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The Forum > Article Comments > Malthus revisited > Comments

Malthus revisited : Comments

By John Avery, published 9/7/2020

The optimism which preceded the French Revolution, and the disappointment which followed a few years later, closely paralleled the optimistic expectations of our own era.

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The parallel to the use of the guillotine in the French Revolution may be the toppling of states in recent times. As Robespierre found out the practice of denouncing the politically incorrect can backfire, something the statue topplers may yet discover.

When the problems of the future seem impossible to solve the answer seems to be magical thinking. An example the author may agree with is the notion that green hydrogen will solve all energy problems. I think the fantasy will fade away when the funding runs out, the reason being it wastes too much energy. The green optimists are actually leading us up the garden path and one day they too will be denounced.
Posted by Taswegian, Thursday, 9 July 2020 8:54:57 AM
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push push push push breath breath push push push push breath breath...

The climate scam's dead. Leave it be.
Posted by jamo, Thursday, 9 July 2020 9:52:09 AM
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Yes. And the 1930s everyone is now talking about. Nazi Germany. Soviet Russia - both being reenacted by the Chinese Communist Party. Why do we bother. History is repeating itself because we don't learn from it.
Posted by ttbn, Thursday, 9 July 2020 10:19:15 AM
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"Contemporary Nihilism is presently manifested in the mindless iconoclasm of the ‘cancel culture’, exemplified by its wilful and irresponsible street demonstrations in the presence of a pandemic, its ruthless destruction of reputations, vandalism of historical monuments and artefacts, along with the denunciation of Western Civilization, liberal democracy, capitalism, nationalism, ‘white people’, their history and everything to do with any of them". (Mervyn Bendle)

It’s also evident in our universities. There, tenured academics elaborate and promote this Nihilistic agenda, while leaving its practical political implementation to the contemporary versions of the Hitler Youth and the Red Guards who dominate the streets.
Posted by ttbn, Thursday, 9 July 2020 10:36:02 AM
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Every part of history is uniquely different, and applying it to the present is not straight forward.
But lessons there are.
History as a precedent must not be confused with shooting from the hip.
Instinctve reactions of self preservation will always win out.

History is actually divided into two aspects, one personal, and one actually affecting the group, with totally different outcomes for the individual.

Mostly outcomes are purely luck of the draw. Read Nassim Taleb for modern analysis on scientific predictability of human outcomes.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

Averys' liberal views in this, the historical reading of events and conclusions, and previous similar publications, are interesting.

Dan
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 9 July 2020 10:54:14 AM
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There's the Proof !
People are becoming increasingly stupid !
Posted by individual, Thursday, 9 July 2020 12:21:10 PM
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*yawn*
Yet another example of someone so ill informed he doesn't understand that economic growth is growth in value; it doesn't have to involve an increase in resource use. He also fails to see that advances in genetics mean another green revolution is already occurring, and the end of the fossil fuel era won't stop that.

Malthaus observed that human populations are capable of growing exponentially. But capability and practice are two very different things, and world population is not growing exponentially. And though population is a factor in climate change, it's hardly a driving force - it's not changing anywhere near fast enough to replace (or prevent) the effects of technological and behavioural change on emissions.
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 9 July 2020 1:00:37 PM
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The author asks.."Was Malthus wrong?"

Well yes he obviously was wrong. Even the man himself accepted that later in life.
And why was he wrong? Because he failed to understand the nature of human invention and ingenuity. He failed to understand that as the need appeared, so followed the answer. He thought that population would continue to increase but agricultural innovation wouldn't.

So what does the author then do? He makes the exact same error.... "The fossil fuel era is ending, and with it, the possibility of Green Revolution agriculture."

Well, apart from the fact that, if needs be, we still have more than enough fossil fuel for agriculture for the next 4 centuries, the assumption made by the author that we won't find other answers if such fuels do expire, is just the same Malthusian error re-gifted.

Environmentalism is a religion and just like a religion they have their 'end-of-times' myths. Cults that predict the end of the world next Tuesday-week, don't give up or learn when their predictions fail. They just make new predictions, and believe them just as fervently as before.

Same here. Malthus was wrong. Malthusians are always wrong (see Ehrlich). But they keep predicting and believing the end-is-nigh, because they want the end to be nigh. They hate that liberal capitalism has unlocked the problem of world hunger, and just want it to fail.

It won't...or at least it won't while-ever liberal capitalism holds sway
Posted by mhaze, Thursday, 9 July 2020 1:07:18 PM
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Maybe, but we still export 70% of what we grow! And could more than treble that production if we were intelligently lead! Add water and guess what? Yes, we can't make it rain, so dams could become big expensive white elephants, but we can permanently fill Lake Eyre, with a dual-lane canal system that utilises lock gates and huge northern tides to keep water moving and flushing the system twice daily.

Then site a dozen or so MSR thorium power stations to among other things power a dozen or more deionisation dialysis desalination plants to put water where there is now none! As taped underground solutions that more than double the production for half the traditional water.

If our parliament weren't science free zones it'd be already started along with the automation we need to grow the economy, self-reliance, self-defence, without importing more people!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 9 July 2020 1:50:20 PM
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Malthus was actually right about the situation up to his own time. He just couldn't foresee the benefits of the Industrial Revolution, which unlocked enormous resources and has fueled our population growth for the past two centuries. The same could be said about Paul Ehrlich, who was unable to predict the success of the Green Revolution. I suspect that if mhaze was around in 1967, he(?) would have predicted trouble, too, if he was told that India was a massive importer of food, had widespread malnutrition, and had a population that was set to double in another 30 years.

If you look at the whole course of human history and prehistory from archaeology, and not just the last 200 years, you see a recurrent pattern. People multiply beyond their means of subsistence, and living standards decline. Leaving aside war for more resources, death rates increase, and child labour loses much of its value, because the market for hired labour has collapsed and land per person has become so small that not even slave labour can raise production enough to pay for itself. People then find the means to limit their numbers, often extremely brutal, if the society doesn't collapse. Sometimes there is a temporary improvement due to new crops or new technology, or because a disaster such as the Black Death has pruned back the population. In the end, however, any surplus is eaten up by more and more mouths until the accustomed level of misery is restored. Take a look at Paolo Malanima's paper "Wages: Ancient, Medieval and Modern"

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paolo_Malanima

Historical trends in average height are also a good measure of well-being.

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/historical-anthropometrics/

You cornucopian optimists need to take a look at what our numbers and consumption are doing to our planetary life support systems. Climate change is just one aspect of this, and maybe not even the most significant.

https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/planetary-boundaries/about-the-research/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html

It is ridiculous to believe that the Syrian civil war or the massive caravans heading towards the US border from Central America have nothing to do with the fact that these countries have quadrupled their populations since 1960.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 9 July 2020 2:04:21 PM
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The author should read the book Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. It shows with quite robust (but not perfect) data that global population growth will peak by about 2050 and then decline significantly thereafter. This will reduce pressures on so many aspects of our social and natural environment, including resource use, that Malthus and the author will be shown to have both been wrong in their negativity and pessimism, especially on the climate change issue.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Thursday, 9 July 2020 6:39:47 PM
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Speaking of nihilism and what it is now doing to what remains of any kind of humanizing culture in America why not read the essays on the nihilist in chief featured on this site:
http://www.eand.co
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 9 July 2020 7:57:32 PM
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"Malthus was actually right about the situation up to his own time. "

Rubbish. He made predictions. The predictions turned out to be wrong. Therefore he was wrong.
We can say we understand why he was wrong and why he made erroneous predictions given the information at the time, but that's not the same as saying he was 'right'. Whatismore, others at the time, disputed his assertions using the same information. They were right. And again, even Malthus eventually recognised that he'd made errors in his assertions and effectively rescinded.

