Has the Environmental Crisis been Solved?

[Sid Walker]

Turning to the The Education Forum > Educational Research > Environmental Issues section of this forum, on this day in July 2006, I was pleased to read:

"No topics were found. This is either because there are no topics in this forum, or the topics are older than the current age cut-off."

Does this indicate there are no significant environmental issues of remaining conern to members of this Forum?

I do hope so!

There was me, getting worried unnecessarily about the future of the biosphere!

Somewhat relieved to discover my nightmare of global environmental devastation was no more than a bad dream, I feel more free to "obsess" about matters such as the truth about 9-11, the multi-front assault on the Arab and Moslem world and the suspicious number of suicides and heart attacks among some sectors of the community.

Edited July 24, 2006 by Sid Walker

[John Dolva]

one more of the usual double posts...

Edited March 18, 2007 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Sid : "Somewhat relieved to discover my nightmare of global environmental devastation was no more than a bad dream, I feel more free to "obsess" about matters such as the truth about 9-11, the multi-front assault on the Arab and Moslem world and the suspicious number of suicides and heart attacks among some sectors of the community."

9-11 in perspective - "Granma International"

12,000 dead... and it’s not news!

"IF four buildings – four twin towers for example – full of boys and girls, killing 12,000 were destroyed, surely it would not occur to anyone to argue against that terrible news being the lead story on all news broadcasts, all front pages.

No one, on any editorial board, or in any radio or television studio, would object if the news of those 12,000 dead children dominated all the headlines and columns, opinions and reports, photos and testimonies.

No public figure would miss the opportunity to refer to such a dramatic event and to proclaim that a similar disaster must never happen again.

If an earthquake hit a country or a tsunami unexpectedly slammed into a coastline killing 12,000 children, no one in the media would dare suggest that such a terrible disaster should yield the spotlight to a soccer game, for example, or the illness of a popular singer. No police chief or religious leader in the world would fail to display his or her dismay over the incident, and every government or humanitarian aid agency would mobilize their resources.

If a terrorist gang kidnapped 12,000 children and threatened to execute the hostages if their demands were not met within 24 hours, every plaza in the world would be full of people clamoring for the release of the victims, not one person would be indifferent to the possible fate of these children.

Nevertheless, every day, each time we wake up, 12,000 more children have died. Not from the tsunami that didn’t happen yesterday, or from the tower that didn’t collapse, or from the terrorist gang that doesn’t exist; these 12,000 children have died of starvation, of simple and wretched starvation. And starvation and its miserable consequences are not news.

Audiences would get tired —says the media director— of a fixed eight columns, every day, in which the only variable would be the increasing tally.

There is no way that these 12,000 dead would merit a brief headline, a lamenting feature, or even a summary in the section “Strange World.”

Neither does the opportunity exist to commemorate anniversaries because every day the deaths and their causes reoccur, so every day is both a tragedy and an anniversary of the same misfortune.

Twelve thousand boys and girls who have died between breakfast and dinner, between the morning paper and the evening news.

And we are only talking about starvation. There are many other buildings that fall every day for related reasons: tsunamis of illnesses for which vaccines can not be acquired, earthquakes that demolish schools and playgrounds, terrorist bands that enrich themselves by exploiting child labor and prostitution.

And we are only talking about children.

But not one plaza has filled with people to condemn a crime that does not cease being a crime because of its repetition, neither has any one of the media outlets that have covered similar attacks, interrupted its regular programming to give “live and direct”, up to the minute on the spot coverage with a correspondent adjusting the totals of dead and disappeared and interviewing neighbors, before the broadcast turns back to the studios and yields to another barrage of commercials.

According to a United Nations report, “every seven seconds a child dies from starvation.” About 12,000 per day.

The press would need several special editions or have to add 60 more pages to each edition in order to superficially report the names, which they have; their faces, which are real; and the agonized and despairing families of those 12,000 cadavers who have no mourners nor headlines, no history, for whom no one organizes anniversary masses or tributes. These 12,000 little ones dead each day at the hands of a rotten economic order sold to us as progress, whose laws protect the solidity of its immune building, and which terrorizes via its monetary gangs the deposed government of life."

