Registered: Aug 2000
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Posts: 632

Go ahead, call me Malthus. «

He was the dude about 200 years ago who forecast that rates of increases of food production could not possibly keep up with rates of population growth and thus suffering among the masses is inevitable. He said that misery and vice were unavoidable and inescapable, which seems to sum up most of our existence today. Many people also saw in his words a forecast for widespread famine and disease with the eventual collapse of society. Fortunately (?) he was wrong in certain respects and advances in science and farming relieved the pressure on available foodstuffs and society has expanded to its present state.

Unfortunately, he was right in other respects.

The population of the earth has continued to grow in a geometric fashion over the last couple centuries and although food production has generally kept up, there are other pressing matters that should concern us all. Actually, I don’t know if they should concern you, because I don’t think there is anything we can do about it. Don’t waste your life being concerned, but I feel you ought to have an awareness of how things are going to go down in a few decades.

Here is a fact that I have only recently come to accept: We have squandered the opportunity to live sustainably on earth as a species. Let me amend that to say that the chances are not completely gone for the species as a whole, but I would hazard a guess that at least 60% or so of the people alive now are doomed to remember the end of the 20th Century as the peak of civilization. This is the only conclusion that a rational look at the state of the world can come too.

I have struggled with this issue for a long time, namely because when I looked, all I saw was how fucked up it all is but I still had this assumption that it would all work out somehow. I struggled because I could not for the life of me figure out how we were going to pull out of the tailspin we are in.

Then it dawned on me. My assumption that everything would work out was mistaken. There is no way that we can redeem the world as we know it. There are too many people, too much pollution, too much destruction without enough preservation and restoration. Its that simple.

Do you know how much land the human species physically occupies? Say we were to give each human on earth, figuring the current population at 6,000,000,000 people, give each person 4 square feet to stand in. That’s a 2 x 2 foot square box for those of you educated in the American school system, about 40 square decimeters (I had to look it up) for the metric folks. Not a lot of space by any means, but enough to stretch out a little bit.

So how much land do you think that all of us would take up if you put all 6,000,000,000 people’s 4 square feet in one spot?

A) one city block
B) an average U.S. city
C) a major U.S. city
D) an average county in a Midwestern State
E) an average New England State
F) an average MidWestern state
G) California
H) Texas
I) Alaska
J) the entire U.S.
K) China
L) Europe
M) North America
N) Asia
O) All of the above

Think about it before checking out the answer. I think you will be surprised.

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Answer: D) an average county in the Midwest. I did the math and you could fit all 6,000,00 people inside a square only 30 miles on a side. That’s 900 square miles, but it's only 30 miles on a side. You could drive around this square in an hour and a half, easy. I was pretty damn blown away when I first heard this. I actually didn’t believe it so I did the math, about 15 times. It’s a fact.

The point of this exercise is to help you realize that it really isn’t the population per se that is the problem, but the energy use of the population. The earth can’t support us at current usage levels. Think about this: the U.S. has about 1/25 of the world's population but uses about 1/4 of the total energy produced. Now realize that the American standard of living is seen as the goal for everyone in developing countries. When it comes to standards of living, everyone will want the highest possible. Whether it is human nature or good marketing, everyone will eventually become a consumer and just drive energy consumption up even more.

There is not enough energy available on earth, at least in a way that we can use it today, to support a worldwide standard of living equal to current standards in the U.S. Factor in the rising energy costs associated with computing, which are immense, and you might be able to start to see the picture.

They say that we have maybe 80 years of oil left. That means that in about 50 years things are going to get really sticky. Although up to 90% of crude oil is processed for fuel, its real value lies in lubrication. We can come up with alternative fuels and indeed are working on that even now. However, we can’t get by friction and if we run out of oil to use for lubrication, everything shuts down. No manufacturing, no turbines, no nuthin.

90% of the rainforests are gone. Destroyed. Plowed under. Never to return. If we were to stop cutting the forests immediately, in a few centuries or millennium they may grow back. If we cut them down completely, they are gone forever. Diversity aside, the value of the forests as air cleaners can not be overestimated. As we continue to pollute the air with carcinogens, health quality will drop, contributing to decreased worker productivity and increasing net energy consumption.

We are also running out of water. The water we have is being polluted or consumed at an alarming rate. More and more people are going to be drawing from smaller and smaller wells until it is all gone.

And I haven’t even touched on global warming and how it will wreak havoc on our system.

