Gaia and all that 1009


I have been trying for the last few days to discover a coherent logic towards my feelings on man’s relationship with his environment.  This is proving not to be simple.

The process started when I heard on World Service radio a gentleman from the International Panel on Climate Change discussing their latest report.  As you know, I tend to accept the established opinion on climate change, and rather take the view that if all our industrial activity were not affecting the atmosphere, that would be strange.

But what struck me was that the gentleman said that a pause in warming for the last fifteen years was not significant, as fifteen years was a blip in processes that last over millennia.

Well, that would certainly be very true if you are considering natural climate change.  But we are not – we are considering man-made climate change.  In terms of the period in which the scale of man’s industrial activity has been having a significant impact on the environment, surely fifteen years is a pretty important percentage of that period?  Especially as you might naturally imagine the process to be cumulative – fifteen years at the start when nothing much happened would be more explicable.

Having tucked away that doubt, I started to try to think deeper.  Man is, of course, himself a part of nature.  Anything man does on this planet is natural to this planet.  I do not take the view man should not change his environment – otherwise I should not be sitting in a house.  The question is rather, are we inadvertently making changes to the environment to our own long term detriment?

That rejection of what you might call the Gaia principle – that the environmental status quo is an end in itself – has ramifications.  It is hard to conceptualise our relationship with gases or soil, but easier in terms of animals.  I am not a vegetarian – I am quite happy that we farm and eat cattle, for example – and you might argue that the cattle are pretty successful themselves, symbiotic survivors of a kind.  Do I think other species have a value in themselves?  Is there any harm in killing off a species of insect, other than the fact that biodiversity may be reduced in ways that remove potential future advantages to man, or there may be knock on consequences we know not of that damage man somehow?  I am not quite sure, but in general I seem in practice to take the view that exploitation of other species and substantial distortion of prior ecological balance to suit men’s needs is fine, so presumably the odd extinction is fine too, unless it damages man long term.

I strongly disapprove of hurting animals for sport, and want to see them have the best quality of life possible, preferably wild.  But I like to eat and wear them.  I am not quite sure why it is OK to wear animal skin on our feet or carry it as a bag, but not to wear “fur”.  What is the difference, other than that leather has had the hair systematically rubbed off as part of the process of making it?  A trivial issue, but one that obviously relates to the deeper questions.

Yes I draw a distinction between animals which are intelligent and those which are not.  I would not eat whale or dolphin.  But this does not seem entirely logical – animal intelligence and sensibility is evidently a continuum.  Many animals mourn, for example.  The BBC World Service radio (my main contact with the outside world at present – I have just today found my very, very weak internet connection just about works if I try it  at 5am) informed me a couple of days ago that orang-utans have the ability to think forward and tell others where they will be the next day.  Why cattle and fish are daft enough to eat is hard to justify.

I quite appreciate the disbenefits to man of radically changing his environment, even if it could be done without long term risk to his existence – the loss of beauty, of connection to seasons and forms of behaviour with which we evolved.  But I regard those as important only as losses to man, not because nature is important intrinsically.  In short, if I thought higher seas, no polar bears and no glaciers would not hurt man particularly, I don’t suppose I would have much to say against it.  I fear the potential repercussions are too dangerous to man.  At base, I don’t actually care about a polar bear.

 

 

 

 


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1,009 thoughts on “Gaia and all that

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  • Jemand

    Ol’ Craig Murray had a blog,

    Eee-eyyy eee-eyyy oooooh,

    And on his blog he had some cranks,

    Eee-eyyy eee-eyyy oooooh,

    With a “fuck you” here and a “fuck you” there,

    Here a “fuck” there a “fuck”,

    Everywhere a “fuck” “fuck”,

    Ol’ Craig Murray had a blog,

    Eee-eyyy eee-eyyy oooooh!

  • fedup

    What is your solution then, equally ziofuckwit Fedup,

    Rhetorical questions have no answers!

    Further, why are you jumping in? You were not addressed, yet you feel entitled to an answer.

  • technicolour

    But I really would like to know the answer to this:

    And you tell me if you have seen ‘To Shoot an Elephant’ because the peaceful voices in Gaza are putting your hollow shrieks to shame.

  • fedup

    because the peaceful voices in Gaza are putting your hollow shrieks to shame.

    You watch the movies and tell us later. Your rigged shell game is so blindingly obvious; the peaceful voices in Gaza. All prison inmates are peaceful, they have to be, the guards won’t tolerate any other mode of conduct. The only shrieker here is you, trying to cover up the facts and plague the fucking internet.

  • fedup

    So all you have to offer is more hate.

