Global Warming News

[FallbrookFarmer]

I watched a program on TV one night about the explosive growth in China. About infastructure that they are building now. The comentator was stating that China ws building so much that in 40-50 years it would be unsubstainable to support. There are now more cars sold in China than the United States. With the corrosponding demand on oil resources. The chinese also want the American, or should I say the western standard of living. Can you blame them? Invaribly, the free market will dictate what autos we drive, and what size home we live in. Governed by the amount of energy we can afford to consume. It's just around the corner. I do appauld the chinese. They are working hard to secure their future by purchasing vast amounts of resources for future development. I'm sure they will start building nuclear power plants.

And The Luddites said that mechanization would be the end of civilization.

 

[charlz]

Given the freedom to innovate and adapt, I think that the human species will always overcome any obstacles that come along, Isn't that what made America great?

What made America great is easy access to lots and lots of 'free resources'. You can literally pull wealth right out of the ground in the form of gold and other minerals. Timber, grasslands to graze livestock on etc. etc. Basically we got 'lucky'

Now we did innovate and adapt as those resources became harder to extract

 

[charlz]

The problem is that fossil fuel has permitted the growth of populations for nearly the last century and that the rate of growth is not sustainable either in fuel reserves, nor in the other resources needed for a larger future population to have quality of life.

Fossil fuels have certainly given us a better quality of life. However antibiotics have made a huge difference as well. Take a walk though a late 1800's/early 1900's cemetery and check the average age of death.

 

[Duffster]

Whichever way you cut it, continued expansion of the human population will likely result in our "natural extermination or natural population control" .

So.....how many kids do you have?

 

[IH3444]

And The Luddites said that mechanization would be the end of civilization.

Not the end, but the evolution of civilization. We need to embrace the future, and all forms of energy production. Especially nuclear. Follow the french example, and improve on it where we can. Develope our own resources.

I'm glad your in this discussion FallBrook.

 

[Dargo]

The love for money and power leads to coruption and in the end could be defeating ones original goal.

And precisely what "original goal" might you be talking about? This tract of land has more trees and wildlife on it than it did 200 years ago. So, rather than a forest with a lot of deadfall, the landowners have enjoyed a profit from the land while increasing the number of trees there and wildlife supported there.

Even if you subscribe to the fabricated stories about man changing the environment now more so than when there were thousands of acres of swamps burning for centuries with man not even being present, I fail to see how having more trees and wildlife would defeat any reasonable goal. I haven't read this entire thread, but I'm sure someone has done a little research and noted that our earth has gone through thousands of heating and cooling periods in it's life with most scientists accepting that there have been at least 5 ice ages.

Modern science also pretty well agrees that our earth is about 4.5 billion years old and that some form of man has inhabited it for perhaps 200,000 years. If my math is correct, that means that man has been here for about 0.04% of the time that earth has been here. To put that in perspective, if you had a graph of earth's history that was a hundred yards long (yeah, kinda hard to read), man would only appear in the last inch and a half of that map. Even more telling is the fact that beings that we recognize as man have only been here for perhaps the last 10,000 years. That means that modern man would only show up in the last 1/50th of the last inch. Therefore, it would be rather difficult to proclaim that, in reality, the last 1/50th of the last inch (modern man's time here) gives you a good baseline for any objective assessments of the earth's trends. Even worse, when you note that population and industrial growth has only really exploded in the last hundred years or so, that part of history would be no more than the size of a pin tip on your hundred yard long graph.

 

[FallbrookFarmer]

Whichever way you cut it, continued expansion of the human population will likely result in our "natural extermination or natural population control" through pollution, disease, genetic defects, reduced life expectancy or all of the above. I'm not trying to suggest a solution to how population control is to work. The most successful model is when the population reacts to their changing circumstances by curtailing their birth rate voluntarily. Western Europe is a perfect example of this, but that is due to the fact that it is already a pretty crowded and polluted place.

A good example is what happened to elephant population since the trade in ivory and other elephant products was banned. In areas where the animals were protected from poaching, the population numbers rose until they destroyed their own habitat and the entire population began starving (low quality of life). Game park management were forced to do annual culls to reduce the population to the point where the survivors had sufficient resources to prosper and not further destroy the environment. Those legitimately protecting the species and managing the population at "sustainable" levels (at a substantial cost) are not permitted to use the animal products to finance their operations and thereby so dilute the black market trade that it would not be worthwhile for poachers to continue their activities. The flip side of the coin is that poachers have almost completely eliminated the populations in other areas inadequately protected due to financial reasons. The result of this mess is that the cost of entry into the protected sanctuaries can be $50-200/day, which means that the overwhelming majority of the world population will be denied access to see these magnificent beasts. Some would rightly say that this is an "elitist" system, started by the elitists who decided that they knew best how to protect the elephants.

Sorry, but I have personally been to India and can assure you that no US city, no matter how squalid, even begins to compare to the indian slums. I live only an hours drive from Detroit and avoid ANY city whenever I can.

I said that NATURE would eliminate the weakest and poorest. It is the way it is. Money can buy better healthcare, a less polluted location where you may be able to drink the well water, or put you in a place where your life is less likely to be ended in a random violent crime.

We tend to live by the law of averages. Provided my employer is not substantially more wasteful that their competitors, they have a level playing field. But then an upset occurs when someone comes in from the outside (like the Japanese), who are less wasteful and suddenly the playing field is less level that before. This has been happening since the 70's and has eroded the manufacturing base before the concept of globalization (corporationism) even got started. The Japanese were taught lean manufacturing by americans, whose "efficient" ideas had been rejected by the entrenched back home.

