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Group Warns on Consumption of Resources
gollum123 writes "Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels, the spread of cities, the destruction of natural habitats for farmland and over-exploitation of the oceans are destroying Earth's ability to sustain life, the environmental group WWF warned in a new report Thursday."
...i see a quite dark feature ahead of us. The nature isnt a machine to turn it off when it starts producing bad things. No. It builds up, so even if we dont feel too much bad effects atm, it could mean that after 30 years, even if we stop ruining the environment, the effects will be severe. Perfect example is the greenhouse effect, and please dont flame me with studies "fueled" by oil companies...Im not willing to turn this planet into a dump just to let companies keep their profit up. Pollution will just result in making this planet a worse place for ourselves and our children. Its very unfortunate that most companies think short term.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
But if it's bad for profits, it must be Bad Science. You know, Fuzzy Math, and that kind of stuff. Good Science is good for profits.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I too think that depletion of our planet's resources is a terrible thing that ought to be avoided. However, this is a gigantic planet. There are places on this globe where Man has yet to set foot, much less look upon with the naked eye.
To start trying to cut back our resource usage when we do not have a clear understanding of the true vastness of the Earth's resources is like pairing up a newbie programmer with an experienced programmer. The results are going to be fine, but it's going to take a hell of a lot longer and with a lot more frustration to do it that way rather than let the expert programmer go it alone. So too is America, the world's greatest consumer of resources, going to be hampered by any sort of "global" effort to stem resource consumption. Forget, of course, that America is also the world's leading producer of high-quality manufactured goods as well as agricultural goods.
In the end, the newbie programmer is only slightly better off but the whole project has been delayed by countless cycles because the slow guy was holding back the fast guy. Perhaps in a Rawlsian system of "justice" this kind of purposeful crippling of the leaders without a systematic way of boosting the losers, this might make sense. But from my perspective this is nothing more than an effort to cripple the American industrial engine and bring the American (along with the world) economy to a standstill.
I didn't know Stone Cold Steve Austin was an environmentalist.
Really, now. I'm one of those "Pinko Liberal Commie Environmentalists" (if you believe the far Right's opinion of my public transit and recycling "personal virtues") and I'm sick of sensationalist claptrap.
Ok, we are using natural resources. Lots of natural resources. Yes, this is a problem. Although the usual Satan in this, the United States, is about the same as their previous report and now the new bad guys are China and India. And the US isn't even the worst, we are behind UAE's air conditioners.
So when are they planning to release a report in Hindi? What I want to know in their sensationalist press release, is what are they doing about it? If the goal is to attract donations to further their work, I'd like to hear more about it than "Ooooo! Evil Selfish People Ruin The Environment!!"
So there are huge changes since 1961, or 1972 or even the 8% increase since 1991. We know the Bad Old Days were, um, Bad. That's why many people are trying to make changes. But how have we been doing since? What are the current trends?
That movie about the spoon was right, we really are a virus. At least, most of us are. We consume and move on, consume and move on. If the universe were a giant organism and we were a virus inside it, you better believe someone will be looking for a cure. *duck*
Slashdot recently added a "Politics" section. That's where this belongs. I didn't see any science in the article at all - just unsupported claims of how large a "footprint" (a dubious metric to begin with) is appropriate.
I'm not claiming that we are using too much or too few resources or that any of the quoted groups are right or wrong. I'm only saying that when groups like the WWF issue press-releases to push their agenda and others like the The Competitive Enterprise Institute try to counter those to push a different agenda, it's politics, not science.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
As oil gets used up (as people have been proclaiming would happen very soon since before WW2), the price goes up.
The only reason oil and other petrochemicals are utilized is that they cost less than the alternatives.
So as the price of oil goes up, the prices of alternatives such as grain alcohol and veggie oil for fuel, telecommuting, atomic generation of electricity, solar, wind, etc, will be exceeded and they will in turn gain market share.
The greatest danger is in trying to prevent the changes in price which reflect demand and supply. Distorting this process keeps destructive processes in place, or brings "alternative" systems into play before they are safe, cheap or clean as they would have had to be before people would have paid for them without that coercion.
Relatively small, safe and clean atomic power generators have been in place for decades, but not in the so-called "private" sector. They are used in warships. This is an important lesson in "fine for me but not for thee".