    Don’t be so patronising! Hate is your business, and your remit.

  • The Marcos Solution

    The solution? America’s 1st Jew president cuts off military assistance pending Israeli accession to the Rome Statute. Apartheid regime disbands. EU/UN disarms Jewish genocidaires, conducts capacity-building and reconstruction, and monitors the elections that return control to the majority.

    Think not? Times change.

  • fedup

    Watch the documentary, ‘Fedup’: then come back. It will make you even more furious: it will also make you think.

    Having watched you in action and studied your conduct. I have no time to watch what you recommend; I am busy trimming my moustache.

  • fedup

    Fedup, whatever, you play the ziofuckwit game.

    I don’t need you permission!

    Don’t be so patronising! You play games, I don’t. I am not in the nursery which you are the den mother at.

  • The Marcos Solution

    Oh, now we’re back on topic! Somebody broaches the obvious outcome – that an isolated and discredited US loses the influence to protect a pariah state – and all of a sudden the commandants of the world’s largest concentration camp are ever-so concerned about mother earth!

  • mark golding

    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7t89yG3NCBNRTZNTkZPSEg4UFU/edit?usp=drive_web

    These bastards are called Liwa al-Islam. They are from Saudi Arabia. Their leader is Zahran Alloush, the son of a Saudi-based religious scholar named sheikh Abdullah Mohammed Alloush.

    al-Islam death squads were responsible for the murders of three Syrian defence ministers in the July 18, 2012 bombings in Damascus. These ‘death squads’ are also responsible for assassinations and area/car bombing operations in Iraq.

    Briefed by Al Mabahith Al Amma, the Saudi secret intelligence, a black operations team carried out several incipient poisonous gas attacks in Syria suburbs.

    With experience gained from their ‘skin deep’ toxic handiwork and some ‘inside wire’ from ex SAS mercenaries, these bastards travelled through Jordon with their missiles and carried out another poisonous nerve gas attack in Eastern Ghouta leaving a neighborhood of children retching, heaving and convulsing while murdering several others.

    Some eight months of planning, beginning the day after President Obama’s August 2012 “red line” speech, Al Mabahith Al Amma reformulated a Zionist contrived false toxic gas attack in Syria, calculated to catalyse and provoke an American response with cruise missiles targeting Syrian government forces establishments and airfields. It is claimed one missile attack was granted by America from an Israeli ‘Dolphin’ submarine.

    In some intelligence circles it is believed Israel and that is Netanyahu, has blackmailed President Obama with the threat to ‘leak’ crucial information 😉 if Israel’s demands towards Iran were not met in full.

    The Ghouta area is composed of densely populated suburbs in the Markaz Rif Dimashq District of the province of Rif Dimashq.[57] Al-Ghouta is a primarily conservative Sunni region, and home to most of Damascus’ three million inhabitants.[58] Since early in the civil war, civilians in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta have almost entirely sided with the opposition to Syria’s government.[59][60] The opposition have controlled much of the eastern part of the Rif district since 2012, partly cutting off Damascus from its hinterland.[57] Parts of of the area had been under government siege for months, including Moadamiyah since April 2013.[61] The Ghouta and neighboring areas have been the scene of continuing clashes for more than a year, and regime forces have launched repeated missile assaults trying to dislodge the rebels. Wiki

  • Villager

    “You play games, I don’t.”

    I totally believe Fedup.

    An arsehole is an arsehole is an arsehole. It doesn’t play games — it just does naturally what its designed to do.

    For God’s sake, TC, please see the “what is”, not the “what could be” or “what should be”.

    Sleep in peace TC, don’t lose any sleep over it.

  • resident dissident

    John Goss

    Lie after lie after lie

    You said Reuters was currently owned by the Rothschilds.

    That was clearly debunked

    You now say that Reuters was established by the Rothschilds.

    Fred has debunked that and you and the anti semitics ypu link to have never provided any evidence of this assertion

    You say that Reuters NEVER report the Palestininian side of the conflict

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/uk-israel-palestinians-gaza-idUKBRE98T13A20130930

    Oh well another lie exposed.

    You bring up the old anti-semitic claim that Stalin was funded by the Zionists and that his father was a member of the Rothchilds family.

    Well yes there is a connection http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/diary/30681/diary-180/
    but not quite the kind that would point to Stalin being part of the great Rothchilds conspiracy – burning down their oil refinery in Baku and demanding protection money not being the normal way of expressing family love – at least not in my family.

    Whatever next Yeltsin’s wife was the love child arising from a communist officials daughters love affair with a Rothschild????

