Excellent article thanks Julian. Given that population growth has contributed to species extinction, carbon emissions and global warming, ocean acidification, food insecurity, the manufacture and release of toxic chemicals and the illnesses they cause, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of rivers and oceans, loss of fisheries, soil erosion and degration, pollution and depletion of groundwater and surface water, peak oil, scarcity of mineral nutrients, energy shortages, and the nuclear threat, may I suggest that Homo sapiens sapiens be renamed Homo fecundus stultus (fecund, stupid man) or even Homo fecundus stultissimus (fecund, very stupid man)

Renaming homo sapiens?

Well, who developed the nuclear weapons, pollution belching cars and power stations, synthetic chemicals, oil wells, artificial fertilizers etc?

Nearly all has been developed by people in the science area, and almost all of whom were educated in universities.

Renaming universities or renaming science would be more appropriate than renaming homo sapiens.

Vanna

You're mostly wrong. These nasties were either developed by the military-industrial complex or by profit-oriented businessmen. Meanwhile the universities and research centres produced a whole lot of goodies like penicillin. But we're all implicated. Man as a whole is wrecking the planet and we have to turn the situation around.

One can listen to Julian Cribb's Science Show version of this article, which aired yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/3av5l8f
Of course the Pangloss's of OLO will dismiss Cribb's round-up of modern anthropogenic destruction as hysterical, or they'll rationalise it in geological and fatalistic terms; this is a sub-species of homo sapiens I fondly call "minimifidianists". For the species overall, what's the Latin for "idiot savant"?

I think Homo accumsan will do nicely. It doesn't matter who did the inventing, who did the weaponising, it's who does the CONSUMING. And the dominating species on the planet are consumers. The human section of those are the ones doing it without regard. That does imply an anthropomorphic characteristic to species that consume things but do it in balance, but it fits the dominants amongst us.

If the subsisting part of the human race is offended, we can devise a sub-species name for the human dominants.

I agree that some of the posters have many reasons to think themselves as 'stupid'. However if one understands the history of this planet you would find that before the evolution of those we call homo sapiens there were many changes caused by living beings that impacted the environment significantly more than we can imagine.

In the Proterozoic era, single celled organisms produced a huge amount of a waste product (known as oxygen) which would have caused mass extinction of the majority of existing life on earth. However these mass extinctions also resulted in the proliferation of many species that exist today. The same proliferation of species followed the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The point I am making is that our effect on the environment should not be judged by our effects on irrelevant ecosystems, rather we should judge our success as a species based on our continued survival. While many may point out the negative aspects of our existence I believe you 'cannot see the forrest for the trees'. At no point in human history have we had it as good as we do now. Life expectancy, quality of life and the proliferation of our numbers (often used as a negative) all suggest that we are more successful than ever.

I agree that as a species we also collectively have some negative effects on our future chances of survival, and I am not denying that many of the points the author makes are valid. However we are 'only human', and we will be judged by future generations - which will exist because we are such a successful species.

popnperish,

Yeah, I understand the situation.

Like duh, we got it wrong, and we got it wrong in 101,000 ways.

So give us more money, and we will fix the situation, or we will call the public stupid.

What is the probability that scientists, mainly educated in universities, will ever get it right.

What is science now doing to ensure that scientists will get it right next time?

Excepting passing mention of " great, creative, artistic or scientific achievements of humans today or over the centuries, which are indeed wonderful", it is all doom and gloom!

The author deserves sympathy as, despite being spectacled, he appears to have lost the sight of one eye. He ignores all the negatives that are attributable to environmental activists. For instance, he overlooks the fact that over US$100 billion has been spent (or should that be wasted) on socalled research promoting and defending the hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming, without yielding any compelling scientific evidence to prove it

I think this is an excellent article, and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments.
Not only are we undeserving of the title 'Sapiens', but the reason I became a vegetarian was because I don't think we should have any right to claim the title 'human' without doing something 'humane' to deserve it. I have little patience for so called 'animal lovers' who don't concern themselves with how their plastic wrapped meat came to their plate.
Anyone who contracts someone else to do their killing for them is equally culpable.
Renew, I agree with your sentiments. I would suggest the term: "Homo Homini Lupus", man is wolf to man. Our hunger to prey off each other, to acquire more than is possibly sane at the expense of others is in my opinion the root of all evil.
(I'm pretty sure wolves -and vampire bats- are actually more 'humane' -towards each other- than we are, but I'm sure everyone will understand the sentiment.)

I'd suggest that "Homo Destructor" would be quite suitable.

Raycom wrote "wasted) on socalled research promoting and defending the hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming, without yielding any compelling scientific evidence to prove it"

with all due respect...when one keeps holding onto their beliefs despite increasing evidence to contrary, and argues his original belief without further consideration...Im afraid thats the definition of 'delusion'...and once here, one's outside spectrum of normal psyche...

so debate with this group is impossible...and noticed they form self-supporting groups...that take to ridicule/shame others with differing opinions....

so Raycom may I challenge you at global warming for an example...and please respond with facts and apply logic and reason to conclude, so we may have a chance to compare with our facts...and test our logic and reason...

1.since industrial revolution, byproduct of industry(large quantity) will have an effect on ecosystems...particularly the gases(co2,no2 etc)...agree?...
2.the rate_of_change of temp rise since 70's is unprecedented...right?...so this sets it apart from past warmings...
3.sun radiance is decreasing since 60's...meaning infrared(heat) decreased...
so less heat reaching earth but rate of rise temperature dramatic...
now isnt this worth more study and debate?...
and as an example here...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

I know it takes more effort to actually do some research, or go and talk to people on the street, or visit country towns...but it will certainly be worth the effort...and not to respond to those with 'fixed unchanging views' that incapable/unwilling to lead with debatable facts to conclusion...

hope you accept this challenge as demonstration...then we can debate other conclusions of the author...and hopefully readers find this useful...

sam

"Man as a whole is wrecking the planet and we have to turn the situation around." ah, the hysterical chant of the environmental activist

"Man as a whole is wrecking the planet" People have been saying the same for hundreds of years, that's your opinion and good luck to you, it's not mine or many others .. many think we should use the planet, however we like, we may not be around forever, so get on with it and improve the lives of people who don't have it so good.

"we have to turn the situation around" Why? So a bunch of hand wringers feel better, go tell peasant farmers in India and China they are not entitled to progress, because you're so well off you have time to consider options.

I'd say homo innovatus .. there will always be miserable naysayers, they'll die out but the urge to innovate and better ourselves will never die out as long as the race survives.

It would be hard to find a better example of the self-loathing so characteristic of the Green movement today. Just what have humans done to get Julian's knickers in such a knot, I wonder? Looked after our own interests to the detriment of other species? Well, that's been going on since the beginning of time. Foxes do it, lions do it, mistletoe does it -- but as far as I know none of them take deliberate and active steps to ensure that the species they prey on don't die out. Other species don't have our population problems, to be sure: but that's because they starve, get sick, get eaten, or die of the wounds they acquire in the process of getting enough food to live another day. (Well, I DID cut my finger on a tomato slicer yesterday, but that hardly counts).

So what is it about our tremendous success that makes you so angry, Julian? Why are you so upset that we can feed, house, clothe and educate billions of others of our kind -- the only kind, as far as we know, that can read, write, reason and create beauty?

Just why do you hate people?

What an interesting thread.

I don't actually believe that the weight of the responses so far is typical of our population, but if it were...

What a sad bunch of no-hopers we have turned out to be!

I'd guess there is more optimism for the future in a small village in India, one that exists on subsistence farming and where the water supply comes from a single communal tap, than in the well-heeled rural townships of Australia. Let alone among the tut-tutting urban latte-sippers, doing their bit for the environment by putting off buying Lucy a car at the end of year twelve...

Sorry, I refuse to be browbeaten into depression by the guilt-ridden, lookit-me Greenie brigade. Especially those who are so smitten by the smug-bug, that they automatically recoil from such proposals as nuclear power, or coal-seam gas extraction, or genetically modified plants.

I'm willing to bet that if they had to choose between dying of hunger, and eating GM products, they would choose to eat. In which case, what right do they think they have to tell others less fortunate, that they are required to die, in line with the fads and fancies of Australian food fashionistas?

It's arrogance beyond imagination.

Pericles,

Why is it that it's always a choice between 'dying' and GM crops, pesticides, debt for small farmers, over-fertilisation and water depletion.
That village in India has most likely suffered more from multinational "Green Revolution" interference than it may have done without it. The landscape may be poisoned, eroded and degraded, the depleted water table may now not supply that single tap. Small farmers cannot access enough river water due to the multinational-owned sugar crop situated a little closer to one of India's thousands of dams.
That village, like many, has lost many of it's inhabitants to urban centres and hopelessness because they could no longer make a go of subsistence farming after the initial "success" of the Green Revolution. For many Indian peasants, suicide and hopelessness is now their lot....homo avarus has robed them of their tradition and their knowledge.

"The end is nigh" should be the title of this article.

And all the usual fearmongers and alarmists jump aboard the latest academic survival fear campaign.

Damn it's so cold ... where's global warming when you really need it?
Lol

Oh dear here we go again.

Another fear merchant preaching the end of the world. And it's all our fault. Maybe more and more money for research and maybe a new tax will reduce the effects upon the environment.

Give us a break.

This article is tantamount to an admission the fearmongering global warmists got it totally wrong!

I'd bet this bloke still is a closet warmist and a member of the warmist rump.

This article is as bad as some that have been written proclaiming the Clean Energy Future. I'm sure this academic has hordes of peer-reviewed articles all lined up ready to scare the crap out of our gulible idiots and our oldies and our kids ... again.

When will these dumbo's get off our case and our public teat and try producing something positive instead of windbagging on and on and on... again.

Squeers

the latin for "idiot savant"? is global warmist.

...And another “Homo” favoured by many..Homosexual

Hark!....do we hear the bleat of homo stupendus ignoramus withering in the frigid recesses?

...windbagging on and on is not confined to one side of the argument, imajulianutter.

Hey imajulianutter, thanks for your informed input.
'idiot savants' are famous for always getting it RIGHT, instantly and infallibly, and long before others do.

Hey Jon J, great post.
"...Why are you so upset that we can feed, house, clothe and educate billions of others of our kind -- the only kind, as far as we know, that can read, write, reason and create beauty?"

"Just why do you hate people?"
Actually, I think Julian Cribb recently put up an article outlining those very reasons (although 'hate' may be a little strong.)
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12495
Give a yell if you need any help with the big words.

What an odd question, Poirot.

>>Pericles, Why is it that it's always a choice between 'dying' and GM crops, pesticides, debt for small farmers, over-fertilisation and water depletion.<<

It is not "always" a choice between dying and GM crops. But given that there may at some point be the desperate need for such a choice, why would you deny the villagers the option?

Many GM crops are designed to need less pesticide, have higher yield using less fertilizer and are hardier, which renders the rest of your "choice" meaningless.

In any case, why would you actively agitate against the use of these crops, in areas where hunger is still a problem? I simply cannot get my head around the mindset that makes these pious judgments, thousands of miles away from in front of their plasma TV.

>>The landscape may be poisoned, eroded and degraded, the depleted water table may now not supply that single tap. Small farmers cannot access enough river water due to the multinational-owned sugar crop situated a little closer to one of India's thousands of dams<<

Do yourself a favour, and bring yourself up-to-date:

http://ddws.nic.in/

Life, for so very many, is a daily struggle to keep the family fed. Making life even more difficult for them, in the name of some white middle-class fashion statement, is cruel.

The authors critique of the human race actually supports the use of the terminology 'Homo sapiens' as it itself shows our ability think and understand the consequences of our actions (wisdom).

Name one species whose existence is not in some way detrimental to the environment.

Astounding bit of hissy-fitting by the author. 10 billion by 2100? No - nowhere near it. Global pop will drop approx 2050. Nothing to do with pop. Nothing to do even with consumers. Everything, the Greens and tree worshipers with capitalism. That's what they hate.

The tone of the article is absolute 'tanty'. Why? Surely the greens and their storm troopers have laid waste to enough desalination plants and protected enough ecosystems to preserve their kith and kin when the end of the world happens any minute now.

Might I suggest, Homo Termitoidae

Bruce Haigh

I can think of thousands. The detritus eaters would be a good start. The issue whether you see yourself as part of the environment or above it.

