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Poll

Will there be…

…more beer?
[ 6 ] (100%)
…less beer?
[ 0 ] (0%)

Total Members Voted: 5

Topic: The world in 2030 (Read 58923 times)

The world in 2030

How do we imagine the world in 2030 to be?

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #1
I voted more beer. In 2030 there will be less clean water, probably critically little, and whatever liquid piss exists will be labelled attractively, such as "beer", and sold expensively.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #2
Ersi, meet Cheech. (Hmm, message 1984).


Re: The world in 2030

Reply #4

I voted more beer. In 2030 there will be less clean water, probably critically little, and whatever liquid piss exists will be labelled attractively, such as "beer", and sold expensively.

I'm not sure I agree. Even China is starting to take steps to clean up its pollution or at least reduce it, and our (European) rivers are the cleanest they've been in over a century. Heck, you can probably drink the water in Amsterdam's canals today with no more than a little boiling (just to be sure), which was hardly the case 400 years ago.

I do agree that there will probably be more "beer", but that aside.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #5
I don't know if there will be any world by 2030.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #6
@Frenzie
You must be heavily a city person. You think when the worst stench and dirt from the cities is reducing, that the world is doing okay? Were you around 400 years ago to measure the pollution of the time? How far beyond the cities did it reach at the time?

I was born and grew up deep in the countryside. I have had little phases here and there, but basically I live at the same spot where I was born. The forests have been drastically reduced here in the past 20 years.

The urban effects on the countryside are global now. Maybe I am expressing myself too crudely, but I haven't seen any reliable measures of reduced pollution in the world. It's only increasing. Oil, plastics, and other poisons are not being given up - quite to the contrary. At the same time, there's a trend to present this or that pretty spot or project as "the way of the future", but it should be evident that those are just PR and marketing. All pretty spots in the world are monetised for tourism - and thus polluted.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #7
From the Grand Canyon.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #8
You must be heavily a city person. You think when the worst stench and dirt from the cities is reducing, that the world is doing okay?

Far from it. We might well be fucked if we (or perhaps more to the point, the Americans and the Chinese) don't change things around significantly. That's an entirely different question.

I was born and grew up deep in the countryside. I have had little phases here and there, but basically I live at the same spot where I was born. The forests have been drastically reduced here in the past 20 years.

So did I. The forests there have drastically increased over the past century, and I'm not talking production forests. Of course, that's not a global or even national phenomenon.

The urban effects on the countryside are global now. Maybe I am expressing myself too crudely, but I haven't seen any reliable measures of reduced pollution in the world. It's only increasing. Oil, plastics, and other poisons are not being given up - quite to the contrary. At the same time, there's a trend to present this or that pretty spot or project as "the way of the future", but it should be evident that those are just PR and marketing. All pretty spots in the world are monetised for tourism - and thus polluted.

The Pacific has been largely fished empty by industrial fishing boats. Jellyfish are overtaking the seas, and the amount of trash out there is humongous. Still a different question.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #9
I am not too concerned about local pollution and even deforestation (obviously these are very important concerns, but these problems have also been solved; having been solved doesn't mean will be solved, though, vigilance is required), but am more concerned global industrial fishing. This is basically hunting/gathering, an activity that is hard to do sustainably.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #10

You must be heavily a city person. You think when the worst stench and dirt from the cities is reducing, that the world is doing okay?

Far from it. We might well be fucked if we (or perhaps more to the point, the Americans and the Chinese) don't change things around significantly. That's an entirely different question.
Different from what? If you imply that when the biggies of the world (United States, China, EU, Japan, and India) become radically ecological all of a sudden, then nature might be saved, I agree. And to me this is exactly the question of ecological future for me. Without this turn, there will be no hope. The critical point has been reached and small steps towards the deceleration of destruction will be too small.


I was born and grew up deep in the countryside. I have had little phases here and there, but basically I live at the same spot where I was born. The forests have been drastically reduced here in the past 20 years.

