Slashdot Mirror
Will Earth Expire By 2050?
_josh writes: "Will overconsumption force humanity off this planet in less than 50 years? It may sound sci-fi, but according to the WWF in this story at the Observer, it's entirely possible. Maybe now I can convince my brother not to buy that SUV ..." Take with as large a grain of salt as you think appropriate.
A planet controlled by wrestlers? The devil, you say!
I always knew that wrestling was a sign of the end of the world. Now the WWF has confirmed it.
cuz i'll take you down in a steEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL CAGE!
Photos.
From the article:
The report offers a vivid warning that either people curb their extravagant lifestyles or risk leaving the onus on scientists to locate another planet that can sustain human life. Since this is unlikely to happen, the only option is to cut consumption now.
Okay, does this strike anyone as leaving out the most likely option? It's highly unlikely we'll massively change our ways. It's also highly unlikely that we'll colonize other planets in the next 50 years.
What's that leave? Simple! Massive resource wars! Woohoo!
It just amazes me that the whole article ignores the inevitable outcome... we'll all fight over dwindling resources, thus thinning the population down to sustainable levels.
so let me think... first they said we'd be gone by 1985, then it was 2000, now its 2050? hrm...
I love reading about our doom... its so funny.
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe
well yet another argument for the human race to move to machines instead of biological bodies, the tech (at least according to kurzweil if i'm not mistaken) is supposed to be ready by then right? then we'll just be bots mining silicon living in a virtual earth.
Photos.
Piece of advice: when writing a topic, any use of acronyms that have a high possibility of being misunderstood (ie: World Wildlife Fund) should be explained, so as to prevent people from being mistaken.
I, for one, have -never- heard of the World Wildlife Fund before this, and I'm sure there are others like me, who thought why the fsck are we believe the World Wrestling Foundation these days?
this has been predicted by tree-hugging morons every decade for the last god-knows-how-long. get over it. it's not "damning" because it's not true.
Let's see...a scientific analysis of resource consumption based on the decline of animal population over the past 100 years, plus a very relevant hectare/person statistic. Sounds like excellent research to me...
If they really want to be taken seriously, quote the actual usage of arable land per person in each country. Countries like Ethopia and Burundi will be astronomically high, while the US will be very low comparatively. The truth is that those countries are overpopulated based on their own resources and require outside assistance from countries like the US.
Overall, if worse comes to worse, don't fret for the Earth. Nature is self-regulating and will find a way to keep man's progress in check. More likely, if such a scenario is possible, man will make himself extinct before the effects can jeopardize the world.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
The population is growing at a rate much higher than the Earth can sustain. I suppose we can look back to the cynical economist Thomas Malthus to see what will happen. He predicted that, since the population grows exponentially and the food supply only grows linearly, famine and disease will be the ways in which the population is kept in check. This may very well happen, but I don't believe Earth will expire by 2050. I have befriended a number of economists over the years, and they have stated that the food supply has always grown faster than predicted. Interesting topic, though. R.Diltan
The Chicago Trib is running this story on the shrinking of various glaciers around the world that is also pretty terrifying. Perhaps its time for Bush to reconsider Kyoto?
Not to dismiss this study out of hand, but this prediction has been made in the past many times, most famously by the economist Thomas Malthus in 1798 entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus predicted man would outgrow it's resources within ~50 years if strict population checks were not enforced. However, he did not take into account the pace of technological change and food production far exceeded his estimates for the time frame.
It is very difficult to predict the future, especially almost 50 years out. As stock brokers are supposed to say "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance." Or something like that.
This is more than a little alarmist. There is a problem, however the quote
"extra planets (the equivalent size of Earth) will be required by the year 2050 as existing resources are exhausted"
is just irresponsible.
I quick search (and reference from my sibling) indicates that the World Wildlife Fund brought Suit against the World Wresting Federation in the British House of Lords (a case which the World Wildlife Fund won). Instead of fighting some more, the World Wresting Federation changed its name to World Wresting Entertainment.
I also believe their new slogan is "Get the 'F' out."
Expire is a pretty strong word. Will the earth exceed critical mass and humanity implode? Maybe. Maybe humans won't survive at all - but believe me, SOMETHING will survive.
As the lyrics to an In Flames song goes:
Species come and species go, but the Earth stands forever fast
These are the same folks who predicted that the world would run out of food by 1980, then predicted we'd run out of oil by 1985.
And of course Thomas Malthus predicted imminent mass starvation in the early 1800s.
In the 1970s, they predicted:
"The world as we know it will likely be ruined before the year 2000
and the reason for this will be its inhabitants' failure to comprehend
two facts. These facts are (1) World food production cannot keep pace
with the galloping growth of population. (2) 'Family planning' cannot
and will not, in the foreseeable future, check this runaway growth."
"Agricultural experts state that a tripling of the food
supply of the world will be necessary in the next 30
years or so, if the 6 or 7 billion people who may be
alive in the year 2000 are to be adequately fed.
Theoretically such an increase might be possible, but it
is becoming increasingly clear that it is totally
impossible in practice."
Except, here we are in 2002 and those 6 or 7 billion people are eating better than any of their ancestors in all of human history, even in the poorest countries.
For more info, see The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon, and The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg.
Earth's natural resources may run out in 50 years, but there's years left of resources for those willing to "consume" humans themselves ... When it's do or die, immorality is a selective advantage.
On another note, I do take issue with the concerns for "overpopulation". The 1st world populations are not growing - it's the 3rd world that has the population problems; they are already existing beyond sustainability. The problem the 1st world encounters is consumerism, not overpopulation. One consumer in the 1st world can use more resources than hundreds of human beings in the 3rd need to survive.
Also, coming from Newfoundland (just off the Grand Banks), the cod fishery was the life-blood of the economy there, which they use as an example of devasted Earth resources. There is now a moratorium on cod fishing, which also devastated that economy. Since the moratorium was instantiated, it is widely believed that the cod stock has partly recovered, and will continue to. So I am not so sure I buy their verdict, given this choice of example with contrary information they conveniently omitted. This is a little salt to their bitter assessment.
Certainly, though, they are outlining important trends in the environment as a result of human presence.
I disagree with what you did to that town, but you really need to admire your town's commitment to education. I personally wouldn't starve to death for anyone's homework assignment.
Experts say that seas will become emptied of fish while forests - which absorb carbon dioxide emissions - are completely destroyed and freshwater supplies become scarce and polluted.
This, of course, is based on 1960's factory emission averages, and projecting them 50 years down the track. Think about the advances in pollution contorl, recycling etc etc in the last 10 years. Those advances are happening at a steady rate, and aren't going to slow down. This means we will keep getting better at looking after the planet - NOT screwing it up like some want us to believe.
Look at life in a positive light and we might finally stop bitching and get productive.
Ladies, form queue here -->
As I said above, it is more a matter of economics. This isn't like the y2k bug where there is a definite cutoff date. And the y2k bug didn't make current machines decrease in usefulness (right up until the cutoff date; not counting that the hardware would have to be changed at that time).
Land resources and several other natural resources will be conserved more/used more efficiently as it becomes economically advantageous to do so. Capitalism works that way, and the change will slowly happen with or without doomsday predictions. When wasting/using inefficent technologies becomes expensive, people will migrate on their own.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
The Earth will not expire in 2050. Simple economics will keep it from doing so. When certain resources become scarce, they will become expensive, and people will be forced to stop using them and seek alternatives.
Interesting they compare the United States' use of resources to that of Burundi. This comparison is truly startling. For those who enjoy startling statistics, allow me to offer a few others:
The population of Burundi is expanding at three times the rate of the United States. The percentage of people in Burundi infected with HIV/AIDS is 20 times that of the United States. The average lifespan in Burundi is 31 years shorter than that of a person living in the United States. The literacy rate of Burundi is 35%. 1 in 3000 people have Internet access. (Statistics courtesy of CIA World Factbook).
Are you still interested in reducing your resource consumption by a factor of 24? Personally, I'm not interested in selling my pickup, as I don't think it has any connection to the fact that the number of black rhinos has fallen from 65,000 to 3,100. Considering that my "extravagant lifestyle" doesn't involve poaching, I don't think I can help.
As an aside, this article brings one more thing to mind: every environmentalist needs to understand that he is not "saving the Earth." He is only saving himself and his descendants. The Earth will recover from every incosiderate act man has done to it in the blink of an eye (relative to its lifetime), and graciously replace us with other species if we destroy our way of life.
And Timothy, you might want to encourage your brother to go ahead and buy that new SUV. If his current car is more than five years old, that new SUV will be adding less pollution to the atmosphere.
As usage of resources like fossil fuels is largely about economics, things won't change much until there is an economic reason to change. For example, nearly running out of fuels and skyrocketing prices.
Which means that we may be better off with some of those economic reasons appering in a very real way sooner rather than later, pollution-wise.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I guess this wasn't as important 18 hours ago? Ahh well, that's Slashdot journalism for you... it must have been a slow news day today. Or maybe they're just gay. I suppose it's who's at the controls at that particular time --- oh wait, it WAS timothy!
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
Whether it's 50 years or 500, we are currently using resources faster than they are replenished. And the U.S. does consume a disproportionate amount of the resources in the world.
100% accurate or not, reports like this aren't going to change the way the U.S. lives -- we're too comfortable in our lifestyles to make big changes. It's going to take some catastrophic change that impacts the U.S. directly to get us to wake up. Unfortunately it's developing countries which are going to feel those changes first.
How are you so sure? Smoking companies denied the negative effects of sigarettes for years and years and now they have to pay bigtime for claims. Just think about it. Maybe the 'tree-hugging morons' are wrong, but if they are right, are you willing to take that chanse?
Taking public transport (or a bike) doesn't hurt me. Neither does using 40W lamps in stead of 60W. Or turning off televisions and monitors in stead of using the stand-by feature.
I know America (and Russia for that matter) isn't that happy with anti-pollution measures, but together the two nations are good for 50% of the CO2 (and other exhaust) production in the world.
Please don't say that because I'm from Europe I'm a tree-hugging freak. Europe also produces pollution. I know. But why are companies like Shell, Q8, Esso and Texaco looking for other alternatives and what is wrong with that?
But think of this before you mod me down: The effect of acid rain isn't local. Forests all over the world have to suffer the effects. Importing oil, wood and other products from the 3rd world leaves THEM with the effects while we have the products.
And even if, in 50 years the statistics turned out to be wrong, at leas it is good to be aware of the (possible) consequences of our lifestyle.
Privacy is terrorism.
1) The highest per-capita consumption occurs in the first world. (see below)
2) The population of the first world is rapidly shrinking, and will amount to a small fraction of the total world population by 2050. (According to the UN. See this link for details.)
3) By 2050, even the 3rd world population is expected to reach equilibrium, so that the entire world population will actually begin to decline.
Taken together, it seems unlikely to me that the conditions stated by the WWF may actually come about, unless the 3rd world population increases its consumption dramatically, or the UN study is substantially incorrect. This is because, even though the world population is expected to increase from 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050, that additional growth will occur almost exclusively outside of Western nations. Significantly, the population of the first world will actually diminish. Now, the report itself states
"America's consumption 'footprint' is 12.2 hectares per head of population compared to the UK's 6.29ha while Western Europe as a whole stands at 6.28ha. In Ethiopia the figure is 2ha, falling to just half a hectare for Burundi, the country that consumes least resources."
So if indeed the third world consumes a large factor (an order of magnitude!) less "footprint" than the Western nations, it would seem to me that the world might actually be better off by 2050 : they are, quite simply, more efficient at using existing resources.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
I don't know about the complete implosion of the human population, but we can already see how disease is going to be wiping out a big chunk of the population. Exactly what percentage of African citizens are infected with HIV again?
If nothing else, plagues of one kind or another will cull the population a bit.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I believe the number usually quoted is "1 in 9". I mention South Africa because it's one of the few African countries with a government sufficiently competent to collect reasonably accurate statistics. But even if it was say twice this high, that's not going to be anything we haven't seen before -- in many parts of Europe, for example, the bubonic plague killed 10-20% of the population. Humanity can and has survived population-decimating diseases before. And AIDS is less dangerous to society functioning normally because it's less panic-inducing, since you can't get it from breathing the air near a sick person or corpse.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Take with as large a grain of salt as you think appropriate.
Aaaah, a beautiful example of the 'tragedy of the commons'.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that globalisation et al are wrong, as long as you take *all* aspects of it, not only the short-term ones like make-money-fast and the-next-generation-will-solve-this. If you go for a certain approach, take everything including the messy parts, not only the easy gains.
bash$
Nuclear power seemed like a good idea not too long ago, but in the US we are having political problems about where to dump the waste. If someone could magically deal with the waste, then I imagine nuclear power would skyrocket. Until then, it is too darn expensive ($,politically,environmentally)
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Unfortunately and perhaps ironically, it may be that the rapid spread of HIV will devastate the population enough to save us.
Just off of the A.P. wire:
Chicken Little reports that the sky is falling.
