https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/...rs-panoramic-photography-awards-revealed.html This world might be worth saving.
If only for an hour or two while I check out someone else's world. "Same as it ever was Same as it ever was."
Meh. The world can get along without us quite well. Maybe the only reason the world brought us into being to begin with is so that it could have plastic.
Before George takes us down this path, I feel we would do well to remember That we cannot swim the flood nor walk though fire. We are fragile things of little worth...But I don't know anyone else. Everyone I love is here and needs here to be reasonably stable if we are to have continence. What is man to nature. We know or should know what nature is to us. A mother, an endless fount of prosperity. But does Nature see us? Did she aspire to our creation? I would, after much reflection have to say no. Nature has no ambition. For her self or others. She takes no thought for the morrow. "what need has nature of thought or care? When with a single movement the ten thousand thoughts are brought to fulfillment." I Ching These old one's believed that nature is God's Bride. She sees only him and responds only to the impulses of the Creative heaven. Heaven and Earth are the most primal examples of Yin and Yang. And our entire world is "patterned" after this primal beginning. So..if this was God's world before we claimed it and he loves nature as his co-equal in creation, As the mother of his children...Perhaps it is not Natures response to our perfidy we should be fearful of But Heavens. Look what we've done with his song! Sorry George, I know you are a comedian and a great one at that. But you have passed shallowly over the deeps. Do you really think we can destroy what God and Nature conspired to create over the all ages and never have to pay the piper? We are tearing the Ecology apart. Stop and think. The Ecology is all there is to this place, without it were just another hot rock. Does Nature care what we are doing to her? No. As I have said she cares for and listens only to "Him" But life is the Realm of the Gods. Billions of years of natures endeavoring to please him who sent her the plans. molecule by atom. microsecond by millennium. Are we really going to pretend that it doesn't matter? That a tapestry of life so finely woven whose threads pull together to make the cloth of evolution can be carelessly tossed side in a drunken fit of lust, greed and rage and no one will mind? Like it or no we are the pinnacle of His creation here on Earth. Life strives for refinement. Refinement is best seen in our own intelligence. We have betrayed the intelligence we were given. We are torturing and murdering our Mother. Just How the hell do you think Dad is going to feel about that? LIFE here on earth is in earnest. We were given awesome power. There are no limits to what we can do. No Angel is going to step in and make everything we've done alright. No Demon is going to say stop what you doing is beyond evil's ability to bear. We have the power to annihilate what the Ages have given us. There is no one to stop us but ourselves. We can and are killing our planet. Mars is dead, Earth can die to. So please no more talk about were only hurting ourselves. We are not alone here you know! From the caves we have known that there is no worse crime than to slay one's own mother. No folly as great as severing your own roots. No loss greater than to lose ones home,Home where our children live,
Daniel, I'm sorry, but I've really got to take issue here. First, it helps to have precise terms. Part of the problem here is that we are dealing with language, which is inherently imprecise. That said, to the extent that we CAN be precise, we SHOULD. To that end, I'm going to set out some definitions: 'Destroy the earth' - the earth is a planet, one of several in our solar system (as you well know). To 'destroy' the earth would necessarily require the complete disassociation of all its constituent components, such that it would never be possible to reconstitute the planet. 'Render uninhabitable' - life exists on this planet in great profundity and virtually everywhere we have cared to look on it. To 'render uninhabitable' would require us, at minimum, to permanently destroy all life-sustaining elements and compounds. At the least, we'd have destroy both carbon and silicon as these are the two elements we believe to be capable of rendering any form of life possible, and we'd have to somehow prevent them from ever coming here again. 'Sterilize the earth' - as noted above, life is ubiquitous on our planet. To 'sterilize' the earth would require us to make it impossible for even the tiniest, hardiest microbe to survive anywhere on or in the planet. 