[Phi for All]

Let's steer this discussion a bit more towards Earth Science and less towards Politics or I sense a thread move coming on.

Just sayin'.

[Essay]

Leonardo maia, on 20 December 2011 - 05:16 PM, said:

We are scientists, but we are the minority. The global population don't have enough information to stop pollute or awareness other person.
Imagine one world inhabited by scientists, would be a dream, everybody knows what to do to preserve oceans, rivers, forests, the nature in general.
We need do something.
This is the reason that I registered, that write for you and that I criated my blog (yesterday), to give culture and information to more people to get.
But I need your help to disclose this blog and to create others.

Thank you, Leonardo maia.

To do, or not to do... something, anything, or the right thing; that is the question, eh?

Etymology: Economy...from the Greek, Oikos/Nemein
Economy: "Eco" = Resources/Environs + "nomy" = Management of....
So a good economy should be based on good management of resources; which should be based on ecology, the study and understanding of our resources.
===

Imbalances within a complicated carbon cycle seem to be at the root of most or all our problems, due to our historically increasing, though unwitting, management of various carbon pools (resources). We could solve most or all of our problems by intentionally managing the carbon pools, to direct the carbon cycle back into a sustainable and more equable or temperate balance.

...if "we need to do something."

~

[Greg Boyles]

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

Disciplined by who? And regulated by who?

By the braod based body that serves the same purpose for all science that the medical boards do for medicine in the west.

I don't hear you whining and moaning about the 'nazism' of medical boards that determine which GP's are fit and proper to conduct medicine in western countries. If it can work well for GPs etc then it can work well for the broader science community.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

I'm pointing out that you don't seem to want to apply the same criteria to keeping people alive in western nations. Belguim has a population density of 355 per square kilometre while Mali has 12. Which is overpopulated?

The only reason that Europe has high population density and growing populations is due to immigration from Africa and other third world countries. Without it Europe's population density and population level would have been declining for the past few decades.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

Not a racist slur at all. I've simply noted that the "environmentally friendly" answer to every environmental "problem" for the last 50 years has involved the third world continuing to live in poverty and sqalour. It is an observation of fact. If that makes some environmentalists uncomfortable, that is not my problem.

Skin colour aside the fact remains that the third world is the major source of unsustainable population growth. So much so that their excess population is spilling over into the west increasing unsustainable consumption there even further.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

The increasing long term squalour you speak of would be alleviated by economic development. But that means more access to cheap power, and technology and medicines. These are things you are arguing against so I can only conclude that you are in favour of them continuing to live in misery. The simple fact that it will be mostly non whites who are adversely effected by these ideas is beside the point.

The earth cannot sustain the human race's current consumption level. Please show how it will sustain the entire third world living at western living standards long enough for them to perhaps reduce their fertility.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

I don't think that you are racist, I think that you simply don't care. Black, white, brown or yellow, you just hate humans. You don't care who dies, so long as a lot of them do, it just happens to easier to oppress and slaughter the very poor in poor nations than it is to convince the West to self immolate.

They are suffering and dieing under your failed regime of economic development.......or economic imperilaism for the purpose of self enrichment as many in the third world see it.........why do you think so much or the world, outside America, despise yanks.

I want to see their fertility dramatically reduced so that there is less economic fodder available for americans to exploit and perpetuate poverty and suffering for the majority.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

"Seig Heil! Yawohl main Fuhrer. Ze people will not tink anyzing zat has not been officially approved."

What you are saying is that only those who agree with the "party" line will be allowed to speak. Therefore there will be nobody who speaks in dissent. Therefore there is no dissent. Therefore the "Party Line" is always right. Have you read 1984? The scary thing is that after the disaster of Lysenkoism and State directed research in general someone is actually putting forward such ideas again.

What you are saying is that your own individual interests are more important than the wider interests of civilisation and its long term stability.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Phi for All, on 24 December 2011 - 04:50 AM, said:

Let's steer this discussion a bit more towards Earth Science and less towards Politics or I sense a thread move coming on.

Just sayin'.

In fact, I would say that P(thread move) = 1

Greg, though I would normally steer clear of political threads, I would ask if you actually have some sources to back up some of your more recent claims; specifically:

Quote

The only reason that Europe has high population density and growing populations is due to immigration from Africa and other third world countries. Without it Europe's population density and population level would have been declining for the past few decades.

Quote

Skin colour aside the fact remains that the third world is the major source of unsustainable population growth. So much so that their excess population is spilling over into the west increasing unsustainable consumption there even further.

Please read this article so that you might come back with a more informed opinion on the matter.

From the article:

Quote

Parents choose to have smaller families when health conditions improve because they no longer have to fear that many of their babies might die, and when they do not have to rely on their children to work on the family farm or business or to take care of them in their old age. In addition, more parents are sending their daughters to school, which is important because women with basic education tend to produce healthier children and smaller families. More women now have opportunities to work outside the home, so they are starting their families later and having fewer children. On top of all that, access to modern contraceptives for family planning is improving, making it easier for parents to control the number and spacing of their children.

Enforced "fertility control" of the populations of developing nations is not the solution, Greg. It isn't practical, it generally isn't ethical and in the long run, it doesn't really solve the problem, it only treats the symptoms.

This post has been edited by hypervalent_iodine: 24 December 2011 - 10:20 AM

[JohnB]

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Oh JohnB, you're lighting up a straw man. I did stipulate that they had to be on a grid for my idea to work.

I agree that getting power to those that are underpowered would take precedent. But the US tends to want to bring aid in the form of US contractors building hydroelectric dams that not only mess up the local environment, they also fail to bring anything but the lowest paying labor jobs to the area, with much of the funds allotted for work going into the pockets of the local governors. It's foreign aid that does more for a select few US businesses, and usually ends with the locals having a poor opinion of us.

For those areas where the power is there but inefficiently used, putting efficient appliances in the homes might solve their power problems, decrease the corruption and garner a better opinion from the population. I'm just saying we don't always have to leap to build dams.

Sorry Phi, I don't see it as a strawman at all. In many places there isn't enough power in the grid to service the people already connected to it. For example Haiti has a grid connectivity of 31%, so combine that with the production of 63.49 kWh per capita feeding into the grid, this means that each person connected has available to them some 180 kWh of power. That isn't enough power. It doesn't matter that Haiti is a basket case, it could have the most wonderful democratic government on Earth, but the numbers just don't add up. You would need to feed 33 times as much power into the current grid just to get those currently connected up the level of Britain, let alone expanding the grid to everybody. It's like saying that the original Niagra Falls generator would power the USA if you only had "more efficient" appliances.

More efficient appliances are fine as a thing, but it's putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. When you are short Gigawatts, saving a few megawatts here and there doesn't make a real difference.

While I take your point about hydro dams, to a degree I gather from your comment that it isn't so much what is being done, but how it's being done. If that is the case, then argue for a better way, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, there is corruption in many of these nations. That is a fact of life and doing business there, you factor bribes into your costings. It's not good, it's not how people from the West would like to do things, but that is how they are. Do you really want to stand on your principles so much that you would deny 100,000 people electricity, clean water and sewerage just to avoid paying some fathead local governor $1,000,000 in bribes?

This is the world of "RealPolitik".

But here is the real question. If you don't want to use hydro, what do you want to use? I think we can rule out nukes as I personally wouldn't trust a lot of those govs as far as I could throw them. Since one of the reasons you give against hydro is that they "mess up the local environment" we can rule out vast wind farms as well. If you're worried about CO2 then they can't have coal. Solar is not yet a viable baseload generator. So where are the needed Gigawatts going to come from? Also bear in mind that these are poor nations with poor governments. They simply cannot afford to subsidise "renewables" at 20 cents per kWh like the West can. So where is the power going to come from?

Also note that the more high tech (like wind) the power comes from, the fewer jobs there will be for the generally poorly educated people. Cut it any way you like, but if the local population is basically uneducated, then low paying labouring jobs is all that the locals are able to do. Power installations like hydro dams employ large numbers of people and stimulate the local economy, wind farms with their relatively few highly specialised jobs do not. (At least nowhere near as much.)

Quote

By the braod based body that serves the same purpose for all science that the medical boards do for medicine in the west.

I don't hear you whining and moaning about the 'nazism' of medical boards that determine which GP's are fit and proper to conduct medicine in western countries. If it can work well for GPs etc then it can work well for the broader science community.

Medical boards operate on a national and not supranational basis. That is point one. Point two is that you think the Australian Medical Board is doing a good job. I think it's bloody appalling. In the James Patel case the Medical Authorities that you seem to think so highly of ignored complaints about this doctor for over two years. We finished up with something like 80 bodies on the deck and over 120 patients severely injured. The system stinks to high heaven. Do a bit of a Google search and see if you see what is missing. I happen to find it extremely suspicious that no doctors seem to have been struck off for negligence. There are plenty for "inappropriate conduct" towards women and children, but negligence?

If we are to believe what is easily available, doctors might be sexual predators, rapists and kiddie fiddlers, but they are also at all times highly trained and professional in their conduct. Anybody want to buy a bridge? I notice the same thing with the Poms by the way. The Daily Mail had an article on this recently.

I don't want to see more boards like this because I don't think the ones we have are doing their job properly. When you get the ones we have to work the way they are supposed to you will have an argument for more and bigger versions, not before.

Quote

The only reason that Europe has high population density and growing populations is due to immigration from Africa and other third world countries. Without it Europe's population density and population level would have been declining for the past few decades.

Rubbish. Even without the immigration Europes pop. dens. is far higher than most third world nations. Europes density is higher because it is developed and can therefore support more people. Developed modern agriculture supports more people per square mile than subsistance farming does.

Quote

Skin colour aside the fact remains that the third world is the major source of unsustainable population growth. So much so that their excess population is spilling over into the west increasing unsustainable consumption there even further.

Yes, their population is unsustainable while they are a third world nation, this encourages people to leave. This is no different than the free settlers who came to Australia. But if the third world was developed, it could then sustain more people and a higher population and density. The difference between our approaches is that you want them to die off until they reach a lower population, "sustainable" at their current development level. I want them to develop so that they can sustain their current and possibly higher population.

Quote

The earth cannot sustain the human race's current consumption level.

Prove it. This is the basic assumption that your entire argument relies on. Prove it, show me the figures.

Quote

They are suffering and dieing under your failed regime of economic development

Just about every bit of development the third world has got has been with the direct opposition of the western green movement. Who stopped them from having DDT? Who prevents them from getting fertiliser? Who opposes dams and power generation on behalf of "the ecology"? They are suffering and dieing because every green lobby in the west wants them to and acts in direct opposition to their development. Don't try to hang that one on me, it won't work.

Quote

What you are saying is that your own individual interests are more important than the wider interests of civilisation and its long term stability.

If that is what you have got from my comments, then I suggest a course in remedial comprehension. Read what I write, not what your political blinders interpret.

PS. Phi, I warned back in post #24 that the discussion was headed directly for politics. If the idea is to do the "right thing" rather than "some thing" then deciding what the "right thing" is is strictly a political decision.

[hypervalent_iodine]

A small aside.

JohnB, on 24 December 2011 - 11:07 AM, said:

Who stopped them from having DDT?

My understanding was that such nations were permitted use of DDT for the prevention of malarial disease, albeit restricted. Last time I checked that was for a presentation about 4 or 5 years ago, though, so I may be wrong.

[JohnB]

Quote

My understanding was that such nations were permitted use of DDT for the prevention of malarial disease, albeit restricted. Last time I checked that was for a presentation about 4 or 5 years ago, though, so I may be wrong.

You're not wrong. DDT is still allowed for mosquito vector control. But, it's very hard to buy a product when the factories are closed down. India is the only nation currently making DDT. It is also very hard for poor nations who often depend on outside donors to get those donors to fund DDT programs due to political pressure applied to those donors in the west. Even though DDT is still available, the money to fund programs dried up. There is more than one way to kill an idea.

Can you imagine the stink Bob Brown would make if the Oz gov funded some DDT programs overseas?

This post has been edited by JohnB: 24 December 2011 - 01:54 PM

[hypervalent_iodine]

It's sad the damage idiots like What's-her-face Carson can do in combination with a general lack of education and skepticism amongst the public.

[JustinW]

Quote

JustinW, a simple question.

How could an organisation that people are forced to join and forced to agree with and forced to comply with, without the option of dissent possibly be a "voice of reason" in any conversation? The entire concept is based on the logical fallacy of "Appeal to Authority". The logic works this way;
1. The scientists are smarter than you are.
2. The scientists "agree".
3. You must do as you are told and defer to their authority.

The fallacy of this idea is shown by simple example. Swansont is an atomic physicist. Why is his opinion on mosquito bourne tropical diseases any better than mine?

So the "voice of reason and influence" is based on a logical fallacy, is totally authoritarian and is intolerant of dissent. Still think it's a worthwhile idea?

This is why I mentioned influence instead of control. Partly for some of the same reasons. I didn't imagine a group like this ever coming into existance, so I imbelished on the idea from an imaginary utopian frame of refrence.

Quote

PS. Phi, I warned back in post #24 that the discussion was headed directly for politics. If the idea is to do the "right thing" rather than "some thing" then deciding what the "right thing" is is strictly a political decision.

Well, the OP was that we have to do something. The next question automatically becomes what to do, and is it the right thing to do. So the move was probably inevitable anyway.