We can survive if we change our behaviour and think of future generation in our everyday decision making. The future of our planet and our survival mostly depends on political and economical policies of all governments.

Here is the outlook from a recent article written in Stanford:

Escalating climate disruption, ocean acidification, oceanic dead zones, depletion of groundwater and extinctions of plants and animals are the main drivers of the coming collapse, they write in their peer-reviewed article “Can a collapse of global civilisation be avoided?” published recently.

Our reality is that current overconsumption of natural resources and the resulting damage to life-sustaining services nature provides means we need another half of a planet to keeping going. And that’s if all seven billion remain at their current living standards.

If everyone lived like a U.S. citizen, another four or five planets would be needed. Global population is projected to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050. It doesn’t take an expert to conclude that collapse of civilisation will be unavoidable without major changes.

Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (2013). Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 280(1754), 20122845

http://www.changeways.net/index.php/8-home/2-the-future-of-our-planet

The future of our planet

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full

We can survive if we change our behaviour and think of future generation in our everyday decision making. The future of our planet and our survival mostly depends on political and economical policies of all governments.

Here is the outlook from a recent article written in Stanford:

Escalating climate disruption, ocean acidification, oceanic dead zones, depletion of groundwater and extinctions of plants and animals are the main drivers of the coming collapse, they write in their peer-reviewed article “Can a collapse of global civilisation be avoided?” published recently.

Our reality is that current overconsumption of natural resources and the resulting damage to life-sustaining services nature provides means we need another half of a planet to keeping going. And that’s if all seven billion remain at their current living standards.

If everyone lived like a U.S. citizen, another four or five planets would be needed. Global population is projected to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050. It doesn’t take an expert to conclude that collapse of civilisation will be unavoidable without major changes.

Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (2013). Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 280(1754), 20122845

http://www.changeways.net/index.php/8-home/2-the-future-of-our-planet

The future of our planet

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full

It is a hard question... I think is no so close... The homo sapiens adaptation is strongly... Only white race has problem with surviving...

Dear Peter,

Here is a very good editorial by Professor Tim Kelley (East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina) on the subject:

Kelley T. Environmental health resilience. Environ Health Insights. 2013;7:29-31. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595985/pdf/ehi-7-2013-029.pdf

Have a sunny day, Martin

Kelly MJ. Why a collapse of global civilization will be avoided: a comment on Ehrlich & Ehrlich. Proc Biol Sci. 2013;280(1767):20131193. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3735251/pdf/rspb20131193.pdf

Butzer KW. Collapse, environment, and society. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109(10):3632-9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309741/pdf/pnas.201114845.pdf

Dear Peter,

Here's another very good current publication:

Nelson MC, Ingram SE, Dugmore AJ, et al. Climate challenges, vulnerabilities, and food security. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016;113(2):298-303. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4720298/pdf/pnas.201506494.pdf

As Homo? Or as Sapiens? I agree with Sofia.

Many thanks for interesting links!

Martin,

again and again thank you for feeding us with valuable links! Do you see a chance to deliver us  time for reading? :)

Thank you

Peter

The future does not look bright but We can survive if:

• All governments consider Sustainability in their policies and work together, a planet for all.
• All of us Change our behaviour, act more responsible  and work together toward saving our natural resources.

Here is what Ban Ki-moon said about this issue:

"Our planet's lands and oceans are already stretched to meet the demands of 7 billion people. The human population continues to grow. The search for sustainable solutions is an economic and a moral imperative if we are to create the future we want."

Dear Peter, another great question of our "Club".

May i say that my last book "Kulturen der Menschheit: Woher und wohin? - Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven unserer Vergangenheit" (Cultures of mankind: where from, where to? Transdisciplinary perspectives of our past. 540 pp.) is just in print and appearing in 3 weeks and hopefully can give some of the very complicate answers.

One of my Thesis is that if we do not Change our still neolithic way of thinking and reconsider some of the paleolithic thinking modes and process it to a more healthy life oriented way for everybody in a global manner, well then ... But let' s still hope and do our best, everybody where he/she is Standing...

What about acting based on this moto : all for one, one for all.

As long as there is music and composers, poets and mystics, we do.

Dear Sofia,

that´s the point: We as individuals have to arise.  We as individuals have to act.