So did I. The forests there have drastically increased over the past century, and I'm not talking production forests. Of course, that's not a global or even national phenomenon.
So, regrowth of forests at your place is not a national phenomenon. Deforestation over here is a wider regional phenomenon. In the Soviet era, forests covered reportedly 70% of Estonia's surface. Now it's reportedly 45%. The reports may be beautified, which makes the situation worse. Finns and Swedes have pretty much depleted their own forests for paper production and gone to ravage Northern Russia. In Russia the nature reserves have not been set up yet to the extent they have in the Nordic countries. I have no reason to believe that Canada's forests are doing much better.


The Pacific has been largely fished empty by industrial fishing boats. Jellyfish are overtaking the seas, and the amount of trash out there is humongous. Still a different question.
Different from what? From pollution? From depletion of resources? Looks like the same unresolved/unresolvable ecological concerns to me.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #11
I am not too concerned about local pollution and even deforestation (obviously these are very important concerns, but these problems have also been solved; having been solved doesn't mean will be solved, though, vigilance is required), but am more concerned global industrial fishing. This is basically hunting/gathering, an activity that is hard to do sustainably.

That is my position too. Most or perhaps even all such problems have already been solved or will be soon. The rest is politics. I hope we won't enter the kind of ecological disaster that destroyed the Roman Empire, because that would be rather unpleasant.

Different from what? If you imply that when the biggies of the world (United States, China, EU, Japan, and India) become radically ecological all of a sudden, then nature might be saved, I agree. And to me this is exactly the question of ecological future for me. Without this turn, there will be no hope. The critical point has been reached and small steps towards the deceleration of destruction will be too small.

Different from the question of whether or not there will be critically little clean water. The interconnected problems of water and deforestation are just about the only problems that are getting not only getting attention, but actual results. We've been on it since the 1960s. The other side of the Iron Curtain unfortunately remained stuck there for a few decades, ecologically speaking.

Different from what? From pollution? From depletion of resources? Looks like the same unresolved/unresolvable ecological concerns to me.

We've already reached the point where garbage heaps are probably better mines for many metals than, um, mines.

So, regrowth of forests at your place is not a national phenomenon.

There not being regrowth doesn't necessarily imply the opposite either, mind you. In any case, the regrowth, both regional and national happened over the course of the 20th century and has plateaued nation-wide for obvious reasons.* Here's the numbers:
Quote
1750: 50.000 ha. (2%)
1850: 100.000 ha. (3%)
1950: 250.000 ha. (7%)
2002: 360.000 ha. (10,6%)

The near-complete deforestation happened centuries before the industrial revolution.** By that time we were already planting forests en masse, with the intent of cutting them down decades later. And from the late 19th century onward those were largely left alone and allowed to expand naturally.

* Perhaps not obvious if you're not Dutch. In the '90s we hatched the plan to have 15% forest by 2050, but the Balkenende cabinet thought it was more worthwhile to buy the JSF than to keep funding such efforts, and left them to individuals (mostly farmers). Therefore the growth has stagnated.

** Holland is said to etymologically stem from Holt-land. In Dutch, ol → ou. old/alt → oud. gold/Gold > goud. So Holt-land is a former pronunciation, and still an English word, of what would now be called houtland, i.e. woodland. Holland, totally devoid of forests during its Golden Age, was completely covered in forests a very, very long time ago.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #12
Finns and Swedes have pretty much depleted their own forests for paper production and gone to ravage Northern Russia.
That's news for me. I have moved to Sweden, and there is forest as far as the eyes can see, and the saw mills are doing well. Virtually all forest is managed forest, and sustainably so, there is very little virgin forest. There are no "depleted"  forests in Sweden, Finland, or Norway.


 

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #13
20-25 years ago the Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia back in those days) used to have massive dead forests due to pollution, primarily from SO2. Now that forest has recovered. A much more serious deforestation of the Bohemian forests happened about 500 years ago from intense glass production, when the Bohemian forests largely were burnt, that too recovered. On the other hand Iceland is still deforested after the forests being cut down nearly a millennium ago. 

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #14

We've already reached the point where garbage heaps are probably better mines for many metals than, um, mines.

Common sense says this was so all along. Facts say we recycle less than ever before during history. There's no organised mining of waste. Only the homeless do it, or try to - there are fences to prevent them.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #15
Common sense says this was so all along. Facts say we recycle less than ever before during history. There's no organised mining of waste. Only the homeless do it, or try to - there are fences to prevent them.

