World peace may be needed to deal with climate change

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, August 5th, 2018 - 55 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, Economy, energy, International, iraq, us politics, war - Tags:

There is this interesting article written by Stacy Bannerman in the Common Dreams website.

The writer points out the huge amount of green house gas emissions are caused by military activity, and in particular American military activity.

And the major beneficial effect that could happen if only Military resources were used instead for producing clean energy.

From the article:

The cost of America’s post-9/11 wars is approaching $6 trillion and the price tag will continue to climb right along with sea levels, temperatures, atmospheric CO2, and methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas. We can look forward to an escalation in global food insecurity, climate refugees, and the release of long-dormant, potentially highly lethal bacteria and viruses. Research published in the journal Pediatrics in May, 2018, revealed that “children are estimated to bear 88 [percent] of the burden of disease related to climate change.” Nevertheless, public health agencies don’t discuss what war costs our climate when they discuss what climate change will cost our children.

…

The Pentagon uses more petroleum per day than the aggregate consumption of 175 countries (out of 210 in the world), and generates more than 70 percent of this nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions, based on rankings in the CIA World Factbook. “The U.S. Air Force burns through 2.4 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, all of it derived from oil,” reported an article in the Scientific American. Since the start of the post-9/11 wars, U.S. military fuel consumption has averaged about 144 million barrels annually. That figure doesn’t include fuel used by coalition forces, military contractors, or the massive amount of fossil fuels burned in weapons manufacturing.

While we continue to have such an active military we will not be able to deal with climate change.

We’ve got wind farms to build and pipelines to stop. We’ve got solar panels to install and water to protect. We need torchbearers from every tribe and nation to walk the green path and light the Eighth Fire. But to do so while continuing to feed the fossil-fueled military beast chewing up nearly 60 percent of the national budget is energy inefficient and environmentally self-defeating. We cannot cure this man-made cancer on the climate without addressing underlying causes. In order to achieve the massive systemic and cultural transformations required for mitigating climate change and advancing climate justice, we’re going to have to deal with the socially sanctioned, institutionalized violence perpetrated by U.S. foreign policy that is pouring fuel on the fire of global warming.

What are the chances of the current American Administration following this advice?  Very remote.  As pointed out by Marty Mars in open mike this morning the current President is willing to wage war on bees.

Our world is in for a rough time.

55 comments on “World peace may be needed to deal with climate change ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    5 August 2018 at 11:07 am

    As pointed out by Marty Mars in open mike this morning the current President is willing to wage war on bees.

    Can we all juts stop trading with the US now? Continuing to do so is obviously bad for us.

  2. Incognito 2
    5 August 2018 at 11:09 am

    This Post (and the cartoon) made me think of the famous Congressional Testimony, April 1969, by Robert R. Wilson, who also worked on the Manhattan Project, when he had to justify millions of dollars on a large particle accelerator:

    It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture… it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.

    http://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html

    It looks like the global military-industrial complex is well and truly on the way to total destruction and annihilation of all (!) mankind, one way or another. They would deny it and argue the opposite, of course, which is their raison d’être after all, but they would be wrong nonetheless.

  3. Pat 3
    5 August 2018 at 11:14 am

    None of the military emissions will be reduced….they are wanted to secure, protect and control of the resource reduced, disputed and dystopian (near) future

  4. greywarshark 4
    5 August 2018 at 11:47 am

    I haven’t seen all of this yet but I think it makes some good points and leaves something to hope and work for – anyway I hope it does.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC7A9FHLreI

    One recurring thought – what if Russia decided to rise by starting a Green War, and build a new United Nations of cohort nations which were bound together and share science on the ways of reducing and ameliorating climate change@! They take the initiative and rise in world opinion and the USA would have to scramble to clean up iwhat would, in contrast, be seen as a very shoddy shadow.

    The mantra would make it as organic as possible, work out ways to introduce it as quickly as needed with as little shock and dislocation of people and cultures as possible. Working to measurable targets year by year and revalued every 3 years. They could build a big complex/es for the home and vissiting scientists from around the world. It would be a powerhouse of brain activity. The emphasis would be on human brains using complex machines as adjuncts, not the other way round.

