Fish: the once and future fast food

[MMIX]

Or, rather, we needed to about 50 years ago. It's too late now.

I hope you are wrong about it being too late, but it certainly looks like we are rushing blithely towards a cliff atm

You are dead right about education though. That has to be our "last, best, hope". But it needs to be the sort of education that changes unhelpful behaviours like the public campaigns 50 odd years ago [over here anyhow] that made it social unacceptable to go out and get drunk and than drive home. Does drink driving still happen, hells yes; but overall social attitudes towards it have changed markedly.

The optimist in me says it never too late, the pessimist says that it is so far past late that it really isn't funny, the realist says that the longer it is before we look seriously at the underlying causes of things like poverty and ecological degredation the more people are going to be damaged in the process of trying to survive our profligate history.

@Dok Howl: Btw I wasn't saying that what you said about poverty as a driver for population growth was wrong, just that poverty in turn is being driven by other factors which are of a higher order, and that you can't "fix" poverty without addressing those underlying structural problems/issues, I should have been clearer on that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hope I'm wrong too.

[Doktor Howl]

I hope I'm wrong too.

"Shit in one hand and shit in the other.  See which one fills up fastest."
- JR "Bob" Dobbs

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hope I'm wrong too.

"Shit in one hand and shit in the other.  See which one fills up fastest."
- JR "Bob" Dobbs

PRETTY MUCH, YEP. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm rooting for science. There's no fucking way in hell humanity is going to wise up and change a few simple habits. Humanity is way too fucking dumb to do that and by many accounts it's too fkin late anyhow. So either we figure out some funky new technological solution to bring this dying planet back to life or the problem corrects itself.

I'm good either way. We all live happily ever after or I get to take the piss out of a few billion dumbstruck and dying primates who emphatically poo poo'd any plans that prioritised a breathable atmosphere over cheap flights to Tenerife

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

There's not going to be any sciencing our way out of this.

[Doktor Howl]

There's not going to be any sciencing our way out of this.

Then it's our duty to do shit before it all comes crashing down.  No whimpering in steerage.  Everyone up on deck, drink bourbon, dance until you pass out, or the band goes under.  Whichever happens first.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My hope for the best case scenario includes bad famines. Bad, real real bad famines. And an escalation of xenophobia, with a lot of people killing other people because they're trying to move from famine-ravaged regions to regions that are still fertile. Followed by a total paradigm shift because all of a sudden it will become very clear that if we can't keep enough people alive we will lose ALL of our infrastructure, very rapidly.

[Doktor Howl]

My hope for the best case scenario includes bad famines. Bad, real real bad famines. And an escalation of xenophobia, with a lot of people killing other people because they're trying to move from famine-ravaged regions to regions that are still fertile. Followed by a total paradigm shift because all of a sudden it will become very clear that if we can't keep enough people alive we will lose ALL of our infrastructure, very rapidly.

There are two methods of dealing with famines & shortages.  The most common one, xenophobia, is the losing proposition.

[Cain]

Australia will do what it always does - pay other countries to take the immigrants.  And then, when those countries refuse, it will just take them over and resettle them there anyway.

Historically minded people will appreciate the irony, but that will be about the only positive.