[MonteQuest]

The one thing that you keep saying is "get out of the way of disease", and that plan has nothing in it regarding that concept other than possibly the euthanasia part. I'm surprised there isn't a requirement for the cessation of vaccinations, and/or the re-releasing of the eradicated or largely controlled diseases back into the general population.

Read the thread, not the plan.

Read Montequest on the Population Taboo.

And these:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic31454.html

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic32369.html

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic31662.html

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic31380.html

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic31046.html

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic31511.html

[Snik]

I read through a bunch of it, but I don't have the time or inclination to read through 50 some odd pages of what was becoming pretty repetitive just to find a couple of morsels of new thought here and there. Again, you keep talking about allowing diseases to do their thing, but it's not in the plan.

[Ludi]

it's not in the plan.

Guess it will remain a mystery.....


ooooooeeeeeeeoooooooooo

[MonteQuest]

I read through a bunch of it, but I don't have the time or inclination to read through 50 some odd pages of what was becoming pretty repetitive just to find a couple of morsels of new thought here and there. Again, you keep talking about allowing diseases to do their thing, but it's not in the plan.

Never said it was, just that it had been discussed ad naseum.

Is it so hard to grasp? Stop trying to save everyone with extrraneous measures. Ban organ transplants, heart by-pass, all extraneous measures to prolong life.

[MrBean]

I read through a bunch of it, but I don't have the time or inclination to read through 50 some odd pages of what was becoming pretty repetitive just to find a couple of morsels of new thought here and there. Again, you keep talking about allowing diseases to do their thing, but it's not in the plan.

Never said it was, just that it had been discussed ad naseum.

Is it so hard to grasp? Stop trying to save everyone with extrraneous measures. Ban organ transplants, heart by-pass, all extraneous measures to prolong life.

Any such ban would be politically totally unrealistic, at least on the timescale before they become impossibile or extremely rare for even the small minority of humankind that currently has access to those technologies. On the other hand, some individuals by their own will refusing extraneous (defined how?) medical aid is very possible, but not going to make a dent in any numerical sense.

So why waste time for such baiting that lead only to discussions ad nauseam?

[AgentR]

Is it so hard to grasp? Stop trying to save everyone with extrraneous measures. Ban organ transplants, heart by-pass, all extraneous measures to prolong life.

None of those measure have any significant impact on population.

Let me post the real question.

32 Yr old female worker with one child to support, sustains a workplace injury susceptible to infection.

Do you, or do you not, permit the purchase of $30 worth of antibiotics in response to the injury?

If the purchase is allowable, population numbers will not fall. If the purchase is prohibited, population can drop to a level that will not destroy the biosphere's carrying capacity.

Nibbling about high profile, drama filled, life extension methods is all well and good; but they are irrelevant to population dynamics. Cheap antibiotics and steroids are much more relevant. Can anyone contemplate a political reality where elected official ban the use of cheap antibiotics so that 30 and 40 yr olds can be killed by injuries and illnesses that would have taken their lives before the 1920s ?

[joelcolorado]

NO wont happen. Wifes a doctor and just wont happen that way. More likely is a terror attack with biological. Her info is that it will kill between 1 and 40 million if introduced into Times Square on a busy day.
Lockdown of cities would occur to limit the spread and food will grow scarce for a month or so. Bread lines, soup lines etc.

[Snik]

NO wont happen. Wifes a doctor and just wont happen that way. More likely is a terror attack with biological. Her info is that it will kill between 1 and 40 million if introduced into Times Square on a busy day.
Lockdown of cities would occur to limit the spread and food will grow scarce for a month or so. Bread lines, soup lines etc.

I believe that in Monte's world there shouldn't be any doctors, drug companies, or any other entity that serves to save or prolong life. It's pretty clear what is advocated by "let nature take it's course", and "get out of the way of diseases". We've got to kill, and/or let die as many people as we can as quickly as we can, born or unborn. Don't need doctors for that.

[Ludi]

I believe that in Monte's world there shouldn't be any doctors, drug companies, or any other entity that serves to save or prolong life. It's pretty clear what is advocated by "let nature take it's course", and "get out of the way of diseases".

Humans have treated illness for thousands, probably tens of thousands of years. Doctors aren't going away. The "Illness Industry" might need to go away.