'Render incapable of supporting human life' - we are rather fragile creates, as noted elsewhere. The conditions required for supporting human life are rather narrowly defined: at minimum we need to be able to access liquid water and sunlight within a particular spectral range so that we can grow crops, raise livestock, and generally sustain ourselves. Of the terms listed above, I only see us being able to actually carry out the last, and I'm not even fully convinced of that. As a purely objective matter, we lack the ability to generate the kinds of forces necessary to completely destroy the biome outright. People will point to Venus and shout "But greenhouse!". It's true that Venus is a textbook example of a runaway greenhouse effect, but people conveniently forget that Venus receives very nearly TWICE the solar energy per square meter that we do. In addition, we have historical evidence to indicate that, even at the incredibly elevated levels of CO2 we have now, we have seen levels over twice as high in the fossil record, and life was abundant even then. Those same people will also conveniently forget that we are currently in a lull between ice advances. Historically speaking, for at least the last 2.5 million years we have been in an ice age, punctuated by periodic warming events. It has actually been the norm through most of our planet's history to NOT have large ice sheets covering the poles, as near as we can tell. Now, I suspect you have already fired off a stormy response and have not bothered to read this far, Daniel, because that is what you tend to do. HOWEVER, on the off chance you HAVE in fact read this far, I'm going to finish with this: All of the above is factual and accurate to the best of my knowledge. NONE of that is meant to suggest that I'm OK with the idea of dumping toxic waste in the oceans, filling the air with CO2, CO, or any of the other myriad things that we produce that are deadly, or acting with complete disregard for our environment. I agree that we need to establish a balance. However, we have to understand that our existence comes with a price. We have to work out what price we are willing to pay, and what price we are willing to ask our planet to pay. If we get the answers to either of those questions wrong, I'm pretty sure we will cease to be. However, the planet will keep on going just fine, and will continue creating new forms of life, some of which will almost certainly come about on the remains of our bones, and the bones of our civilization. Only when our star finally consumes the earth in its death throes will this planet become 'sterile' and 'unable to support life' (probably).
Very often, perhaps most often when people say "save the planet" they mean "save humanity." Let's hope that the nightmare of a thermonuclear "exchange" won't eliminate all life here on our only planet. If it does the Earth will start anew after a few million years. Personally, I hope the next dominant creature is wiser than we are.
Please let us not quibble. We have the power. We can reduce life on earth down to microbes. We can wipe out 3 billion years of evolution. Exterminate all but the constituent parts. And we can do it standing on our heads which is pretty much how we do everything...standing on our own heads. What I feel man has completely failed to grasp is that none of this is supposed to be like this. "This" is the result of man's evil not his ignorance. Indifference to the good is the true root of all evil, We have never cared what "Else" might happen as a result of our actions, we care only for our intended consistences. So while we have been advancing our intentions, our unintended consistences have been piling up. As far as I can tell we still don't get it. WE need to reduce this and that by 2030... I can tell you right now this is our bullshit guesstimate as to exactly where the line of no return is. My fellow fools are still looking ahead to see where that line is...it way back there behind you dopes!! We want an easy way forward without to many inconveniences. As we will not let go that desire the future is not ours and may not belong to our children either. If the world united and militarized our 24/7 effort. sacrificing everything we need to to survive we maybe might be able to find a new beginning. We would have to learn or relearn sacrifice. We are at the very edge of disaster where things change. We are in the terrifying position of having our fates placed in our own hands. Many civilizations have been here before us. For the most part after achieving great success, they fail. They fail because their success was not sustainable. just exactly as we are finding out that our own path to a leisure life in the sun is not sustainable. We are that unruly kid in the classroom that can not shut up (Me.) There is so much we do not know about how to live in nature. But this we DO Know. We need to reduce our population by at lest 90%. I don't know, do you think humanity is up to making such a sacrifice? or really sacrificing anything? When Moses wandered in the desert for a generation...do you know why? I mean he wandered the Shani desert around 400 sq miles...Or 10X40 miles. Why? The Jews were for generations slaves in Egypt. They had to hardened into warriors if they were to have a place in THIS world. Once hardened they did what every tribe did, they took by force what they needed from others less strong. This cannot work on a globe scale. We simply need to be far fewer if we are to be at all. This will be as bloody and as painful as we make it. It could be done though reason; a measure and fair reduction over a half dozen generations, but when has humanity ever reached out in fairness? My time here is nearly done. This will be your work and the work of coming generations. I pray for you every day. For all that stands against us (ourselves) I retain this hope for us. My hope is this. That the one who brought us to life has a purpose that he cannot be turned from for all our own folly. This no easy thing to be born among animals and be tasked with becoming human. The joining of spirit to nature has always been difficult in the beginning. The new is always awkward and undefined