Organ Harvesting in China. Chinese Death Vans - Body Parts for Americans! Three years ago, Dr. Thomas Diflo's moral nightmare walked into his examination room: a patient freshly implanted with a kidney bought from China's death row, where prisoners are killed sometimes for minor offenses and their organs harvested. Since then, Dr. Diflo, director of the renal transplant program at the New York University Medical Center, has seen half a dozen such people, typically young Chinese American women. The surgeon says his patients weren't distressed about snatching organs from the condemned, but he was overwhelmed by the implications.
Unable to shoulder the burden alone, on January 11, Diflo took his "horror at a real ethical quagmire" to the medical center's Ethics Committee. Diflo is the first American doctor to talk publicly about this experience. "To tell you the truth, the original rationale for bringing this situation to the Ethics Committee was my own discomfort in taking care of these patients.
But Diflo refuses to let it end at that. Dr. Dr. China's human rights record worse than a year ago. Taking Action Chapter 6. "Driven by unprecedented growth in human numbers and wasteful consumption, many of the basic resources upon which future generations will depend for their survival are being depleted. " --Dr. Nafis Sadik Executive Director, UN Population Fund Carlyle Key Facts on Population and Consumption Click on link to go directly to sub-section, or scroll down to read entire chapter.
Population, Consumption and the Environment Urban Migration Reasons for Population Growth Food Consumption Patterns Seeking Solutions to Unsustainable Population Growth Taking Action to Address Population Growth Seeking Solutions to Unsustainable Consumption Patterns Taking Community Action T he current population explosion, combined with increasing consumption rates and inequitable distribution of resources, is a serious environmental concern because it is directly related to the carrying capacity of the planet.
By the time it takes you to finish reading this chapter, about 2,000 more people will be sharing your planet. Over Consumption. Over Consumption: To summarize, the human population has been allowed and encouraged to over consume, use and abuse our natural resources to a point where society at large is at an epic crossroads. In other words, as a global population, we have not only become unsustainable, but are knocking on the door to our own extinction. The cause of this phenomenon can be traced back to various decisions by world governments and controlling influences from the Powers That Be (PTB) shortly after World War II. Whether it started with a paper by Victor Lebow, a 20th century economist, entitled "Price Competition in 1955" (Journal of Retailing, Spring 1955) or he independently reflected the conclusion of the PTB, doesn’t really matter.
Lebow's paper discussed the cost of maintaining the American lifestyle in 1955, and the effect this cost had on retail profits. Lebow wrote: He further wrote: "These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. Back to Top. Our Civilization is Unsustainable ! Money, Debt & Greed – A Brief Commentary — The Secret Garden of Maths. On Friday I will be talking in our school chapel. Here is the penultimate draft of the monologue (the style does lend itself to being read out loud) Good morning. I want to talk to you today about our monetary system.
Most, perhaps all, of us here at Forest School have benefited from the monetary system. Money affords us food, entertainment, transport, holidays; a place to live; stability. But does everyone benefit from our monetary system? We’re born into a society of which money seems to be the driving force. Money Creation Consider this scenario. So, just in case that went right over your head, the government wants £10 billion; it essentially borrows £10 billon from the Bank of England, creating a debt. But hang on, why did we create that money? What is money worth? Once upon a time I could have taken this £10 note to the Bank of England and exchanged it for an amount of gold of equivalent value.
That Gold Standard was suspended in 1914. Inflation So what causes inflation? Untitled. Abstract: In 1992, 1,700 of the world’s top scientists issued a public statement titled The World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity. They reported that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.” More than a decade later, the authors of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment were moved to echo the scientists’ warning asserting that “[h]uman activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”
Ours is allegedly a science-based culture. For decades, our best science has suggested that staying on our present growth-based path to global development implies catastrophe for billions of people and undermines the possibility of maintaining a complex global civilization. Citation: Rees W. 2010. The (Un)sustainability Conundrum. Diogenesian discourse. Diogenesian discourse The keyboard is mightier than the machine gun...
