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Tags: Casual, Commended, Democratic, Eco-Friendly, Egalitarian, Enormous, Featured, Issues Player, Map, Multi-Species, Offsite Chat, Pacifist, and 3 others.Regional Government, Social, and World Assembly.
Regional Power: Extremely High
Forest contains 292 nations, the 130th most in the world.
Today's World Census Report
The Largest Information Technology Sector in Forest
World Census staff compiled lists over Smart Phone related traffic accidents to determine which nations have the largest Information Technology industries.
As a region, Forest is ranked 1,653rd in the world for Largest Information Technology Sector.
 | Nation | WA Category | Motto | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  The Concordant Stratum of The Cypher Nine | Democratic Socialists | “Each of us is a key” | |
| 2. |  The Eco-Totalitarian Cyberocracy of Ecologist Hegemony | Psychotic Dictatorship | “Only the Part·e can save Nation States from extinction” | |
| 3. |  The Serene Highland Bluffs of Dest Oritio | Scandinavian Liberal Paradise | “Dulcia cras, dulcia heri, sed numquam dulcia hodie” | |
| 4. |  The Colony of Chilledsville | Authoritarian Democracy | “Smile! It's not that bad!” | |
| 5. |  The World Machine of Shwe Tu Colony | Left-wing Utopia | “identify every fandom in my flag” | |
| 6. |  The Empire of Crinadia | Benevolent Dictatorship | “Strength Through Civil Freedom” | |
| 7. |  The Workers-Ecological State of Psuke | Liberal Democratic Socialists | “Towards virtue, for the liberation of the soul” | |
| 8. |  The Socialist Republic of Krusavich | Autocratic Socialists | “Smell the flowers and keep your powder dry” | |
| 9. |  The Intensive Care Unit of Candlewhisper Archive | Anarchy | “AI See You” | |
| 10. |  The Machine of Pookyvania | Civil Rights Lovefest | “k'din din din din Aååöäö äö åå öä öäö zhhhhhhhhhhh” |
1234. . .2930»
Regional Happenings
- : Pyhakko ceased to exist.
- :
The Suspicious Minds of The Realizer added a dispatch.
- : Cariboo ceased to exist.
- : Nebolshiye khizhiny ceased to exist.
- : My new air fryer ceased to exist.
- :
The Federal Republic of Beruvik arrived from Albastru.
- :
The Oceanic Union of Whale Landia arrived from Osiris.
- : The coalition of witches and wizards ceased to exist.
- : Serpelun ceased to exist.
- : Disharmonia ceased to exist.
Forest Regional Message Board
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I escaped this forest finally
Dest Oritio, The Realizer, and Bextoria
Scandalous. Preposterous. Get back here, you have more tree hugging to do!
I am somewhat tempted now to ask one of the big questions for our dear Forest, which would definitely bring about a return of the huge growth RMB essays that we so know and love in this region.
Even though my NS mind has mostly been in Got Issues? at the moment. Like if my current drafts have any chance, what I should write about next, and why I just don't seem to get much from the issue writing discord even though by all rational logic it should be great for me.
Jutsa, Safiloa, The Realizer, Bextoria, and 2 othersMajalangka, and Glossa
I would like to write an Issue based on the Plant-Based Treaty. I think it’s really unfair that on every agricultural-linked issue, if you choose the vegetarian option you decrease Agriculture.
I would like to remain plant-based AND become an Agrarian society.
Jutsa, The Realizer, Majalangka, and Glossa
Let me insert myself into this discussion. I think it is not a good thing. We should be striving for quality of life not quantity. The rapid growth is also mostly in areas that aren't as "developed". In 1970 Europe had about twice the population of Africa. Now Africa has twice the population of Europe.
It is not up to me (thankfully) to decide who should or should not have kids but apart from economical growth and economies of scale population growth (at this scale) isn't good for sustainability!! At least not with how we approach things!
We're a species driving ourselves extinct while chasing individual social status. A figment of human collective imagination. If our species has any marginal intellect at all?
We would have become a science based species back when our ancestors were studying the universe through crappy lenses.
