Planet Under Pressure.

[rvijay]

Joe Dominguez in his book Your Money or Your Life says that excessive consumerism is pushing our planet to its limits. He was a great frugal living advocate.

Here is a site/program that discusses some related vitals:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3686106.stm

Comments/opinions welcome.

Vijay

[spud]

That's an interesting article.
I have to confess though that the "water shortage" aspect of green living doesn't click with me. It rains here (uk) a lot, Bangladesh is flooded, the sea is everywhere. To me, at a gut level, water is like air, it comes, it goes and is eternally flowing. Water rationing is like air rationing to me.

[otomik]

Food: An estimated 1 in 6 people suffer from hunger and malnutrition while attempts to grow food are damaging swathes of productive land.political problems of certain third world countries, there's no good solution to this. maybe the UN can draft a resolution asking Mugabe to be nice :rolleyes:

Water: By 2025, two-thirds of the world's people are likely to be living in areas of acute water stress.that's incorrect, living in a area of acute water stress isn't the problem, United Arab Emirates has to produce all their water from desalinisation and they still have "the highest rate of water consumption in the world". Get your socialist controls off water prices and it will discourage growth in areas of water shortage, problem solved.

Energy: Oil production could peak and supplies start to decline by 2010Nothing to panic about, we have plenty of alternatives, most of which will improve curb pollution considerably. running out of oil is good news for the earth.

Climate change: The world's greatest environmental challenge, according to the UK prime minister Tony Blair, with increased storms, floods, drought and species losses predicted.uncertain findings, biased research. more reasonable estimates show it may not be worth doing anything about, especially given that we'll be running out of oil.

Biodiversity: Many scientists think the Earth is now entering its sixth great extinction phase.mostly a story of bad computer estimates. there's also the problem of non-native species but most of the time it's not worth doing anything about. remember Bart Simpson's pet Bolivian Tree Lizard?

Pollution: Hazardous chemicals are now found in the bodies of all new-born babies, and an estimated one in four people worldwide are exposed to unhealthy concentrations of air pollutants.mostly a story about the unregulated third world. again there's not much of a politcal will to punish them, even in a carrot and stick approach they know we're a bunch of softies always talking about debt cancellation and throwing them more foreign aid. fool me once

[rvijay]

That's an interesting article.
I have to confess though that the "water shortage" aspect of green living doesn't click with me. It rains here (uk) a lot, Bangladesh is flooded, the sea is everywhere. To me, at a gut level, water is like air, it comes, it goes and is eternally flowing. Water rationing is like air rationing to me.


If trees are cut down, population explodes, there is massive construction/industrial production, then the acquafiers are depleted faster. Hence, the water problem. Water comes and goes is true, but it is a finite resource.

Vijay

[rvijay]

political problems of certain third world countries

Excellent post/comments. It is true that several environmental problems origin from the third world due to natural resource mismanagement, population etc., Can all these problems impact other Nations ? To what extent and in what manner ?

Also, did you take any special course in Environment or related subject ?

Thanks.

Vijay :)

[spud]

Water comes and goes is true, but it is a finite resource.

Vijay

well it may be finite, but including the seas there a great deal of it. And it doesn't go away does it? I drink, I piss, it filters off and appears in a river. It evaporates, it rains. I drink it....

More work needs to be done on water filters. Encouraging water frugality leads, IMO, to lack of hygiene and or more use of chemicals.

[otomik]

here's another article, some in the UN also agree about the political causes of famine: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2541537.stm

"People are hungry because their governments have made the wrong political decisions,"
Best example right now might be Mugabe. I think the short term problems are political but there are other causes, Africa has had problems with famine even in relatively stable times.

The only way to make sure you have enough food is to produce excess. Cash strapped nations have opted to produce non-food crops for export and denied distribution of genetically modified food aid for fear it will damage their export crops. There would also be more encouragement for excess production if the rich countries didn't dump their subsidized crops on the world market (hopefully they can find something else to do with it, biofuels perhaps). It's a really complex problem. That news article you link might as well list human rights abuses as a related problem because governments that don't value their people are making a lot of bad policies, it's all connected.

my dad is a chemist, my brother is a chemist, i'm the blacksheep art major.

[rvijay]

my dad is a chemist, my brother is a chemist, i'm the blacksheep art major.

No don't think you are the black sheep. In regards to alternative fuels you beat me. I just saw local info. where they are debating a lot but trying it small scale only. I am a Chemist too. Organic/Analytical. Haven't worked in the Industry for quite a while. Also worked for the environmental Industry 10 years ago. But there are so many developments that it is hard to keepup with everything. Specially, when one is out of the Industry one givesup. With your interest in the environment you are uptodate with the latest developments. This is very good.

A lot of people with Arts majors go on and have excellent careers/contribute. Some even switch to Science/Technology at times. Without Arts life would be very boring.

Do please continue to post and share your opinions. What do you think are the three major environmental concerns in your opinion ?

Best Regards,

Vijay :)

[otomik]

What do you think are the three major environmental concernsokay i'll give it a try, i don't mean to say there aren't any environmental problems, i care a lot but I'm also a skeptic on some issues. here are three issues people will be wrestling with in both rich countries and the third world.

Nuclear Power
it doesn't deserve the reputation it has, chernobyl was a dangerous soviet design meant to refine plutonium for weapons as well as provide power. there are better designs, especially when you're not looking to make weapons. there are many environmental benefits and many leaders are taking a second look at nuclear power including john kerry, who made it part of his environmental strategy even after years of opposing the yucca mountain storage facility. there are issues as to what nations we can trust to build nuclear power plants, even if many arab nations have cheap oil energy available we can't fault them for wanting to develop nuclear power for all of the advantages it has besides use in weaponry.

Genetically Modified Crops
there are some risks, can we accept them? will we say no to it's potential altogether or will we draw the line somewhere in between like "only for non-food crops" such as cotton, biofuels and other natural materials?

Population Growth and Population Decline
While not a problem for the earth in itself it's stretching our need for resources, the third world is going to struggle for ways for sustainable development. china and india are places to look at this issue, things like sterilization incentives, education (yet so many of their brightest leave for europe and america).
Population decline in other countries is forcing them to reform their services for retirees then there's the need for increased immigration, with all of it's benefits and problems.

[rvijay]

Thanks for your detailed post.

Vijay :)

[rvijay]

Ethanol Boost :)
http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/12/09/little-johanns/?source=daily

[Ludi]

Nuclear Power
it doesn't deserve the reputation it has,

What do you propose to do with the waste?

[otomik]

What do you propose to do with the waste?store it responsibly. reduce the amount of waste with better power plant designs (fast breeder reactors, similar to the natural reactor in Oklo) and with facilities that separative and further reduce the amount of waste, transform that into a radioactive hardened glass block, put that in a container able to withstand a collision with a speeding freight train, truck it off and store it in yucca mountain (middle of nowhere, no geologic activity or chance of groundwater contamination). see also National Geographic July 2002, there's a detailed article all about nuclear waste.

as john kerry said "we've got a plan"

[Ludi]

There's already more waste than can be stored in yucca mountain as proposed.

[otomik]

There's already more waste than can be stored in yucca mountain as proposed.I think you might be getting that data from a biased source. http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/yucca/yucca_battle.html

Some 40,000 tons of waste now exists. The nation's currently operating nuclear plants, even before relicensing, will eventually double that amount, estimates Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

That's slightly more than Yucca's maximum capacity of 77,000 tons.

Relicensing would increase that amount by another 40,000 tons, Makhijani said. Waste from the military and new nuclear plants would push up the total even farther.You also need to consider the fact that the plans to reduce the amount of waste through high-tech incinceration facilities were shelved when famous trial lawyer Gerry Spence went after them.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35253,00.html

I suspect someone manipulated that factoid you quote, nuclear waste estimates vary widely because:
1. you could count stuff that's already being stored (do you want to move it to some place better?),
2. do you want to count low level waste like contaminated equipment and uranium tailings?
3. are you putting it though a supercompaction process like the INEEL incinerator?

[hollywoodveg]

Just curious, but does anyone know where I can find info on Africa's grain exports? I recently learned the ship tons of grains to the U.S. as feed for cattle and that it contributes to their starvation possibly and was wondering if this was true and if there was info. to back it up. TIA!