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
the environmental group WWF warned in a new report Thursday.
Kudos to them! God knows they've been wrestling with these issues for a long time.
[Clears throat.]
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
if you take into account the fact that the Earth has a finite lifetime, in the end, it doesn't matter.
we're all going to die one day, and I'm talking about total extinction here, unless we develop the technology to colonize other planets/systems.
I guess it would be nice if, in the mean time, our planet wasn't too uncomfortable to live on, though.
As much as I respect the World Wrestling Federation's opinions, I don't know if their research in this area is entirely trustworthy.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Dihydrogen Monoxide is found to be a pervasive, corrosive chemical found in every facet of our culture. It plays a key part in nuclear power, gaseous dihydrogen monoxide has been seen to cause burns, the chemical industry makes extensive use of it and dumps it straight into the water supply. Corporations are ignoring the DHMO threat. Third world countries suffer widespread disease due to dihydrogen monoxide contamination.
I think it's high time that the WWF, Sierra Club and Earth Liberation Front tackle this issue and get DHMO banned. It would be in keeping with their record of sound science and reasonable policy.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Yep, it's time for another prediction of total destruction of the planet by the human plague.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
The Republicans have pressured the Earth into Deficit Spending. There's no other way to explain it. Expanding social programs like Housing and Eating have caused the Earth to pay out more wood, concrete and food that it can pay for.
We're tearing down forests and paving over habitat all the time? Pardon me if I'm rather confused by that. There's a big difference between reality and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
:)
My maternal extended family has worked in the logging industry for more than fifty years. And strangely enough, the lumber companies are still making money and selling cheap lumber. They certainly aren't cutting everything down in their path and moving on like some strange marauders. There's only a certain amount of land they own, and they've always recognized that they have to replace what they cut down if they want to stay in business. Thus, nearly every tree cut down by Simpson Lumber or other companies was a tree they planted 50 years ago. They plant 5 trees for every one they cut down, in fact.
And then you have places like the Salt Lake Valley. It looks like a veritable forest, yet when we evil slash and burn white folks got here 150 years ago, there wasn't a tree in the valley. We planted all of them. There are a lot of reasonable estimates that there are now more trees and forest in the United States than there were when the pilgrims set foot in Plymouth.
What's really distressing is that, when you get into the higher echelons of these environmentalist groups, they don't give one hoot about the environment. Go do an internship for one of them in Washington. It'll be a real eye opener, from what I've heard.
"...the lumber companies are still making money and selling cheap lumber. They certainly aren't cutting everything down in their path and moving on like some strange marauders. There's only a certain amount of land they own, and they've always recognized that they have to replace what they cut down if they want to stay in business. Thus, nearly every tree cut down by Simpson Lumber or other companies was a tree they planted 50 years ago. They plant 5 trees for every one they cut down, in fact."
The large timber companies tend to own much of their crops (aka trees). These are probably sustainable (this is hard to determine a few hundred years out...) in theory. However, much of the outcry was/is about cutting on public lands especially old(er) growth forests. Company lands are forests in name only-they are generally single crops-trees in this case. Areas (public and private) that are replanted/managed are not much different (from what I have experienced growing up in the PNW).
"There are a lot of reasonable estimates that there are now more trees and forest in the United States than there were when the pilgrims set foot in Plymouth."
I have seen those estimates. There are almost certainly more trees now. More useful forest habitat, probably not. Trees do no make a forest, although they are required.
"What's really distressing is that, when you get into the higher echelons of these environmentalist groups, they don't give one hoot about the environment."
Unfortunately, I seem to get that feeling. I really hope I am wrong. I tend to ignore most reports from these organizations-they seem to be designed to get donations.
That is not to say their goals are bad. We are using a heck of a lot of resources. It is unsustainable. But most people won't want to change their lifestyles enought to make a real difference. And it may not matter if the rest of the world doesn't follow (most of the world wants to be like the US....)
Yes, most lumber companies replant trees after they cut them down. Either because they realize that those forests are like any crop or because they are required to. But, let me give you some specific examples of what's happened in the 'burbs of Washington:
1. A lake was just drained completely and filled in to make way for a building. The entire complex used to be a farm.
2. A valley was just paved over to make room for a Walmart, Best Buy, and Lowes. The parking lot is so big that you have to drive from one to the other.