Instead our species is based on the hunt for individual success in a circular society accomplishing nothing besides feeding its own needs and desires. It's been over 300,000 years and we're still playing king of the hill, we're still failing to teach our species to read, we're still fighting over imagined wealth when we're a single marginally intelligent species on a rock were devouring while driving ourselves extinct in a measurable fashion.
Great to be stuck existing with you guys. I actually still love humanity as much as I'm disgusted and embarrassed and horrified by our atrocities to ourselves. Starving our children with locked dumpsters behind markets so we can control food prices. Millions in America and tens or hundreds of millions of starving people in general out of the billions.
Controlling markets is more important than feeding our brothers and sisters or connecting our species and learning to think and decide as a collective.
Something bugs do with ease and we can't get close to. Bugs are better than us in evolution aspects. Good thing we're intelligent enough to try evolving and we actively choose not to.
The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream—
A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of Acadie
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face should be
So long from home and Acadie.
Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?
The while the river at our feet—
A drowsy inland meadow stream—
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running gold, and in the gleam
We freed our birch upon the stream.
There down along the elms at dusk
We lifted dripping blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.
And that we took into our hands
Spirit of life or subtler thing—
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secret of some wonder-thing.
Then all your face grew light, and seemed
To hold the shadow of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe, and years had done
Their wheeling underneath the sun.
So all desire and all regret,
And fear and memory, were naught;
One to remember or forget
The keen delight our hands had caught;
Morrow and yesterday were naught.
The night has fallen, and the tide....
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home.
- Bliss Carman
The long anticipated results of third annual Forest poetry contest are out! Enormous congratulations to 
Bextoria and 
The Cypher Nine for sweeping the contest together, the former winning Haiku, Change, and Water and the latter winning Freeverse Photo, The Living World, and Water, with additional congratulations to Bextoria for receiving the highest score of the entire contest with The Self I Never Was in the Change category. Prizes will be awarded momentarily.
Thank you to 
Garbelia, 
Marxist Land of Peoples, 
Lawid, 
The Democratic Disney States, 
Kavagrad, and 
The Ankhalic Vaspriot for being our judges this year. Additional thanks are due to The Realizer for judging poems submitted by judges in their place.
I would also like to thank everyone who participated in any aspect of the contest this year, whether writing, judging, or reading the poetry, for keeping this remarkable Forestian tradition going. When the world does its best to crack us open, we often harden ourselves to it, but a good poem has a slow and coercive power; it seeps into you, taking you bit by bit until it has every last bit of you by smoothing your edges. We all go in and out with the tide, but one can always send a message in a bottle.
Forest Poetry Fantasia
.
|
These are all the submissions we've received. All submissions are displayed exactly how they were sent through the, with the exception of titles being bolded when present.
Haiku
Shadow on fair skin
Respite for veiled rosy stings
from forced grins and cheese
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 16.75
Eyes lift to the sky
ancient light from dying stars
ghosts of other times
Written by Bextoria
Score = 23.00
I let you walk free
yet your ghost fills every room
why won't you leave me?
Written by Bextoria
Score = 20.25
All things seen, heard, touched
Nothing better, nor worse than
Our natural world
Written by Muspelgard
Score = 19.75
Writing a haiku
is easy, just stop on the
seventeenth syllab
Written by 7 robots in a trenchcoat
Score = 16.50
Realize made me write
some poems but can't see what
I can with real eyes
Written by Azure Mines
Score = 16.50
Bextoria is the winner of the Haiku section!
Freeverse Photo
Hello, I’ll be your psychiatrist today. Please make sure you’ve told me how you’ll pay. What seems to be the problem? Let's make it go away.
I’m struggling to be who I want to be. I have all this ambition and can’t make it reality. I lie in bed and wish I could get up, my guilt and shame make me want to throw up. I’ve done my research and I’m open to change, this medication could help, is that a thing you arrange?
This medications controlled, are you sure you need it? Lets make sure and try a different treatment. Take this other medication that's easy to acquire and I’ll see you in a month to ensure your moods higher. Welcome back, how are things? Did the medicine I sent you give you wings?
As I suspected, it didn’t really work. Can we please try what I suggested, I’m not trying to be a jerk.
Your symptoms still sound like depression to me, this newest drug I’ve found should help with your plea. I’ll see you in a month to see how its going, I’m hopeful about this one lets see you glowing.
Ma’am its been several months and I’ve made no improvement. I can’t keep doing this if I’m not experiencing movement.
The truth is that medicine won’t really fix anything for you, I’m trying to get you on something to just get us through. When I need to organize, I make a list. Is that something you’ve tried? Do you get the gist? I’ll see you in a month, just try to persist.
At this point its been half a year, we’ve been doing this dance and yet I’m still here. I’m tired of waiting, I’m tired of playing this game with you its grating. I’m done doing the dance, my mask is off, do you not understand the damage this has caused? This isn’t some simple issue with organization, I cannot manage my life in the fashion of my choosing. I cannot do anything without anxiety pushing me through, please stop telling me that you know what to do. Please stop pretending that you know me at all. 10 minutes a month is not enough for that so f*ck off. If you’re scared I’m drug seeking then find another profession, do you think I am here for any other reason? How dumb is it that it would be easier for me to get what I need from someone random down on the street? And whats worse is the time that you steal, you bait me each month so I pay for your meals. This condition may be a joke to you because you’ve spent too many hours on tikok reels but I’m suffering, and I’m tired and I just want to be seen. I’m not waiting another goddamn month to be me.
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 24.50
Judge note: we had to censor a word in order to post the dispatch. This was not in the original.
What if home was my position
Shifting it was all but a simple matter
Space was plentiful and temporary
Life may be more difficult at first
Secondary would be my comfort
Freedom instead would be my boon
Gods I wish I could rest on a dilapidated roof
Collapsed body unbiasedly accepting showers
Tiles beneath me beaming with pride
Together they were chosen as a place of rest
Invisible to all but the most astute passersby
Dead they are to the idea of home being here
There is no respite on decaying canopy
Trees of expelled fiber disagree
Contentment on them means peace
Fighting for serenity is exhausting
Yes, this is what home should really be
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 21.25
The Cypher Nine is the winner of the Freeverse Photo section!
The Living World
The television is left on while I wait
A mother-in-law's prank or perhaps just her addiction
Breaking news doesn't seem all that breaking anymore
War
Another War
More War
Broken laws, and unjustifiable acts of cruelty
The remote is close and yet I stay still
Easier to drown it out with the comfort of the smaller television in my hand
Even neutral information feels like pleasure compared to the truth of today
New pictures from outside the atmosphere rocket through my disillusionment
My OLED screen finally showing any real value
Man, the earth really is incredibly beautiful isn't it?
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 22.75
Trees Bees Knees
Oh the sun shines today
The Bees are making honey
The Trees have falling colors
My Knees are ready to hike
This is the perfect weather
The Sky is blue
and there are no clouds in sight
My Friends set up a picnic
The Bees came and say Hello
The Tree gave us shade
And my Knees wants to keep hiking
I'm glad it's a weekend
No School
Life is free
Explore the World
See what Bees by Trees you can travel with your Knees
The colors are bight
Everyone is in a good mood
Going shopping like in the old days
Invite everyone you know
Go on Mary go arounds
Go to a park and eat a sandwich
Explore the world
Beath in the life you got
And just relax
No Screens
Just fun
Say hi to Shree the bee
then that tree
with your knees walking
and enjoy life
Written by Truzipa
Score = 20.25
The phospholipid bilayer
Is in the cell a major player
The exterior is made up of hydrophilic heads
The carbs on the outside are found in breads
A hydrophobic interior where tails meet
Large polar molecules suffer defeat
Because they are polar, they are repelled by the interior
In this respect, nonpolar molecules are superior
Small molecules are able to
Use passive diffusion to pass through
Large molecules can’t follow this route
But transport proteins are interspersed throughout
Some of these proteins require ATP
But other proteins are totally free!
