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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pope Francis on climate change
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Tukai
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# 12960
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Posted
Although there is already a thread on "titanic struggle for the Catholic church", I think the Pope's encyclical on climate change raises many wider issues for non-Catholics and non-Christians, so deserves a new thread. So here it is.
For the full text of the encyclical "laudate si" go to here .
For a briefer newspaper report, go to here
Hosts: can you pls clean up these links - the new URL dialogue has confused me, although I could manage the old one.
In essence the Pope has called on the world’s rich nations to begin paying their “grave social debt” to the poor and take concrete steps on climate change, saying failure to do so presents an undeniable risk to a “common home” that is beginning to resemble a “pile of filth”.
Do you think this none of his business? Or on the contrary, that climate change or more generally despoiling the environment is a moral issue on which he can and should speak out. As a Pacific Islander I sympathise with President Tong of Kiribati , who also calls it a moral issue, as the sea level caused by climate change threatens to put his whole country under water.
What effect will or should the Pope's forceful statement have on ordinary catholics/ christians or on catholic layleaders? I have in mind the Australian Prime Minister , who was once a Catholic seminary student wants the issue ignored as he states "coal is good for humanity" and "climate change is crap" as he does his best to negate all measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels. .
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[ 19. June 2015, 06:07: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
Posts: 594 | From: Oz | Registered: Sep 2007
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
Guess even the Pope can have a point of view on climate change . But what kind of ffect does he\ expect from this pronouncement ?
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I'd say the destruction of God's creation and the blatant exploitation of natural resources for our own benefit at the expense of others are subjects well within a theologian's remit.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
We have known beyond any reasonable doubt that human activity, principally burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, have been causing significant change in local and global climates for more than 20 years. These causes are primarily the result of the lifestyles of the rich - our demands for energy to power our affluent lifestyle, our demands for cheap meat (with the clear felling of forestry for cattle grazing), etc. But, having been the significant cause of the problems of climate change, we who are rich are unlikely to face the consequences for at lest the next few decades, whereas the poor are already forced from the homes and livelihoods, and getting sick and dying.
These are all moral issues. The wilful blindness of some people to the effects of our lifestyle is a moral issue. The increase in obesity among the rich, which is approaching levels in excess of the number of people starving, is a moral issue. The amount of stuff we waste is a moral issue. Our excessive consumption of limited resources, especially when we start to fight wars to secure control of oil and other resources, is a moral issue.
The Pope surely has no real choice but to address what is quite possibly the biggest moral issue facing the world today.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It is hard to imagine the Pope having much impact on those Roman Catholics who already have closed minds, even if they are Australian Prime Ministers or US Republican Presidential candidates.
But I did think it was interesting how some sections of the media were intent on castigating the Pope for the things he didn't talk about - notably contraception.
I am not a Roman Catholic, and I don't agree that there is anything unholy about family planning. But the Pope is undoubtedly correct that the main issue here is consumption by the few. It is the minority of ultra-consumers who have caused the problem, it is the minority of ultra-consumers who have primarily trashed the planet and it is primarily the weakest and poorest who will suffer from the results.
It seems to me that if the richest billion did not exist, then the planet could sustain multiple times the population of the rest.
There is more sobering science and analysis coming out all the time. This recent analysis is apparently giving this scary thought:
quote:
By 2018, no new cars, homes, schools, factories, or electrical power plants should be built anywhere in the world, ever again, unless they’re either replacements for old ones or carbon neutral. Otherwise greenhouse gas emissions will push global warming past 2˚C of temperature rise worldwide, threatening the survival of many people currently living on the planet.
No new factories, no expansion... what then?
[ 19. June 2015, 08:01: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I think it's great that he has done this. And he's absolutely spot on to pin much of it on blatant unrestrained greed.
I like this pope a lot.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
No new factories, no expansion... what then?
The total insolation is in the order of 10^17W. Our power consumption is in the order of 10^13W. That's 10,000 times more than we use. We just have to stop burning shit, that's all.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It isn't only energy, although it is a major issue. Many systems depend on fossil fuels eg agriculture. Converting everything to work on solar (even if feasible) by 2018 is not going to happen.
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arse
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Mr Cheesy: quote:
I am not a Roman Catholic, and I don't agree that there is anything unholy about family planning.
Maybe it's not up to me to point out this misrepresentation, since I too am not in the RCC.
But SFAIK there is no RCC moral objection to family planning.
If you mean "anything morally objectionable to the use of artificial contraceptives" why not just say so?
It really is important in any debate (like on climate change) to represent viewpoints you express disagreement with accurately.
I know this is a tangent.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
No new factories, no expansion... what then?
The total insolation is in the order of 10^17W. Our power consumption is in the order of 10^13W. That's 10,000 times more than we use. We just have to stop burning shit, that's all.
It's only necessary to do a few fag packet calculations to realise that a factor of 1 in 10,000 is way too high to be achieved only from insolation. The point about Pole Francis's statement is that the Natural world is sacred, and needs to be given a higher priority and a higher value (not monetary - or more to the point - beyond monetary). Thinking in these terms is not just about tech fixes and power consumption - and the whole thing will come back into order of whatever kind when we as a communal whole start to think in terms of love of life (all life, not just us as individuals). Trying to bypass this by saying "it's impossible" or "it will take too long" or whatever will simply result in the tech fixes becoming a fixation and also them being doomed to failure - wither because they will not even be implemented, or because we will just cause more damage.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
Maybe it's not up to me to point out this misrepresentation, since I too am not in the RCC.
But SFAIK there is no RCC moral objection to family planning.
If you mean "anything morally objectionable to the use of artificial contraceptives" why not just say so?
It really is important in any debate (like on climate change) to represent viewpoints you express disagreement with accurately.
I know this is a tangent.
It is a tangent, so I'll not be rising to that.
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arse
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tukai:
Do you think this none of his business? Or on the contrary, that climate change or more generally despoiling the environment is a moral issue on which he can and should speak out.
If climate change pans out badly, future generations will look back on it as the only moral or political issue which mattered. Everything else we worry about - from gun control to gay marriage to Islamic State - will just be a tiny footnote. Climate change could be a extinction-level event.
So yes, it's good that the Pope's speaking out. If there was ever a political issue he ought to speak on, it's this.
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
My thanks to host AlanCresswell for fixing my untidy URL.
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Is the issue, 'what do we think about climate change?' or is it, 'should the Pope express a view on climate change?'
So often, when the Pope, or some other ecclesiastical figure, expresses an opinion on something controversial, whether climate change, the poor, or even both as here, up goes the cry from various other public voices, 'the church should stick to churchy matters and not presume to express a view on anything else, where we are the experts and know so much more about it'.
Odd, isn't it, though, that these public opinion-formers never seem to object when a church voice says something they agree with - only when it says something they don't want the public to hear. Through all the years when church voices have said 'the powers that be are ordained by God' or that the faithful shouldn't rock the political boat, we've never had presidents, monarchs, prime ministers, senators etc saying 'the church should not meddle in politics'. But as soon as a church leader mentions that Jesus might have been more interested in the poor and powerless than the rich and important, immediately the church is told not to interfere with what is none of its business, and to stick to the sort of stuff the ecclesiasiantic board deals with.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
Most of the "anti" reaction I've seen has focused on the fact that Pope should shut up about moral issues until the Catholic Church has spilled all they know about child abuse, rather than people being annoyed about coming down one one side or the other of a particular issue.
As far as these commenters are concerned, the church has lost the right to moralise to people on account of presiding over child abuse etc etc.
On this issue, I think the Pope is quite right, but others don't care on account of what they perceive as his failings
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I thought I should update my signature line....
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
As far as these commenters are concerned, the church has lost the right to moralise to people on account of presiding over child abuse etc etc.
Where are these commentaters located, lowlands boy? AFAIK the Catholic Church's record on child abuse in the UK is no worse than most other institutions, albeit far from perfect. Historically, the sector which did really badly was that of local authority children's homes, though they did clean up their act long ago.
Maybe they are posting from one of the countries where the record was far different?
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
You don't think it's more likely that those who cite the sorry story of child abuse are looking for what they think is a convenient excuse to let them off having to listen?
As an excuse, it's so irrelevant as it be irrationally so - in the strict legal meaning of that word.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
As far as these commenters are concerned, the church has lost the right to moralise to people on account of presiding over child abuse etc etc.