Like at RG we like to have a Motivation System f.e. the likes combined with a very transparent evalution and registration mechanism. RG is a kind of example. If we act stabilising the environment or  social impacts or employment with people aso  or we get dislikes while destabilising our living on earth. Each single person has to act and will be evaluated after common decided rules like RG. Here we are transparent with our scientific work. The same is nessessary with our behavior on this overcrowded planet.

Peter

Best

Peter

dear Artur,

I dont believe to spoil my time thinking about my and my childrens and my neighbours future. Not doing it I would be fatalisic and that´s not my way.

Peter

Earth Day Network: http://www.earthday.org/

Dear Rita,

in deed I understand you. Art is the highest level homo sapiens reached. But warming up of our earth is not reduced by music or art. So I am really very alarmed.

Peter

I'm afraid that for supplying  our discussions in RG we waste too much electricity and natural resources (in total).

Scary Dr Eyerer,

Well, should be the responsibility of government in terms of- safety (easy said than done!!)

World crisis deepens with wars/refugees , wonder if we can survive( with sanity).

I do believe when  basics are met - like water and food there might be some respite. Again who is responsible and to what extent ???

Climate change , if we survive our OWN atrocities , I am sure we can adapt ...

I guess we can't put an end (Saaaad) , yet teach our kids to care (NECESSITY)

I don't know. I hope that the human race will survive on our planet.

But, I am wondering if the human mission to Mars, which seems to become a reality in a few years, indicates something with regard to the question. 

www.mars-one.com/

http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars

Dear all

As homo sapiens, We have to survive from the trouble our human made.

Such as explosively increasing malignant tumor and sterility leaded by manmade chemicals…

Dear Peter,

The only thing we cannot lose, is the optimism. However, unfortunately mankind have not been able to learn that without real cooperation, sacrifice and love to each other we are marching to the fall. What lead us astray, are pride, vanity, egoism, ignorance, aggression but mainly the lack of understanding and love. Thus, I cannot tell you anything new.

Last year some RG peers wrote a little remembrance paper. I propose to read it, how to avoid the monkey trap:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273888501_Sustainable_landscape_development_and_value_rigidity_the_Pirsig%27s_monkey_trap

Unfortunately, we like very much to be in this trap which equals the death-sentence.  

Article Sustainable landscape development and value rigidity: the Pi...

Dear Peter,

Where can I read the Klaus-Peter Rauser article?

Dear Peter,

To my opinion the question is confusing. Who is Homo sapiens today? A German, an American, a British, a Greek, an African, an immigrant, a Palestinian, a Syrian, an Israeli etc.? or are we  ALL Home sapiens?

What is the definitions of Home sapiens the year 2016? Is there any classification as in other social species such as insects and higher termites?

The year 2016 many Homo sapiens are already dead from simple reasons (food, war, social discrimination, etc). Others will disappear for sure. The majority work for the few.

So, the question is why there is a forced pre-selection of Homo sapiens? and who is responsible for that?

Is that a pre-organized procedure or is just the natural selection that we experience??

I think comparisons are best between closely related species. The species known now as  "humans" (Homo sapiens sapiens) are the only extant species of Hominini left on the planet Earth. There used to be many kinds of human.

The earth has been capable of supporting life for about 3 billion years (billion = milliard = thousand million), and is expected to continue being able to support life for between 200 million and 5 billion years in the future. Using the higher estimates, if we view the period of being able to support life as 24 hours, then we are now about 9 o'clock in the morning, humans diverged from the apes about a minute ago and the human species started to exist 1-2 seconds ago. The human species (Homo sapiens sapiens) started its existence between 150 000 and 100 000 years ago. Its development diverged from the apes about 5 million years ago.

If our science will lift their heads out of the sand and lead the way there is more energy and ability than we are able to use today.   Tesla knew it and I have seen a glimmer of light when it comes to energy on the earth.  We can survive but it will take a lot of people working together in order to get there.  I just hope that we do not run out of time. 

Dear Prof  Peter

Thank you for share this important topic to discuss 

I think that  our globe is big enough to contain us. The Creator make it for us  to live 

Sure that the resources are enough to make us all live in satisfaction. We only need JUSTICE. and good ethics.

Politics and governors are failed to comply with what is ideal

Again Can Scientists Lead the Way

Hope So

 SAIF       

Thanks for asking, Dear Peter: We will survive, hopefully as “Homo Sapiens”.

I hope very much for awaked Human Vigilance to prevent disater, which will help to survive

Population growth has started to level off. I think it's expected to top out at something like 13 billion.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/human-population-2100/

Looks like the growth is expected mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. So the answer is, increase the work opportunities there, which increases wealth, keeps people busy, and the birth rate plummets.