Cholesterol molecules are embedded all over
They keep the membrane fluid when the body is colder
They’re even useful when the temperature is sweltering
Making the membrane less fluid to prevent melting
The phospholipid bilayer is a membrane
That is not at all mundane
A wonder of biology this bilayer is
Pay attention, this will all be on the quiz
Written by Tripod II
Score = 21.75
The Pigs
They eat what they see
They eat what they find
They eat what they eat
They eat themselves
They eat their own hunger
They eat the hunger of others
They eat the others
They leave nothing
Nothing for me
Nothing for you
Nothing for themselves
Nothing for anyone
They are filthy
They are petty
They are greedy
And they are not the pigs
Written by Bextoria
Score = 22.50
obsessed with the stars above
we forgot the beauty here
innocence of human love
all together on a sphere
seemingly trapped, we are free
only earth has air we breathe
water we drink from the sea
bread to cook and eat with ease
the living world, only get one
ev’rything and ev’ryone
our community tight-knit
so lets not f*cking ruin it.
Written by Muspelgard
Score = 22.00
Judge note: we had to censor a word in order to post the dispatch. This was not in the original.
The Cypher Nine is the winner of the Living World section!
Change
Reeds and Leaflets
If we were to dig beneath this
rut, where furrowed brows
mask wrinkles as old as time
where bones grow up to
be fossils only to discover
grit and spirit deep within
and perhaps where seeds
lay plotting to make
some future breakthrough
is it imaginable we could kiss
the surface, lay down our plows
and nurture these rows of rhyme
without boggy fields of view
to quake and hover
like the gravesites of our kin
or from these pressed reeds
and leaflets, we break
the stems of what we knew
Written by Kawastyselir
Score = 19.00
Ev’ning falls o’er Forest streams
While the dying fire gleams
A man walks calmly through the leaves.
Overhead the branches swing
While the psithurism sings
And far away the lightning reaves.
The fireflies away entrance
From balustrades of dreams forchanced
The man enchanted in the leaves.
Under foot the roots arrange
While the often burdens change
And far away the raindrop grieves.
The sky succumbs to eigengrau
And sundered light is rent from now
The man enforces through the leaves.
Zephyrs cruise in streaming awe
Away from azure’s iris saw
And far away the sky reprieves.
The sudden flashing quickly seems
To strike the scintillating streams
And left there flitting in the leaves
Is dust of gold and light and dreams
Suspended ‘loft in aftergleam
And far away the thunder cleaves.
The man picks up the pace to free
His face from paralyzing glee
And came to stark promontory
Where he saw the darkling Eye.
Ev’ry leaf from high Uranian,
Ensconced in subtle subterranean
Rose to meet the wheel Varanian
Entreated by the air to fly
And for a second cease to die.
Then descend the seraphim
With raindrops ‘round to serif them
And riven breeze to sheriff him
And shuttle motes of dust on by.
There afar the wheeling gray
Funnels down into the fray
Sun-gilt threads in turning day
And only now the man does scry
The twisting there now svelte and spry.
He enters into gentle canter
As the wind begins to banter;
The rain falls quicker, ever slanter
Where the ground begins to rift.
Trees are hewn, and ground is scoured
By little shreds imbued with power
Of wind two hundred miles per hour.
A swaying boulder starts to drift;
It drags along, then runs, then lifts.
The man is running overzealous
And the storm is growing kvellous
Driving funnels, ever jealous
Of steady dreams clear and theorized
Kept by men with ardent joys
Who throw great things around like toys
Better than the tempest’s ploys
Who can outrun with sparks surrealized
The things that rend and never realize.
Written by Azure Mines
Score = 25.25
Sky
I do comprehend the sky
How sometimes it used to be so bright and clear
Becoming something that everyone aspires to
Turning into somewhere that everyone wishes to get to
Ideas so soft and white, something to set your gaze to
And how it can just change with the wind
Those same people that said they cared about you at some point
How they took cover the moment you turned dark
Maybe no one will ever be able to love you fully
You always go from one side to the other without explanation
Those same people that were alongside you
Hid the moment you started to cry
Your tears falling down from your heavy thoughts
Hurting those you still care about
And after venting yourself you go back to being cheery
You never give a reason for being this way
Maybe you don't know yourself, and that's why you don't say a thing
They were only with you when you were light to them
And left you in the dark nights
And they'll keep on doing it, but, you'll still keep trying in getting out some light
I don't think anyone gets you, sky
That's why everyone spends a lifetime trying to stay away from you
But I do comprehend the sky
I close my eyes every night
Hoping to wake up there.
Written by LontraNutria
Score = 23.75
The Self I Never Was
What if I had never heard the blues?
That slow ache climbing up the brass,
the jazz that spills like midnight wine
through smoke and time and broken glass.
What if I had never tasted wine?
That quiet fire on the tongue,
the way a glass can hold a world
of everything left still unsung.
What if I had never learned to see
the things that hide in plain daylight —
the weight of words, the shape of truth,
the difference between wrong and right?
What if I had never known her?
What silence would have filled that space,
what hollow version of myself
would wear the edges of my face?
I cannot be another man.
I've tried — the thought won't even form.
For I am every song I've loved,
every wine, every beautiful storm.
The self I never was is gone —
he starved before he got to live.
I am the one who stayed to learn
just how much life had left to give.
Written by Bextoria
Score = 28.25
Grasping at the past
Knowing it won't last
Same sheets on the bed for a year
One step at a time
Their common line
Missing the signs of my tears
Staging my leave
Letting them grieve
Still not a solace for drear
Sigh in the morn
Muscles do warn
Screaming to get into gear
This time you listen
Grazed by the frisson
Cold feet, upbeat, blue sphere
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 23.25
once, when you were younger, you had traveled here,
standing years ago where thousands daily stood.
whether childlike wonder led you to revere
it or real merit, you don't know; just "was good".
that entry would be false if written now,
the high street's shops closed and boarded over.
such great decline just makes you wonder how
time took this steel and made it rust and clover.
mismanagement, perhaps? you heard a flood
had ruined lives, so people up and left.
that was enough to foul the town's blood,
having been warped so much there was no weft.
and so you stand here as the town just dies,
collapsing under its sad, unlucky past.
it's best to simply leave it where it lies;
it seems that not all things are meant to last.
Written by New Eestiball
Score = 23.50
As I sit there
The sun beating down on
My young and malformed husk
I silently trudge forward
My legs seeming weak
Before I find a spot
Where I may rest
Slip from consciousness
I lay down on the ground
Quiet without a sound
Not a thumping to be heard
Before I surround myself with silk
And silently fall into a heavy sleep
And when I emerge
Aged to a degree
I see my two wings
Feel the sting of where
They had pierced through my back
And although they aren’t quite what I wanted
I don’t feel as if I care
For what difference does it make
If they shall they still help me if I fall?
Score = 20.75
Bextoria is the winner of the Change section and the overall contest! Congratulations!
Water
Waters of Change
The sky grew dark
and raindrops fell so gently
washing down the street
The scent of rain hung in the air
and in an instant
what was dirty became clean
It felt like the day you left
in an instant
what was beautiful was gone
But every rain must pass
no matter how heavy it falls
no matter how cold it feels
Just like your leaving
no matter how heavy I feel it
no matter how cold it is
Written by Bextoria
Score = 20.25
The Sea Calls Me
I have seen the shore too long.
I know its stones, its tired sand,
the same horizon, fixed and pale,
drawn by a too familiar hand.
I want to go — I want to leave
the margin and the land behind,
to push the raft against the wave
and lose whatever I may find.
Let the deep blue swallow me,
let the salt burn what I know,
let the currents have no name,
let the winds decide where I go.
Out there, where no one waits for me,
where strange creatures rise and dive —
half friendly and half terrifying —
I think I'd feel most alive.
For every time I face the sea
I see how small I've always been:
a man, a raft, a restless wish
to drown in all I've never seen.
And still the ocean pulls me in
with that old, quiet, ruthless call —
come, leave your shore, forget your name,
I am the sea — I hold it all.
