Steve5380 Posted April 22, 2020 Report Share Posted April 22, 2020 The film producer Michael Moore has recently created a documentary "Planet of the Humans" He had planned to release it to movie theaters, but now with the pandemic he decided to put it on Youtube yesterday and let everyone see it for free. It is somewhat hair-rising, and before I watched half of it I already had changed my mind over technology resolving the energy issue that humanity faces. At times along the video I found myself crying, but it does not have to impact others the same way. The video left me with a feeling that when my days end, I will not lose much. mijsdlog and sammylim 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve5380 Posted April 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 I'm amazed how fast after watching this documentary my outlook on the future has changed. Global warming may be a problem but the underlying big cause is overpopulation. We are now at 7.8 billion people. I remember it wasn't so long ago that we had reached 7 billion. That was October 2011. So in less than 9 years the population grew by 800 million!!, two-thirds the population of China! If covid-19 ends up causing the death of a million people.... this is a drop in the bucket! With a new pandemic like this one killing a million people every couple of weeks, this would merely keep the human population stable! This is incredible. Of course most of us 7.8 billion will have disappeared in a hundred years. That could give a respite to the environment! We already see how nature seems to recover thanks to us keeping confined at home and not driving cars and not flying around. The only humane way to reduce population is to reduce births. We won't euthanize the old or decimate the living. Imagine if one could find a substance that released in the air would stop all human conception in the world for a given time. If we stop conceptions for 40 or 50 years, then the population could be reduced in half. Another way could be random sterilization of the population to reduce birth rate, let's say, to 20% of what it is today. All this is pure fantasy. We see today that people won't volunteer to make major sacrifices to save the planet. Some people refuse to wear a mask today, or say that the virus is a hoax. So in 25 years the population may reach 11 billion or so, if nothing serious happen in between. It's hard to conceive a way that would significantly reduce the human population without being a horrible catastrophe. And this catastrophe may not have to wait a hundred years. I start... I start to feel sorry for you young guys who will have to try to live so many more decades. I am much closer to MY end of the world with its peaceful rest. ------- But now that I have written all this, I will think of something else and eat my ice cream and frozen blueberries before going to bed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mijsdlog Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 Thought provoking weekend viewing on my laptop with a failing lithium ion battery. Many of us are so used to the comforts that we have today - air conditioning, hot water etc., that we will fight to keep having those things. We will continue to utilise transportation to get us to our workplaces where we work in service, manufacturing and other industries to earn enough to keep our homes where we can be safe and dry, with refrigerators to keep our food, gas/electric stoves to cook our favourite dishes, washers/dryers to have clean and fresh smelling clothes and sheets. And what if our local community or even country hits the brakes on growth? Another stronger entity that holds on to belief that there should always be growth no matter what will come after our resources. What we can all do relatively easily is to be more conscientious about our consumption and help to promote that awareness. I still believe that scientific know-how can help us offset some of the damage or at least help us discover alternatives. Proposed solutions will always be somewhat controversial because different people will have different projections on the benefits and impact. We could always use more humility, less greed and ego - easier said than done but we shouldn't stop trying. wilfgene 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve5380 Posted April 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 9 hours ago, mijsdlog said: Thought provoking weekend viewing on my laptop with a failing lithium ion battery. Many of us are so used to the comforts that we have today - air conditioning, hot water etc., that we will fight to keep having those things. We will continue to utilise transportation to get us to our workplaces where we work in service, manufacturing and other industries to earn enough to keep our homes where we can be safe and dry, with refrigerators to keep our food, gas/electric stoves to cook our favourite dishes, washers/dryers to have clean and fresh smelling clothes and sheets. And what if our local community or even country hits the brakes on growth? Another stronger entity that holds on to belief that there should always be growth no matter what will come after our resources. What we can all do relatively easily is to be more conscientious about our consumption and help to promote that awareness. I still believe that scientific know-how can help us offset some of the damage or at least help us discover alternatives. Proposed solutions will always be somewhat controversial because different people will have different projections on the benefits and impact. We could always use more humility, less greed and ego - easier said than done but we shouldn't stop trying. You have a realistic view. Although the covid-19 today is a REALITY that has shaken us up quite a bit. It has taken away the freedom and for many their way of making a living. And there is nothing we as individuals can do about, except following the directives of social distancing. Maybe there is hope in technology, not to find better sources of energy, but in helping conserve energy. If every person reduces his environmental footprint in half, this may be equivalent to reducing the population in half. And there is plenty that can be done, with little serious sacrifice: - Houses can be built smaller with better insulation, comparable to the insulation of our freezer, so that it tales little energy to cool down and warm up. Their roofs can be made reflective, maybe with solar panels, instead of the black shingles used in my country. - Cars can become smaller and more efficient. Public transportation can be increased again to reduce or eliminate the use of personal cars. - Air travel can be made again prohibitively expensive. - Production of raw materials like plastics, steel, aluminum can be halted to give priority to recycling. All this can be encouraged by outlawing some sources of energy like coal and biofuels, biomass, prohibit deforestation, and let the cost of energy jump sky high. Draconian laws can be implemented restricting the size of houses to a limit area per individual, to counter the action of wealthy individuals to upgrade to ever bigger houses. In my good middle-class neighborhood, my old family house, which is now enormous for me alone, is becoming the smallest one as more mansions are erected left and right. It will be interesting to see how this coming catastrophe, if not avoided, will be resolved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimochi Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 My tonight movie night ~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve5380 Posted May 18, 2020 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2020 On 4/25/2020 at 10:25 AM, Kimochi said: My tonight movie night ~ Were you able to watch this movie, or did you fall asleep? The movie has been sharply criticized on youtube, mostly by enthusiasts of solar and wind power, claiming that the information is outdated. This is possible, although he showed the state of the art at the time the environmental crowd made the fantastic claims about these sources of power. I also find Moore exaggerates and shows biases, but nonetheless he gets the message done: we are in deep shit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimochi Posted May 18, 2020 Report Share Posted May 18, 2020 58 minutes ago, Steve5380 said: Were you able to watch this movie, or did you fall asleep? The movie has been sharply criticized on youtube, mostly by enthusiasts of solar and wind power, claiming that the information is outdated. This is possible, although he showed the state of the art at the time the environmental crowd made the fantastic claims about these sources of power. I also find Moore exaggerates and shows biases, but nonetheless he gets the message done: we are in deep shit Yeah watched and completed it. Its all about money making the world go round. Still did not solve anything about saving father earth, yet created more hype only, which is fucking sad. We humans gonna kill father earth, unless someone came up with a real miracle solution... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpunty Posted July 13, 2020 Report Share Posted July 13, 2020 This is a really amazing movie. He shows us one of the most serious problems of our time. Reminds us that we forgot about the real value of our lives. I wonder why we stopped caring for nature? Every day our atmosphere is becoming more and more polluted, as a result of which more and more people die. We have completely forgotten how to appreciate the most precious thing we have - the air that we got for free. Why, in gratitude, each person cannot plant at least one tree in his whole life? I have long been trying to help nature, using tips from carbonclick.com . Every day I do everything in my power to restore nature at least a little. I am sure that if we all come together, this problem will be resolved. It’s a pity that not everyone understood this yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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