-jerdenn
Take with as large a grain of salt as you think appropriate.
Salt lick.
~jeff
Um, I guess you want to volunteer your backyard for a nuclear storage dump? No? I guess nuclear power is ok if someone else gets stuck with the waste. It is strange that you are calling someone an environmental hypocrite. By the same logic you used in your first line, everyone who can read/post here probably is approximately the same as far as pollution goes. I guess that might include you as well as me. :P
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Only catch is, each person would have 12 cubic feet, or six feet by two feet by one foot. Now imagine that you're at the bottom of the cube.
What is overlooked time and time again in the "you can fit x people into ____" argument is that just because you can fit a population into an area doesn't mean that area can support it. The most common example is Texas, at least in America. But what about arable land? As for space, let's say people will be transplanted to Mars by 2030. The world population will be 8.1 billion by then (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html). In order to maintain current population levels, we would have to devise methods to transplant 2 billion people within thirty years. At a round trip of two years to get to Mars at the optimal revolution of the planets around the sun, with 50,000 people making the trip each time, you would need to make 40,000 trips before you could transplant 2 billion people, over the course of 80,000 years, at which point you might see H.G. Wells and his time machine where London once was.
What's my point? Look for answers close to home. Keeping your head in the clouds can be fun, but not always productive. Rather than trying to find solutions to the effects of overpopulation, one should try to find solutions to the causes of overpopulation.
For those interested, let's say we started sending people now and wanted to make sure we were at 6 billion people in 2030; the number of trips that could be made is 15, at 133 million people per trip. The maximum number of people to send at today's capability per ship is about ten. That's 13 million ships being sent every two years, plus enough food and water to feed people for the ten to twenty years it would take to allow for food to be grown on Mars. Put the cost of sending each ship at 20 billion dollars (http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/world/360734
Freak
Um, a little optimistic without looking at the whole situation?
However, due to increases in technology in the area of combustion engines that allow them to use less fuel for the same amount of propulsion
I'm sure you knew that despite the technological advances in combustion engines, making them more efficient, we continue to consume more and more fuel every day? The point is that it doesn't matter if you have 1 engine and it consumes 1 unit of fuel and you modify it to only consume
How is nuclear waste a non-issue? Politics decide our environment; at least to the people living in towns near the roads they are going to be transporting the stuff. One truck accident and their environment will be very unpleasant indeed.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
-jon
Remember Amalek.
...Take with as large a grain of salt as you think appropriate.
Isn't this the problem ?
'sapientia potestas est'
Many here are pointing out that economic pressures will help limit consumption. The problem is that people often reject the market process as being unfair, immoral, etc and do all they can to substitute something else ala socialism.
You can bet that once prices start to rise to check consumption, the government will step in "in the name of the people" and fix prices.
Hell, it happened in the 1970's with Nixon's price controls on gas and gave us long lines at the pump and gas shortages.
The truth is that, when the market gives people economic information they don't like, they try to use the political process to make it go away instead of making changes in their habits.
When prices go up, instead of conserving, they'll bitch about those "evil greedy corporations." Hey, just like on Slashdot. The fact is, people don't change unless it hits them in the wallet, and they'll do everything they can to stop that from happening.
If the market suggests they be paid less for their out-dated skills because of less demand, they'll blame someone else. It happens over and over. People want it all for nothing.
I think what will happen ultimately is that the democratic process will force us all to drown together.
Earth's due to expire June 6, 2003--
[God@universe ~]$ whois earth.com
Registrant:
earth.com (EARTH-DOM)
10900 Research Blvd #160C-12
Austin, TX 78759
Domain Name: EARTH.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Registrations, Earth W (TS121) hostmaster@EARTH.COM
EARTH.COM
10900 Research Blvd
Suite 160C-12
Austin, TX 78759
(512) 838-5652 (FAX) (512) 838-6098
Record expires on 06-Jun-2003.
Record created on 05-Jun-1994.
Database last updated on 7-Jul-2002 21:43:14 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.EARTH.COM 199.239.20.70
NS2.EARTH.COM 199.239.20.71
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
that these reports do not adequately take into account that populations adjust and evolve in response to changes in the enviroment.
:)
"Using the image of the need for mankind to colonise space as a stark illustration of the problems facing Earth, the report warns that either consumption rates are dramatically and rapidly lowered or the planet will no longer be able to sustain its growing population." [from article, emphasis mine]
While I understand that the article is trying to shock people into paying attention to a serious problem (and it is a problem), at the same time alarmists need to recognize that growing populations when facing a change in the enviroment change with that environment. No society is going to continue at break-neck speeds to oblivion, eat the last edible object, and then suddenly start think, "hey we need to change something here." While the issue we face now is on a more global scale, many times in history local communities have faced similar problems and they adapt. Birthrates drop, consumption drops, etc. Now that doesn't mean it's always pretty either -- such situations can lead to massive decimation of a population, but I doubt we're facing the end of human existance here.
My point is, while the issue raised is certainly an important and serious issue, it's not the end of the world. We need to worry and we need to do something, but we don't need doomsayers. (not that I wouldn't mind some terriformed land on Mars...)
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Strange, you called some other guy a hypocrite before and are calling me one now. I never said anything hypocritical here; I pointed out that both of us would be hypocritical for saying such a thing. It seems that you just say "I dont have a holier than though attitude like you do, you hypocrite!" whenever someone says something you don't like.
:>
Your lack of feeling guilty had nothing to do with what I previously said. However, if you didn't feel guilty why are you posting anonymously?
"All the nuclear waste produced since day one would fit into a single football stadium."
Now this was more along the lines of what I was hoping for in a response. It contains an actual answer to a question, rather than name calling. I haven't heard of that before, and I think that is an interesting point.
Be happy.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Instead of helping the "third world" countries with infrastructure, stable government, and ways NOT to pollute, they want to take the "first world" countries and take wealth away from them and give it to the poorer countries (of course, they'll help do the redistribution ... one for you, one for me)
Go ahead and mod me down for this, because it is a different angle on this type of story.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
The battle to feed humanity is over. In the course of 1970s, the world will experience starvation of tragic proportions, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.
-Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1968
There's a long history of vastly misguided prophets of doom by now- starting with Malthus, I guess, but the most revealing example is probably Paul Ehrlich, who's been writing books since the sixties (The Population Bomb, The Population Explosion, etc.) about how the world will be swamped by an exploding population and run out of resources, all in the (ever-postponed) near future. In the sixties he thought that we'd be starving in the seventies, and that Great Britain would no longer exist by the nineties. I don't know what he thinks now, but he's still writing along the same lines.
Ehrlich also famously made a bet with economist Julian Simon, in 1980, that five raw materials picked by Ehrlich would be more expensive (because they would be rarer, per capita) ten years later. In 1990 Ehrlich was wrong on every pick.
An awful lot of science fiction has been written along those lines, as well: Disch's 334, Harrison's Make Room, Make Room (filmed as Soylent Green). But in the real world, I'm not too worried. We may kill off all the black rhinos, white rhinos, sumatran rhinos.... And that would be unfortunate, but it would not constitute a threat to human survival.
Also, incidentally, shipping people to other planets is not likely to be an effective way of dealing with excess population. Can you imagine the amount of chemical fuel involved in lifting just the quarter-million people born every day away from the earth?
so what if you are the next to die? would you be worried? or would you be ok with it because too many people are alive anyways.
i think you you would be at least a little bit worried. And dont say "it wont happen to me, it will only happen to brown people in other countries" because that's just stupid. I can give numerous examples where groups of people that have hoped to delegate misery and suffering to the unwashed masses have had their heads severed by those masses.
So ask your self would you think it is unfair if you were the next to die as a result of over population.
If you answer yes, then you shouldnt flame people that are at least trying to find another way.
This kind of article is why it is ignored. Odd extreme reports that have no or little factual basis have caused the public to pretty much ignore such warnings. You could say that environmentalists have efficiently subverted their chances of having large public support. Of course, (mis)information from the 'other side' isn't helping either. Controlled media also helps; there are some VERY nasty ongoing environmental disasers in the US that most people simply dont know about because nobody tells them (for example, Oregon oil refineries used to dump wastes straight into a nearby river openly. The state made them pay large fees for each day that they did that. However, those fees were still much smaller than handling the waste properly, so they continued to dump openly and just pay the fines.)
As long as there are reports like this that are obviously bogus, the general population will pretty much ignore these issues. This article really shouldn't exist.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
The thing that makes it bad, as I understand it, is that instead of killing mostly young kids and the elderly, it kills adults in the 20s and 30s - the people that do the work. It also kills much more slowly than the plague, smallpox and the like, and huge amounts of effort need to be devoted to caring for the sick and dying.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The Earth will not expire in 2050. Simple economics will keep it from doing so
You can't use economic arguments. Why? Beacuse our current economics don't take into account the cost of pollution (externalities) -- what makes you think that things will change in 50 years? Has current pollution made us change? Please.
What we need is reasoned leadership, not to keep running towards what everyone knows is a cliff. By the time we get there we may not be able to stop... how can we bring extinct species back? how can we stop global warming... Assume for a moment that global warming is like any force, just beacuse the change is still relatively small doesn't mean that the accelleration isn't huge. Once you want to "change" it's like stopping a car... it will take a while. A long while. If it took us 200 years to start serious warming, it may very well take us 300 years to do the cooling. And by then it may be just too late.
There are four types of people: those who are ignorant and know it; those who are knowlegable and don't; those that are knowlegable and know it; and those who are ignorant but think that they are knowlegable. You my fellow biped are in the latter category; and what a dangerous person you are beacuse of this. Why a moderator would mark you as insightful is beyond me. Spreading ignorance under the guise of wisdom is the worst of all sins.
The Earth will not expire in 2050. Simple economics will keep it from doing so. When certain resources become scarce, they will become expensive, and people will be forced to stop using them and seek alternatives.
Yeah, I can't wait to see you seek alternatives to food and water. How do you take your soylent green?
Interesting they compare the United States' use of resources to that of Burundi. This comparison is truly startling.
Yes, its is truly startling that you stuck on that comparison, and not on the better document and much more relevant case of the UK.
(The United States places the greatest pressure on the environment, it takes 12.2 hectares of land to support each American citizen and 6.29 for each Briton.)
And Timothy, you might want to encourage your brother to go ahead and buy that new SUV. If his current car is more than five years old, that new SUV will be adding less pollution to the atmosphere.
Wow! Totally unsuported wild claim...sweet!
Lets see, small car pollutes more than car that burns twice as much fuel. Suuuuure.
You can't take the sky from me...
FYI:
The WTO and World Bank have implemented in many 3 world countries strategies for opening up foreign capital and investment.
This happened due to the third world countries taking out loans in the 70's, interest peaking at the 80's, leaving them with an unpayable debt. So, the WTO and World Bank said, ok, we'll pay of your debt, if you redirect money from infrastructure, capital works and health services into buying foreign products and opening up the market for global conglomerates. So instead of these countries increasing health services, they're forced to pay premium money to buying overseas goods, and therefore their own market collapses.
Capitalism's great, isn't it?
(Skip the socialism arguments, Socialism is just as fucking bad).
Source?
Curtis and Taket 1996, p.276, as referenced in -
Promoting Health, The primary Health Care Approach pp 7 -16, Wass, A. (2000) 2nd ed.
Eat that, fuckwit.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
But the reasons are much different than they imply.
The bigest natural competitor to a typical songbir id a pigeon. I've been told (by someone who does research on penguins) that every pigeon tends to displace at least 20 native birds in Australia.
Pigeons where brought here because the sailors used to drink their boold as a cure for scurvy but now they idiots feed them in the parks and their populations are growing.
Its interesting that cats are getting a major blame for the decreasign numbers of songbirds when the pigeons are teh major cause.
Extrapolating a trend to 50 years is plain dumb when you are targeting an industrialized society. Frist, we aren't insect. If we start drowning in our own refuse, we'll adapt.
Second, God only knows what technologies will appear in the next half-century. Some of them could even be (gasp, argh!) beneficial to the environment.
As a reminder of past extrapolations gone all wrong, here is an excerpt from "The history of Taxicabs" -- note the reference to the next fifty years.
In 1900 there were 11,000 registered cabs in London and well over double that now (that's not counting minicabs) Motorised taxis appeared in London in 1904 and got the name 'taxi' from the taxometer that standardised the fares from counting revolutions of their wheels. A statistician about ten years before that had seriously predicted that, at the 'current' rate of expansion and increase of population, horse manure would cover every street in London from wall to wall, even covering windows, within fifty years. Thank you Henry Ford.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
First attempting to explain to people who want to have more then 2 children why that is a bad idea.
and if that fails?
Could somebody PLEEEEAAASSEEEE legalize strangling the motherfuckers to death? PLEASE
Yes the adoption system in America needs to be revamped, but that is no excuse for having buttloads of kids! People who cannot love a child because of the color of the child's skin should NOT be parents at all.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Good point. I forgot that processed waste is solid. I feel stupid now; I actually toured SRS twice where they convert wastes into solid (their simplified explanation is that they are basically mixing jello into liquid waste; making it easier to clean up/contain but no less radioactive).