in it's beginnings. Beautiful comes with refinement and refinement is the child of time. In the end, my feeling is this. Love brought us here. Each of us touched by the miraculous. An ape who can count the stars! A monkey that can swing though the thoughts of God and reach limb by limb up into the heavens. Don't give up. Not while love still seeks to guide us to a better union with ourselves. He did not put us here to shame us. We did that on our own. I think our one real hope is that God (look to our Universe!) is not a fumbling loser! I firmly believe he will have his way with us and despite all our protests deliver us to the promised land. This is not science of course. Yet we may have a chance if we adorn science (understanding) with Love ( a correct attitude towards what has brought us forth). I believe that while no path exists today, path will be there when we are ready to follow it. Moses spent a generation in the wilderness, How long will we be?
Hmm............all I can so to that is "thank you for failing to meet my expectations". It's nice to be surprised occasionally.
I have to lively up myself before I exit this world. Tall order, I admit! Thanks for reminding me my time left here isn't generous. But your own? You hopefully will stick around, you have important matters to remind us of!
Why is it you think I don't read your posts? LOL I would disagree with almost nothing you have posted, in every way more precise than my own. Yet...":O} We sit on top of what, 3 billion years of evolution? We live in a highly differentiated ecology. We tend to think of species coming to be as singular events. because we see them pass from life as single species.The Dodo the mastodon and a dozen differing species of man...they left us one by one. But that's not how they came to be. We evolved together competing yet supporting and reinforcing the existence and evolution of each other. No lion without the antelope, no antelope without grass no grass without the creatures of the soil than bring the soil to life. I have mentioned refinement, the way in which nature moves. That Natures directionality points always towards refinement. Refinement brings all elements into greater individuality, a more singular differentiation. The lion gains retractable claws, that remain razor sharp. The antelope refines speed as the grass makes good use of their defalcations. But it also brings us all into a much greater interdependence. You are arguing the continuance of the fundamental mechanisms of life. That they "Maybe" beyond our ability To destroy. I harbor doubts but can accept your basic assertion. Let us agree that life retains it's potentially. Remember we are talk of a potential that took the Earth 31\2 BILLION years to fully express itself... If it has fully expressed it self. Big guy we don't have that kind of time and neither does our world. Once the earth is reduces to a new beginning,... How long did take the Earth to recover from that fat rock that hit just to the right of Panama, or was it to the left...left sounds better.LOL But humanity isn't in need of basic mechanisms of life. Nor are the Lion and the antelope. When we arrived We inherited an unbelievable wealth of differentiated, yet entirely interrelated life. None of the creatures that thrive today Could thrive alone. Including ourselves. So let us talk practicality. When you and I are siting on a barren rock looking for a cockroach to eat. I'm sorry but I will take little comfort in the knowledge that in another Billion years we will dine on diversity once more. There is no difference that doesn't make a difference. Our world will be dead to us and all creatures will share our fate. We need each other. We live by consuming each other. But Yeah, I think you underestimate us. I think we can reduce Earth to a hot rock. We are really very clever about such things. But if we don't, if all we accomplish is the destruction of life's complexity, life is a slow train out of the past and it needs the long tracks of time to run on, Of a certainty if we see the eco system go, we won't be here for it's return. We won't be at all So if I have been a bit sloppy with the language I feel I have expressed my thoughts completely. I feel I have left you ground to stand upon as we are agreement about most of this if not all. If we cut down the tree of life to build a house we will be little consoled by the dying stump we sit upon. Life to be complete must have great abundance, great diversity, Life must be a gushing river to carry all that needs to be carried forward into the next generation, the next permutations of the great makers will. What if your dad built a mansion and you tore it down to build a car wash, would you ever feel clean again? I guess I feel it's a bit vain to think that what serves us in the moment will serve life in it's eternity. That's right I said it! I believe that life is eternal as the One who created it. But the great maker has many worlds and no need to chase down what chooses not to follow. We are most terribly free to chose the way in which we will go. . This is not a game. If we chose to destroy this gift of life...I also believe he will let us. As Jesus once said to the arrogant priests of his day. "What need has God of you!? He can raise up children of these very stones." I don't want us to see our replacements as we leave in tears. I want mankind to return to the temple of Eden and know nature as we are known. As a gift from the heavens.