But his claims were just too attractive to the millenarians in our midst and continually get regurgitated despite being perennially wrong. This essay is just another minor example of that.

As to Ehrlich he was also shown to be just straight out wrong. Again, we can understand how he got it wrong and why his prejudices led him, and quite a few others, down the garden path. But wrong he was.

Its important that we recognise that that these people were wrong and how they got it so badly astray in order to ensure we don't make the same errors, as this author does. Its therefore also important to look at those who, contemporaneously with the doom-sayers, got it right (eg Simon) and to follow their lead.

"If you look at the whole course of human history and prehistory from archaeology, and not just the last 200 years, you see a recurrent pattern."

Yes. For most of human history in most of the world, people were only one or two bad growing seasons away from starvation. But the victories of liberal capitalism have unwound that nexus. Wishing it wasn't so is one thing. But it remains a fact. The only way this gets reversed is the demise of the current economic system.
Posted by mhaze, Friday, 10 July 2020 10:55:51 AM
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mhaze,

Malthus had a good description of how the world worked up to his own day, which is what I meant. It explains such things as why an Italian labourer had to work half again as long for bare subsistence in the early 19th century as in the 15th century after the Black Death (see Paolo Malanima's work), despite 400 years of technological progress and some amazingly productive New World crops. In so far as he made predictions about the future, you are right.

Our economy and survival are completely dependent, as they always were, on the continued functioning of our planetary life support systems. Humans are now numerous enough and have a great enough impact to do tremendous damage on the global as well as the local scale. See the link in my previous post to the Stockholm Resilience Center. I don't doubt that there will be technological solutions to some of these problems and to depletion of some resources, but all of them? Back in the 1950s and 1960s, people were seriously predicting flying cars, electric power too cheap to meter, the complete conquest of cancer and infectious disease, giant space stations like cities in orbit, and bases or even colonies on the Moon and Mars. After all, liberal capitalism can do anything! It has been 60 or 70 years, and we have none of those things.

See this short article by the economist Herman Daly for some very basic fallacies in Julian Simon's arguments.

http://www.mnforsustain.org/daly_h_simon_ultimate_resource_review.htm
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 10 July 2020 4:21:17 PM
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fear caused by the pseudo science brigade is a far bigger danger to our future than anything else. The idiotic dumbing down of the population to believe they can control the weather, that coal is heating the planet and that we should completely destroy a country due to a bad flu shows how easily deceived the 'educated' class has become. We certainly have given God something to laugh and cry about as the lying liberal media, leftist academia and the swamp have the world's focus on lies while real issues like the mass killing of the unborn, denial of biology and corruption among the 'elite' ignored. No wonder they hide behind the virtue signalling immoral murderers like antifa and blm's. Yes the age is wrapping up but not because of the lies pedalled by the lying liberal media. Read the book and if you are half smart will repent and turn to the Only One who can save you.
Posted by runner, Friday, 10 July 2020 5:02:00 PM
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Thank heavens for Divergence who is a very sensible contributor. Malthus was not to see the increase in food production that came with the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions, so his timing was wrong but in principle he was right. First principles of biology tell us that the numbers of any population will crash if they consume most of their food supply. We are indeed facing a possible collapse of food supply and in turn human numbers before the middle of this century, largely because there is insufficient land, water and nutrients, and growing conditions made difficult with climate change.
Posted by popnperish, Friday, 10 July 2020 5:41:10 PM
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" Malthus was not to see the increase in food production that came with the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions..."

But that's the point. That's the bloody point. He was wrong because he made predictions based on a misunderstanding of the future. And while he didn't see the rise in food production, he had contemporaries who did. So it wasn't a case of no-one seeing the upcoming changes, but a case of him missing it.

Just as more recent Malthusians failed to see upcoming changes. Ehrlich missed the green revolution (as he admits) but plenty of his contemporaries didn't. He was wrong (Malthusians are always wrong) but he had contemporaries who weren't wrong. They are who we should be following.

