Saturday 20th of April 2024
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the moire of humanity

fishing in antsiranana

picture by Gus (c 1960s). Diego Suarez now known as Antsiranana

Germany's new radar satellite, TanDEM-X, has returned its first images.

The spacecraft was launched from Kazakhstan on Monday on a mission to make the most precise 3D map of the Earth's surface.

The pictures demonstrate the platform is in excellent health and ready to team up with the TerraSAR-X satellite launched in 2007.

Together, the pair will trace the variation in height across the globe to a precision of better than two metres.

 

antsiranana-x

Image from the 3D German radar. Choppy Indian Ocean waters (yellow) contrast with the calm Baie de Diego (blue). I have marked in a red dot where the picture at top was taken.

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The image above from the German satellite brought tears to my eyes... Why show this place, first, using this new technology? Back in the 1960s, I spent a few glorious days in Antsiranana (then known as Diego Suarez — or Diego as some of the locals called it)... There was this extraordinary bright midday light, pure white sands, the afternoon hot sea breeze more like a strong blow and numerous vultures roaming the sky in saturated sunset colours — then fighting rats for carrion at night. And the people were great people. I kept contact with some people for quite a while but, then, as often happens people die, move and letters got returned.

All this being part of a small moire of humanity... including my own remembering of a speck in time when things were not as complicated, while events were moving with the slow and generous promises of the past... Fishing was fishing — not overfishing... enough for the local trade daily. 

Then we move on and do too much...

of population and growth...

As of 26 June 2010, the human population of the world is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6,829,600,000.[1] In 2009, the United Nations estimated the Earth's human population to be 6,800,000,000.[2] The world population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death around 1400.[3]

The fastest rates of world population growth (increases above 1.8% per year) were seen briefly during the 1950s then for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s (see graph). The 2008 rate of growth has almost halved since its peak of 2.2% per year, which was reached in 1963.

Annual births have levelled at about 134 million per year since their peak at 163 million in the late 1990s and are expected to remain constant. However, deaths are only around 57 million per year, and are expected to increase to 90 million by 2050. Because births outnumber deaths, the world's population is expected to reach 9 billion between 2040[4][5] and 2050.[2]

The rapid increase in human population over the course of the 20th century has raised concerns about whether Earth is experiencing overpopulation. The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources are linked to threats to the ecosystem,[6] such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution.

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When I was born the world population of humans stood at a third of what it is now and a quarter of what it will be in 2045. The population of others species has mostly declined, except possibly for cattle and sheep. There will be a critical point at which the population of some wild species will collapse, while others will stagnate for another 50 years or so, then will collapse — even if we try hard to protect them. In fact "we" (some of us) try to protect species at the wrong places. As a species, we do not take care of the planet as a whole, thus bits have been "falling off" and more bits will disappear... This could have an impact on us as well... By 2100, the world human population would be 12 billions. Scary...