What are the major green issues? Is the major issue how much plastic we recycle? Is it "nimby" resistance to wind turbines?
No. By far and away the greatest issue is that human beings have destroyed about half of all life on earth and it is still happening. We have been politically cunning and created reserves for plants and animals so that it is possible to say "mass extinction, what mass extinction? Very few species have become extinct!" whilst gaily converting the land into urban wastelands and agri-deserts.
The main green issues were fully understood forty years ago. When global population was only 4 to 5 billion the founders of green parties realised that a population explosion was under way.
Even before "global warming" became an issue it was obvious that the environment was being degraded.
Unfortunately, as can be seen from the graphs and maps above, the green parties and lobbyists had almost no effect. The disaster has largely happened. It has happened over several generations so each generation only gets an inkling of the sheer extent of the damage as it gets too old to have any real influence.
The green problem was always, at its heart, population growth. The Green Party has utterly failed to make it clear that global warming is largely a problem of population growth.
Of course some parts of the globe use more resource than others but then the others catch up so that overall, in the long term, it is population that is the governing factor. (Can anyone really argue that if the population of the world stayed at, say, 4bn, then human beings would have had the same impact as they do now? - see Note 1)
Yet Green campaigners weakened, they let the religious and other lobbies (including Big Business) shut down the whole idea of controlling population.
The UK Green Party seems to be a pale shadow of its former self. It has conceded defeat on the major issues and now specialises in policies to allow people to feel "Green" whilst continuing the policies that are devastating nature.
The UK Green Party is now part of the problem. In the UK, as in the, world in general, the problem is still population growth which, in the UK, is almost entirely due to migration.
In 2012 8% of UK land was covered by buildings, roads and construction sites ( Corine Land Use ) Between 2006 and 2012 "Over 7,000 hectares were converted from forest to artificial surfaces, and over 14,000 hectares changed from agricultural areas to artificial surfaces" - 81 square miles of complete urbanisation in 6 years! Yet the UK Green Party joins in the chorus of "racists and xenophobes!" against anyone who stands in the path of Big Business desires for the free movement of capital, labour and goods to enable the exploitation and destruction of every part of the globe.
You cannot be green and support population growth. The two are opposites.
The extent of humanity's effect on the environment makes you shiver in horror.
Our species has halved the entire biomass of the globe:
Humans have reduced the global biomass of all wild land mammals to 15% of its pre-human level. Sea mammals have been reduced to 20% of the pre-human level. Humans have removed 50% of global fishery stocks.
See The biomass distribution on Earth
Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo
PNAS May 21, 2018. 201711842; published ahead of print May 21, 2018.
and Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact
Note 1: Being green is not about global warming and saving humankind however, on the subject of Global warming, per capita CO2 emissions stabilised after 1970:
It is only population growth that led to the huge rises in total global CO2 in the later 20th century. The growth of Chinese (and to a lesser extent Indian etc) emissions in the noughties increased global per capita output by 25% but even then, had global population stayed at the 1970 level there would have been no global warming. From the green viewpoint global warming is not the issue, it is the gigantic footprint of humanity which has effects such as global warming, ocean pollution, habitat destruction etc. etc.
No. By far and away the greatest issue is that human beings have destroyed about half of all life on earth and it is still happening. We have been politically cunning and created reserves for plants and animals so that it is possible to say "mass extinction, what mass extinction? Very few species have become extinct!" whilst gaily converting the land into urban wastelands and agri-deserts.
The main green issues were fully understood forty years ago. When global population was only 4 to 5 billion the founders of green parties realised that a population explosion was under way.
 |
| Population Matters |
 |
| Tranquillity Map - See MN Consultors |
The green problem was always, at its heart, population growth. The Green Party has utterly failed to make it clear that global warming is largely a problem of population growth.
The UK Green Party seems to be a pale shadow of its former self. It has conceded defeat on the major issues and now specialises in policies to allow people to feel "Green" whilst continuing the policies that are devastating nature.
The UK Green Party is now part of the problem. In the UK, as in the, world in general, the problem is still population growth which, in the UK, is almost entirely due to migration.
 |
| See Why are people still pressing for more migration? |
You cannot be green and support population growth. The two are opposites.
The extent of humanity's effect on the environment makes you shiver in horror.
Our species has halved the entire biomass of the globe:
Humans have reduced the global biomass of all wild land mammals to 15% of its pre-human level. Sea mammals have been reduced to 20% of the pre-human level. Humans have removed 50% of global fishery stocks.
See The biomass distribution on Earth
Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo
PNAS May 21, 2018. 201711842; published ahead of print May 21, 2018.
and Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact
Note 1: Being green is not about global warming and saving humankind however, on the subject of Global warming, per capita CO2 emissions stabilised after 1970:
It is only population growth that led to the huge rises in total global CO2 in the later 20th century. The growth of Chinese (and to a lesser extent Indian etc) emissions in the noughties increased global per capita output by 25% but even then, had global population stayed at the 1970 level there would have been no global warming. From the green viewpoint global warming is not the issue, it is the gigantic footprint of humanity which has effects such as global warming, ocean pollution, habitat destruction etc. etc.
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