Posts tagged with ecology
At present, nearly 70% of water is used for agriculture, compared with 20% for industry and only 10% for human consumption. Not surprisingly, Americans use water at roughly double the world average, in part owing to a meat-centered diet and a fast-food culture that has no precedent. The global crisis imposes new pressures on water availability at a time when population growth and increased meat production drastically raise demands on this irreplaceable resources, and quick remedies are nowhere in sight: huge projects (dams, reservoirs, desalinization plants) are expensive, energy draining, and make up a relatively small percentage of the deficit. The world now operates some 15,000 energy-consuming desalinization facilities but these satisfy far less than 1% of all human consumption, with little change in sight.
Let’s just be aware that we are dealing with a series of very serious problems (in his book, Living in the End Times, he categorizes them as a) economic, b) social divisions, c) ecological, d) biogenetics) which if we just leave the existing society to develop…following it’s inherent tendencies… will eventually lead to some kind of zero level catastrophic point.
Are we fighting fires the wrong way?
According to new research, we should stop fighting fires in the forests and brush and focus on securing homes and structures instead.
Don’t Kiss Mistletoe Goodbye: Now, a recent study from Australia says mistletoe actually keeps forests healthy, and suggests that the plant could actually help restore the health of struggling forests, The New York Times reports.
People can fall into the trap of blaming the poor of developing countries for the problems of the world since it is poor countries that have these massive, ballooning populations. Is is true that overpopulation in poor countries exacerbates the living conditions in those countries, but bear in mind that the average middle-class citizen of a Western nation consumes more than a hundred times the volume of resources of the average poor citizen of a developing nation. Armory Lovins calculated that the average American consumes 250 times the resources of the average Nigerian. This means that the United States has the global impact of seventy-five trillion Nigerians. I’ll go one step further: I’ll bet American citizens consume more Nigerian resources than Nigerians themselves.
Darwin was Right: Islands are Unique and Factories of Speciation
- by Carrie Arnold, for ScienceNOW (Image: ggalice)
Recommendation: Examined Life
My favorite thinkers from the film are Cornel West, Peter Singer, Michael Hardt, and Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Mindfulness of nature, therefore, is not a tree hugger’s plea but a practical imperative for twenty-first century survival. Our peril is unprecedented, and human knowledge, values, and social institutions are far behind the curve. The global economy has suddenly become so large - $70 trillion a year and doubling in size roughly every twenty years - that the earth’s air, water, land, and climate are all under threat. Our global response to date has been so obtuse, so absurd, so shortsighted that it almost seems that humanity has a death wish. This ignorance and shortsightedness can lead us to disaster. Of course, more than a death wish has been at play; the greed of powerful vested interests has been far more consequential than public confusion and shortsightedness.
Migratory patterns are being destroyed by barriers, habitat degradation, pollution and climate change.
Read the full article here at AlJazerra.com
