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Africa, an Humanitarian Crisis in the Making.
Between 2010 and 2016, in the African continent alone, there have been 31 million more humans per year, or 85'628 per day, or 3'568 every single hour (➊). In comparison, the migrants involved in the Mediterranean crisis of 2016 represented with 362'753 European arrivals (➋) a mere 1.16% of those 31 million.
Overpopulated and Underfed ➌
❝Mass migration, starvation, civil unrest: Overpopulation unites all of these. Many nations’ threadbare economies, unable to cope with soaring births, could produce even greater waves of refugees beyond the millions already on the move to neighboring countries or the more prosperous havens of Europe. The population crisis is especially acute in Africa, as Eugene Linden writes in the accompanying article, but it spans the globe, from Central America to Asia.
Humanity has grown as expected since the warnings about global overpopulation of the 1960s. Decades of United Nations projections for the year 2000 came within 3 percent of the actual total, making the U.N.’s 9.7 billion prediction for 2050 both credible and alarming.
The Green Revolution and globalization brought food and jobs to soaring populations. Those events, and the declining rate of global population growth, camouflage today’s situation: the rise in absolute numbers of people, with millions more at risk when things go awry. Thomas Malthus, the population theorist of the 18th and 19th centuries, predicted such calamities if the world’s population grew unchecked. Current growth adds the population equivalent of a new Iran or Germany every year.
Fast-rising populations degrade economic and agricultural resiliency; add a recession or drought and the human consequences magnify.
In many countries, the population of desperately impoverished has grown to far exceed their total population as of 1970. When conditions worsen, the numbers stricken are staggering, and Malthusian concerns come back with a vengeance.
Curbing poverty in some countries would require unheard of economic growth. Even maintaining the economic status quo, a very low bar, is beyond reach.
To illustrate the burdens of exploding populations, imagine these nations scaled up to the size of the United States, which generated, on average, 129,000 new jobs a month last year. Just to tread water — the dismal status quo — an America-size Tanzania would have to produce 636,000 jobs monthly, without cease.❞
➡➊ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_population
➡➋ http://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean
➡➌ https://nyti.ms/2trQGYS, https://nyti.ms/2sukGWE,
Between 2010 and 2016, in the African continent alone, there have been 31 million more humans per year, or 85'628 per day, or 3'568 every single hour (➊). In comparison, the migrants involved in the Mediterranean crisis of 2016 represented with 362'753 European arrivals (➋) a mere 1.16% of those 31 million.
Overpopulated and Underfed ➌
❝Mass migration, starvation, civil unrest: Overpopulation unites all of these. Many nations’ threadbare economies, unable to cope with soaring births, could produce even greater waves of refugees beyond the millions already on the move to neighboring countries or the more prosperous havens of Europe. The population crisis is especially acute in Africa, as Eugene Linden writes in the accompanying article, but it spans the globe, from Central America to Asia.
Humanity has grown as expected since the warnings about global overpopulation of the 1960s. Decades of United Nations projections for the year 2000 came within 3 percent of the actual total, making the U.N.’s 9.7 billion prediction for 2050 both credible and alarming.
The Green Revolution and globalization brought food and jobs to soaring populations. Those events, and the declining rate of global population growth, camouflage today’s situation: the rise in absolute numbers of people, with millions more at risk when things go awry. Thomas Malthus, the population theorist of the 18th and 19th centuries, predicted such calamities if the world’s population grew unchecked. Current growth adds the population equivalent of a new Iran or Germany every year.
Fast-rising populations degrade economic and agricultural resiliency; add a recession or drought and the human consequences magnify.
In many countries, the population of desperately impoverished has grown to far exceed their total population as of 1970. When conditions worsen, the numbers stricken are staggering, and Malthusian concerns come back with a vengeance.
Curbing poverty in some countries would require unheard of economic growth. Even maintaining the economic status quo, a very low bar, is beyond reach.
To illustrate the burdens of exploding populations, imagine these nations scaled up to the size of the United States, which generated, on average, 129,000 new jobs a month last year. Just to tread water — the dismal status quo — an America-size Tanzania would have to produce 636,000 jobs monthly, without cease.❞
➡➊ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_population
➡➋ http://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean
➡➌ https://nyti.ms/2trQGYS, https://nyti.ms/2sukGWE,
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Fun in a Careless Consumer Society
I shot the picture with the Inflatable boats floating down the Aare between Thun and Bern last July. I could have done it this year as it repeated exactly the same way during the weekend ... but this time around I want to focus on the dark side of that medal, that is, that the vast majority of these Inflatable boats will only be used once or twice and then be thrown away.