Nothing that I say here is a secret and I know you are all familiar with it. However, I think many of us have this assumption that somehow it will all work out. But things are being destroyed at such an incredible pace, a pace which is only accelerating as well, that I don’t see how we can be saved. If we were to stop current industrial practices immediately and put human and earthly health and longevity as our primary priorities, maybe, just maybe, we could avert a disaster. Financially it would be ruinous by today’s standards and for this reason this type of change will not be implemented. But we don’t have time to continue to piss in our bed, shit on our plate, and take, take, take. It doesn’t work out like that. We are living on borrowed time, people.

There will be massive drought and famine when there is no water and no arable land. The rich will procure the available resources and the people will riot. The rich will eventually run out of oil and their "well-oiled" machine will grind to a halt. Perhaps there will be enough remaining for people to begin to put it back together and rebuild in a sustainable manner.

Then again perhaps not. Either way, I think we are all going to get to see how it works. It won’t be too long now.

I’d start learning how to hunt, fish, and farm if I were you.

Last edited by Dingle on 09-24-2003 at 09:56 PM

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Registered: Jul 2000
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I would just like to say that I entirely disagree with you.

Over the course of human history, the only constant has been mankind's amazing ability to overcome obstacles. When cities started to spring up around this country, one of the complaints was "Well we can't sustain here, where will we put our horses!"

You said it yourself. We are consantly working to increase our capacity in various things. Developments in agriculture, processing, manufacturing, travel, communications, energy, and everything else we need to be doing.

We are far too resilient. That may be part of our problem, but it is also certainly our way around them.

We will find new medicines, new drugs, and all that pollution you speak of will mean nothing to our bodies and our average 100 year lifespan.

We will probably set out into space, spread out our population further across this planet, innovate energy sources, and all sorts of other things.

We are still such a young species, such a young planet, such a young civilization. We are barely in adolescence as a people.

Growing pains. Nothing more.

There have been dissidents throughout human history who have cried foul, who have spoke of impending doom, and they are wrong 95% of the time, for one very important reason.

They underestimate us.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Helsinki. Finland
Posts: 233

Hmm, China has solved its overpopulation problem by strict laws. Maybe we could go even further, maybe we need ecological totalitarianism!

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
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Sure, someone else should be posting this in here, but he hasn't stopped by so far. But earlier today he posted this link in another forum: http://dieoff.org/page1.htm


I'll have to wait until after work to dish up a response.

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<ironroot>: their mac and cheese makes me cum

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cnafilornia
Posts: 405

I have to disagree with Mr. Paint. The world's history books are full of stories about how the people who wrote them overcame their obstacles at the expense of the other people (who either weren't mentioned or have been drubbed into non-existence).

Now, the world is largely the playground of the ruling elite. They will spend a billion dollars of your money to save a dime of theirs without hesitation. They will dump toxins in your lake to avoid disposal fees. They will turn your forests into particle-board just to sell some furniture. They'll dump raw medical waste directly into your ocean, becasue it's far cheaper than the alternative. They'll fish that same ocean out, completely obliterating whole species, becasue if they don't, there are a hundred others who will. They'll encourage you to buy huge SUV's, that get 9 miles to the gallon, because it makes them a handy dollar. Forget about the pollution, the climbing driver mortality rates, the tremendous impact on the world's dwindling fuel resources. There's no social responsibility. To some people, that's what freedom means. Why? Because they don't have to deal with it.

You do.

It never cease to amaze me how corporate interest rapes the globe for profit, and then the places where the mess is left behind suddenly begin being referred to as, "our problems."

It's not ours when they're strip-mining, deforesting, drilling, dumping, etc...and they always have the documents to prove it. Then, they walk away and the problem becomes a global or national crisis. How does that work, exactly? I don't get the math.

You know, laws were enacted to control this kind of thing in the thirties. Children were working fourteen hour days, national resources were being eradicated wholesale, whole mountains were being levelled by hydraulic mining techniques in the quest for gold. The government tried to step in and put a stop to it. It didn't work. Things only slowed down.

It bought us some time, but the world and the resources in it are finite comodities. They can be spent. We don't see it here in the states so much because the process of extraction has gone, largely, extranational. Now, we plunder their resources instead of plundering our own. There's not much difference, really. National boundaries are only lines drawn on pieces of paper. We all share the world.

Humanity has suffered and survived much. Unless it rediscovers its spirit, it won't survive the greedy.

Thnaks Nut, I really enjoyed the post.


redguard@blackvault.com

[This message has been edited by redguard (edited 11-16-2000).]

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Houston
Posts: 545

OK Wasted, I have submitted freely and joined. I alone am responsible for the lost time I will generate here. However, I will try to use it for the benefit of all, sharing content that my family would potentially disown me for. As for the issue:
The site http://dieoff.org/page1.htm is a great resource for checking out where the hell all this resource consumption is taking us. Personally, I always thought that there was a dark problem over the horizon because of population growth and resource useage but I never had numbers to back it up until I read an abstract from a Dr. Richard C. Duncan at the Geologic Society of America's Summit 2000 conference in Reno. His data suggests that Industrial Civilization can be described as a single pulse wave form of a duration X, as measured by the average energy-use per capita per year. The value of X is less than one hundred years. The duration of the pulse is the time (in years) between the 37 percent points of the waveform. Using the Olduvai Theory, which is defined by the ratio of the total world energy production (use) and world population, it is found that the waveform increased from 1930, peaked around 1980, and now is declining. This is because of population growth and resource depletion. The prediction is 30 years for this cycle to hit its pre-Industrial levels. The problem is supporting such a large population without the energy resources. Science can't save us if we don't have the tools or the energy. What happens at that point is pure speculation. Do we become hunter gatherers again? Do we go agrarian? Not with 6 billion people. And we certainly won't have the Asylum. It's such a shame because we only have one chance to use the resources right and we screwed it up long ago.

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I am a product of my environment and the torch bearer of a white trash legacy. Give me strenth.

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Alright, put it this way.

If you knew you would be alive for the next 500 years.

Would you bet me a million dollars that in 250 years or whatever, we will be in crisis due to our raping of the planet?

I would take that bet in a second.

The human race, if it has proven nothing else, has shown an AMAZING capacity for endurance. Everytime people start crying doom regarding our over extension of capacity, we prove them wrong, time and time again. What generally happens is we are forced to broaden our perspective, to find ways AROUND the problems that people protest about. And we always do just that.

Will we fuck up this planet?

Probably.

Will we fuck ourselves over in the process?

I really doubt it.

Why?

We will find ways around it.

History bears that out.

And, in my opinion, so will the future.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs:
Would you bet me a million dollars that in 250 years or whatever, we will be in crisis due to our raping of the planet?

I would take that bet in a second.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spooky:
You would lose Paint. The evidence supporting the notion that in 250 years the planet will have gone through radical, and in some case catastropic, changes is huge

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Technology may save us or it may be our demise. The most important factor to consider is resource usage, which is tangible and predictable. With breakthroughs in fuel cell technology, new ideas in fusion, and other renewable resources (solar, wind, geothermal) we still may have a trump card to play. However, given the political control over resources, there is very little focus on the future. Rather it is about how much money resource managers can make in the next quarter. Resources must be available to make these technologies happen but they are becoming much more difficult to get. Consider ourselves. The non-Westernworld wants what we have. They want our lifestyle. Along with this comes dramatic waste in natural nonrenewable resources. If, for instance, China and India wanted to have computer access at the same scale that the U.S. has, is the resource potential there to support them? I highly doubt it.
A resource extraction ratio is the resources needed to extract the same resource. Oil is a good exmaple of how this ratio is changing. You need oil to create the resources to get oil. You need fuel for equipment, to generate power to make equipment, to make tools, etc. During the '30's this ratio was one barrel of oil needed to extract the resource for every fifty barrels produced. Now that technology has increased and petroleum needs have skyrocketed for the oil companies, this ratio has dropped five to one. This ratio is going to drop to the point that it will take more than on barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil. It doesn't matter if oil costs $500 a barrel because it will cost more than that just to get it to the surface. Our non-renewable resources are all going to follow this trend at the current rate of usage. This is because we have already identified or exploited our resource bank. What are we going to do when the iron, copper, magnesium, zinc and hydrocarbons we need to support technology become too expensive or nonexistent? Sure we may find alternatives but I thnik it is wishfull thinking to expect us to maintain our current level of resource usage. We are well past the possibility for equilibrium. The fact and figures our out there. Personnally, I would rather not believe it because it scares the hell out of me. However, a chance does exist that we can turn it around. By developing technologies now that remove us from nonrenewable resources we could continue on. It will take a large sacrifice from the post-industrial western world for this to happen. Kiss good-bye all your SUV's, GAPS, Wal-Marts, and every other wasteful entity we depend upon as consumers (which is just about everything). I don't think that the political climate will allow that. Also, I think that we are too spoiled, me included, to make that sacrifice. Finally, we know more today than we ever did in the past about the relationship we have with the environment. We can quantify what we can support. We couldn't do this in 1750 New York. That kind of assumption would have been an unbased fear. The fear still remains, but it is based in facts, not hunches.

