 23.45 deg away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane.

It wobbles very slightly.

The Moon orbits the Earth about once a month (every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.9 seconds) The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 238,857 mi., about 30 times Earth’s diameter.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents. The surface layer is made of rock. This outer layer formed a hard, rocky crust as lava at the surface cooled 4.5 billion years ago.The crust is broken into many large plates that move slowly relative to each other. Mountain ranges form when two plates collide. The plates move about one inch per year. About 250 million years ago, most of the land was connected together, and over time has separated into seven continents. So millions of years ago the continents and the oceans were in different positions.

Scientists had previously concluded that the Earth was slightly older than 4.5 billion years old, but had not found a piece of the Earth’s primitive mantle.

The solid shell that is between the Earth’s crust and the outer core makes up about 84 percent of the Earth’s volume. Until recently, researchers generally thought that the Earth and the other planets of the solar system were chondritic. This means that the mantle’s chemistry was thought to be similar to that of chondrites, some of the oldest, most primitive objects in the solar system. Chondrites contain certain isotope ratios of the chemical elements of helium, lead and neodymium.

Sixty-five million years ago it looked quite different than it does to-day.

There are about 300,000 plant species and about 1,400,000 animal species on Earth.

In the next 6.4 billions of years it will be eating by it nearest star the Sun which is 149,597,891 kilometers away.  It will take a little more than 8 minutes before we realized it is time to put on a sweater. It takes Sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

It weighs 5.9736×1024kg.  That is about 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (or 5,974,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms).

80% of its fresh water is in its polar ice caps. Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature span (32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit/ 0 to 100 degrees Celsius). The surface is unique from the other planets because it is the only one which has liquid water in such large quantities.

Its greatest present day threats come from humanity which is at a crossroads now, where we have to make an active choice.

Evolution, the Big Bang, and climate change are all things that were first proposed as hypotheses long ago.

Climate change is not. What are we doing about it. The same as always. Turn it into a product for profit.

One choice is to acknowledge these issues and potential consequences and try to guide the future (in a way we want to). The other choice is just to throw up our hands and say, ‘Let’s just go on as usual and see what happens.’ My guess is, if we take that latter choice, yes, humanity is going to survive, but we are going to see some effects that will seriously degrade the quality of life for our children and grandchildren.

The ongoing wars, the distortions of truth we have witnessed, the widening gaps between rich and poor disturb us more than we can say; but we have had so many reminders of powerlessness that we have retreated before the challenge of bringing such issues into our classrooms of our brains.

The best effort so far is the creation of an Earth Day this year.  One day!

Population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation. No one knows how close Earth is to a global tipping point, or if it is inevitable.

Life on Earth is constantly changing and only the fittest organisms survive.

Every few of us appreciate how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there’s no coming back from something like that. The dictionary offers a firm set of definitions for this term, but no single definition, which leads to a sense of complexity. The complexities of perception are, in part, what post-modernism is all about.  I describe it as pure insanity.

The Earth system now includes human society, Our social and economic systems are now embedded within the Earth system. In many cases, the human systems are now the main drivers of change in the Earth system. Earth system changes, natural or driven by humans, can have significant consequences without involving changes in climate. Global change should  not be confused with climate change; it is significantly more. indeed, climate change is part of this much larger challenge.

Throughout history human societies have had to confront and adjust to climatic and environmental hazards. A long-term perspective that draws on such experiences must inform today’s climate policies. I argue that climate policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to hazards should be informed by our knowledge of past human experience.

In today’s globalised world our food tends to take a long route from farm to table, relying on international trade routes that pass through several bottlenecks. Sudden disruption of such delivery systems – via climate change or political volatility – can severely affect the food security of particular regions.

Large-scale governance is unavoidable in today’s world where hazards are regional and often transcend political boundaries, unfortunately at the moment we are relying on out of date World Organisations that are incapable of putting the  Earth First!

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/32001208″>EARTH</a&gt; from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/michaelkoenig”>Michael K&ouml;nig</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/79771046″>Climate Change &mdash; The state of the science</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/anthropocene”>WelcomeAnthropocene</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

 

Take a trip into the unknown.

https://youtu.be/YzMrNFd4oOk

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Life goes on.

01 Friday May 2015

Posted by in Environment

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While the scary numbers pile up.

The state of the Planet hit several remarkable records.Earth From Moon Wallpaper Hd Earth from moon hd crescent

The amount of carbon dioxide gas hits the highest level in at least the last 800,000 years.

