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