Written by Bextoria
Score = 22.75
Dear Rain,
Being the flag bearer of your mantras, this letter serves, of which you should be duly aware from prior meetings and discussions, as fulfillment of my contract to you therein.
You have given me, my family, and this great ball upon which we stand, where all manner of creatures scurry in search of stimulus, and thus perform a doomed dance in escaping the hanged man, a safe path forward into the city of Calm.
Our belongings may be coated with what some
may find, due to their polished lack of imagination, a heavy burden and ruining of their plans. Thankfully your tutelage, which was admittedly at one time received similarly to those we now tarnish, has given us the deed to the property of which we spoke of in private.
Living here now, free from the burning burdens of which were stoked by mistakes both mine and theirs, I have come to know you not as friend and not as foe but as council, in such times of course where I have learned, that my business should not be in the creation of plans.
Indeed, let this letter serve for any reader, not just to its original recipient of whom I hold in the most esteem, as a monument to a new way of living, free from all manner of concerns, that which cannot hold weight both literally and figuratively in the tapestry of the universe.
Sincerely,
Your faithful devotee
Written by The Cypher Nine
Score = 22.75
Lifeguard
Watch people and ripples cool in the pool
Walk eleven steps, turn, eleven more
See someone running, we enforce pool rules
Explain while sweat drips out of ev’ry pore
Out of doors yet locked in a cage of heat
Sun on salty skin, your brow, melting bones
Feet on hot concrete like searing of meat
Body is a furnace of firestones
The current is the present, future, past
Begging for the riptide, pulls me under
Sun retreats, suddenly it’s overcast
Blow the whistle, forecast is of thunder
Jumping in, soothing skin, relaxation
Freeing thing, oh, water, where have you been?
Written by Muspelgard
Score = 21.75
Bextoria and The Cypher Nine are the joint winners of the Water section!
Thank you all for your participation!
Update: please bear with me on the prizes. Forest Events was broke and needs to sell something real quick to get the transfer bank. So far, Bextoria has been gifted the promised S3 Daarwyrth, bringing the total value of cards given out by the Forest Card Fund to 1,853.5.
Update 2: Prizes distributed, missing poem attributions corrected. Apologies for the wait on this!
Got an e-mail yesterday that I was going to CTE, so I have to ramble on the RMB to appease the apocalyptic force threatening the lives of Canaltians everywhere.
I can partially agree with this, in that it's not necessarily a good thing, but I don't think it's a bad thing either. The number of people and their quality of life are related factors, but I'd argue that comes down to how societies are designed. I don't know how you'd get an exact ideal number for any given society, but if you have too few people to sustain the infrastructure a society is built on, or too many people for it to accommodate, your average quality of life drops.
Easier said than done, but we can adjust societal structures to accommodate different amounts of people; I truly believe that you could, in theory, have half or double the current population, with our current resources and technological level, and maintain our current quality of life, even if half would be multitudes easier than double. A lot of that would require radical changes in how society is organized, and would require people to be acclimated to these changes. The only metric I care about here is happiness; if person A has a bajillion FutureBucks (patent pending) and person B has none, but they both live equally healthy and fulfilling lives, they have the same quality of life. Metrics only matter insofar as they correlate with happiness.
If you design a machine to do something, the quantity or size of these machines doesn't change how good or bad the output is, it just determines the amount of output. If this output is bad, it'd be good to have fewer machines, but it'd be even better for the machine to do something good. Our issue isn't that there's too many people, and thus society is too big, it's that our society creates bad outcomes. The primary global economic system relies on exponential growth, so we use as many natural resources as we can because that's what the system requires. Our social structures are hierarchical, so we act like a select few are more deserving than everyone else. These systems will create the same quality of atrocity regardless of their size, they just make more of them as they grow. We have enough resources to provide all (human and otherwise) a good life indefinitely, but that's not what our societies are built to do.
