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World wide Humanitarian crisis

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World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 06 May 2016, 12:00:00

I noticed we do not seem to have a specific topic or thread on this, so decided to start one. Here posters can post some of what is happening worldwide in terms of people in distress because of various causes.
I will start by posting this rather sad story of Doctors without Borders declaring that "Doctors Without Borders announced that it will not be participating in the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit, calling it a mere “fig-leaf of good intentions” that will not actually hold states accountable for their failure to address the humanitarian crisis in the world today." http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/05/ ... rders-whs/
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Plantagenet » Fri 06 May 2016, 12:07:13

onlooker wrote:I
I will start by posting this rather sad story of Doctors without Borders declaring that "Doctors Without Borders announced that it will not be participating in the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit, calling it a mere “fig-leaf of good intentions” that will not actually hold states accountable for their failure to address the humanitarian crisis in the world today." http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/05/ ... rders-whs/


There seems to be a lot of that kind of thing happening today. Meaningless meetings and meaningless accords and treaties.

For instance, the 2015 Paris Accords on climate change was also just a “fig-leaf of good intentions” that will not actually hold states accountable for their failure to address the climate change crisis in the world today."

And how about the years of peace treaty negotiations over Syria that periodically announce new cease-fires in Syria that actually aren't cease fires and don't bring peace?

The world is swamped with meeting after meeting after conference after congressional hearing after negotiation after treaty that doesn't actually accomplish anything. :lol:
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 06 May 2016, 12:16:11

Good points Plant. I totally agree. I do not think we are being cynical. It is the reality. I think it partly because "they" cannot do much to remedy the situation and partly because they do not want to expend the resources to do so. Better for the top tier people of the world to continue to party and also allow the lower tier groups to continue their less lavish parties.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Timo » Fri 06 May 2016, 12:23:05

onlooker wrote:Good points Plant. I totally agree. I do not think we are being cynical. It is the reality. I think it partly because "they" cannot do much to remedy the situation and partly because they do not want to expend the resources to do so. Better for the top tier people of the world to continue to party and also allow the lower tier groups to continue their less lavish parties.

Our devotion to, and beliefs in the exponential growth of capitalism forbids rational thought.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 06 May 2016, 12:57:30

Plantagenet wrote:The world is swamped with meeting after meeting after conference after congressional hearing after negotiation after treaty that doesn't actually accomplish anything. :lol:


Meetings are easy, and make good sound bites. Delivering results are difficult, nearly impossible for bureaucrats, and politicians don't even know what "results" are, understanding only the need to get reelected to set up more meetings.

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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby eugene » Fri 06 May 2016, 13:09:18

I don't think there is a solution to many of these problems so we have meetings instead. Gives the masses a solution so to speak. Or we can talk on blogs about what "oughta be done".
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby GHung » Fri 06 May 2016, 23:22:37

Maintaining the appearance of doing something when there is nothing that can be done. The surest way to lose power is to admit you're powerless to bring about positive change, so we live in an age of pretence.

Nobody can fix this........
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 08 May 2016, 06:42:40

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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 08 May 2016, 07:52:48

Timo wrote:
onlooker wrote:Good points Plant. I totally agree. I do not think we are being cynical. It is the reality. I think it partly because "they" cannot do much to remedy the situation and partly because they do not want to expend the resources to do so. Better for the top tier people of the world to continue to party and also allow the lower tier groups to continue their less lavish parties.


Our devotion to, and beliefs in the exponential growth of capitalism forbids rational thought.


Good one Timo, succinct, I like it.

Perhaps this thread should be joined with "Lifeboat Ethics"?

It's the same thing really isn't it, have committee meetings until all the screaming voices in the water are dead? Then say. Oh well, we tried!
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 08:21:19

GHung wrote:Maintaining the appearance of doing something when there is nothing that can be done. The surest way to lose power is to admit you're powerless to bring about positive change, so we live in an age of pretence.

Nobody can fix this........


These are interesting times really. It slowly becomes harder to fool yourself with this pretense that meetings and accords can actually play an active role in mitigation. On the other hand pretense remains easy when none of the consequences we are warned about have yet manifested to the point of large scale impact on human society.

One can mention the immigration crisis, droughts, wild fires, receding ice sheets, depleting aquifers etc. At this point though they still remain isolated and with low resolution in bringing into focus the origin of these symptoms. Of course denial plays a big role. And if you are in any function as a public official pretense is important not only to defend your role to others but also to defend your role to yourself. Otherwise you have to look into the mirror and recognize futility staring back at you. That is not easy especially with the well developed egos of most of our public officials whose speaches espouse leadership of one sort or another.

