David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon

[Equinox Moon]

Source: Guardian

Naturalist tells leaders at UN climate summit that fate of world is in their hands.
The collapse of civilisation and the natural world is on the horizon, Sir David Attenborough has told the UN climate change summit in Poland.

The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality.

As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative, messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday. “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/03/david-attenborough-collapse-civilisation-on-horizon-un-climate-summit

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Our lack of harmony with nature is going to kill the planet and its inhabitants. The native peoples of the world had it right and modern man chose to squash them on a global scale.

[CTyankee]

1. has somebody told Trump about this?

Probably not.

I am seriously depressed.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Never thought I would be happy about no grandkids....

Fate is a 2 edged sword.....I love the memories of growing up in a still pristine Pac. NW, but it hurts terribly knowing my adult sons are watching its destruction on myriad fronts.

[Duppers]

17. Same here.

My 31yo son has vowed not to have children because he KNOWS what's coming. What's coming is absolutely terrifying.

I cannot find enough antidepressants, only temporary escapes.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. David A. is one of the most respected leaders in conservation that there is now a days and folks ...

should listen.

[Submariner]

3. With our failure to be good stewards to the planet,

in our demise we are going to take all the large wild mammals to hell with us along with other wildlife. By the end of this century, most of the whale species, dolphins, elephants, rhino, big cats, giraffe, mountain gorillas, polar bears, grizzly bears, penguins, condors, shorebirds, sea birds, songbirds, raptors, shark species, bluefin tuna, and other vulnerable critters, will be gone entirely, or only exist in a zoo cage.

Like the Tasmanian tiger, just a few decades from now, people will be seeing the last of a species go economically or literally extinct. When the babies and toddlers born this year are 40 to 50 years old, they will be sitting in their air conditioned homes in Florida, Texas, Alabama, and other red states where it will be hitting 120 to 130 degrees outside, with 100% humidity, wondering why their idiot parents and grandparents allowed this to happen.

When I got into the fisheries science business 48 years ago, there were 14 healthy world class fisheries around the planet. Now there are none.

Pro tip: The giant (non-replenished) groundwater reservoirs below the Imperial Valley in California, and in the mid-west (Ogallala Aquifer) sitting below the proposed Tar Sands oil pipeline route will go dry in the next couple of decades. That means no more crops being trucked across the US to your local supermarket.

Tell your children to work and live where they can grow food locally from 2040 on. Here in the northeast, upstate New York, Maine, NH, and Vermont will be prime home and crop land. Until then, keep reproducing and watch the current 7.3 billion person population balloon to 9 to 10 billion and squeeze the planets resources beyond its limits.

David Attenborough knows what he is talking about.

[Moostache]

7. We will never hit 10 Billion...

The reason I know this is that ALL climate change data has been seriously DOWNPLAYED to date. ALL projections were given on the most conservative possible set of predictions, with the least dire and least urgent calls to action, until now...

That indicates the truth is coming and coming hard and fast. They can no longer pretend that climate disruption is not an existential threat to humanity because the effects are becoming too obvious to hide or claim the "500 year flood" or "1,000 year drought" is the explanation.

We have been duped and lied to for decades. The real last chance to prevent the worst of the coming disaster died when Reagan tore the solar panels off of the White House and set a course to further tie economic output (growing GDP through increased energy inputs / fossil fuel usage) and financial stability (EVERYONE'S livelihood/job/career) together. We missed the chance to begin reforming the economy and the way in which we assigned value from competitive capitalism to resource-based allocation then, and now there is really no going back...it is way past too late to avoid billions of deaths in the next 2-3 decades. The 20th century thought it was big and bad with 2 world wars...well, the 21st is going to top them all and it won't be close either...

I am through caring. The worst is going to happen in my lifetime, I am going to witness horrific genocide and nuclear warfare (India and Pakistan first, followed by Israel and the Arab states and maybe even Russia and China as farmlands dwindle and population culling becomes necessary to make it through another orbit of the sun without starving. The world has no hope because the world has no leaders. We have people who are out to steal all they can for themselves and don't realize that the money can't save them any more than it could save people on Titanic.

We hit the metaphorical iceberg decades ago and since then we have seen the collective leadership of the planet fiddle as the fires rose and the cities burned. Its now "game over" and the worst part about that is knowing that it is going to happen as surely as knowing a pen held above my desk is going to fall if I release it.

I don't care to try to eke out an existence in a post-civilization, Darwinian nightmare landscape. I want no part of a world where every waking hour must be devoted to scrapping up enough food and water to merely make it to the next sunrise. That is not living, that is subsistence slavery and I won't participate. I will be part of the die off when civilization collapses and I will consider myself one of the lucky ones when it happens. Those who live to the bitter end will see horrors that a sane mind cannot even contemplate currently.

[Charlotte Little]

8. As much as I'd like to argue

You are more than likely correct.

Thank god I never had children.

[Delphinus]

14. I totally

agree with your last paragraph - I do not wish to live in a Mad Max scenario. I am unsure if that means I will die by starvation or my own hand - and neither is really easy to prepare for.

[Jedi Guy]

15. And this is why I'm glad my wife and I don't have kids.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and climate change, terrifyingly, is just one facet of the coming disruption. The next few decades are not going to be much fun.

I'm with you. I have no desire to live in a Mad Max hellscape. I've played the Fallout games, and the Metro games, and plenty of other post-apocalyptic games. It makes for interesting fiction, but it's somewhat chilling when you realize just how close we are to that being our reality, rather than an entertaining fiction. How many close calls have we had with nuclear weapons?

I'll be 40 next year, and at this point, I'm just grateful that I had 40 good years before the rollercoaster ride to the Thunderdome really cranks up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Planet is past limits now

It's just that 3rd world citizens are paying that steep price for it, while the global oligarchs are fighting over the last drops of liquid sunshine ( so to speak) still left underground.

