Animal rights

[OzFox]

Yeah, I do think it's very important, not just for our future, but the future of every living thing on the planet.

Yep. Less people means less trashing of the environment and climate, fewer species extinctions and reduced animal slaughter for the meat industry. I'm all for population reduction but it seems to be a taboo subject for many. Look at the flak Attenborough copped for the "stop at two" campaign

Most scientists are expecting a major population "correction" at some point. Probably won't be in our lifetime but I'll bet it will be spectacular, for all the reasons you mentioned

[MooseBreath]

Population is predicted to even out at about 9bill anyway. It's not even a problem.

[MooseBreath]

This is nothing to do with compromising with vegetarians. If you wanted animals to be treated humanely and to be kept in better living conditions, then the cost of meat would undoubtably go up. Basic supply and demand.

I said "continue" to push, I didn't say spend any more money than we already are. I'm sure there are lots of charitable organisations operating in the area of animal rights who are making steady progress. There is no need to spend any money on this 'problem'.

[OzFox]

Population is predicted to even out at about 9bill anyway. It's not even a problem.

It's a big problem for many animal species. And the climate.

[MooseBreath]

It's a big problem for many animal species. And the climate.

I don't believe human activity contributes towards climate change in any significant way. It will be a shame if some animals die out, but it's unfortunately unavoidable.

[Captain...]

I don't believe human activity contributes towards climate change in any significant way. It will be a shame if some animals die out, but it's unfortunately unavoidable.

Then you are an idiot.

[Charl91]

I said "continue" to push, I didn't say spend any more money than we already are. I'm sure there are lots of charitable organisations operating in the area of animal rights who are making steady progress. There is no need to spend any money on this 'problem'.

Well, I disagree. While I don't agree with Oz's "everyone should go vegan" policy, I do think we should be reducing the amount of meat that we eat and that we should be treating animals humanely. Clearly you don't feel the same way, but I'd like to think most people are less self-centered.

Population is predicted to even out at about 9bill anyway. It's not even a problem.

Only from starvation. How is that not a problem? Why not actually seek to tackle it before it comes to that?

Edited 11 September 2012 by Charl91

[Darkon84]

Humans have a hand in climate change, but nowere near as much as people would have you beleive. The Earth has cooled and warmed itself on a far greater scale than is happening today. And it managed to do that and correct itself all without human intervention.

Climate change is a natural, unavoidable occurrance.

As for population decrease, yes, something needs to be done, and im sure in a secret underground bunker somewhere, plans are being formulated for this, maybe

With regards to animal welfare, things do still need to be done. Perhaps a rich, 'respected' charity such as say....Peta, could stop spending so much on sexy ad campaigns and paying celebrities to get naked in posters, and start spending money on actually trying to help sort the problem, instead of wanking over their own propaganda.

[OzFox]

I don't believe human activity contributes towards climate change in any significant way. It will be a shame if some animals die out, but it's unfortunately unavoidable.

Guess we'll find out about the climate sooner or later. When it's too late to do anything about it

And it's a lot more than just "some" animals dying out. If we continue wiping them out at the same rate, a reasonable prediction is 3/4 of all species in a couple of hundred years.

[Darkon84]

Guess we'll find out about the climate sooner or later. When it's too late to do anything about it

And it's a lot more than just "some" animals dying out. If we continue wiping them out at the same rate, a reasonable prediction is 3/4 of all species in a couple of hundred years.

Isnt that down to loss of habitat though, rather than eating them etc?

[OzFox]

Isnt that down to loss of habitat though, rather than eating them etc?

Yeah mostly. Plus a few other things like pollution, climate change, poaching etc

[MooseBreath]

Then you are an idiot.

I'm an idiot because I don't believe on sensationalist media reporting? Surprised at that coming from you. The actual research into climate change suggests human activity is just a drop in the ocean. The climate will change but it's not to do with us and we can't stop it.

