Post Your Random Thoughts Thread!

[DJoe]

The green party has just ovetaken UKIP in membership
more people are now green party members than UKIP members
maybe that will mean a bit less pandering of labour and tories to the far right, but i doubt it

[mason666]

lol membership doesn't mean shit

[DJoe]

yep all that really matters is which party the press side with

[ultraspatial]

membership is important for various reasons, including party legitimacy. maybe not as much in the uk cause iirc you only need a handful of people to start a political party. here you need 25000 founding members from like 18 different counties

[mason666]

yh but in most recent populus poll Ukip has more than twice the vote share

[DJoe]

lol polls dont mean shit

[mason666]

been pretty accurate in past elections

[DJoe]

it is quite shocking how none of the political parties apart from the greens even come close to sufficiently addressing environmental issues. We're all absolutely fucked with regards to global warming, nitrogen deposition and ocean acidification yet people are actually more worried about immigration.

boggles the mind

[ultraspatial]

environmental issues aren't usually considered as important as economic and safety issues - both of which bring up talks on immigration and make people vote for the right. society in general needs to be in a good place to bother with post-materialistic issues like global warming

[hubb]

in a way yeah.

it's like an understanding of a divide and conquer principle set where they live which is even more retarded than not knowing about different cultures and deciding what they are on about. it must be on the first page of the modern survivalists moron rule book.

[DJoe]

i dont think people realise just how fucked we are though unless immediate action is taken
yes the short term implications might be higher expenditure and a decrease in development and producivity but were already starting to see the devastating effects. mass species extinction is already happening.
in the next 10 years water security and food security arent just going to be issues that affect poor countries. Flooding is going to become a huge problem.

Yet politicians are still quibbling over whether or not its actually happening. (either they're blind or they're just lying)

economic and safety issues are directly tied with the climate change and the huge reduction in biodiversity thats around the corner

its all very well saying environmentalism is post materialistic but when it directly impacts wealth, economic well being and health, id argue its not post materialistic at all. far more likely to have a significant effect on one's wealth than the curbing of immigration

[Harkat]

ive bigged your post up and feel like ive done my part now

[hubb]

economic and safety issues are directly tied with the climate change and the huge reduction in biodiversity thats around the corner

I agree with the first bit, but the second is not a definitive yet, despite how logical it would seem to conclude that.. (thankfully)

like for example some fish will breed drastically more if the waters temp rises etc

[ultraspatial]

i dont think people realise just how fucked we are though unless immediate action is taken
yes the short term implications might be higher expenditure and a decrease in development and producivity but were already starting to see the devastating effects. mass species extinction is already happening.
in the next 10 years water security and food security arent just going to be issues that affect poor countries. Flooding is going to become a huge problem.

Yet politicians are still quibbling over whether or not its actually happening. (either they're blind or they're just lying)

economic and safety issues are directly tied with the climate change and the huge reduction in biodiversity thats around the corner

its all very well saying environmentalism is post materialistic but when it directly impacts wealth, economic well being and health, id argue its not post materialistic at all. far more likely to have a significant effect on one's wealth than the curbing of immigration

not saying they're not. just that they're not perceived as such
they're called post-materialistic cause people only started taking note when they were quite well off. and it makes sense, when you're concerned about having/keeping a job or w/e, global warming or pollution isn't exactly the first thing on your mind

[DJoe]

economic and safety issues are directly tied with the climate change and the huge reduction in biodiversity thats around the corner

I agree with the first bit, but the second is not a definitive yet, despite how logical it would seem to conclude that.. (thankfully)

like for example some fish will breed drastically more if the waters temp rises etc

the possitive influence on biodiversity is massively overwhelmed by the negatives

e.g
Roughly one-quarter of coral reefs worldwide are already considered damaged beyond repair, with another two-thirds under serious threat. Coral reefs are the rainforests of the ocean

warming doesnt actually lead to a significant increase in biodiversity. Even if it did lead to fish breeding more that wouldnt lead to an increase in biodiversity. especially when this potential increase in fish abundance would be impossible to sustain due to the effect of climate change on ocean primary production. may think that increase in co2 means an increase in photosynthesis but there are limiting factors and infact the opposite would happen. Acidification leads to eutrophication in the oceans so that means a further loss of biodiversity. warming of the oceans leads to thermal stratification which means less vertical upwelling and less nutrients. so further loss of biodiversity