Where are these commentaters located, lowlands boy? AFAIK the Catholic Church's record on child abuse in the UK is no worse than most other institutions, albeit far from perfect. Historically, the sector which did really badly was that of local authority children's homes, though they did clean up their act long ago.
Maybe they are posting from one of the countries where the record was far different?
This one from the Daily Telegraph trots out a list of failings in the opinion of the other, but it's all a bit predictable. That one appeared somewhere on my Facebook feed, but there have been others in a similar vein.
I suppose the problem is that ex directors of children's homes aren't pontificating on climate change.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
If you don't like the truth - the easiest way to ignore it is to complain about the messenger.
[ 19. June 2015, 14:55: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
You don't think it's more likely that those who cite the sorry story of child abuse are looking for what they think is a convenient excuse to let them off having to listen?
As an excuse, it's so irrelevant as it be irrationally so - in the strict legal meaning of that word.
Well no, not really. The The Guardian, which has been generally supportive of the Pope's words and has a strong line on Climate Change has been pushing this as well.
[ 19. June 2015, 14:58: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Both those are opinion pieces, though. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, though I certainly won't be handing over any money for it.
There's a certain irony in two writers whose understandings (let alone qualifications) in the area of ethics, environmental science and religion appear to be genuinely zero telling us what to think. Both are journalists, and nothing wrong with that (though probably a lot wrong with spending much time at the Express). My message to them would be "try being a journalist - I want to hear about the facts. I'll make my own mind up thanks, so keep your opinions". Still, it's indicative of the enfeebled state of British newspaper publishing that feels such confused nonsense to be worth publishing.
I'm not sure it's really worth taking any engagement or critique further. (The Grauniad piece is probably the more coherent of the two).
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Tukai
Do you think this none of his business? Or on the contrary, that climate change or more generally despoiling the environment is a moral issue on which he can and should speak out. ...
What effect will or should the Pope's forceful statement have on ordinary catholics/ christians or on catholic layleaders?
I do see man made climate change as a moral issue and an appropriate subject for the Pope to address. But I completely disagree with his analysis of the causes and his preferred solutions, so the only effect his statement has on me is to depress me a little.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
My message to them would be "try being a journalist - I want to hear about the facts. I'll make my own mind up thanks, so keep your opinions".
The problem is that facts are so inconvenient.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Damn right they are Alan.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I do see man made climate change as a moral issue and an appropriate subject for the Pope to address. But I completely disagree with his analysis of the causes and his preferred solutions, so the only effect his statement has on me is to depress me a little.
It might make for interesting discussion if you unpacked this a bit. I confess that I am still reading and digesting the Encyclical, and so I throw no stones for those not yet ready to get into detail (I am not yet ready!), but I find it difficult to believe that you completely disagree with all of the Pope's proposals (and in full fairness, you did not say that you did--just that you disagreed with the Pope's "preferred solutions").
For example, in part he is encouraging open dialogue about the issues, with that dialogue including
quote:
everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.
From Paragraph 14.
Is that disagreeable?
He seems to be arguing for people to raise their world-view above mere political or national boundaries, above social/racial/economic divides, to view ourselves as a global community that needs to come together as a global community to address a global problem, rather than put all the burden on one nation or people to solve the problem. For example, from Paragraph 13:
quote:
The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.
I question whether such a dream is utopian, but I do not personally find it objectionable.
As I said, I am still digesting the letter but as the OP has suggested, I think it has a lot that could lead to fruitful discussion of the problem.
A dialogue, as it were.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It seems to me that if the richest billion did not exist, then the planet could sustain multiple times the population of the rest.
I suspect the richest billion think it's the poorest 4 billion who should disappear.
quote:
quote:
By 2018, no new cars, homes, schools, factories, or electrical power plants should be built anywhere in the world, ever again, unless they’re either replacements for old ones or carbon neutral. Otherwise greenhouse gas emissions will push global warming past 2˚C of temperature rise worldwide, threatening the survival of many people currently living on the planet.
No new factories, no expansion... what then?
Then the status quo is guaranteed - rich stay rich grandfathered into owning factories, the poor stay poor barred from starting factories that would compete, poor countries stay poor because they cannot develop commercially.