------------------------
I am a product of my environment and the torch bearer of a white trash legacy. Give me strenth.

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FUCK. I just wrote several paragraphs in response to this thread, and then the browser crashed. from now on I will do all long responses in a wp program.

Summary: Paint is right. Red is right, as far as pinpointing the problem, but I disagree with his solution. The same as always. Also, welcome, Bondo, it's about damn time you got in here.

Nute, one of us should've logged last night's chat.

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Location: New York City
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*yawn*

"I don't call it arrogence, I call it optimism."

I call it myopia. I tip my hat to the other rationalists, who have already pointed out that humanity is consuming non-renewable resources at a catastrophic rate. On a universal scale, humanity will have existed for less than a moment, leaving no great legacy for a species of semi-intelligent ape-people, consumed by their own stupidity and excess. No trace of our minds' ponderings, or our silly rituals of divinity. No god to save us from atmosphereic heat or gaping holes in our O3. We will be just another testament to the eminence of vision in a cold and empty universe.

Rome is burning, and we sit upon a balcony, fiddling for the dancing flames. Human error is such divine comedy, I'll miss us when we're gone.

------------------------
The one, the only,
TheGameCat

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quote:

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Originally posted by TheGameCat:
*yawn*

"I don't call it arrogence, I call it optimism."

I call it myopia. I tip my hat to the other rationalists, who have already pointed out that humanity is consuming non-renewable resources at a catastrophic rate. On a universal scale, humanity will have existed for less than a moment, leaving no great legacy for a species of semi-intelligent ape-people, consumed by their own stupidity and excess. No trace of our minds' ponderings, or our silly rituals of divinity. No god to save us from atmosphereic heat or gaping holes in our O3. We will be just another testament to the eminence of vision in a cold and empty universe.

Rome is burning, and we sit upon a balcony, fiddling for the dancing flames. Human error is such divine comedy, I'll miss us when we're gone.

---

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hehehehhehe.

And if it is not already blatently obvious, I have quite overstepped my sphere of knowledge.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
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BTW, Bondo, here is a link that I will spam once more.

Had I have written it, this would be my manifesto.
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-fa...ingoflife.html.

Changed my life, man.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Illinois
Posts: 1217

quote:

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Originally posted by Bondo:
If, for instance, China and India wanted to have computer access at the same scale that the U.S. has, is the resource potential there to support them? I highly doubt it.

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Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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The other night in chat WastedP and I broke down on this subject. It started just as I was about to log off to go write a reply to Paint, who does NOT look like a fool. I just think he is missing the point

For your viewing pleasure, I have posted the log of that chat, as it happened.

Nutrimenti: I think I am going to sign off for a bit and compose an answer to PaintChips. I'll be back in 15-20. If you are still here
WastedP: maybe
WastedP: he's right, though
Nutrimenti: No he is not.
WastedP: crisis sells newspapers
Nutrimenti: ;p
WastedP: sells books
Nutrimenti: who gives a bloody towel about sales? I am just calling it like it is.
WastedP: he's also right about adaptation
Nutrimenti: I admit I don't understand Bondo's pulse waveform talk though
WastedP: one name: cyrus mccormick
WastedP: did you see the site he was talking about?
Nutrimenti: you'll notice that I didn't say that all humanity is gonna wake up dead in 50 years.
Nutrimenti: yeah dieoff? lots of info there
WastedP: too much, not clear enough
Nutrimenti: what does mccormick have to with this? J Hanson (no relation I swear!) needs more organization
Nutrimenti: it is just that we don't have time or technology to gradually change the system.
WastedP: mccormick invented the combine harvester and his daughter used the money it brought in to fund birth control research
Nutrimenti: we will run it at current speeds until everything is gone.
Nutrimenti: I remember you talking about her before.
WastedP: one person (mccormick) can change the whole equation
Nutrimenti: sure, I will allow for the technological breakthrough that will safe us for a while. Cold fusion, super efficient solar energy, etc.
WastedP: think about this: how efficient is an internal combustion engine?
WastedP: 6-8%
Nutrimenti: but one person can't give us clean water and stop cancer
WastedP: mike haller can stop cancer
Nutrimenti: i thought is was 12-15, ubut shitty nonetheless
Nutrimenti: mike haller- HA!
WastedP: yes, so there's a lot of room for improvement
WastedP: pollution is a byproduct of inefficiency
Nutrimenti: I think it is folly to just have faith that there will be some big improvement that will save us all. A best all it does is postpone the inevitiable
Nutrimenti: but where is the impetus for change?
WastedP: inefficiency is lost profit
WastedP: PROFIT
WastedP: think about heap leach mining
Nutrimenti: no it is not. WHy the backtrack on fuel economy then? inefficient engines are good for fuel sellers
Nutrimenti: I doubt I could descrive that, but I think I know what it is.
WastedP: the first thing they did when they figured out heap leach?
Nutrimenti: a round of beer?
WastedP: they went back to all the old mines and extracted minerals from discarded ore
WastedP: beer
WastedP: they applied the new efficiency to old pollution
WastedP: now there are microbial mineral extraction methods that also nullify the pollutants from heap leaching
Nutrimenti: and part of the reason that we haven't begun to feel the oil crunch is that they have developed better tech to get the oil out of hard to reach places
WastedP: true.
Nutrimenti: but the oil WILL run out
Nutrimenti: and what will we do without lube and plastic? Go dig through all the landfills for the plastic jugs from the 80s?
WastedP: but also consider the number of hybrid cars on the market in 2001 vs 1998
WastedP: landfill mining is already a reality
Nutrimenti: 200 in 2001 vs 2 in 1998. 10000% increase, but still......
WastedP: 200 vs 2? I thought it was 4 vs 0.
Nutrimenti: fish stocks are close to collapsing, polluted water is the norm, and the rainforests are over 90% gone
WastedP: 2 hondas, a toyota, and a dodge SUV
Nutrimenti: 200 makes it easy for the % conversion
Nutrimenti:
WastedP: why is the rainforest gone?
WastedP: did we go chop them down?
WastedP: no, the locals did.
Nutrimenti: and then when more hybrids hit the road and start getting hit by SUVs, there will be a public safety backlash that pulls hybrids, not SUVs off the road
WastedP: they're funded by global corps
Nutrimenti: it doesn't matter who cut it down, they are gone (almost)
WastedP: Dodge Durango Hybrid isn't going to get crushed like a can
Nutrimenti: My argument for descent into destruction fully accommodates an instaneous reversal of economic environmental policy
Nutrimenti: more like an old steel garbage can instead of a pop can, but get crushed the same
Nutrimentia admits he knows nothing about the dodge hybrid, if it even actually exists
WastedP: turn off the electricity, and see what the population demographics look like
Nutrimenti: got a pic?
WastedP: Durango has been out for awhile. based off the dakota PU, like trav's
Nutrimenti: I know Durango, but didn't know they made a hybrig
Nutrimenti: brid
WastedP: the hybrid version will cost an extra $2k. should be out next summer
Nutrimenti: it save you that much in tax breaks and fuel in a minute
WastedP: it's just an option for an existing vehicle
Nutrimenti: pretty major option no?
WastedP: yea
WastedP: I can't believe they're doing it, though.
Nutrimenti: why not?
WastedP: it's real sudden, the whole move to hybrids
Nutrimenti: I would think they would have to redesign the body panels and all for the hybrid. Weight considerations and all.
Nutrimenti: You wanna hear what I would do if I was mayor of a major metroplitan area?
WastedP: The Honda Civic is unchanged in hybrid form
WastedP: ok, hit me, sim-mayor
Nutrimenti: Implement a fleet of fuel cell taxis and busses and phase out fossil fuel cars.
WastedP: vancouver has fuel cell busses
Nutrimenti: this would provide car makers the quanitiy needed to mass produce consumer vehicles affordable
WastedP: better city design to accomodate pedestrians would be a good start, too
Nutrimenti: the muncipal or state governement could then also help to foot the bill to install hydrogen distribution centers all over.
Nutrimenti: yeah I think vancouver is pretty keen for that move too
WastedP: avista (old WWP) has a fuel cell program for commercial customers
Nutrimenti: fuel cells are the bomb
WastedP: avista labs bought the vancouver firm that designed the cells in the busses
Nutrimenti: big problem making the switch to hydrogen pumps though. No one installs pumps until there are cars and no one buys cras cuz there areno pumps
WastedP: the cells avista has are fueled by natural gas
Nutrimenti: I had the idea to start providing fuel cell nodes to consumers about 3 years ago. No venture capital though.
Nutrimenti: ;(
Nutrimenti: :/
WastedP: natural gas in, electricity out
Nutrimenti: I also read about a guy who is big into.....
WastedP: no combustion
Nutrimenti: geothermal
WastedP: super efficient
Nutrimenti: flywheel!!
WastedP: geothermal = heat pumps
Nutrimenti: I read about it in either discover or sciam
WastedP: nobody uses them around here, and they would work best around here.
Nutrimenti: all I know about geothermal is what I saw on jurassic park: the lost world
WastedP: I've seen exactly two houses in 2 1/2 years with heat pumps
Nutrimenti: the would be pretty good here too
Nutrimenti: not 2 1/3 houses?
Nutrimenti: or 1 5/6
Nutrimenti: but EXACLTY 2??!?!?!
Nutrimenti: wow.
WastedP: just a big coil of pipe that runs out in your yard. full of fluid. the ground is always around 50F. circulating the fluid from house to yard
WastedP: exchanges heat
Nutrimenti: the flywheel guy has this plan to put massive flywheels in suburban areas that are about 200-300 lbs
Nutrimenti: summer and winter?
WastedP: i dunno. central power is so 1900's.
WastedP: yeah, in summer the house is hotter than the ground, so it cools the house. vv in winter
WastedP: it works in addition to the regular heat/AC
WastedP: one of the houses was a huge custom. they ran the coil out to a pond
Nutrimenti: the flywheels are there to release the potential energy in the evenings and whatnot durig peak usage
Nutrimenti: silver valley?
WastedP: the other was a tiny tract home. the owner worked for parrot.
WastedP: custom in PF, tract in CDA
WastedP: the parrot guy said it cost an extra $1800.
Nutrimenti: expenisve installation pays off in better
Nutrimenti: no need to finish my sentence
WastedP: which would pay for itself in 10-15 years
WastedP: less, now that avista just raised rates, tho
WastedP: holy shit it's 330. i need go bed now


------------------------
What is the feeling of what happens?

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Registered: Aug 2000
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Okay, I'm not really going to go into full posting mode right now, but I feel it would be a good idea to provide some links to some of the things I mentioned in that chat transcript. Kind of like the "Read More About It" things they used to have on those Saturday Morining kids' dramas.

McCormick, increasing harvests
McCormick, Birth Control
morefuel cell links than you can shake a stick at
Hybrid Dodge Dakota fixes some of my factual errors (2003, not 2001; and extra $3k, not $2k)
heat pump info (yes, it's from a manufacturer, but it's still a good resource)
landfill mining

agh, I need to find a good heap-leach link.

It's too late, now, I have to go to bed.

but read over these links and THEN try to get me to believe that humans aren't resourceful enough to work around a crisis.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Houston
Posts: 545

The microbal leach treatment converts cyanide to ammonia. There is a good paper that deals with cyanide heap leaching and tailings here:
http://environment.about.com/newsis...ingus/index.htm

Go to the Minng Waste link. It will lead you to a series of EPA docs.

Ford's CEO made a statement saying that he wants to preside over the demise of the internal combustion engine. I'm not sure if he was trying to be trendy or if he really means it.

The GSA 2000 summit program I brought back from the conference has a wide variety of abstracts on the resource crash / tech fix issue. As soon as I'm done thumbing through it, I will post some info from the abstracts.

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I am a product of my environment and the torch bearer of a white trash legacy. Give me strenth.

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I do indeed call you malthus, because he was wrong and so are you. Vey wrong infact.

We pollute the earth, and we do not replace what we take. So what, earth has coped in the past and it will cope in the furture, as will the human race. We will not be around forever, unless we can evolve 3 mile thick armour plating in order to withstand a meteor hit. Or somehow be able to survice an ice age. The human race's ability to adapt has meant that we have got to the stage we are in extreemly fast in an evolotionary scale.

we adapt and learn very quickly, not as individuals, think of the collective conciousness, the extelligence of the human race.

We are not running out of energy to support the humans on earth. That is not a fact. We may well be running out of the forms of energy we use, we can harness other energy, solar wind, geothermal activity adn all sorts of energy forms, lubricants can be man-made from non-organic sources, silicon based for example and carbon polymers. Friction can be reduced using other methods as well.

Your argument regarding the rainforests is also highly flawed. The rainforest is being destroyed at an alarming rate, and there are many good reasons for stopping this, loss of habitats for many organisms, deztrustionof tribal culture in those areas, production of cabon dioxide from burning the trees, and so on. The rainforests are not the 'Lungs of the Planet' That image presents the industrialised nations being the net producers of carbon dioxide, a nasty grrenhouse gas. And the rainfoest converts the nasty CO2 to oxygen for us to breath.

Thats not the case, the net oxygen production of a rainforest is zero. Trees produce co2 at night, when they are not photosythisiseing. They lock up carbon and oxygen into sugars, yes, but when they die, they rot, and release CO2 Forests can indirectly remove carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ironically thats where a lot of the human production of CO2 comes from, we dig it up, and burn it again. If you want to reduce carbon dioxide permanantly, not just cut short term emissions, build a big library and lock up that carbon as paper, put plenty of asphalt on roads. These dont sound liek 'green' activities, but they are, you can cycle on the roads if it makes you feel better

new technologies exist so that we can filter and clean water extreemly easily, and turn the most pollusted waters into healthy drinking water, techology has allowed us to start this, and it will allow us to continue in this environment.

You're prediction is over dramatised, pesimistic and unrealistic. Your vison will not occur because of the advances in technology, thats what happen with malthus too.

I leave you with a quote:
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

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a /\/\ i n a l

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Paint et al. -

Well, its taken me long enough to get a response back out that the momentum is probably gone. For what its worth, here are the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now.

Let me back up a touch and clarify or restate my position and purpose. The whole point of the essay was to say "This is how shit will go down if we don’t change." Obviously, no one wants shit to go down this way and therefore we could all do what we can to get things back on the right track. I don’t necessarily think that catastrophe is unavoidable, and I definitely don’t prefer that end to modern humanity. However, I took that tone intentionally to ‘wake up’ the sleeping masses so to speak.

I also don’t disagree with those who say that humanity is able or capable to survive. Note that I didn’t say we would all die, just that shit would fall apart real bad and things would not continue on the way they have been. I think we are going to run into a vise made of disease, food and water quality, and energy issues. I don’ t know which one of these three, or if all three, will materialize, but any one of them pose major obstacle for continuing the status quo. I think energy issues are actually the easiest to avoid as technology is the key and we are such an inventive species. However, if we pollute the environment to such a degree that the quality of life begins to degree wholesale across the board, we may end up in a situation like in Africa with AIDS.

AIDS in certain areas of Africa has entirely destroyed the civic infrastructure. Progress and development are nearly impossible to get going because worker productivity is so low, hospitals are overstretched, families are in poverty with no way to earn income, even the politicians who would be able to guide the society out of its problems have been stricken down. There is no continuity to the system and the civic world is entirely undependable and unpredictable.

Now imagine if cancer and infectious diseases spread to world-wide pandemic levels either through global warming or pollution of water (or even an escaped military germ). Even something as innocuous as skin cancer could become widespread due to ozone depletion. If half the population gets sick, everything would stop.

The optimists in this argument don’t really have anything to support their position other than historical precedent, which I concede is impressive. But my concern now is that the levels of destruction combined with population growth are stretching our resources ever thinner, providing obstacles that we have never encountered on a previously-unimaginable scale. Sure we have the potential to alter our course, but as of right now there is no impetus to do so. I don’t believe that modern society can afford to be Re-active to this problem, but that’s the solution that everyone poses.

How can we ‘think’ our way out of populations decimated by disease, with no clean water or food, at war over the dwindling energy stocks available? We need to change before it gets to the point that we have to react. Right now I feel like we are in a canoe in the middle of the river that is heading for the waterfall. Some people don’t even know that the waterfall is eminent, and among those who do, a large portion doesn’t see the importance of beginning to change course to get the bank before we go over the edge. They seem content to fish for a little longer and seem to think that we will be able to row our way out of danger when the time comes. They fail to realize that the current moves a lot faster at the lip of the waterfall and once we pass the point of no return, well, that’s the whole idea of point of no return.

I don’t think we have hit that point yet, but its coming closer every day, literally. With the ever-increasing pace of population growth and energy consumption, we should not waste anytime in enacting wide spread changes about the way we live on the earth. Sadly, I don’t see this happening.

The U.S. has actually INCREASED its pollution output since the Kyoto (I live here!-) Environmental Protocol . American consumers are either too ignorant or too content with the quality of life they have to make any radical changes. It is more expensive right now to live a sustainable lifestyle. Optimist argue that once it becomes profitable for corporations to run on an environmentally sustainable business model they will begin to do so. My argument is that they aren’t going to see the necessity of this until the consumer demands it. Consumers are either too stupid to realize it or too complacent to go through the effort to make them change.

Again, I don’t forecast death and destruction among all, but I do think that there will be a massive crunch sometime in my lifetime that will be both a result of current irresponsibility and a transition period to a more responsible socio-cultural model. I don’t think we have the ability, right now with current consciousness the way it is and the utter lack of intent among major political bodies, to make changes proactively. We will continue to make slow inroads to change as the vise gets tighter, but there will come a time when it all collapses. I do think that we will be able to pick up the pieces and go on, but not without losing our innocence and naivete. There is probably a good chance that developing countries will come out ahead in that they will be able to grow into a sustainable cultural model as opposed to current developed countries that have to try to undo current wasteful non-zero-sum practices.

