I used to read Scientific American with interest and wonder. My favorite column was The Amateur Scientist because it had so many neat experiments and projects. Now, it is mostly with sadness and incredulity that I occasionally glance at it on the newsstand. I don’t bother subscribing or even buying it for an interesting article TAS article anymore. They’ve lost their way.
Grist magazine wrote on July 24th:
What would the world look like without people?
This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).
In honor of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which we recently profiled, here are two videos showing what would happen if we humans suddenly up and disappeared.
I’m shaking my head as I watch this SciAm video, they have an animated musclebound synthetic person as the spokesman wearing a SciAm t-shirt. Yes, it’s that bad. They seem to forget where they came from and who they cater to.
Of course there’s the obligatory “global warming” mention, still going strong after 1000 years, turning NYC’s central park into an African jungle, complete with elephants.
And it’s not just Scientific American pushing this stuff. Nat Geo (another magazine I used to enjoy) also has a video out on the topic that looks like…like…oh heck just watch it, I can’t even describe it.
In both SciAm and the NatGeo videos they destroy the statue of liberty. I guess either they dislike what it represents, or they have so little creative talent that they have to borrow from the famous scene with Charlton Heston from Planet of the Apes, the original human decline disaster movie.
It’s fine by me if the people at Voluntary Human Extinction Movement want to recuse themselves from Earth, and I’d be totally OK if SciAm, and NatGeo met with extinction, but please, leave the rest of the human race out of your plans. I notice that the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is still around, so much for leadership.
Me? I’m going to celebrate life.
SciAm hit bottom for me in the Fall of 2008, when they published a piece about some election coverage research that claimed to show that McCain had gotten more favorable coverage than Obama. If you read carefully, though, you realized that the period “studied”was during the nominations, at a time when Hillary was still considered inevitable (so she was getting all the love, not Obama), and McCain was in the running race as a “moderate” (and eventual stalking horse for the media). So there was absolutely no direct comparison between the coverage given McCain and Obama when they were running against each other, even thought the headline and lead-in to the article encouraged you to think that was what it was all about! That was the last time I read the magazine with any enthusiasm, and the subscription is now running out – not to be renewed.
That cracked me up.
Thanks Anthony
All those great scientists, all those great new age philosophers, not even one of them can tell us the purpose of the human existence on this particular planet. Oh! How great post normal science is, it knows nothing….and if you know nothing better follow your “precautionary principle” and proceed accordingly.
I had two young ladies approach my house asking for my signature on a petition for my local city to provide abortion assistance to people who couldn’t afford it. I declined to sign their petition and sought to engage them in conversation expressing an opposite view point to the one they were supporting. It was of course pointless as their minds were made up. One young lady went so far as to tell me that she had decided never to have children as a way of helping the planet.
I told her that I hoped that she had a long and happy career in a job which provided her with an excellent income. I also hoped that she found a partner who was likewise blessed. I also told her that I hoped that she bought a beautiful home and lastly I hoped that she had the gift of good taste to fill it with beautiful things.
She looked a little surprised at the extent of my good wishes so I had to explain that my intent was a little mercenary as in the fullness of time I was hoping that my descendants could pick up some really nice stuff for pennies on the dollar at her estate sale.
Eugenics, mass starvation, nuclear/biological/chemical weapons… among the less savory choices. Advancements in science & technology are the preferred route and is what made Paul Erlich look like a fool with his 1968 book “The Population Bomb”.
Rate natural increase is the birth rate minus the death rate. The following lists 200 nations and compares RNI in 1990-1995 with 2005-2010. It is a story of overall decline in RNI. There are many factors that go into RNI. Just because some of these countries have high and rising rates doesn’t mean they’re reproducing like bunny rabbits but rather means that the average lifespan is increasing due to them reaping the benefits of modern medicine, agriculture, sanitation, and things of that nature. It should also be noted that reduced RNI in some countries (cough cough China cough cough) isn’t entirely voluntary.
Worldwide human population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion around 2050. There’s no reason to doubt it and there’s also no reason to doubt that size population can be sustained indefinitely and enjoy increasingly higher standards of living through the steady inexorable flow of advancements in science & engineering.
http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/138.html
Poop-canned “Unscientific American” long ago when it became what it now is. Any good science periodicals out there that anyone would recommend? I still get Astronomy and Sky & Telescope which have both signed on to AGW, some bandwagon science and astronomy as well as much other liberal hogwash. But still have some interesting astronomy news and articles for those of us who do a little amateur stuff in that area.
The “Life After People” series did a far better job on this subject than those videos…. and had much better graphics. That animated guy sits right at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley, quite repulsive.
Wet Blanket Larry puts the human population situation into perspective.
Yes, population is a legitimate concern. If every third family left for booming colonies on Mars, many of our environmental and other problems would decrease in the short-to-intermediate term. Less hunger in the developing countries. Less overfishing. Less aquifer depletion. Less pollution. Easier to get a weekend camping spot in Yosemite.
That said, human population *can be* a non-draconian, self-regulating system. For much of the world, the Demographic Transition (DemTr) is a better model than the Malthusian nightmare scenario, which would apply to Haiti, if the food and other aid from the US dried up.
The necessary conditions for DemTr are: industrialization, urbanization, rudimentary public health measures, universal education, strong property rights, and respect for the rights of women. In the early stages of the DemTr, birth rates remain high, while death rates (especially from infant mortality) plummet. In the short term, this increases the rate of population growth.
