20th Century History

[Sunstone]

All right then. Should we add the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson to the list, then?
Silent Spring launched the modern environmental movement.

I'm all for that. I suspect that if humans survive as a species, a lot of it will be due to the environmental movement. Of course, if we don't survive, then the importance of the environmental movement will be greatly dimminished. But if we don't survive, so will the importance of all those kings and battles that we're so fond of littering our history texts with.

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

Everybody on the environmental bandwagon talks about the continual survival of the species. Last time I looked into it, and admittadly it has been a bit, there were like 6 billion people on the planet. 100,000 years ago the first modern humans were coming out of the caves and now we have 6 freaking billion. Think about that. If you begin counting at age 12, you can't count to a billion before you die. And we have 6 billion homo sapiens walking around on this marble.

Humans ain't going anywhere any time soon. Too smart, too adaptable. We inhabit every inhabitable part of this globe.

And for the biggest news story of last century, biggest single event has to be Franz Ferdinand's assassination. No doubt about it. With the exception of environmentalism, literally every other event mentioned was triggered by Ferdinand's assassination. Even the Berlin wall coming down. Without the war, that wall never goes up in the first place.

Oh, the South African stuff probably was not affected by WWII, other than that, all the others mentioned came out of the war to end all wars. . . wait a minute, I think we may have had one or two since then. Ah well, revisionist history.

B.

 

[Sunstone]

The fact we have over 6 billion people on the planet might be a factor leading to our extinction. It's possible that's simply too many people to feed, clothe and shelter properly, let alone give them all a Western standard of living. I've read we are, at the current world population level, already outstripping the sustainable resources of the earth.

 

[Valjean]

Sunstone makes a good point, MSWG. An exploding population is does not guarantee the continuing success of a population, in fact, it frequently precedes a population collapse.

The fact is, our numbers far exceed the carrying capacity of the planet. We are not only using up resources faster than they can be renewed, but we are fouling our nest with our wastes -- degrading the biological, geological, chemical and meteorological systems that sustain us.

 

[Aqualung]

And for the biggest news story of last century, biggest single event has to be Franz Ferdinand's assassination. No doubt about it. With the exception of environmentalism, literally every other event mentioned was triggered by Ferdinand's assassination. Even the Berlin wall coming down. Without the war, that wall never goes up in the first place.

No, the berlin wall coming down was triggered by the sinking of the Lusitania. If that hadn't been sunk, WWI would just have been another european war, like they were always getting into. We wouldn't have entered the war, there would have been no Treaty of Versailles, there would have been to retaliatory measures by Germany to start WWII....

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Why was Franz Ferdinand killed.
The cause goes further back.

Terry_______________________
Blessed are the merciful, mercy shall be shown unto them.

 

[Aqualung]

Why was Franz Ferdinand killed.
The cause goes further back.

Terry_______________________
Blessed are the merciful, mercy shall be shown unto them.

Yes, but out of the 20th century.