[MooseBreath]

Well, I disagree. While I don't agree with Oz's "everyone should go vegan" policy, I do think we should be reducing the amount of meat that we eat and that we should be treating animals humanely. Clearly you don't feel the same way, but I'd like to think most people are less self-centered.

Only from starvation. How is that not a problem? Why not actually seek to tackle it before it comes to that?

I do think we should treat animals humanely. I think in most cases we already do, and we don't need to spend any more money on it than we already do.

Population will level out due to declining birth rates not starvation.

You should read more before you reach conclusions.

[Darkon84]

Yeah mostly. Plus a few other things like pollution, climate change, poaching etc

As said before, climate change naturally occurs anyway, this is a fact, and with it, comes extinctions. Its almost natures way of cleansing itself. Its where evolution and survival of the fittest comes in to play. There will always be casualties.

I highly doubt poaching will be a major factor in contributing towards an apparent loss of 3/4 of animal species. Maybe some of the glamorous ones. The main losses will be things like insects etc and i doubt they are very sought after by poachers.

I have to hold my hands up and admit that pollution has been a big problem in the past, and has caused impacts upon certain animal species etc, but this will (unfortunately) not stop until all fossil fuels have been depleated. Then and only then will we have sufficient cleaner energies, and thats simply down to money-making.

[OzFox]

As said before, climate change naturally occurs anyway, this is a fact, and with it, comes extinctions. Its almost natures way of cleansing itself. Its where evolution and survival of the fittest comes in to play. There will always be casualties.

I highly doubt poaching will be a major factor in contributing towards an apparent loss of 3/4 of animal species. Maybe some of the glamorous ones. The main losses will be things like insects etc and i doubt they are very sought after by poachers.

I have to hold my hands up and admit that pollution has been a big problem in the past, and has caused impacts upon certain animal species etc, but this will (unfortunately) not stop until all fossil fuels have been depleated. Then and only then will we have sufficient cleaner energies, and thats simply down to money-making.

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the speed of this climate change is highly unusual, so evolving and surviving it won't be an option for many species.

With regards to poaching, yeah I was was thinking the glamour animals. On the other hand, you'd be surprised what people poach if they think there's money in it. They've had gunfights in Nepal and Tibet over a fungus

[cambridgefox]

One of the funniest things I heard was the legend Mike Parry on Talksport when he was talking to an expert who was chatting about the icebergs melting and causing world flooding.Mike Parry said it was rubbish as when he puts ice in a gin and tonic the liquid height is high,but if he leaves it a while and the ice melts it becomes lower,so we would have lower sea levels.Loved that bloke.

[Captain...]

I'm an idiot because I don't believe on sensationalist media reporting?

Amongst other things, yes.

Surprised at that coming from you. The actual research into climate change suggests human activity is just a drop in the ocean. The climate will change but it's not to do with us and we can't stop it.

Yes the climate changes naturally, but we are speeding it up massively, just because something happens naturally doesn't mean we shouldn't minimise our contribution to it. Death happens naturally but that doesn't mean we should go around filling old people's homes with noxious gasses, turning up the temperature and cutting off the water supply, in some areas while flooding others. They all died, well that is natural.

Climate change is a fact, not a theory, it is not just about the earth getting hotter on average it, is also causing more extreme weather, greater droughts and more monsoon and flash floods. This is exacerbated by the damage we are doing to the environment with intensive farming and construction that the land is less able to handle these effects, causing monsoons to turn into to landslides.

This is not to mention the damage done to lakes and rivers, through big business irresponsibility, and the destruction of the rainforests and pollution and over fishing of the seas, and the unknown damage of mining out big areas of land to access precious resources.

But lets get back to climate change, what about holes in the ozone layer? Do you not believe they are man made? Do you not believe that they are responsible for increasing the amount of harmful rays entering the atmosphere, increasing the chances of skin cancer, and temperature.

Do you not believe in green house gasses warming the atmosphere? These are facts.