Also, as you say the chrud is all over the place. At the plant in GA that I visited they don't mind telling you that they routinely release chrud into the air, but they never tell the public exactly when it is released. One of the nastier things our gov has done is nuclear bomb testing on our own continent. Yeah, they don't do that anymore but they used to. My grandmother used to see a mushroom cloud in the distance from where she lived. She lived upwind and far enough away to be safe (or she wouldn't have survived to tell me about it) but there was another town about as far away as hers that was downwind. Needless to say, they wound up with ALOT of cancer problems.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Who the fuck moderated the Troll/Dipshit +5?
/SO/ going to go postal if I see one more damn Condo being shitted together in this city, yeesh! Those things look horrid and ARE horrid. Same with MiniVans, ick.
No, seriously, I want to know.
Even if he is 'for real' (and by that I mean not trolling, he is STILL a dipshit), heck folks, do the math.
More People, Less Resources, End result; well shit, that sucks.
Simple, eh?
The best way to go about and do things is to curb population growth (1 child per TWO PEOPLE, if you have your one child with a partner and then switch parteners, TOO BAD) for EVERYBODY in the whole world, and saying fuck it to human rights, forced sterilization after the first kid pops out.
Of course some people will bitch "well what if the child dies??"
Well too bad, just means the population will drop faster then expected, and that is a good thing.
I am
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Note the quote:
''... without the intense use of fertilizers and pest controls''
Thats ludicrus. What is the land needed per person if you actually *do* choose to use modern farming methods?
Thats like saying. `` We need XXX acres of land per person if we assume farming by hand, with no mechanized tractors.'' which is an interesting, but pointless statistic.
There's nothing inherently wrong with pest control or fertalizer. In fact, they're the foundations of modern society. To quote a radio commercial ``Never before have so few fed so many for so little.''
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa the sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Go hide in a box, Chicken Little.
There is no cliff. What the parent post means by "simple economics" is the fact that as we 'run out' of various important resources (say, oil), the price will get out of control and we'll have to move on to something else.
Also, Mr Little, one could point out the vastly reduced pollution a fully-developed country puts out per capita compared to any 3rd world... But such ideas run against your alarmist philosophy, so I'm really wasting my time with you. Oh well, if a wonderfully reasoned post like the parent can't make you think, nothing will.
...as long as we pretend like nothing's ever going to change.
Let's be realistic here: Let's say that we know Petroleum is going to dry up a year from now. What's going to happen? We're either going Fuel Cell shopping, or we're going to get bus tickets. We'll get by.
We may 'consume' but we're hardly going to cause the race to go extinct over it. It's not like we're selling 'Perri-Air'.
"Derp de derp."
The earth is going to expire?
Quick! We better renew that license... The question is who do we call, the manufacturer or um... the reseller?
IIRC, there was a scene in Jurassic Park where they discuss the idea that bringing back dinosaurs could "destroy the world." Ian Malcolm puts it well when he says that us leaving (being eaten) won't end the world. The world will keep going for a long time regardless of what species are on it.
Or maybe I hallucinated the whole thing. I really can't remember.
They probably failed to (and could not) account for such things as genetic manipulation of crops to increase yields plus advanced pesticides, fertilizers, storage technologies and so on.
This both increases the amount of food produced per land area, and also reduces the amount of food decayed per food harvested.
... Nasa has launched it's first space vehicle built to suck all the air off of an oxygen-rich planet and contain it in a giant bag for delivery back to Earth. In memory of 9-11, the ship was modeled after the Statue of Liberty.
Due to recent events, insiders at Nasa are publically questioning a last-minute design change where engineers added an external switch to the vacuum generator. One engineer, who refused to be identified, was quoted as saying "Anybody with a ring from a Crackerjack box could throw that switch. There's no way that ship's coming back full."
"Derp de derp."
So legislate it to "..under Allah", and see how many people chuck a shit.
A shitload of people, I bet.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
The fact of the matter is not that we will somehow 'run out' of resources - the stuff we have used is all still here, simply in a degraded form. Where's the carbon in those fossil fuels? In the atmosphere as CO2. Where's all that plastic? Landfills.
Certainly, the easy to use resources will run out. Things like petroleum, fresh water, timber and such - but with enough energy we can replace those things. Sure, it's costly to such CO2 out of the atmosphere and use it to make petrochemicals, but with enough energy it certainly can be done. Sure it's hellaciously expensive to run a de-salination plant instead of diverting another river - but with cheap enough energy it becomes cost effective. Sure, we may eventually run out of easy to exploit copper mines, but all the copper we have ever mined is still out there - it might be hard to find and convert, but again, with enough energy it's doable.
It's all a problem of energy. If we have enough of it we can keep recylcing the natural resource that are already here, indefinitely. Instead of shipping our idiot progeny off to space, we should be sending up orbital power stations. If they captured just a minute fraction of the solar energy that passes between the earth and the moon's orbit we'd have absolutely no resource problems and the only waste product we'd have to worry about in the long run is heat.
-josh
Sigh,
Didn't Malthus say this, oh, a century or so ago, and we're long past his date.
There were also predictions that London would be burried 2 feet deep in horse dropping by the 1930s, becuse they would not be able to get rid of them. Of course, those evil scientists invented the car, which ended that problem
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I'd love to ride my bike to the convenience store every time I go...I'd love to ride to work and to school too. There are a few problems with that though:
-Most places I'd go there are no bike racks, hence nowhere to lock my bike up. People steal bikes that aren't locked up.
-No bike paths in many areas...and drivers are NOT considerate of people on bikes.
-Weather. I can drive anywhere when it's -10 degrees Celsius and a foot of snow outside...I'd be insane trying to ride my bike in that. In some parts of the country, it's too cold or too rainy to bicycle more than a few months out of the year.
I think the ultimate solution is not to bike everywhere, but to develop smaller and more economic vehicles. We had our fun, but time's up...time to start driving vehicles that don't use fossil fuels and don't emit any element or compound that's not naturally occuring in our atmoshpere in large quantities. Hydrogen fuel cells that have water as a byproduct come to mind as a possible solution.
Bikes are a good hobby and great exercise, but like the Segway, they're not the world's solution to transportation problems.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
As the grantparent poster said: "Spreading ignorance under the guise of wisdom is the worst of all sins."
Amen.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
I suck at CiVIII. I admit it, I loose even on the cheiftan level. I get so mad and just nuke my opposition. It never fails, about a decade before 2050 all my friends turn against me and declare war on me. It makes me so mad. It's like the game is trying to destroy me before time runs out.
...but, the inevitable doom of humankind has been delayed until 2050.
We apologize for the inconvenience of not being able to fix the year exactly.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
Most republicans don't actually come out and say that the poor people should be killed, congratulations on your honesty.
War is necrophilia.
Will the EARTH expire by 2050? No. Will humanity? Maybe.
As George Carlin once said, the Earth doesn't mind all this non-biodegradable plastic, only we humans do. The Earth doesn't mind it at all, it will simply create a new paradigm: The Earth + Plastic.
"And like that
He had a couple of scary hits: "President Kennedy will not run for re-election in 1964 because of something that will happen to him in November 1963" and "A blonde bombshell will die a tragic death in Dixie" (Jayne Mansfield's weird death by decapitation) were the biggies. But since his "prediction" career went on between the 1950s, through the '60s and into the '70s, you'd expect him to get a couple right just by chance. Kinda like Nostradamus and his "Hister" quatrains.
He predicted doomsday on August 18th, 1999. Heh.
Anyway, basically what I am saying here is that it is very easy to pull broad, sweeping predictions out of your butt. Criswell certainly could do it, so can the World Wildlife Federation.
However, if this gets some people interested in reviving the space program... ;-)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Absolutely not. The "third world" countries are NOT whining about getting money from the "first world" countries.
What it is, is an attempt to go "back in time" to the "good old days" before the industrial revolution. In other words, NOBODY should be prosperous.
What would happen, if Burundi was brought up to "first world" status, and was a major global player?
These same people who currently admire (possibly worship) the way these people live on such "frugal" means would instantly condemn them for wasting precious natural resources.
BTW, my predictions were correct, and the parent is getting modded all over the place ... job done.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Much less that the majority of people who did know believe that global warming is "junk science" and that running out of finite resources of known size is impossible based on pronoucements of well known scientific authorities like Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, and Pat Robertson.
Reading the posts to this thread, I wonder if there shouldn't be a basic.science.slashdot.org or a regular series of "Science 101" postings for the people around here who either cut or managed to avoid any science classes that didn't start with the word "computer".
However, I believe that most slashdotters who are ignorant of everything but computers take pride in their ignorance and really don't want to do anything about it. The good news... when they post on public policy issues of any sort, it's generally apparent that they are noise, not signal.
Tech Public Policy stuff
That's 48 BILLION people in 150 years, which most would agree is a number completely unsupportable, not without some extreme reductions in the standard of living for western cultures, to the level of 3rd world countries.
It will not reach that number in 150 years. Just like bacteria slow down their growth as their supplies dwindle so will human populations. I'm not saying you should go ahead and have 7 children. There are a lot of animals that grow to the maximum supportable population and then starve whon there is a long draught.
This has happened to humans too. With a global economy this is less frequent since global food shortages only happen when there is a huge volcano eruption or some other planetary disaster. There are things like farming subsidies in Western Europe and the US and Japan that affect the distribution of farmed land negatively, but still the entire northern hemisphere would need to be affected.
Population growth is already slowing the growth is likely to peak at some point and stay steady at some level between 10-20 Billion for the forseable future.
Perhaps in a 1000 years when we're farming everything in greenhouses and colonizing the moon the population will be at levels we couldn't imagine now, but lets just figure out fusion first.
That's not really true. Some famine is political in nature, but the much of the problem comes from areas that are simple overpopulated and have insufficent infastructure to support relief efforts. Frequently both factors are combined and you have areas with no food, no roads, and a government hostile to foreign aid. Sadly there is little we can do for these people, however as their population decreases they will exert less strain on the local agriculture and hopefully recover (assuming the drought isn't extended--extended droughts (changes in the local climate actually) have killed off entre civilizations before).
I read the internet for the articles.
A really interesting book that also deals with the same subject but on a socialogical and demographic plane, is the book by Patrick Buchanan "The Death of the West". It is filled with Buchanan's theories (yes, he does have some *interesting* political views, but his proclamations here are all based on UN statistics) on how certain countries will lose their native populations and other races will take them over. More and more, Europe will loose its identity as a predominantly "white" society. Here are some key points the book highlights:
.
Relying upon the most recent UN population studies, Buchanan declares:
By 2050, only 10% of the world's people will be of European descent. One third of Europe's people will be over 60, and one-in-ten over 80. Involuntary euthanasia has already come to Europe.
Between now and 2050, Asia, Africa, and Latin America will grow by three to four billion people -- 30 to 40 new Mexicos! -- as Europe will lose the equivalent of the entire population of Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
By 2050, 23 million Germans will have disappeared along with 16 million Italians and 30 million Russians.
Russia will lose Siberia and the far east to China and be pushed out of the Caucuses and Central Asia, where Islamic populations are exploding while Russia's is dying.
Either Europe must effect a radical cutback in pensions and health care for seniors, or Europe must import scores of millions of Arabs and Africans to care for the elderly and pay the taxes to sustain their welfare states.
The 4.2 million Palestinians in Israel and on the West Bank and Gaza will explode to 9 million by 2025, and 15 million by 2050, when Palestinians will outnumber Israel's Jewish population two-to-one.
America's "Dual Containment" policy in the Persian Gulf seems unsustainable. In less than 25 years, Iraq will have 42 million people and Iran 94 million people, more than any European nation except Russia.
The Islamic invasions of Spain and France in the eighth century, and of the Balkans and Central Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries, will be reenacted in the lifetime of most of those now living. Islam has already surpassed Catholicism as the largest religion on earth.
It is the Christian nations -- Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox -- that have begun to die. In a chapter titled, "Where Have All the Children Gone?" Buchanan explains why, and why it is unlikely the West can solve the demographic crisis before it leads to The Death of the West.
In his chapter La Reconquista, Buchanan contends that an invasion of the United States is taking place and that America now harbors a "nation within a nation."
There are 30 million foreign born in the U.S. today, and between 9 and 11 million illegal aliens, or as many undocumented aliens in the U.S. as there are people in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Mexico is exporting its poor and unemployed for U.S. taxpayers to employ and educate. Radical and militant Hispanics and Mexican leaders alike believe this will lead to the cultural and demographic recapture of the Southwest from America, reversing the results of The Mexican War.
By supporting open borders, the GOP is committing suicide. First-time Hispanic voters chose Clinton 15-1 over Dole. Of the seven major immigration states -- Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Texas and Florida -- Mr. Bush lost five, and perhaps six. Of the 10 states with the smallest share of immigrants, Bush won all 10.