But there is a more important reason as well. Speaking the truth but not delivering credible solutions only agitates and sounds like whining. It does nothing to resolve the problem of human overshoot which is only solved by the instabilities that it inherently creates.

Of course this impasse guarantees resolution at some point.

That is the point when we embrace the consequences for what they are and recognize that they not only represent the problem to fix but also the solution out of our impasse.

Let me put it this way. Consequences that increase the death rate kill two humans with one stone. First they reduce the population and thus consumption of resources. Secondly they enlighten. Potentially enlighten.

Every single consequence of human overshoot is a solution. Embrace it. I am.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 08:40:31

onlooker wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/07/the-migrant-crisis-will-never-end-it-is-part-of-the-modern-world/
The migrant crisis will never end.


I actually believe that forced human migration during this century is going to be the dominant event that will force humanity to confront the systemic imbalances of human overshoot. War, conflict and bio-region collapse as in rising sea levels, disappearing aquifers, failing agriculture, chronic drought or flooding. The story will repeat itself. People being forced to leave regions that can no longer sustain and finding increasing intolerance and xenophobia where ever they choose to go, whether this migration is between nations or within a nations borders.

Our politics divided, those preaching walls and fences and border patrols at the same time as bio-region collapse within borders forces action from those whose empathy and morals demand humanitarian solutions.

A grand tug of war.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 08 May 2016, 11:17:50

Ibon wrote:Our politics divided, those preaching walls and fences and border patrols at the same time as bio-region collapse within borders forces action from those whose empathy and morals demand humanitarian solutions.


What kind of action might that be?
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 15:58:07

ennui2 wrote:
Ibon wrote:Our politics divided, those preaching walls and fences and border patrols at the same time as bio-region collapse within borders forces action from those whose empathy and morals demand humanitarian solutions.


What kind of action might that be?


This opens up the question to address the mechanics on how consequences will begin to force cultural adaptation.

I have been considering in more detail the power of human migration. The jewish diaspora, the migration to the Americas starting at the end of the 15th century, the 20th century migration of vietnamese, russians, mexicans, and countless ethnic groups. The dynamic that this creates.

Human migration in the 21st century may very well be defined by failing bio-regions. Rising sea levels, droughts, failed agriculture, rising temperatures, depleting aquifers. Wars and conflicts that will increasingly be secondary factors of these primary forces but all of these examples will create a repetitive current of humans on the move. These migrations will be pure physical adaptation to bio-regions in distress. Memes form through repetition. Language is learned through repetition. Cultural adaption and shifts will also occur through repetition and my crystal ball at the moment sees human migration as that patterned repetition that begins to move culture. It will directly touch on morals and ethics from lifeboat ethics to the heroism and empathy of helping the fallen. Decade after decade this cannot fail but to impact culture.

How do you get from there to actually codifying sustainability? Well, that is beyond my crystal ball at the moment but one thing is certain. Stability will become a value cherished. Maybe, just maybe, the way we cherish consumption today will be the way we appreciate stability tomorrow. Stability will represent peace and oddly, prosperity.

When we get to that point culture shifts toward holding stability as a universal value.

That creates one of the key bedrocks to sustainability.

We need the instability to make us appreciate what a stable biosphere really means.

Remember, today that biosphere is invisible. Just like oxygen, it is only noticed in it absence.

That is the hard road we have chosen to one day elevate the health of our mother as a universal value that people choose to put before consumption. I don't think this works on the rational and logical dimension alone. It is spiritual and existential and frankly biblical in proportions when all of this cuts our global population in half or to a lesser fraction within a century or two.

I am the optimist here right? Well, that is what optimism means!
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 08 May 2016, 16:35:37

Ibon, just to pick on one thing you said where I disagree.....complaining without offering solutions.....

I've heard it said that the best skill is NOT to know the answers but to know how to ask the right questions.

If we can't complain without offering solutions then that isolates us on big questions. Sometimes the group needs to come together to ponder, deal with, absorb, the problem so that a response can be formulated.

To say don't bring a problem without a solution is just a way of pushing off folks.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 17:53:57

Newfie wrote:Ibon, just to pick on one thing you said where I disagree.....complaining without offering solutions.....

I've heard it said that the best skill is NOT to know the answers but to know how to ask the right questions.

If we can't complain without offering solutions then that isolates us on big questions. Sometimes the group needs to come together to ponder, deal with, absorb, the problem so that a response can be formulated.

To say don't bring a problem without a solution is just a way of pushing off folks.