Maybe I’m completely wrong and we will awaken from our ignorance in the next decade or so and begin to focus on world-wide change aimed at balancing the impact humans have on the environment. I would love to see that. That’s why I am so bleak; I want people to see that if we don’t change voluntarily, we’ll be forced to deal with the consequences.

The ball is back in your court, Paint, and take as long as you want to reply. God knows I did.



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Theology is just a bunch of arguing over who to blame for creating reality.

All Hail Eris!

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this reminds me of a quote,

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children"

We can heat this place with global warming, we can fill the oceans with crap, and we can try and harm it as much as we can, but we have no chance in hell of it.

All the C02 in the world couldn't cause a fraction of the climatic change that an ice age does. All the pollution you like couldn't cause as much damage as massive volcanic activities on the scale that caused the deccan traps. Look at sp00kys example of a mega tsunami thats a natural disaster (i dont know how he thinks that could be caused by global warming *boggle*) well that'd be nothing compared to a direct meteor stike from a rock no bigger than 26 km across.

We can try as hard as we like to fuck this world over, but it isn't going to happen. Nature will rid itself of us in its own good time, I hope we can find a way off this planet before it decides to. But the time bomb that is the end of the human race and civilisation is not a ticking timebomb of poloution and greenhouse gasses, it is the ever swinging pendulum of nature just waiting to miss a tick or a tock.

Aids epidemics, cancer, diseases, viruses etc can all be combatted by technology, and if they cannot be combated by technology, they are probably being combatted in other ways. Nutrementia, you seem to be such a staunch believer in evoloution, what makes you think we cannot evolve immunity to these infectious diseases?

there are arguments to my points, you'll mkae them, but overall I am right, your short term problems you predict of socio-economic problem, disease, famine etc, are all part and parcel. They are short term bridges that will be crossed when we come to it... why becuse as has been said before, humans are possibly the fastest evoloutionary, most adaptive species ever to walk this planet. The problems you forsee are minor. in the long term it will be nature alone who decides whether we survive or not.

and even then technology can outwit nature.
--
/\/\ a R (

[This message has been edited by aminal (edited 12-16-2000).]

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aminal-

Yeah I am a firm believer in evolution, and I know enough about how it works to know that a biological escape is definitely not an option. Biological evolution is way too slow for this situation. The speed of destructive change is one of the pillars of my argument: no matter what solution you posit, I don't think we will be able to play catch up.

Humans are what we are today not because of biological evolution, but because of cultural evolution. True, it is biologically based, but we are not evolved to live in the 21st century.

Most everything that we are and know is due to culture, not biology.

This is not a question of Nature vs Nuture; that's the wrong way to frame it. Everything we are is enabled by biology (and influenced to some degree) and shaped culturally. It is not a case of one or the other.

Yes we are the most adaptive species, but that is due to our cognitive flexibility. But just because we are cognitively flexible doesn't mean that we can't be overwhelmed or that it is a given that we can deal with any situation.

Again, I am not suggesting that the entire race will disappear, but that many will suffer. We are smart and capable enough to ensure the preservation of the species, I have no doubts about that. I am just saying that we can't keep going like this. Either we change our methods or our methods will reach the point of exhaustion. At this point, all debts come due and we'll have to respond to the consequences, an event that won't be pretty.

I don't remember exactly, but I think that average temperatures worldwide during the ice ages were only about 9 degree C lower than now. (or maybe it was 9% unemployment during the Depression). I don't know the number for sure, but it really wasn't very much (in both instances).

We are adapted to the current ecosystem as it is. If the climate gets even 2 degrees hotter, we could see massive shifts in local climates that drastically effects food production and disease susceptibility. We won't become extinct to these problems, but it is not unreasonable to predict 60% death rates due to this type of thing.

Of course, I suppose you'd say we could just build a solar shield to lower temperatures again or some other similar technological feat.

Biological evolution isn't going to save our asses. We have to come up with a cultural/ cognitive solution. We can't just heap technology on the problem without changing the underlying attitudes and behaviors. We will not be able to come from behind once the downward spiral begins. I see no impetus for necessary change developing prior to the downward spiral. All this makes me think that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

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Theology is just a bunch of arguing over who to blame for creating reality.

All Hail Eris!

[This message has been edited by Nutrimentia (edited 12-16-2000).]

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