3. A small forest was chopped down to make way for some buildings including.. a Goodwill.
4. The parking lot for metro was expanded and now there are families of geese walking around amongst the cars trying to figure out where the hell they are supposed to be.
This all happened in one zip code within a few years. THAT is what I'm talking about. And, as far as who is responsible, that list extends too long to place blame on one person or group. Which is why it is still happening.
Here is the solution to all of our problems: http://www.vhemt.org/
Oh, wait a minute, that's WWE now... Nevermind.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
There are a lot of reasonable estimates that there are now more trees and forest in the United States than there were when the pilgrims set foot in Plymouth.
No, there aren't. There's an oft-repeated claim about more trees now in the U.S. than in 1900, which is a true lie in that heavily-forested Alaska was added the U.S. in that time.
Forest companies have the same short-term outlook as other U.S. companies, and the ones that don't get bought and looted by others seeking those short-term profits.
Why do you think they're so eager to chop down trees on public lands? If the timber companies were so responsible, they should have their own "fields" that they harvest.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
A Tragedy of the commons [hence: TotC] is a failure of people to consider the impact of _their own_ consumption...
You need to assume that everyone wants to maximize their personal benefit, and not being idiots, you know everyone else also will want that, and they know you know. See the thing is, each person thinks of themselves being the 'last one in.'
The TotC is a situation where there is a cost and diminishing returns to utilization of a _common_[aka free to use] resource.Because of this, EVERYONE uses a little too much, and someone(everyone actually) can be made better off without making anyone worse off --> !Efficient(pareto)
Hence people grazing sheep on a common pasture.
It is a special case of an externality, and frankly it really doesn't much apply to fossil fuels...
For what it's worth, TotC is usually discussed along with the Coase Theorem. The 'Coase' theorem basically says:
More specifically: It doesn't matter who gets it, so long as someone owns everything involved. Read: Private Property Rights correct any TotC.
Yeah that is a grand oversimplification, and I call it the 'Coase' theorem [not 'Coase theorem'] because Coase viohlently disavows the radical libertarian agendization ;)
You're talking about 'real' externalities (negative ones at that), and.... you frankly didn't wanna bring up TotC to argue that 'government is the only mechanism,' because if anything you mistakenly picked the one that is generally used as an example of when an externality is best NOT handled by the government, and due to the last fifty-odd years of economics research'...
The fact that there are arguably plenty of negative externalities involved with fossil fuels is still valid.
The topic of how petroleum is priced / supplied is one that (while I probably know an order of magnitude more than you) I don't know nearly enough about to have an intelligent opinion. ;)
Did you notice that the population factor was conspicuously missing from TFA? The scary thing is, we HAVEN'T broken the cycle of nature and evolution at all - we just dodged the consequences while we ramped up our population. The crash at the end, which is inevitable unless we control our population, still awaits us.
Cut our global population by somewhere between 50 and 90 percent, though, and it's all good. Plenty of resources to go around. No political will to do anything about it, though, and even talking about it is well-nigh taboo.
Go, humans, go.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
They do have their own "fields," silly. Take yourself a little trip out to Humboldt County, CA. That's redwood country, there, and you'll find most of the county is owned by the lumber companies.
Indeed, if you had actually read my post you replied to, you'd have realized that your argument was deflated before it was started: they aren't being short-sighted about it. Most of these companies have been around for about a century or so and are cutting down trees they've planted in that time-frame. Public lands aren't being clear-cut, like you're implying. And when they harvest on public lands, there are very clear rules about replanting.
Trust me, the envirowacko propaganda they gave you in school is a little off the mark.
No, just like we proved Malthus wrong with his arithmetic/geometric race conditions of overpopulation, we can replace all these species in the biosphere with machines, or perhaps genetically modified humans.
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make install -not war
We are *NOT* "producing far more of the world's resources". Unless, of course, you redefine "resource" to mean something other than what it actually means. As a matter of fact, 'resource' in this context does not mean something that "we" can produce; it means something that nature produces. In that context, all that *we* "produce" falls under the category of excrement -- and that's about where I would file this fellow's dizzyingly deluded comment.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
You might like this article over on LVMI:
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1662
It goes into the absurdity of "TotC" concerning the radio spectrum and the way the government fostered a crisis in order to justify their regulation of the medium.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics