Breathing space?

[Lettucing Gutted]

I am all for stopping human caused climate change but this idea of bird flu killing off humans is very terrible.

What's the point in having good, safe weather when there are no humans around to enjoy it?

Edited November 17, 2007 by Craig Evans

[Gray-Wolf]

I am all for stopping human caused climate change but this idea of bird flu killing off humans is very terrible.

What's the point in having good, safe weather when there are no humans around to enjoy it?

According to the last Statement from the inter Governmental Panel on Climate change there is no stopping climate change only attempts to moderate it's influence on our societies and all this for nought if the possible 'rapid waming/step change in warming' (which they also concede is a possibilty) occurs over the next few years.

Insofar as U.K.'s response to H5N1 outbreak our chief medical officer tells us we need 3 times as much Tamiflu (and similar) to stem any pandemic as we have stockpiled at present.

Edited November 17, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[crimsone]

I am all for stopping human caused climate change but this idea of bird flu killing off humans is very terrible.

What's the point in having good, safe weather when there are no humans around to enjoy it?

Consideration for our other neighboring species is a good starting point. We are not alone on this planet, and it doesn't belong to us - we just like to think it does. If it did belong to us, the risk of extinction wouldn't even be a thought in our minds... We belong to the planet if anything, not vice versa. Even if extinction wasn't a thought on our minds, it still wouldn't suggest that the planet belonged to us, because such ownership as we see it is merely a very human societal concept... applyng your beliefs to others that don't share them is at wrost illogical, and at best wrong - they are inapplicable.

It's no different than an elderly lady, on her own and about to die, wanting to make sure her house is clean before she goes. It sounds od, but it's a mark of civilisation.. for the opposite scenario is that where somebody knows that the end is coming, and so becomes violent, goes on a rampage, and destroys what he/she feels like because he sees no point in caring anymore. Self interest is not the "be all and end all" of existance.

[The PIT]

Hi TWS! I don't know how you can see continued 'growth' in opportunities/materialism in the developed world. I feel we are at a juncture in our society where we see our children not enjoying the same 'standard' of living as ourselves. For many generations the majority experienced a growth in their opportunities/health/material wealth but that must end when viewed against the challenges we currently face. The developing world will experience positive changes in their quality of existence (even if it is just T.V.'s and mobile phones) but we will experience reductions in our abilities to travel, our power usage, our waste disposal regimes and the quality of foods we enjoy.

Actually this already happening probably due more to overcrowding than poor investment though.

Certainly IF a virus spread through out society and it's doesn't have to be one related to Bird Flu it would have a very large effect as GW says in another post. If you think we'd just carry on as nothing was happening you need to think again. Hospitals are understaffed and don't have enough beds for starters so that's one big problem.

[Gray-Wolf]

Actually this already happening probably due more to overcrowding than poor investment though.

Certainly IF a virus spread through out society and it's doesn't have to be one related to Bird Flu it would have a very large effect as GW says in another post. If you think we'd just carry on as nothing was happening you need to think again. Hospitals are understaffed and don't have enough beds for starters so that's one big problem.

You are probably as hardened as I to the 'hospital experience' and so will have a much better 'feel' for how things are there. The conservative estimates have (at normal levels 'infection') 1,000 cases a day presenting (and needing beds) during the height of pandemic (7,000 new beds a week for the 6 weeks of the crisis!) and all of that with no provision for staff being 'absent without leave' due to personal fears/circumstances.

We keep Luke as well as poss. as hospital (due to poor hygiene and rotten 'doctoring') have nearly killed him on 3 occasions so it is litterally the last place we wish to see him, how would their performance be during any such crisis???

Edited November 17, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[The PIT]

You are probably as hardened as I to the 'hospital experience' and so will have a much better 'feel' for how things are there. The conservative estimates have (at normal levels 'infection') 1,000 cases a day presenting (and needing beds) during the height of pandemic (7,000 new beds a week for the 6 weeks of the crisis!) and all of that with no provision for staff being 'absent without leave' due to personal fears/circumstances.

We keep Luke as well as poss. as hospital (due to poor hygiene and rotten 'doctoring') have nearly killed him on 3 occasions so it is litterally the last place we wish to see him, how would their performance be during any such crisis???

I've got to admit the last place I'd like to see my mother is in Hospital. I also work at a University and if you actually saw some of the nurses that were going into the profession you wouldn't go near the place. One my work Colleagues, who's wife happens to be a nurse was in Hospital. His wife came to see him and noticed the medication that the nurse was giving out was wrong. of course she was told to get lost by the nurse so she went to the supervisor where the problem was sorted out. Of course handing out incorrect medication is extremely dangerous.