Sorry Bruce, minor point of contention but in the Linnaean naming scheme the suffic -oidae is designating an epifamily (just above family level), not a species. A species designation would be Homo termes, but that would mean a man worm that eats wood.

From what I see, I reckon Homo confusum would be better.

Grim, if man had not started eating meat, you would be still swing from limb to limb and making funny screaching noises.

David

Thought that might get the dogs barking.... pity so few of them have the guts to sign their names to their howls.

For the record, I love human creativity and all it brings us. I love our exquisite ability to forsee difficulty and danger, and act collectively to avoid it. I fully believe we can solve all these problems, provided we understand them thoroughly and act together, as we are so good at doing. For an optimistic view, see my last post: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12232

Those who dismiss the risks we now run only increase the peril we face. They want us to do nothing, question nothing, be ignorant, be helpless. That's not humanity as I know it. We are much better than that.

Now is the time to earn the right to call ourselves wise.

Julian Cribb

Pericles,

"Do yourself a favour, and bring yourself up-to-date."

Perhaps you'd like to take your own advice...this article is from 2007 but gives a good summation of the problems faced post Green Revolution in the "totemic success", the Punjab. Surely, there must be some middle ground.

http://www.economist.com/node/9856023

Btw, GM crops have to be purchased each year - so much for seed sharing and knowledge and tradition.

What Julian,

are we merely the dogs of no consequence? Oris it that it is only our opinions that are of no consequence?

Let's see you've said

'in a country called Australia there aren’t many genuine Australians.'
Wrong.
Is it that non-Australians are those who don't see things the way you do?

'...the 21st century will be the century of the global water crisis, afflicting billions of humans in frightful ways.'
Wrong
The drought has broken?

'how we will live day-to-day under a hotter, drier, more volatile climate.'
Wrong.

The peer reviewed science now tells us the average global surface temps are falling, the rate of rise of sea levels is decelerating and that warming causes an increase in CO2 emissions.

And what about the extreme colds and record snowfalls?

'In most cultures academic equates with knowledgeable, serious, thoughtful, meticulous, even wise. In the robust Antipodes however it often connotes that which is sterile, self-obsessed, quixotic and lacking in relevance to the wider community.'

Given the track record of the scientists and their supporters I'd opine true blue Aussies are getting it pretty right.

And Julian I have plenty of guts it's just that I don't put my name here because like you I'm fearful of the spectre of the 'risks of the nanotechnologies' and their 'mis-applications'.

"Dogs barking" indeed Julian...

I'm all in favour of democracy and OLO blogs allow one to exercise one's democratic freedoms by expressing a point of view. But surely there has to be some responsibility attached to one's exercising democratic rights. Why does a perfectly reasonable - albeit depressing - article by Julian bring out such irrationality and profound ignorance? What he says is correct and he's right to question whether we deserve our 'sapiens' name. If survival is the measure of wisdom but we bring down entire ecosystems in the process of surviving, then surely it is not wise when viewed from a non-anthropogenic point of view.

Irrelevant, Poirot.

>>Btw, GM crops have to be purchased each year - so much for seed sharing and knowledge and tradition.<<

Nobody is twisting your arm. If it is more productive, and economically more efficient, surely you use GM. If it isn't, you don't. Wikipedia also makes the following point:

"Traditionally, farmers in all nations saved their own seed from year to year. It should be noted that this does not apply in more agriculturally developed countries for some crops. Corn is one example where producers generally have not saved seed since the early 1900s with the advent of hybrid corn through selective breeding."

If the practice has been abandoned by "more agriculturally developed countries", perhaps the seed-saving tradition is a factor in low crop yields.

How much damage do the anti-progress folks do, I wonder, as they wander through their privileged lives, lobbying for decisions that affect people out of sight, thousands of miles away.

Pericles,

Did you read the article on the Punjab? If you did, you'll get the point I was making...after a five decade flourish, the land is wrung out, the water table is depleted and polluted, people are poisoned and the soil is eroded and degraded.

I might be thousands of miles away, but that doesn't stop me from rationalising that that sort of intensive agriculture is unsustainable.

How much damage do the pro-progress" folks do....
Don't be so quick to set yourself apart. You're pontificating as well from the land of milk and honey - and apparently you're happy to overlook the poisoned landscape left in the wake of the Green Revolution.

Poirot, interesting link, but this one has some more meat http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADK223.pdf.

There certainly are some water problems in the world, and I'm interested in finding material about them. There must be something more recent than 2007 for Punjab, although I haven't been able to find it so far this evening.

It's too much to believe that with this knowledge the Punjabi industry would stand still, especially as some of the problems appear to be caused by overuse and inappropriate government intervention. Australia has dramatically changed how it farms over very short periods - look at green trash blanketing in the cane industry, or minimum till dry land farming techniques in wheat.

I think Julian's article was a bit tongue in cheek, but irony doesn't seem to travel well. And I think what he's saying is that change is possible. I'm interested in knowing whether change is happening.

Anyone else got any pertinent links?

Being one of many, I'm sure, who admires Pericles' critiques, it's a disappointment finding him rather one-sided on this issue. Not only does he resort to ridicule of those he designates "the guilt-ridden, lookit-me Greenie brigade" (as though they had nothing but moronic naivety to support their tree-sitting), and fail to consider their arguments fairly (and without the stereotyping), but he also fails to think critically about his own side of the debate. Pericles and others in his camp don't deny that human "progress" seems headed for abrupt regress, they merely rationalise it with the usual cliches: we're all dead geologically anyway, and lifting millions out of poverty, etc. The logic's tantamount to upgrading passengers in "steerage" to "first class" on the Titanic.
So may I ask, Pericles, if you'll be a spokesperson for the rational optimists and offer us more than fatalism and "pull the ladder up" to put our highly-strung mind's at ease?

Julian, I have to differ with you about <our exquisite ability to forsee difficulty and danger, and act collectively to avoid it. I fully believe we can solve all these problems, provided we understand them thoroughly and act together, as we are so good at doing>

As I've said on OLO previously, that exquisite ability to foresee and avert danger, individually, deserts us at the social level. I'm sure Pericles and company are much more concerned and vigilant about the health of their prostates than they are aboiut anything so "remote" as civilisation or the environment.
I'm confident we will "not" avert disaster, indeed I believe the real savants (bean counters) among us have already factored the collapse of the human populations in their calculations.

I also agree with vanna. It's a bit rich the scientists being all indignant about the current state of affairs when their indifferent innovations have always been amorally decided by the highest bidder. Politics don't come into it; they go where the money is. The advent of the ethical scientist is beguiling to behold. I wonder how big the research grant has to be to make him revert to objectivity?

Actually Pericles, I don't fit into your "latte sipping feelgood
Greenie" category. So I came to my conclusions in perhaps different
ways then many of them did. Firstly I reread Darwin's "Origin
of Species", he made some extremely pertinent points about the
struggle for existence, the fact that far more of any species will
be created then can ever survive and the reality that exponential
growth will lead to inevitable collapse at some point in time.

Secondly I spent years observing nature and noted how the monoculture
of just about any species, eventually leads to a collapse of some
kind. Short term you will find answers to keep the wheels on the
cart, longer term it bites you in the arse. The further and larger
that you push the system, the larger will be the collapse. There
are good reasons why in nature, biodiversity always wins in the end.

In the last 18 years, our human population has increased as much as
it did in the whole of human history, up to the start of the 20th
century. So the writing is on the wall and we can keep juggling the
wheels on that cart, but the further we push things, the bigger will
be the crash one day.

All for what? Because in large parts of the third world, we force
women to have babies that they never wanted in the first place.
Millions of them don't have backyard abortions because its a fun
thing to do. The solution would be so simple but we refuse to
address it. So we try and grow even more out of clapped out soils.
Well so be it. If the whole lot collapses so be it, we can only
blame ourselves.

Perhaps Linnaeus being a classical scholar thought in plain latin. A quick look at etymology suggests the following; homo has connection to humus, earth. Sapere, taste, understand, have sense (feelings, perhaps, more than common sense).Homo sapiens sapiens; an earthbound creature that knows that he/she wishes to taste, feel, understand everything possible, knowing the danger and addicted to the excitement.No need to change!

I think the premise of this article is wrong. It assumes it is possible to be so smart you can cheat what I suspect is a law of evolution.

To have life, you must have more death. In other words some of those who are born must not live to breed. Every species seems to be wired at its core to produce this outcome. Without death pruning its failures, a species will stagnate and die.

We are the product of billions of years of evolution. From the single cell organisms that are our earliest ancestors, we are made up of solely the species that did not stagnate and die. That we tamed this uncontrolled growth to become a multicellular organism, where each cell limits the number of times it divides is a miracle. But it lurks just below the surface in each cell, and in about 30% of us that control will break down. The rule will run amok once more, causing cancer. Yet in killing what its suppression created, the rule delivers a lesson to the next generation.

This law, it is what makes us part of the living world. It is not something we can control by an act of will, no matter how smart we are. Science often poo-hoo's religion, but our religions tell us procreate or die is part of our very soul, and on this point our religions are right. (This is why we can't bring ourselves to hand out contraceptives no matter how hard we try, Yabby.)

As individuals we fear its consequences. Perhaps that is why Julian is telling us to excise this part of us. But as a species we can not survive without it.

So yes, I think this century will be the one death returns with a vengeance, bringing a sudden end to mans pretensions of being the master of life. It is a frightening prospect. But even though I view it with dismay as an individual, I don't think it should be viewed as an unmitigated disaster for the species Homo sapiens. It certainly doesn't mean it is "dumb".

Wonder of wonders, for once I find myself on the same side of the argument as Yabby.
It's always amusing to listen to urbanites expound on farming practice; particularly the wonder of the 'Green Revolution', as if it were some kind of free lunch.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that modern farm practices require 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy to produce one calorie of food, or that it takes 33,500 cubic feet of natural gas to produce 1 ton of fertiliser.
Since humankind started cultivating, farmers have had to battle the vagaries of nature. Far from changing that, chemical farming has produced another enemy to battle: the vagaries of the market place. Now the price of oil can not only send farmers broke, it can also cause starvation on a massive scale.
Companies like Monsanto aren't primarily concerned with feeding the starving masses. They, like all businesses, want what the tobacco companies have had: a consumer base that is completely dependant, -if not thoroughly addicted- to their product. Hybrid seeds do very nicely, in that the farmer has to keep coming back every season for more, even when the GM modified seed doesn't do what it's supposed to.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/gmcrops.india

The experiment has been done to death. In every case, abandoning the age old wisdom of crop rotation for monocultural practices, and reliance on artificial inputs has seen massive improvements in productivity -for the first few years. This is always followed by a decline in productivity, requiring ever greater inputs of fertiliser and chemicals to achieve the same results; a great result for chemical companies.
And free trade agreements have only exacerbated the situation. Forcing these agreements on third world countries has allowed the major producers like America to dump heavily subsidised grains onto poorer countries, driving farmers off their land and into the crowded city slums. Then, when these grains are diverted to more lucrative markets, like ethanol, the poor country has no fall back.
Farms can't just be turned back on like a TV, even with artificial inputs; although that is the fastest way.
And the addiction begins again.

So Grim,

The use of hydrocarbons, chemicals or hybrid/GM crops and market mechanisms may result in a long term decrease in productivity? Compared to what? Sustenance farming, I think not.

Yes these methods have their flaws, but all result in significantly higher yields than not using them. If we were to revert back to sustenance farming then how many millions would starve? Exactly what is your point?

Comparing farming to the tobacco industry is ridiculous, yes we require food to live, but nobody is forced to buy food grown by any method. If you don't like it grow it yourself. Just don't think you can tell others how they should provide for themselves.

This quote from wikipedia pretty much sums up what I think of much of this criticism:

"some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels...If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things". Norman Borlaug

When i first saw this article i thought puhleeease, not another self loathing, hate piece, gimme a break.

Then i thought Howler will be all over this one so i don't need to.

Then a day later i realised every ANTI capitalism, econazi, consiracy theory has been quoted in one article, along with the usual ANTI white male, diatribe about everything being our fault.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12495#216070 then i read the comments as well & even after Graham Y admitted the article was a joke some of the closet communists are still in there swinging away at the evil bourgoisee for daring to live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_6tIwuoco&feature=related you guys need to lighten up a little.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMZTt4p1ahc&feature=related get a life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s&feature=related smell the roses.