The political, philosophical and general outpourings of a troubled soul living in Australia and blogging his Vietnam veteran's head off. Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify it from another source. Do you understand? Tuesday, November 22, 2011 The Unsustainable Empire The US seems to have become an unsustainable economic entity. Posted by Gerry at 11:40 PM 4 Comments: Vest said... I shall agree with you, what you have said is basically what has happened to the U/S. November 24, 2011 6:24 PM Gerry said... I'm not a fan of anarchy, and I don't think the demise of predatory, exploitative capitalism needs to lead to anarchy.
November 24, 2011 9:08 PM Fowl Ideas said... I think it's called the "Trap of Empire. " December 24, 2011 10:38 AM And is there a way out of the trap? December 28, 2011 9:41 AM Post a Comment Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] << Home. Revista Envío - The Ecological Crisis Goes Global: The Development We Want Is Unsustainable. International Ever since the 1992 Rio de Janeiro summit we’ve been sold the notion that we’re on the way to sustainable development. Consumer societies latched onto this seductive idea the most. Everyone felt good about moving towards sustainability without changing lifestyles that make infinite economic growth unsustainable when it’s at the expense of Nature’s finite resources. That sustainable development illusion lasted until the outbreak of the current global crisis. Now it’s no longer believable. Ramón Fernández Durán In the first half of the 20th century, the still very incipient global ecological crisis didn’t attract institutional interest much less the oratory of the power structures.
The world’s first protected area, Yellowstone Park in the United States, was established in the late 19th century, in 1872. GDP: Universal cult object Stockholm 1972: More “development” All this laid the groundwork to nurturing concern about the environmental crisis in the Western central areas. Assigning Economic Value to Natural Resources. Natural capital. Remarks from 1937 by FDR on "natural capital" and "balancing the budget of our resources" §History of the concept[edit] Natural capital is one approach to ecosystem valuation which revolves around the idea, in contrast to traditional economics, that non-human life produces essential resources. Thus, ecological health is essential to the sustainability of the economy.
In Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution[2] the author claims that the global economy is within a larger economy of natural resources and ecosystem services that sustain us. In order to continue to reap the benefits of our natural environment, we need to recognize the importance of natural capital within the economy. In a traditional economic analysis of the factors of production, natural capital would usually be classified as "land" distinct from traditional "capital".
The term 'natural capital' was first used by in 1973 by E.F. §Internationally agreed standard[edit] §See also[edit] §References[edit] A Human Approach to World Peace. The global loss of topsoil. Excerpt BETWEEN 1950 and 1973, world demand for grain doubled, spurred by both population growth and rising affluence. It will double again by the end of the century if the projected growth in population and income materializes. This unprecedented quadrupling in world food demand within 50 years is putting more pressure on many of the world's soils than they can sustain. In the face of this continuously expanding world demand for grain and the associated, relentless increase in pressures on land, soil erosion is accelerating.
In effect, mounting economic pressures are degrading the resource base. In 1980 Anson R. Grave though the loss of topsoil may be, it is a … This 200-word excerpt is included in the absence of an abstract. Footnotes Lester R. Loss of soil threatens food production, UK government warns | Environment. More than 2m tonnes of topsoil from farms and forests is being eroded by wind and rain each year, jeopardising efforts to increase food production, the UK government said today. The soil erosion is reducing the amount of food grown, increasing the risk of flooding and undermining efforts to reduce carbon emissions. UK land has been steadily degraded by 200 years of intensive farming and industrial pollution, warned the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in a major study of soils. But it said the situation is not nearly as bad as in many Asian and African countries, where soil erosion due to overgrazing and poor farming practices is now seriously threatening food production.
New housing and transport infrastructure as well as climate change are all adding to the pressures on soils, explained the environment secretary, Hilary Benn. British soils contain around 10bn tonnes of carbon, half of which is found in peat habitats. Consequences - Erosion. By Rhett Butler | Last updated July 22, 2012 The loss of trees, which anchor the soil with their roots, causes widespread erosion throughout the tropics.
Only a minority of areas have good soils, which after clearing are quickly washed away by the heavy rains. Thus crop yields decline and the people must spend income to import foreign fertilizers or clear additional forest. Costa Rica loses about 860 million tons of valuable topsoil every year, while the Great Red Island, Madagascar, loses so much soil to erosion (400 tons/ha) that its rivers run blood-red, staining the surrounding Indian Ocean. Astronauts have remarked that it looks like Madagascar is bleeding to death, an apt description of a country with grave environmental degradation and an agriculture-reliant economy that depends on its soils.
After heavy tropical rains fall on cleared forest lands, the run-off carries soil into local creeks and rivers. Erosion is extremely costly for developing countries. Review questions: About Us: Age-old farming practice leads to topsoil loss. Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas, in the 1930s. Drought combined with years of plowing under crop residue, leaving the surface exposed to wind, resulted in gigantic dust storms that devastated the Plains states.
Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library, Historic NWS collection Throughout history, civilizations expanded as they sought new soil to feed their populations, then ultimately fell as they wore out or lost the dirt they depended upon. When that happened, people moved on to fertile new ground and formed new civilizations. According to David Montgomery, a University of Washington professor of earth and space sciences, that process is being repeated today, but the results could be far more disastrous for humans because there are very few places left with fertile soil to feed large populations, and farming practices still trigger large losses of rich dirt. “We’re doing the same things today that past societies have done, and at the same rate,” says Montgomery. What the Frack? Natural Gas from Subterranean Shale Promises U.S. Energy Independence--With Environmental Costs [Slide Show] DISH, Tex. —A satellite broadcasting company bought the rights to rename this town a few years ago in exchange for a decade of free television, but it is another industry that dominates the 200 or so residents: natural gas.
Five facilities perched on the north Texas town's outskirts compress the gas newly flowing to the surface from the cracked Barnett Shale more than two kilometers beneath the surface, collectively contributing a brew of toxic chemicals to the air. It is because of places like DISH (formerly known as Clark) and similar sites from Colorado to Wyoming, that the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a new review of the practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking". From compressor stations emitting known human carcinogens such as benzene to the poor lining of wells after drilling that has led some water taps to literally spout flames, the full set of activities needed to produce natural gas gives rise to a panoply of potential problems. Fracking implicated in US water pollution. Last updated 10:06 09/12/2011 Reuters FRACKING PROTEST: People gather on the steps of New York City Hall protesting the state's plan for shale oil drilling in the city's watershed in January, 2010. The US Environmental Protection Agency has announced for the first time that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.
The draft finding could have a chilling effect in states trying to determine how to regulate the process. The practice is called hydraulic fracturing and involves pumping pressurised water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface. The EPA's found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath a Wyoming community where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials advised them not to drink their water after the EPA found hydrocarbons in their wells. EPA: First evidence surfaces linking fracking, water pollution. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated.
It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Cheyenne, Wyo. • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution. The draft finding could have significant implications while states try to determine how to regulate the process. The practice is called hydraulic fracturing and involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface. The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals.
Sen. | Water Contamination From Fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing) Oil Catastrophe. Global Consequences of Deforestation in the Tropics. The World of Infographic Insights: Amazon Rain Forest Depletion: Rainforest Destruction. Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles. Rainforest depletion | comfortablyunaware. Deforestation. Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction. Overfishing: a threat to marine biodiversity. Depleted fish stocks require recovery efforts. World's Natural Fish Stocks Depleted. Depletion of fish stocks. A global environmental problem, threat to our oceans and disaster. Fisheries Depletion - Going, Going... gone? (framed version) Greed is killing the oceans.