Ethnobotanical Database

[Snik]

I believe that in Monte's world there shouldn't be any doctors, drug companies, or any other entity that serves to save or prolong life. It's pretty clear what is advocated by "let nature take it's course", and "get out of the way of diseases".

Humans have treated illness for thousands, probably tens of thousands of years. Doctors aren't going away. The "Illness Industry" might need to go away.


Ethnobotanical Database

Sounds contradictory to me. Why would we need doctors if we want people to die?

[Ludi]

Why would we need doctors if we want people to die?

Beats me. Who wants people to die? I don't.

People die, that's a fact. It doesn't make a difference if I want them to or not.

Humans treat illness. That's a fact. Part of our social and tool-using nature, apparently. Not going to get rid of that any time soon.

[Tyler_JC]

Not to be "that guy", but this discussion needs to drift back towards off shoring drilling or else I'm going to have to split the last half dozen pages of this thread.

[ROCKMAN]

You've got my vote Tyler.

Thanks

[Snik]

I was wondering the same thing, but then again I'm not the one that brought in all this population stuff to begin with. It seems like this overshoot business is mostly what this site is about anyway when you boil it all down.


My position now is as it was to start with:

Open the offshore areas, ANWR, and other "off limits" areas to drilling, and use the royalties derived from that production for research into alternative, renewable energy sources, and more efficient use of the energy we have. Work both sides of the equation, not just one. You usually get to a solution faster if you do it that way, and if there is no ultimate solution, at least we'll be a bit closer regardless.

Let's get the rigs moving!

[ROCKMAN]

Now that we're back on thread I'd like to throw out a rather long comment which I also just threw out on the OIl Drum. Pick it apart and don't be shy.

To clarify for those who might be confused by the popular presentations, there has been no ban on offshore drilling. Thousands of wells have been drilled in the federal OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) and state waters off the coast of the US since the government stopped offering leases in certain areas of the OCS. In fact, the Gulf of Mexico OCS, including the Deep Water trend, is currently producing more oil than any other province in the US. At last count, the GOM OCS delivers 18% of all US oil production. In 2007 OCS production yielded over $27 billion of reserves with the American tax payer receiving $6.4 billion of that in royalty.

As far as reserve potential for other areas of the OCS which haven’t been offered for lease over the last 26 years consider the following: Many are projecting that Brazil will become the 3rd largest oil producers in the world in the next 10 to 15 years due to recent Deep Water discoveries. You should be aware that 15 years ago no one, including the oil industry, gave any consideration to this potential. The same can be said of the US Deep Water OCS: before 1990 no one considered there to be any oil potential in this area. And besides, there wasn’t any existing technology to develop it. And it would cost too much if they could develop it. And it would take too long for it to make any difference.

Does that string of rationales’ sound familiar? Consider where we would be today if those were the deciding issues in their time. What would gasoline cost now if we didn’t have that 18% of the oil? Would we really miss that measly little 250,000 bopd coming online at Thunderhorse this year? Or those reserves coming on from the other Deep Water fields over the next 5 years? Of course, these DW fields decline much faster than the big onshore fields of yesterday. Might be nice to have some new reserves coming online to replace them in the next 5 to 10 years when US oil begins a very rapid decline.

As far as reserve potential, we already know how accurate “they” were by not seeing the potential off Brazil or the DW GOM OCS. I suspect many are unaware of the great discoveries on the east coast of North America there have been over the last 30 years. The reserves developed measure into the billions of bo and trillions of cubic feet of NG. And all within a very short flight from New York City. These fields would, of course, be on the Canadian side of the US border. Hibernia Field came online in 1997 and reached a max rate of 240,000 bopd with an ultimate recovery of 1.2 to 1.9 billion bo. Additionally, a new field with 250 million bo has been discovered nearby and will be produced through the Hibernia facilities. Of course, this new field might not have been developed had not the Hibernia infrastructure not been there. But this is how all offshore oil provinces are developed…just as the GOM OCS was beginning in the 1960’s. And let's not forget the new gas discovery with a reported 700 billion cubic feet of proven reserves. And the new lease sale the Canadian's are presently scheduling which some are estomating will bring in in excess of $2 billion in bonuses alone. Not bad for an extenttion of a trend which many "experts' feel has little potential.