For all that stands against us (ourselves) I retain this hope for us. My hope is this. That the one who brought us to life has a purpose that he cannot be turned from for all our own folly. None more important than this We all die. But how many of us really tackle life Mix it up in battle for understanding? Have no care for how or when we go. That takes care of it's own self. What matters is this. Did I give wings to the angels within me Did I smite and awaken the devil from his dream of conquering my immortal soul? *Hint* If your here now discussing these matters with us You have already given the Devil many sleepless nights! ":O}
"For all that stands against us (ourselves) I retain this hope for us. My hope is this. That the one who brought us to life has a purpose that he cannot be turned from for all our own folly." And "If we chose to destroy this gift of life...I also believe he will let us." Well it has to be one or the other..yes? Can't it be both? Time is a very strange thing, it can be one thing today and another tomorrow. I believe we will be held to accounts. But I also believe that being so held is in every way to our own benefit. In this life and the next. I believe that the Best that can happen to trummy is to be brought to justice. Better I think to pay our debts here than to be made to pay there. I don't know these things as I am a man. But being man I have voices calling and look to see if I am listening or speaking. Discovering or creating. What calls to me, myself or my creator? If it is only myself why do I hide from me my divinity? If it is divinity that calls me why do I hide this from myself? life is journey. God destination. God Origination. We journey between God and God. We leave perfection and journey for we know that when we were born we lost our home. Let us wander together though our disenfranchisement. I feel closest home when I join with others I feel closet to others when Alone with him. This isn't science. It doesn't have to be. This is a man caught out on the grasslands and looking for shade. Trying to bear the heat of the sun. This a man caught in the shade looking for the light he fled from Only love can express my divine confusion. Is it a riddle that I'm asked or a riddle I'm being ask for? Does he see me? Or would that eye burn right though me? leaving only my shadow upon an endless wall just a mark in time like all the names in eternity. Yet I wish to be seen and adored. I wish to carry Gods spear into battle. I wish to make the lasting peace. I wish to be with him and be no more than he makes me. yet Ambition has not destroyed my integrity for happy would I be to simply serve.. But men dream and dreams give voice to our deepest needs. Happy I would be to simply serve. I am no longer surprised that my fellows so often wear the face of God. Happy I would be to simply serve. How ever long the night that's falling at whatever far remove Happy I would be to be of service. A star twinkles beyond our reach, let us go and see! For voyagers we are and heaven comes when it will.
We're pining for the loss of biodiversity adapted for a cold-climate Earth, while setting changes in motion for a hot-climate Earth. Given that life on Earth survived after a large rock collided with the planet, reducing atmospheric oxygen from 30% to just below 20%, and taking a significant fraction of bio-available carbon out of the carbon cycle forever (until humans started liberating it), life will find a way to survive us, too. So is the argument really that humanity deserves to be saved? Why?