Notice some estimates are far lower than 13B.

Whatever the case may be, the answer is to get people busy. Too busy to have time for huge families. Additionally, make it so they don't need huge families, to carry them through old age. The common denominator is always to increase wealth.

I think this will happen in sub-Saharan Africa, as it has happened in other parts. For instance, work that used to flow to China, because wages were lower there, is now flowing to other countries in the Far East, such as Cambodia and Vietnam. China's wealth has risen dramatically in the past decade.

As wealth in other parts of the Far East rises, work will start flowing to Africa, And the cycle repeats. Wealth goes up, population increase goes down.

These are all dynamic, self-regulating systems, with built-in feedback loops that sometimes are not easy to discern.

And natural resource use changes too, as technology advances. One obvious example being food production, which is far more efficient now, in developed countries, than it was in the old agrarian economy days. Also, as an indicator, emission of greenhouse gases has started to level off, or already leveled off, in developed countries, Another indicator that technology is brought to solve the problems, as these problems are identified.

https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/overconsumption.pdf

Resource consumption changes with price of the commodity. So the figure is never static. And too, note the figures on resource consumption, and then compare this per capita consumption with average family (household) size. A different picture emerges.

There's hope for us yet.

Yes, we will survive Peter, unless we are suddenly hit by some unmonitored asteroid or unwisely elect a maniac to be in charge of half the nukes on earth!

And, no, I don’t think earth is overcrowded. It can easily fit many more! This is rather a population distribution problem, just like income, wealth and power. While Gaza Strip has a population density of more than 10K people per sq mi, almost half of Africa has 10, or less, people per sq mi, Australia has 2, and Greenland 0.1! (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html). Meanwhile, while median yearly household income in Northern Europe tops $50K, it is less than $800 in African Liberia and Burundi (http://www.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx).

Resources, human as well as material, are unevenly distributed on this planet and among its inhabitants. Places where this inequity is controlled, or semi-controlled, e.g., Scandinavia, enjoy political and social stability as well as exemplary quality of air, water, and land. Others, such as China, Saudi Arabia, and all the least developed countries, enjoy none of this. Equitable distribution of global resources, I believe, is the key to our survival as a species.

The Britons may choose to Brexit today, largely due to their fear of the influx of foreigners (a subsequent redistribution of population caused mostly by economic inequity rather than wars). Whatever the result of the referendum will be, the English, as well as the Americans, will sooner or later find out that isolation, borders, and walls, are hardly the solution.

Book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

We should change our way of living for example.. reducing our demands so that decreasing overconsumption. If we produce so many things its impossible not to have negative results in envionment and in human health.

Do we survive on earth as homo sapiens?

I fear that humanity as a whole behaves as "homo no sapiens".

Dear Peter:

I think that scientists and NGOs should work hard to create a growing awareness of these problems in people, politicians and other influential actors. To the extent that awareness rises, the solutions --or an increasing popular pressure to find them-- will appear and develop .

Dear Artur,

How many time is needed to bred or invent Homo sociologus or ethicus? The problem is that the construction of Homo terrorist is in full fabrication not to speak on the many types of Homo economicus simply called versatile businessman.

Please see: My answer to the question of Vitaly Voloshin in RG: ‘Is the end of our civilization encoded in human genome?’ DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2634.1605

The day we can grow our own exoskeleton like cockroaches we will survive all disasters especially the one's we created....but unfortunately the sad part is that we have evolved.

Interesting question, the paraphrase as follows:

How can the actual human being survive in the future as homo sapiens?

In his brief introduction to the discussion inviting Peter Eyerer already mentioned the need to first change ourselves, initial approach I want to expand.

Man has to be not just look homo sapiens. Has to work first upon him, and in a supreme act of reflection to consciousness on itself (retro-flexion) about their thoughts, feelings, moral values, ethical principles and behaviors related to survival and quality of life of the and of their peers.

No doubt there are many evidences and predatory behavior related to the environment by humans, including land, water, flora and fauna, insomuch that if it does not change, is in danger of disappearing humans as a species.

There are many factors that are affecting, from the perspective of short-term utilitarian and money, through trafficking of minerals, plant and animal products considered appreciation or very valuable, to destroy, kill or eat to enjoy a few who get some earthly pleasure or economic capital, enabling them to live a life of luxury and excesses, to the detriment of the quality of life of the vast majority of human beings, for example the people of underdeveloped countries and migrants seeking better opportunities decent working and living together, or fleeing wars to save his life and that of their families.

