what kind of planet will we leave future generations?
June 13, 2004 10:37 PM Subscribe
what kind of planet will we leave future generations
as the human race gets "richer? and if those future generations will look back fondly at our stewardship or with disdain?
as the human race gets "richer? and if those future generations will look back fondly at our stewardship or with disdain?
The USA, if you extrapolate policy, anyway, is fundamentally carried forward by the princple: eat the young. We already ate the environment, after all.
It's no surprise. I actually watched Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys" tonight and I actually cheered for the guy who let loose the crazy virus.
how many lists am I on now, ashcroft?
posted by scarabic at 12:21 AM on June 14, 2004
It's no surprise. I actually watched Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys" tonight and I actually cheered for the guy who let loose the crazy virus.
how many lists am I on now, ashcroft?
posted by scarabic at 12:21 AM on June 14, 2004
Appearently some of them high in carbs
Metafilter - we quit using refined children
posted by TungstenChef at 1:40 AM on June 14, 2004
delmoi: only if we find a renewable source of lubricating oil.
posted by biffa at 2:37 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by biffa at 2:37 AM on June 14, 2004
Who cares about how we leave the earth for future generations? Everyone knows Armageddon is just around the corner so it doesn't matter! Correct? :)
posted by nofundy at 5:44 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by nofundy at 5:44 AM on June 14, 2004
homunculus is onto it. But - I suspect - the reacquaintance between humans and all of the other of our planet's inhabitants, the reawakening of the forgotten knowledge of our human senses, and our re-learning of the largely forgotten languages of animals and plants will happen for most only under duress. Or not at all.
When this at last happens it will, however, be an historically new relation to a new knowledge based in a natural world fundamentally transformed and degraded - for the most part unintentionally - by human agency. Loren Eiseley likened us to beavers with mechanical contrivances - only now we possess as well a Pandora's Box of genetically modified organisms to transform the World's genome in unexpected ways; that life we release may come to trouble us more than the effects of local, unmodified invasive species.
As the dust settles out, it will be a new world - certainly one poorer in life, and we who live now and have passed away will be seen as the morally corrupt dwellers in the last days of Babylon who had squandered and consumed the future and so consigned their successors to a lesser, meaner life.
posted by troutfishing at 5:55 AM on June 14, 2004
When this at last happens it will, however, be an historically new relation to a new knowledge based in a natural world fundamentally transformed and degraded - for the most part unintentionally - by human agency. Loren Eiseley likened us to beavers with mechanical contrivances - only now we possess as well a Pandora's Box of genetically modified organisms to transform the World's genome in unexpected ways; that life we release may come to trouble us more than the effects of local, unmodified invasive species.
As the dust settles out, it will be a new world - certainly one poorer in life, and we who live now and have passed away will be seen as the morally corrupt dwellers in the last days of Babylon who had squandered and consumed the future and so consigned their successors to a lesser, meaner life.
posted by troutfishing at 5:55 AM on June 14, 2004
What troutfishing said. Besides, kids always hate the previous generation(s)....which is part of the reason why I don't want to have any.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:56 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:56 AM on June 14, 2004
trout. yeah. has anyone seen a comprehensive, based in real science projection of what earth will look like in 25, 50 and 100 years if all the current trends of deforestation, global warming etc. continue unabated? one wonders if frontline or nova are working a such a thing?
posted by specialk420 at 7:16 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by specialk420 at 7:16 AM on June 14, 2004
specialk420 - Yes, more or less. There were some people I knew of (outside of governmental circles, that is) working on such a project in '01. Hardin Tibbs was leading the charge.
Here's an earlier ('98) piece by Tibbs: Global Scenarios for the Millennium
Ahhh......here it is. This is what you want, I believe :
"The EARTHscope is a web based "geo-story-telling" tool that incorporates important Design Science problem solving principles and methods. Developed by the Buckminster Fuller Institute, a 501c3 non-profit, EARTHscope combines GIS mapping, time series data layers, animation, and scenarios into a single publishing framework and multimedia enhanced interface. These powerful communication and visual display techniques provide students with a unique structure to create visually rich stories based on their research findings that can be shared via the web with other schools and students. EARTHscope is designed to foster a whole-systems perspective that supports the discovery of the often invisible linkages between human and planetary life support systems at the global and local level."
I saw Tibbs present this project - back on Sept. 7th or 8th, 2001, at a small semi-private (unannounced) presentation - with a number of environmental luminaries in attendance - at a major environmental concert. Tibbs' was extremely eloquent and knowledgeable, but I thought the project - which he pitched as the next "killer app" and which was (obviously, to me) designed to convey visually (to the great unwashed) the severity of decay in earth systems was a tremendous (if noble) overstretch. Tibbs, it seemed to me, was - unbeknownst to him - trying actually to model and convey his own enhanced awareness of the great biological unraveling we are all a part of.
He was right, partly. Pictures, and better - moving pictures and projected, data-based scenarios depicted graphically - are very useful. Still, I see them as another potent tool - no more, no less.
Better still, a walk through the woods.
During the presentation, as talk heated up, Tibbs' professional reserve came down - "If we don't deal with this stuff in the next 20 years, we're all f___cked !" (to quote loosely - except for the expletive, which is accurate)
posted by troutfishing at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2004
Here's an earlier ('98) piece by Tibbs: Global Scenarios for the Millennium
Ahhh......here it is. This is what you want, I believe :
"The EARTHscope is a web based "geo-story-telling" tool that incorporates important Design Science problem solving principles and methods. Developed by the Buckminster Fuller Institute, a 501c3 non-profit, EARTHscope combines GIS mapping, time series data layers, animation, and scenarios into a single publishing framework and multimedia enhanced interface. These powerful communication and visual display techniques provide students with a unique structure to create visually rich stories based on their research findings that can be shared via the web with other schools and students. EARTHscope is designed to foster a whole-systems perspective that supports the discovery of the often invisible linkages between human and planetary life support systems at the global and local level."
I saw Tibbs present this project - back on Sept. 7th or 8th, 2001, at a small semi-private (unannounced) presentation - with a number of environmental luminaries in attendance - at a major environmental concert. Tibbs' was extremely eloquent and knowledgeable, but I thought the project - which he pitched as the next "killer app" and which was (obviously, to me) designed to convey visually (to the great unwashed) the severity of decay in earth systems was a tremendous (if noble) overstretch. Tibbs, it seemed to me, was - unbeknownst to him - trying actually to model and convey his own enhanced awareness of the great biological unraveling we are all a part of.
He was right, partly. Pictures, and better - moving pictures and projected, data-based scenarios depicted graphically - are very useful. Still, I see them as another potent tool - no more, no less.
Better still, a walk through the woods.
During the presentation, as talk heated up, Tibbs' professional reserve came down - "If we don't deal with this stuff in the next 20 years, we're all f___cked !" (to quote loosely - except for the expletive, which is accurate)
posted by troutfishing at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2004
Part of the answer? Shut down coal power plants, for good. It's time for the green movement to move on and accept that nuclear power is the only viable clean technology capable of powering a modern civilization. At the very least, it will clean our skies and buy us time till fusion.
Unless, of course, the goal is to dismantle technological civilization. And that will mean gigadeaths on a scale Hollywood moviemakers can only dream of.
posted by darukaru at 8:21 AM on June 14, 2004
Unless, of course, the goal is to dismantle technological civilization. And that will mean gigadeaths on a scale Hollywood moviemakers can only dream of.
posted by darukaru at 8:21 AM on June 14, 2004
"gigadeaths" ? "dismantle technological civilization" ?
posted by troutfishing at 8:30 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by troutfishing at 8:30 AM on June 14, 2004
North America used to be natively populated with horses and mammoths and giant sloths (among others) and an invasive species arrived about 12,000 b.p. and within a few thousand years had completely wiped these animals out. The horse did not come back until 500 b.p. when the Spanish brought it over. Humans have been altering the planet since they left Africa 60,000 years ago and will continue to do so, we are part of nature just like the Zebra muscle and other aggressive invasive species
posted by stbalbach at 9:30 AM on June 14, 2004
posted by stbalbach at 9:30 AM on June 14, 2004
stbalbach - well, yes. And humans may have the overall impact of one of the five great extinction events known of in the history of life on the Earth.
Then again, there was also the "photosynthetic holocaust" that ensued with the rise of photosynthetic life forms and which drove earth's anaerobic life to take refuge underground and anywhere where it could escape from poisonous oxygen.
The rise of the angiosperms also caused major disruption.
Still, the human impact on current life is very, very big and the funny thing about that is that some of us are aware of the process.
But what does it serve to call this "natural" or "unnatural" ?
If the Earth were due to be struck by a planet-killing boloid, would we be best advised to 1) try and avoid that fate by whatever means necessary - or 2) simply accept it as a "natural" event ?
I'd take door #1, thank you.
posted by troutfishing at 9:41 AM on June 14, 2004
Then again, there was also the "photosynthetic holocaust" that ensued with the rise of photosynthetic life forms and which drove earth's anaerobic life to take refuge underground and anywhere where it could escape from poisonous oxygen.
The rise of the angiosperms also caused major disruption.
Still, the human impact on current life is very, very big and the funny thing about that is that some of us are aware of the process.
But what does it serve to call this "natural" or "unnatural" ?
If the Earth were due to be struck by a planet-killing boloid, would we be best advised to 1) try and avoid that fate by whatever means necessary - or 2) simply accept it as a "natural" event ?
I'd take door #1, thank you.
posted by troutfishing at 9:41 AM on June 14, 2004
"If we don't deal with this stuff in the next 20 years, we're all f___cked !"
a fairly good reason to vote for the very strong on the environment John Kerry ... though the system i'm sure will limit what he can do even when he is overwhelmingly elected in a few short months.
it would be nice if kofi annan would step up to the plate and not miss the boat on this one like he did in rwanda.
posted by specialk420 at 10:03 AM on June 14, 2004
a fairly good reason to vote for the very strong on the environment John Kerry ... though the system i'm sure will limit what he can do even when he is overwhelmingly elected in a few short months.
it would be nice if kofi annan would step up to the plate and not miss the boat on this one like he did in rwanda.
posted by specialk420 at 10:03 AM on June 14, 2004
Trout I agree we need to do something about it.. if the Upper Paleolithic peoples who first colonized North America had not wiped out the horse they may have evolved as a culture much more rapidly and been able to avoid their own eventual extermination at the hands of a few technologically superior Europeans. So yes we never know what consequence wiping out particular species will reap in particular with medicine these days.
specialk so its already a landslide lets hope so, I went down to the Reagan viewing in DC and the line was 7 miles long at 2am there are a lot of Republicans out there still it will be a fight. It really comes down to education most people don't read sadly, including our President.
posted by stbalbach at 10:21 AM on June 14, 2004
specialk so its already a landslide lets hope so, I went down to the Reagan viewing in DC and the line was 7 miles long at 2am there are a lot of Republicans out there still it will be a fight. It really comes down to education most people don't read sadly, including our President.
posted by stbalbach at 10:21 AM on June 14, 2004
environmental luminaries are in attendance!
save the tainted goby!
the system [i'm sure] will limit what he can do.
posted by foot at 12:22 PM on June 14, 2004
save the tainted goby!
the system [i'm sure] will limit what he can do.
posted by foot at 12:22 PM on June 14, 2004
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posted by delmoi at 11:17 PM on June 13, 2004