Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: 6,000,000,000 die-off
Dezakin wrote:
It would be nice if we refrained from it seeing we don't actually have any power to do a damn thing about the direction of the future.
Ok, but you just said you want to see society "advance." You value the advancement of society, over other things such as wildlife, etc.
We all have value judgments, as you say. And as you say, we don't get to decide when or if die-off occurs.
I actually think we (as a society) do have the power to do some thing about the direction of the future. And I've always gotten the impression you believe we do also, though you and I don't agree on the direction we would like it to take! _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject: Re: 6,000,000,000 die-off
Ludi wrote:
I actually think we (as a society) do have the power to do some thing about the direction of the future. And I've always gotten the impression you believe we do also, though you and I don't agree on the direction we would like it to take!
I'm not sure weather society makes those decisions. You look globally and there's been very little preparation for the massive infrastructure adjustment needed to deal with oil depletion. On the other hand France made a preemptive concious decision to power their entire grid with nuclear power and it only took two decades, so maybe its possible.
Maybe there will be policy decisions in the right direction... but on the other hand, ethanol is far more popular than it ought to be.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: Re: 6,000,000,000 die-off
mos6507 wrote:
Ludi wrote:
Does this seem prudent - to wait until billions of humans die prematurely to be concerned about the Earth's life systems which support human life?
I feel that for humanity to force a mass extinction of life on earth with the exception of humanity and whatever species we deem fit to artificially support is hardly a victory for mankind. It might be preferable to a human die off, but it's still a deep, deep tragedy.
All you need to understand is the difference between tragedy and greater tragedy. When reasonable people, of normal intelligence, start to make these kinds of distinctions, my hypothesis of the possibility of a group of super-elite making definitive plans against the greater tragedy becomes infintely more plausible.
When average people understand that there is something wrong, something out of control, and something must be done, it makes an assumption that more intelligent people, with better information, would more likely address the greater tragedy.
With the self-interest principle, you don't need the panorama of destruction and chaos that the proletariat is leveraging. You don't need the lofty, transcendent environmental values or a moth-eaten book by European philosophers to build the argument for inducing a lesser tragedy to avoid a greater tragedy. You only need to be smart enough to connect the farking dots between the threat and the solution. History is rife with heroics of this kind.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:55 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Dezakin wrote:
No we're not. You've never shown that. You never can. You'll die of old age still insisting we're in overshoot and then spout off a bunch of anecdotes while the population is still in excess of seven billion.
Readers, look in the 6,000,000,000 thread. I posted a whole list of evidence.
Quote:
My favorite was you're post of the paper of environmental sinks that were being used up to prove we're in overshoot, when the only environmental service that was experiencing any significant pressure over the last 40 years were CO2 sinks... which are largely irrelevant in the long run of depleted fossil fuels.
Care to post that?
Warning: you will make a fool of yourself as I posted no such thing. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Dezakin wrote:
I know exactly what you're saying, I'm just saying you're wrong. We haven't overshot carrying capacity.
Ok, show me one study that includes energy, social factors, food production, biodiversity, top soil, water, arable land, and ecological sinks that says the carrying capacity of earth is 6.7 billion or more.
Also give me one example of a species that encountered a sudden heretofore unaccessbile food/energy source that did not experience an overshoot of it's enviroment that resulted in a die-off.
And then tell us what causes a species population to overshoot? _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Quote:
Ok, show me one study that includes energy, social factors, food production, biodiversity, top soil, water, arable land, and ecological sinks that says the carrying capacity of earth is 6.7 billion or more.
Well one could argue that we could squeeze some more people on this planet if we (the west) would lower our consumption.
Quote:
On average, one American consumes as much energy as
2 Japanese
6 Mexicans
13 Chinese
31 Indians
128 Bangladeshis
307 Tanzanians
370 Ethiopians
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
MonteQuest wrote:
Dezakin wrote:
No we're not. You've never shown that. You never can. You'll die of old age still insisting we're in overshoot and then spout off a bunch of anecdotes while the population is still in excess of seven billion.
Readers, look in the 6,000,000,000 thread. I posted a whole list of evidence.
No you didn't. You cited a lot of anecdotes about depleting fisheries and forests and the like, but nowhere did you make the tie in that these are necessities. Every measurable bottleneck we're facing in terms of natural capital has an alterntative that can be met with infrastructure and energy; But you don't actually want to argue about whats measurable.
Quote:
Quote:
My favorite was you're post of the paper of environmental sinks that were being used up to prove we're in overshoot, when the only environmental service that was experiencing any significant pressure over the last 40 years were CO2 sinks... which are largely irrelevant in the long run of depleted fossil fuels.
Care to post that?
Warning: you will make a fool of yourself as I posted no such thing.
The only growth in ecological demand was energy, largely in the form of CO2 sinks. This is irrelevant long term.
Last edited by Dezakin on Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Dezakin wrote:
No you didn't. You cited a lot of anecdotes about depleting fisheries and forests and the like, but nowhere did you make the tie in that these are necessities.
What do you consider a "necessity"? _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
MonteQuest wrote:
Dezakin wrote:
I know exactly what you're saying, I'm just saying you're wrong. We haven't overshot carrying capacity.
Ok, show me one study that includes energy, social factors, food production, biodiversity, top soil, water, arable land, and ecological sinks that says the carrying capacity of earth is 6.7 billion or more.
You won't get it. You're asking for a crystal ball.
Energy may as well be unlimited. We can easiliy say that isn't an issue.
Arable land is measurable.
I don't know the full measurability of the topsoil depletion issue. I understand much of it can be mitigated with different farming techniques.
Water isn't measurable. Its a function of energy and infrastructure.
Food production isn't measurable. It varies as a function of water, arable land, topsoil, technology and infrastructure.
Biodiversity? Really I understand people believe it contributes something as monocultures are vulnerable to plagues and the like, but it really isn't measurable either.
I don't know how you're going to plot out numbers for carrying capacity of humanity with all these unknowns. You can say that carrying capacity of the earth supposing this static technology and x rate of consumption of resources y and z is some number. But you make a whole lot of assumptions and end up making no useful projections about the future whatsoever.
Quote:
Also give me one example of a species that encountered a sudden heretofore unaccessbile food/energy source that did not experience an overshoot of it's enviroment that resulted in a die-off.
Thats easy. Humanity, when we developed agriculture.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Ludi wrote:
Dezakin wrote:
No you didn't. You cited a lot of anecdotes about depleting fisheries and forests and the like, but nowhere did you make the tie in that these are necessities.
What do you consider a "necessity"?
For humans: Air, food, water, shelter.
For civilization: Energy
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Dezakin wrote:
For humans: Air, food, water, shelter.
And you believe all of these can be produced using energy? _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:52 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Ludi wrote:
Dezakin wrote:
For humans: Air, food, water, shelter.
And you believe all of these can be produced using energy?
Sure.
To provide air,water and shelter is trivial engineering, where the only issues worth discussing are scalability.
Simple food I imagine you could also reduce to trivial engineering of big giant algal vats powered by nuclear reactors as a thought experiment. I don't expect we'll ever have to. On the other hand if we were forced to, we might get Monte's prophesized die off through mass suicide because the food is so awful.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
If the energy was not available, what would happen? _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
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