All these are elements to consider and to qualify for the last 200 years of human history, as the most polluting the planet, starting with the industrial era since the eighteenth century and ending in the XXI century with the Ecocide. This is a new era, the era of the Anthropocene, which may be the last human being, though probably not of the earth as a planet with the survival of other life (insects, bacteria, algae)

regards

Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Vigil

The ultimate protector of all living beings is the nature itself. We all are,basically, the selection of the nature. The living beings evolve when its suitable suitable environment appears on the planate. The environment/climate on earth depends on the developments in solar system, universe and its living beings activities. Man efforts changing the whole earth climate/environment as its result, no doubt, the existing beings will be changed by nature to suit new environment: It all selection/choice of nature.

We can only survive as Homo sapiens , if we strengthen our social structure which could be based on equality and fraternity. We should feel that we are components of the environment and each organism on the Earth has equal role to the environment.

Homo sapiens won the evolution war by far, but it is them who are destroying the very planet which has been providing them with the  means of surviving, how ironic! If those "intelligent" beings didn't change their course of action and pursue a sustainable way of life, soon they would be left of little means of surviving. 

Excellent  Question  to  ponder. Even  in  early  6os  Sir  Albert Einstein made  a  remark  "  I  fear  the  day that  the  technology  will  surpass  our  human  interaction. The  world  will  have  generations  of  idiots. " What   a  true  statement. Hats  off to  his  prediction. In  early 30s  a great Tamil  poet '  Subramania  Bharathi ' said  if  a reformation  has  to  happen then  ' first  it  must  happen in  one self '. Automatically  the reformation  should  happen  in  the  society'. 

              Let  us  depend  on  ourselves first  before  depending  on  the  machine. Let  every human  remain  responsible  and  as  well accountable. Let  every  human be  honest,  sincere,  hard working, contended  and  courteous towards  our  fellow  human. 

           Yes. we  can  survive on earth as homo sapiens elegantly  and  happily.

Dear Andras, dear all,

the link to the mentioned article is:

Klaus-Dieter Rauser: Ist es schon zu spät, oder ist der Homo sapiens noch zu retten?

Eine Sonderbeilage zu Zeit, vom 16.6.2016, 46 pages

email adress:  [email protected]

Best

Peter

Application of S&T has made the Homo sapiens  most effective on the earth, as the man has won each combat and fight with other species. But pollution generated by this application of S&T and slow development of social (community development at national and international level) architecture - has paused problems that needs to be solved for the existence of human on the earth. 

Dear Matthew,

This is called planned and sociologically considered suicide.

We will survive provided that we start loving the mother earth more than we do now and that we all work together.

Here is what Mahatma Gandhi said long ago. It is so very true.

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

Dear Peter, 

I believe in Homo Universalis and further holistic thinking to better understand interactions and relationships.

A possible answer is expected from the new “complexity science” and complex adaptive systems.

Best regards!

While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s. While we’ve accomplished much in that short time, it also shows our responsibility as caretakers for the only planet we live on right now.

 The effects of humans on Earth cannot be understated. We’ve been able to survive in environments all over the world, even harsh ones such as Antarctica. Every year, we fell forests and destroy other natural areas, driving species into smaller areas or into endangerment, because of our need to build more housing to contain our growing population.

http://www.universetoday.com/38125/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/

Homo Sapiens (not so sapiens...) will survive, but the present civilization will possibly not survive. I think that also in the past there were several human civilizations which got lost. Periods of florishment always alternated with periods of decay. I hope just that this time we will be able to better record our present, in order to keep some information about the mistakes we are doing. And not to start every time from 0.