"See this short article by the economist Herman Daly for some very basic fallacies in Julian Simon's arguments."

The article was written in 1982. Subsequent events showed Simon was right and Daly wrong. Simon was right that oil is not meaningfully finite. Its a complex issue that can't be explained here. But suffice to say that we have more known reserves today than we did in 1982. Which is why oil is cheaper today than 1982.

Ditto cooper which Daly also misunderstands.

Daly mentions "See his grandstand offer on page 27 to bet anyone any amount...". Well the bet was taken by Ehrlich and Simon was completely vindicated.
Posted by mhaze, Friday, 10 July 2020 6:07:10 PM
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Why won't people accept that the real problem in society is the Peter Principle ?
Posted by individual, Saturday, 11 July 2020 7:58:49 AM
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mhaze,
>Well yes [Malthus] obviously was wrong. Even the man himself accepted that later in life.
Do you have a reference for that?

>He thought that population would continue to increase but agricultural innovation wouldn't.
No he didn't. His point was that although agricultural innovation would continue to increase food production, the increase would not be exponential.

He was wrong on the details, but his basic point was correct: human populations are capable of exponential growth. If population continues to grow exponentially, it's inevitable the food supply will eventually not be able to keep up. However that's of little relevance today, as humans can now control their fertility, and the population is not growing exponentially.

> Environmentalism is a religion
No it isn't; it's a philosophy.
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!
Posted by Aidan, Saturday, 11 July 2020 12:03:34 PM
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Popnperish,

Oh dear. Check out:

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

Population growth in Europe, Russia, Iran, Japan and other countries is flat-lining, either falling or not rising or barely rising. Birth rates are lower than ever. In China, the annual number of births has reached a plateau and soon will start to slowly fall - population there will rise only because older people live longer, i.e. they do not die as early as before and thereby contribute to the mortality numbers.

If Australia had no immigration, our population would barely rise. Similarly, the US.
Populations in Africa and South America are rising and could double by 2070. But as Jack caldwell pointed out ( https://archive.org/details/demographictrans00cald/page/n1/mode/2up ) the requirements of compulsory education have as massive impact on family size, as children become financial liabilities instead of economic assets. As well, as the years of education for women lengthen, their chances of marrying young diminish and they will tend to have fewer children, if any at all, of only because their chances of reliable employment improve.

So it's possible that the populations of Africa and South America will stabilise by the turn of this century.

Meanwhile, food production techniques are always improving - water use, plant varieties, efficiency of transport and storage (and reduction of wastage).

So, no, the sky is not falling. Be of good cheer :)

Joe
Posted by loudmouth2, Saturday, 11 July 2020 1:44:43 PM
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Aidan,

"Do you have a reference for that?"
6th edition of 'Principle of Population'. It wasn't a full throated retreat but he did seek to change the emphasis of his original claims and walk back the certitude of those original claims.

" His point was that although agricultural innovation would continue to increase food production, the increase would not be exponential."

Well that's true - I was just summarising. And he was wrong on both points. Population growth wasn't exponential and agricultural grow was(at times).

"No it [environmentalism] isn't [a religion]; it's a philosophy.
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!"

No need to yell Aidan. We can all hear you just fine. I do know the difference, although I'd argue one is a subset of t'other. But its because I know the difference that I label environmentalism as a religion.

popnperish,

"We are indeed facing a possible collapse of food supply and in turn human numbers before the middle of this century, largely because there is insufficient land, water and nutrients, and growing conditions made difficult with climate change."

Rubbish. Calories grown per capita (repeat - per capita) have been increasing for 2 centuries. But somehow to the doomsayers the end is always just over the next hill.

Land usage for food growth is decreasing in most locations due to better technology.
Ditto water.
Ditto nutrients.
A warming climate improves food production yields
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 11 July 2020 1:57:39 PM
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Mhaze,

In the southern hemisphere, it is mostly water. In the northern hemisphere, it is mostly land. At NH middle latitudes, across northern China, Siberia, Central Asia, northern Europe, the US and Canada, much of that is relatively flat or undulating. Good for grain-growing.

With the blessings of climate change, I wonder how far further north the boundary for grain-growing, and longer growing seasons generally, would be for every C degree rise: fifty kilometres ? One hundred ? And we're talking about, say, twenty thousand kilometres around the hemisphere. So perhaps an extra million, perhaps two million, square kilometres could be opened up to the production of staple food crops by 2100.

Not to mention improved food production, water management, wastage-control, etc. techniques between now and 2100.

If the total human population falls or stabilises by 2100, and food production rises, we could be the very difficult situation where we all have to eat much more than now in order to keep total food supplies down.

Joe
Posted by loudmouth2, Saturday, 11 July 2020 2:24:26 PM
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Sorry mhaze, it is you that is wrong about food. Please note the last month's report by the Commission for the Human Future on Food Security in the 21st century:
https://humanfuture.net/sites/default/files/Final%20Report%20on%20Food%20Security.pdf

It warns that The global food system is headed for failure, with potentially catastrophic consequences for all people, nations and for civilisation as a whole.
Posted by popnperish, Saturday, 11 July 2020 2:28:52 PM
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mhaze and others are assuming that we will always be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat, much like Julian Simon claiming that there would always be enough resources for a growing population for the next 7 billion years (long past the time when our sun will have turned into a red giant and probably expanded beyond Earth's orbit). Even a continued population growth rate of 1% would result in the entire mass of the solar system being turned into a ball of human flesh expanding at the speed of light in a matter of a few thousand years.

Simon's bet with Ehrlich is irrelevant compared to his wider claims.

http://www.mnforsustain.org/partridge_e_j_simon_and_perilous_optimism.htm

As has often been pointed out, in any case, Ehrlich would have won if a different date had been chosen. There are hard physical limits to growth, as explained by the physicist A/Prof. Tom Murphy at the University of California,

http://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

http://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

Aidan may be right that people will come to their senses and stop population growth, but the UN has had to keep revising its projections upward as fertility rates have remained stubbornly high in some countries, mostly in Africa. Australians aren't having too many babies, so our population would stabilise and then even slowly decline with zero net immigration, but we don't have to overpopulate. Our government is doing it for us.
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 11 July 2020 3:42:36 PM
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Yes, thanks Divergence. Overpopulation is not mandatory. We can get our population back in balance with the resource base which is really what this whole argument is all about.
Posted by popnperish, Saturday, 11 July 2020 5:37:10 PM
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Our government is doing it for us.
Divergence,
I blame the opposition equally !
Posted by individual, Saturday, 11 July 2020 11:24:39 PM
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popnperish writes "It warns that The global food system is headed for failure".

This is the fundamental difference between us. I look back at the past, observe that every single time, every single time, doomsayers declare that we are headed for disaster food-wise, they were wrong. Not just a little wrong. Not just wrong on the margins. But hopelessly, utterly wrong.

And from that I draw the conclusion that its likely the current doomsayers are almost certainly wrong, particularly when all current trends are headed in a favourable direction.

You on the other hand, ignore all the previous evidence that the predictions are wrong, ignore th reasons why they were wrong and utterly fall for the new projections.

Perhaps working on the basis that they can't be wrong all the time works for you. But I don't think like that.

Divergence writes "others are assuming that we will always be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat..".

Well that holds water because its always been true. Humanity has never, ever run out of any resource. Humanity has always found new ways to do things when the old ways became untenable or too expensive or unavailable."The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones and the oil age won't end because we ran out of oil".

Of course all of this relies on the operations of the market. In those places where the market is constrained, we can indeed run out of resources eg the Ukranian famines in the 1930s.
Posted by mhaze, Sunday, 12 July 2020 9:40:34 AM
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Nonsense, mhaze

Plenty of past societies have collapsed, with the collapse often related to overexploitation of their environment. See David R. Montgomery's book "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations". He has a nice section of the collapse of the Sumerian city states due to salinity problems caused by over-irrigation. Saddam Hussein actually had a program to try to restore land that the Sumerians had wrecked 5,000 years ago.

We also have serious problems with land degradation in Australia. Markets discount the future. The market can actually encourage farmers to do things that will raise production in the short term, but have devastating effects in the future. A farmer who will be dead in another 50 years can quite legally take actions that will make land effectively worthless for future generations.
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 12 July 2020 4:03:06 PM
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Hear hear Divergence. mhaze does not take into account climate change which has had localised effects in the past but these days is affecting the whole planet. If we go to 4 degrees warming, Ross Garnaut has warned that will wipe out 98% of food production in the Murray-Darling Basin - our food basket.
Sorry mhaze, but the past is no longer a predictor of the future. We are severely overpopulated and may lose millions of people with decades from starvation, not least on the Gangetic Plain where water tables are falling dramatically. When the underground waters go, then so does irrigated farming and the region will not be able to sustain nearly as many people as it does now.
Posted by popnperish, Sunday, 12 July 2020 5:17:05 PM
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Popnperish,

Forty years ago, in a geomorphology class, I learnt that the tectonic plate on which Bengal sits was sliding under the Himalayan Plate and tilting towards the east. So the land was sinking in the east, i.e. Bangla Desh, but rising in Indian Bengal.

So it appeared that the sea was rising in the south-east, and that - sooner or later - there would be problems further up the Ganges. As you point out so clearly, it would appear as if the water table was falling. Certainly, it is likely that, in addition to tectonic activity, that too much water is also being taken out of the ground, exacerbating the situation.

But it may not have much to do with climate change :) Good god, what have I written ?!

Joe
Posted by loudmouth2, Sunday, 12 July 2020 6:02:15 PM
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It takes some really special brains to work out that Sea Level rise is different in different locations !
Posted by individual, Sunday, 12 July 2020 6:43:26 PM
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Individual,

Yes, all along our southern coasts, the land is slowly rising (hence the cliffs of the Bight), while it is sinking along the north - because the Australian Plate is rising in the south and slipping under the Pacific Plate on which Indonesia and PNG sit.

Very crudely, that should mean that actual sea-level rise is half as much as it seems to have been along the north coast. Very crudely. Is that the case ?

And perhaps you could join the dots between sea-level rise, tectonic activity and a flat tax ;)

Joe
Posted by loudmouth2, Sunday, 12 July 2020 6:56:41 PM
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One need look no further than China to gain a reasonable prediction of what future the planet and humanity are facing - and in the not too distant future at that. (2050, 2100? You are kidding - try 2035-40.)

China has embarked on expansionism, outside of its own land boundaries, in areas seen to be of future economic and productive potential. (Note, not in Bangladesh, for example, who's future is underwater).

China, 1.3 billion population, and many of them used to hard yakka, masses of technology at the cutting edge - and masses of nerds very capable of taking full advantage of the potentials, and of spying on invention, production, investment and political activities in the West. And, China obviously has scientific capability well in advance of anything in the West, massive military capability and armed services, and a population which has no alternative but to comply with any demands - with probably a large majority of the populace who wouldn't even think of objecting or saying no to any demand on them.

So, the writing is already 'on the wall'. China is moving, so everyone else had better look out. Stealth, but with the potential of takeover if that fails.

China can see it, the planet may only be saved for future generations (of Chinese) if China takes control. Control which may send a great many Westerners into virtual slavery or being worked to death (and not for any Union-demanded salaries), and with an appropriate 'deployment' of finite resources, and dealing with 'climate change' by reducing excessive demand (caused by heretofore wasteful Westerners).

China can see it. Resources are 'finite' - and you'd better believe it.
Move over, or get run over. There is no debate, no uncertainty.