I was asked to network a computer that was attached to some test equipment so the doctor could see the results on his computer via the network. In those days plug and play was plug and prey. So although everything seemed to be working the computer had to be tested. The nurses using were happy to oblige but it was clear they hadn't a clue how to use it. So that computer may have been giving out duff results for years but I was assured it was working properly.

Another nurse came in to collect her computer. Another colleague of mine who's wife is also a nurse decided to ask her exam questions. She'd just taken the exam. She couldn't answer a single one and just laughed "Oh I don't know that"

Stereotyping is dangerous but I wouldn't trust the majority of nurses with my life at all.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Dear me what next?

BFTP

[Gray-Wolf]

I've got to admit the last place I'd like to see my mother is in Hospital. I also work at a University and if you actually saw some of the nurses that were going into the profession you wouldn't go near the place. One my work Colleagues, who's wife happens to be a nurse was in Hospital. His wife came to see him and noticed the medication that the nurse was giving out was wrong. of course she was told to get lost by the nurse so she went to the supervisor where the problem was sorted out. Of course handing out incorrect medication is extremely dangerous.

Another nurse came in to collect her computer. Another colleague of mine who's wife is also a nurse decided to ask her exam questions. She'd just taken the exam. She couldn't answer a single one and just laughed "Oh I don't know that"

Stereotyping is dangerous but I wouldn't trust the majority of nurses with my life at all.

You can always find them congregating around the ward reception though (quizzing the latest 'supply' and keeping them from their unfamiliar duties).

Ho Hum.....

Edited November 17, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[crimsone]

thought as much ... dig big holes and throw the bodies in... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...22/nfowl222.xml ... though it does mention cremations too.

Edited November 22, 2007 by crimsone

[Gray-Wolf]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071121/wl_uk...ealthflubritain

Hmmmmm, those workers seem to work on a lot of farms (unless it is our migratory birds that have H5N1)

I'm also having trouble with the figure of dead folk from the post above. They quote 700,000 as the death toll. W.H.O.'s provisional 'kill rate was 1.5 to 3% of the population (900,000 to 1,800,000) but the kill rate at the moment is much ,much higher (90% of those infected in Indonesia) so, if and when it falls during the pandemic, it may run at 15 to 30% of the population (9 million to 18 million) and most of these over the first 3 months of pandemic. I feel that the 'schools' that are to be used as morgues are too small even for the 3% figure to be realistic, never mind dealing with the bodies once collected...... bring out yer dead!

If we look back to the Black Death as a model for 'mega death' we see how much worse todays population levels make the logistic of things. The 'plague pits' would have to be enormous or we would run the risk of further illnesses arising from the number of decaying corpses (in their bin liners) on the streets.

This will not be a nice time to live through (but I'd rather live through it than tick option 'B'.....)

[Bobby]

700,000 looks very optimistic indeed. Extrapolating the amount of deaths from the 1918 flu, due to increased population today, the figure is approximately 370 million people dying from a pandemic today, should it be similar to the 1918 flu. So this is about 6% of the population, so about 4 million people in the UK could die. It looks very deadly though so far and air travel could make things worse, so even that may be optimistic.

Should solve some of the overcrowding anyway.

[Stratos Ferric]

...There must come a point where there are just too many people in the world.

Perhaps a reduction in the human population will come about slowly after reaching a peak where it simply cannot be sustained. ...

...I wonder what planet Earth would be like now if we hadn't ever been on the scene?

It's a theoretical construct well rehearsed in the 1970s by the Club of Rome. Interestingly - though processing power was an infinitessimally small compared to what we have today - whatever adjustments they made to their modelled variables, if I remember rightly, we always polluted ourselves to death. Interesting to note that all this was before AGW was being considered at all, other than in a few far away niches.

The usual restraint to population growth is actually economic development and enforced schooling. When children don't have to go to school they can be sent out to earn money: they are a revenue stream. Bring in compulsory education and they become rather less affordable.

To your third point: there would be a lot more trees and much more dense undergrowth. There also wouldn't be any Centre Parcs.

But surely burying the dead infected with the Bird Virus would be a stupid idea? Most likely solution would be mass burning of some sort, at first would be a huge shock and outrage but we would soon adapt to our new, short term problem.

I don't think a large scale pandemic has to be a bad thing if it has to occur, it would reduce pollution, population and or a short time lower food production.