I expect the rich love this idea that only they are allowed to build new (replacement) factories, no upstart can build a greener one and compete.
It's a problem, how to you lock the amount of oil use or carbon or new building without locking people and countries into their current wealth or poverty status?
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
There's no reason why the new factories need to be owned by the same people as the old ones. Just that if we're to have any sort of hold on the mess we've made of things the total number of (non-carbon-neutral) factories can't change. If someone can open a factory making widgets far more efficiently than the existing factories then that will result in the older factories getting closed down. The challenge for existing factory owners is to pre-empt the efficiency improvements and enact them before a new competitor comes along.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Part of the problem is that the manufacturing sector has devoted itself to making stuff which lasts a short time an then has to be replaced. In e.g. clothing, his is partly achieved via the fashion "industry", but also by deliberately making all kinds of stuff so that it wears out quickly. I have a shirt made about 1990 by a surfing clothes company - I assume they chose best quality fiber to make it on the assumption that it would see a lot of saltwater and sun - I've worn it and worn it and it's still got years of life left in it. But instead of producing and using long fibres, a whole load of good agricultural land is now used to produce short cotton fibres for garments only meant to last a few months. Think of the water, the energy (in farming, producing, transporting), the pesticides, and the loss of fertile land that could be used for food production. That's just one example. Another example - Look at the UK's recent move to DAB instead of analogue radio and TV broadcasting - the power consumption of each DAB set is over 10x the old analogue sets. The electronic components are vastly more - integrated circuits (implying manufacturing power, pollution, and mining and use of rare earth minerals) - and what was the reason? so that the UK Govt could sell off airwaves and make a bit of money to balance its budget. Computers are now throwaway objects after 5 years because the systems that have to run on them are too big and demand too much speed - But for most intent and purposes, I could still be using a 1990 MacPro with a bigger hard drive if I were prepared to have a separate machine to play videos and I did not expect to be able to download them off the web. Take a look at food packaging. Take a look at long term arrangements for transport relying on roads and short delivery times (meaning more small deliveries) and the arrangement of towns so that we have to drive to shop - etc etc etc etc.
All this has to stop. It never was sustainable in the long term and it certainly isn't now. Reversing the manufacturing wastage is a relative doddle compared to what needs to be done to reverse inefficient infrastructure. How does anyone really think that energy consumption and pollution can really be addressed without tackling these issues? And how can these issues be tackled if we do not have a non-materialist view of what is valuable in the world?
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Hedgehog
I find it difficult to believe that you completely disagree with all of the Pope's proposals
"Since everything is closely interrelated, and today’s problems call for a vision capable of taking into account every aspect of the global crisis, I suggest that we now consider some elements of an integral ecology ..."
This sentence which begins chapter 4 sums up what I find unhelpful about this encyclical. The Pope writes about a large number of issues in addition to climate change, for example genetic modification of crops, bio diversity in forests, control of water resources, different patterns of land ownership and farming, quality of life in cities, the banking crisis, trade relationships between developed and developing countries. And a whole load of other stuff.
Then he says they are all linked and need to be solved as a whole. For me that would be a way of guaranteeing that climate change can't be addressed. It's hard enough to deal with that one issue without dragging in all those other things and trying to rewrite the whole world.
Not only because each issue is thorny in itself but because most people don't subscribe to a grand theory of everything. So you start out with the support of all who wants to tackle climate change, and then for each extra thing they are expected to sign up to, you lose a bit of the support.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
...
This sentence which begins chapter 4 sums up what I find unhelpful about this encyclical. The Pope writes about a large number of issues in addition to climate change, for example genetic modification of crops, bio diversity in forests, control of water resources, different patterns of land ownership and farming, quality of life in cities, the banking crisis, trade relationships between developed and developing countries. And a whole load of other stuff.
Then he says they are all linked and need to be solved as a whole. For me that would be a way of guaranteeing that climate change can't be addressed. It's hard enough to deal with that one issue without dragging in all those other things and trying to rewrite the whole world.
Not only because each issue is thorny in itself but because most people don't subscribe to a grand theory of everything. So you start out with the support of all who wants to tackle climate change, and then for each extra thing they are expected to sign up to, you lose a bit of the support.
The point is that all the things you list are expressions of human arrogance and greed - not about working with and respecting nature an other human beings. The gross accumulation of wealth and its use just to generate more wealth at any price to others and the planet is the main problem. I doubt that Francis has any problem with accumulation of wealth per se - provided that it is gathered and then re-used in a manner that respects people and nature.
If you want to see what that means in practice, there is a good example in organic sugar farming
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[ 21. June 2015, 07:53: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Just to add to that, reading further into the document...
The argument for GM is essentially one based on a particular economic model of land ownership - as opposed to land stewardship.
FAO land productivity figures show that there is a broad inverse relationship between land area farmed by one person/business entity and the total food produced. We talk about feeding the world, but in actuality it is about a small number of people feeding the world at a cost that is less than that commensurate with proper land stewardship, at a land productivity of maybe half what it could potentially be if land were owned and managed in smaller packets. The fix is to make more money by GMing rather than looking at productivity in a broader picture. Money for who? Most farmers in the UK operate on a marginal profit - some years they do well and other years at a loss. The money goes to seed suppliers and agrochemical producers and petrochemical companies (diesel) and supermarkets. All of which are on the small list on the graphics I posted. Arguing for GM to feed the world is further entrenching the current economic-industrial shareholder dividend agenda. And is in spiritual terms a complete travesty - it's taking creation and saying that Man can do it Better. Francis - unusually for anyone in a position of authority - has identified both ends of the fallacy. The link between third world economies and poverty is nicely illustrated by the banana industry, 90% of which is owned by two american companies, and on whose plantations the workers are (in all but name) working in indebted servitude. Big corporations, shareholder profits, unsustainable land management practices, agrichemicals, GM. They don't have to go together - but they often have so far. The lack of contact most people have with the food chain is just another aspect of the problem - if we no longer know how our food is grown, how can we really have any serious sense of connection to the natural world?
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Regarding the closed minds of four US Republican candidates--I find it funny one of them said the Pope should leave the discussion to the scientists--he did not realize the pope has a masters degree in science. It is even funnier when he (and the others) continue to deny the human causes even though 99.7% of the scientists say humans are a major cause of climate change.
But it is not the closed mindedness of the Republican presidential candidates I am concerned about. It is how the American electorate will use the Pope's encyclical when they vote in a year and a half.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
However, it's disappointing that the pope's collection of linked problems relating to climate change doesn't address the elephant in the room: the burgeoning population of human beings who, rich & poor alike, require lebensraum, water, food, and habitat.
Meanwhile, the economists keep clamoring for growth. Aren't the two inextricably linked? How can we grow the economy while shrinking the population?
Not that there's much hope of doing the latter.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
How can we grow the economy while shrinking the population?
Automation.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
However, it's disappointing that the pope's collection of linked problems relating to climate change doesn't address the elephant in the room: the burgeoning population of human beings who, rich & poor alike, require lebensraum, water, food, and habitat.
Meanwhile, the economists keep clamoring for growth. Aren't the two inextricably linked? How can we grow the economy while shrinking the population?
Not that there's much hope of doing the latter.
I already mentioned this.. The problem is not the absolute population but the existence of a minority who over-consume resources.
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arse
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I'm not sure this particular pope is stuck in any particular cul-de-sac, so I'm with mr cheesy on this. It seems pretty clear to me that this pope has been significantly affected by Catholic Liberation Theology.
The tulgey wood of Catholic sexual ethics and the tensions between ancient principles and current Catholic practice (particularly in the well-off West) will not get sorted out any time soon. But that doesn't preclude this pope from making the obvious point that the real current and urgent issue is exacerbated consumerism and overconsumption by the minority. The link between indifference to the earth and indifference to the poor is well drawn in this encyclical.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Sorry; overpopulation IS the problem.
Species go extinct every day, at an ever-increasing rate, because human overpopulation requires ever-expanding incursions into species' habitats. Humans need space in which to develop communities, more space for growing food, for erecting infrastructure, etc. etc.
How many species of plant and animal life can we destroy before the remaining ecological structure collapses, and us along with it?