    They will site the scientific housing where they are safe from sea rise, and on transport routes that aren’t dependent on air travel, so ports and land and rail routes. It would be called something like United Nations of Co-operative World Service Public Good Environmental Science and there would be no capture by private interest. Any production would be on contract. Fees would be low but would go back to the main biody.

    • Sabine 4.1
      6 August 2018 at 8:29 am

      and pigs will learn to fly.

      What we are going to end up with, imho is a world dominance by the nuclear powers and that would include North Korea and Iran if they can get it done fast enough, and the rest of the world will learn to either obey or die – What we are seeing now with 45 is the start of the hostage taking politics of the future, fences and all.

      We are 8 billion + on this planet and that makes about 4 billion humans too many if we would like to go back to sustainable.
      Who are going to be the 4 billion that are expendable? that is the only question.

      • greywarshark 4.1.1
        6 August 2018 at 11:46 am

        Sabine
        Looking at the sun is dangerous. Looking at the way things will be – same. In our short lives we had better keep an eye out for events but more in the way of watching an eclipse, carefully with our own health in mind.

        I have just been writing a comment that listed things that we have done in NZ to make it harder to cope with expected future extremes. And lost it apparently. C’est la vie. Who is concerned anyway, about people, only about their favourite preoccupation.

        When you see how the National Party supporters, which are about half the voting public, stick to their favourite service deliverer, because that is how they think of government, than it shows that we are ahem not improving our awareness.

        Ayway here is the latest scintific idea for solving our problems. We can always think of bigger and better ones when the more effective are right here on earth and getting together on how to manage it for the best outcomes from the worst possibilities.
        http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160425-how-a-giant-space-umbrella-could-stop-global-warming

        Incidentally a boojk I read which illustrates how when people stick together they can utilise their strong culture of togetherness and understanding to outlive cruelty and disaster and have further time as ordinary loving people until the next disaster. This book is partly about Crete and their WW2 Resistance fighters., plus other stories and I don’t know which is most interesting. The story can be considered to be about how we can develop ourselves to be stronger mentally and physically.
        Natural Born Heroes Christopher McDougall.
        He tells great stories as in this link.

        (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgCNQ5yWc2M

    • the other pat 4.2
      6 August 2018 at 2:22 pm

      eek….the UNCWSPGES………Well you have good thoughts but the american elites will never let it happen….they will take out the rest of us with a MAD moment.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    5 August 2018 at 11:50 am

    Too late to deal with climate change. All good whatever moves get made toward that, but amounts to little more than rearranging the deck-chairs. We’re all just riding it out, as the storm builds. Those of us in affluent countries on the top deck have a good view from our deck-chairs, but those in California are getting burnt by the heat now. Those in Finland are enjoying the trend into a sub-tropical lifestyle.

    Funding of the arms industries is integral to capitalism, which is why governments of the left have not eliminated it. As long as politicians feel that they cannot prevail against the establishment, the establishment will persist, and they will continue to join it (`if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’).

    There’s potential for multiculturalism to globalise and produce world peace as a consequence. It would have to incorporate a common-interest conceptual framework that serves as a theory of economics. Socialism followed communism down that road but both belief systems failed historically due to inherent system-design flaws. A third such initiative is required – cleverer, more sophisticated. And multiculturalism will fail if it tolerates ethnic religions that are dedicated to violence. Tolerance of violence can never produce world peace.

    • Incognito 5.1
      5 August 2018 at 11:58 am

      Good comment.

      And multiculturalism will fail if it tolerates ethnic religions that are dedicated to violence. Tolerance of violence can never produce world peace.

      What does “world peace” actually mean? What does it look like?

      Violence is not unique to multi-culturalism, of course, but it seems to used often as an argument against it. IMO, it is a red herring.

      • Dennis Frank 5.1.1
        5 August 2018 at 12:18 pm

        “What does “world peace” actually mean? What does it look like?” Like the EU, globalised.

        Whereas nowadays the focus is on what’s wrong with the EU, it’s also a good idea to acknowledge what’s right with it. Anyone with an overview of European history since the celtic era in the bronze age knows that tribal warfare was endemic, then nationalism was endemic, and both cultures used violence as the norm. Looks like the EU has eliminated violence via a new culture of mutualism & governance design. They got the latter component wrong, but the former seems to work.

