The United States has long encouraged narcissistic, materialistic behavior.[t]
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GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 4/18/08
You are invited to join me at Face Book
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Full article at http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
SUMMARY [ outline] ON Flint Talk http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=27471http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=27516#27516
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( for FACE BOOK see full article at link above)
RE EXAMINE CORE BELIEFS
We pursue the "American dream," mistakenly substituting products for fulfillment. What can we do in such a culture immersed in consumerism? Thoreau implies that we should take the time to ask what's really important in life and refocus our values. As Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel," suggests, we must start with "a willingness to re-examine long-held core values, when conditions change and those values no longer make sense."[t]
NATIONAL BOARDERS , WITH DIFFERENT POLICIES WITHIN EACH, CAN NO LONGER SOLVE OUR WORLD PROBLEMS. WE NEED A GLOBAL POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO SAVE PLANET EARTH
Human beings are a truly remarkable species. We are able to conceive notions like democracy, science, equality before the law, justice and morality – concepts that have no counterpart in nature itself – but we have our shortcomings too. We demarcate borders that often make no ecological sense: dissecting watersheds, fragmenting forests, disrupting animal migratory routes. These human boundaries mean nothing to the flow of water, the atmosphere or oceans, yet we try to manage these resources within these confines.[C]
On 4/17/08 I attended a lecture by Jared Diamond who discussed societal collapse , the end of the world and other light hearted subjects.[trb]
Jared Diamond is universally regarded as one of the great minds of our time [b]
His Pulitzer- Prise- winning book Guns, Germ, Steel, has been a runaway best seller, and the top selling science book on Amazon.com for five years running.[b]
Mr. Diamond's book, for my money the most fascinating of the three, used geography and biology to explain the character, and fate, of civilizations.[s]
Now , Collapse, his follow up book has landed on the major best seller list as well and is drawing critical reviews.[b] He got paid for this speech while promoting his new book. I am in the wrong business.[trb]
Currently a professor of Geography at UCLA, Dr. Diamond is also the author of two other best selling books, The Third Chimpanzee and Why is sex fun?[b]
HE KNOWS GEOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM... ERGO...
The breadth of his interests and expertise is truly remarkable, ranging from environmental history through evolutionary biology to molecular physiology. With Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamon explained the environmental and geographical reasons why certain human populations have flourished.[b]
TREE HUGGERS VS CAPITALIST AND THE SHEEP THAT FLOCK TO BOTH CAMPS
Issues of human environmental impacts today tend to be controversial, and opinions about them tend to fall on a spectrum between two opposite camps. One camp, usually referred to as "environmentalist" or "pro-environment," holds that our current environmental problems are serious and in urgent need of addressing, and that current rates of economic and population growth cannot be sustained.[d]
WE CAN CONSUME ALL THE RESOURCES AND PRESERVE THEM AT THE SAME TIME.
The other camp holds that environmentalists’ concerns are exaggerated and unwarranted, and that continued economic and population growth is both possible and desirable. The latter camp isn’t associated with an accepted short label, and so I shall refer to it simply as "non-environmentalist." Its adherents come especially from the world of big business and economics, but the equation "non-environmentalist" = "pro-business" is imperfect; many businesspeople consider themselves environmentalists, and many people skeptical of environmentalists’ claims are not in the world of big business. [d]
BABY SAVE US PLEASE.......
In his newest book Collapse, he uses these same factors to explain why ancient societies, including Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. The book was an instant best seller...Dr. Diamonds body of work has also been the subject of a PBS special: Great Minds of Science: Evolution [b]
Jared Diamond said The number one question Will our societies collapse or succeed?[trbl]
How do societies choose to succeed or fail?[trbl]
Reviewing collapsed societies, why do some succeed?[trbl]
When human numbers were small, our technology simple, and our consumption mainly for survival, nature was generally able to absorb our impact. Even so, it is believed that with simple stone spears and axes the Palaeolithic people that migrated across the Bering Strait and down towards South America extinguished slow moving mammals in their path.[c]As is well documented by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse and Ronald Wright in A Short History of Progress cultures have arisen, flourished and disappeared as human demands outstripped the carrying capacity of surrounding areas. In pre-history and even medieval times, humans were essentially tribal animals, confined to their tribal territory, perhaps meeting a couple of hundred people in a lifetime. They did not have to worry what tribes were doing on the other side of the ocean or giant lakes, or over mountains and deserts. But humanity has undergone an explosive transformation in the past century. [c]
Different choices, different histories.[trbl]
Jared Diamond stated his 5 point check off of why societies succeed or fail.
1.Human environmental impact If the consumer replace resource the society succeeds.
2.Climate change, today the issue is global warming before it was a natural cycle
3.Enemies and war.
