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Cardew

bert&ernie wrote: »

. Even more surprising, I found myself agreeing, at least in part, with George Monbiot the other day - here's what he recently had to say about overpopulation...
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/29/the-population-myth/

I think its fair to say that George drives a coach and horses through the arguement that:

Typical George Monboit.

Seems that his argument is Indian peasant farmer only produces y amount of CO2, whereas us rich folk - especially if we own a yacht - produce xy amount of CO2. So therefore masses of Indian children ain't a problem.

He rather ignores the fact that these children still have to be fed and will aspire to owning a yacht(perhaps only a car!) - or their children/grandchildren will!!

Not attributing blame to the Indian peasant you understand - we all should own yachts - but it still seems to me that overpopulation is a time bomb.

Volcano

bert&ernie wrote: »

.... when people have reasonable living standards, education and access to contraception,

Given that half of the world's population earns less than $2.50 a day, then the planet's population growth will continue to be inexorable for the foreseeable future.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

P__G

Love the care2click website - clicked and done. I will do in every so often too - thanks for the tip off

ceridwen

Volcano wrote: »

Given that half of the world's population earns less than $2.50 a day, then the planet's population growth will continue to be inexorable for the foreseeable future.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

...and the comment I had made to me yesterday was "We all have to learn to share".....as in sharing the worlds resources out again...and again....and again....as there are constantly more and more people needing "a share" and each time the "slice of cake" gets thinner and thinner.... (Yes - I did realise that this meant the person concerned obviously has a large family themselves...:rolleyes:).

I assume that many people perhaps dont mind as our houses get smaller and smaller (as there is only a finite supply of land to build those houses on) - or that they have to travel further and further out from their house to find a bit of countryside to have some recreation in......quite apart from the issues of where all the extra land is to come from to feed those extra mouths and what about the rights of the other species on the Planet? I do feel that people need to speak up to defend the rights of the other species on this Planet from those that don't actually care about them - birds/mammals/etc don't have voices to speak for themselves..

VOLCANO: Must take a "leaf out of your book" as regards a humorous attitude to your "stalker" - I've got one too - and have been wondering how to deal with her....(I try to feel sorry for her - as she obviously has problems - but..I'm not that saintly...)

thescouselander

There have been some interesting revelations this week regarding the famous Hockey stick graph and how it could be seriously flawed. What I found most interesting was the story on how the Hadley Data Centre and their friends at the CRU had withheld the data used to create the graph for several years. Now the data has been released serious questions have been raised regarding their practises - if the allegations are true this will reflect very badly indeed on the Hadley Data Centre. Just do a search on google to get the full story.

If there was ever proof that that global warming has been hyped up by some institutions to be a bigger problem than it actually is - this could be it.

moonrakerz

thescouselander wrote: »

There have been some interesting revelations this week regarding the famous Hockey stick graph and how it could be seriously flawed. What I found most interesting was the story on how the Hadley Data Centre and their friends at the CRU had withheld the data used to create the graph for several years. Now the data has been released serious questions have been raised regarding their practises - if the allegations are true this will reflect very badly indeed on the Hadley Data Centre. Just do a search on google to get the full story.

If there was ever proof that that global warming has been hyped up by some institutions to be a bigger problem than it actually is - this could be it.

The "Hockey Stick" has been suspect almost from the day it appeared !

bert&ernie

Cardew wrote: »

Typical George Monboit.

Seems that his argument is Indian peasant farmer only produces y amount of CO2, whereas us rich folk - especially if we own a yacht - produce xy amount of CO2. So therefore masses of Indian children ain't a problem.

He rather ignores the fact that these children still have to be fed and will aspire to owning a yacht(perhaps only a car!) - or their children/grandchildren will!!

Not attributing blame to the Indian peasant you understand - we all should own yachts - but it still seems to me that overpopulation is a time bomb.

Well heaven forbid that the poor should aspire to a better life. Better make sure they don't get born in the first place, lest they grow up and demand resource intensive indulgences... like organic food.

Monbiot does concentrate on emissions rather than resource use. I though he spoke for most environmentalists who seem to believe that runaway climate change is biggest and most imminent threat - thermogeddon will arrive well before the resources run out. In this sense he seems to think that overpopulation is a dangerous diversion and great excuse for high consuming/emitting rich westerners to pass the buck to the developing world.

ceridwen wrote: »

...and the comment I had made to me yesterday was "We all have to learn to share".....as in sharing the worlds resources out again...and again....and again....as there are constantly more and more people needing "a share" and each time the "slice of cake" gets thinner and thinner.... (Yes - I did realise that this meant the person concerned obviously has a large family themselves...:rolleyes:).

I assume that many people perhaps dont mind as our houses get smaller and smaller (as there is only a finite supply of land to build those houses on) - or that they have to travel further and further out from their house to find a bit of countryside to have some recreation in......quite apart from the issues of where all the extra land is to come from to feed those extra mouths and what about the rights of the other species on the Planet? I do feel that people need to speak up to defend the rights of the other species on this Planet from those that don't actually care about them - birds/mammals/etc don't have voices to speak for themselves..
...

You really don't like sharing do you?

I guess the fluffy creatures are a lot less scary than people. Perhaps thats just because they cant stand up for their rights and they won't have the audacity to ask for their share?

Volcano

ceridwen wrote: »

I assume that many people perhaps dont mind as our houses get smaller and smaller (as there is only a finite supply of land to build those houses on) - or that they have to travel further and further out from their house to find a bit of countryside to have some recreation in

I think this has more to do with UK land prices and developers' greed to be honest.

VOLCANO: Must take a "leaf out of your book" as regards a humorous attitude to your "stalker" - I've got one too - and have been wondering how to deal with her..

They must be pretty wound up to stalk you, so just wind them up some more! Mine has gone quiet since my sig line appeared I must admit....

thescouselander wrote:

There have been some interesting revelations this week regarding the famous Hockey stick graph and how it could be seriously flawed.

Have you got any links? All I'm getting is those conspiracy-type blogs....

bert&ernie wrote:

I guess the fluffy creatures are a lot less scary than people. Perhaps thats just because they cant stand up for their rights and they won't have the audacity to ask for their share?

Who? Fluffy creatures or poor people?

thescouselander

Here you go:

This journalist at the telegraph sums up what happened pretty well. This issue has been running for some time now and it is quite verifiable that the data was withheld despite several FOI requests. You can see why they would want to withhold this data too given what has apparently come out.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100011716/how-the-global-warming-industry-is-based-on-one-massive-lie/

Steve McIntyre originally made public his findings on this blog:

http://www.climateaudit.org/

I believe he is open to comments if you can find anything wrong with his work.

Cardew

bert&ernie wrote: »

Well heaven forbid that the poor should aspire to a better life. Better make sure they don't get born in the first place, lest they grow up and demand resource intensive indulgences... like organic food.

Did you read my post? I was at pains to make no criticism of the Indian peasant or the aspirations of his offspring! Viz

He rather ignores the fact that these children still have to be fed and will aspire to owning a yacht(perhaps only a car!) - or their children/grandchildren will!!

Not attributing blame to the Indian peasant you understand - we all should own yachts - but it still seems to me that overpopulation is a time bomb.

I don't pretend to know the answers to the problem of overpopulation, but a problem it most certainly is!

Starvation, disease and war are not(thankfully) taking the toll they did yesteryear. China's compulsory abortion/sterilisation policy has gone some way to limiting the growth their population, a policy that presumably you find draconian?

It is easy to define the problem! Solutions are more difficult.