        • Incognito 5.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 12:56 pm

          I appreciate your answer and I also agree that the EU has achieved many positives. Indeed, a common cause that binds states/nations together, loosely, helps to mitigate against (endemic) violence. That said, I think it is way too early to tell whether the EU truly is an effective antidote against violence; I hope so …

          European history is littered with longstanding alliances and allegiances fragmenting and rearranging, usually involving a war of some kind …

        • corodale 5.1.1.2
          5 August 2018 at 10:36 pm

          World peace will need safe-guards against the bureaucratic UN style you tend toward. Decentralised technologies like block-chain demonstrate practically that prosperity in possible in a digital and global world.

          Democratic Europe demonstrates the limits of human capital and information systems. Complexity management at global level must be more fluid, projected by the microcosms.

          • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.2.1
            6 August 2018 at 7:05 am

            Yes, I agree with that. You’ve misinterpreted my comment. I didn’t endorse or advocate EU-style bureaucracy. The UN has failed due to that.

      • Bill 5.1.2
        5 August 2018 at 12:22 pm

        World peace would be the simple absence of people or institutions seeking to project power over others.

        • Incognito 5.1.2.1
          5 August 2018 at 1:16 pm

          Thanks Bill. Does this extend to or imply people living harmoniously (?) together and inevitable disputes get resolved ‘peacefully’, i.e. without coercion and/or violence?

          I’d like to throw out another question to the TS community: is it humanly possible to not seek to project power over others (or: to seek to not project power?)? Personally, I think it might take some (…) evolution, literally, for this to become reality but others have thought it possible and even believed it is/was the purpose of Man (mankind) to attain/become such a state. I have deliberately left out any religious connotations/references knowing that this, at the same time, avoids/excludes an important contextual dimension. The contrast with your comment @ 6 couldn’t be starker 😉

          • Bill 5.1.2.1.1
            5 August 2018 at 1:28 pm

            If authority can’t justify itself, then the authority (in whatever form it may be taking) is illegitimate and should be ignored, undermined or otherwise rendered powerless. There are situations I can think of where that denial of illegitimate authority would require violence.

            And yeah. Been feeling dark or resigned on the whole AGW stuff for a few weeks now. Can’t be fucking arsed with the hypocrisy, the lies or the false hope that flies around.

            Very good piece here by the way. Very much worth spending the time on (including the links), although there’s still nonsense about a green nirvana that’s somehow beckoning.

            Bottom line is that the curtains are on fire and we’re arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes or who should be taking the dog for its walk.

            • Dennis Frank 5.1.2.1.1.1
              5 August 2018 at 1:47 pm

              Naomi Klein: “The climate community in 1988, for instance, had no way of knowing that they were on the cusp of the convulsive neoliberal revolution that would remake every major economy on the planet.”

              Most of us had been watching neoliberalism unfold via the media for an entire decade by then. Think of the countless thousands of stories published during that period reporting on the progress of the neoliberal revolution – any single one being a tip-off to any climate scientist reading or watching.

              But she was probably getting her nappies changed. Can’t blame her for being ignorant.

              • Bill …
                5 August 2018 at 2:31 pm

                I think it’s fair enough that she marks the “convulsion” around ’88. Yes, like others here since ’84, I’d been getting “Thatchered” ‘over there’ since ’79.

                There was a build up – an unfolding as you term it. Then…(as Klein notes)

                In 1988, Canada and the U.S. signed their free trade agreement, a prototype for NAFTA and countless deals that would follow. The Berlin wall was about to fall, an event that would be successfully seized upon by right-wing ideologues in the U.S. as proof of “the end of history” and taken as license to export the Reagan-Thatcher recipe of privatization, deregulation, and austerity to every corner of the globe.

            • Incognito 5.1.2.1.1.2
              5 August 2018 at 10:33 pm

              Thanks Bill. I don’t have much time left for a proper reply so I’ll leave you with a link to an interesting take on power & authority. The original source (Paul Verhaeghe) also has an interesting view on violence that’s related to the breakdown of authority and then substituted by power. Apologies for this.

              https://thedescribe.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/paul-verhaeghe-on-power-and-authority/

              I will read the piece in TI later too.