But here is my favourite http://www.carbonconservation.com/ Juliar will tax us all, give billions to these guys, they will laugh all the way to the bank & ocasionally send us a photo of the forest they promise not to chop down, so that "clever" Loony Left, Humanities "academics" can see the carbon sequestered there.

But wait there is more, "blood & gore" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Investment_Management these guys are in on the scam as well, "cleaning up". Does it get any better than this? Could hollywood have written a better script?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RDMXe_BY9Y maybe now you understand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFzhHeatRA0&feature=related have you got your Go Card?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKBnN8i-tfk&feature=related perhaps this is working for you.

Graham,

This article from 2009 is a little more recent from NASA (was published in Nature by Matthew Rodell) on the disappearing groundwater in India.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html

Grim - excellent post earlier in the thread.

Guilty as charged, Squeers.

>>Not only does he resort to ridicule of those he designates "the guilt-ridden, lookit-me Greenie brigade" (as though they had nothing but moronic naivety to support their tree-sitting)<<

It was the whole "we're guilty of wrecking the world" self-flagellation bit that got me started. Then the complaint that "the dominating species on the planet are consumers", whose corollary, presumably, is that we should all stop "consuming". And start the long, painful march to the level of the lowest common denominator.

How will that benefit anyone?

If we have a communal task, it surely is to help those less fortunate, to better themselves? How does the whole "hair shirt" approach make their lives more comfortable? Where's the value in denying others the benefits of our technology, via a blanket resistance to nuclear power, GM foods etc. etc.

So yes, I did resort to some inappropriate terminology. For which I apologize. At least, that's what I shall say here.

But I most definitely don't apologize for the sentiment, which is basically anger. Directed at those who wilfully ignore the ramifications of their anti-progress stance, and instead simply adopt a fashionable, inner-city dinner-party posture designed to make them feel, somehow, worthy.

This was fun, though:

>>The logic's tantamount to upgrading passengers in "steerage" to "first class" on the Titanic.<<

Le mot juste, Squeers.

If we're all going to hell in a handbasket, isn't it better to make the basket as comfortable as possible, for the maximum number of people?

But I must object to the idea that I'm the one pulling up the ladder.

>>...offer us more than fatalism and "pull the ladder up" to put our highly-strung mind's at ease?<<

Denying others the fruits of the "progress" that has brought us to this point, is the epitome of ladder-pulling.

Not only that, but it is poor form, and thoroughly bad manners.

It could also encourage some people, who don't necessarily see us as the guardians of the world's morals that we clearly want to convince ourselves we are, to construe our dog-in-a-manger approach as provocative, or even aggressive.

Formersnag
You refer to our Prime Minister as Juliar. As a woman I find it offensive. You wouldn't insult a male PM so don't insult a woman PM. I have some problems with one or two of her policies but I think she presents well and deserves to be treated with respect.

Thanks Poirot, very informative link. Would be interesting to know what they might find over Australia. My understanding is that the Great Artesian Basin is in fact not replenished from the surface, so that we are in effect mining it http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1215. But it would also be interesting to know what the recent rains have done for subterranean water in the Murray Darling system, which are replenished from the surface.

Popnperish, as moderator I don't propose to do anything about people calling Julia Gillard "Juliar". I don't recall doing anything about people calling John Howard a liar, so it would be inequitable for me to do anything now the boot is on the other foot.

I have a friend who established the site "John Howard Lies". I don't think it helped his cause. I don't think Juliar helps anyone either.

Pericles,

What about those who willfully ignore the ramifications of their pro-progress stance? How does it benefit Indians to have their arable land degraded and their water table depleted and polluted?

It's not a matter of denying the developing world of first world agri-technology. Its a matter of limiting the raw profiteering by corporations in cahoots with governments in partnership with the World Bank and the IMF who fail to take a measured approach. Hyper-intensive agriculture is "not" sustainable, fullstop.
Pesticides, fertilisers and synthetically developed seeds are the wares plied by multinational corporations. It's fairly obvious that the these corporations have little regard for the long-term ramifications of overly intensive applications of the two former or the debt inducing effect of the latter. Profit is really their only motive. Nothing wrong with corporations profiting from their wares, however, developing countries don't have the sort of environmental controls that Western countries take for granted. The disaster in the Punjab wouldn't happen in the U.S.

You error in your assumption that our "progress" is the same dose given to developing countries. It's a completely different playing field...or do you think the Punjabi experience should be emulated in the West?

Squeers,

I agree, well said

Well said, Pericles.

It appears the OLOers are increasingly grouping into two camps, or species.

One group only wants to see/talk doom and gloom. They eagerly swallow the worst case scenarios about climate change, nuclear power, GM crops. In another age they might have found actualization in an end of times revivalist movement. But in today’s secular age they (and/or like minded kin)have to make do with destroying crop experiments, disrupting powerstations or going onto social media sites to whine about the evils of the system. Some future researcher will view then in much the same way as we might the luddites’

The other group acknowledges problems but works towards overcoming them. It is heartening to see Julian, in his second post, profess faith in human creativity and foresight.

The benefits that accrue from technology far out weigh the costs.While there are still major problems/issues re pollution and waste much good work has been done. Only a one-eyed ideologue, or someone trying to be tongue-in-cheek would not acknowledge the progress.

However, if the measure is going to be, doing things “all together”, we will always to be found wanting. Short of worldwide regime change, humanity is not going to do things “all together”, there are just too many opportunities to free ride.

Pericles,
I did think after posting that "pull the ladder up" was inappropriate, not incapsulating what I said or your position. I've also been guilty myself of ridiculing the opposition, so ditto on apologies.

Thoughtful objectors to unimpeded capitalism (more its consequences) are not against nuclear power or coal-seam gas per se, but against the unquestioning illogic that more energy must be found, whatever the collateral cost; that the growth engine must be fed, and so human expansion must continue. Never any talk of cutting consumption or lowering Western lifestyles; and not because a bit of austerity wouldn't be beneficial (Western prosperity once thrived on the Protestant ethic), but because the economy "must" grow ad infinitum. In order to maintain our lifestyles we must live beyond our means--for the moment. It's disingenuous to offer an ethical defence of our prolific means of production based on its obverse, that the alternative, third-world starvation, is inhumane. A specious rationale for maintaining an addiction that does nobody any good. The world's affluence and poverty are of a piece, effects of the same cause. The free market doesn't lift millions out of poverty, it raises millions out of the dust to starve. Capitalism is no more a cornucopia than a grain silo for a mouse plague.
Actually, I'm not that different from you and Yabby and others, the difference being that while my despair is futile, I refuse to condone such a system. Whereas your side (some of you) are "conscious" (that is conscious that it can't be maintained) apologists for a system you "know" must collapse. You "forsee difficulty and danger" (Cribb), but refuse to "act collectively to avoid it". Or you refuse to acknowledge it, professing false optimism instead and calling the whole mad career "progress", while in the same breath condemning conservationists as naive and hypocritical! As opposed to what? Machiavellian cynicism? As if humanity couldn't "progress" (could we have a qualitative definition of this term?) without excess, wrecking the future, and driving untold other species to extinction.
All because we serve a system, rather than it serving humanity, and posterity.

There are indeed two opposing camps; this is generally called a 'discussion', or an 'argument'.
Only ultra conservatives and communists find one sided discussions fascinating.
In this discussion, one camp could be described as thinking 'swinging through trees' might not be the best mode of locomotion. That maybe there could be a better way. That before changes can be made, one must first acknowledge the need for change. That maybe, just maybe, we aren't perfect, and maybe we might even be part of the problem.
The other side thinks that swinging through the trees must be the best way to travel, because that's the way we travel, so it has to be right.
The differences between these two camps was starkly obvious on the long country road I lived on for twenty years. One camp when hitting a roo, or even just seeing a dead roo in the middle of the road, would naturally stop and pull it off the road. The other camp would steer around it and complain that 'someone should do something' -as long as it didn't involve any extra cost.
Norman Borlaug was a great scientist and a great man. He was absolutely correct when he pointed out that no matter how much farmers conserved their manure and practised sustainable farming techniques, losses were inevitable and periodic inputs from outside would be necessary. This was starkly brought home with the building of the Aswan dam; stopping the perennial flooding of the Nile also stopped thousands of years of sustainable farming.
Enormous inputs of fossil fuels in the fifties and sixties was a perfectly acceptable alternative to floods. But what happens if -for decades- the whole world burns the very resource which is so vital to the creation of food? To the very point where we can see that that resource is going to run out, even as the need for it is still growing?
Intelligent?

The smart farmer, like the smart business man, knows that 'a penny saved is a penny made'. It is just as important to the bottom line to limit inputs, as it is to maximise outputs. Decades ago when I was a kid at school, we talked about the 'circle of life'; yet our food production and usage in western countries is strictly linear. Large artificial inputs are pumped into the production end, then more inputs used to transport food to cities, then sewerage systems pump virtually the same amount of nutrients straight out to sea.
Intelligent?
Smart farmers have known for centuries that rotating crops, and using farm animals in rotations and allowing paddocks to lie fallow can improve or at least sustain fertility. Unfortunately market pressures have made these practices almost impossible to follow. Farmers not only need every acre to be productive, they need every crop to be commercially viable. (I used to make a good part of my living buying heifers from dairy farmers, raising them for 2 years, and selling them back to the same farmers.)
Currently, using artificial inputs is simply more cost effective than using traditional practices -combined with using fewer artificial inputs. This isn't about philosophy or morality; this is simply about money.
As fossil fuels become more scarce, they will inevitably become more expensive. Food production systems and energy usage systems will need to change, or (more) people will die.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html

There seems to be an "all-or-nothing" assumption built into your assessment, Squeers.

>>Thoughtful objectors to unimpeded capitalism (more its consequences) are not against nuclear power or coal-seam gas per se...<<

The assumption here appears to be that by pointing out that self-flagellation and guilt-trips are both ineffectual and unhelpful, I must perforce be a supporter of "unimpeded capitalism". This is not the case.

I do however believe that capitalism still has a great deal to offer in reaching a solution for the ills that we face. And that government actions designed by slogan-driven policy committees will solve nothing.

>>Never any talk of cutting consumption or lowering Western lifestyles; and not because a bit of austerity wouldn't be beneficial...<<

I don't know where you live, but around here we talk of little else. It's the "GFC effect". Suddenly we have become aware that living on credit has some real limitations, and that putting our personal financial house in order would be quite a good thing.

That's capitalism for you.

And this, I totally fail to understand:

>>The world's affluence and poverty are of a piece, effects of the same cause. The free market doesn't lift millions out of poverty, it raises millions out of the dust to starve.<<

Check out the stats on poverty in China. Then tell me again that the free market has been a bad thing for them.

And you are reading far too much into my position.

>>Whereas your side (some of you) are "conscious" (that is conscious that it can't be maintained) apologists for a system you "know" must collapse.<<

Why must it collapse? We all know that continuous growth is unsustainable. But we also know that the system has proved over the centuries that it is highly adaptable, and responds to the pressures that threaten its survival. Which once again is what the GFC is all about.

A necessary process of adjustment. As with the world's population, which will stabilize, on current estimates, within the next fifty years or so.

In this scenario, blind self sacrifice is not noble; it's pointless.

Here's a recent article. The stockpiling of grain in India has often been controversial. While its prudent to stockpile food, much of it over the years has been left to rot because of a lack of storage capacity - seems that not much has changed.

The irony here is that even with the great success in producing so much grain while simultaneously doing so much environmental damage, people still die from hunger or are stunted in India. Stockpiling keeps grain prices artificially elevated and consequently too high for some...it rots under tarpaulins in the open.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/world/indias-grain-stockpile-may-rot-as-state-warehouses-overflow/story-e6frg90o-1226084798839

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12495#216166

popnperish, #1, the fauxMANistas have been using much more intemperate language against men, without any provocation, for decades.

#2, Ditto for everybody "on the loony left" against anybody who is not a good little communist.

#3, if have seen any of my comments at all you will see that my use of words against communism & its supporters is equal to both genders.

#4, you would also see that i have been equally derogatory towards corrupt right wingers, who are equally a problem.

i am a centrist moderate after all.

BTW, did you try any of the links i gave you some of them are really funny.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12495#216169

GrahamY, my understanding of the artesian basin is that it is replenished by rain falling on the mountain ranges & there are also underground outflows to the sea.

i have seen bores pouring out 400,000 gallons daily for more than half a century, including one which was diverted into a limestone cave for 6 months which never filled, the water just drained away, presumably back to where it came from.

Sam
The hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming has not been proved by scientific evidence. No one, not even the 'mighty' IPCC, has been able to demonstrate or measure a dangerous human-caused climate change.

Poirot, its fairly easy to sit on the sidelines and pass smartarsed
comments about India, using the latest NASA information. I remind
you however that your website pointed out, that underground water
levels are dropping around the world.

Years ago I traded with India, trying to sell some of their products
in Europe. In the end I walked away shaking my head, far more aware
as to why they lived in poverty.

Now the Australian public service might be bad, with public servants
feathering their own nests to ensure a contented and well paid lifestyle.
That is for just 20 million. Multiply that 50 fold
to reflect the Indian population, pay them poorly and what you really
have is complete disorganised chaos.

Everyone had their hand out, wanting payment to get anything done,
that was simply part of the system. But the place was simply too
large to organise anything efficiently. It made my point for me,
that smaller democracies have a far better chance of progress then
large ones.

So you have the easiest job of all, simply passing smartarsed comments.
Actually changing anything in a country of one billion,
is easier said then done. You would be naive to believe that all
those public servants go to work for the best interests of the
country, rather then their own little patch of self interest.

Yabby,

What's smartarsed about telling something like it is?

Here it is again:

"A falling water table across the northern Indian subcontinent comes as no great surprise. The GRACE region of sharp depletion coincides with the world's most intensely irrigated land. Fifty percent to more than 75% of the land is equipped for irrigation with pumped groundwater or reservoir water..."

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/08/10-01.html

Unsustainable....

Yabby,

You're quick to dismiss groundwater depletion in the NASA piece because it is happening in other parts of the world besides India - like China and the U.S. and elsewhere.

Here's a bit more info on aquifer depletion in India other places where overpumping is rife.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Aquifer_depletion

Many who post on OLO find facts difficult. For those I suggest Homo nihil facto.

For example, the Artesian Basin:

"The accepted view of the Great Artesian Basin (in all govt. papers, and taught in schools and universities) is that it is an open system that is regularly topped up by rainfall on the highlands around its perimeter, particularly on the slopes of the Great Dividing Range to the East. The govt. geologists claim that the Basin’s tremendous sandstone strata reach the surface in these intake zones and surface water can readily percolate down into the porous rock from where it begins its long journey beneath the Western Plains.

However, this is deceptive and misleading. In the government’s most recent report from the Bureau of Rural Sciences (Habermehl et al 2009), it states “recharge rates range from 0.5mm to 10mm (millimeters) per year, with a maximum of approximately 40mm per year.” How could this water, travelling at that rate, possibly recharge the Basin (which is 3000 metres deep in places) in less than many millions of years? Another paper (Love et al 2000) claims that by using Cl dating methods, recharge in south-west of the GAB is between 0.08 and 0.24 mm (millimetres) per year, and flow velocity is 0.24 m per year. To quote the DWE’s Water Sharing Plan document: “Water flow through the sandstone is extremely slow, it is estimated that the time taken for water to travel from the recharge areas to the western parts of the GAB can be up to two million years”. And this is the best case scenario – the other scenario is worse.

Cont'd

Cont'd

The other point of view (which is widely accepted by many scientists, hydrogeologists and professors) is that there is strong scientific evidence to prove that the waters of the GAB are ancient, stored in the earth’s crust – and are finite. These experts state that the GAB will run out, it is a closed system, but whether it lasts us 20 years or 100 years, depends entirely on how we manage it. At the present time, we have already wasted 100 times the volume of Sydney Harbour (that is wastage, not usage) and we are at present wasting water equivalent to the volume of Sydney Harbour (0.5 million megalitres) each year."

So the best case scenario (according to the govt. documents) is that it will take several million years to replenish – the worst case scenario, is that it won’t replenish at all. In reality then, does it matter which theory is correct, as it is ludicrous to suggest the govt’s estimated rate of recharge (if it exists at all) could be of any benefit to the GAB? We claim (and independent hydrogeologists have agreed) that this rate is so miniscule, that it cannot ethically be called “recharge” – which implies that the water level is being topped-up, when in actual fact it is not being replenished at all. "

http://www.gabpg.org.au/great-artesian-basin

*What's smartarsed about telling something like it is?*

Poirot, cos its the easy thing to do, I do it all the time :)

But on the ground, in the real world, there would be a maze of
Govt Depts, each having a say in all this. Everyone would be
acting in their little patch of self interest. So to actually
bring about a change which fair to all concerned, would be
extremely difficult to impliment. So we have what happens now,
people just keep pumping.

The thing is, as rural holdings in places like India keep getting
smaller, with ever rising population, pressure keeps growing.
So it all keeps leading back to the elephant in the room, which
remains population, rather then blaming corporations, the IMF,
or the World Bank. But that is less of a trendie leftie catchcry,
much easier to just blame the evil West.

Pericles,
sorry for delays; my time is not my own.
On the first point you haven't established that "self-flagellation and guilt-trips" is what drives those who, nominally, take my side of the debate. Just as the true minimifidianist is, possibly, a rare beast, so too is your caricature of a greenie. Greenies have been demonised for decades, though their ranks are filled with intelligent professionals and scientists; by and large their position is eminently reasonable and popular parodies are the desperate resort of liberal conservatives.
What does capitalism still have to offer but more of the same blunt instrument? so-called market-based solutions; profit-driven innovation; a wasteful and destructively competitive process of survival of the fittest and indifference to manifold negative consequences--new markets!.
On consumption, Pericles, I allude to the engine and not the puny efforts of individuals. Governments don't talk about cutting consumption because that is the fundamental fuel of capitalism. Would it not make sense, for the sake of reducing carbon emissions, to encourage people to dispense with the second car--even penalise them for overusing the first--in favour of the footpath? But no, new toys drive the economy, the last thing we want is abstinence--once thought a virtue! Are we not every day harassed in the media to stop saving and spend? In recent years it's become shrill and desperate--indeed the fate of the world hangs on consumer confidence!
The next part, that mystifies you, alludes to the fact that the spike in unprecedented population growth is pegged to the advent and progress of capitalism. Capitalism doesn't raise people out of poverty--as if they were wretchedly waiting to be saved, it cultivates them to draw off profit, then leaves the bubble to collapse under the inevitable weight of attrition. Economically and ecologically, prosperity in the global system is counterbalance by poverty--its detritus.
"Why must it collapse"?
Capitalism has proved resilient (rather than adaptable) but its fundamental dynamic has not and cannot change: endless economic growth in a closed (and fragile) system; it doesn't occur in a vacuum, but must have a material concomitant.
It's a fool's paradise.

<< The smart farmer, like the smart business man, knows that 'a penny saved is a penny made'.>>

Well Grim , with that in mind, I would have thought that the really smart people in your waste conscious camp on “hitting a roo, or even just seeing a dead roo in the middle of the road” wouldn’t have fart-assed around debating whether to drag it off the road or go around it, but (taking a leaf out Bear Gryl’s book)would have drawn their bowie knives and cut off a few steaks for the solar powered barbie. Then proceeded to skin it to make an all-weather overall.

At one fell swoop you/they could have reduced demand for the ground eroding , grain fed ruminants, and saved a whole lot of methane emissions.

Raycom wrote "not even the 'mighty' IPCC, has been able to demonstrate or measure a dangerous human-caused climate change."

yes, but what on facts have YOU used to logic+reason to conclude no anthropogenic global warming?...

why the question?...well...tobacco doesn't cause canver-remember this one by all the 'experts' of the time...or colonized people 'prefer' imperial form of government by all the european experts of the time(bringing civilization to the savages)...going back further, insane were full of evil spirits so needed to be killed/isolated...or close to home, we are 'terra nullis' by experts to the queen victoria...allowed Crown to 'own' Australia...that just left small matter of all the aboriginal communities everywhere...and we know the rest dont we...hunting parties encouraged and made heroes...'lies made true if benefit exists', what ever extent destruction it caused...that's basically it...

such madness been going on for ages...just that now the 'madness' might just wipe us all out...thats why I think we the 'people' now need to think and act and this time stay in control...

sam

Thanks Ammonite. It's a rare moment when we agree, but I think the Artesian Basin is essentially being mined. Your links add some information to the OLO article I cited but for me the clincher is that the water comes up under pressure, it doesn't have to be pumped like a normal bore, and the pressure has been dropping over time.

No-one has been able to explain to me how you get water to flow from an area of low pressure (the recharge areas) into one of higher pressure. So it seems obvious that the water has been trapped underground and that the pressure is created by the crust bearing down on it.

I'm not sure how much of our agriculture depends on the basin. I suspect it is more important for grazing, but when it runs out it is going to have an impact.

Sam
Instead of accepting the AGW propaganda disseminated by the media accompanied by the allied politicisation of scientists, science bureaucrats, science organisations and science journals, readers should benefit by consulting factual references such as Robert M Carter, "Climate: the Counter Consensus", published by Stacey International in 2010, or Mark Lawson, "A Guide to Climate Change Lunacy", published by Connor Court in 2010

Raycom,

My point is exactly opposite of what you say Im doing...'accepting AGM propaganda'...Im saying think independently by going through the given facts, the more fundamental the fact the better...and built up to eventually concluding what the facts lead to...and nothing more...

but mate...the book you refer to, Robert M Carter, "Climate: the Counter Consensus...its 351 pages long...

and in the end Ive got a feeling we both are never going to get to the proper floor of debate where we can exchange information that leads to meaningful understanding of each other and our common situation...but Ill try to go through this book once Ive bought it...

sam

I'm genuinely sorry to hear that, Squeers.

>>Pericles, sorry for delays; my time is not my own.<<

I suggest you take steps to reclaim it in its entirety, it is the single most important resource at our disposal.

But if you were simply apologizing for being unable to provide an instant response, don't - this isn't Twitter, it's a Forum.

But this still puzzles me about your approach:

>>Capitalism doesn't raise people out of poverty--as if they were wretchedly waiting to be saved, it cultivates them to draw off profit, then leaves the bubble to collapse under the inevitable weight of attrition.<<

The freeing of the Chinese economy to operate on more capitalistic lines has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty over the past thirty years. Estimates range from 400 million to 500 million.

Is your suggestion that a) this was in fact communism at work, b) these people still actually live in poverty, and the numbers are pure propaganda, c) that because the rationale was to turn these folks into a "market", the improvement in their lives is somehow invalid, or d) other?

Incidentally, the "profit" that you mention is actually the driving force behind capitalism. Without it, there would be no improvement for the 400-500 million. It allows people to earn, and spend. Surely you cannot object to that?

>>Economically and ecologically, prosperity in the global system is counterbalance by poverty--its detritus.<<

This is not a zero-sum game that we are talking about here. In other words, 400 million people elsewhere in the world did not suddenly become impoverished as a result of the 400 million who improved their lot in China.

Pericles,

I hope you include in your rationale of Chinese progress the 500 million children who grow up without parents in "poor" rural villages. They see their parents once a year if they're lucky, and whole villages now contain only children and grandparents...sort of evens out the other 500 million lifted out of poverty. No middle ground, you see -it has to be 10 percent growth or nothing.

Here's a bit more info on the advent of GM crops in India and the ensuing tsunami of debt and suicides.

"...in 1998 when the BJP-led coalition was in power at the centre, India was forced by the World Bank's structural adjustment policies to open up its doors to global seeds vending corporations like Cargills, Monsanto, Syh gents, etc. Consequently, the input economy underwent a big change. Farm saved seeds gave way to corporate seeds, which required much more fertiliser, pesticide and irrigation."

Good old structural adjustments, eh.

http://www.gits4u.com/agri/agri2.htm

One of the priorities for World Bank support is improving access to rural finance - "removing government control and ownership and strengthening the legal framework for loan recovery and the use of land as collateral."

The World Bank and the IMF appear to act as doormen for Western corporations, however, any good they might achieve is overridden by their voracious need to profit at any price - and Indian farmers are caught squarely in the web of debt set up by these orgainisations.

Pericles,

Apologies. I quoted the wrong figure for parentless children in villages - estimated at between 50 and 150 million...still pertinent. These villages haven't seen any improvement and now they are devoid of an entire generation.

They are not my numbers, Poirot.

>>I hope you include in your rationale of Chinese progress the 500 million children who grow up without parents in "poor" rural villages<<

I was simply referring to official figures, calculated against an agreed norm of "poverty".

(You failed to provide a link for the "parentless children in villages" calculation, by the way. I'm sure that you will quickly rectify that omission.)

Nor are the numbers rescued from poverty a "rationale of Chinese progress". Simply a measurement, that you may feel free to dispute with the authors.

Any qualitative judgment that flows from these figures is ones own, of course. And mine is that the Chinese are largely "better off" as a result of the opening of the markets over the past thirty years.

Is that what you are disputing? That their idea of "better off" is somehow flawed, because it does not meet some arbitrary standard that you consider more appropriate than poverty?

Have you asked the Chinese population how they feel about it? Because those that I have spoken to are immensely proud of their "progress", and fully intend to continue along the path that they define as "prosperity" for as long as they possibly can.

I suspect that they can survive your disapproval of their aspirations.

At least, I'm sure they will try

Hang on Poirot, you really are a bit one eyed in your views.

Money lenders have been around in India for a long time. Would
you prefer the old method of credit in India, like selling of
children into bonded labour?

Credit facilities like micro banking etc, have in fact helped
to drag millions out of poverty. Competition in the field, so
that people don't totally rely on selling children and the old
fashioned money lenders, is not a bad thing.

Investing in crop breeding has once again brought huge benefits
around the world. But somebody has to spend the money to do it.
If it were not for selective plant breeding, most of our crops
would regularly be wiped out by diseases such as rust.

Nobody forces anyone to buy seeds from plant breeding corporations.
Farmers have a choice. Govts have a choice too, of bankrolling
plant breeding if they wish.

Life is full of people making poor decisions. But your attitude
seems to be that we should prevent people from borrowing money
and prevent them from modern plant breeding technology, because
somebody might make a profit or they might misuse the technology
and get hurt in the process.

Sheesh on that basis, you should never teach your children about
using matches or knives either.

HORMOAN-A-LETHIA-PITHICus

We are all ruled by our hormones and are all extremely good at forgetting this and actually believing we have free will and the capacity to do good AlTRUISTIC works.

HA!

Pericles,

http://www.oxfam.org.hk/en/one_541.aspx

Of course, it's not only the social question in China, which presently see's 117 male births for every 100 female births. I read once that 9 of the 10 most polluted rivers in the world were in one province in China (will scout around for a link - but you get my drift).
My point in all of my arguments is that the scale of this kind of economic progress (miracle?) is not sustainable, which goes to the heart of the original premise of the article. I we're such a clever and wise bunch, why can't we then find a middle way which is sustainable?

Yabby,

Yes, I can see that I'm a tad one-eyed. But I'm constantly outraged at the intensity of pressure put on developing countries by the World Bank and the IMF (amongst others) in tandem with various governments. Corporations syphon off massive profits often at the expense of peasants in the third world. Ordinary folk in these countries often end up worse off than before intervention - as has been demonstrated recently by the fervour of those disaffected in the Arab world.

In any case, I do agree with you that over-population is at the heart of the problem. Land degradation and water depletion will be a acute challenges in the not too distant future. Both China and India could be seriously battling to feed their populations in the next 10-20 years. You can only wring so much out of the environment.
Things collapse.

That's it, Poirot?

http://www.oxfam.org.hk/en/one_541.aspx

"The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that... nationally, there are as many as 70 million children 'left behind'."

That's your "estimated at between 50 and 150 million". I guess 70 million fits within those boundaries. But why didn't you say that in the first place, instead of the original 500 million?

Back in the sixties, whole villages in Goa emptied themselves of their breadwinners for two years at a time, in order to earn huge sums - as much as fifteen pounds a month - working as stewards on Orient Line passenger ships. This was considered a necessary sacrifice, in order to improve the lot of their communities as a whole. I dare say that Chinese families rationalize in a similar fashion, and who are we, exactly, to tell them how to run their lives?

And don't forget, an entire class of English children used to be raised by nanny, ate their meals in the nursery, were sent away to boarding school and lived for the dictum "seen, but not heard".

The ruling class.

Pericles,

I did apologise for the 500 million figure (wish I hadn't bothered).

As for the toffs jetttisoning their parental responsibilities to nannies and public schools - the so-called ruling class - plenty of horror stories to be told there as well....and loads of neuroses too.

It would be remiss of me, Pericles, if I didn't doff my hat in your direction. You are, without a doubt, OLO's foremost exponent of the art of deprecation.

*But I'm constantly outraged at the intensity of pressure put on developing countries by the World Bank and the IMF*

Poirot, the IMF and World Bank are basically lenders of last resort.
Countries go there, when no private institution would touch that
customer with a barge pole. I don't think its unreasonable for them
to list their terms and that those terms involve changing poor
economic practises which helped cause the problem in the first
place. Now you might not like some of the economic reforms which they
specify, but they would not specify them just for fun, more likely
because they have good reasons backed by evidence and past experiences, to do so.

It is quite true that corporations expect to make larger returns on
their investments in the third world, then in the first world. But
that is not without reason. A larger risk needs a larger return to
justify that risk. The list of corporations losing their shirts
through third world investments is a long one and there are no
functioning courts to turn to, when things go wrong.

Why arn't you outraged when Chavez or Mugabe nationalise another
industry and investors lose their shirts? Yet if a politician
decided to nationalise your house without compensation, you would
be screaming blue murder about the injustice of it all.

Thank you, Poirot.

>>It would be remiss of me, Pericles, if I didn't doff my hat in your direction. You are, without a doubt, OLO's foremost exponent of the art of deprecation.<<

I know you didn't mean it kindly, but nevertheless I will accept it as a compliment.

This is an opinion forum. Opinions can be genuinely held from different perspectives, and argued without either side being "right" or "wrong".

Facts, however, are a different matter. They cannot be argued, only accepted or rejected. If accepted, they form a basis for discussion. If rejected, there ought to be a pretty good reason, which needs to be presented.

For yet another perspective, have a glance at the lead article in last week's issue of The Economist.

http://www.economist.com/node/21526350

Plenty of food for thought in that piece. The underlying theme is that Asian women are increasingly making personal choices that their predecessors were unable to make. And that these choices are having a dramatic social effect.

I'd be interested to learn whose side you choose in this particular conflict - the women, or the society?

Because it is a remarkably similar choice to that made by the folk who leave their families to earn their living in the city.

Families "the old way"? Or personal choice?

Here's some more on the same topic Poirot.

http://www.economist.com/node/21526329

The previous article was just the Leader - this is the full piece.

I'd be interested in your reaction.

Pericles,

"Because it's a remarkably similar choice to that made by the folk who leave their families to earn their living in the city."

Why is it remarkably similar?

How is freedom of choice for women akin to leaving your offspring while you and/or your spouse live in an urban dormitory undertaking mind-numbing repetitious labour? How is making a pittance to send back to the part of the family left behind in the village that falls apart because the generation that would keep it together (materially and socially) is absent, help freedom of choice.
Those parents don't have freedom of choice - they are lashed to the new China....and their "left behind" children will follow them.

Just a quick post - will get back later when I have the time with some thoughts on the rise of women's choice in the affluent Asian economies.

The way I see it, it is *all* about choice, Poirot.

>>How is freedom of choice for women akin to leaving your offspring while you and/or your spouse live in an urban dormitory undertaking mind-numbing repetitious labour?<<

Around the end of the eighteenth century, the English countryside began to be steadily emptied, to provide people-fodder for the Industrial Revolution - dark, satanic mills and all that. No-one press-ganged the factory workers then, and no-one is press-ganging them now. It was - and is - all about individual choice. They believed that it was in the best long-term interests of their families that they should go.

And at the other end of the scale, the "toffs", as you call them, made the choice that they believed best for their own families, and futures. Since many of these children turned out to be Prime Ministers, Admirals and captains of industry, the fact that it generated "neuroses" (your terminology again) was simply part of the price they were willing to pay.

>>Those parents don't have freedom of choice - they are lashed to the new China<<

But they do, Poirot. They have more choice than ever before.

And if you want to understand being "lashed" in this context, I suggest you read a little on the Cultural Revolution.

I will be most interested indeed to see how you mesh your attitude towards these folk's life choices, with those of the women in the Economist articles.

Pericles,

""toffs", as you call them....."

Really, mate, I find your habitual condescension not only irksome but also pretentious.

As it turns out, i don't have the time at present to play the mouse to your cat. If you believe that ordinary labouring class folk caught up in industrial revolutions have more freedom of choice, then so be it.
No press-gangs wer required if cottage industry had been usurped by the factory system. There was no freedom of choice either. If you were dependent on those types of crafts for your livelihood, you had "no choice" but to migrate to the towns for work as the whole paradigm had shifted.

As far as south east Asian women are concerned,I suppose those in the more affluent societies will follow in the footsteps of their Western sisters to a certain extent - although traditional familial ties may prove a little more resilient than in the West.

Thanks again, Poirot, it's obviously my day for compliments.

>>Really, mate, I find your habitual condescension not only irksome but also pretentious.<<

Takes a lot of practice.

But then, I do tend to get plenty of opportunities.

>>If you believe that ordinary labouring class folk caught up in industrial revolutions have more freedom of choice, then so be it.<<

I can only conclude that it is progress itself that you have problems with.

Ah Freedom. It's almost as amusing reading affluent westerners expound on the 'freedoms' enjoyed by modern peasants as of urbanites sharing their wisdom on farming practices.
I think I've quoted this gem from Isaac Asimov before:
“I use what I call my bathroom metaphor. If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have what I call freedom of the bathroom, go to the bathroom any time you want, and stay as long as you want to for whatever you need. And this to my way is ideal. And everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, aren't you through yet, and so on. And in the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears.”
Freedom has to be the world's most precious commodity, much more valuable than gold, and even less affordable. Currently, peasant farmers in India have the freedom to choose;
between starvation and virtual slavery.
When they choose slavery, they are free to watch their children sicken and die as a result of their own uneducated misuse of chemicals, some of which are banned in their country of origin. They are free to indenture themselves for 2 to 5 years to pay for 1 year's crop seed -depending on the weather, and whether or not their pest resistant seeds actually resist pests.
And of course, they are free to commit suicide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6dx9yNiCA

Well stated Grim

As Janis Joplin opined, "Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose".

In the West we stand to lose our jobs and, consequently our homes if we don't toe the line.

In the East, the peasants can lose their lives and those of their children. The rising middle class woman is discovering, as Pericles' article demonstrated, the sacrifice for financial independence. And the men of the east are discovering the 'freedom' to choose the sex of their offspring - a real slice of the nose to spite the face THAT choice.

PS

Poirot, you are on the money. Pericles, you are presenting as a middle class twit.

It's ironic, Pericles, that you condemn your simultaneously "smug" and "guilt-ridden" Greenies, above, yet latterly you're adopting, or at least feigning, the moral high-ground yourself. You defend the monstrous effects of the capitalist juggernaut with this nonsense that zillions are raised out of poverty by it, and the greater nonsense yet that it's about "choice"—the freedom to starve in the streets if you don’t get on board—and you harangue dissenters with the accusation that they would deny the prosperity they enjoy to the world's poor. Speaking for myself, I’d do no such thing; I’d have the living standards in wealthy countries reduced to modest and sustainable levels, imposing wealth caps, thus severely compromising the profit motive. But of course I don’t buy the nonsense that prosperity relies on an unlimited profit motive. Nor do I believe that consumerism equals quality of life. What you call “progress” is nothing more than expansion, and not qualitative at all, based on squeezing every drop out of our material assets and demeaning humanity’s potential. Here’s a fascinating essay I read yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/3go6qj5 which accords with the premise of this thread.
But the real arguments I have to defend are admittedly difficult—that capitalism doesn’t lift millions out of poverty; and, Economically and ecologically, prosperity in the global system is counterbalanced by poverty—and based on reasoning that goes beyond a fixation on the present. To use my mouse plague analogy again, the millions lifted out of poverty are comparable to the mouse population just before the grain runs out. When the economy and ecology fail, prosperity turns into destitution on a biblical scale—but we live in the moment, don’t we? And this isn’t hypothetical; we are seeing economies, social and natural systems degenerate, as Cribb attests.

tbc

cont...

In a closed and finite system that is fully exploited for profit, the available (finite) energy (wealth) is both unevenly distributed and subject to entropy. If it were possible to go on expanding forever, your “progress” might be sustainable, and defensible, but we’re already passing dangerous limits and there’s no hope of China’s and India’s populations ever achieving Western-style living standards, drastically unequal as they are. If there are only so many consumables available and a tiny but expanding minority, among overall expansion, is taking the lion’s share—derived by cultivating unsustainable demand—increasing poverty in the short-term, soon followed by general collapse, is inevitable.
And you defend this rapacious and inequitable and knowingly self/destructive process—whose dynamics cannot be gainsaid—with the moral hypocrisy that our “communal task” “is to help those less fortunate, to better themselves”, as if modern capitalism had anything to do with humanism—originally an ethical and purposive narrative. What you’re defending is a process of wilfully ruinous extravagance. I’d go so far as to call it “evil”—but we’ve done away with such antiquated and negative nomenclature, haven’t we—rationalised it away in favour of a more positive spin!

@ Grim & Co

Here’s SPQRs improved bathroom metaphor:
If you start off with two couples sharing a big house, each with a bathroom to itself , each sharing the kitchen, entertainment facilities and both utilizing the huge back garden to grow most of their food crops .Relations would likely be pretty amicable . Life full of choices & dignity.
( though If one couple was partial to taking extended 1 hour showers while the other limited itself to 5 minute ablations there might be issue when the water bill comes in --but we’ll leave that angle aside )

However, this idyllic arrangement would likely be shattered when the families decide to have kids. Particularly if one family limits itself to two children while the other decides to have fifteen. For pretty soon the larger family would be experiencing long queues for their bathroom. And pretty soon the larger family would be agitating for a larger share of the garden.

And things would likely get decidedly less amicable if the grim landlord . Intervened and arbitrated that –based on per capita – the only fair thing would be to limit the lesser family to one small corner of the house and allocate time sharing arrangements for the bathrooms.

PS: At the root of the problem is too many people:
http://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/pop_clock.asp

SPQR,

No one is denying the population problem - but that doesn't excuse the more affluent from using all the hot water while exploiting others to pay for it.

"Lifting millions out of poverty" is code for indenturing third world peasants for profit. As Squeers points out, we've rationalised the rhetoric in favour of a more positive spin.

Numerous links have been posted to demonstrate that Western corporations (with the aid of the World Bank and the IMF) infiltrate third world economies and alter the playing field with structural adjustments, skewing peasant economy and practice with a view to massive and ongoing profit.

Pericles' assertion that uneducated peasants have a choice to reject GM seeds is disingenuous. These artless people believed what they were told about the "magic seeds" from the West....and what misery was sown.

Western corporations have no interest in the despair of these people or their degraded environment. "Profit" is their God - and altruism is merely their spin.

SPQR, interesting moniker.
Si tacuisses, philosophus manisses.

*To use my mouse plague analogy again, the millions lifted out of poverty are comparable to the mouse population just before the grain runs out*

Ah Squeers, but the actual problem is too many mice for a given
environment, not the fact that some mice ate a bit more then other
mice. Its the same in India and China. If Australian farmers were
forced to farm on an acre or two, they would starve too.

To blame it all on capitalism, if alot of tripe. The best that
capitalism can do is try to find a solution for these people,
its worked better so far then anything else that anyone has put
forward. But Squeers selling his wifes car to comply with his
one car policy, is hardly going to change the fact that 42'000
extra people a day are being added to the Indian population and
they have to go somewhere and do something.

The Chinese and Indians do in fact have choices. Tough choices
admittedly. But choices they would not have had, if we bought none
of their products and let them starve, as they used to.

Today more new cars are sold in China then in the USA. Clearly
a whole lot of people there are doing ok too. The Chinese, despite
the "slave" wages quoted, still manage to save around 40% of their
wages. Once again far better then the options which the had before.

But the initial mess has been created by overpopulation and
Squeers, Poirot and Co pontificating altruism is not going to
solve the mess that it has created in many countries.

Yabby,
the population explosion is a direct result of agricultural and industrial revolution and innovation, driven by capitalism's profit motive! Nothing else could have sustained that growth and our current stupendous numbers and collective appetite. Overpopulation is not the cause, it's the product!

*the population explosion is a direct result of agricultural and industrial revolution and innovation, driven by capitalism's profit motive!*

Sheesh Squeers, so people not starving to death as they used to,
should be blamed on capitalism too, in your book.

Well I remind you that due to capitalism, we also had increased
human innovation such as family planning. Next you will be wanting
to blame the failure of many in the third world not using it,
on capitalism too.

@ Poirot,
<< No one is denying the population problem>>
Your side only ever pays lip service to over population. If your really acknowledged it as a core problem you wouldn’t be trying to peddle the notion that the plight of Indian peasants is a function of the World Bank trying to give them poor economic advice and big corporations trying to rip them off.

<< but that doesn't excuse the more affluent from using all the hot water while exploiting others to pay for it.>>
Your solution to India not having enough hot water is to tell Australians they have got to have shorter showers. And then, impose a climate tax on Australian energy providers.

@ Grim
Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret!

Yabby,
So you expect the third world to exercise restraint when it comes to procreation, but there's no restraint on consumption in the first world. Is that how it goes? Consumption's got nothing to do with it, it's all down to how many consumers?
Don't you find the obesity rates in the sanctimonious, pew-sitting-west a distraction--obscene even? So you object to overpopulation but not gluttony?
Which side has quality of life nailed btw: the obese or the starving?

*So you expect the third world to exercise restraint when it comes to procreation, but there's no restraint on consumption in the first world*

Lol Squeers, your argument gets desperate now:) The third world
grab every penny to live it up, given half a chance. Sadly the
benefits of capitalistic products like family planning, are beyond
their reach. Do you really think those third world women pop out
yet other one, to get even with you? Or more likely because they
had sex without family planning. It is not capitalism which denies
them access to it either.

Yes it is a numbers game, just like your mouse plague example, which
you quoted so proudly. Capitalism has nothing to do with mice
overbreeding either.

If capitalism was to blame for obese people, then the richest
would be the fattest. That is clearly not the case. Does Rupert
Murdoch for example, look fat to you? I think you'll find if you
do some homework, the fattest are among the poorer in our community.

What capitalism can be blamed for is a massive increase in innovation.
There is lots of good in that, but anything can be misused. Should
we not have invented the knife, because you might slit your throat?
It makes no sense.

So how far backwards to you want to go? Is the Ipod just a capitalistic waste?
Would you rather go back to vynil records, or
were they a waste too? What about the fact that the Ipod can store
huge volumes of music and saves all that vynil being produced?

Your argument is full of holes Squeers, you need to think it all
through a bit better, you really do.

Squeers,

The Global Footprint Network has done the math on consumption and pressures on the environment. From their figures, the top billion people in the richest countries are responsible for about 38% of the consumption. Even if we all adopted a hair shirt lifestyle, and all the world's resources were divided equally, the average global citizen would still be poor. Any benefits would be strictly temporary, as the global population is continuing to grow at 75 to 80 million a year.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/ecological_footprint_atlas_2010

The main problem is that there isn't enough to go around, particularly if we don't want to trash the environment, not overconsumption by Westerners. The excessive procreation makes people poor, desperate, and lacking in bargaining power, so that they can be exploited by local elites in collusion with transnational corporations. Even so, the corporations didn't make the people poor and desperate in the first place. Nor can the former colonial powers be blamed. Yemen was never colonised (depending on whether you include the old Aden colony), but the place is a sinkhole. Barbados was colonised, and the indigenous population replaced by African slaves, working under unimaginably brutal conditions. Barbados now has a GNP per capita about the same as that of Poland and is ranked by the UN as a very high human development country.

The real issue is culture, not capitalism and not racial inferiority. One approach, initially developed by Miguel Sabido in Mexico, that might have a chance of doing some good is funding the production of popular soap operas that the more rational people in poor societies are using to change the attitudes of their compatriots towards large families, domestic violence, literacy, and a host of other issues.

http://www.populationmedia.org/who/

http://www.media-diversity.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=330%3Asocial-uses-of-commercial-soap-operas-miguel-sabido&Itemid=57

As Yabby keeps saying, making contraception available to people who want it is a no-brainer, especially if the menu includes long-term injectable contraceptives that women can access in secret, away from the prying eyes of husbands and in-laws.

SPQR,

The plight of many Indian peasants "is" in direct relation to the activities of the World Bank and its ilk - in giving them poor economic advice, poor agricultural and environmental advice and in setting up the conditions which allow multinational corporations to "succeed" in ripping them off.

What possible good does it do for the long-term sustainability of Indian agriculture for Western corporations to impoverish Indian peasant farmers and to encourage them to degrade the soil and to deplete their groundwater reserves?

Answer: - no good whatsoever. What it does achieve, however, is short-term profit for multinationals.

Yabby,

"...the fattest are the poor people"

Unhealthy, sluggardly, passively absorbing fast food and electronic entertainment...how bloody innovative is that?....great advert for the system.

Divergence,

Yes, we have a population problem, but it's all too easy for rich Western countries to shrug their shoulders as if their own demands aren't part of the problem in managing the earth's biocapacity.

The per-person demand for resources in the United States is around 8 hectares per capita... around 0.9 hectares per capita in India, and approximately 2.0 hectares per capita in China.

Quote from Footprints: "If everyone lived the lifestyle of an American we would need 5 planets."

So much for lifting the third world out of poverty, but its beyond Western sensibilities to even consider cutting back. Progress and growth is the mantra.

America's footprint per capita is 150 percent larger than its biocapacity. India's is around 50 percent larger than its biocapacity.

So, let me see if I have got this straight, Poirot and Squeers.

Given the straightforward alternatives of a) improving the standard of living of 500 million Chinese and b) leaving them to subsist on less than $1.50 a day, you would choose b)?

Am I correct?

And your rationale is...?

Pericles,

Given the straightforward alternatives of a) seriously addressing the ramifications of excessive consumption in the West, and b) grossly over-simplifying the issue, you would choose b)?

Am I correct?

And your rationale is...?

As I suspected, Poirot, you are unable to answer the question honestly, so you duck for cover.

No shame in that, of course. It was a tough one, that requires you to face some of the realities associated with your anti-capitalist stance, so it was perfectly natural that you should run away from it

As for your "question", my answer is in fact a)

But since it is a question totally unrelated to the relief of rural poverty in China, I'm not sure what you can learn from it. Because it isn't about me. It isn't even about you. It is about the quality of life afforded to many millions of people in a different country.

Why do you begrudge them the improved lives they have chosen?

Divergence,
I certainly agree overpopulation is a massive problem and we should be taking steps to address it—but so is conspicuous consumption.
Pericles: <Why do you begrudge them the improved lives they have chosen?>
I don’t think anyone begrudges any positive benefits for the poor in China’s or India’s booms, though as Poirot’s been at pains to argue, there are a lot of negatives for individuals, and I argue it can’t be sustained.
“You” seem intent on ignoring the negatives in the larger context in favour of Panglossian optimism, or positivism, and painting criticism of economic globalism and its effects as the ignorant twaddle of unhinged Greenies and anti-capitalists who want to take the world back to the stone age—ironically, that’s exactly where we’re likely to end up the way things are going.
I’m trying to be reasonable and argue that none of the modern world’s ills should be seen in isolation, but as effects of the same economic dynamics. I don’t believe the system can be reformed so long as those fundamental dynamics are in place. Reform has been the perennial patronage for nearly a hundred years. Nor, however, do I think it can be overthrown, as there’s just too much real and ideological momentum invested in it—witness your own and others’ refusal to look self-critically at the big picture Julian Cribb outlined. You prefer your positivist-tinted glasses.
The world system will simply continue to push up against economic and ecological limits and finally collapse.
As things stand, I agree with yours and Yabby’s stand on tariffs and protectionism, seeing the recent push myself as myopic and selfish nationalism, when our wealth is born of international advantage—and good fortune.
You accuse Poirot of refusing <to face some of the realities associated with your [her] anti-capitalist stance>. I don’t think she is—neither she nor I are proposing anything. I think she feel’s as powerless as I do. We’re just staring the Devil in the face and refusing to be conned.
I would accuse you of refusing to face the realities of your pro-capitalist stance.

I was trying to be quite specific, Squeers.

>>“You” seem intent on ignoring the negatives in the larger context in favour of Panglossian optimism, or positivism<<

I was focussing on one aspect of the situation, the improvement in the lives of half a billion people. Generalizing about the morality of capitalism or the potential long-term issues is all very well and virtuous, but it ignores the daily realities for a large number of individuals.

>>I’m trying to be reasonable and argue that none of the modern world’s ills should be seen in isolation, but as effects of the same economic dynamics.<<

On the other hand I'm simply pointing out that the "same economic dynamics" have actually created a substantial improvement over the past thirty years to the lives of fully a twelfth of the world's population. And wondering how this can be seen as a bad thing.

For them, that is.

Nothing to do with Panglossian optimism. The Industrial Revolution had a similar impact on the UK economy, also at an individual level.

You may argue long into the night that the whole thing was a really bad idea, because it served to line the pockets of evil capitalist exploiters. But it did also lift an entire population of real, individual people, to a new level of prosperity.

Squeers,

Well put - and reasonably argued. I couldn't have put it better.

Pericles,

"I was focusing on one aspect of the situation..."

Of course your were. Nice try 'nall that, but just because you decide to dictate the specific agenda at any given point in the debate, doesn't mean the rest of us have to play along.

I particularly liked this one: - "...you are unable to answer the question honestly, so you duck for cover." - I noted amusingly that your "answer" to my follow up question consisted of you barging it aside.
As I stated earlier in the thread, I'm not interested in playing the mouse to your cat.

The bottom line here is that global progress and resource depletion is "unsustainable". I don't begrudge an improvement in the lot of the ordinary Chinese. But the Chinese "miracle" is based on a hyper-industrialised version of the West's rapaciousness. What happens when it can no longer be sustained. As it stands, China is forced to to treat its rivers and air as a waste dump.

For some reason, Pericles, you believe their will be no repercussions from this.

It is not sustainable.

We as a species, for the most part, are clever - not wise...and often we are foolish.
We need to walk a middle path.

@ Poirot,

>> What possible good does it do for the long-term sustainability of Indian agriculture for Western corporations to impoverish Indian peasant farmers and to encourage them to degrade the soil and to deplete their groundwater reserves?<<

OK, Poirot, here’s your chance.

Given these parameters/constrains:

1) “India’s climate is not particularly dry, nor is it lacking in rivers and groundwater. Extremely poor management, unclear laws, government corruption, and industrial and human waste have caused this water supply crunch and rendered what water is available practically useless due to the huge quantity of pollution.”
2) “India’s agricultural sector currently uses about 90% of total water resources. Irrigated agriculture has been fundamental to economic development”
3) “ Thus far, food security has been one of the highest priorities for politicians, and the large farming lobby has grown accustomed to cheap electricity, which allows extremely fast pumping of groundwater, which is something they are unwilling to give up for the sake of water conservation”
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/wbp/global-water-crisis/606
4) And the rural population increased from 400,000,000 to 800,000,00 between 1968-2008, & is still growing.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/rural-population-wb-data.html

How would *you* have solved the water shortage issue—without depleting the aquifers—and without imposing a totalitarian regime?

That isn't going to get us anywhere either, Poirot.

>> just because you decide to dictate the specific agenda at any given point in the debate, doesn't mean the rest of us have to play along<<

You call it "setting an agenda. I call it "asking a question".

Your insistence on generalizing everything...

>>...global progress and resource depletion is "unsustainable"<<

...is merely a device that excuses you from confronting a difficult truth. Half a billion Chinese have improved their lot in life, and the best you can do is "What happens when it can no longer be sustained".

I doubt that is uppermost in their minds, as they begin the journey to relative prosperity one meal at a time.

>>For some reason, Pericles, you believe their will be no repercussions from this.<<

There may well be "repercussions". There may also emerge new technologies created by a newly-educated half-billion people. We can only hope for the best. But in the meantime, all we are seeing is two major segments of the world's population becoming more like us.

And frankly, there is nothing that you or I can do about it. (Hand-wringing regret and pursed-lipped disapproval don't count.)

So, Pericles, in the face of all the argument put forward by Poirot and Squeers (and some others), and of the entirety of Julian's article, the best you can finally offer is:

<There may well be "repercussions". There may also emerge new technologies created by a newly-educated half-billion people. We can only hope for the best.>

"We can only hope for the best"? I thought the whole point of the article, and of what Poirot and Squeers have been arguing, is that the time for "hoping for the best" is long since passed, and it is now time to face the brutal realities of the inevitable consequences of continuing down the current path of our global civilisation.

A nice try all the same, Pericles, but at the end of the day the only possible long-term future for humanity must be through the attainment of a genuinely sustainable utilisation of planetary resources - given, of course, that humanity doesn't genetically modify itself into oblivion in the meantime (and possibly a host of other natural life with it) through the impact of toxins released into the environment.

Production efficiencies, within the confines of the necessary sustainability model, will determine the size of the cake; and population will determine the size of each person's just share. The equitability of the division of that bounty will be the ultimate demonstration of humanity's progress towards true "civilisation".

In farming models, a deficiency in any one element determines the limitation of productivity - and so it must be in any Earth productivity analysis.

Although some are inevitably planning a diaspora to greener fields within the cosmos, we'd do well to maintain our Earth garden in the meantime.

What can we do? We can hope and agitate - hope that politicians and world powers will heed articles and arguments like those of Julian Cribb (and Poirot and Squeers), before it is too late; and hope that populations around the world can pressure governments to take heed of all the warning signs of an emerging crisis in long term sustainability.

Pericles:
<Generalizing about the morality of capitalism or the potential long-term issues is all very well and virtuous, but it ignores the daily realities for a large number of individuals>.

I haven't been generalising about morality, nor attempted to seem virtuous, merely self-reflexive (on behalf of Western conceit) and critical of what I see as the ruinous and runaway dynamic the human race has inflicted upon itself and the world.
Your "specific" point, on the other hand, about the improvement in the quality of life of your half a billion Chinese, is a breathtakingly generalised assessment, and does tend to grandstand on the moral high-ground--tacitly obviating any critical scrutiny at all!
Surely before we go celebrating it as the biggest and brightest economic miracle in the history of capitalism, we need to make detailed qualitative assessments of both the alleged improvements and the myriad collateral effects both in China, internationally and ecologically. The scale of industrialisation in China, India et al dwarfs anything undertaken by the West in the last two hundred years, yet the environmental catastrophes we currently face are attributable merely to it!
Surely it's the height of folly to give a big tick to hyper-capitalism, based on the highly dubious contention that it's improving quality of life, when it's simultaneously and demonstrably driving the whole planet towards disaster?
I agree with you on one thing, that there's nothing any of us can do about it individually; though seeking to wake up the masses might lead to a willingness for meaningful change. In any case, facing up to stark realities--not "Hand-wringing regret and pursed-lipped disapproval"--is in my book much healthier than denialism.

Nevertheless, I shall consider your optimism further, and I thank you and others for the engagement.

*Production efficiencies, within the confines of the necessary sustainability model, will determine the size of the cake; and population will determine the size of each person's just share*

That sounds so wonderful Salpetre, yet of course it is deeply
flawed. For of course lets say I use a bit more of my share,
as you call it. You meantime, even though you don't fully
use your share, create another 10 people, in your selfish desire
to leave your genetic heritage spread around the planet.

In real terms what you do is far less sustainable then what I do.
What you do will do alot more damage then what I do.

We are back to Squeers analogy of a mouse plague. Ignore the
total number of mice at your peril, for the larger the numbers,
the more will croak it when the resources run out.

Given that we are adding another billion in just over every
decade, it remains the elephant in the room, no matter how
many feelgood solutions are posted. Yet we continue to ignore
relatively simple solutions to address it.

SPQR,

Destroying the productive capacity of the environment is not the way to any sort of sustainable solution or future for Indians. The groundwater shortage is just as much tied to new agricultural practice as it is to overpopulation.

The groundwater issue wasn't as critical in the past as it is now. I've posted numerous links citing World Bank and IMF "conditions" for assistance that have exacerbated environmental degradation (in cahoots with various Indian administrations). These conditions encourage practices that are unsustainable. Free electricity for water pumping, for example, means that many pumps are operating day and night so that the soil has nutrients flushed away into rivers and aquifers. The solution for most peasant farmers, of course, is to top up the nutrient (purchased from multinationals). Erosion and loss of soil productivity in the longer term are the results.

Pericles,

Of course, you wouldn't dream of querying the Chinese system of poverty measurement - or take into account that many believe their "poverty line" is set too low - or the fact that the urban poverty of migrant workers from the countryside is rarely taken into account.

"more like us"...well there you have it. If you believe that the term "not living in poverty" in China is an equivalent expression to "not living in poverty" in the West, then you are deluded.

It's interesting that the best you can come up with is to "hope for the best". Judging by attitudes like yours, the term "homo qui sperat pro optimus" may now be the most applicable reference for modern man. It may be all that's left in reserve for resource-depleted, foolish and rapacious man.

Squeers and Poirot,

I have not pretended that consumption in Western countries is irrelevant, unlike many on the Left, who want to claim that such consumption is the main problem, or even the only problem. The environment only cares about the total impact, and most of that is coming from the poor countries. As Paul Ehrlich once put it, "It doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low, if there are a hell of lot of caputs."

There is also the issue of what is overconsumption and who decides. We can probably all agree on getting rid of the really senseless forms of waste that don't actually benefit anyone. Beyond that, it seems that for many people, eliminating overconsumption means getting rid of the things that matter to you, but not to me. As former Senator Susan Ryan once put it, it won't be the charismatic male Greens who get to wash the cotton nappies by hand in home-made soap. Personally, I hate air travel and wouldn't care if it were priced out of the reach of most people. On the other hand, I really appreciate having a garden and a house that isn't so small that my family and I are always in each other's faces. Different people will have different priorities.

Different cultures make different decisions about the balance between numbers and quality of life. Are we obliged to shield people from the consequences of their own decisions, and are we enabling rather than helping if we do so? Giving everyone in even the existing global population a modest Western European standard of living would require the resources of 3 Earths, so those who want more sharing are talking about real sacrifices, not just getting rid of the luxuries of people richer than themselves.

*The solution for most peasant farmers, of course, is to top up the nutrient (purchased from multinationals).*

Poirot, you do go on about this. There is nothing wrong with
purchasing nutrients from multinationals. In fact if farmers did
not do so, most of you would have starved by now.

There is nothing wrong with irrigation either, nor GM seeds. Indians
would have continued to starve, if India had not changed its
agricultural practises.

Where India seems to have a problem is that some farmers misuse
technology and there seems to be little overall forthought or
planning. Well don't blame the IMF, the World Bank, nor those
seemingly evil corporations.

Today's cotton yields in India for instance, are 500% up on what
they were 60 years ago. That did not happen by magic. Fact is
if you want to keep cramming in more people and keep them all
fed, you have to use what technology is available to do it.

All farming is essentially mining, so replacing nutrients that
are removed, even if bought from those "evil" corporations, makes
perfect sense and for the moment is keeping the wheels on the
ever growing population cart.

If Australia's farmers for instance, did not use potash and
phosphorus, production would be virtually zilch. Our soils are
old and clapped out. So thanks to Allah that those corporations
(bless them) are investing in those mines! If we relied on
Poirot et al, we'd starve. Hunter gathering is no longer an option.

Yabby, you are right that current and projected world population cannot be sustained without massive synthetic inputs - in your "mining-farm" model. This model, of course, has only a finite, limited and destructive future, beyond which only lies Armageddon.

You are wrong, however, in suggesting that this is the only available, or even most productive model - over the long term. For millions of years the planet survived magnificently without artificial inputs - in sustainable balance. It is Man who has destroyed that balance, and principally Western Man, through over indulgence. Populations have to decrease worldwide, and organic farming methods have to be adopted universally - eventually - and hopefully while there is still time to avoid a worldwide food crisis.

You suggest there are simple ways to reduce population. I expect this means massive birth control. Let us hope this can be achieved through education and free choice.

"Divergence" is also wrong in stating that poor countries are those responsible for the greatest ecological impact - localised population numbers do not necessarily dictate environmental exploitation and destruction, as evidenced in so many cultures which practice sustainable holistic farming methods. Unfortunately these cultures are also coming under increasing pressure from external interests and corrupt governments to move to less sustainable, exploitative, "modern" farming methods.

Human history is littered with cultures which over-exploited their environment and had to relocate. The problem now is, there's nowhere to relocate to.

Quality of life is a subjective thing, and, sometime soon, limits and balance will have to be determined - again we hope through education and free choice.

*It is Man who has destroyed that balance, and principally Western Man, through over indulgence. Populations have to decrease worldwide, and organic farming methods have to be adopted universally - eventually - and hopefully while there is still time to avoid a worldwide food crisis.*

Salpetre, phosphorus and potassium are quite natural, just in large
concentrations in some areas, we move them to others. Even organic
farming involves mining, if you remove that produce and ship it elsewhere.
Fact is that if you want to get things to grow,
nutrients need to be in balance, it does not matter which farming
system that we use. But we could not feed the masses today, based
on organic systems. In fact we'd be back to soils washing and
blowing away, from overcultivation to kill those pesky weeds.

Soils like Australian soils, particularly WA soils, were old and
clapped out to start with. You are not going to solve the broadacre
farm problem by moving mulch around. Besides, you are doing exactly
what modern farming does, just in different forms and concentrations.

Where does most of the grain from the first world go? Why to the
third world of course, to feed the growing masses there.

Many in the third world are denied family planning or simply can't
afford it. The idea was to make it obtainable to everyone, so
choice is the only limiting factor. We know what happens when women
are given that choice, they choose to have smaller families.

Saltpetre,

My source was the consumption footprints in the Global Footprint Network's 2010 Ecological Footprint Atlas. The footprints for the top billion in the richest countries add up to about 38% of total consumption, i.e., 62% of total consumption is going on in the poorer countries. See the link in my post on p. 17.

Divergence,

Fred Pearce, in this Yale article, begs to differ:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/consumption_dwarfs_population_as_main_environmental_threat/2140/

Poirot, Fred might differ, but Fred could well be wrong. It is
a little simplistic to try and focus the argument on just carbon
emissions. We could reduce our carbon emissions by quite alot,
if we stopped sending food to the third world.

What about overfishing? What about slash and burn agriculture?
What about desertification from people chopping down too many
trees for firewood? What about the bushmeat trade? The list goes on.

The fact is that every one of those future extra people will
be aspiring for the same Western lifestyle, moving to the West
if at all possible.

So the fact remains, if I consume a little bit more and then
fall off the perch, it pales into insignificance in the longer term,
then if you have 6 children. Think about it.

Yabby,

If I had six children in India, the lot of us collectively would still have a smaller global hectare resource demand or "footprint" than one American - and a roughly equivalent one to an Aussie.

Here's a revealing article on overfishing from the World Wildlife Fund:
http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/globalmarkets/fishing/WWFBinaryitem8633.pdf

And another on World Bank and IMF pressure leading to deforestation (I know you wouldn't expect anything less form me :)
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/61/IMF.html

Bloody religious arguments...

*If I had six children in India, the lot of us collectively would still have a smaller global hectare resource demand or "footprint" than one American - and a roughly equivalent one to an Aussie.*

Not so Poirot. For of course rich Indians consume far more then
poor Australians. You have no way of predicting how environmentally
destructive your progengy will become. Then we have the little point
about their children and grandchildren.

Then we have the point about how figures are calculated. The coal
and other minerals mined in Australia, the food grown in Australia,
is largely not consumed by Australians, but is turned into mobile
phones and other devices and shipped all around the planet. It
is simplistic nonsense to blame Australians for all that consumption.

So my argument is pretty simple. If the population issue had been
addressed in the 70s, when it could have been and had women been
given a choice about their fertility at that point, today's global
population could well be half of what it is today. The environmental
inpact would be half of what it is today, far more sustainable.

Yabby,

That's all very well, but what about the American who has a modest family of two offspring? Each of those children has roughly the equivalent footprint of 8-9 Indians.... grandchildren.....etc.

And two thirds of Indians still live in rural districts - and many who have migrated to the city are poverty stricken...uneven distribution and all that. But I thought the prevailing mantra from the pro-growthers on this thread was to make them more like us - and now you're on about the minority of rich Indians.

*That's all very well, but what about the American who has a modest family of two offspring?*

They are simply replacing themselves, quite different to 6 times 6 etc.
Besides, the trend for Americans is now to consume less oil,
use more efficient cars, as energy prices increase this will be
more so. In the late 90s oil was still 10$ a barrel, no wonder it
was wasted. But society is adjusting, even if its taking time.

Meantime all those Indians are aspiring to live just like
Americans. Multiply extra people with growing aspirations in
the third world, you are bound to have a collapse, it does not
matter what the first world does. Its just a question of time really.

So, Yabby, it comes down to this:

<Multiply extra people with growing aspirations in the third world, you are bound to have a collapse, it does not matter what the first world does. Its just a question of time really.>

But, this IS the argument <Its just a question of time??> The problem we are digesting is how to avoid this otherwise undeniable outcome, yet you appear to dismiss First World excess and First World influence on the Third World via example, via material demand, and via World Bank and IMF activities, as being of any consequence in this progression to massive systems failure?

I don't believe earth systems, however carefully tuned, could support even a quarter of current world population in a manner now sought by virtually every individual in the West. (Total current world consumption probably already equates to two billion average Aussies, and systems failure IS clearly evident.) The world simply cannot endure a continuation at current levels, let alone more of the same.

If you are a farmer, then you should know that no-till is now widely employed, and not slash and burn, and that most soils (even a lot of our worn-out Aussie soils) contain most of the nutrients required for effective agriculture - on an appropriately scaled basis. Push soils too hard, and it doesn't matter what artificial inputs you use you are eventually going to experience collapse. Alternatively, by husbanding soil micro-systems one can ensure sufficient nutrient availability to sustain a balanced cropping or grazing regimen, requiring only minimal micro-nutrient inputs. Biological mechanisms can also limit predation, without pesticides.

Sure, phosphate, lime, sulphur and potash, etc, can be mined and redistributed, and oil and gas used to manufacture urea and pesticides, etc - but these remain finite and non-renewable resources, and overuse can only lead to ultimate system deterioration and collapse. Balance has to be achieved, and non-renewables employed sparingly until long term sustainability can become a reality.

Reduce population, and scale back lifestyle allowances. No other formula is evident - Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

Very entertaining watching Pericles and Poirot getting snooty with each other!

Bravo!

*But, this IS the argument <Its just a question of time??*

Sure its just a question of time, Salpetre. But why should I stress
about things that I cannot change? Pedaling to work or doing without
that Ipad is not going to change human destiny, I might as well enjoy
every day!

The problem will always be numbers, not if you lived it up a little
or not.

*If you are a farmer, then you should know that no-till is now widely employed*

Ah Salpetre, but that means that your holy grail of the future, ie
organic farming, is not what you claim it to be. For of course
no till involves the use of herbicides like Roundup.

*and that most soils (even a lot of our worn-out Aussie soils) contain most of the nutrients required for effective agriculture*

Ah Salpetre, but plants need all elements to grow, not just some of
them. Soils in WA were naturally clapped out, without human intervention.
It was only through good science that it was shown
that phosphorus, copper, zinc, molydenum etc, were required to
turn them around. Legumes producing nitrogen means that soils need
lime to deal with the acidity. So my point remains. Cart away
produce from the land, you need to replace nutrients from somewhere, or you are
essentially mining. And you are not going to do that
on on a broad scale to feed the masses, using compost from elsewhere.

*but these remain finite and non-renewable resources*

Ah but that remains the interesting question. What will happen when
the oil runs out and there is no more cheap food. Food crops competing
with energy etc, as is already happening. Best we just let nature
sort it out.

Whilst 250'000 people a day are added to the planet and nobody
cares, I am not about to cut back on my cushy lifestyle

Yabby,

"The problem will always be numbers, not if you lived it up a little or not."

'Living it up a little", of course, is a gross simplification of the wasteful consumption patterns of the billion or so people who inhabit the developed world....

Here's an article by Jared Diamond on consumption:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?pagewanted=1

Poirot, Diamond makes that simplistic mistake of focussing on
oil and metals for his calculations. What about water and all
the rest? You can prove just about anything with figures that are
only partial.

Fact is that we have built our whole population explosion genie
on the back of 100 years of cheap oil. Even Perth now can't survive
on rainfall, it needs gas for its water supply.

Take a look at the world's major grain exporters. They are largely
in the West, shipping to the third world. When their oil genie gets
scarce, their food production will adjust accordingly. It will be
the teeming masses of the third world who have a problem, not the
first world.

When Gane Goodall first went to Gombe, the place was in the middle
of nowhere. Africa had around 240 million people. Now it has a
billion, Gombe is surrounded by farmland, to make way for the
growing masses. The only reason that it surives is because its
pretty famous. Do you think those teeming masses arn't affecting
the environment?

What you have right now is 7 billion heading for 9 billion, all
aspiring to the Western lifestyle and increasingly reliant on the
oil genie for food, water and the rest. Of course its not sustainable.

That big picture is not going to change much based on what you or
I do. If Americans halved their energy consumption tomorrow,
within 16 years you'll still have an extra 1.3 billion people to feed,
or 4 times the entire US population. Even if they consume at
a 4th of what Americans consume, it solves nothing but delay the
inevitable by a few years

Poirot,

Production for export is significant. That is why the Global Footprint Network Atlas has separate columns for the production and consumption footprints. I have only referred to the consumption footprints.

Fred Pearce is cherry-picking by focussing on carbon emissions, an area where the developed world has had disproportionate responsibility, although India and China have been doing their best to catch up. China has now passed the US in carbon emissions and would still be a very big emitter even with a fair system that attributed emissions to the final consumer. Comparing the consumption footprints in the Atlas, the US has a footprint of 8.0 hectares and Ethiopia 1.1 hectares, a little over a 7 to 1 ratio, very far from the 112 to 1 ratio suggested by Pearce. If you want to dispute the footprints, you need to show what is wrong with the methodology, not just link to activists in the poor-brown-people-can-do-no-wrong school.

The US does make a good scapegoat, but there are only about 300 million Americans out of a global population of 7 billion. There would be considerably fewer if the greedy elite hadn't reversed more than 40 years of near zero net immigration and opened the floodgates. See

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about-problem/our-lost-future.html

All the Americans could be raptured up into the sky, and it would only make a fairly small and strictly temporary difference.

Well, Yabby, by your scenario a few boat people here or there is only the beginning of what must ultimately turn into a flood, and not just to Oz. In Oz we produce more food than we consume, and the U.S. and a few other developed nations do the same - and we export the surplus to feed masses elsewhere. Certainly this overall production relies heavily on fossil fuels, and must eventually diminish as fossil fuels run out. It is going to hit the fan eventually.

Without a change in course things are going to get ugly, and iPods will be the least of people's worries. One over-producer after another will get overrun - boats, gun-ships, invasion - land over-exploited and left in ruin, Oz and the U.S. become dust-bowls, Africa and South America overrun eventually, mass starvation and conflict on a totally unprecedented scale, and a world left in ruin. Who could be willing to sit back and let this scenario evolve?

We had all better get our schools to teach Chinese language, culture and history now, in preparation for the new world order. Guns and bunkers aren't going to help us, and only cooperation (or collaboration, if you like) will offer any chance of survival - and you can imagine what sort of survival that is going to be.

The twists and turns of our stock market demonstrate how closely we are tied to developments in China, and it is possible that, for our own future, we should stop exporting our resources, abandon the level playing field, and become super-xenophobic while we still have a chance. Of course, there is still a small window of opportunity to avoid these drastic portents - or is there?

Head-phones on, comfortable armchair, delicious cool beverage, kids at a good school or in a good job - what me worry? When the bomb hits it will only be those poor chumps who aren't killed outright who will suffer - right?

Oh, and no-till does involve fuel, for slashing or mechanical trashing of stubble, and then direct seed drilling - but no roundup.

*Oh, and no-till does involve fuel, for slashing or mechanical trashing of stubble, and then direct seed drilling - but no roundup.*

Not so Salpetre, for you still have those pesky weeds to deal with.
In broadscale agriculture, you won't do it by hand and if you
go to mechanical cultivation, bang goes your no till.

As to the future, most times when resources get scarce, humans
deal with it through warfare. That is what history seems to show.

The United Nations does not even have a focus on population, let
alone a policy. As can be seen on OLO, many don't even think
its a problem.

Fair enough, whatever lol. I'll let you do the worrying for me :)

Yeah, Yabby...we get it : )

Divergence,

The 7 to 1 ratio means that the American footprint for 300 million people is an equivalent footprint to over 2 billion people in the third world.