The Arctic Ice since satellite records is at it lowest. 13.3% per decade.

We dump 19.4 billion pounds of plastic into our oceans every year.

An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year.

We will be facing a 40% shortfall in water supply by 2030.

Climate change-related extreme events, plus population growth, could increase hunger by up to 20% by 2050.

What are we doing about it. Not much that will make a difference. Curbing emissions which is a joke wont be enough to halt a looming climate catastrophe.

When you take something out of the Earth, you need to put something back in.

The Selfish wasteful ways of Capitalism combined with modern humans is destroying the very planet we all have to live on.

Thoughtless mindless use of its limited resources for short-term profit, and the use of pesticides and there like is destroying life forms that took million of years to appear on our planet.

We all know the interconnectedness of all life. The we’re here, we’re powerful with nuclear weapons , we’ve got the technology, we therefore are entitled to every dame thing on this planet, is at the root of much of our problems.

Perhaps our current ecological crisis is telling us that something is wrong with our relationship with ourselves, with others, and earth.

The Dangers are clear.

We all want to live.

Without a reverence for all life that lives in the midst of other life we the brainy ones will be going no further than the moon, space station or not. 

If you are interested there are plenty of previous post covering a verity of subjects interconnected to this post.

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We must change the way we perceive ourselves.

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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I don’t know if like me you see the urgent need for all of us to recognize our role in the world and the enormity of humanity’s responsibility we all have as stewards of the Earth.

Given humanity’s enormous alteration of the Earth we need our Governments/ Leaders and world organisations to change the way they view the world that we all live in.

What they now call economic “growth” amounts too often to a Great Recession for the web of life we all depend on. 

The need to build a culture that grows with Earth’s biological wealth instead of depleting it is more urgent than ever.

We have as a species a duty to protect it and manage it with love and intelligence. It is beautiful still, and can be even more beautiful, if we work together and care for it rather than what we have today a nightmare facing us all

It’s no longer us against ‘Nature.’ It’s we who decide what nature is what it will be.

I am tired of the well worn rhetorical trick for stirring the fears of people unperturbed by current, relatively modest changes that we are all can see are for the sake of the Financial world.

Imagine our descendants in the year 2200 or 2500. They might liken us to aliens who have treated the Earth as if it were a mere stopover for refueling, or even worse, characterize us as barbarians who would ransack their own home.

The Earth’s history shows that the planet can indeed tip from one state to another.

To underestimate the sheer scale of what is going on (caused by us) is a joke in the extreme.

A long-held religious and philosophical idea — humans as the masters of planet Earth — has turned into a stark reality.

Dam by dam, mine by mine, farm by farm and city by city is remaking the Earth before your eyes.

What are we doing about it?  Let me remind you.

To date while driving uncountable numbers of species to extinction, we create new life forms through gene technology, and, soon, through synthetic biology.

We have acidified the oceans and changed global climate with our use of fossil fuels.

We have bent more than 75 percent of the ice-free land on Earth to our will.

We have built so many dams that half of the world’s river flow is regulated, stored or impeded by human-made structures.

We have transported plants and animals hither and yon as crops and livestock and as accidental stowaway.

We have cut down rain forests, moving mountains to access coal deposits and acidifying coral reefs,

We have fundamentally change the biology and the geology of the planet.

We have infuse huge quantities of synthetic chemicals and persistent waste into Earth’s metabolism. Where wilderness remains, it’s often only because exploitation is still unprofitable.

We have through industry disrupted the key biochemical cycles. For good or ill, it will do yet more.

What we do now already affects the planet of the year 3000 or even 50,000 and I can hear you saying that Humans have been changing ecosystems for millenniums. Ecosystems are not — and have never been — static entities.

However if your definition demands that nature be completely untouched by humans, there is indeed no nature left.

First:

We need to learn to grow in different ways than with our current hyper-consumption.

We need bio-adaptive technologies to render “waste” a thing of the past, among them compostable cars and gadgets.

We need innovations tailored to the needs of the poorest, for example new plant varieties that can withstand climate change and robust iPads packed with practical agricultural advice and market information for small-scale farmers.

Global agriculture must become high-tech and organic at the same time, allowing farms to benefit from the health of natural habitats.

We need to develop technologies to recycle substances like phosphorus, a key element for fertilizers and therefore for food security.