    I do find it funny how you keep inventing all these spurious links to target one particular Jewish family – but of course you are not racist or prejudice. You do remind of a rather bad version of that Smith and Jones sketch were the policeman tries to demonstatrate that he isn’t prejudiced.

    And now you and Left Unity (Unity with whom?) want to establish control over the media. What so you can pump out more of your lies and I daresay stop anyone who says otherwise. You claim not to be a Stalinist or Leninist – well lets just say that you are just a serial supporter of dictators and their methods.

  • fedup

    An arsehole is an arsehole is an arsehole. It doesn’t play games — it just does naturally what its designed to do.

    Easily summoned, Villagecunt is back, and doing what it does the “best”. What a surprise?

  • The Marcos Solution

    Oy, how the Russians will be smirking, with Jews begging them for visas again, only this time to get in! They’ll make you pay through the nose for their balmy arctic paradise!

    (Look, a little word to the wise – this time, don’t let them outsmart you and talk you into going to another wasteland. Watch out if they try to steer you to Norilsk!)

  • resident dissident

    Chris Jones

    Anti- semitism: discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews.

    That is what I mean by anti-semitism and I’m afraid you and Hafon have it in bucketloads. It doesn’t mean that you cannot have philosophical arguments about Jewish or other religous beliefs – it is when you start discrimination against people on the basis of such beliefs that it becomes anti-semitism and if you didn’t notice Jewish people have had rather a lot of that in their history – regardless of whether they were Zionists and belived in a separate state fro Jewish people. The first pogrom in the UK was back in

    You claim that the term Jew was originated until the late 18th century is of course like most other things you say complete hogwash – e.g. The Statute of the Jewry was issued by Edward I of England in 1275 and perhaps you should look at the text of the Merchant of Venice written in 1600 http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html

    Why do your lies always seem to have the same target?? In future might I suggest you do a little more research before making you outlandish claims.

  • resident dissident

    John Goss

    Might I suggest you go back and look at what you said – I will happily promise to find them all if you promise in return to apologise and never metion the Rothchilds again.

  • Jon

    Fedup,

    Are you seriously suggesting there is a will for peace on the part of the ziofuckwits?

    Yes. They are a minority in Israel though, and the political/media narrative presently drowns them out.

  • fedup

    Yes. They are a minority though, and .

    Jon are you an eternal optimist?

    The operative word is; “minority”, that is followed with the “Humphrey Appleby Qualification”; the political/media narrative presently drowns them out.

    Although in principle anything is probable; light speed travel vehicles, winning the Euro millions, travelling to Mars. Meanwhile the rest of the world is sucker punched into yet more; war is peace, death is life, oppression is freedom, in the hope of attaining “peace” which in reality is a homophone for piece, a piece, Palestine, a piece of Lebanon, a piece of Syria, a piece of ….. yretz zionistan is not yet demarcated yet, so there is room for more piece talks!

  • resident dissident

    JOhn Goss

    I got tired of waiting so here are the links

    If you think I am libelling you – then please get my IP address from Jon so you can commence legal proceedings.

    You said Reuters was currently owned by the Rothschilds.

    In the DSB video that you linked to https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/09/gordon-brown/comment-page-2/#comment-430434 and endorsed (“for those who do not know the truth”) and was debunked here https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/09/gordon-brown/comment-page-2/#comment-430472

    You now say that Reuters was established by the Rothschilds.

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/09/gaia-and-all-that/comment-page-3/#comment-431891

    You say that Reuters NEVER report the Palestininian side of the conflict

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/09/gaia-and-all-that/comment-page-3/#comment-431895

    You bring up the old anti-semitic claim that Stalin was funded by the Zionists and that his father was a member of the Rothchilds family.

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/09/gaia-and-all-that/comment-page-4/#comment-432165 and link provided in a subsequent posting which clearly suggests that the Rothschilds were the Zionist you referred to in your first posting

  • Fred

    “But as you are so thin-skinned, and do take almost everything personal, & maybe you have noticed that most people only ever make the mistake of engaging with you only once ! ”

    Thin skinned? Me? I’ve been insulted by experts you lot are only amateurs.

    I’ve been playing this game a long time and in places that have no moderation at all. I know well that when you post evidence which contradicts someone’s beliefs they will do their best to discredit you. They have their tactics, I have mine and they work.

    But I’ll let you off for calling me “thin skinned” just this once and ask you politely not to call me anything at all, you don’t know me, you don’t understand me, the picture of me you are creating in your brain bares no resemblance to reality whatsoever so please stop trying to spread it to the other posters.

    Oh, and Clark said to say hello to everyone.

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