What is the world's greatest environmental threat?

[Traitorfish]

Now, the Potato Blight hit Europe at varying points throughout the 1840s, but certainly did not stay in Ireland for a decade. It hit the Highlands at about the same time, with equal effect on the potato crop, but not equal damage to the population[...]

Out of interest, is there any particular reason for that? As I understand it, the death toll in Scotland was lower than in Ireland because more Scots were able to emigrate before reaching the point of starvation, but was there a reason why so many Irish were unable to so? Was it simply that they were too impoverished even to be able to make the journey? (Unfortunately, I've not read very much about the famine itself, only as background to emigration and to later events in Ireland.)

 

[ParkCungHee]

Impoverishment to the level where the journey couldn't be made was certainly a tremendous factor. Conditions of travel for the Irish that could afford to flee to America were just slightly above that of slave ships. And it's not like immigration from Ireland wasn't attempted as a solution. More then a million people left in 4 years.

The other big factor was population. Ireland at the time was a nation of 8 million people, a level Scotland was 2.6 million, the Highlands making up only a small portion of that. It's no exaggeration to say that if the starving peoples of Ireland were relocated in England, it would permanently shift the demography of the country. Something like 1 in 8 people in England would be a recent Irish immigrant.

Lastly, I don't have any direct knowledge about how it was handled in Scotland, but I'm willing to bet that Scottish Authorities handled it differently, both for ideological and practical reasons, as authorities over the Highlands would have access to the resources of the Lowlands.

 

[The_Tyrant]

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

 

[Ramius75]

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

well, if its natural then there isnt much we can do about it isnt it ? If we cant do anything about it. there isnt anything to worry about it either.

like the Super mega volcano erupting or out of scale earthquake...

 

[Winner]

Overpopulation...and monogamy...

Monogamy...?

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

So, you say that "global warming doesn't exist" and that "Earth's climate undergoes natural, cyclical changes" in one paragraph. Apparently, you don't see the contradiction

Global warming is a fact proven by decades of temperatures records. The controversy is about how much of it is caused by man.

 

[ZeletDude]

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

Because humans are to blame for the majority of current environmental dangers?

The real question is why do you dispute scientific fact? Something like 98% of scientists believe Global Warming is caused by humans, why should we doubt them?

 

[Traitorfish]

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

Your skywizard finally getting sick of us and deciding to just boil us off, eh?

 

[Tee Kay]

98% of scientists

Don't do this. You can't verify it and it's a bad look.

It's probably more like 99% anyway.

 

[knez]

There is much hullabaloo about global warming, but there are many environmental threats to mankind I think are far more serious.

I think right now, the world should be more focused on our water supply.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/view/

Basically. this Frontline documentary examines two water basins, one near my home in the Puget Sound, and the other on the United States' East Coast, the Chesapeake.

Some of the interesting things noted in this documentary are that our water supplies, even when filtered, still leave many ppb's of all sorts of chemical and pharmaceutical drugs. I read a long time ago, (no link, sorry) that San Fransisco had a high amount of testosterone and estrogen from sex-change drugs.

But even if you want to ignore these drugs, every day, we use soap, shampoos, shaving creams, lotions and a variety of other toiletries that are full of chemicals, chemicals which have had little if no study done on what they would do to the water supply if used en masse... ...individually, but more frightening, there would not even be a way to possibly scientifically study the effects of all these chemicals and drugs combined.

So, do you think global warming is the biggest threat to mankind?


Second to water pollution, I find the prospects of genetic engineering quite terrifying. With companies like Monsanto breeding "terminator seeds", seeds that will grow food, but only produce sterile seeds, so that farmers cannot re-use the technology. If these were to get into the wild, or some how spread and become invasive, we could see worldwide famine. I also read recently that they have engineered mosquitoes to inject vaccines against disease commonly spread by mosquitoes. While this sounds like a good idea, I worry about how far this would go, and again, what happens if a genetically modified lifeform becomes invasive, and starts dominating the food chain?