European-Americans are a minority in America's most populous state, California, and by 2004, will be a minority in Texas.
The political agenda of California Hispanics includes race welfare for illegal aliens, racial preferences, bilingual education, open borders, dual citizenship, Cinqo de Mayo as a California holiday, and, in one case, replacing a statue of an American hero of the Mexican War with the Aztec god Quetzacoatl.
White Americans are fleeing California at the rate of 100,000 a year.
MeCHA, the student organization that claims chapters on hundreds of campuses has a program that reads like a Mexican version of the agenda of the white-supremacist Aryan Nation.
In 2001, an Office for Mexicans Abroad in Mexico was providing survival kits with everything from dried meat to anti-diarrhea pills to condoms to Mexicans setting off to break in to the United States
As of 2000, there were 8.4 million foreign born in California, as many foreign born as there are people in New Jersey, a primary cause of the state energy and schools crisis.
Among Third World immigrants, poverty rates and incarceration rates are double and triple what they are among native-born Americans.
Shooting up the flares and waving the flag, Buchanan argues that the 1960s "counter-culture" has become America's dominant culture, and the iconoclasts of that counter-culture are systematically demolishing America's history and heritage.
Under Political Correctness, America's greatest heroes -- soldiers, explorers and statesmen from Columbus to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson -- are under savage attack as genocidal racists and exploiters of indigenous peoples.
The history books of American public schools are being rewritten with the old heroes ignored or trashed and Western civilization disparaged and demeaned.
When Mel Gibson's film, "The Patriot," came out in 2000, it was savagely attacked for presenting black Americans as fighting patriots in the Revolutionary War.
With the assault on Confederate books, symbols, flags, heroes, and holidays almost complete, the attack is now proceeding against the Puritan fathers, soldiers who fought in The Mexican War, and, in New Jersey, even against the Declaration of Independence itself.
In some school districts, Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, and any realistic portrayal of the America South, including Harper' Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, are now forbidden.
Even the great museums on America's Mall, to introduce school children to the greatness and glory of America's past, are being used to indoctrinate children in how wicked and evil our forefathers were.
In his chapter, "The De-Christianization of America," Buchanan argues that the death of the Christian faith in Western countries is a primary cause of their dying populations. Whenever faith dies, the people die. A new atheistic civilization is arising, he argues, and is using its dominance of the culture and the courts to drive Christianity out of the temples of our civilization.
Secular Humanism, widely mocked and disparaged, a few decades ago, is now the dominant faith of the nation's cultural elites. The moral tenets of humanism are replacing those of Christianity in our public life.
Even Christian churches are rewriting their hymnals to make them acceptable to the dominant culture.
Anti-Catholic films and filthy and blasphemous anti-Christian art are the deliberate insults of a triumphant pagan and secularist faith.
He does bring up very valid points that we can all use to change our lives. He stresses faith, family and a return to a more moral society. His right wing ideals shine through on some points but others are applicable to all beliefs.
Culminating these two sources, the future does not look very bright. But humans have always evovled to survive their elements, and I think we will continue to do so.
100% Insightful
Well, as for evidence, the EPA, EU, UN, and even the bush administration disagree with you on that one. The provisions for certain countries are not so damning as you might suggest. China and India do not pollute as much as the US does, for one. In addition, the costs of reducing emissions would be much greater for those nations than America. For example, according to the NRDC, the average American uses more than fifteen times more electricity in a month than the average person in China, and thirty times more than the average person in India. If you hypothetically cut the US's energy usage in half, we would still be doing pretty good. However, doing so in those other countries would be nothing short of disasterious.
Lack of cheap energy is at the root of so many of the world's major problems, it's a wonder we're still pumping petrochemicals around. Lunar-generated solar power could be beamed to Earth via microwave and easily solve our energy shortage. We could have more power than we'd know what to do with AND begin colonizing our solar system at the same time. What could be better?
As a side note, I wonder, too, if orbitally-generated solar power couldn't solve some of our political problems here on Earth. If we could destroy the oil economy, we'd destroy most of the funding that Middle Eastern terrorist organizations depend upon.
Even as Bush prepares to attack Iraq we continue to import millions of barrels of oil from Iraq every month -- as much as they will sell us. Our oil money directly funds terrorist organizations like Al Qaida and the regimes that harbor them. Dry up the oil economy and you dry up their funding -- it's an interesting hypothesis, at any rate. In my opinion, instead of national ID cards, so-called Patriot Acts, and new cabinet-level Terror Czars, we ought to be spending our money in a much more productive way -- solving the energy problems that fund terrorism in the first place.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I think folks who think we'll run of oil very soon are deluding themselves.
The problem with the alarmists who think we'll run out of oil are only considering the idea that the last deposits of oil will be in the Persian Gulf.
How wrong they are! Considering the following factors of the last 12 years:
1. The oilfields of the former Soviet Union are now being exploited on a very large scale by Western oil companies. There are massive oilfields in Siberia and Kazakhstan have barely been touched, not to mention we haven't even begun to exploit the Caspian Sea oilfields on a large scale.
2. China has large oilfields in Xinjiang Province that haven't been exploited due to transportation issues.
3. Afghanistan is potentially sitting on top of a big oilfield.
4. The Gulf of Mexico--according to British Petroleum engineers--have an amazingly large amount of oil yet to be exploited. The only reason why we haven't gotten more is the high expense of drilling for oil well into the Gulf of Mexico.
5. Canada has huge tracts of oil tar sands that could yield enough oil to equal all of the Persian Gulf states combined.
6. The Saudis are only concentrating their oil production on the oilfields near the Persian Gulf, not yet exploiting oilfields in other parts of the country. Tests by ARAMCO engineers have shown there are large oil deposits in the southern part of Saudi Arabia (called the Empty Quarter), but the Saudis have yet to tap these oilfields.
As for the issue of food production, the very rapid development of farm machinery, agricultural chemicals and better means to store and transport food has increased the amount and variety of food available to everyone on a scale that is mind-boggling. Think about it: compare what is available at your local food market in 1902 versus 2002, and you can eat foodstuffs today from literally all over the world.
In short, the alarmists don't know what they're talking about--a classic case of junk science.
Many European countries have declining indigenous populations, and the overall populations are only kept from declining by immigration.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is just like the 50s when US enviros were screaming that the 1/4 mile-wide clear-cutting in the Rockies would ruin the forest forever. Thanks to their lack of forsight these 1/4 mile "fire barriors" were nowhere to be found this year. We lost far more wooded acres this year alone to forest fires than would have been clear cut in the last 52 years (and this summer is just getting started).
Then you start thinking about all the unused lumber that went up in flames that would have been cut down (usable)...which really would have saved many more acres and you just get sick.
Thanks to them I'm personally out five acres of personal land and the nice camping trailer that was on it.
I'm sure the smoke was great for the air too...yah, that reminds me. The old-lady neighbor of my parents died the day after the worst forest-fire-smoke day and complaining about breathing problems.
They're extremests and nothing more. There needs to be compromise and smart management of forests...and we've been letting these whacos (with strange ideals and no knowledge of logic, reasoning, and cause-effect) tell us how to manage our natural resources.
If we continue to listen to groups like the WWF we probably will do something stupid to make the earth expire by 2050.
I vote for common sense.
somehow i keep getting this image in my head of, 50 years from now, tina turner coming to kick my ass for fuel.
not fun, although i suppose we get to wear cool jackets.
Or, in this case, they know more about it than the wackos who concocted the latest fad climate theory when they really know nothing about it.
The EU, UN, EPA, the Bush administration, and any number of enironmentally oriented groups (although it is to be expected, that doesn't inharently discredit their research) disagree with you. Look here for example : look at this.
Not sure if this is what you mean with "resources are created, not found", but one interesting way to look at things is to observe that until the explosion motor was invented, oil was mostly a slimy substance that nobody wanted on their land.
Or in other words, oil, as a resource was created a little over 100 years ago, by a human invention.
we can't keep growing forever. We are continuing to chip away at our ecosystem and eventually we will either settle into a ?no growth scenario? or push the ecosystem over the edge and all die.
The real question is will our wisdom grow fast enough to balance out our intelligence? I'm betting that it won't.
Anyway, we may have already crossed the point of no return. That's the way it will be. We will bicker about not being the ones to make a sacrifice and rationalize about how we don't really have concrete data until things start to get really bad. Then we'll pass all sorts of laws to try to reverse the situation but it will be too late.
The ecosystem will begin to collapse causing dramatic climate changes which will cause the ecosystem to collapse at an ever accelerated rate. Entire species will die, man being one of them.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
He didn't say all, and data f rom the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization disputes your claim that it's only "half at best". They estimate that a total of 790 million people in developing countries are undernourished, and that the number is declined by approximately 8 million per year. They state that a further 34 million undernourished people live in developed countries.
That's well under a billion people in all. Still alarmingly high, but nowhere near as bad as you would make it out to be.
One thing to understand is that there is no shortage of food on the planet. (The other night a friend and I were discussing this, and we looked up some numbers and determined that the current agricultural production of the U.S. alone could easily feed every person on the planet, if everyone were vegetarian; meat is pretty inefficient way to deliver calories.) It's just that the food is not always in the hands of people who need it, whether because those people are living on poor land, or they don't have the money to purchase it, or their government is corrupt... but it's not that the earth can't provide enough food to support all these people or for that matter twice as many people...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
a) environmentalists can in fact sometimes be right
b) but being critical of them does not involve insulting their intelligence or calling them names.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Ah the expected response from a coward liberal with mod points. Anything that dosen't agree with their PC viewpoint is a flame. They are less open to views crictical of their view than Stalin and Hitler.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I'd wager dollars to donuts that the fires in the US West are outputting more pollution than all the SUVs sold in the past 3 years.
Not a bad rant there buddy. I have one moderator point left and I would give it to you if there was a 'Cool Rant' moderation choice...
OTOH I often find that people who are true believers in natural selection figure that it doesn't apply to *them*. I tend towards that myself. But then my motto is 'Live forever, or die trying'.
Jack William Bell
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
There is no way that a billion+ people are going to be transported to another planet using today's technology. Colonization will happen gradually and probably by local reproduction.
(* Experts say that seas will become emptied of fish *)
Most neurishment comes from farming anyhow, not the sea. Fish-farms are the wave of the future anyhow.
(* while forests - which absorb carbon dioxide emissions - are completely destroyed *)
Houses will then be made of bricks and iron.
BTW, I heard there was a plant that could be turned into paper, and was more productive than tree farming. What ever happened to that?
(* The study will also reveal a sharp fall in the planet's ecosystems *)
A changed planet is not necessarily an unlivable one. True, there may be some unpleasentries ahead.
(* Figures from the centre reveal that black rhino numbers have fallen from 65,000 in 1970 to around 3,100 now. *)
Humans are doomed because there are no Rhinos or Hippos? How logical. Just put fat chicks over there to replace them. Nobody will know the difference, and there are plenty of them, as the study complains.
(* The report, which will be unveiled in Geneva, warns that the wasteful lifestyles of the rich nations are mainly responsible for the exploitation and depletion of natural wealth. *)
Perhaps, but it might also contribute to increased human wealth. Imports to the US keep the world economy going. The dictactors cannot find any other way keep their citizens alive.
Contribute to the Condum Fund. Besides, why fuss about per-person consumption and not about cranking out humans at incredible rates? Bigots!
We got our population growth under control, what about you? US men discovered that they don't need to get married to get some booty. (Well, some of them at least.)
Table-ized A.I.
The earth will replenish until the plate tetonics stop, or if we pull a Venus with runaway global warming.
Mass starvation and disease will cull the herd before we get to the point of using everything up. Africa is already getting hit hard with AIDS. Add to the the destablizing effect that will have.
As a species we always used up our local resources and moved on. Looks like we are running out of places to go.
photosMy Photostream
There was a guy in the '70s named Paul Ehrlich who became quite popular making these sames claims: the Earth would be destroyed by pollution and overconsumption before the next century. Ehrlich relied on the same Malthusian theory: that a population growing at a geometric rate would outstrip its resources growing at an arithmetic rate. The thing Ehrlich (and Malthus) didn't consider was human ingenuity. Ehrlich thought we'd all be starved by now; instead we're all too fat for our own good. Sure environmental problems can be devastating and tricky to solve, but the sky is not falling. Humanity enjoys better material conditions now than ever before.
The best resource for countering doomsayers is the writings of Julian Simon. People who get a perverse pleasure from proclaiming doom hate him. A good introduction to "doomslaying" is Wired Magazine's interview with Julian Simon.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
This is the classic Liberal's delimma. The liberal screams and shouts that something is very wrong -- people open there eyes a bit and things get quite a bit better. Then the conservatives come along later and say: "Gee, the liberal was wrong, see we're ok now."
About 15 years ago I remember the "Skeptical Environmentalists" saying that the temperature of the earth won't even go up one degree by 2050. Well. It appears as if they are wrong. In some parts (the artic regions) we are anywhere from 4 to 7 degrees warmer. As I remember, it may have even been Julian who made these predictions (or who re-quoted them).