I’ve been a petroleum geologist for over 30 years and I have no idea what the actual reserve potential is off the east or west coast of the US. I also know that no one else can come up with a reliable estimate. It will take time and money to determine what those numbers may be. It’s difficult enough to estimate recoverable reserves after they’ve been drilled. Anyone who says they can make even a rough guess without drilling holes is either a fool or a liar. Harsh words, I know. But many so called “experts” are throwing numbers around that have no real basis in exploration science. And these include the pro-drilling group just as much as the anti-drilling faction.


No amount of new offshore drilling, regardless of the billions of bo that might be found, will not prevent PO. We began that trip the day Col. Drake drilled that first well. It will give us a little more time to make adjustments. My biggest concern is that we may gain a few years on PO but then waste this extra span by not developing serious conservation efforts and alternatives. When Saudi opened the valves in 1986 and dropped oil to $10/bbl the general population, along with all the politicians, squandered any chance we had to make a smoother transition. I was with Jimmy Carter and his plan to raise gasoline taxes to force a change in consumption habits (yes...an oil man did vote for Jimmy…we engineers like to stick together).

Pick apart my argument as hard as you like. I’ll respond with a complete and honest answer. I have to reason to fib: the longer our country ignores PO the better off I’ll be financially. But I can be just as happy with a lot less.

[Snik]

Well done Rock, and so true. It seems that every time we think we've found it all, or most of it anyway, we find more in places we never thought we would, or find new ways to get more out of the ground where we have already found it.

Who would have thought 15 years ago that we would be getting the amount of natural gas out of coal beds that we are today, or 5 or 6 years ago that shales of all things would be such a hot target.

We have continually surpassed predictions of reserves, and defied the naysayers by being able to find and produce from areas and horizons once thought impossible.

Peak oil has been predicted over and over again with each prediction being proven wrong. Don't get me wrong, it will happen, may have already happened, or could be happening now. The key is to transition into more sustainable sources of energy while there is still time to do so without a total meltdown. But, in the mean time, we had better keep finding those reserves.

Don't get me started on "windfall profits tax", no more gas fired generating plants Jimmy Carter though.... He thought we had run out of everything in the 70's.

[MonteQuest]

Any such ban would be politically totally unrealistic, at least on the timescale before they become impossibile or extremely rare for even the small minority of humankind that currently has access to those technologies.

So? Doesn't mean it isn't a viable option.

Carrying capacity must trump political considerations.

[MonteQuest]

Can anyone contemplate a political reality where elected official ban the use of cheap antibiotics so that 30 and 40 yr olds can be killed by injuries and illnesses that would have taken their lives before the 1920s ?

Can anyone contemplate the consequences if we do not?

Consequences we should have thought about back in the 1920's.

Mother Nature bats last; and she does what works, not what is politically correct. Political correctness, human rights and the sanctity of human life concepts will be meaningless when her day arrives.

You want freedom from disease and suffering? You want the freedom to save as many human lives as possible? You want the freedom to preserve your moral ideals and embracement of the sanctity of life? Fine, then you are going to have to give up the freedom to breed without restraint. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

[MonteQuest]

I believe that in Monte's world there shouldn't be any doctors, drug companies, or any other entity that serves to save or prolong life. It's pretty clear what is advocated by "let nature take it's course", and "get out of the way of diseases". We've got to kill, and/or let die as many people as we can as quickly as we can, born or unborn. Don't need doctors for that.

You call that an intelligent response to what I have been writing?

Had we been truly intelligent, we could have limited our numbers on the commons. Think of the world we could have had: a small healthy population, relatively free of disease and suffering with a high quality of life—almost forever. In our insistence to breed with freedom on the commons, we squandered that opportunity.

In that world, "doctors, drug companies, or any other entity that serves to save or prolong life" would not be a problem.

But we didn't do that. "Now we must choose — or acquiesce in the destruction of the commons that mankind calls Earth. Not the Earth itself, as that would be quite presumptuous, but its’ ability to support us."

By design or by default; chose.

[MonteQuest]

I was wondering the same thing, but then again I'm not the one that brought in all this population stuff to begin with. It seems like this overshoot business is mostly what this site is about anyway when you boil it all down.

That was Dezakin and Electric_Economy.

No, this website isn't about just overshoot, but that key fact is pivotal to any and all discussions of solutions.

If we don't address over-population, all we are left with are short-sighted, short-term, selfish solutions...just like we have been doing for decades.....