It's how humans evolve after all.

Your logic is sound but one aspect of emergency planning is the emotional impact of different courses of action. Seeing a funeral pyre would probably be judged far more disturbing than mass burial, and is less efficient (if arguably more hygenic). The FIRST thing that most emergency plans address is the maintenance of public order.

[pottyprof]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071121/wl_uk...ealthflubritain

Hmmmmm, those workers seem to work on a lot of farms (unless it is our migratory birds that have H5N1)

I'm also having trouble with the figure of dead folk from the post above. They quote 700,000 as the death toll. W.H.O.'s provisional 'kill rate was 1.5 to 3% of the population (900,000 to 1,800,000) but the kill rate at the moment is much ,much higher (90% of those infected in Indonesia) so, if and when it falls during the pandemic, it may run at 15 to 30% of the population (9 million to 18 million) and most of these over the first 3 months of pandemic. I feel that the 'schools' that are to be used as morgues are too small even for the 3% figure to be realistic, never mind dealing with the bodies once collected...... bring out yer dead!

If we look back to the Black Death as a model for 'mega death' we see how much worse todays population levels make the logistic of things. The 'plague pits' would have to be enormous or we would run the risk of further illnesses arising from the number of decaying corpses (in their bin liners) on the streets.

This will not be a nice time to live through (but I'd rather live through it than tick option 'B'.....)

There is also an equal chance that, should this thing mutate, it may be as harmless as the common cold.. The truth is we just don't know..

[Hiya]

There is also an equal chance that, should this thing mutate, it may be as harmless as the common cold.. The truth is we just don't know..

Wise words.

GW loves to talk about body counts for a virus that hasn't evolved yet...

[Gray-Wolf]

Wise words.

GW loves to talk about body counts for a virus that hasn't evolved yet...

Yeah Hiya, good plan, lets just be blissfully ignorant of any threat until it smacks us in the face. I'm so glad the UK (plans to buy in flu jabs for whole population to avert pandemic.....with your taxes) don't share your lackadaisical views.

As in anything 98% thought ,2% action. If we don't do the thinking then we'll not be in a position to respond.

Whether H5N1 or another strain of Influenza we (the world) are 10 years overdue (taken as an average) for a global flu pandemic. Should we really stay ignorant of this fact and only start to respond once folk start dropping or, in this age of mass transit, would it be more prudent to invest in the mechanisms both to spot and deal with outbreaks alongside efforts to protect the global population should the virus become pandemic?

In so far as body counts have you any idea of the daily death tolls from the run of the mill influenza (remembering that we killed 90% of north and south American aboriginals with our illnesses) amasses each day (or do they not count when little brown babies?). On average 12,000 U.K. citizens die each year of flu and the complications it causes or is that just another body count?

So Hiya, how would you, in your little world, deal with such threats especially if you are not to mention mortality rates in your planning?

[Bobby]

There is also an equal chance that, should this thing mutate, it may be as harmless as the common cold.. The truth is we just don't know..

Odds of that are very very slim. Much of the damage from new flu viruses is that they are alien to the human immune system and we can't deal with them like normal flu viruses. All flu pandemics over the decades have been highly deadly. This one has all the hallmarks of being as bad as anything.

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

If one were to try and stand back from the 'human' outlook on all the different global 'issues', if one was able to view these things from a dispassionate 'geological time' stand-point, then frankly all this stuff is just a brief irrelevance. I believe we are about half way through the earth's lifecycle of approx eight billion years (as estimated by the best human brains of course !), and I think humans as a relevant species in terms of impact have been around for 50-75,000 years. In this context here are a few thoughts:

1. Global warming - whether it happens catastrophically as some would believe, or won't have much affect as others state, in terms of impacts it is quite likely to have been played out in at most 2000 years - a blink of a geological eye !

2. Global catastrophes - whether it's a pandemic next year, or any one of comet collision/super-volcano/basaltic flow/ice age any time in the next 100,000 years (and in terms of likelihood it is almost guaranteed that one or more of these will occur in that time span), then the human species will quite probably face either virtual or total extinction.

From a 'species' perspective humans have barely existed yet - compared to the dinosaurs for example who were a dominant species for 160 million years we are a complete irrelevance, truly an historical blink of an eye !

So from a proper 'earth' based historical perspective any 'human' disaster i.e. pandemic/global warming will be here today gone tomorrow, with it's consequences over and done with almost as quickly, and in another 100,000 years, which is again a very small space of time in truth, there's every chance the earth will be very very different place.

