Josephus (continued),
>Oral history gives us an event of great proportions when the Earth was covered by water and it was blamed on
>the behaviour of humans. Obviously the Ice caps would have to melt to create such a catastrophic event.
What you regard as obvious is actually an incorrect assumption.

>In 1980 Mt St Helens exploded covering forests which is now coal.
What makes you think it's now coal?

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Loudmouth,
Try to contemplate the truth instead of spreading the lies. A half degree rise in global average temperatures took twenty years not eighty - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record

The problem isn't just the fact that temperatures are rising, but that they're rising at an accelerating rate.

Likewise with sea levels; if we could confidently predict they'd keep rising at their current rate of an inch and a quarter per decade, it wouldn't be seen as a very big problem. But melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica is projected to result in much bigger sea level rises. Just to be clear: that's from increase runoff: I'm not suggesting the ice sheets would collapse.

And it is silly to resort to expensive solutions when much cheaper alternatives are available. There are far more productive ways of employing those who are currently unemployed.

but we must do something to stop runaway global warming !
Loudmouth,
Agree, but the only remedy is the one that no-one wants to tackle, overbreeding by & of humans !

individual,
Why do you think that's the only remedy?

There's far more to environmental impact than just population numbers, and you seem quite oblivious to the most crucial points: if the world's population treated the environment with the contempt that most posters on this board have for it, a population of even one billion wound't be sustainable. But humans are capable of mitigating and even reversing environmental damage, and when we recognise the value of the environment and treat it with the importance it deserves, we'll be able to sustain a much higher population than we have today.

Aidan,

In your last post you appear to have relayed a possibly inadvertent contradiction, and I would be greatly interested in how you might be able to rationalize these two apparent opposites:

>> if the world's population treated the environment with the contempt that most posters on this board have for it, a population of even one billion wouldn't be sustainable.<<

>>when we recognise the value of the environment and treat it with the importance it deserves, we'll be able to sustain a much higher population than we have today.<<

Maintain environment AND greatly increase human population?

I can only deduce that you must have enormous faith in prospects for an almost immediate technological breakthrough of gargantuan significance and impact, or in a mind-blowing shift in human cultural and social relations placing respect for planet Earth and all of its cohabitants at the zenith of all human aspiration and endeavor; or both such vectors concomitantly?

Or, am I misinterpreting, where your focus is solely on the immediate human environment, and wherein anything (animals, plants etc) not of direct importance to human aspiration for total success and fulfillment is cast aside as 'unworthy' to survive?

I like this planet, and I'm afraid I can only consider human exploitation and uncontrolled expansion to be the greatest threat to its long term success and survival. Evolution has simply not gone far enough - but there is evidence that the planet is fighting back.

Why do you think that's the only remedy?
Aidan,
Because it is the ONLY option !
If people can't change after several thousand generations then reducing the numbers IS (no, not Islamic State) the ONLY alternative.

Individual,

If ZPG was universal, population would still rise because people are likely to be living longer this century. If hypothetically, ZPG was universal now, the world population would still rise until it more or less peaked sometime late this century and grew slowly, but only with universal increased life expectancy.

Joe