This article was rather alarming today. When will the world learn ?? Or maybe it will when it is too late !!!!!! Financial Times: Global deforestation accelerates during pandemic. Subscribe to read | Financial Times Not sure if the link works, but if not the headline is still very worrying.
I don't know if this is exactly the same, but it's public on weather.com: Deforestation Accelerates In Amazon Rainforest During Global Pandemic | The Weather Channel
@wcutler, same article, thanks Wendy. Yours definatly opens. Financial times can be a bit finicky with links.
@Sundrop, good morning, world governments IMO must tackle global population growth. I do not blame people for cutting down these trees, they have to make a living to feed their families. But we cannot go on, 8 billion people and counting is unsustainable for this planet. The trouble is, world powers are driven by big companies who sponsor politicians and political parties. Their motto is more people means more customers, so until a leading figure who is not supported by an international company starts to tackle population growth we will continue the downward spiral. I am concerned that politions are scared to talk about population growth, it does seem to be a taboo subject. Global warming is OK to talk about, but they will never mention the real reason and that is the speed at which the population has grown over the last 50 years. More people need more things, hense more trees cut down and so it goes on. Anyway, you asked what I thought and that's it.
@Acerholic So how do you propose to tackle this problem? Mass vaccination making women infertile? Or men? Mandatory for everybody or for the masses only? BTW, how many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren you have yourself? I don't want to put you down but global deforestation is not the only problem facing humanity. Do you know that the Arctic and the Amazon are on fire? arctic on fire 2020 - Google Search amazon on fire 2020 - Google Search But, according to Arthur Firstenberg, an American author and activist on the subject of electromagnetic radiation and health: "There is no more important task on Earth right now – not climate change, not deforestation, not plastics in the ocean, and not stopping 5G on the ground. None of that will matter if Space X is allowed to go forward with Starlink." The problem is, those things may be too difficult to understand for majority of people, those in World governments included.
Or else the opposite is the problem - I don't know if you can see the Globe and Mail article "The coming baby bust", from August 8, 2020, by John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker, authors of Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline.
@Sundrop, I posted the article to point out this particular problem, I have a 'very' small, family btw. I agree with you entirely that this is not the only problem the world faces. Education is the way forward to bring the world population down. Not sterilisation etc etc. We really cannot continue increasing, one day the balloon will pop. The more people, the more things are needed from natural resources. The more rain forests are removed the hotter the planet. That was the point of the article in the Times. It did not say it was the only problem facing humanity.
@wcutler, Good morning Wendy, interesting article. I wonder in a year or two when this pandemic is behind us and the vaccine is available that the birth rate will rise again. Or are people getting the message about over population!! But the point is well made that fewer young will lead to retirement age becoming later and later, as less working tax payers to pay for the elderly. So perhaps we will have to become a society as in Orwell's 1984 scenario just to keep the status quo.
@Acerholic As you can see ( wcutler post) people who deny everything, even what is the most obvious, are very vocal. They will not restrain from the most dramatic words to confuse others. "empty planet", " the shock of global population decline" and voila, people who just started to think logically get confused and uncertain of their thinking. There is almost four times more people on this planet now then only 80 years ago, but against all evidence they will trumpet loudly for the interests of those who pay them most. And good people will believe them. So it is with everything else. Covered either by silence, denial, or by rhetorics. There is no hope.
@Sundrop, I hear what you say, but I really would like to think that there is some hope. Your graph is quite disturbing, but it is something that is never shown by the media as the root cause to our problems. I wonder why !!!! It is too easy to print newspapers saying global warming is a major problem for this planet, but will any of them show your graph, I think not. I have noticed that Greta and Attenborough never highlight world population as the main cause to global warming, again I wonder why not!!! More people buy more newspapers etc etc, it is a vicious cycle. Will Murdoch want less people to buy his news papers, again I think not. Good posting @Sundrop.
@Acerholic It is not exactly "my" graph, it is reprinted from here Population: the numbers Sorry, I forgot to add this link in my previous post. And the number of people on the planet as I write this is exactly 7,807.654,584 and growing with great speed.
@Sundrop, the World Economic Forum suggests we can cope with more people on the planet. 10. 7 billion to exact. I read many years ago that 4 billion was the limit. It's funny that the number keeps rising in the estimates and whilst the estimates keep rising the rain forests keep diminishing. Those words from Isaac Newton " To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' spring to mind. But even those words may not be true now, because the reaction is definatly out performing the action on the worlds lungs ( the rain forests). Your comment @Sundrop "There is no hope" may well be right, as long as the $£€ etc etc is put before the planet.
With some irony, I remember the oft-repeated, naïve thought that the "world is unfolding as it should." Desiderata - Words for Life by Max Ehrmann And, if you can handle a bit more heartbreaking idealism, see: TheNewHumanity The best hope for the successful future of our world is for all countries to work together to address our common, immediate problems of over-population and climate change. The cynic in me doesn't hold out much hope for that.
@Margot, couldn't agree more Margot. But the cynic in me also does not hold out much hope. Love those words by Charlie Chaplin in 1940, would have preferred them to say men and women, but the point is well made. Wonderfully poetic by Max Ehrmann, remember this one from school days. But how easy is it to forget !!! Thanks for the reminder Margot.