4.Friendly trading partners ie oil cartel
5.Societies response to the above issues by its institutions[ trbl]
Mess up this planet and there is no one to help us, we will die.[trb]
We must take our environmental problems seriously.[trb]
STOP DEFORESTATION
Deforestation could also be a precursor to social collapse, as UCLA geography professor Jared Diamond has theorized, pointing to vanished cultures like the Anasazi of the southwest United States and the Easter Islanders of the South Pacific. While it is impossible to reduce the disappearance of a culture to a single variable, both societies were timber intensive - for building pueblos and erecting large heads respectively - and left their lands barren. [a]
RAIN FOREST TO TREELESS, WHY?What was the last tree felled on Easter Island worth? Riches or pennies: It didn't matter because somebody needed it and was going to cut it anyway. Societies and economies traditionally have trouble calculating forest worth, but modern attempts to assign value to forests and ecosystem services are proving fruitful. One example is the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies and labels sustainably harvested wood products that are then sold at a premium. [a]
THE PROBLEM HURTS US MORE THAN A LITTLE LESS MONEY
A wrong headed argument is one that says we must balance the economy with the environment. I.e. Katrina[trbl]
THE ELITES IN THE US HAVE INVESTED THEIR MONEY INTERNATIONALLY, SO THE ARE NOT IMPACTED BY THE COLLAPSE OF THE U.S. ECONOMY.
Important is the positioning of the elites, political and economically. Are the elites accountable for their actions, decisions, on actions? I.e. Holland where the elite also live in the flood plain In Haiti the country suffer from deforestation while its across the boarder neighbor flourishes. Why, because of governmental policy..[trbl].
WHEN WILL THE PROTEST BEGIN HERE. How about 10 Saturday 4/19/08 at Flint MI USA, Buick Local 599 the 5th Congressional District selection of the national convention delegates that the DNC will not seat. Bring your signs..Let the revolution begin. Well I can say I tried....[trb]
PUBLIC PROTEST, RIOT, REVOLUTION CHANGING LIFE AS WE KNOW IT ON THE PLANET EARTH.
Public protests against rising food and fuel prices in Haiti, in the Carribean Sea, have grown increasingly heated. [t]With a death toll of five, the violence is still expanding. On April 7, tens of thousands of people took to the street in the capital, Port-au-Prince. [t]On April 8, starving masses attempted to storm the presidential palace, demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval. [t]Such a crisis does not develop overnight: Problems in Haiti have been a long time in the making. For more than a hundred years, the Haitian government and public have been destroying the environment they depend on for their livelihood, and the consequences of their actions were inevitable. This should serve as a warning to Taiwan.[t]
HAITI BROWN , DOMINICAN REPUBLIC GREEN, WHY?Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic are two parts of the island of Hispaniola, located to the east of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea. Both countries were European colonies and endured authoritarian rule for prolonged periods of time. [t]For decades after the 1930s, the Dominican Republic was governed by dictator Rafael Trujillo and later by Joaquin Balaguer. [t]The country’s approach to environmental protection was very different from that of Haiti resulting in the strong contrast that exists today. [t]
DIAMOND USED THIS PHRASE 4/17/08?Looking down from a plane, Haiti has a light yellow tinge and is covered in deforested hills, while the Dominican Republic is a luscious green and covered in vegetation. [t]
NO SOCIETY COLLAPSED BECAUSE OF PLAGIARISMJared Diamond, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of geography and physiology who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and the Aventis Prize for his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, spent an entire chapter of his 2005 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed on detailed descriptions and comparisons of these two countries[t].
TAIWANTaiwan has developed a lot in the past five or six decades. At the same time, the country’s environment has been greatly damaged. [t]With president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (???) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) set to be inaugurated on May 20, some people have voiced concern that staffers in the Ma camp value development over environmental protection and that Ma and his team will neglect environmental issues. [t]I suggest that Ma and his advisers pay more attention to this issue and adopt a long-term approach. [t]
LOOK TO HAITI AS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DOIn this respect, the Ma government should follow the Dominican Republic’s example, not Haiti’s. [t]I also hope that the public will monitor the new government to help protect the lifeblood of Taiwan’s sustainable existence so future generations will also have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of Taiwan’s mountains and streams.[t] We need to protect the beautiful island on which we all depend.[t]
LEARN FROM THE PAST FOR DIFFERENT PROGRAMS FOR THE FUTURE
We must learn the lesson of our past, this makes today different we can do that.[trbl]
Consider this: in 1900 there were only a billion and a half human beings in the world. In a mere one hundred years, the population of the planet has quadrupled. Almost all the modern technology we take for granted has been developed and expanded since the late 1800s. Our consumptive appetite has grown rapidly since World War II so today over 60% of the North American economy is built on our consumption and ever since the end of World War II, economic globalization has dominated the political and corporate agenda. All of these factors – population, technology, consumption and the global economy – have amplified humanity’s ecological footprint, the amount of land and sea that it takes to provide for our needs and demands. The consequence is that we are now altering the chemical, physical and biological makeup of the planet on a geological scale. In the 4 billion years that life has existed on earth there was never a single species able to do what we are now doing today.[c]
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES ONLY HELP SHORT TERM
When oil prices rose in the 1970s, this created incentives to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles, greatly reducing the problem. For most of the 1980s and 1990s, energy and food actually became more abundant rather than less. Incentive-based technological progress stayed ahead of population growth and resource depletion. However, economic incentives cannot be counted on to keep the wolf at bay indefinitely.[w]
Real resource prices have finally surpassed previous record levels and per-capita food availability has started to decline, suggesting that the wolf might be getting close. Despite demographic transition to low fertility in East Asia, Europe, and North America, current population growth rates would still triple world population to over 20 billion in about 90 years. This won't happen because it can't happen. The question is whether population growth will fall due to declines in fertility or whether the Malthusian mechanisms of epidemics, malnutrition, and violent conflict will carry out the adjustment, aided by global warming.[w]
TO DAYS PROBLEMS, more people, more technology, deforestation of the planet, globalization.[trbl]
TREE HUGGER IS A GOOD THING TO BE.