[John Dolva]

"IF four buildings, four twin towers for example, full of boys and girls, killing 12,000 were destroyed, surely it would not occur to anyone to argue against that terrible news being the lead story on all news broadcasts, all front pages. No one, on any editorial board, or in any radio or television studio, would object if the news of those 12,000 dead children dominated all the headlines and columns, opinions and reports, photos and testimonies. No public figure would miss the opportunity to refer to such a dramatic event and to proclaim that a similar disaster must never happen again.

If an earthquake hit a country or a tsunami unexpectedly slammed into a coastline killing 12,000 children, no one in the media would dare suggest that such a terrible disaster should yield the spotlight to a soccer game, for example, or the illness of a popular singer. No police chief or religious leader in the world would fail to display his or her dismay over the incident, and every government or humanitarian aid agency would mobilize their resources.

If a terrorist gang kidnapped 12,000 children and threatened to execute the hostages if their demands were not met within 24 hours, every plaza in the world would be full of people clamoring for the release of the victims, not one person would be indifferent to the possible fate of these children.

Nevertheless, every day, each time we wake up, 12,000 more children have died. Not from the tsunami that didn't happen yesterday, or from the tower that didn't collapse, or from the terrorist gang that doesn't exist; these 12,000 children have died of starvation, of simple and wretched starvation. And starvation and its miserable consequences are not news."

".....Twelve thousand boys and girls who have died between breakfast and dinner, between the morning paper and the evening news.

And we are only talking about starvation. There are many other buildings that fall every day for related reasons: tsunamis of illnesses for which vaccines can not be acquired, earthquakes that demolish schools and playgrounds, terrorist bands that enrich themselves by exploiting child labor and prostitution.

And we are only talking about children."

Bush embraces bio fuels:

US Bio-Fuels drive threatens food supplies. The marketing of genetically modified seeds that don't produce viable seeds tying the farmer into a seed cost cycle and the use of food seed and the use of large areas of soil in a replacement of oil is a scandal with the degree of starvation remaining unabated. It seems that there has developed a market for oil replacement that will assure profits and a continuance of inequalities of wealth and produce. There are alternatives where non-food vegetation can be used and viable seeds used assuring farmer control and alleviating starvation.

"Business as usual"

Edited May 29, 2007 by John Dolva

[Sid Walker]

I'm not enthused that this thread has been resurrected, as I consider my opening post one of my more unappealing contributions to this forum.

As I recall, I had just been criticized on another thread for 'obsessing' with something or other to do with conspiracies. The result was a rather cynical outburst which did me little credit, especially when read out of context.

However, John's latest post does enable me to highlight what I think is an important point.

Of course it is true that, every day, horrific numbers of people die horrible, unnecessary, untimely deaths because of gross social injustice and other soluble, human-created problems. It has been a constant throughout my life.

However, the best way to deal with this is not so obvious.

I would argue that - if effective - work that exposes and helps to overcome the criminal plutocracy that has increasingly gained a strangle-hold over international policy-making... such worl makes a first class, albeit indirect contribution to the well-being of humanity and our ability to arrest environmental decline.

This is arguably the most important task before us.

In the person of JFK, for instance, the world had a US President with a clear and very ambitious agenda for global peace. But when he was murdered in office, in a rather obvious conspiracy, the progressive intelligentsia largely pretended to know better than to "waste time" on "conspiracy theories".

The peace movement needs to do a much better job protecting our most successful advocates - and seeking justice if they are callously 'culled' by people who, however they may rationalize their behaviour, are essentially murderers.

What's the connection with the global environmental crisis?

Simply this. World society must co-operate to a quite unprecedented extent to solve the environmental challenges we face. Such co-operation is improbable - if not impossible - as long as the world is ridden with military conflict.

We now know enough about wars - and the many elements that make up a modern warfare culture - to know these things do not come about by chance, or as an inevitable consequence of 'human nature'. They are manufactured. We need to bring the manufacturers to justice and take away their ability to cause mayhem.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Sid Walker

[John Dolva]

Sid, I take your topic as a positively provocative irony and welcome it as an opportunity to 'expose and identify' the perps in the worlds environmental problems. If there were no people there would be no problem. It's a problem by and for people. A byproduct is the ongoing extinction and misery of other life. Animals and plants will not solve the problem but the environment as a system of balances develops in such a way that corrections naturally occur. The consequences to humanity may be catastrophic. Such things as the possible cessation of the Gulf stream and the theorised consequences are high on the agenda.