Nitrogen deposition has led to a huge terestrial reduction in biodiversity especially in Mediterranean europe for example
loss of mangroves and salt marshes due to sea level rises

im sure i dont need to explain the effect of drought and an increase in extreme weather events either

warming may be beneficial for some species but they'll just outcompete other species leading to species dominance which is also means .... a reduction in biodiversity

[hubb]

warming may be beneficial for some species but they'll just outcompete other species leading to species dominance which is also means .... a reduction in biodiversity

oh ofcourse, good point..

But all of this depends on thinking that (just as an example) the animals will have to eat what they eat now, specifically. It may be that it's more the volume that goes down, than the diversity but I'm shadowboxing now lol

[DJoe]

yeah thats true. species, in response to cliamte change can adapt through a range shift (moving northward or to a greater altitude for example), evolve, or exhibit phenotypic plasticity (birds laying eggs earlier in the year because caterpillars available earlier, or newts arriving at ponds earlier in the year).

Unfortunately things get complicated.
interaction between species for example. - plants and pollinators. if a plant flowers earlier because its hotter earlier in the year, will the insects be at the right stage of the life cycle to pollinate them. if theyre not the plants dont reproduce.

what if the climate change isnt constant but varies. - somehting that adapts to get live where its hotter, but then it gets cooler again

what if the climate changes to quickly for the species to adapt etc.

some will adapt. those that cant wont survive. the ones that survive become dominant..... >biodiversity

[hubb]

yeah


I work in publishing and we released Naomi Kleins latest book (in denmark) recently and it has been really interesting hearing peoples often quite shallow opinions and how quickly it turns into something equating religion

but the the bit that is rarely discussed is treating life like more of a genuine ressource and actually deciding to protect it like we've accepted firms or nations or whatever do.

oddly, a new form of revo capitalism could beat it up and save it the problem is at the same time protecting nations and cultures etc - - imo imo fuck them and lets have earth.2 - the zoo edition

[DJoe]

yeah ive studied that kind of stuff.
its well documented that big corps have massively lobbied against climate change action
indeed theres a group of scientists that have been in their pocket who are the only ones that argue against the reality of climate change

a lot of its todo with post-ecologism.
the idea that we can adapt to a changing climate (which in part is due to neo-liberal thinking)

this post-ecological school of thought is out the window now as weve come to realise neo-liberal capitalism isnt actually sustainable

a paradox

“a general acceptance that the achievement of sustainability requires radical change in the most basic principles of late-modern societies.”

And yet, on the other hand, there is

“a general consensus about the non-negotiability of democratic consumer capitalism – irrespective of mounting evidence of its unsustainability

'Even if it could be shown that neoliberal capitalism increases productivity, it erodes the conditions in which production occurs long term, i.e., resources/nature, requiring expansion into new areas. It is therefore not sustainable within the world's limited geographical space.['

[hubb]

'Even if it could be shown that neoliberal capitalism increases productivity, it erodes the conditions in which production occurs long term, i.e., resources/nature, requiring expansion into new areas. It is therefore not sustainable within the world's limited geographical space.['

I think that is actually a lot closer to us than neolib, con or libertaryan beliefs.

I've always thought the concept of supply and demand was turned upside it's head in reality, meaning that it lost it's relevance in a social political sence.
If you're a 'depending everything on a market kind of liberal', usually you will have a supply of some shit and THEN you try to find or force a demand on a 'market'. The abstract belief is with the 'market' just handling it all of a sudden like it had magical indefinite potential and not even considering who those buyers would be or what they needed.

had to edit out a few 'magic' adjectives