It's clear that we are seeing an acceleration in global warmth which is going to dramatically change our climate (and is doing so as we speak). What are you going to do about it? Close your eyes and say that we humans will adapt? Do you have that much faith in technology... I don't. How can you be sure it doesn't warm even faster?
I don't know about you, but I'd rather err on the "conservative" side of things and take action now rather than wait till it becomes a crisis. No?
This is the question anyone will ask. Nobody cares about the world their kids will grow up in (okay, I'm not speaking for all the responsible parents on Slashdot), but really, people don't care. Their kids will, sure as shit. My kids will care. Their world will be going to shit and I and my generation will be largely responsible.
Show me how to get others of my generation to take responsibility and fix this mess. Otherwise, you're wasting my time with and OLD issue.
It turns out that all this fuss is over nothing... it seems that it was just Verisign sending out another one of those fradulent "renewal notices". You think people would have learned to read the fine print on the back, by now...
-- Terry
Actually, this is going to happen, and sooner than most people think. Points 1 and 2 in the above post are simply wrong, and point 3 may be irrelevant. First of all, fuel efficiency, although it roughly doubled since 1975, mostly because manufacturers reduced engine sizes, has been slowly but steadily decreasing in the U.S. since 1987.
As for the claim that more fuel is being found, it is simply not true. Oil discovery peaked in 1960 and has been steadily declining ever since. The current rate of consumption exceeds new discovery by a margin of 3:1 and demand is increasing at a rate between 2 and 3 percent every year. New technology does not solve this problem, at a certain point the laws of thermodynamics kick in and standard economic paradigms fail. at some point, it takes more energy to recover the oil than the oil contains. after that, there is no longer any point in trying to recover more oil.
In 1956 a geologist named M. King Hubbert published his prediction that U.S. Oil production would peak by 1970. Most people in the petroleum industry ridiculed him, but he was right. Oil production in the U.S. has been declining since 1970, Dr. Hubbert was spot-on in his predicition. Recently Dr. Hubbert's theory has been applied to estimated worldwide reserves. One study estimates that global oil production will peak by 2010. This study has also taken some heat from the establishment, but even if you accept the most wildly optimistic estimates of the people doing the ridiculing, peak oil production is only pushed 20-30 years into the future. After the peak, production declines every year, until it becomes uneconomical to produce more oil. When production peaks, demand will exceed supply permanently, a situation that will get worse every year from then on. For a good example of what happens to prices when demand for a commodity exceeds supply, check out the prices for real balsamic vinegar these days. Prices would skyrocket so quickly that the average person would no longer be able to afford to run a vehicle, not even a hybrid one.
What about alternative fuels and energy sources? What about them? they aren't being developed. politicians pay lip service to alternative energy, and cut funding. We don't need them right now, oil prices are still cheap. The killer here is that oil prices stay cheap, right up until it becomes clear that production is decreasing. after that oil prices climb. So does the price of everything else. Suddenly, the economy is too weak to support the development of other energy sources, even if we wanted to.
What about coal? there's like 1000 years worth of coal left. What about natural gas? Well, the 700 million automobiles in the world today don't run on coal or natural gas. neither do the airplanes and railroads. and neither does the equipment used to mine and transport the coal and natural gas. heh heh.
Our economy is based on oil. in a very real sense, at this point in human history oil is food. oil is everything. and it's running out. there is no good substitute for it, and we don't seem all that interested in finding one. we're all gonna die. really. it's probably too late already, so no point in worrying about it now.
Moving heavy industry off earth would make it possible to turn this planet into a garden.
An space business infrastructure means it will be possible for ordinary people to go to space, meaning there will be jobs up there for everything from network admins to fry cooks.
The US "powers that be" aren't going to move by themselves on cleaning up the environment or space colonization, given that the horizon of the CEO of a publically traded company is next quarter's financial results.
Encouraging public panic and channeling it into towards the solution that the WWF (WORLD WILDLIFE FUND!!!) apparently thinks impossible might actually work in getting some money thrown at the technological problems that mostly remain to be solved with respect to space industrialization.
Tech Public Policy stuff
You know what's most ridiculous and illogical about these types of predictions? They assume that technology does not or can not change. And in fact, they don't even look at current technological developments. In 25 years, let alone 50, almost everyone will be driving a fuel-cell based or other non-polluting vehicle. Roofing tiles and mirror windows will be commonly made of ultra-cheap photovoltaic cells, supplying 30% or more household energy needs. Photonic computers will be so small that they'll require only miniscule amounts of resources to produce and negligible energy to run. More people than ever will work at home thanks to massive telecommunications advancements, 3D immersion technologies, etc. Paper will be nearly forgotten. Materials research will have replaced most of todays use of wood and steel with a diverse assortment composite and organic plastics. Advances in agricultural science, such as hydroponics, combined with a growing desire for organic foods will multiply the efficiency of production by at least an order of magnitude. At long last (mostly due to computer modelling), we will figure out human dietary science once and for all, quickly transforming the American diet into one with lower intake, greater nutrition, and paradoxically greater enjoyment. The same advances will carry over to properly feeding nearly all of the world, albeit with less emphasis on taste. Who says the world's gonna end in 50 years because of resource shortage? Not I. Although there are other issues that may render the same effect. See Revelation for vague details. (-:
I will list what I know of population dynamics, in order to show you my point of view.
Even if a 50-year limit seems like an alarmist position, many conservative scientists agree that 100 years looks like the maximum timeframe. Change must happen quickly for us to save a habitat that humanity can live in.
Some possible research materials for you:
http://www.ku.edu/~hazards/foodpop.pdf
1 02 6074943.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/01
http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Science/
---
Jt
crulx@iaxs.net
Yah, the 'out of food' thing was a big joke-- take the U.S. government for example. I saw a story recently on CNN.com (can't find the URL, but hopefully someone else can find a story based on it, it was pry an AP story) talking about how the government is buying surplus food from farmers in order to artificially inflate the prices. The government has SO much stockpiled that it was said that it could feed the entire U.S. for a rather lengthy period of time.
All that, and we're supposedly running OUT of food?
Now I'm not one to totally ignore their statement, because in all honesty we as a people SHOULD try to tone back our consumption of natural resources, and specifically, tone back our destruction of natural forests and other growth areas. As for finding inhabitable planets, this should be our goal anyways, if not finding Earth-like planets to colonize, finding ways to colonize planets such as Mars. (In another hundred years, this stuff probably won't be the thing of movies, but real-life-- eg: cnnmars.com, for example.)
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
You're forgetting that with cheaper fuel efficiency, people will also drive more. Probably not so much as to completely eliminate the benefits of the fuel efficiency on oil reserves, but certainly quite a lot. Also, people who couldn't afford to own cars at all will buy them.
Or, we could try to decrease our numbers.
May we live long and die out
Some famine is political in nature, but the much of the problem comes from areas that are simple overpopulated and have insufficent infastructure to support relief efforts. Frequently both factors are combined and you have areas with no food, no roads, and a government hostile to foreign aid.
The point is that the Earth can support these people. In the past, they just moved to better pastures. Look at a current example in Zimbabwe, which is currently in the middle of a drought, and there is widespread famine.
But neighboring, poorer Zambia is doing okay under the same drought. The only difference is a government that ruined the means of food production and distribution.
Listen, the question if the world is going to go bust in 2050 or not is not very important. That's the future. The important thing now is to treat the earth as the valuable thing it is; the most valuable on earth for each human isn't on earth, it's the earth itself.
If you had this really nice new computer, and you knew you could overclock it to make it even nicer, although that overclocking would reduce the lifetime of the computer so much that you wouldn't have the money to buy a new one before this one runs out, would you do it?
I know I wouldn't, and I think the same thing goes for the earth, and that all we westerner should be very aware that we should be the leaders in reducing pollution, because in the coming years the pollution from developing countries will increase manifold, and they don't have the money nor the interest yet to do something about it. Reduce your energy and material consumption!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Dude, everything you say here just strenghtens their point, and I think it's pretty arrogant of you to assume they haven't taken into account your objections to their method. They calculate in the one resources that doesn't replenish itself and is constant: land area. Pretty smart huh?
And until we find a reasonable way to colonize planets, this will be a constant.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Then came the black choppers and Dustin Hoffman was chasing a monkey.
Good movie...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There is no place to go. If we can't live sustainably on earth, how could we colonize another planet, a place where the slightest mistake or waste means instant death? We either make it here on earth or we don't make it at all.
And don;t start with the " is a distribution problem, not production" lame excuse.
The reality is that people are starving or going hungry every day, it is of no use to tell the hungry that we are producing enough food but we can deliver it where is needed (as the Afghanistan campaign showed it, where ther is a will to get things done, things get done).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Oil and gas fields are finite, idiot. One day they will be empty. Moron.
The methods of exploration have become very sophisticated, but that was necessary because little by little it is more difficult to find oil.
Even countries like the Gulf States are beginning to worry about what are they going to do when the oil dries out. Not to plan for that certainity (it is not a matter of if but when) is most cavalier and irresponsible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Perhaps what is confusing you is the way in which those consequences play out. People who can't feed themselves where they live don't just quietly die, they move around, they burn down rain forest, they overgraze their land, they settle in mosquito-infested areas, they fight wars, they become economic refugees, etc.
The consequences for the planet have been devastating. Foremost, the number of species going extinct is unprecedented in earth's history. We are consuming resources far in excess of sustainable levels. And human activities have already had profound influences on weather and the environment, and this will only get worse.
As long as the West has a strong military and know-how, we will be able to continue to live comfortably. Deterioration of our environment happens slowly enough that we don't really notice it day-to-day and don't really miss much. Global warming won't kill you or me, although it may start making life uncomfortable in half a century. We're well separated from the starving and sick masses of the third world. Well, at least it's a fairly comfortable way to go to hell.
What do we do once all tha oil is gone?
Which much of what you said is BS anyway, but would be nice to hear your solution...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The UN performs thorough studies regarding the state of the environment. They recently released a new report. (The link goes to the press release, with a link to the full report at the top) It's really something you have to read to realise how much we've screwed up the planet. Some quotes:
"Twelve per cent or 1 183 of birds and nearly a quarter or 1 130 mammals are currently regarded as globally threatened."
"Just under a third of the world's fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited or recovering as a result of over-fishing fueled by subsidies estimated at up to US$20 billion annually."
"The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that forests, which cover around a third of the Earth's land surface or 3 866 million ha, have declined by 2.4 per cent since 1990."
Not all news in there is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. But it should be better, a lot better.
Anyway, I strongly suggest reading the full report. It's very educational.
They all predict we will run out sometime.
And as for:
"The world as we know it will likely be ruined before the year 2000
and the reason for this will be its inhabitants' failure to comprehend
two facts. These facts are (1) World food production cannot keep pace
with the galloping growth of population. (2) 'Family planning' cannot
and will not, in the foreseeable future, check this runaway growth."
I think we live in a prity fucked up world, look at the spread of AIDS and the lack of family planing. It may seem fine to some people who've been brain wased and have a different set of rose tinted glasses for each day, but the the rest of the world it's all fucked up and getting worse.
Don't forget that the average American has an IQ of 100.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I suggest you read E. O. Wilson's book "The Future of Life". Wilson is one of the top biologists in the world.
As for your points, we are clearly not running out of oil, and Americans are at no risk of starving. What we are running out of is habitats and species. 10 billion people may be able to eke out a living on earth, but it won't be much of a life, and it won't be much of an earth either. And at some point, growth has to stop anyway--why not now?
I had a 91 Escort that was the best car I ever drove in the snow. I used pick my Jeep Grand Cherokee friends when the got stuck in the snow all the time. Back when we used to have Winter in NY.
I even wrote this song about Snowpig:
SNOW PIG
W&M LM
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED POUNDS OF FURY AND STEEL
SPEED IS LIFE AND DEATH'S BEHIND THE WHEEL
INCHES OR FEET IT GETS ME WHERE I'M GOING
YOU JUST LET IT SQUEAL WHEN IT STARTS SNOWING
SNOW
PIG
SNOW
PIG
NINETY ONE HORSES FROM MY ONE POINT NINE
EATS FOUR WHEEL DRIVES AS THEY SLIP AND SLIDE
YOU SEE MOUNTAINS OF SNOW BUT I SEE HILLS
THIS IS THE MEANEST ESCORT FORD EVER BUILT
CHORUS
SOLO
STARTS EVERY MORINING NO SNOW CAN STOP IT
EVERY DENT AND DING IS A BADGE OF COURAGE
FIVE ON THE FLOOR AND SO DAMN GUTSY
MY FRIENDS CALL FOR RIDES WHEN THEIR CAR IS BUSTED
CHORUS
This
In places like Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand people regularly have to use masks that allow them to breathe, specially during the burning of fields in Indonesia (look for "haze" and the name of each country).