We need to move towards “negative CO2 emissions,” e.g. by using plant residues in power plants with carbon capture and storage technology. In addition to cutting industrial CO2 emissions and protecting forests, large investments will be needed to maintain the huge carbon stocks in fertile soils, currently depleted by exploitative agricultural practices.

After years of stalemate and the infamous Copenhagen collapse, there is now at least a glimmer of hope that humanity can act together.

In Cancún, countries agreed that Earth must not warm more than 2 degrees Celsius above the average temperature level before industrialization. This level is already very risky — it implies higher temperature increases in polar regions and therefore greater chance of thawing in permafrost regions, which could release huge amounts of CO2 and methane.

The problem will not be solved soon enough to avert significant climate change unless the Earth system is a lot less prone to climate change than most scientists think. But that does not mean it will not be solved at all.

(For biodiversity, green remnants in a sea of destruction will not be enough.)

We need to build a “green infrastructure,” where organisms and genes can flow freely over vast areas and maintain biological functions.

We also need to develop geoengineering capabilities in order to be prepared for worst-case scenarios.

We need to stop Conservation management turns wild animals into a new form of pets for TV Documentaries. The impression that nowhere on earth is natural and because the concept of pervasive human-caused change may cultivate hopelessness in those dedicated to conservation and may even be an impetus for accelerated changes in land use motivated by profit. But that does not mean we inhabit an ecological hell.

We need to do far more than just hold back the tide of change and build higher and stronger fences around the Arctic, the Himalayas and the other relatively intact ecosystems.

We need to consider actively moving species at risk of extinction from climate change. We can design ecosystems to maintain wildlife, filter water and sequester carbon.

We need countries worldwide to stop striving to attain the “American Way of Life,” citizens of the West should redefine it.

We need Honesty in politics not the Hippocrates we see to-day.

We need to abolish modern-day slavery, stamp out corruption and poverty  by ensuring all round equality.

We need to fight sprawl and mindless development even as we cherish the exuberant nature that can increasingly be found in our own cities, from native gardens to green roofs.

We need to pioneer a modest, renewable, mindful, and less material lifestyles.

We need to cut the consumption of industrially produced meat and changing from private vehicles to public transport.

We need to replace the wasteful fossil-fueled infrastructure of today with a system fueled by solar energy in its many forms, from artificial photosynthesis to fusion energy. Our troubles will deepen exponentially if we fail.

We need to build a world culture that grows with Earth’s biological wealth instead of depleting it.  Remember, in this new era, nature is us.

We need to far surpass our current investments in science and technology.

We need to cap Greed by introducing a world aid commission of 0.05% on all High frequency trading, Sovereign wealth funds and foreign exchange transactions over $20.000$. ( See previous posts)

Finally, we need to adapt our culture to sustaining what can be called the “world organism.”

Human population will approach ten billion within the century. Between now and 2020, however, the commitments on paper must be turned into real action.

To prevent conflicts over resources and to progress towards a durable “bio-economy” will require a collaborative mission that dwarfs the Apollo program. We must invest at least as much in understanding, managing, and restoring our “green security system” — the intricate network of climate, soil, and biodiversity.

Global military expenditure reached 1,531 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, an increase of 49 percent compared to 2000.

The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed. Gandhi pointed out that To accommodate the Western lifestyle for 9 billion people, we’d need several other planets.

On a planetary scale, intelligence is something genuinely new and powerful from which the planet, and its people, cannot simply revert to the status quo. Our management and care of natural places and the millions of other species with which we share the planet could and should be improved.

We humans are becoming the dominant force for change on Earth. — This phrase was not coined by an esoteric Gaia guru, but by eminent German scientist Alexander von Humboldt some 200 years ago. Humboldt wanted us to see how deeply interlinked our lives are with the richness of nature, hoping that we would grow our capacities as a part of this world organism, not at its cost.

His message suggests we should shift our mission from crusade to management, so we can steer nature’s course symbiotically instead of enslaving the formerly natural world.

So the Question is can man create Institutions to save him from the dark forces of his own nature and from the overwhelming consequences of high technological successes.

In this disturbed world, there is nothing left that has not being touched by man who still does not have a clue how to manage the planet.Man-vs-machine.jpg

There you have it. What do you think? Don’t be shy lets have your comments, or contributions.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

http://preview.discovery.com/tv-shows/klondike/videos/man-vs-nature/