Dear Dr. Peter,

The species which currently is classified as Homo sapiens L. is still in evolution. I am not a geneticist or an expert in this subject, but I believe that the genes which interact with the environmental factors are working to adapt the species to the future of the species. Along the last century the Homo sapiens L. was able to get around the microscopic species that has been the main factors capable of reducing and useful to control the size of the population. Thus, there was an explosion of offsprings in conjunction with the longest survivorship of the mature specimens. The Homo sapiens L. was designed to live no more than 40 years and this signal appears in the capacity of all members to see with accuracy the world around, to eat solid food, and mate. The vision is still the first attribute to deteriorate along the specimen life in conjunction with the capacity of eating meat. Without an accurate vision, the man had difficult to see some predators, and the members of various populations lost the capacity of eating a balanced food. No matter what happened, the human body stayed free from the deadly attack of several diseases. Maybe, this situation has had a huge contribution to disappearance in the evolutionary chain of the several other species of humans. However, generally we do not hear about the influence of micro-organisms in the evolutionary chain of the Homo sapiens L. Otherwise, inside every human body, the micro-organisms are learning, in complete silence, how to deal with the human been, and the greatest opponents are still the various viruses as the flu virus, for example. Along this way, throughout the chronological time, the humans discovered how important is to have money, and the best way to get money is have a populations higher than various thousand. This fact, however, significantly favor the diseases because is more difficult to control diseases vectors as mosquitoes which transmit several diseases as the dengue fever. The mosquito is the most dangerous component affecting humans in the several environments of the planet. To become worst, the humans require space and need to dominate their counterparts in the neighborhood to stay in the higher position of the top in the food chain. Thus, many populations do not have good sanitary conditions to live and satisfactory levels of formal education to control diseases vectors. Consequently, human population in the top of the chain will suffer the effects generate from the populations in their lowest levels. The Homo sapiens L. have had the perception of current life style and are looking for other planets similar to the Earth for establishing the new colonies. At first instance, Mars is a good option. Finally, it is difficult to forecast the results of this decision, but the human shape will be modified under different levels of gravity and the evolution tree will have other branches useful for novelty studies about the origin of the Homo galaticus (…) …, no matters who will classify it.

Walter

Ok , "homo sociologicus" is true !!!! Found it on wikipedia  :) 

I don't think there will be civilization collapse since we live in a negative feed back system tends to maintain life.

We will survive. Although earth is under pressure, I believe it has not yet crossed carrying capacity! 

There is an end to everything. Nothing would last for ever.  If earth survives ( which won't) then homo sapiens may evolve to cope with the new condition. This is too optimistic. 

Do we survive on earth as homo sapiens?

We human beings have survived for many years despite the good & bad things that we'd done from generations to generations.  Because of that some resources in the earth have been depleted, some animals have faced extinction, some surrounding environments turn from opportunities to threats, some new technological developments become weapons of mass destruction etc. 

Moving forward our destiny is depending on our collective decision & actions.  If we can gain the mutual understanding & commitment, doing the right things or doing the things right we still have the opportunity to survive better & longer.  Else we are gradually going to experience destruction & extinction.

Peter, 

If you are that pessimistic why are you still here?  You are offering no solutions, making no attempt to build solutions while you breath and eat the food more constructive people could be consuming. If you feel that badly about your planet and fellow humans by all means feel free to exit stage left.  Any fool can be a critic; it takes work and insight to offer and implement solutions. 

Jon Cloud

Dear Cloud,

What was the pessimism Peter might has put out?

Dear Cloud,

I think Peter must have solutions regarding his own field. Simply, he wanted to know others’ views and propositions. I repeat, the solution cannot be scientific or technical solution but those of ethical and self-critical nature. We are sociologically blind and the level of our emotions are often too high. 

Dear all

There are only one snags on the way which lead us surviving on earth as homo sapiens, human ourselves.

Because avarice human will face exhausted nature resources, war, polluted air, polluted rivers, lakes and seas.

Dear all

Optimistic is good way. Although water has polluted, we have water purifying machine. Tomorrow every fish also can have one.

As homo sapiens tour court we will not survive. But as Homo sapiens sapiens we may survive.

It depends on time frame. In, say, 500-1000 years our descendants will look very different as compared with current humans. The change in appearance is brightly and with his unique usual gentle humor described in   "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut. 

dear all 

Im agree with Mr. Chun Liu I bleave that Who created us will not forget us.

Somebody said that there isn't a future on earth, if there is a future It is in the space.

Yeah of course earth is getting polluted. But I don't visualize whether the earth will lasts long or not because earth is not going to be destructed before i die. I am afraid that my next generation kids are going to have hard time. What i can do for this is to make people understand the ill effects we will face if we continue our act as much as i can to extend the lifetime of earth. If everyone can spend little time on this I hope next generation will lead a better life and hope i can take a rebirth :p :D

The survival of the species by the biologically limited time can be reduced, to be jeopardized by man's own actions. We all have to take part of the solution individually and through the institutions we have created as a species. Unfortunately, at least we have a choice, while other species are in danger of extinction because of us. That's impertinent, to say the least.

Dear all

StephenHawking think human only have 200 years’ future on earth. The sun will destroy earth.

Dear Raid,

There is a Hungarian saying: help yourself and even God will help you.  

To sustain our existence on the Earth, we should focus on researches on environment and ecosystem as well as minimise the culture of consumerism. The Earth is our shelter and provides all which we require. When we destroy system on it, how can we survive.

The developing countries should control their population and developed countries should not increase their needs for daily living. WE should establish mutuality with the nature, as previously we were doing in previous and old times.

Dear Prabhat,

yes your are right! But how can we reach these requirements? Any idea?

Peter

Dear Chun,

do you see any chance to withstand the sun ?

Peter

dear Ricardo,

I think similar. Thank you for your comment.

Peter

dear Jothi,

the core of your saying is "If everyone will spend Little time on this..." May be we have to spend mroe on this but it is worth spending time and actions on it.. Thank you I agree and I am sure we can do it together.

Peter

dear Martin,

the Butzer paper will be my lecture this evening. Thank you!!

Peter

Dear Cloud,

thank you for your valuable answer and recommendation.

Only a fool can not inform himself about an other assumed fool.

Best

Peter

Christopher Langan discusses two cryptic scenarios.   His IQ is significantly higher than anyone on this thread.  His chocolate and vanilla choices are nearly polar opposites.  Most likely the extreme scenarios fall away and something in the middle survives. In reality it is only opinion and not like anyone here will live long enough to be proven wrong. 

I am an optimist. Homosapine shall survive. Doomsday day is still far away.

While there is a large gap between rich and poor, developed and undeveloped, "us and them" the problem won't be solved.There are two scenarios.The social countries will survive.The undeveloped countries will be the endless threat to the stability of the Planet. The Earth will destroy itself.

2.To Martin's article, "We can increase resilience as much as possible within both natural systems and environmental health systems". For that the poorest human beings must at least break away from the physiological level ( the pyramid by Maslow).

I agree with @Irina Pechonkina that distance between rich and poor be minimised as both are human. I forward it to all living beings. All living beings are equal to the the nature and God, then existence of each is necessary on the Earth.

But the man is greedy to extract all resources in the earth and utilise it as early as possible. Water is an replenish-able resource on the earth i.e. each year it is replenished in rainy season. However, there are water problems in many parts of the World.

WE should think about CO-EXISTENCE of poor and rich, and human and other living beings.

That is my personal opinion.

@ Peter Eyerer: I think governments, NGOs, public groups and ourselves should disseminate the knowledge on the environment in the society as it is possible to us.

Two months before, plastic grocery bags were banned in my locality. The shopkeepers are using papers bags now and people also carry their own bags while they are marketing.

If our discussions change the attitude of policymakers in local or wide area, our purpose can be satisfied.

 @Prabhat Ranjan - Very good point! We should not restrict our search for solutions to top-down international initiatives. In fact, locally and contextually situated policies, when modeled and adopted on a national level, are perhaps the most likely to produce significantly positive change in global issues, such as climate change.

Dear all,

I am also convinced that we as individuals have to act bottom up. But we need assistance from top down if we want to step ahead faster.

Peter

Dear all

Surviving form a lot of pestilences like Ebola , hepatitis B, AIDS, bird flu etc. occur every time maybe the disaster we have to deal with. Especially hepatitis B, AIDS, both have same spreading ways and have same long incubation period and asymptomatic period. The sum infected the two kind of virus is majestic (in developing counties). Because blood contaminated spreading, so any sharing without strictly sterilized curative devise equipment; material; apparatus is dangerous in a hospital.

If a superintendent of nursing department in a hospital is ignorance on the knowledge or she pay more attention on the benefit, the danger  will exist. In real, the dange has existed for a long time.

Dear Prabhat, dear Khalil, dear all,

yes, it is important that we personally move and do something to save our planet.

To do the right things we need proven methodologies. For example: you mentioned the substitute of plastic grocery bags by paper bags. At the first glance this is better, because the paper bag is more degradable. But looking closer there are questions:

How is the energy, how are the emissions producing paper or plastic in comparison?

How much food is lost in a paper bag because of much lower strength of paper?

How often can both bags be used again for other purposes? And also the critical questions of high resistivity in some cases, while in other cases it is an advantage.

That is the reason while my coworkers and I developed closed Loop Balancing or LCE (life cycle engeineering) 27 years ago.