              • Bill …
                6 August 2018 at 6:17 pm

                Meant to respond sooner…

                I don’t agree with Verhaeghe that patriarchy has been dismantled. I’d go as far to say that’s an utterly absurd claim to make.

                But let’s say we inhabited a world free from patriarchy, then what’s his separation of authority and power about? Seems there’s a fair amount of (unnecessary) religious consideration feeding into the thought.

                If authority is simply taken as knowledge, then there is nothing at all wrong with it. But if that is then used to impose something on others, it becomes a wholly different story.

                When we all empowered, and have the power to do as we will restricted only by the limits we impose on ourselves through meaningful participation in our society, then I think we’ll have arrived at a pretty good place. 😉

          • Dennis Frank 5.1.2.1.2
            5 August 2018 at 1:35 pm

            Will to power does not necessarily imply power over others. Essentially it just rationalises how our ego powers our autonomy & agency toward a fulfilling life. Getting sufficient freedom to do one’s thing requires us to develop personal power over whatever constraints are encountered in family, work & other contexts but we don’t need power over others to survive.

            But you’re right, some seek that, and evolution is required in their personal development before they learn co-evolution. Primates evolved on the basis of warfare and in science group selection has become part of Darwinism, so we must expect some males to be closer to their roots than others. Civilisation hasn’t yet gone global.

            • Incognito 5.1.2.1.2.1
              5 August 2018 at 10:46 pm

              Our ego is very good at rationalising and takes on all the required properties to become a perfect self-referential system (Hofstadter).

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop

              [I feel more affiliated with Jung]

              I don’t quite follow this:

              Primates evolved on the basis of warfare and in science group selection has become part of Darwinism …

              Have you read anything by Frans de Waal?

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

              • Dennis Frank …
                6 August 2018 at 7:14 am

                I bought the Age of Empathy when it appeared & liked it. I also have Peacemaking among Primates from long ago but only skimmed it.

                I wasn’t meaning to discount that side of the story, just pointing to the other side. I’ve tried to keep up with evolutionary theory over past 30 years and suspect that group selection is the key for primates. Warfare isn’t the only strategy that applies (sex works better).

          • the other pat 5.1.2.1.3
            6 August 2018 at 3:13 pm

            “is it humanly possible to not seek to project power over others (or: to seek to not project power?)?”…..yes it is… a philosophical view { not relegious } as said by the Buddha …..be without desire…..problem fixed.!

      • greywarshark 5.1.3
        6 August 2018 at 12:33 pm

        Violence often goes with anger. If anger can be viewed as a sort of sunburst of energy, and something to contain and apply where energy is needed and useful, then violence is likely to go down.

        Another idea is to conceptualise our thinking as electrical impulses, which I understand they are, then to get rid of negative thoughts leading to violence we ‘earth’ them by writing them down, and reading them – with the effect of getting them out of our emotional zone, and down on paper, better than up on screen, and then they can be processed by our critical mind and assessed for worth.

        Trying to understand our own workings, hesitating and counting to 10 instead of rushing for the punch or punchline, would reduce violence also. The red rage that I feel everyone has felt some time would be lessened of its force for bad outcomes if there was more understanding of ourselves.

        Anyone know about Transaction Analysis from the 60s? And Eric Berne’s clever book The Games that People Play?

      • the other pat 5.1.4
        6 August 2018 at 2:26 pm

        it means you dont get to kill/invade anywhere/anyone just so you can have their toys……we are all in the sandbox together.

    • Tricledrown 5.2
      5 August 2018 at 12:14 pm

      Empires figured long ago that brainwashing people with religion was the easy way to subjugate the people!
      Zealots and Megalomaniac go one-step further to spread the regimes power and influence

      • Tricledrown 5.2.1
        5 August 2018 at 12:20 pm

        One nasty superbug is all it will take to create peace.
        The concentration of humans and the amount of people travelling over the planet could put a very rapid end to human over population?
        Stressed over concentrated populations are the perfect environment for superbugs which are adapting faster to antibiotics, faster than we can keep up?

      • greywarshark 5.2.2
        6 August 2018 at 12:44 pm

        Some musings –
        Psychopathic tendencies apparently help to drive business people up to the top jobs. So that tendency which seems to be a winner becomes a cultural norm to aim for in those who are mainly materialistic.

        Capitalism is about belief and concepts, where some item is either scarce and treasured, or kept carefully controlled as diamonds are so its value is maintained, and the value of the object is the symbol of worship. The belief is that money is the main power of life and people devote their lives to obtaining it. Capitalism is a religion and co-opts others, certainly Christianity,though not wholely. But zealots and megalomaniacs find it useful to tap into religion to gain control of people’s money and energies.

    • Ed 5.3
      5 August 2018 at 9:39 pm

      Too late. Had to be dealt with in the 80s as this article explains.

      “This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it. “

      https://t.co/kTBk2VxEOm?amp=1

      • corodale 5.3.1
        5 August 2018 at 10:47 pm

        …then why do you keep posting your agenda 21 propaganda?

        It’s just obvious, and some links here go into detail… global military budgets focused on environmentalism could change the world in an amazing fashion.

        Make peace with yourself, and you will see there are plenty of positive actions to take.

        Even if you can just repeat to yourself each morning “Shalom shalom shalom”, you will have made a start.

  6. Bill 6
    5 August 2018 at 12:19 pm

    “World Peace” wouldn’t deal with climate change. Yes, militaries use huge amounts of fuel. But so do shipping companies and aviation companies and….well, rich pricks who, at 10% of the world’s population, burn out about half of all emissions.

    And we’re at the point where gazzillions of dollars could be thrown at “green”. But in the same way we can’t boil an egg in the space of 3 seconds, so we can’t do “green” in the few years we have in relation to 2 degrees.

    And global warming and the climate change it brings it’s brought can’t get patched up as may be the case in the aftermath of a bull in a china shop.

    We’re fucked Micky. Capitalism fucked us. The 10% fucked us. And people in your demographic clinging on to their lifestyle and habits have fucked us (the 40% who are behind about 40% of emissions).

    We’ll have peace. It’ll be the peace of the graveyard, except, unlike a typical graveyard, there’s unlikely to be any ambient buzz of insects or chirp of birdsong.

    • corodale 6.1
      5 August 2018 at 10:55 pm

      Well Bill. Christianity isn’t something I would recommend in general. But for you it might be a starting point. There are plenty of progressive little churches out there, groups of people with soul, making positive communications and doing neighbourly stuff.

      • Bill 6.1.1
        5 August 2018 at 11:09 pm

        That’s an odd comment corodale.

        I rejected religion in any form that I could recognise as being religious ….oh, 30 years since. I’ve no need nor intention to walk back in through the out door. This direction of travel’s fine 😉

        • Poission 6.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 11:53 pm

          One of the foremost gathering of scientists from geoscience, mathematics, climate dynamics to science policy was held at the vatican in 1999 the science for survival and sustainable development conference.never seen a gathering since.

          http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/1999/sustainable.html

          the proceedings are found on the study week icon.

          • corodale 6.1.1.1.1
            6 August 2018 at 1:52 am

            “…For this reason, however limited the action of man within the cosmos may actually be, he is nonetheless a real participant in the power of God and must be able to build his own world, or rather an environment suited to his person integrated into his own space and his own special time.” (Borok, Sorondo)

            Sounds like we need to change it, by participating in the powers of God.

            • Sabine 6.1.1.1.1.1
              6 August 2018 at 8:40 am

              the current crisis is brought on by many people claiming to believe the powers of God.

              very little good it did to anyone not considered worthy and pure enough for the blessings of said god.

              Also, in the name of the father the son and holy ghosts only means that mothers and daughters needn ‘t apply.

            • the other pat 6.1.1.1.1.2
              6 August 2018 at 3:28 pm

              fuck traditional religion….it just gives people excuses to fuck the paradise which is our earth for a “heaven/paradise” when you die.

        • corodale 6.1.1.2
          6 August 2018 at 2:05 am

          Wasn’t suggesting you become religious. Dogmatism in politics doesn’t help. Churches know that politics and management of spiritual development don’t mix well (though sometime a least bad option, for developing countries like Germany 😉 Jesus was very clear about money changing in the temple and so on – Gospel of St John perspectives.

        • greywarshark 6.1.1.3
          6 August 2018 at 12:48 pm

          But you don’t like the direction of travel Bill, you feel that there is a moving belt and it is not taking you anywhere good. So look for good in what people are doing.

          Defenceless under the night
          Our world in stupor lies;
          Yet, dotted everywhere,
          Ironic points of light
          Flash out wherever the Just
          Exchange their messages:
          May I, composed like them
          Of Eros and of dust,
          Beleaguered by the same
          Negation and despair,
          Show an affirming flame.
          WH Auden 1 September 1939
          https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/september-1-1939

    • Sabine 6.2
      6 August 2018 at 8:36 am

      Oh lord,
      won’t you buy my a Mercedes Benz
      my friends all drive porsche
      and i must make ammends……………………………………..

      https://www.facebook.com/kiran.storyteller/videos/881504448718156/

    • the other pat 6.3
      6 August 2018 at 3:23 pm

      ahhh but there will be the background buzz of Geiger counters……….

  7. Timeforacupoftea 7
    5 August 2018 at 12:44 pm

    Global World Peace will never happen, either will Global World Climate Change be changed by us.

    A few more volcanoes exploding and rebuilding from major earthquakes and coastal erosion will screw us all first.

  8. Dennis Frank 8
    5 August 2018 at 1:04 pm

    Another interesting dimension to the viability of world peace is the extent to which wars are still being produced by imperialism. Much less than a century ago.

    Pro-China folk would argue that China isn’t attempting to supplant US imperialism with it’s own, and that since conquering Tibet, the communist regime has refrained from overt imperialism. “A group of alumni from Tsinghua published an open letter on Wednesday calling for the sacking of a professor over his claims China had emerged as the world’s top superpower.” [from the Guardian] Lull the US into a false sense of supremacy until the right time to act: punish any leading intellectual who blows that cover. Still only one aircraft carrier.

  9. SaveNZ 9
    5 August 2018 at 1:04 pm

    Great post. As well as all the emissions from war, imagine what would happen to poverty and migration if all areas of the world were safe to live in so millions of people were not constantly having to move away from conflict areas or genocide and their governments spent money on food and programs to help them, not weapons. In addition if western governments did not sell them these weapons.

    Imagine if there were world agreements to preserve wildlife areas like Amazon rain forest, forests in Indonesia as well as to preserve the oceans and air quality and they could be taken to international environment court if they did not aka ISDS style instead of preserving greedy commerce and a dinosaur approach to resources.

    Instead of refusing to have words like ‘climate change’ in TPPA, and even in our own RMA ‘climate change’ it is not allowed to be considered on resource consenting.

    NZ is a leader is climate change denial from our government and councils and they need to change.

    • Dennis Frank 10.1
      5 August 2018 at 3:05 pm

      “we’re still here” – famous last words?

      I’ve got some excellent books by scientists & field researchers investigating the evidence of previous bombings from outer space. Some such impacts in prior geological eras seem to have dislocated Earth’s spin axis: pole shifts. The favoured theory for the origin of the Deccan Plateau in India, which apparently is the world’s largest continuous volcanic rock formation is one such impact.

      Then there’s the old theory that Luna was spun off Earth by a planetary collision (such as the one that eliminated the planet that had orbited between Mars & Jupiter). But most of the investigation nowadays has been on geologically-synchronous multiple impact craters that have been identified. These usually produce climate change due to the `nuclear winter’ effect. If you’re a reader, check out “When the Earth nearly died”: an excellent compilation of evidence. Plus “The Cosmic Serpent” by Clube & Napier, a real humdinger! Two scientists who correlate myths & legends to tell the full story. Oral history of ancient impacts is extensive, global.

      So the answer to your question is that it depends on the size of the incoming space-rock. One large enough to split this world into pieces would have to be much bigger than a dead comet (the usual). Extremely rare, almost never encountered.

  11. corodale 11
    5 August 2018 at 10:01 pm

    Yes, peace to end imperialism, allowing fair finance, and green-growth-business could fix the world via natural market mechanisms.