So in other words, stop worrying, because whatever we do/don't do is irrelevant in the wider earth context (or to put it another way when the next comet collision/super-volcano/basaltic flow/ice age does occur (and it will !) it will completely dwarf anything which humans have been able to do in terms of affecting the global environment).

[Gray-Wolf]

Agreed Pennine ten foot, no point in worrying about "inescapable" calamities but what of the ones that you can survive if you do some basic planning? Seems a shame to die of ignorance now doesn't it? Maybe it's just Darwinian natural selection and the 'clever dicks' will be doomed to extinction for their wish not to bother (ant and the /grasshopper???)

My old Nan was keen to remind us it was pointless to worry over that you can't change..........but what of that you can??

As an addition to the thread title we could add " and leave the species fitter" if ,in the first world, we shed a goodly proportion of the 'don't care,won't care' merchants!

[jethro]

Agreed Pennine ten foot, no point in worrying about "inescapable" calamities but what of the ones that you can survive if you do some basic planning? Seems a shame to die of ignorance now doesn't it? Maybe it's just Darwinian natural selection and the 'clever dicks' will be doomed to extinction for their wish not to bother (ant and the /grasshopper???)

My old Nan was keen to remind us it was pointless to worry over that you can't change..........but what of that you can??

As an addition to the thread title we could add " and leave the species fitter" if ,in the first world, we shed a goodly proportion of the 'don't care,won't care' merchants!

Our not too distant history has a fairly major incident with a similar thought pattern, irradicate those who do not share our views/thoughts/ideals. I find your comments along these lines to be thoroughly distasteful, their repeated use is painting you in a very poor light in my eyes. Did your old Nan also tell you, you are not always right, others do have views and opinions, equally valid to your own, that your desires/thoughts/actions do not make you a superior human being with a greater right to life than others?

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

Agreed Pennine ten foot, no point in worrying about "inescapable" calamities but what of the ones that you can survive if you do some basic planning? Seems a shame to die of ignorance now doesn't it? Maybe it's just Darwinian natural selection and the 'clever dicks' will be doomed to extinction for their wish not to bother (ant and the /grasshopper???)

My old Nan was keen to remind us it was pointless to worry over that you can't change..........but what of that you can??

As an addition to the thread title we could add " and leave the species fitter" if ,in the first world, we shed a goodly proportion of the 'don't care,won't care' merchants!

That is my point though. I'm not saying that as humans humans shouldn't try and do what they can to help themselves, that's only natural - as for all species one major instinct is that of survival. What I am really answering is all those cries about what we are doing to 'the' earth, destroying 'the' environment, spoiling 'the' planet. From a genuine global earth perspective anything humans do/damage/destroy/improve is a virtual irrelevance in the great scheme of things and the only real effect they are having is on themselves - and from that position, depending on your point of view of course, the idea of 'get what you deserve' very much comes into play.

[Gray-Wolf]

Our not too distant history has a fairly major incident with a similar thought pattern, eradicate those who do not share our views/thoughts/ideals. I find your comments along these lines to be thoroughly distasteful, their repeated use is painting you in a very poor light in my eyes. Did your old Nan also tell you, you are not always right, others do have views and opinions, equally valid to your own, that your desires/thoughts/actions do not make you a superior human being with a greater right to life than others?

Oh Jethro, lighten up me girlie! This is an open forum for entertainment and open exchange of views and ideas not a forum for abuse and open criticism.

70 thousand years or so ago, during the aftermath of volcanic cataclysm, we as a species 'abandoned' the species norm of 'Alpha male/female' domination. Maybe our ancestors were pigged off at them for failing to protect the clans/tribes. Maybe it was the first time the 'non-alpha's' clubbed together and exerted their power over a single bully but whatever happened I for one am glad we abandoned the 'social norm' for a more equitable form of society. Would you also be decrying the death (and possible murder of) this way of being in the same way?

Though not wishing to stray to far into eugenics do you honestly feel that evolution (and the selection of those best adapted to their current environment) does not include mental fitness/ wish to survive?

I heard a report on Radio 4 of some 'survival experiments' on rats. They were firstly put in a very complex maze. Some rats struggled on hour after hour to find a way out ,some quickly gave up and went back to the chamber at the start. The rats were then placed into water and the same individuals split into 2 groups. One group gave up and drowned (the same group as the earlier quitters) whilst the 'survivors' continued to swim on awaiting rescue (and didn't give up!......rats can 'tread water for up t 3 days!!!)