Yes, the billion richest consume a lion's share of some crucial resources, like petroleum, and yes, this needs to stop. With water, things work differently. Human life can be lived without petroleum; it was, for all but the last 150 years of human history. Human life without water? Not so much.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Sorry; overpopulation IS the problem.
Species go extinct every day, at an ever-increasing rate, because human overpopulation requires ever-expanding incursions into species' habitats. Humans need space in which to develop communities, more space for growing food, for erecting infrastructure, etc. etc.
Sorry, that is not an absolute truth. The planet could cope with an increasing human population providing they lived at the bottom of the consumption pyramid.
quote:
How many species of plant and animal life can we destroy before the remaining ecological structure collapses, and us along with it?
Who is causing the species destruction, who is causing the climate change? It isn't the poorest - or even the majority of the planet.
quote:
Yes, the billion richest consume a lion's share of some crucial resources, like petroleum, and yes, this needs to stop. With water, things work differently. Human life can be lived without petroleum; it was, for all but the last 150 years of human history. Human life without water? Not so much.
Again, the question is whether there is an absolute shortage of water or whether some are consuming too much.
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arse
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
The question of how you compute overall sustainability is subject to debate. There is an interesting short article on the BBC website (here) which will take you through some of the issues.
But whilst how those matters are addressed get debated, it's pretty clear that the issue is not simply about overpopulation. It is about over-consuming.
Sure, I think population needs to be discussed, but to say it is THE issue detracts from the urgency of the actions that we first world countries need to take.
Or in other words, Mr. Cheesy is right.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
On this, there is an interesting graph on page 2 of this report - which is possibly worth contemplating further.
According to this, the bottom billion contribute negligible amounts of net greenhouse emissions, the top billion or 1.5 billion contribute around 50% of all emissions.
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arse
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
There's an issue with discussing who is rich and poor though isn't there.
One indicator of the problem here is that even if you are in the bottom 1% of "wealth" (however measured) here in the UK, you are still in the top 1% of "wealth" (measured the same way) worldwide.
I'd guess that the difference in water consumption between a family of four in a three bedroom house in the least desirable housing estate in Britain, and the same size of family in a much nicer bit of it, is tiny compared to the difference between the council house and someone in the bottom few percent.
People will, inevitably, look upwards. The people in Britain's least desirable location would surely like to live somewhere nicer - they aren't going to look at a starving African and think "actually I'm doing fine".
It seems to me that looking up is what got us out of caves. Us glutinous over consuming first world westerners, are, in evolutionary terms, winning. Evolution doesn't require you to care about who you've trodden on, merely to survive.
Maybe if people genuinely believe that their own survival is threatened (rather than that of some pacific islander whose island is going to get submerged), then there will be some hope.
On the other hand, through history, people have "looked up" and seen the need for innovative solutions for clean water, medicine, and all the other good stuff we have. So maybe somebody has got some good answers....
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I thought I should update my signature line....
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
People will, inevitably, look upwards. The people in Britain's least desirable location would surely like to live somewhere nicer - they aren't going to look at a starving African and think "actually I'm doing fine".
I think this is a fair point, however clearly the planet could hold a lot more people even if a small minority of top consumers did not exist. There is a long way for the bottom to go upwards before they reach anywhere near the consumption patterns of the top.
quote:
It seems to me that looking up is what got us out of caves. Us glutinous over consuming first world westerners, are, in evolutionary terms, winning. Evolution doesn't require you to care about who you've trodden on, merely to survive.
The rich are the best fit? Oh right, thanks for telling me.
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arse
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
People will, inevitably, look upwards. The people in Britain's least desirable location would surely like to live somewhere nicer - they aren't going to look at a starving African and think "actually I'm doing fine".
I think this is a fair point, however clearly the planet could hold a lot more people even if a small minority of top consumers did not exist. There is a long way for the bottom to go upwards before they reach anywhere near the consumption patterns of the top.
quote:
It seems to me that looking up is what got us out of caves. Us glutinous over consuming first world westerners, are, in evolutionary terms, winning. Evolution doesn't require you to care about who you've trodden on, merely to survive.
The rich are the best fit? Oh right, thanks for telling me.