As a wise RMB poster (RMBer?) once said,
Emphasis on the latter half of that statement. Population growth is bad for sustainability because of how we approach things; we're just making the Unsustainability Machine bigger. But there is no magic threshold that stops it from being an Unsustainability Machine. If we had a tenth of the population we do now, we'd still be unsustainable, it'd just take a bit longer to reach a breaking point. Economy of exponential growth, and all that.
I've just realised something. If I'm to keep to my national identity of being an entity which exists to pollute the world and spread human suffering, I'm going to have a hard time adopting enough resolutions to maintain voting rights.
Maybe I should have made another nation my WA
Dest Oritio, Jutsa, and Glossa
One thing important to note about the population growth in underdeveloped nations and sustainability is that the growth in those societies is not as harmful to the environment as it seems to be. In fact, developed countries are still the most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, since one single american pollutes as much as 230 congolese people.
Also, developed countries companies constantly destroy the environment in the third world. A few years ago, a norwegian company, Norsk Hydro, has massively contaminated the Para River basin in Brazil and has been punished with a fine, one that doesn't put them out of the market or severely reduce their operational capacity, therefore not a fine that effectively deters such actions.
I dont mean to imply the overcrowding in underdeveloped countries is not concerning to the environment, but rather that the actual root cause for environmental collapse is the predatory capitalism installed in these countries managed by the first world.
I am saying this because eco-fascism will likely be the future ideology. Ecological disaster will probably become impossible to ignore and fascism is the ideology that emerges in capitalist societies to prevent radical change.
I'm not going to say that you're incorrect, because this ratio seems about right from what I've read, but I think this type of breakdown obfuscates things a bit. If Clothing Inc. was founded in the U.S., but produce all of their products in Malaysia, how do we attribute carbon emissions? The conversation then turns into a million tangents along the lines of "it's an American company using x amount of power, but Malaysia could build more solar farms" and you have to find somewhere to split the difference. In my opinion, it's more correct to attribute the emissions to America than Malaysia, but both are incorrect. The emissions should be attributed to Clothing Inc. It shouldn't be Americans or Malaysians responsible for reducing emissions, it should be Clothing Inc. The only reason where they are located matters is for what government is responsible for making and enforcing rules for them to follow.
I'd argue that the average person living in a country directly contributes a negligible amount of emissions, and that we shouldn't hold individuals responsible for minimizing their indirect contributions. The average person isn't going to spend their time calculating Clothing Inc. and Clothing Ltd.'s carbon emissions, they're just going to buy clothes. The only way someone can ensure their power comes from renewable sources is to build their own power plant. My daily commute is ~20 minutes by car, just under 3 hours by transit, and impossible by bike if I want to arrive within a day and not get run over, so until I find a place closer to my work, I'm driving. If you want an individual to produce less emissions, you target the indirect sources, and you make the infrastructure around them better.
There is a balance here, where companies will do whatever they can get away with, and that is very rarely the fault of one country. The Bhopal Disaster saw over half a million people injured due to a refinery leaking toxic gas, and the remnants of the refinery sat for 40 years, continuing to poison the land around it. It happened because UCIL, the Indian division of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), didn't want to follow the most basic safety protocols. It happened in India, and not one of the UCC's American plants, is because the Indian government didn't make the UCC follow safety protocols.
If India had harsher enforced regulations, the Bhopal Disaster wouldn't have happened, because it would be the Cairo Disaster, or the Loikaw Disaster, or the Windhoek Disaster. If the U.S. forced the UCC to follow harsher regulations, the plant would have been operated by a Canadian or German company. If every country in the world banded together to enforce harsher regulations, they'd also have to all back each other's legitimacy, or else someone would just get couped, and the new government would be suspiciously amenable to deregulating the chemical industry.
Legitimately, I think the best solution is to put people in jail. If the president of the UCC knew that they would get extradited and tried in India if something happened, maybe there'd be a better safety culture, but even then, both the U.S. and Indian governments would need to cooperate. This would have to be a global standard, not just a one-off arrangement.
Hi everyone, how is everyone doing? It’s great to be back—and coming back to win awards on top of that is incredibly gratifying. Thanks a lot!
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