Facts say the opposite.

It used to be only poor countries did "urban mining" as a kind of cottage industri, until China scaled it up. Now several of the Chinese billionaires have made their billions on recycling, and on a smaller scale internal migrants have made very good money on recycling. The industry is becoming more professional, large-scale, capital-intensive, specialised, automated, and less damaging to the local environment and health. Recycling is still a dirty, polluting industry, but gradually less so. It is also, especially for metals, energy-intensive.

By 2030 it would be much more automated and large scale, but we are moving into a recycling economy slowly and backwards, even by 2030 we wouldn't really live in an recycling economy,
but as resources become more valuable and the technology more advanced we will.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #16
Common sense says this was so all along.

Even before anything was mined at all? :) But I suppose you mean since mass production and planned obsolescence really got started.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #17
mass production and planned obsolescence

Two components of consumerism. The third one being psychological manipulation and the fourth one the financial trap.
People don't need any of that for having a fulfilling life.

Returning on forests, a forest is a complex eco-system that can't be recreated once destroyed. What people call "reforestation" it's just planting a vast area of mono-culture that generates ecological disasters, not sustainable eco-systems.
Additionally, such reforestation is been presented as a solution while in fact it's an excuse to allow more pollution and natural recourses destruction.

Energy is the base of everything. While artificial dependency on coal and oil isn't changed in favor of a new energetic model worldwide, earth will keep on being destroyed and the next generations will have all the right to accuse the current ones, us, of that crime.


A matter of attitude.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #18

Common sense says this was so all along.

Even before anything was mined at all? :) But I suppose you mean since mass production and planned obsolescence really got started.
No. Ever since dumping began. Dumping anything, produced in whatever manner.

Waste is only waste for humans when a certain purpose has been served. Production is molding matter for a certain purpose.

Both before production and after dumping, the matter is the same for nature's purposes, but structured differently. Nature would have it in the structure that is there before production, people would have it for a certain purpose, but in the process they screw up the structure.

The relocation of elements which changes the structure of matter in nature is the ecological concern. Waste per se isn't a concern, but waste in certain places and in certain quantities is the concern.

These days waste is found in such quantities that it is basically everywhere. To simplify, there's something wrong with everything. This due to the fact that production has boosted up massively.

Production produces waste. Waste management and recycling hasn't kept up in the same proportion. We have mass production but no mass recycling. Even if we did generate recycling on massive scales, this also would have to be done in the right way. Not in name only, not as another lucrative business for some, not as a populist political victory, but the right way from nature's point of view.

Ecological conscience has arisen only very recently, during the latter half of the last century. Medieval people were far more conscientious in what they produced - it's as if they knew that production inevitably produces waste - and they recycled more conscientiously, because everything man-made was expensive. This is how waste sort of managed itself in those times, whereas now it doesn't.

We have to regain this conscientiousness again, but the quantities of waste and absolutely ruthless ways of production have gotten out of hand a long time ago. This is why I don't share Jax's optimism. I don't see recycling and ecological awareness anywhere near the proportions where it should be in order to make the world sustainable for future humanity. Importantly, I don't see the highups display any concern for the situation, but they are crucial in this.

I share Belfrager's sentiment.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #19
Returning on forests, a forest is a complex eco-system that can't be recreated once destroyed. What people call "reforestation" it's just planting a vast area of mono-culture that generates ecological disasters, not sustainable eco-systems.
Additionally, such reforestation is been presented as a solution while in fact it's an excuse to allow more pollution and natural recourses destruction.

You're talking about production forests. Production forests are a solution in the sense that they safeguard natural forests from being cut down, but they don't count as reforestation. However, given a few decades of alone time, even production forests start to turn into more regular forests. Reforestation in the sense I'm talking about is primarily a natural process. You leave some ground alone for a while, and before you know it, all kinds of trees and bushes are growing there. There might be some particular human involvement in planting certain trees in certain spots to e.g. safeguard certain areas from sea wind to allow a larger variety to arise, but the primary guiding principle is to leave things the @#$ alone.



Common sense says this was so all along.

Even before anything was mined at all? :) But I suppose you mean since mass production and planned obsolescence really got started.
No. Ever since dumping began. Dumping anything, produced in whatever manner.

Considering that dumping is post-industrial revolution, I fail to see any significant disagreement.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #20



Common sense says this was so all along.

Even before anything was mined at all? :) But I suppose you mean since mass production and planned obsolescence really got started.
No. Ever since dumping began. Dumping anything, produced in whatever manner.

Considering that dumping is post-industrial revolution, I fail to see any significant disagreement.

Did you know that archeology is mostly digging up what people of old, even pre-industrial times, dumped?

I fail to see why you would construe the meaning of the word the way you did. Except to disagree just for the sake of disagreement.

Btw, I agree with your views on reforestation. Forest catches up on desolate ground amazingly fast and cultured forest can also turn into real forest in a matter of a few decades. I have seen it happen. And yes, reforestation would be the solution. However, it would be a solution if it would be actually done. The actual trend in the world is increasing deforestation, particularly visible around the equator - and those forests don't catch up as fast by themselves the way temperate forests do, so I have been told.

As it is, all those so-called solutions would be a means to decelerate the destruction - which is happening only if you believe the hype - rather than repairing and healing nature, which would be the actual solution.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #21
Did you know that archeology is mostly digging up what people of old, even pre-industrial times, dumped?

I fail to see why you would construe the meaning of the word the way you did. Except to disagree just for the sake of disagreement.

You seem to be quite insistent that in a time when all they threw away was food waste, broken pots, and the like, while metal was properly recycled, said dump sites were a better place to look for metals than mines. I interpreted the word dumping as throwing away perfectly reusable materials, which I think is quite a reasonable definition actually, because otherwise what you wrote doesn't seem to make much sense at all.

As it is, all those so-called solutions would be a means to decelerate the destruction - which is happening only if you believe the hype - rather than repairing and healing nature, which would be the actual solution.

There's a reason I tend to avoid e.g. palm oil and soy. They're both quite terrible for the environment in e.g. Indonesia.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #22

Did you know that archeology is mostly digging up what people of old, even pre-industrial times, dumped?

I fail to see why you would construe the meaning of the word the way you did. Except to disagree just for the sake of disagreement.

You seem to be quite insistent that in a time when all they threw away was food waste, broken pots, and the like, while metal was properly recycled, said dump sites were a better place to look for metals than mines.

If metals were properly recycled back then, archeologists would not be finding metal objects, glass, etc. from ancient ages. True, those objects were not dumped at garbage heaps the way they are now. In those times, such objects were lost either accidentally or in disasters. Still, buried treasures from old times are non-different from current industrial dumping sites given how you presented your argument: You can mine them for metals and minerals easier than mines. (Incidentally, this illustrates my general view that waste in large scale is a recent phenomenon, while recycling has, in contrast, been largely forgotten and is only being relearned - poorly.)

Also, the way I am talking about this stems from my view towards wealth and money in general: Money (gems and precious metals in old times) is just a detour to the primary needs, which are food and clothes. So, even though this must seem exaggerated to you, I tend to regard gems and precious metals as "dump" already before they are dumped. That's what I meant by "dumped".

Cognitive dissonance, sorry about it, but happens every day.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #23
However, given a few decades of alone time, even production forests start to turn into more regular forests. Reforestation in the sense I'm talking about is primarily a natural process.

Such natural process can never beat the non natural destruction it is been made.

It was curious that you mentioned that deforestation always existed in history, that's very true.
Please take a look at  The prehistoric and preindustrial deforestation of Europe, a must read paper to have the notion of we are talking about.

But it happens that that study finishes at 1850. Seeing the last maps of that period one understands what was the starting point of forests for industrialization, that has a pressure zillion of times bigger than much sparse medieval populations ever had.

I'd like very much to find an equivalent study that compares 1850 and the present. Then, and only then, I'll have any optimism.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The world in 2030

Reply #24

I'd like very much to find an equivalent study that compares 1850 and the present. Then, and only then, I'll have any optimism.

I tend to suspect that the current picture in Europe may turn out to be surprisingly bright. This due to the fact that European industries have turned to ravage the rest of the world. I.e. the situation at home looks optimistic, but deceptively so. Nobody is going to give a detailed and balanced report on this. The interested parties are keen to undermine any objectivity in such data.