We survive better than the poor, certainly, and that's all evolution has to say on the matter. My point is that overcoming this problem will require overcoming extremely base instincts that have served to get us here - and to start giving a hoot about people and places that we have no connection with.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
We survive better than the poor, certainly, and that's all evolution has to say on the matter. My point is that overcoming this problem will require overcoming extremely base instincts that have served to get us here - and to start giving a hoot about people and places that we have no connection with.
With respect, try living without a source of clean water or sanitation, on a limited diet, experiencing the blunt end of natural disasters and in the presence of many pathogens.
The fact is that you and I would barely survive 24 hours of the lives that others live. The idea that the rich are somehow evolutionarily a superior subspecies is utterly broken.
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arse
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
We survive better than the poor, certainly, and that's all evolution has to say on the matter. My point is that overcoming this problem will require overcoming extremely base instincts that have served to get us here - and to start giving a hoot about people and places that we have no connection with.
With respect, try living without a source of clean water or sanitation, on a limited diet, experiencing the blunt end of natural disasters and in the presence of many pathogens.
The fact is that you and I would barely survive 24 hours of the lives that others live. The idea that the rich are somehow evolutionarily a superior subspecies is utterly broken.
Indeed - if you take any entity out of the environment to which it is accustomed and dump it somewhere else, it will either adapt or die. That's the point of evolution isn't it?
The key point is that we have got to where we are by adapting the the challenges that we face at that point in time, and not by adapting our own behaviour to compensate for challenges faced by someone else, or a challenge that we might face in the future.
At the "basic instinct" level, we don't have to care about others at all.
People who can do something (again, the rich first world) might start doing something constructive about these problems when more of us get flooded, or blown away by tornadoes or whatever.
We are (unlikely) to start doing it because of the consequences of not doing it for someone else. The someone else, are, by definition, the have nots. After all, the poor have always been there, and we rich have sucked at helping them for a long time.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
One indicator of the problem here is that even if you are in the bottom 1% of "wealth" (however measured) here in the UK, you are still in the top 1% of "wealth" (measured the same way) worldwide.
Being picky: the population of the UK is a bit over .5% of the world's total population, so this can't be true unless the poorest person in the UK is richer than the median person in Germany (and everybody in the rest of Western Europe, Scandinavian countries, Canada, Japan, the US, Australia, etc etc...)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
One indicator of the problem here is that even if you are in the bottom 1% of "wealth" (however measured) here in the UK, you are still in the top 1% of "wealth" (measured the same way) worldwide.
Being picky: the population of the UK is a bit over .5% of the world's total population, so this can't be true unless the poorest person in the UK is richer than the median person in Germany (and everybody in the rest of Western Europe, Scandinavian countries, Canada, Japan, the US, Australia, etc etc...)
Well, fair enough, we might need to tweak the percentages a little, but no so as to shift the fundamental divide - particularly not in terms of consumption of natural resources, rather than money in the bank.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
We survive better than the poor, certainly, and that's all evolution has to say on the matter.
Yet, generally, birth rates (and, more importantly survival to reproductive age rates) among the rich are lower - therefore evolution favours the poor.
Which just goes to show that on this point evolutionary arguments are a load of crap.
The rich have used their power to adapt the environment to be extremely comfortable. In the process we have a) done so at the expense of other environments which are now less comfortable for those who live there (the poor), and b) done so unsustainably.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Moreover, we use various kinds of language (including bogus evolutionary language) to imply that the problems of the world are caused by the weakest by harping on about population growth - as if that counters all possible objections.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Moreover, we use various kinds of language (including bogus evolutionary language) to imply that the problems of the world are caused by the weakest by harping on about population growth - as if that counters all possible objections.
I didn't say anything about population growth. The point is that we haven't had to care about the welfare of others when securing our own welfare. That's amply demonstrated by the myriad of other problems that disproportionately or exclusively affect the poor that the rich don't do anything about (or exacerbate).
The Pope isn't going to get anyone to do anything about climate change by appealing about the impact of it on the poor. The rich will get round to some solutions when it screws them.
And who says we've adapted our environment in a way that's unsustainable ? Unsustainable for who? We might well be able to sustain our nice environment by building thicker houses that won't blow down in gales, that are on stilts, etc etc etc. That won't help the poor, and sadly, such insular looking solutions are quite likely.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
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