The problems we have to handle now a days are so complex that we can not act linearily. We have to act three dimentional or even more!!

Peter

Dear Peter,

Your questions are very legitimate. In fact, as an opponent of the ubiquitous use of plastic bags myself, I still use them and reuse them in many different ways! I know this is hypocritical, but I am yet to find a workable alternative. Paper bags are not. I'm surprised that, with all the global debates over this issue, research in material engineering is yet to come up with cheap biodegradable bags. Perhaps not much funding is going into this initiative.

Dear Khalil,

we begin to reduce the climate change to plastic bags. No I know, we do not,. But it shows how wide spread things are.The best alternative to bag are textile bags out of natural fibers, or even out of synthetic fibers. All dayly cloths are out of synthetic fibers 100 or 60 %. This would be a much more effective way regarding tonnages to reduce plastic. But we dont have enough cotton. And planting as much cotton and plants to gain petrol we need two or 5 other earths. Back to biodegradable plastic bags: Degradation is a time consuming process. We can accellerate the degradation but not make a step function. So we have the same amount of plastic bags as now a days but they only will degrade faster. And we will have the problem of properties during a life time where we still  want to use them .And compostable plastic bags won´t be usefull for bags to carry things due to bad properties., So indeed, an example to save the world ?

Peter 

Peter, You clearly do not understand the  environment cost of producing cotton.  It is one of the crops that consumes vast quantities of herbicides and chemical fertilizers. The amount of water used for irrigating cotton is staggering. To understand the real impact you should look at www.organic-cotton-co.com and read what other people are doing to change things.  It takes 1.25 pounds of chemicals to produce a cotton t-shirt. There are many other fibres, hemp, grasses, and shrubs capable of producing the fibre.  Most of these crops could be grown on margin land and save the good agricultural land for food production. Algae production in the oceans hold many of the keys to the future.  After all it is algae that brought you petroleum 3.2 billion years ago. 

My joke: If cleaning the oceans by removing the plastic bottles, bags, etc. found there and making new bags and bottles from the recycled plastic to end up in the ocean again; then are they considered a renewable resource?  

Dear Cloud,

Certainly, your opinion on cotton production is right and healthy. I tell you for fun that not only hemp, sisal, flax etc. are fine for fibre production but also stinging nettle. There has been selected some good stinging nettle fibre and other varieties at the University of Göttingen in Germany. By the way, the stinging nettle textiles are better quality than those of cotton.  You forget to mention that not only too much pesticides and fertilizers are wasted for cotton but also most of cotton varieties are transgenic.

Dear Andras, 

So nice to hear from you.  You are correct I neglected to mention the GMO cotton. 

I am familiar with young stinging nettle's fibre (very long staple with decent hand, as they say in the business).  Great stuff and well used decades ago.  I have grown hemp here in Canada and discovered a method of softening the silva prior to yarn spinning.  Sisal is less known to me but I have seen fabric made from the product.  We have a myriad of fibre to draw from; but the damn "money monkeys " keep sticking their hand in Pirsig's trap.  When will they learn? 

The loss of most people using the natural fibers is because the big chemical companies have made it hard to us the natural produces.  For instance rayon and dacron were used but the fiber Hemp was cheaper so they set to show how bad the fiber was and had it band in the USA as a drug. They say it had THC in it and that people were smoking it to get high.  We can not even grow it hear even though it is a far superior product to the man made ones.

When we discuss homo sapiens , it is the development of the human brain which succeeded in establishing its supremacy over other species . It is fascinating to realize that we do not fully understand how it works & is the cause of the good & bad which occurs to protect or harm the human species . The tremendous progress made in science can be used for the well being or destruction of society . Our survival depends on how we utilize our intelligence for good of society .

@ Chun Liu: The diseases create disasters and plague spread in Europe some centuries before - is an example of it. However, I think diseases are originated sometimes wrong way of living. We should move to natural living system and naturopathy (whatsoever it is possible). Some diseases are borne due to pollution and contamination to food products also. A number of diseases can't be prevented by healthy lifestyle and healthy environment (including healthy society).

It is another matter that some diseases which spread in developing countries are due to malnutrition also.

We are talking about our own existence as a species. But we are not serious towards genetic loss on the Earth due to encroachment of machine civilization generated by the human on the Earth. Because of which living world is being destroyed by non-living materials.

Another aspect is that difference between people in a country and society is being increased.