An example of this is an aquarium algae/plant that was made, Caulerpa taxifolia, because it was highly resistant to disease, unedible, and green, so it graced aquariums nicely. Unfortunately, it got into the Mediterranean, and has spread rapidly, causing tens of thousands of acres of the Mediterranean floor to become a dead zone, because the plant took over, and nothing could eat it, except a certain sea slug. And although breeding these slugs seemed like a solution, it is actually recursive, in that, then only the slugs would inhabit the sea floor. When this algae broke out of the coast of California, California too the extreme measure of putting a hood over all of the infected areas, and using chlorine to exterminate it, and this was over dozens of square miles.

I've voted Other

World's greatest environmental threat are green activists and politicians with their apsurd wants and laws, as the promote misalocation and misuse of natural resources

 

[Winner]

I've voted Other

World's greatest environmental threat are green activists and politicians with their apsurd wants and laws, as the promote misalocation and misuse of natural resources

Let me guess - the free market decides how best to treat the environment

 

[Cutlass]

Why are all the options seemingly man-made hazards? Global warming does not exist, the effects of pollution are exaggerated. The biggest environmental thread are the natural, changing cycles in earth's climate that have nothing to do with humans.

All the people who know something about the subject disagree.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think that the current massive extinction (which ongoing at rates akin to all the major extinctions) is mainly human caused.

 

[Cutlass]

Massive drought in U.S. Midwest sends global crop prices soaring

Peter Koven Jul 9, 2012 – 5:55 PM ET | Last Updated: Jul 10, 2012 1:53 PM ET

A massive drought in the U.S. corn belt, the worst some say in nearly a quarter-century, has triggered a buying frenzy in global grain markets and bolstered Canadian fertilizer producers.
This recent price escalation is unlike anything we have seen in recent years

Prices for key agricultural commodities such as corn, soybean and wheat have soared in the past few weeks as investors realize yields in the corn belt are going to be far lower than they expected in the spring.

Grain prices are approaching the peak levels reached in mid-2008, a period when many other commodities were also hitting record highs just before the economic meltdown. While many commodities are well below those levels today, grains have climbed all the way back.

Rest of story HERE

You can say "coincidence" to any particular event. But when extreme events are happening over and over again in the same direction, far outside of normal ranges, then at some point you have to accept that something else is going on.

 

[ZeletDude]

It's probably more like 99% anyway.

Don't do that, you can't verify it ...

It's the main point that matters anyway....

 

[innonimatu]

You can say "coincidence" to any particular event. But when extreme events are happening over and over again in the same direction, far outside of normal ranges, then at some point you have to accept that something else is going on.

Hrs anyone really demonstrated in a statistically sound way that "extreme events" are any more frequent recently than they were in, say, any other decade since we've had reliable information about the situation across the world (that'd be the 1880s, I guess)?

Also, the pool really should be "What is the greatest environmental threat to mankind". Even if we managed now to wipe ourselves out as a species the world would go on after we've gone. It's been going on across far more cataclysmic events than anything within the present ability of mankind to produce.

But if by threat to the world's environment environment we understand merely any deviation from what it is today then undoubtedly mankind its its greatest "threat", as it has been, and as it should continue to be. Humans have needs and they should keep transforming the world to address those needs. For that to happen change in inevitable.

Water and air pollution, as well as "climate change" or whatever people call it today, have long been facts of life. Localized problems. New genetically manipulated organisms could possibly cause big unforeseen changes but even in a worst case they could perhaps be comparable to invasive species introduced into a new continent - I'm not taking any "grey goo" fears seriously - yet. Nuclear pollution creates localized long-term problems and global short-term ones, very bad for humans but nothing "the environment" cannot recover from - we've seen that from both Chernobyl and the disastrous (for mankind) spree of nuclear tests where we even managed to create a new belt of radioactive particles around the planet. Oh, and could throw in, few good measure, the ozone depletion problem. That too was a serious short-term global threat to mankind,but one that would disappear on its own eventually. The whole planet is harder to change than it might seem to come concerned environmentalists of the globalist kind. I really thing they should stick to worrying about localized problems. The balance between work put into solving the problems and results is much better.

 

[Cutlass]

Hrs anyone really demonstrated in a statistically sound way that "extreme events" are any more frequent recently than they were in, say, any other decade since we've had reliable information about the situation across the world (that'd be the 1880s, I guess)?