Monoculture, and the patenting of non-viable seeds sets the stage for possible global famine should the crops have to deal with a disease, as opposed to diversified viable food seed.

Preservation of viable seed is a problem many are aware of. The patenting of genetically modified foodstuffs needs to be regulated and the consequences of unregulated seed sources which threatens to supplant small economy independence emphasised.

Countries like Costa Rica catching enough fish to feed its people while the majority of it goes to feed the cats of the USA. The World Bank and similar bodies using debt to pressure economies and societies to reform in a manner detrimental to their populations.

The enforced freeing up of local economies to Global monopolies thus destroying local infrastructure etc etc etc...

The right wing think tanks, many with a history traced to the JBS and other elements of the Kennedy era, particularly centered in the USA that seek to belittle the problems, for example producing nonsense such as that a little bit of nuclear radiation from nuclear power station accidents is healthy or that the dangers of nuclear energy is overstated, need to be exposed for what they are.

The deforestation of the Amazon to produce cattle for the 'big mack' is a major loss of a major source of Oxygen. The possible changes in flora and fauna through pollution and temperature changes in the top layers of the oceans ditto.

In addressing the environmental issues one is addressing the root cause of many problems such as an unrestrained global economy, and therefore the very tiny majority of the worlds population that owns the vast majority of its wealth and the infrastrucure that protects them. Rampant, unrestarined, protected by States (Engels: the state is a body of armed men), clamouring for wealth, are the greatest threat to humanity and life on earth today.

Free energy production is possible in many ways. That's not the problem. The problem is that the powers to be contains the energy resources within a market economy.

Every house hold can produce all the energy and water it needs. Every community can produce the food it needs. The decentralisation of control or management of these basic needs would wipe out monopolistic capital and its power base.

Therefore it won't happen until people take charge, perhaps in an anarcho-syndicalist format?

Edited May 31, 2007 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

More on Bio Fuels:

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/abril/juev12/15biocomb.html

"ONCE again history is witness to the victimization of victims. This time it is in the context of the current search for solutions to today's energy model...

"WITH the craze over vegetable-based fuels, we are witnessing a terrifying and last (possibly) concentration of big capital, including agrochemical, necrotechnological, agribusiness and oil corporations, with the benevolent complicity of states. If it is more profitable to produce vegetable-based fuels than food, big capital will turn to vegetable-based fuels." Dominique Guillet.

"With 36,000 people dying every day due to lack of food, Planet Earth will be in a state of famine. If I may be allowed a comparison, 36,000 people represent 12 times (!) the number of people who died in the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001." Pierre Rabhi

"Plus or minus a few dollars, one ton of soy oil is sold for approximately $450, while a ton of soy biofuel is sold for about $650. This simple equation has caused almost all soy oil producers in the Argentine province of Santa Fe to set up production plants for making that oil into biofuel. They are extremely highly automated plants, according to their makers, so much so that the number of additional jobs they will bring is practically zero." Engineer Pablo Bertinat.

"The U.S. government is not at all reliable in terms of any type of association, because it systematically fails to fulfill its promises after getting what it wants. In the 1950s, it took our uranium and thorium with the promise of specific compensation in nuclear technology, which never arrived; it promised petroleum to North Korea in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program, but the oil was not delivered; it continues not to comply with the decision of the World Trade Organization regarding the removal of its agricultural subsidies. The United States is now depending in a decisive way on imported energy... it wants our ethanol, but without annulling the surcharges that make ethanol production viable there, too." Professor Bernardo Kucinski

....

"IN order to fill a sports car's 25-gallon fuel tank with pure ethanol, more than 450 pounds of corn are needed, containing enough calories to feed one person for an entire year. With the pressure being exerted on international suppliers of food crops, an increase in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for basic and processed foods all over the world."

in the article: When talking of North and South here the reference is to a terminology referring to a political map in the way that one speaks of thirld world countries and so on.

Edited June 3, 2007 by John Dolva