The end of An Inconvenient Truth finds former US vice president Al Gore stumping for the Lorax (a Dr Seuss creation a "mossy, bossy" man-like creature, who speaks for the trees): "Plant trees, lots of trees," reads the screen as the credits roll. Gore is fascinated with the Earth's annual carbon dioxide cycle, which he depicts as the planet breathing. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been trending steadily upward for the past two centuries, but each year there is also an annual rise and fall as vegetation in the northern hemisphere grows and dies with the seasons: inhale, exhale.[a] One takeaway from the film is that CO2 has fluctuated within a relatively stable range for at least the last several hundred thousand years. Carbon concentration correlates positively with average temperature; and human activity is now pushing atmospheric carbon above that stable range, risking unknown consequences and temperature increases due to the greenhouse effect.[a] So are trees the solution? Partially. Deforestation produces about 20% of global warming emissions and is the second major source after fossil fuel consumption. Reforestation is therefore a key factor in any climate strategy. [a]
And well it should be as trees are under siege globally. Overall, the world lost 7.3 million hectares of forest per year from 2000 to 2005. Clashes with timber poachers in the Brazilian Amazon often end in death or displacement for indigenous residents. Nigeria lost 36% of its total forest cover and 79% of its primary forests between 1990 and 2005. Some species aren't even safe in American backyards. An elderly couple in Vermont recently awoke to find timber thieves had stolen their valuable maples. [a]
The next collapse will not be isolated it will be interconnected and global.[trb]
HOPE: We are the first societies with the capacity to learn from the past. [trbl]
WE DO HAVE CONCERNS GREATER THAN ENVIRONMENTAL AND POPULATION
We are a militaristic, imperialistic country. No similar country/empire has survived more that 400 years. (Read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond.) Two examples: the British and Roman empires.[r]
Are we next to collapse?[r] 1776 + 400 =2146
We have no means of dealing with these global issues with the level of urgency now required. For the first time in history we have to ask what the collective impact of all 6.6 billion human beings on earth will be. We have never had to do this before. We are tribal animals and it is difficult for us to get our heads around this task. We need the perspective of many of the small island states, states that are in imminent danger of being submerged by sea level rise from global warming. The metaphor of the canary in the coal mine is very apt. I was there in Kyoto in 1997 when island states pleaded for action to protect their land, but to no avail. Perhaps that should not surprise us. Many of the rich industrialized nations who created the problem of climate change through the use of fossil fuels for their economic growth are themselves in great danger from climate change, yet are very slow to respond.[c]
We must solve our problems in 50 years and be on our way to doing so in 30.[trbl]
WE NEED LEADERS THAT CAN THINK HAVE COURAGE AND NEW POLICIES!
Posted here by Terry Bankert ...
http://attorneybankert.com/
Join my political party of preference,
http://www.michigandems.com/join.html
—WHERE DID THIS STUFF COME FROM---
[b]
Ballenger, Emininent Persons Lecture Series 4/17/08 Mott Community College Flint MI speaker Jared Diamond
[trb]
Comments of Terry Bankert with CAP headlines. Bankert attended the 4/17/08 lecture of Jared Diamond.[lecture notes at [trbl]
http://attorneybankert.com/
[d]
Daily Times-Pakistan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C02%5Cstory_2-4-2008_pg3_4
[C]
CLIMATECHANGECORP.COM
http://www.climatechangecorp.com/content.asp?contentid=5240
[a]
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD18Dj03.html
[S]
The Sun, New York
http://www2.nysun.com/article/74774
[t]
TAIPEI TIMES
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/04/17/2003409498
[r]
Recordnet.com
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080413/A_OPINION02/804130308/-1/A_OPINION06
[W]
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120576529550741839.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
[t]
The Tufts Dailey
http://media.www.tuftsdaily.com/media/storage/paper856/news/2008/03/31/OpEd/Reading.walden.160.Years.Later-3292271.shtml
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