I agree with that when it is an isolated topic. The problem we have today is more than 4 decades of talking about a problem with no solutions and the consequences to date not having the severity to give the named problem any traction towards meaningful solutions. This has caused a weariness in the public about dire warnings never coming to pass. This has been counter productive to the first degree.

In addition, solutions are there, right in front of our face, it is our cultural priorities that are messed up.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 17:59:57

I forgot to elaborate on the dynamic of human migration. The jewish diaspora that left a people without a homeland. Displaced and wandering they produced one of the most vibrant global cultural subsets in valuing education and hard work.

Similarly, the New Word migration, particularly to North America, also produced a very vibrant and youthful optimistic culture. Part of the dynamic was leaving your degraded homeland behind and laying down new roots in a new place.

Now with these examples in mind someone like Lore or Cid will come along and say that with our scorched earth we wont have any healthy new frontiers remaining to repeat this dynamic. I say it is not about finding a pristine new frontier. It is about finding a pristine new orientation that values stability and healing over the current status quo of consumption. If you just left your ruined biosphere behind in South Florida and find yourself embraced in say Wisconsin in a relatively productive bio-region with a fresh start after a long and harrowing journey this will create a new dynamic and new orientation not unlike the ones mentioned above.

Unless you believe in a homogenized lunar landscape as our planets future which I reject. As do most reasoned scientists.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 08 May 2016, 21:12:39

Ibon wrote:Stability will become a value cherished. Maybe, just maybe, the way we cherish consumption today will be the way we appreciate stability tomorrow. Stability will represent peace and oddly, prosperity.


I asked what action it would take. You responded by talking about shifting paradigms, not action.

Ibon wrote:to one day elevate the health of our mother as a universal value that people choose to put before consumption.


How much good does that do when the frog is boiling in the proverbial pot?
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Timo » Sun 08 May 2016, 21:31:45

Ibon wrote:Now with these examples in mind someone like Lore or Cid will come along and say that with our scorched earth we wont have any healthy new frontiers remaining to repeat this dynamic. I say it is not about finding a pristine new frontier. It is about finding a pristine new orientation that values stability and healing over the current status quo of consumption. If you just left your ruined biosphere behind in South Florida and find yourself embraced in say Wisconsin in a relatively productive bio-region with a fresh start after a long and harrowing journey this will create a new dynamic and new orientation not unlike the ones mentioned above.

This brings up an interesting topic that i deal with fairly regularly, that being suburban sprawl. Someone finds a beautiful landscape that spans a section of land. Within this section is a fresh water stream, untouched prairie with an endangered species of orchid (this is a true story) that only grows in specific micro climates. The stream has a few minnow of a species that is also endangered, and left untouched, this section of land has survived for well over a thousand years. This person sees peace and tranquility in this landscape, so he buys it, and builds a house on it. The suburbs creep up on this section of land, and this guy is growing older, and discovers he needs money to fund his retirement, so he subdivides this land into 600 lots, makes a fortune selling every parcel to small families seeking their own slice of paradise, thus forever ruining what attracted them to the untouched landscape to begin with. The orchids are gone. Ditto the endangered minnow. Ditto the peace and tranquility of once was untouched paradise.

Point being that a place like Mt Totumas would not last one year in the States if it fell into the wrong hands. I know you're well aware of this, and therefore are being extremely protective of its habitat, and rightfully so. But, you, Ibon, are the exception in an order of magnitude. For individuals to find " a pristine new orientation that values stability and healing over the current status quo of consumption," a prerequisite to that status is extremely low population density, and densities of cultures that can foster that sense of internal orientation will only become widely feasible after the OP removes 90% of our human population. Humans cannot escape the culture of consumerism while depending on it for daily survival. The small percentage of humans that are able to alter their personal orientations with the planet will be insignificant to foster any cultural change. In the mean time, the migrations that you describe will be the death of most surviving habitats, and human conflicts will travel with the mass migrations of humans to new, less threatened areas of the planet, thus threatening these less threatened areas, and........chaos, and.......very few survivors, and ...........healthy habitats, gone. The world will have entered into an entirely new and denigrated age. The OP must come first.

But, maybe those few survivors will find their own stability with the planet, and the human race will start all over again on a vastly different and less hospitable landscape.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 08 May 2016, 23:19:31

ennui2 wrote:I asked what action it would take. You responded by talking about shifting paradigms, not action.



I cannot offer a road map. There are none.
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Re: World wide Humanitarian crisis

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 09 May 2016, 08:13:24

Dup post
Last edited by Newfie on Mon 09 May 2016, 08:19:50, edited 1 time in total.
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