They are man made, and irreversible, or at least not easily done, but all of these things get pushed to the background while we desperately try and get our floundering economy back on track so we can continue to destroy the planet.

[Darkon84]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the speed of this climate change is highly unusual, so evolving and surviving it won't be an option for many species.

With regards to poaching, yeah I was was thinking the glamour animals. On the other hand, you'd be surprised what people poach if they think there's money in it. They've had gunfights in Nepal and Tibet over a fungus

I have to agree that human activity isnt helping the climate situation, but I do also think we underestimate the resilience of some animals etc. For example, just take the article a few pages back about the carnivorous plants in sweden etc. They have already adapted to pollution to change how they obtain the amount of nitrogen (i think, without checking) they need.

The glamour animals are the ones 95% of people care about anyway, so they will always have the media and publics attention, and although numbers of some of these types are low, I dont worry too much for them as the money and interest will always be there.

at the fungus though, I didnt know that. Crazy.

As long as the bees are ok, we'll be fine haha

[Captain...]

One of the funniest things I heard was the legend Mike Parry on Talksport when he was talking to an expert who was chatting about the icebergs melting and causing world flooding.Mike Parry said it was rubbish as when he puts ice in a gin and tonic the liquid height is high,but if he leaves it a while and the ice melts it becomes lower,so we would have lower sea levels.Loved that bloke.

Well technically true, but it is not the icebergs melting that will cause flooding, it is the land based ice caps melting and flowing into the sea.

Ice is takes up more space than water and is less dense that is why it floats, when it melts the water displaced by the submerged part of the iceberg will be replaced by the melted water from the whole iceberg and the water level will not rise.

[MooseBreath]

You got all that from sensationalist media. I didn't deny that humans make an impact on the climate, but that impact is small enough to be unimportant.

[Captain...]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the speed of this climate change is highly unusual, so evolving and surviving it won't be an option for many species.

With regards to poaching, yeah I was was thinking the glamour animals. On the other hand, you'd be surprised what people poach if they think there's money in it. They've had gunfights in Nepal and Tibet over a fungus

You are right about the unnatural speed of climate change, but regardless of speed we won't evolve because as a species we have gone backwards, and instead of allowing us to evolve naturally we will expend all our energy and resources trying to keep all of the weaker of the species alive rather than only the strongest surviving and breeding and by the time we should have evolved we will still be stuck in our current evolutionary state and by the time real survival kicks in, the energy is gone and the food supplies are depleted it will be too late to evolve.

If you are concerned though evolution happens faster within a closed gene pool, so start mating with your relatives, incest, fun for all the family.

You got all that from sensationalist media. I didn't deny that humans make an impact on the climate, but that impact is small enough to be unimportant.

I got that from well documented researched scientific facts.

Where does your info come from?

[MooseBreath]

Was it the same research which was proven to be intentionally falsified or no?

Edited 11 September 2012 by MooseBreath

[Zingari]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the speed of this climate change is highly unusual, so evolving and surviving it won't be an option for many species.

With regards to poaching, yeah I was was thinking the glamour animals. On the other hand, you'd be surprised what people poach if they think there's money in it. They've had gunfights in Nepal and Tibet over a fungus

i can picture it now Gary Cooper and Lee van Kleef

"Are you looking for Truffle in this here town stranger ?"

"why you no good stinkhorn, i'm agonna shitake all over yah "

[Captain...]

Was it the same research which was proven to be intentionally falsified or no?

You mean as opposed to the one study, commissioned by the energy companies, that "proved" climate change was natural, and man had no impact on the environment.

You've still not said where your info comes from.

[MooseBreath]

You mean as opposed to the one study, commissioned by the energy companies, that "proved" climate change was natural, and man had no impact on the environment.

You've still not said where your info comes from.

It doesn't take a source of info to read through media sensationalism. There are also many scientists who simply laugh out loud at climate change. It is being used as a political tool.