Would this not be the same within the human population? Cases of folk in dire straights (shipwrecks/plane crashes etc.) would suggest that a positive mental attitude is essential if you wish to survive the experience and many folk who 'gave up' died whereas the others survived.

Were the world to fall foul to one or other of the expected 'glitches' (rapid climate change/pandemic) then the folk who have meditated on their actions through these times will be much better equipped (and probably prepared) to survive. Conversely the 'live for today,bugger tomorrow and what ifs' brigade would face both the mental problems of having wasted any chance of preparing (by being 'wrong' and not providing basic 'insurance' in case they are) and the physical issues of not having a clue of where and how to provide for their immediate needs.

As I have said before I, at times, find it hard to dissemble whether I'm 'scying' or 'opining' and if the former then please don't shoot the messenger!

EDIT: I imagine in such circumstances you have to earn your 'right to life' as ,sadly ,there will be no room for 'freeloaders' (if it comes down to 10 surviving and 50 dieing as opposed to 60 dying is there a choice???, nature is red in tooth and claw and though circumstances have been fair enough for us to 'soften' our approach to this it hasn't altered the fact!. Come any type of life/death threat that involves weighing the life of your family against the lives of strangers which group would you choose to protect???

Edited November 23, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[Bobby]

That is my point though. I'm not saying that as humans humans shouldn't try and do what they can to help themselves, that's only natural - as for all species one major instinct is that of survival. What I am really answering is all those cries about what we are doing to 'the' earth, destroying 'the' environment, spoiling 'the' planet. From a genuine global earth perspective anything humans do/damage/destroy/improve is a virtual irrelevance in the great scheme of things and the only real effect they are having is on themselves - and from that position, depending on your point of view of course, the idea of 'get what you deserve' very much comes into play.

Oh we certainly aren't destroying the planet. Earth has been around for billons of years - it's survived supervolcanoes, massive climate change going from searing molten heat to the whole Earth frozen in Ice, massive asteroid impacts - and it's still here doing just fine. We are just screwing ourselves over.

This is one chart I'm fond of that shows how brief and insignificant we today, industrial man, looks even compared to a very short period of 4,000 years

It shows the expected energy use of humanity, and thus probably population and economy.

This one shows population, and what an insane blip we are in at the moment. It's not sustainable. What comes up most come down.

[Hiya]

Yeah Hiya, good plan, lets just be blissfully ignorant of any threat until it smacks us in the face. I'm so glad the UK (plans to buy in flu jabs for whole population to avert pandemic.....with your taxes) don't share your lackadaisical views.

As in anything 98% thought ,2% action. If we don't do the thinking then we'll not be in a position to respond.

Whether H5N1 or another strain of Influenza we (the world) are 10 years overdue (taken as an average) for a global flu pandemic. Should we really stay ignorant of this fact and only start to respond once folk start dropping or, in this age of mass transit, would it be more prudent to invest in the mechanisms both to spot and deal with outbreaks alongside efforts to protect the global population should the virus become pandemic?

In so far as body counts have you any idea of the daily death tolls from the run of the mill influenza (remembering that we killed 90% of north and south American aboriginals with our illnesses) amasses each day (or do they not count when little brown babies?). On average 12,000 U.K. citizens die each year of flu and the complications it causes or is that just another body count?

So Hiya, how would you, in your little world, deal with such threats especially if you are not to mention mortality rates in your planning?

You don't have to take a patronising tone with me or Jethro when we disagree with you.

Humans are just another species of animal, diseases come along and thin out animal populations, we're just special cause we can plan it all out.

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

Precisely Magpie. I have often been tempted to keep posting this sort of point in all the other environmental change threads. Basically, in terms of 'Mother Earth', we, and our impacts, are an irrelevance.

[eddie]

Were the world to fall foul to one or other of the expected 'glitches' (rapid climate change/pandemic) then the folk who have meditated on their actions through these times will be much better equipped (and probably prepared) to survive. Conversely the 'live for today,bugger tomorrow and what ifs' brigade would face both the mental problems of having wasted any chance of preparing (by being 'wrong' and not providing basic 'insurance' in case they are) and the physical issues of not having a clue of where and how to provide for their immediate needs.

I am actually worried enough about a HN51 that I keep a stock of antiviral drugs and antibiotics at home. They might or might not save my family in the event of a pandemic but at least I would have tried and they actually cost much less than my car insurance does for a year.

Having said that, I don't think you can really prepare for anything much worse than a flu pandemic. In the event of anything worse, such as a supervolcano or meteorite impact, then it's going to come down to luck and perhaps how fit you are.