The fun seeking consumers arrive in Thun by train from Bern or further away, then they shop for some variety of an INTEX "made in China" product, an air pump if not included and plenty bottles or cans of beer, of which an untold number will quickly join the fishes.
The past few years the city officials grew tired of seeing these empty boxes left everywhere near the river and in this particularly appreciated boarding spot they took steps. Thun gets to deal with the packaging, Bern with whatever plastic they contained and is no longer wanted. It has been sunny and warm until Sunday evening and what you see here is just from the previous two days.
Thun, June 18th, 2017.
I shot the picture with the Inflatable boats floating down the Aare between Thun and Bern last July. I could have done it this year as it repeated exactly the same way during the weekend ... but this time around I want to focus on the dark side of that medal, that is, that the vast majority of these Inflatable boats will only be used once or twice and then be thrown away.
The fun seeking consumers arrive in Thun by train from Bern or further away, then they shop for some variety of an INTEX "made in China" product, an air pump if not included and plenty bottles or cans of beer, of which an untold number will quickly join the fishes.
The past few years the city officials grew tired of seeing these empty boxes left everywhere near the river and in this particularly appreciated boarding spot they took steps. Thun gets to deal with the packaging, Bern with whatever plastic they contained and is no longer wanted. It has been sunny and warm until Sunday evening and what you see here is just from the previous two days.
Thun, June 18th, 2017.
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6/19/17
3 Photos - View album
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Plastic Roofs
Near the fireplace of my previous post someone has taken great care to build a rain shelter only using natural, thus easy recyclable, elements, for example through using linen cords to secure the parts together. Where this effort abruptly stopped is for the roof consisting in a plastic cover. Effort and intent are praiseworthy but the skills and materials to make watertight roofs with natural materials are easily lost in the depth of time.
The last picture demonstrates just how popular plastic sheets are in makeshift camps all around the world; here an illegal gold mining camp in the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios (Reuters/Janine Costa, https://goo.gl/OFRu2O). You can bet that using natural materials was the least of their worries and that the blue plastic sheets not washed away in the oceans will still be exactly there 500 years from today, long after all those miners have died.
Near the fireplace of my previous post someone has taken great care to build a rain shelter only using natural, thus easy recyclable, elements, for example through using linen cords to secure the parts together. Where this effort abruptly stopped is for the roof consisting in a plastic cover. Effort and intent are praiseworthy but the skills and materials to make watertight roofs with natural materials are easily lost in the depth of time.
The last picture demonstrates just how popular plastic sheets are in makeshift camps all around the world; here an illegal gold mining camp in the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios (Reuters/Janine Costa, https://goo.gl/OFRu2O). You can bet that using natural materials was the least of their worries and that the blue plastic sheets not washed away in the oceans will still be exactly there 500 years from today, long after all those miners have died.
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6/3/17
5 Photos - View album
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Repairing Instead of Throwing Away
We also have a great team of volunteers. We came here for advice about our malfunctioning kitchen appliance and certainly came out with plenty of them. Most of these guys are retired and are more than willing to get themselves seriously busy helping you out with your broken device problem.
At your service every Saturday!
https://repaircafe-thun.ch
We also have a great team of volunteers. We came here for advice about our malfunctioning kitchen appliance and certainly came out with plenty of them. Most of these guys are retired and are more than willing to get themselves seriously busy helping you out with your broken device problem.
At your service every Saturday!
https://repaircafe-thun.ch
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5/27/17
5 Photos - View album
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Guys like Bob can make a difference.
By volume it would take me more than a decade to macht what he did in a single trip. Sadly my bicycle only provides limited hauling capacity.
By volume it would take me more than a decade to macht what he did in a single trip. Sadly my bicycle only provides limited hauling capacity.
Earth Day - A few hrs work and a trip to the dump.
Every little bit helps
Every little bit helps
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4/22/17
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Old, intact natural forests are the most highly complex, efficient, climate-stabilizing technology we have.
I needed none more but +Bill Smith just gave me another reason to hate when trees are cut down, whatever the justification. And it makes absolute sense that we need not spending any effort in trying to reproduce what forests have been doing for eons, for free and for the undisputable benefit of all living Earthian creatures.