    The best real estate in a global empire is where Jesus was born. Peace in the Middle East will signify a new reality, of peace within the heart of humanity.

    What can we offer Israel, that their Zionists might support humanity to tame the industrial military complex?

    • Dennis Frank 11.1
      6 August 2018 at 7:23 am

      Permaculture. It can turn their desert green. Restore their agricultural capacity via the design & creation of microclimates. Nature may help: as Bill pointed out on the other thread, the zones of air flow are shifting. The aridity effect that dried out the Sahara & middle east due to natural climate change around 3000 BC may get driven north-ward by global warming.

      • corodale 11.1.1
        6 August 2018 at 8:20 am

        Israeli agriculture is often progressive. Folk here using Israeli drip irrigation methods, economic on high value organic potatoes. I’ve seen first class Israeli permiculture in NZ too. Plenty of foundations for peace.

        • Sabine 11.1.1.1
          6 August 2018 at 8:44 am

          and i have the waters of the Palestinians and their groves, and their ancient villages too.

          so very very progressive, unless you are a Palestinian, then you are shit outta luck, right?

  12. Jenny 12
    6 August 2018 at 11:44 am

    “We owe it to our future generations to try”, Jenny

    Well maybe not.

    Request Timeout
    Server timeout waiting for the HTTP request from the client.

    Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu) Server at thestandard.org.nz Port 443

  13. R.P Mcmurphy 13
    6 August 2018 at 11:49 am

    the planet is sick.
    everywhere you look there is environmental degradation and resource depletion and it is no longer a matter of the dictatorship of the proletariat or liberal laissez faire or any other worn out justification but every single person making demands for their own personal satisfaction that is adding up to something very nasty just over the horizon.

  14. Jenny 14
    7 August 2018 at 8:24 am

    As Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Peace is not the absence of war. But the presence of justice.”

    Peace is the absence of the causes of war.

    Climate change is expected to increase the conditions that lead to war, economic collapse, competition for (diminishing) resources, habitat destruction, biosphere collapse, famine, mass migration. and not least global inequality.

    As long as there is injustice and inequality, those who suffer from injustice and inequality, will rebel against it, using whatever means they see fit.

    As long as there is injustice and inequality those who benefit from injustice and inequality will struggle to continue it, with every means at their disposal. Syria is a case in point.

    Peace will not drop out of the sky because we will it, or even if we think it is necessary.

    This kind of wishful thinking completely ignores human agency, the mechanics of how human beings actually change things.

    • Exkiwiforces 14.1
      7 August 2018 at 7:35 pm

      Unfortunately Jenny it’s goign to get worse before it’s better with CC, i find it kind of funny when everyone craps on about oil, gas etc when the real elephant in the room is going arable land and water. Water sustain life along with arable land which we humans and everything else relies on weather you are veg’o or a meat eater etc and we are currently screwing the environment because without water or arable land we are stuff.

      3 odd yrs ago I was on a cse with some of my peers and the question was asked the DS Staff “What would the next major war would be fought over barring religion?” Most said resources, followed trade/ Sea Lanes Of Communications and one of the DS notice I hadn’t put my hand up and he said “Kiwi you are bit quite? I said you all you millennial muppets have it all wrong about your bloody oil to feed you V8’s or our resources to power your stupid IPHONE, but its CC which is going to lead us to war as we humans are stuffing the plant IRT Water and Land and without clean water or arable land we are ****ed.” Then I pull my file out and rattle off like a SFMG section to state my case for the next 20mins. From China to Syria, the Murray Darling basin, NZ’s dairy boom, Nth West Passage and Greenland, rising sea levels, Cape Town for it became trendy to MSM and everything in between including Staff papers from NZ , Aus, UK Canada and the US.

      So why is NZ quite popular atm IRT to Land and Water WRT the lack over sight or the lack of enforcement by LC, RC and at NZG.

      We are sleep walking to the next major conflict weather we like or not unless Bibi, Iran and Trump etc get their first. BTW I stop giving out odds now because everyone throwing tariffs like hand grenades on the Grenade Assualt Range which is all fine atm until someone throws a WP grenade instead of a HE one.