Not even counting the fact that Fukishima continues to spew, 11 years later.

[Achilleaze]

5. republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous

republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate chaos are profoundly dangerous

[olddad56]

6. in 2000, Al Gore lost the overall electoral college vote in a rigged and illegal election....

during the campaign, Al Gore was ridiculed by GWB for stating that he felt global warming was the top threat to America. If elections were fair and honest, perhaps we would not be in this situation. Now we have a Russian agent in the oval office and the climate is suffering even more.

[Cold War Spook]

9. When I was in my 40s,

I thought I would not like old age. Now that I am 75, I am glad I am not in my 40s.

[BeneathTheMire]

10. Go vegan,

Save the environment

[The_jackalope]

12. Or even better, you could not have kids.

Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children

The greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child, according to a new study that identifies the most effective ways people can cut their carbon emissions.

Having one fewer child will save 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year.

The researchers analysed dozens of sources from Europe, North America and Japan to calculate the carbon savings individuals in richer nations can make. They found getting rid of a car saved 2.4 tonnes a year, avoiding a return transatlantic flight saved 1.6 tonnes and becoming vegetarian saved 0.8 tonnes a year.

Not having a child saves 70 times as much carbon as going veg.

[BeneathTheMire]

13. Huge difference between vegetarian and vegan

[Duppers]

18. Huge difference in not procreating at all

Last edited Mon Dec 3, 2018, 08:43 PM - Edit history (1)

And not eating animals or using any animal products.

Save a person's life, don't have another one. We must face the facts that some of us chose to ignore.

[BeneathTheMire]

20. I know

[The_jackalope]

31. A 70x difference?

?????

[Quemado]

28. I am vegan and childless.

I'm doing my part.

[The_jackalope]

32. Then you are a far better person than I.

Congratulations.

I'm just childfree. But more because I couldn't justify subjecting another human being to what is coming. I still eat animals, like my forebears did all the way back to Australopithecus.

[athena]

35. Your forebears ate much, much less animal products

than you do. It’s only thanks to factory-farming, a very modern, unnatural, and cruel industry, that you’re able to eat animal products at every meal. But who cares about truth when all you’re looking for is an excuse to continue to support the torture and killing of defenseless animals while hurting the environment and your own health, eh?

P.S. I’m a childfree vegan who drives a hybrid, and I’m still trying to help the environment and humans in other ways. Doing one good thing doesn’t absolve one of the responsibility to do other good things.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

21. Am I the only one who is fed up with sanctimonious vegans ?

ICYMI, It is already too late. Going vegan will save nothing. A drop in the bucket does not fill the pail.

[BeneathTheMire]

22. You sound like a republican.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

23. You're new here, but try hard not to judge people you don't know.

I know it may be a bridge too far, but do try.

[BeneathTheMire]

24. According to you

We are all fucked and nothing matters. So what’re you doing here? Also, you judged me as a sanctimonious vegan so maybe try to follow your own advice?

[Haggis for Breakfast]

26. It's unfortunate that you took that so personally.

As I wasn't singling you out. Also, I didn't leap to the assumption that you ARE a vegan. Perhaps you were making an observation. Because that is what I was doing based on my personal experiences with too many holier-than-thou vegans that have cast their smug shadow across my path.

I have friends that have gone the vegan route for health reasons. I respect that.

I have neighbors that have gone vegan for spiritual reasons. I respect that.

What I don't respect is people who lord their self-asserted superiority over others because they think that going vegan makes them better than the rest of society. Many people have dietary requirements that just do not permit a vegan approach.

I hate pretentiousness in ALL its forms. If you chose to include yourself in the latter, then that is on you.

But do yourself a favor and don't pretend you know anything about me.

[marble falls]

38. You sound like you don't Haggis at all.

[athena]

34. Isn't it interesting,

how defensive some non-vegans get when they find out that someone is vegan? You just said two short sentences, and you’re being attacked left and right for supposedly being aggressive and pretentious. Hypocrites who attack vegans don’t realize that the only person they’re fooling is themselves.

This place has really become dominated by those who attack and insult random strangers to take out their frustration about the problems in their lives that they’re unable or unwilling to deal with. It’s really not worth arguing with them. In the end, people who don’t go vegan will end up suffering the health consequences of hurting defenseless animals and the environment. I see it as a form of karma.

To those non-vegans who feel an urge to attack me over this post: be my guest. You will only be demonstrating what kind of person you are.

[BeneathTheMire]

37. It is quite interesting

Thank you

[Le Gaucher]

11. Even Politically -Far right is on the rise in many parts of the world. 'Jew' is used as a slur in

Germany. Politicians openly take shots on immigrants.

Globalization isnt compensating those losing out fast enough.

I fear we are headed to a very dangerous place.

[Duppers]

19. We indeed are.

An unimaginable dystopia.

[appalachiablue]

27. Agree, sorry to say. Overwhelming but reality.

[appalachiablue]

25. Well said. This rise of the noisy Far-Right, attacks

on immigrants and minorities will continue I'm afraid.

It would take 10+ Marshall Plans, started today to begin to confront Climate Change, inequality, poverty and suffering.

As a poster above wrote so well, what's ahead will make the two world wars of the 20th century pale.

[True Dough]

29. If we are facing climate-change armageddon

I would prefer that Attenborough provides the commentary as it plays out. Him or Morgan Freeman.

[underpants]

30. Well great.

Just great.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. Isn't it? Seriously depressing.

[Jimbo S]

36. Thank goodness I have BBC World News channel

They reported on his address. I need to get back to watching the BBC more often.

Did the American media report on any of this?