Most important article you'll ever read...

P1234567890

This article is excellent. It explains the concept of 'ecological footprint', which is one of the best ideas that people have come up with in a long time. Basically it turns environmentalism into a science.

Your ecological footprint is how much land area on this planet you require to sustain your lifestyle, including all the farmland, mines, oil fields, etc.

If you look at the ecological footprints of different countries, it explains A LOT. For example, if everyone on the planet were to live the lifestyle of the average American, the Earth would have to be five times as big as it is in order to sustain that level of consumption and pollution.

In other words, ecological footprint explains why rich countries have to take resources from poor countries in order to sustain growth and consumption, thereby explaining why pretty much every war happens.

And things are only going to get worse as our population size goes up...

Anyways, check out the article. It's very short. If this doesn't convince you that our environment is in trouble, then nothing will...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1024-04.htm
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:42 am Post subject:

On a similar subject, anyone who hasn't watched "An Inconvenient Truth" should do so. It's an excellent documentary about climate change, and it's got the science totally right.

If you don't feel like shelling out money for it, you can torrent it for free. The makers of the movie think it's just fine if you do; they're much more interested in getting the truth about global warming out than they are about making a buck.

Watch it; it's a great documentary.

You can download it here:

http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/885903/An_Inconvenient_Truth_2006_DVD_rip

and it won't cost you a penny, and it's legal.
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject:

Here's an interesting factoid. They did a major study surveying almost a thousand peer-reviewed articles from major climatology journals written over the past ten years to see how many of them agree or disagree with the general scientific consensus that humans are responsible for global warming.

Guess how many of them cast any doubt on the fact that we are the cause?

Zero!

They also did a survey of magazine and newspaper articles which cast doubt on us as the cause. The percentage is 56%!!!

The oil-company sponsored misinformation campaign is working, and it's working well. We should have started attacking global warming decades ago. Instead, we still haven't seriously started to do anything!

I really don't think that people get it; climate change is BY FAR the biggest threat facing the planet today. This is not an opinion; it is scientific fact. There is no debating it! If we don't start doing something, AND FAST, we will literally have to redraw the maps of the world because so much land is going to be swallowed up by water.
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:24 pm Post subject:

Are there any stories in the Bible in which someone shows up and warns of impending doom, only to be ignored and laughed at, and then at the end of the story the doom comes to pass?

The closest I could get was the story of Cassandra from Greek mythology, but I was wondering if there's a similar story from the Bible as well...
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

theseldomscene · Banned Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 7817

yeah...pretty much all the prophets(with a few exceptions)...laughed at, jailed, mistreated, murdered....

1kings 22...a good example...if i am understanding what you are asking correctly...then also the noah story...

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:13 pm Post subject:

theseldomscene · Banned Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 7817

okieguitarman · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject:

theseldomscene · Banned Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 7817

p38...and complete and utter ignorance of the facts is another reason...

FFT · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:51 pm Post subject:

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:09 pm Post subject:

Okie, I'm not sure you could have posted something more ignorant if you'd tried... Let's look at it one by one...

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject:

FFT · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject:

okieguitarman · Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:22 am Post subject:

Man is not destroying the earth!
This thread is just more of the chicken little theory that the sky is falling.
P1234 you have been sold a bill of goods that are WORTHLESS.
The oceans are bigger than man and will purge themselfs.[You ever heard of a thing called moon phases and tides?]
30 years ago the same people were preaching the impending ice age.
Now which is it?
Man is not destroying anything and clear cutting the forest is a good thing as it serves as a fire break.
You can go on believing this global warming junk if you like but you are wasting your time.
How about spending more time reading the bible and less time reading the enviormental propaganda?

FFT · Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:34 am Post subject: