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?