I think we are fscked. My usual mood is desolation. No, that's not right, I don't feel THAT bad most of the time. Yet I do "catalog" our endless shortcomings and failings. Or should I say my long lists of failures and shortcomings? No, I try to weasel out of my faults, for it is easier to see them in humanity at large. No, that isn't correct. It's extremely easy for me to see the evils of this great country. And the misery we strew upon humanity, and we're so tight butted that we make our population pay for the privilege! Yes, here I go with things political AGAIN. While some folks automatically seem to think "my country--right or wrong," I have seen what my country does to humanity in the name of "helping them." And make no mistake, we have allowed these myriad terrible actions to come home. We have what we deserve. And if we don't rise up in huge acts of civil disobedience we will become the Fourth Reich. One foot is in that grave already. Sure, this is all imho. But I'm being honest, I believe we have come to a terrible state of being. And God will NOT save us. If he let the Jews, developmentally disabled, gays, Poles, French, British, Belgians, the Soviets and Chinese all die from the acts of two evil countries (Germany and Japan) he'll let us slaughter, even in his name, as has happened for many years. American Nazis will come bearing crucifixes and the bible. Not my original saying, btw.
Tonight when you kiss or wish you could kiss your son good nigh. Try to remember how you could have ever asked such a silly question. We should be saved because you had a son. Because you would die for his continuation. Because I would die for his continuation. In this I can assure you We are not alone. We become deserving of salvation when we extend salvation to others without limit and without let. Time. The crux of my argument is time based. We live at best 110 years,well perhaps better to go out at 90 laughing. We are creating long term changes that short term humans could never span. We can't wait for nature to recreate all that we are destroying. Everyday the sun brings new calamities into view. But it is the way of nature to lower mountains and raise valleys to augment what is to much and give to what is to little.So yes there will be return. But how may millions of tears will that take. It would not really matter if you did not love you son.
What percentage of plant and animal live vanished never to be seem again? Well we saved the cockroach and the crocodile! ":O}
We could answer that if we knew how many species there were to start with. But we don't, and probably never will. Even without human intervention, species come and go. It's wise to (attempt to) mitigate or reverse human impact, but we can't and shouldn't attempt to save everything. Some species would've gone whether we industrialised or not - they were just out-competed. I fulfilled my biological imperative. So what? To me, my family is all-important. To the grand sweep of humanity, we're a speck upon a wave. To the biosphere, we're just a few more blobs of animated protein jostling to propagate our particular pattern of amino acids onto the next generation. In the question of whether humanity deserves to survive is a little more abstract than whether I made a mini-me or not. (I made two - always good to have a spare). Every species that has ever been has evolved to fill a niche, expanded to fill as much of it as they are capable, then die back when either the environment changes, or species evolve to hunt them. In the case of many species of bacteria, the die-off is precipitated by their own metabolic waste products. The inanimate and slightly animate sacs of chemical process simply tip their waste outside their cell membranes, which eventually become toxic to them. Apparently humans are the same, on a somewhat grander scale... Humans don't care a jot for other species, not really. We keep some as pets, we eat a great many of them, and find a fair few of them annoying, looking to exterminate them from our homes and gardens. Were it not for the fact that we're starting to feel the effect of sitting in our own waste, and our realisation that those species are somehow important in mitigating it, we would continue to exercise absolute dominion over all other life on Earth. The only reason why we're not blindly following cyanobacteria into a mass die-off having poisoned the planet beyond our survival envelope is that we're just marginally more intelligent than they are. The only reason we pretend to care about the rest of life on Earth is because we can see our own die-back coming. The question, then, was why should humans be allowed to transcend the natural order of things. We've expanded, filled our niche, changed our environment, and soon will die back. The environment will settle on a new normal (maybe with a smaller human population, maybe not) and new species will rise to fill the gaps. Nothing at all to do with whether I procreated or not. (Although I'd hope that my family are among the survivors ) By the way, I do hope you weren't implying that I don't love my kids - as that's the way it came across. Let me put it to you that I wouldn't be doing what I do if I didn't hope to provide a better future for them...
I don't think Dan implied that you don't love your children, seems that he did just the opposite. Sorry to butt in if I don't need to. You made your love for your kids apparent, years ago.