In my case, every attempt at introducing efficiency from a transportation (pool vehicle) to building concepts has been rejected in favor of the "least capital cost" concepts (ignoring differences in operational cost) to simply maintaining the status quo with regard to vehicle size, even though records show that most trips wth company vehicles have only 1 or 2 people per vehicle. This is the difference between perhaps 22mpg with the vehicles they lease now vs 40mpg with vehicles they could be purchasing. I also stated that since people in the midwest have typically grown up in truck and later SUV owning families, they lack experience in driving smaller vehicles, which they regard as "sissy" vehicles that they would not like to be seen in. By forcing this issue at a corporate level, many people may in fact discover that there is nothing inherently wrong with smaller vehicles and that the pain at the pump is substantially less. And driving many of these vehicles is plain FUN, with light weight, good acceleration, braking and handling. People can be very opiniated without being really informed and it can take exceptional circumstances to create a breakthrough. At the end, when you go home it is still your choice what you want to have in the driveway.

It's interesting that you mention the example of African elephants and culling of the herd.
Just had a film shown at the Fallbrook film Festival, that compared the plight of inner city youth with what happened with Kruger national park.
When the adult males were culled out of the herd, the young males became extremely aggressive, the comparison being with the welfare rules that eliminated males from households that receive payments from the government. Can't remember the name of the film, but will get it.
In response:
If the elimination of population will be by "natural extermination etc." why has the lifespan of humans lengthened when the population has increased.
My answer would be innovation/ adaption. Yours?
Having done quite a bit of touring in western europe, I would disagree that it is "pretty crowded and polluted
The most interesting example would be contrasting the former West and East Germanies.
Munich, Frankfort, and other "western" cities are the epitome of modern western standards.
On the other hand if you travel to the former east/communist cities: Liepzig, Dresden, what you will see is abandoned buildings, graffiti, and other examples of urban decay.
Same genetic stock, same language, educational levels similar. Difference: Communism vs Capitalism.

 

[dave1949]

What made America great is easy access to lots and lots of 'free resources'. You can literally pull wealth right out of the ground in the form of gold and other minerals. Timber, grasslands to graze livestock on etc. etc. Basically we got 'lucky'

Now we did innovate and adapt as those resources became harder to extract

As opposed to those pesky Indians?

There is a lot of truth in what you say, this is a country rich in resources that were discovered and utilized at an historical time when they were very useful and of great value. This time also coincided with the development of a true global shipping capability allowing the resources to be brought to market.
Dave.

 

[westcliffe01]

Thats right. Wonderful early gains that fooled us into thinking that the bugs would not evolve. Now we have "superbugs" that one has a substantial risk of contracting on a hospital visit and which are basically untreatable, or at the very least may be controlled but not eliminated. And lets not even discuss the cost of the non generic drugs involved....

Fossil fuels have certainly given us a better quality of life. However antibiotics have made a huge difference as well. Take a walk though a late 1800's/early 1900's cemetery and check the average age of death.

 

[charlz]

In the spirit of the original thread I am surprised none of the GW advocates have been jumping up and down pointing towards Haiti as evidence. After all a scientist said Global Warming causes more earthquakes so it must be true

Today's Quakes Deadlier Than In Past - CBS News

 

[IH3444]

How does he link global warming to tectonic plate movement? Other than coincidence? Then maybe global warming caused Krackatoa to erupt?

 

[FallbrookFarmer]

In the spirit of the original thread I am surprised none of the GW advocates have been jumping up and down pointing towards Haiti as evidence. After all a scientist said Global Warming causes more earthquakes so it must be true

Today's Quakes Deadlier Than In Past - CBS News

I believe, I believe,I believe, but only because Dan Rather told me so.

 

[Ken45101]

The current situation in Haiti is what immediately comes to my mind. A country so poor and lacking in resources, a natural event (earthquake) is insurmountable without the rest of the world coming to the rescue. Without the relief efforts, there would be a much greater population reduction than has already occured..

Haiti's biggest problem is corruption, and a population that accepts it. You will find this a common issue in most of the worst places on earth (Somalia, etc.) The Cuban people share a similar environment to Haiti. Cuban people used to be much better off (even with a moderate level of corruption) until Castro took over and ran the country into the ground. Yes, I know the Dominican Republic is no paradise, but it's not as bad as Haiti even though it shares the same island. Haiti's base problem is it's people and government.

Many Caribbean islands have similar resources to Haiti, yet are much better off. Think maybe it has something to do with government, corruption, and what the people are willing to accept and how industrious they are?

Look at the Scandinavian countries. They have limited natural and agricultural resources yet have a much batter standard of living. Austria? Switzerland? Lichtenstein?

Poverty is more a function of government and the will of the people than of natural resources.

What made America great is easy access to lots and lots of 'free resources'. You can literally pull wealth right out of the ground in the form of gold and other minerals. Timber, grasslands to graze livestock on etc. etc. Basically we got 'lucky'

Yes...and no. What made the U.S. successful was it's people and it's economic freedom. Russia has as much or more potential (agricultural and natural resources) than the U.S., but it's leadership has always been corrupt and it's population has accepted that. Many other locations on earth have as much potential as the U.S. but not the economic freedom that has made the U.S. strong.

So.....how many kids do you have?

Two. I had a vasectomy after #2.