In places like Chile and Argentina people have to use UV blockers regularly to avoid skin cancer thanks to the destruction of the ozone layer.
So I think the fake is you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...using all that non existen petrol....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yep. You hit it right on the head, you summed up our culture perfectly. Makes me sick to my stomach. This is the exact opposite type of behavior that a super power should have.
Everwhere in this discussion I see this sort of attitude: (a) I've got the money and therefore I am right. If I wern't right, I wouldn't have the money, now would I? (b) Everyone is cooked, if I'm not I'll get screwed; ooh, look at that poor idiot with ethics (c) I can do what ever I want with the world beacuse its mine, if you think that I'm hurting it, prove it; it's not my responsibility to prove that I'm not going bad (d) I got all of the statistics and research to back what I say, never mind that the scientists making the reports were paid very well for their opinion (e) everything is opinion, there isn't a right or wrong, everything is relative (f) well, we are animals afterall... what do you expect?
Good lord.
Why is this being posted as science when it's actually science fiction? Anyone who's really in that part of the science business knows that it would take a minimum of 100 years before we could leave earth for new in any signifigant numbers. Even then those numbers wouldn't be large enough to make an impact......
If you believe that enviromentalist wacko crap.
No, here again we see "enviromentalists" pulling at peoples emotions. If they were really concerned about the enviroment they would use some actual science and come up with some real answers.
Sorry but camping in trees, jumping nude in front of logging trucks, or posting sci-fi stories on the internet doesn't make anyone appear knowlegable. It certainly doesn't do anything towards presenting a solution to whatever you think the problem is.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
> Should the American public go back to the stone age?
/ car/ ch6.pdf
the article says:
America's consumption 'footprint' is 12.2 hectares per head of population compared to the UK's 6.29ha while Western Europe as a whole stands at 6.28ha. In Ethiopia the figure is 2ha, falling to just half a hectare for Burundi, the country that consumes least resources.
The UK does have hot running water, automobiles, computers, TVs and sturdy houses _and_ it is also an industrialised nation..
Germany also does quite well if these figures are to be believed..
So does the EU want to 'cripple' the US so it can 'catch up'? (see discussion above)
I find the US patriotism in these discussions
a bit scary - does any criticism of the US have to be dismissed as an 'Unamerican' threat?
what does the US EPA think?
US Climate Action Report 2002 - chapter 6:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications
"Based on studies to date, unless there is inadequate or poorly distributed precipitation, the net effects of climate change on the agricultural segment of the U.S. economy over the 21st century are generally projected to be positive"
I live in Australia which is following the US lead not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and is also up there with the US in the per capita greenhouse emissions.. & I don't interpret environmental concern as an "attack" on my country.
What is it about you rabid anti-environmentalists? Are you a Troll or mindless Fool ? I'm going to assuming the latter even though I strongly suspect assume the former.
You choose to believe the obvious propaganda of entities that clearly a vested interest and seek to belittle these FACTS of global climate change and environmental damage.
Yet simply ignore the counter or impartial evidence, (http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/E
I constantly wonder how somebody could be quite so greedy and short sighted, to ignore the evidence of massive damage to the environment and ecosystem, from the most trustworthy sources in the world, Science, EPA's, Governments, NGO's, etc.
It should be a simple matter of the application of Occams Razor, 'who is more likely to be telling the truth' the vested interests of global Polluters like Monsanta, Exon, Shell, or the UK Metrological Office (http://www.met-office.gov.uk/corporate/annualrep
I cannot help drawing a parallel with the the myopic mindless creationists, they too unable to see what is plain to everybody who has a brain.
Perhaps you might be able to understand this
'Global warming for 12-16yo' by DEFRA, the UK Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechan
'The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it.'
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F
For more info, see The Ultimate Resource [juliansimon.org] by Julian Simon [juliansimon.org], and The Skeptical Environmentalist [cambridge.org] by Bjorn Lomborg [lomborg.com].
Frankly I'm much more inclinded to believe this list of Research/Studies from Oxford University. Than some lacky for the Petro-Chemical industry. Simple application of Occams Razor
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/
"This trial version of Earth 1.0 will expire in 50 years. Click OK to continue, click Order to go to the order webpage or click Register to enter your registration code."
Yep, someone has to make a crack or a keygen.
Disrupting the economy because himans MIGHT be affecting the natural cycle.
When I was young, my grandfather told me to always return something that I borrow in better condition than I found it. During each human's life time we borrow the land and our environment for a short period of time. If we are going to modify the envionment (in many many ways) we should always be asking if our changes are reversable and at what cost so that when that human's life is over, the resources he/she borrowed can be returned so that another human can use them.
We know that polluting the land (while ecnomically advantageous) runs counter to this general idea. Putting alot of carbon dioxide in the air may very well also be problematic. In short, if we are changing the environment we need to look carefully at what we do.
Claiming that I have to prove that your changes are going to cause harm is just bunk. You should have to prove to the community that your change is harmless. You have it exactly backwards. You are putting a short-term economy ahead of long-term environment that our children, grand children, great-great-great grand children will have to deal with.
If we continue to act irresponsibility then the burden will fall on our children... oh well, at least we won't be around to suffer. Or will we?
Nevertheless, yeoman's work on this thread, sir - I salute you. Too bad I have no mod points :^)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Oh, man, this is getting to be too much. Seems like the earth comes to an end every twenty years or so.
Hey, somebody explain something to me... why is it that an SUV is a threat to the planet, but the same vehicle with different bodywork is just fine when it's called a pickup truck or minivan? Why is a housewife who drives her SUV around town for 5000 miles a year more of a threat than the guy who drives his Civic 30,000 miles/year? Why are movie stars who fly halfway around the world for a weekend getaway exempt from criticism?
Everyone, quick, run for your lives, the enviornmentalists who've been predicting the end of the world for the past 60 years are right!
Oh... wait... they're not, nevermind.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
COINCIDENCE DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSALITY
Assuming that just because humans are doing things implies that the results of those things are the primary cause of climate change is alarmist thinking. We are here, therefore we are the cause is sloppy thinking. It comes from humans arrogantly assuming that they are the center of the universe and therefore are the cause of everything.
Similarly, the thinking behind Kyoto appears to be:
Where is the proof?
Now, I am not advocating open season on resource consuption -- minimizing our impact on the environment is just good thinking (and therefore will never happen in north america), while minimizing our polution levels reduces ugly things like smog.
But claiming that rising sea levels are a cause for alarm ignores the fact that sea levels are already three hundred feet above where they were fifteen thousand years ago. I bet if some of these nuts were around then, they would be running around claiming that maybe this "fire" thing was having a greater impact on the environment than could be controlled!
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Secondly, you are not a very smart American. It takes a *special* kind of person to believe that just because a date is wrong something catastrophic is going to happen.
No matter what the Slashdot front page says... No matter what the people with vested interests in panic said, Y2K was not a problem at all... Only the USA spent great gobs of money on upgrading systems. The rest of the world didn't do a damn thing about it until afterwards, and the rest of the world has not had any serious problems.
No Russian nukes automatically launching, no pacemakers shutting down, no toasters attacking people... NOTHING. NOTHING HAPPENED, NOTHING WAS AVOIDED.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Wood ash and smoke are different kinds of pollution, and typically stay airborn for a far shorter period of time than the chemicals that make up "smog"
But that's not the point.
He was talking about oil consumption, not air pollution, and the fires in the US West aren't consuming (much) oil.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
And my grade? I got a D. Why? Because, in the words of the teacher, "I wasn't being cooperative and participating in a constructive manner.."
You should have gotten at least a B. Maybe not an "A" as ethics is a part of what any polisci education should include, even if our country has degenerated to the point where they are seldom, if ever, apparent (with economic results like Enron et. al. to show for it).
Why would I give you a B, and perhaps an A? Because you probably single handedly not only provided the rest of the class with a solid, realistic lesson in what politics in America has become, you also probably disillusioned most of that class and insured they would never consider a career in politics.
20-30 less potential politicians in the world...that alone would earn you an "A" in my gradebook.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've said this before: Everyone on earth could live in nice single-family houses on quarter-acre lots in a subdivision-style neighborhood a little bit bigger than Texas.
People starving in Africa are doing so for political reasons, not ecologic.
Everyone *knows* that SUVs are horribly inefficient and expensive to run. Everyone knows that a fancy home theater set-up eats more power than a plain ol' TV. Everyone knows that all of the packaging in a McDonald's meal cannot be recycled (the wrappers, the plastic cup lids and straws, the Happy Meal toys, the wax-coated cups). Everyone knows that old computers and video cards end up in the landfill, but that doesn't stop Slashdotters from upgrading annuallly.
So I don't know what the points of stories like this are. It's not like you're going to get people to do things that really matter if you can't even get them to stop doing the obviously bad things.
Oh, that's what it's called in english! Yes, you're right.
Note his figures on depopulating Earth via space migration and the market for depopulation. If you don't have a market for depopulation you won't get it to happen short of massive die-offs.
It is wrong to argue that Earth will continue to have sufficient resources for the population for the foreseeable future because people have been prematurely predicting resource crises for centuries.
The correct argument is over proper measurement of the probability that critical resources will become unavailable within a given time period multiplied by the down-side of such a loss. This number tells us something about the degree of present investment that may be wise to make as an insurance policy on the chance that something does limit technological civilization's viability.
Seastead this.
The earth isn't going to go anywhere (to die), WE are.
The earth will not "expire", though many invaluable species will die, invaluable habit will be destroyed, and so forth. What WILL happen is the human population will crash in a very ugly way. The 3rd World would be less affected by a collapse as they are already close to rock bottom. It is the developed nations, with the US at the pinnacle, that are going to have a very nasty crash.
It is unacceptable to waste/consume/waste resources at the rate we in the US do and it will lead to irreparable harm on the overall world ecosystem BUT the ultimate, and much deserved, outcome will be collapse of human "civilization". The human population will drop precipitously (maybe not by 2050 but it is absolute certainty that without substantially change in practices it WILL happen in the not distant future), below preindustrial levels, because the environmental damage and depletion will support much less and it will take a long time for earth to recover...perhaps longer than the human species lifetime because evolution will act to reproduce a new biodiversity without regards to what is best for us. Empty niches, depleted and descimated by human overconsumption and greed, will be filled - that is what evolution and life does, it fills available niches. It will take a long time and I believe that humans will not recover to anything remotely like today's tech levels before it all comes to a end (there are two articles out there - can't presently find the refs - dealing with the "useful" lifetime of earth. One gives life 1 billion more years before the oceans are fully subsumed into the earth's mantle based on the current rate of ocean water loss due to subduction. Complex life like horses and dogs and humans will be dead LONG before the last oceanic water is lost to the mantle. Another study gives the earth 2 billion years tops based on the changing sun - it gets hotter and hotter all the time and LONG before it goes Red Giant stage, the earth will be rendered dead).
This may be why we detect no radio signals from advanced tech alien lifeforms in the galaxy. By the time they are approaching the means to be able to do this, they have totally screwed up their own nest (like us) and drive themselves into ignomie instead.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
You forgot to mention the fact that "modern" farm practice does more harm than good. Heavy fertilizer utilization pollutes water. You also heavily deplete the soil you are using such that you have to use more and more fertilzer as time goes on. You also left out that pesticide means increased toxins for you to consume and for the environment to absorb. Then, there is the ever present evolution problem...insects and other "pests" DO develop resistance to the pesticides.
So, poison the land and water with nitrogen from overused fertilizer. Poison the water and yourselves with pesticide (and "weed" killer chemicals). Good plan.
Then there is the simple fact that it would be a miserable existence for people to be packed so tightly. No privacy, no quiet, no solitude, no peace. It would become a rapid breeding ground for mass murder and other violence.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
"Scary what one can justify simply by invoking the Other. Here, the other is a weaker theif of "our" natural resources. And as in all dichotomies built out of the Other, "us" is the stronger, is the better, is the rightful owner of everything we can forcibly take."
Yes, you should more carefully look at the wars you describe. I am being honest, you however are kidding yourself about a great many things. The stronger merely means one thing, those who can survive by overpowering others will. It is that simple. It is not right or wrong. You have constructed a false sense of morality that is a) not practical b) a tool of keeping the masses content as slaves. Socialism and religion are these tools. There will be a breaking point, the only question is when. At least I do not foolishly think we can provide for all people indefinitely.
You sound like you've read too many Ayn Rand books, so let's get this out of the way first:
Socialism != morality
behavior != need
As much as I admire Ayn Rands work, it is nothing more than pulp philosophy. Morality is in itself, a false construction. More than anything else, it is a tool created by the strong to trick the masses into devoting their pathetic lives to the service of their masters. You will find the vast majority of control is not exercised through death... Most people do not live because their blood is spilled, their minds are warped from the moment of birth to believe their place in life is to serve the state, their comrades, or a god.
All human behavior is motivated by one thing, the will to power. It is all governing, and omnipresent all the time. The Socialist enjoys his control over others, the feeling of superiority he gets at naturalists like myself. The theists fullfills his desire for power every time he gifts an eloquent speech in defense of his god, and condemns heathens such as myself who consider him a quack. The bully on the playground, a little lad, fulfills his will to power every time be forces others to do whatever he wants them to do. The artist, free of political bullshit, experiences the will to power when he performs a brilliant piece of music on a violin or completes a beautiful painting. For those who lack the strength or ingenuity to do what they want, artificial constructs of morality are created. It is a tool of, for, and by slaves to overcome their masters. It is their attempt to experience power. But, because they know not what it is, they always fail. It is the slaves who will draw blood when the food runs out, not I. It is not right or wrong, it simply will happen. The Will to Power is human nature.
If you have taken the time to read Ayn Rand, thats great. But I suggest you move yourself to the next level. I once thought as you, but it times to get rid of this morality system to which you hold dear. Nietzsche will provide you with a greater understanding of life.
"Nature doesn't do anything. Let's go over it again--nature is a reified idea which you've obviously gotten confused about. Life does not exist without death, that much we agree about, but that's not "nature."
Think about it for a second: populations force shortages upon other populations, or environmental conditions force shortages on populations. The detail is the key. To arbitrarily group these two distinct causes into something called "natural" is the fault of your logic."
I cannot believe I am reading this in this condescending tone. This is the old nature or nurture argument. It has been going on for at least 200 years. Not even the sickest mind controlling communist will completely dismiss human nature. I suggest you analyze yourself and others before you make such dismissive comments, especially faulty logic. Nature does not "do" anything you are right, but it is a system of behavior of living things. All living things strive to grow. Try not eating or fucking for a week. First, you will eat until satisfied, then you will fuck. You won't be able to think of anyhting else. Your little mind that you perceive to be completely under your control is hardly so. Your body's first goal is to survive, then to reproduce. The goals are acheived by you striving to be better than anyone else. Happiness only occurs when you acheive superiority to others. A pack of wolves operates in the same fashion, a school of fish, or any other species. Even plants will grow until there is nowhere left to grow. Nature does not create food shortages, that is not my point. I apologize if that is the case. Human nature, and the nature of all living things, is to reproduce as much as possible, until all means of sustinence are used up. It is the excess reproduction of living things that causes food shortages.
It is unfortunate you do not see that the population problem is simply humans behaving like every other living thing.
Also Vietnam is an exception, but at the time, the French cared about Vietnam due to its abundant supply of natural rubber. One of the many factors of Germany's demise in WWII was its dependency on natural substances for military clothing and boots after the American liberation of the south east asia. A cynic such as myself would argue that Vietnam was about intangibles such as propoganda. A popular tool of masters going back for all of written history is to rally the people behind some war cause, if not for natural resources, than to at least keep them quiet and give them something to do. The more they hate some other group, the less they hate their own masters.
Once again, in my defense against the socialist onslaught, I am not a Nazi, I personally do not belive in the taking of anything from anyone or the killing of anyone. What I do believe, is others will find ways to do this within their artificial morality. Socialists will steal from the rich. Fascists will steal from their neighboring countries. When push comes to shove, there will be a lot of stealing of food going on. But, not by me. It is important for all you wonderful socialists to understand NAZI is an acronym for the National Socialist Party. The Nazis WERE socialists. Germany of 1940 is just like Germany of today, without the antisemitism. Same corporate control by the state, same wealth redistribution, same lack of freedoms.
Socialism is no different than nazism. They both steal, they both keep people chained in bondage to the state. The sooner we throw away our vicious tools of control, the sooner we can live a more peaceful life on this planet.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
The problem is that this is how diplomacy really works. The actions of this particular player are very reminiscent of Germany's behavior under Hitler. In fact, there are several world rulers today that are probably worse than this particular player. Take a look at the people playing diplomacy for keeps in the Middle East, for instance.
THINK before you speak...he did say "more than five years old"...
I do think before I speak, my mistake was to assume that others would think as they read...
Yeah, a brand new engine burns fuel cleaner than an old beat up dirty engine.
But you're still burning MORE FUEL with an SUV. Buy a brand new SMALL engine. Geez, is that so abstract?
You guyz got some kind of magic anti-pollution device that stops carbon mon/dioxyde from being produced when you burn things? Because if you don't, burning twice as much fuel produces twice as much of it. Simple math...VERY simple math, actually.
You can't take the sky from me...
The WWF retains the right to choose from any of the wrestlers it will have in 2050. Some may be horrific and terrifying results of human cloning and tissue engineering experiments. Others may be the wrestlers you enjoy today, cryogenically preserved in giant buckets of ice water to deliver their maximal smackdown power in the distant future.
Who will deliver the smackdown is a mystery, and won't be revealed until July 4th 2050. What we do know is that Mother Nature is going down and she ain't coming back up. Triumph will be complete and eternal. Tickets available at Ticketron and local ticketing agencies. Mastercard, Visa and Discover accepted. All ticket sales are final and non-transferrable. Ensure your grandchildrens' participation in this historic event today!
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Yes, it is a ridiculous idea, but the site is entertaining and occasionally informative.
On a different note, I noticed a few people taking about how things will settle down after there is a scramble for resources. Sure, billions might die, but in the end, homeostasis will be achieved, right? The problem with that line of reasoning is the assumption that there will be something left after we are done fighting. We aren't ants, folks. We use big scary bombs to fight for resources. And those bombs have the capability to destroy all of the resources.
Just remember, radioactive wheat isn't so appetizing.
Um, yes? Two things, first, you CAN use economic arguments. Materials have been getting cheaper and cheaper. It's not like we just run a pipe from the river to our homes. That water already goes though a lot of processing.
Second, we have far less pollution around than when I was a kid. So, by using the WWF logic, we'll have no pollution by 2050!
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Can you imagine the off-road possibilities of Mars?
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Poisoned eh?
Well, seeing how everything is growing really well on that "Poisoned" bit of land. Maybe your definition of poison isn't the same as the rest of the world.
1 A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.
2 Something destructive or fatal.
Remember, English is the language of Slashdot.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
however increasing rates of generational overlap (people living longer) means that population keeps going up even with only 2 new offspring for every pair of adults in each generation.
Really there should be no death control without birth control.
Eh, I'd like to make an adjustment to "So stop worrying!"
It's ok to worry, but stop freaking out. It's not constructive.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I don't know if this has been mentioned since there are a 1,000,000 commments to look through, but does anyone find it interesting that the gay percentage is being rasied with the earth population? Could this be our way of evening things out, since gay people don't have offspring.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Fortunately, smaller rocks have a lot more surface area than the same weight of large rocks. We can use a bunch of asteroids instead. Flatten them for more surface area (no, not Ringworld -- we don't have a material strong enough for that).
Actually, keeping and PROPERLY maintaining an older car (with a small engine) is better for the environment than having the auto industry suck out the resources necessary to build a new car.
The problem is, the technology of engines has changed so much that it's now no longer necessary to keep our disposable cars in tune - they don't require maintenance for tens of thousands of miles (other than routine oil changes).
The OLD car technology, can be just as efficient and clean - as long as people take the effort to properly maintain them. My 30 year old VW engine gets 30 miles per gallon (better than any SUV I'm familliar with) - and passes smog testing (which is not required for a car that old, but if it were, it would pass) - because I adjust the valves, replace plugs and points, and keep the mixture set properly every 1000 miles. I do it myself. But that's too much to ask of most people these days, (and of course, we're all driven to buy new cars every 2 years, and simply MUST have 5 liter behemoths) so the old car technology would be driven, by most people, in a poorly tuned and polluting state. SO in that respect, the new technology is better - but that doesn't mean you have to replace your 5 year old car. Or especially your 2 year old car. And in 10 years, the car you buy today will still be in good running order, and should NOT need to be replaced. Where do you think the energy and materials come from to build every man woman and child on this planet a new car every two years?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You need to separate Hitler the genocidal maniac and Hitler the diplomat. Had Hitler concentrated on conquering England before dragging Russia into the war, and if Japan would have forestalled their attack on Pearl Harbor most of Europe would probably be speaking German right now. Hitler conquered nearly all of Western Europe with relatively few casualties. As a conqueror (and a diplomat) Hitler has few equals.
Besides which if the leaders of the rest of the world had been paying attention Hitler could have been stopped the Germans long before they became the serious threat that they were after the fall of France. Poor diplomacy was certainly part of the problem that lead to World War II. I would much rather have the future diplomats of the world learn this lesson in a harmless game in their history class than learn it in real life.
The irony of this example is that this particular kid deserves an A because he actually studied history and used the knowledge he gained to his advantage. Notice, for example, how he had historical precedents for each of his actions. Had the rest of the students been paying attention to their history lessons then they could have countered his moves. But they didn't, preferring instead to experience history first hand.
meat may be pretty inefficient at delivering calories, but it's much more efficient at delivering protiens. The dirty little secret of Vegans is that there are some people who simply can't survive on veggies alone (for every example of a healthy, happy vegetarian, there's an example of a person who has tried, and was sick and miserable, and went back to eating meat) - surely, I'll buy the argument that we (Americans, in general) can survive, and even live happy, healthy, rewarding lives with far less meat than we consume today - I'll be willing to bet that if you took every man woman and child and put them on a strict vegan diet, 20% would simply die within a month.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
No Russian nukes automatically launching, no pacemakers shutting down, no toasters attacking people... NOTHING. NOTHING HAPPENED, NOTHING WAS AVOIDED.
My company just discovered a Y2K bug two months ago in one of our customer databases. 50,000 contracts with no valid start date. Ugly. We went through our stuff with a fine toothed comb in 1999 -
To say that nothing happened is false.
In fact, you could even blame the dot-bombs on the drop in IT spending caused by post Y2K era corporate budgets.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Most of the rich are rich due to their own work
No. Most of the very very rich are due to laws which favor them (the incumbants) over newcomers.
It works like this. We have a two part system, democracy and capitalism. Democracy is our social system it defines the rules for the economic system (capitalism). The basic tenant of Democracy is one person one vote. Why? So that the economic system is a level playing field. Thus, this requires equality in the social system, but not necessarly in the economic system.
Now here is the problem. Those with lots of money in the economic system get more "political speech" than those who are doing poorly in the economic system. Thus, even though there is one person one vote; you only get to vote for whom has the money to advertise and put themselves on the ballot. Thus, the people being elected are skewed towards those who have money (half of representatives are worth over 10 million). And these people, in tern, have a vested interest in keeping their money (and the money of the people who put them there). Thus, they write laws that help those with money and hurt those without money? Doubt me? Check your history books.
So, there are two possible outcomes. First, the people in the middle wake up and make the democracy more of a level playing field (which it should be). OR... the wealth keep getting wealtheier. In the latter case, eventually we will end up in an Economic Dictatorship which will transfer over to our social system.
So, for all of those people who are defending the very rich beacuse they think the rich work harder and are smarter than average (perhaps due to their own arrogance that they think they can join the very very small circle) are in for a rude awakening as they get older and understand that the rules are stacked against them.
So what are you going to do? Let the surge in wealth continue? Note: I'm not talking about people with a few million dollars. I know lots of hard working capitalists who bust their asses and deserve this. I'm talking about billionares here... ones that have one million times more net worth than average. A few thousand I can deal with... but a difference of a million means one thing to me -- a broken system.
It has nothing to do with "hard work", it has everything to do with "might makes right" and courruption.
...it was found that every being in the galaxy has 2.4 legs and owns a hyena.
D.Adams will be sorely missed.
A: No. Humans might, but the Earth will be around for a long time to come. Next question.
Nathan's blog
You are blinding yourself. It matters not a whit if the wheat on the plot is growing well, what matters is the runnoff from all that fertilizer and pesticide is entering the water table and poisoning the water. The water is choking on nitrogen and other toxins such that there more algae blooms (toxic to humans and fish alike), less oxygen in the water (toxic to fish, crawfish, etc)...poison by any other word is poison.
Have you never heard of the problems involved in hormone mimetics? That's right, many of the pesticides used mimic hormones like estrogen and testosterone which affects human and non-humans that ingest it (via water or eating the treated foodstuffs). It leads, to among other things, extra limbs and other deformities in frogs, screwed up sex ratios in alligators and turtles, probable increase in breast and testicular cancer in humans (male and female), more rapid sexual maturation in girls (not a good thing for them physically/biologically). Problems from pesticides are legion and take longer than a few months to show in many cases. Humans being idiots and basically selfish, don't care if they aren't being obviously hurt RIGHT NOW. "F*ck future generations. F*ck my kids. F*ck ya'll because at least I'm getting fat off food NOW - I'll worry when it's too late and I have cancer or my kids (or their kids) have developmental abnormalities". This is the attitude which is the problem. It needs to change.
You don't solve a problem by throwing ever more tonnages of chemicals at it. You solve it by having less children, using less, expecting less. You can easily be comfortable without consuming everything in site. Leave a little for others (human and non-human).
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
"but the end result is the people who are hungry steal from those who have food."
exactly and a good idea would be not to have hungry people. Your way of dealing with the problem is that you just arm yourself and protect yourself. Well if you have enough hungry people that usually does not work. And eventually you may decide that it might be a good idea to keep people content.
By the way your statement about socialists is not entirely correct. Many socialists are well to do people that merely show care about their fellow human beings. Just because you do not have such feelings does not mean you should attack them.
Sodium Cloride is one of the most toxic, corrosive chemicals in existence, next to Carbon Dioxide. If you don't believe me, pour saltwater on a plant -- it will die. Plus, if you drink lots of salt water, you will throw up. If that isn't proof enough, look at people who eat meat (a majority of Republicans admit it eating meat) -- guess what the primary ingredient used to season meat is? You got it. Sodium Cloride. It's close chemical relative, monosodium glutemate, has been proven to cause cancer in lab rats. Or at least to make them hungry for Chinese food again only a half hour after eating. I forget which.
Yes, you were inconvienced until you dealt with a problem. I did not mean a literal "nothing"... What I mean was, nothing on the grounds of serious problems were avoided by the billions in Y2K hype and spending.
This includes the changing of ammounts in bank records (e.g. You loose your life savings), the disabling of water, electric, or natural gas services, security systems from failing to function, our computer programs scrambling our financial records and documents, or our toasters rising up and killing us all.
I did not mean that nothing adverse happened as a result of Y2K, only that no serious damage was done. Indeed, if you go back to all the propoganda on TV, in papers, or even if best selling books, you will see tons of 'experts' claiming many of the very things I mention above. Any way you look at it, I seriously doubt you can justify the money spent on Y2K perpared-ness by private companies, and the government.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
fusion power generation could change all this.
The reason small farms are in trouble is that farmings become TOO efficient and too good at producing foodstuffs. The price of foodstuffs has been falling, in real dollars, for decades.
When the product you sell is a commodity and goes down in price by multiplicative factors.. That hurts.
This is especially evident for example, in milk subsidies. The US Gov't has millions of TONS of dried milk powder in storage, because they have subsidies to prevent the price of milk dropping below a certain level.
Obviously, the correct solution is to remove perpetual farm subsidies, and let the least productive land go fallow. Yes, its true, farmland has been decreasing for YEARS since 1900.
Of course, this'll hurt the 'small independent farmer' who doesn't have economies of scale.
FYI: Repeat after me; matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. With nuclear power supplying sufficient energy for millions of years... with todays technology.. How much soil could we manufacture a year if we had to?
There are a lot of homes that use fuel oil for heat, it's just not all homes. Find a cheap sub for Fuel oil and the Oil Companies will expand the service.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I do. I had been checking for your reply periodically over the last two days. :)
To me responsability is a duty that comes with freedom. We can apply that to nature too. We have the freedom to do with it whatever we want, but we have to do it in a responsable way.
I agree with you 100%.
I'd say freedom a universal right.
I again agree with you 100%.
Do we have the right to force poor farmers to buy our seeds for a high price by refusing to buy their regular product if they don't?
I'd say we have the right to set terms for our business deals just as they have the right to take their business elsewhere. There are few products that can only be obtained from a single country.
Whether the above is ethical or even good long-term for the rich country is another story. I'm personally in favor of 0% tarrifs on everything worldwide. "Customs" should exist only to make sure nothing illegal or dangerous is coming in, not to levy taxes.
Is it right to cut rainforests in other countries because they hardly have any other resources?
It's not our RIGHT to cut rainforests, but it is our right to look around the world for the resources we want. It is the right of the country that owns the rainforest to decide whether they want to satisfy existing demand.
Those countries can't do anything about it. They're with their backs against the wall. They have no other options that to do what we want them to do. That is no freedom for them.
I agree they are in a hard place. I'm sure it is very tempting for them to go ahead and chop down rainforests to earn a few bucks. But to say they have no choice isn't correct. As you said, everyone has rights and corresponding responsibilities. That applies to everyone, not just the rich.
In the case of sweatshops even in circumstances that we wouldn't accept here. Compared to what their work is worth we pay hardly them. That is slavery. The only difference is that it's not happening in our oun countries, but far far away so that we don't have to think about it.
Believe me, I'm not in favor of sweatshops nor exploiting child labor. That's bad and regardless of what company I happened to own I would never do it--that's a question of ethics.
But those practices are all tacitly "approved" by their local government. The local government should look out for their own--in fact, that is there RESPONSIBILITY. If they lived up to their responsibility, the problem of child exploitation and sweatshops would go away. Sure, the company might leave for another country--until that country also lived up to its responsibility to its citizens.
Again, I think it is unethical for companies of rich countries to knowingly support child/sweatshop labor. But at the same time I can't help but thinking if Japan were to start a sweatshop in Los Angeles and Americans willingly went to work there--even if those Americans were penniless homeless people--should the world complain about Japan looking for the best deal or about the U.S. that isn't enforcing labor laws within its territory?
Isn't it safe to assume that something that has bad effects locally, also has bad effects globally??
I'd say that depends on the issue. Something bad locally may or may not have bad effects regionally or globally.
If you're using a mathematical model there will ALWAYS be someone saying that the model is flawed.
In the case of the environment, the model can be applied to a past scenario to see if it is able to reproduce the current scenario. If it does, you're half-way there. Then, if it continues to get it right for a reasonable period of time (perhaps 5 or 10 years? Depends on what you're modeling I guess) then you can consider it proved.
At the same time, I don't think a model has to be 100% right. I would be willing to accept a model that was 90% right 90% of the time. But so far we have don't have anything remotely close to that--and therein lies the problem. We don't have a second earth to do experiments, and the models haven't been able to successfully reproduce todays environment based on past scenarios. That puts the environmentalists in a tough place selling their case to the public.
For example cutting down trees to make skiing possible... The result is that with heavy rain and in the spring (melting snow) the amount of water in the Rhine has increased and causes floods in Germany like in Kohln (Colonge)
Wow, do they completely remove every tree from the mountainside? I'm an avid skier (Ski Colorado!) but we have "ski runs." It's kind of like a narrow road through the forest, and that ski run has grass on it so that when the snow melts it doesn't take the topsoil with it.
Assume Swiss has the right / freedom to cut down their trees. Does this give them the right to cause floodings and damage in Germany and the Netherlands?
That's a tough one. I admit I haven't read about the Swiss Tree/German flood scenario but unless they are downing an ungodly number of trees I would truly have to think that the floods are caused by varying precipitation levels--not solely by the lack of trees. That is, I can accept that the trees are an aggravating factor, but I find it hard to believe that the downed trees are the only cause of the floods.
I don't know about the cause of the floods in Texas, but the economical damage is enormous [usatoday.com]
I currently live in Monterrey Mexico, about 5 hours south of San Antonio which is where the major flooding occurred. In fact, we were hit by the same storm. The flooding was due to an unusual storm that just camped over Texas and rained. Floods happen.
Something like "If you have to pollute, make sure to maximize profit, but if you have to make profit, make sure to minimize pollution."
I'd say both of the above are true. What it really comes down to "Make as much wealth as possible with as little pollution as possible."
Pollution per dollar is only interesting to point out (in)efficient industries.
And I'm 99% sure (I'm participating in multiple threads) that that's what I said at the beginning. The pollution per dollar analysis is useful in determining what countries need to have their efficiency improved.
Many companies can perfectly function with a smaller profit and invest that in exhaust filters or other measures.
If that's all it was, I'd agree with you. Unfortunately, the demands of many environmentalists are so extreme that we're not talking about installing filters--we're talking about building entirely new plants, or perhaps terminating production completely.
That's the question. I'm not against taking logical steps to reduce dangerous pollution. Dumping chemicals into rivers is not acceptable. Throwing nuclear waste into a garbage dump isn't either. I don't, however, believe that CO2 production is "dangerous pollution." That's far from proved. Regardless of how much we pump into the air, it won't kill us. The worst possible scenario is the indirect effects from global warming--but that hasn't been proved beyond a reasonable doubt yet. See paragraph above concerning how to test models and how much accuracy is needed to make the case to the public.
And the general reaction on /. is total denyal of the article we were reacting to.
Most everyone discounts the report because its absurd. But believe me, my Karma has taken a hit for my "I don't believe the whole environmental crisis story." /. might not agree with the report (because it IS absurd) but believe me, the majority would side with you, not with me.
"We have a damn near infinite supply of oil..." (this person forgot the 70's oil crisis)
That was due to purely human/political reasons, not because of any real lack of oil.
The question that interests me is why the US is completely refusing to participate in Kyoto. Perhaps you can help me out?
First, it assumes that we have concluded that not only is global warming happening but that humans are the major cause of it. That is far from proven.
Second, it assumes that even if there is global warming that it must be bad. That is also far from proven. In fact, I read an article yesterday that stated that a slightly warmer winter last year saved the U.S. economy over $21 billion and saved lives from severe winter storms (sorry, I'm not going to hunt it down right now--feel free to google it).
Third--and I think this is the biggest--it makes no sense to apply Kyoto restrictions/reductions to the developed world and not apply them to developing countries--especially when two of the exempted countries (India and China) account for nearly 50% of the world population and one of them is even less efficient than the U.S. on a GDP/Pollution basis.
First, it doesn't take an economics degree to understand that if labor is cheaper in India and China *AND* they aren't facing Kyoto restrictions, that polluting companies will simply moved to those countries. That will cause more employment in India and China but it will also cause more pollution there AND cost jobs in the developed countries.
Second, it doesn't take a climate science degree to understand that since the above is true you really haven't reduced pollution on a global scale--you've just moved the pollution to developing countries where we can't see it.
My conclusions (and I speak for myself, not the U.S. as a whole or the U.S. Senate, etc.) are that Kyoto will NOT reduce global pollution, period. What it will do is 1) redistribute wealth to developing countries by moving jobs there at the expense of developed countries. 2) redistribute pollution so that we can feel squeaky clean in the developed world while the developing world becomes even dirtier.
A better question is: Why does anyone think that Kyoto will actually help the environment?
But why are big industrials asking $60.= for an AIDS medicine in Africa.
I would like to think because they spent 40 billion dollars (made up number) on research and only by selling the drugs at these prices can they recoup their investment to (hopefully) research and deploy even better drugs in the future.
That said, I personally think there should be some limits to what companies can charge for medical goods. They definitely need to recoup their investment, they definitely need to make a reasonable return on their investment... but milking the market once they've recouped their investment is unethical.
It's a tough question. You don't want to put so many restrictions on profits from medicine that no-one researches it. At the same time, I have a hard time swallowing (literally) my asthma-control medication that costs $1 per pill. At some point they've recouped their investment and the price ought to come down.
Stimulating the economy in the developint countries will eventually benefit us.
I agree. I'd like to see every world be a 1st world country. Remember, I currently live in Mexico (a 3rd world country).
Therefore I say we have to invest in the developing countries.
We do. Unfortunately, it is often painted as "exploiting third world countries" but the fact remains that we do invest in developing countries paying the local prevailinng labor rates.
They need to grow to a point where they can compete with our industry.
I agree. Hopefully some day my asthma medication will cost $0.02 per pill instead of a dollar.
Helping eachother getting to higher standards will in long term benefit us all.
That's capitalism. With zero tarrifs, companies will go in and exploit (i.e. invest) other countries. Over time, developing countries will develop and their wealth should become on par with the "rich countries."
That will happen all by itself without us making an "effort" to invest in developing countries. It requires no action on behalf of governments. The problem is that all governments that I know of currently impose tarrifs and THAT is what causes developing countries to not advance.
We were the ones buiding the factories in Taiwan, we will build factories in the developing countries. But with our possibilities we can build cleaner factories there.
Exactly. Which is why Kyoto should apply to everyone, not just the developed countries.
Back in the 90's, the U.S. Senate voted 99-0 that they would not sign on to any Kyoto treaty that applied to us but not to developing countries. That's reasonable. And that's the main (official) reason the U.S. would not participate in Kyoto.
Mainly they're against THE WAY the globalisation process takes place.
Whatever. I think they are hoodlums myself. The way globalization should take place is like this: Today we have tarrifs, tomorrow we don't. Done.
No, I was not trying to say that people will buy more because the fuel usage decreases for any given engine. I was saying that we are buying more and more cars anymore, anyhow. How many 16 year olds had cars back in the 1950s, none? How many 16 year olds have cars now, all of em? The local high school is jam packed with kids parking there anymore. I see kids driving beat up junkers that they picked up for a couple hundred bucks and other kids driving pimped cars that their parents bought for them. Again, back in the 1950s how many families had more than 1 or 2 cars? Not too many. How many families today have a car for every person in the family or more? Lots. Not only does everyone have their own, but nowadays a lot more people are driving cars just for fun, off-roading etc.
I was saying that every year people buy more and more cars, and cars are running more and more of the time, and that emissions released will actually still increase despite the fuel usage of engines being decreased. No economics here, just social trends.