Yes. Prior to the 1950s or so we had plenty of extreme weather events, but they were extreme both in highs and lows. So if you look at a typical scattershot graph you get plenty of points both above and below long term averages. Now, there are more major events, and nearly all of them are above long term averages. So the long term averages is actually forced to change. Severity, costs, frequency, are all up in ways consistent with AGW theory.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Speaking just about Canada, I'd say the greatest environmental threat is Stephen Harper (our Prime Minister). He's determined to squeeze every last drop of oil out of the tar sands and sell it somewhere, and he doesn't care one bit about the consequences.

I got a call from the Conservative Party this afternoon. They thanked me for helping Stephen Harper get elected to be Prime Minister, and they hoped they could count on my support against Mulcair (the new NDP leader) because he had some "funny ideas" about the tar sands (Mulcair thinks it's a Bad Thing to ruin the environment).

I finally managed to get the guy to shut up long enough to tell him that I didn't deserve any credit for helping Stephen Harper, because I didn't vote Conservative. I have never voted Conservative, and never will. I also told him I wouldn't give that party so much as a counterfeit penny of support. Then he offered to take my name off the list, I said "yes, please" and hopefully I won't now be targeted for the next round of robo-calls in the next election.

 

[Winner]

Yeah, I've recently learned about some of the mining projects in Canada, and they're pretty nasty.

I'd say North Americans in general have a tendency towards a more exploitative view of the environment. I mean culturally. Europeans have run into the limits of their environmental sustainability some time in the late 19th/early 20th century. Since then, their mindset have begun incorporating the notion that their natural habitat isn't indestructible and has to be properly managed to last. North Americans on the other hand have developed their mindset in a continent which for centuries looked absolutely inexhaustible in terms of natural resources, and it shows.

 

[peter grimes]

Hrs anyone really demonstrated in a statistically sound way that "extreme events" are any more frequent recently than they were in, say, any other decade since we've had reliable information about the situation across the world (that'd be the 1880s, I guess)?

Also, the pool really should be "What is the greatest environmental threat to mankind". Even if we managed now to wipe ourselves out as a species the world would go on after we've gone. It's been going on across far more cataclysmic events than anything within the present ability of mankind to produce.

But if by threat to the world's environment environment we understand merely any deviation from what it is today then undoubtedly mankind its its greatest "threat", as it has been, and as it should continue to be. Humans have needs and they should keep transforming the world to address those needs. For that to happen change in inevitable.

Water and air pollution, as well as "climate change" or whatever people call it today, have long been facts of life. Localized problems. New genetically manipulated organisms could possibly cause big unforeseen changes but even in a worst case they could perhaps be comparable to invasive species introduced into a new continent - I'm not taking any "grey goo" fears seriously - yet. Nuclear pollution creates localized long-term problems and global short-term ones, very bad for humans but nothing "the environment" cannot recover from - we've seen that from both Chernobyl and the disastrous (for mankind) spree of nuclear tests where we even managed to create a new belt of radioactive particles around the planet. Oh, and could throw in, few good measure, the ozone depletion problem. That too was a serious short-term global threat to mankind,but one that would disappear on its own eventually.. The whole planet is harder to change than it might seem to come concerned environmentalists of the globalist kind. I really thing they should stick to worrying about localized problems. The balance between work put into solving the problems and results is much better.

Your post deserves a longer response, but I'm on my pocket computer.

I'll just say, if you add up enough local problems that are trending in the same direction you wind up with a global problem.

Asking environmentally concerned people to restrict their worries to their own region results in problems. Tragedy Of The Commons, for example. Also, rich nations will export environmental degradation, as currently happens already.

 

[knez]

Yeah, I've recently learned about some of the mining projects in Canada, and they're pretty nasty.

I'd say North Americans in general have a tendency towards a more exploitative view of the environment. I mean culturally. Europeans have run into the limits of their environmental sustainability some time in the late 19th/early 20th century. Since then, their mindset have begun incorporating the notion that their natural habitat isn't indestructible and has to be properly managed to last. North Americans on the other hand have developed their mindset in a continent which for centuries looked absolutely inexhaustible in terms of natural resources, and it shows.

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