I needed none more but +Bill Smith just gave me another reason to hate when trees are cut down, whatever the justification. And it makes absolute sense that we need not spending any effort in trying to reproduce what forests have been doing for eons, for free and for the undisputable benefit of all living Earthian creatures.
Forests are the only systems we have that can suck carbon out of the atmosphere within the timeframe necessary to save humanity. #Forests
Read also: http://bit.ly/2ocNMsK
Read also: http://bit.ly/2ocNMsK
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At least 154 killed, 200 missing after south Colombia city floods
It doesn't take long to find out that the same causes produced the same effects: increased demographic pressure on the environment causing widespread deforestation and its associated soil erosion and disruption of the natural water cycle.
This is a direct consequence of their "national Plan Pacifico", which is intended to raise revenue to develop the economy but this was all only thought out for the short term as we are seeing today. The Wikipedia articles are pretty explicit.
In other words Colombia is just another country which is harvesting what it sowed and I can't feel much pity for them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Colombia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Colombia
It doesn't take long to find out that the same causes produced the same effects: increased demographic pressure on the environment causing widespread deforestation and its associated soil erosion and disruption of the natural water cycle.
This is a direct consequence of their "national Plan Pacifico", which is intended to raise revenue to develop the economy but this was all only thought out for the short term as we are seeing today. The Wikipedia articles are pretty explicit.
In other words Colombia is just another country which is harvesting what it sowed and I can't feel much pity for them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Colombia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Colombia
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Just a few Happy-looking Chickens
I cannot call myself a vegetarian because I still occasionally eat meat, then mostly poultry or fishes. Probably around a couple of times per month.
On the other hand I eat eggs on a daily basis and would love knowing if they come from chickens like these. Probably not quite like them, though I pay attention to their origin and especially avoiding the cheapest on offer.
They have a short life, at our service, that we ought to keep as "humane" as possible, for the sake of our mental health but there exist many other reasons you may prefer.
I cannot call myself a vegetarian because I still occasionally eat meat, then mostly poultry or fishes. Probably around a couple of times per month.
On the other hand I eat eggs on a daily basis and would love knowing if they come from chickens like these. Probably not quite like them, though I pay attention to their origin and especially avoiding the cheapest on offer.
They have a short life, at our service, that we ought to keep as "humane" as possible, for the sake of our mental health but there exist many other reasons you may prefer.
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28559 should have a better future than being burnt for heat or converted into toilet paper
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2/19/17
3 Photos - View album
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Too Many People, Too Little Food.
I wish I could have taken another title for a change, it is becoming almost boring.
For one we're talking about fellow Earthians, not just fishes, and even less food as we - an incredibly arrogant bunch of naked apes of assorted skin colors and cultures - tend to qualify all other species as being edible or not.
Aren't we incredible?
Then, as I often wrote, the probability is getting bigger by the day that - long before fossil fuels depletion and associated detrimental climate changes - the Third World will grow increasingly hungry and thirsty because that is where most new mouths are born and where food is becoming scarcer the fastest.
In other words, going at full speed into a dead end, as the Guardian article amply illustrates.
If each one of us would live as if on a tiny but wonderful and greenish island, with limited people, space and supplies but teeming with a myriad other species, we would automatically be driven to make sustainable choices. History brought us several examples of that and historian Jared Diamond summarized the most striking cases in "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"
Ok, not possible.
So we probably need to build imaginary islands within the constraints of our imagination but then, aren't obstacles to personal mobility one of the most hated concepts nowadays?
I wish I could have taken another title for a change, it is becoming almost boring.
For one we're talking about fellow Earthians, not just fishes, and even less food as we - an incredibly arrogant bunch of naked apes of assorted skin colors and cultures - tend to qualify all other species as being edible or not.
Aren't we incredible?
Then, as I often wrote, the probability is getting bigger by the day that - long before fossil fuels depletion and associated detrimental climate changes - the Third World will grow increasingly hungry and thirsty because that is where most new mouths are born and where food is becoming scarcer the fastest.
In other words, going at full speed into a dead end, as the Guardian article amply illustrates.
If each one of us would live as if on a tiny but wonderful and greenish island, with limited people, space and supplies but teeming with a myriad other species, we would automatically be driven to make sustainable choices. History brought us several examples of that and historian Jared Diamond summarized the most striking cases in "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"
Ok, not possible.
So we probably need to build imaginary islands within the constraints of our imagination but then, aren't obstacles to personal mobility one of the most hated concepts nowadays?
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