Oh, and for the disbelievers, climate change (and warming) does not only promote vegetation growth, but also causes droughts, floods, and tempests - which can easily far outweigh sporadic 'green flushes'.
Posted by Saltpetre, Sunday, 12 July 2020 7:14:14 PM
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loudmouth2,
Joining the dots between the dead brain cells of people who believe Sea level is higher in one place & lower in another would offer countless hours of entertainment.
Like this bureaucrat who told a public meeting that if our harbour gets dredged the channel would not be deeper as the sea level would go down also. And, yes you guessed right, an educated person told the meeting exactly that !.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 12 July 2020 10:13:38 PM
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When population grows, a price is always exacted.

That price can be in food, but it can also be in lifestyle.
Malthus only saw the former possibility.

Loss of lifestyle ultimately implies regimentation and loss of freedom.
Loss of freedom implies loss of purpose.
Yes, we can keep that many more human bodies alive and mouths well-fed, but for what?

We have paid dearly for the agricultural revolution and the formation of coercive states which followed, slavery included.
We have paid so dearly for the industrial revolution, no need to expand as history-books are full of the terrible descriptions.
Now we are paying even more for the information revolution, which disconnects us from the simplicity of nature and human-to-human contact.
And yes, otherwise we would not be able to place food on our tables, for the so many of us.

If the world was to be fair, then initially everyone would have their equal share in its resources, then it would be up to each and every one to decide among how many offspring, be them one, few or many, they wish to divide their share.

Those who are unable or unwilling to control their genitals, who are slaves to the procreative demands of their genes, should pay with the poverty of their offspring - not with the forced change of lifestyle imposed over the responsible individuals who did hold back sewing their seeds (or ova) indiscriminately like there is no tomorrow.

Those who rather follow the natural procreative dictates of their genes and are willing to pay for it with their lifestyle, are called "Progressive".
Those who rather restrain their procreative urges and conserve their seeds so that they can maintain their lifestyle, are called "Conservative".
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 12 July 2020 11:01:12 PM
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Yes, we can keep that many more human bodies alive and mouths well-fed, but for what?
Yuyutsu,
Spot-on,
runner, are you reading this ? It seems some people would rather see babies suffer a miserable existence than terminate pregnancies in the name of ideology ! All live is sacred they say so, according to them that includes miserable , devoid of quality & hope lives !
The human body has not yet fully evolved to the stage where procreation can be planned & controlled. In the animal world excess numbers equate into loss of life but for human kind this is only acceptable at the prospect of monetary or other gain i
Yes, we certainly are in the hands of some incredibly bizarre thinkers who knowingly prolong suffering although much of it could be eliminated by more humane thinking !
Posted by individual, Monday, 13 July 2020 7:39:41 AM
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Well said Yuyutsu though, as one who did control my reproduction, I would prefer to be classed as progressive and not conservative!
Posted by popnperish, Monday, 13 July 2020 7:59:10 AM
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Dear Popnperish,

«though, as one who did control my reproduction, I would prefer to be classed as progressive and not conservative!»

Which is less common, so allow me to expand and use the analogy of blood-types:

There are 4 blood types: O, A, B, and AB.
(this is simplified because there is also the Rhesus factor and rarer situations, but it is a good-enough analogy for now)

We could refer to Conservatives as type A: they rather pay for their food by keeping their numbers down.
We could refer to Progressives as type B: they rather pay for their food by compromising their lifestyle.
Then there is type AB: they rather procreate freely, then send the bill to others, demanding that others compromise their lifestyle for them.

And finally there is type O, as you describe yourself: controlling your reproduction but still generously willing to compromise your own lifestyle in order to pay the price for the parasitic AB's.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 13 July 2020 5:05:58 PM
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So Yuyutsu, are you saying that most politicians are Type AB ? I'd reckon most CEO's are the same blood group AND psychopaths to boot.
Posted by Albie Manton in Darwin, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 10:39:23 AM
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