"State Of The Planet" Conference Forsees Deep, Deep Shit - AFP

EDIT

In a keynote speech opening the fourth biennial State of the Planet conference at New York's Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, said ignorance, misplaced priorities and indifference were keeping the world firmly on a path to disaster. "Everything we think is at the core of our geopolitics -- the war on terror, Islamic fundamentalism -- have almost nothing to do with the real challenges we face on this planet," Sachs said. "They are a distraction and a misunderstanding," he added.

Addressing the two-day forum's main topic -- the feasibility of sustainable development for billions of people worldwide -- Sachs painted a grim picture of systemic environmental collapse, coupled with war, famine and pandemic disease. The astonishing pace of economic growth in Asia and the increasing demands of development in the industrialised world will in a matter of decades, Sachs argued, impose a burden far beyond that which the world is already woefully failing to carry. "It is the central challenge we face on the planet," he said. "Every single major ecological system we have is already under profound stress."

While highlighting climate change, deforestation, oceanic degradation and population growth, Sachs, who is also director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, warned against viewing the problems associated with unsustainable development as an esoteric issue for scientists. "Politics is central," he said, condemning what he called the "scientifically antagonistic" policies of the current US administration under President George W. Bush. "We're fighting all the wrong wars in this country," Sachs said, adding that what the White House really needed was a subscription to Scientific American magazine.

"Our political leaders do not have the training to understand these issues," he said, citing the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur which Sachs argued was primarily the result of water shortages that had prompted conflict. "We view these crises first as political crises when we should view them as ecological crises," he said. "And they will abound. They will get worse."

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2628&ncid=2628&e=18&u=/afp/20060328/ts_alt_afp/uspoliticsenvironment_060328224712

I didn't see it on the 6:00 news.:eyes:

What the hell is it going to take to put it on the 6:00 news?

I don't think I want to know.:scared:

Of course, I've seen this topic on the front page of Time Magazine in years past, too. And yet, business continues to be conducted as usual.

Have another xanax. Here's a picture of some kittens



Aren't they cute?

:evilgrin:

They'll be in that basket for the duration of thier working lives, after which they'll be turned into Kitten McNuggets™.

...and a few paper towels to clean my screen :rofl:

... my daughter doesn't like you ... but my sons think you're "cool"!

(FWIW she wasn't too keen on my laughter either)

All the evidence points the other way.

IQm=IQs/n

Where IQm is the IQ of a group,
IQs is the IQ of the stupidest person in the group, and
n is the number of people.

It seems to work quite well...

(Maskerade, Terry Pratchett)

And it is a very good idea too, we would serve ourselves well to stop conflating the intelligence of individuals with that of groups and societies, as they clearly have little to do with each other.

which makes large groups easy to manipulate.

I don't think humans in groups are stupid per se.

themselves members of.

I don't think that assertion even requires much support, but I would simply point to American politics as an example. The public in this country routinely votes for corrupt and venal stooges, who then continue the government's long-standing policy of wasting the publics money on war and violence internationally, while screwing the public as much as they dare at home.

Though people do 'naturally' tend to follow the herd, if they're part of one (which we all are to some extent). But without manipulation of the herd, people wouldn't be half as stupid as they are now.

I mean it's true, people are social creatures, we don't do well on our own, we aren't that much without the cultural legacy we get from our societies; but it has never been the case that the herd has not been manipulated by it's "leaders", and it is frequently the case that the "leaders" are confused or wrong even about their own interest, as history abundantly shows; so it is idle speculation to say that we would be intelligent if those things were not so.

To clarify, some people have alway been intelligent and conducted themselves so, but human societies have a very poor record of pursuing any sort of long term strategy of self-interest; the more successful ones generally pollute themselves out of existence or exhaust and destroy their own resource base.

But if we build more nuke plants, will things improve? Nah.

Hey, recommend this thread, will ya? Everyone needs to read the OP.

It indicates that the endtimes are a-coming. Apparently, the BA is trying to accelerate its arrival.

We've got Tony Blair "demanding" new technology, and Bush fumbling and stumbling his way to an admission that "the globe is warming" (Gee, thanks Mr. President! We would never have known!) and drowning polar bears and annual anthropogenic net ghg emissions now rising above 7 billion tons, and a new plan to improve Hummer mileage from 12 MPG to 13.2 - by 2011, of course - wouldn't want to rush anything, would we now - and just saying the obvious - that we're in deep shit - is bad because it will "encourage the fundies"?

I don't think facing the facts is an indication of End Times mentality.

:scared:

We're already way over carrying capacity, we just haven't realized it yet.