Comments on: Is there an ecological crisis?

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:05:43 +0000

@Dave Joubert

As long as we understand that the best way to bring about negative population growth is by increasing education and economic security for those populations with high birth rates.

Some skills training and a fairer global economic system, access to land, water, markets and resources would go a long way to poor people living sustainably.

I repeat what I said in a post further up “negative population growth is desirable - an interesting link, ’sub-replacement fertility’, already a reality in several countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility

The overpopulation argument is too often used to shift the blame from overconsumers onto indefensible people that only need some education and an opportunity in life for them not to abuse the environment.

They overgraze, cause erosion and water pollution because they have no option. Its not easy to survive on less than two dollars a day.

Burning as part of good veld management can hardly be cause for concern. Preserving our grasslands and prairies is a noble task in the battle to combat climate change.

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By: Dave Joubert

Dave Joubert — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:15:10 +0000

Hi Andy
Have to tell you missed my point. Firstly, the only figures I quoted were the ones you and someone else quoted (9 and 11 billion), I was disagreeing with them as being truly sustainable population sizes. Its not only rich people that have degraded the planet, it is also poor people (usually in a different form). These same people are not living sustainably and in their case its to do with numbers, not consumption patterns.

I have NO PROBLEM with clean technology, what I was saying is that to place so much faith in clean technology as a solution to all our problems is wrong, because, clean technology can do just as much harm to the land and the waters as dirty technology. I am definitely in favour of clean technology.

So clean technologies are part of the solution, convincing people, and putting effective policies in place is another, and UNDERSTANDING our evolutionary mindset is another. Oh yes, and agreeing that PEOPLE overpopulation is ALSO part of the problem. Thanks for the websites. I will definitely make an effort, once the work pressure eases up a bit. By the way, I am going to do my bit for global climate change on Thursday, I’m going to burn some veld and add some carbon to the atmosphere!

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By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:35:50 +0000

@Dave Joubert

You should not throw figures around willy nilly. A recent UN study concluded the world population will peak in 2050 at 9.2 billion. After a period of stabilility world population will start to decrease.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is soon to have an electronic conference on how to feed 9 billion. Maybe you can join and ask them to answer your questions about sustainably supporting 9 billion.

Only an idiot would choose to use ‘clean technology’ that does as much harm as ‘dirty technology’, would you not agree?

If you can have an electric car you can have an electric tractor, charge it with solar, wind, wave or tidally generated elecricity, not coal or nuclear generated electricity.

What about biogas tractors? Run off biogas generated from animal manure or human sewerage?

Really not such a shitty idea?

What about using green algae to power tractors with biodiesel?

Good reading matter on this subject:

1) Biogas China
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiogasChina.php

2) Green Algae for Carbon Capture and Biodiesel
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GAFCCAB.php

3) How to be Fuel and Food Rich Under Climate Change
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HTBFAFRUCC.php?printing=yes

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By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:37:47 +0000

I find it interesting that no one mentions the Precautionary Principle. It has been one of the key elements for policy decisions concerning environmental protection and management for more than decade. It is applied in the circumstances where there are reasonable grounds for concern that an activity is, or could, cause harm but where there is uncertainty about the probability of the risk and the degree of harm.

The Precautionary Principle has been endorsed internationally on many occasions. At the Earth Summit meeting at Rio in 1992, World leaders agreed on Agenda 21, which advocated the widespread application of the PP in the following terms:

‘In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’ (Principle 15)

It has NOTHING to do with having to PROVE the demise of our planet. We can carry on business as usual and watch it go OR we can change the way we live (ALL of us). Nature WILL take its course (as Paul stated above).

And no one has really mentioned here that the lack of WATER (never mind clean water) is really what is going to destroy the human race. Google Blue Gold - Maud Barlow’s Special Report issued by the International Forum on Globalisation in 2001!!

No water, no life. Full stop.

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By: Dave Joubert

Dave Joubert — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:12:20 +0000

Andy, you are stating an obvious but important point when you say that technology can be both a solution as well as the problem. There are not enough words available to include everything into an argument. Its just so amazing to me how confident everyone is about 9 billion to 11 billion people living “sustainably” on the planet with this clean technology. What is sustainable? Sustainable development is something of an oxymoron. The problem with finding alternative energy sources and technologies is that it gives us the means to degrade the land even more. A solar powered tractor (is there such a thing?) destroys habitat and soil just as well as a diesel powered one. Greed is just an over manifestation of what is natural in all of us. We are temporarily on parole from the prison of the sun (so much energy from the sun to go around, but we are cashing in on the fossil fuels) and to make our lives a bit easier in the future, we need laws to replace the laws of the prison of the sun that have been temporarily made more lenient through technology. “Clean technology” can do just as much harm as dirty technology if we don’t get it through our thick clever skulls that we have to find tricks to help us deal with the brain and thought patterns that evolution has provided us with. Smarty pants psychologists would have us deny that evolutionary psychology is of any value

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By: Counter Spin

Counter Spin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:50:44 +0000

@The Blobster

There is insufficient money to uplift the developing world with education and infrastructure so they will automatically reduce their birth rates.

However there is an abundance of money for overconsumption that causes the anthopogenic stress to biodiveristy.

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By: Counter Spin

Counter Spin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:45:31 +0000

@David Hurst (part 2)

My previous comment was addressed to you as well.

Overfishing is a problem, the domestic pig and chicken grown in factory farms and fed fish are decimation our oceans. Humanity need to drastically down or eliminate their meat intake.

In addition, cut down on your meat intake and you will cut down methane emissions.

Groundwater is going to become even scarcer if you stubbornly believe climate change is only a natural phenomenon, however industry, agriculture and forestry can all make a contribution to overcoming a shortage of groundwater.

All the problems you mention can be solved by stopping overconsumption including wastful living and industrial production methods.

It looks to me as if you are more interested in diverting peoples attention away from anthopogenic climate change than offering solutions to the problems you raise.

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By: Counter Spin

Counter Spin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:32:38 +0000

Electric cars will go along way to fixing the problem. They will be charged by renewable energy.

The Germans have designed a system whereby they have linked a country-wide network of solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants, that consistently deliver the same amount of power as a conventional power station. You might not have noticed but Andy posted this link earlier, also written by a group of scintists, and this is actually being implemented by the Germans:

“Germany to go 100% renewable energy by 2050 (and you can’t fool them Germans)

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/germanyRenewable2050.php

No coal, no nuclear energy only renewables!!”

New Zealand has committed itself to 95% renewable energy within 20 years.

Lucky you are not pushing your climate change views in Australia, they are pretty tetchy right now after an horrendous 12 year drought climate scientists ascribe to anthropogenic causes, (too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases).

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By: Bert

Bert — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:14:59 +0000

Franco - What it says about our species is that we are, despite our cleverness, very short-sighted, bellicose, selfish and greedy. No sooner had we evolved beyond the stage where we had to fight predators for our survival, and become sufficiently self-conscious to be able to accept that we are, as a species, the ‘guardian’ of other, less technologically powerful species, than we (most of our species, anyway) became obsessed with the accumulation of material wealth. Ray Kurzweil is, in my view, dreaming if he thinks we are on our way to becoming spiritual machines. That rests on the faulty model of humans as computers, with a hardware/software combination. We are simply not like that - we are embodied beings through and through - read Merleau-Ponty and Lyotard on this question. As for the rest of the debate going on here - which is very healthy, I believe - I think those who are still denying the seriousness of climate change are deluded - the majority of scientists in the world accept that it is a reality, and that it can cause unpredictable, chaotic climatic conditions in a very short time. Sure, the other ways in which we are messing up the planet are equally serious, such as polluting the oceans and rivers, and the like. Unless there is a collective mind-shift towards a completely different way of living, we are in for a rough ride, although we cannot predict what it will be. Read my ‘The mathematics of chaos’ on TL.

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By: david hurst

david hurst — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:24:11 +0000

In response to the above, climate change is a minor issue, and I would suspect that I am in a majority of scientists. Greening and carbon footprints are not going to change what is happening, namely, beyond gas guzzling transportation, that most species as we know them will be gone shortly after the polar bear. Acidification of the oceans, gross overfishing, fast elimination of groundwater, and so on endlessly will affect your children, speaking of hundreds of millions, before methane, heat, carbon dioxide affect them. Fix it with your green car that relies on electricity (coal fired), and deny that global warming is a small issue. You are the big issue, and get used to it.

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