However in the longer term, birth rates decline, because parents choose to have smaller families. We can see this happening in most of the Western European countries–Ireland notwithstanding–and in Japan. In these places, the birth rates are well below replacement value. And this is creating a new demographic problem.
In an age-structure pyramid, we can afford to have generous social security programs for the elderly. But as the population grays, the social security system places a proportionately greater burden on younger adults.
Some W European countries are attempting a short-term solution to the problem, through immigration. An unfortunate side-effect: the clash of civilizations. (The last time I checked, Denmark had relatively strict immigration policies.) On the other hand, Japan has made a conscious decision that immigration is not the solution to their social-security-financing problem.
Getting back to the main point, environmentalists who are genuinely concerned about the human ecological footprint on the planet, should focus their efforts on promoting the initial conditions for DemTr in the developing countries. Getting preachy, making overpopulation a moral issue, and encouraging Big Government to violate fundamental human reproductive rights is definitely not the right way to go.
Sci Am and Newsweek both died for me after Climategate and now this utter drivel. This is just too weird to make up. Whatever happened to humanism? People for people – that’s me.
I don’t think it’s worthwhile to worry about too many people. Google “depopulation” and you will see that there are countries emptying out of people as we speak – notably Russia and parts of Eastern Europe but many countries in Europe are rapidly graying and faced with looming population implosions. Japan is graying too.
Have some kids, they’re great; and its great to have a family – I love my family.
Business is good.
People are great.
Life is wonderful.
Thanks! GregO says:
July 26, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Have some kids, they’re great; and its great to have a family – I love my family.
Those green guys and their non-reproductive behavior are sick people. Health is a human right, and we must enforce it. Let’s take them to an asylum!
Stefan says:
July 26, 2010 at 3:23 am [nice post, but not to ignore the others]:
They say humans have little value, and yet their very ability to pose the question, “how do I care for the planet?” is itself a product of deep value and ethics.
Yes, and along the lines of what you also mentioned, it’s also a product of the brain’s mysterious and miraculous capacity to be able to do such things as caring in the first place – which apparently goes completely unnoticed by the minds of people such as those who “join” VHMT – along with its capacity to do other things such as, yes, even to notice and to willfully wonder, create new thoughts which can also successfully communicate the thoughts to others – “thought mating” anyone? – and so on and on.
Not seeing the obvious seems to lead many people to despair, but once your basic survival and comfort needs are somewhat adequately satisfied and perhaps you do what you reasonably can for others, what more “value” does anyone need to see in life other than the amazing power of their own brain? Indeed, recognizing also that life is almost necessarliy not perfect and always a continuous battle of some kind or other, why shouldn’t it be reproduced?
>>Oldshed
>>All power to the wind – it cuts your electricity bills
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727704.900-all-power-to-the-wind–it-cuts-your-electricity-bills.html
There is a flaw in their argument.
If the wind is blowing, and the white elephants are producing electricity for a change, that does not mean that they can be used for peak energy demand. You will still need to bring on a reliable peak energy supplier (normally a gas plant) to cover the peak loads. And thus the peak energy costs will be the same.
The entire article is disingenuous.
.
>>Enneagram:
>>Those green guys and their non-reproductive behavior are sick
>>people. Health is a human right, and we must enforce it. Let’s
>>take them to an asylum!
I think you missed the real point the Greens are making.
You are not allowed to have any kids, because you are an antisocial Westerners. But the third world can go on having as many as they like, because they are in tune with nature.
As the Greenpeace spokes-female said to me: “we have never, and will never, campaign on population issues”.
What she meant was that the third world could push the population to 15 billion, and that was ok with Greenpeace – because populations never affect food supply, emissions, water supply, Co2 levels, rain forests etc: Populations have no effect on the world at all, apparently, unless you are a dirty, stinking Westerner.
.
>>Oldshed
>>All power to the wind – it cuts your electricity bills…
Ralph says:
July 26, 2010 at 4:54 pm
There is a flaw in their argument….
The entire article is disingenuous.
___________________________________________________
The whole thing is pablum for the uneducated masses.
Charles S. Opalek, PE an engineer looked into wind power very carefully. WIND POWER FRAUD: WHY WIND WON’T WORK
Biofuel is also a fraud:
Cornell ecologist’s study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
* soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
* sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
A very dangerous fraud that kills people
Biofuel Bean Counters Forget to Count the Beans
“Mr. Glauber testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that biofuels have actually contributed up to 10% of the overall increase in global food prices…
Farm and ethanol groups say biofuels have become a scapegoat for higher food prices, claiming the real culprit is surging oil prices….
Keith Collins, Mr. Glauber’s predecessor, who recently released a study funded by Kraft Foods Inc. showing that ethanol is having a bigger impact than the government has acknowledged.”
(The cost of livestock feed has doubled to tripled since 2007. Monsanto and Cargill grain traders reported record earnings in 2008)
The whole blasted thing is a money making scam. All the big companies win big and the poor starve or freeze to death.
Not to worry if all the folks in the USA become extinct voluntarily. The National Academy of Sciences assures us that there are Linkages among climate change, crop yields and Mexico–US cross-border migration. In other words, climate change will reduce agricultural yields in Mexico thereby causing mass migrations to the north where, presumably, the newly arriving cheap labor and added CO2 will have beneficial effects on crop yields.
This tidbit was courtesy of two authors at Princeton, one in Shanghai, and the fine editing pencil of Stephen Schneider at Stanford. Can the NAS possibly sink any lower?
Well if nothing else this is further evidence for the hypothesis of natural selection. These ideas will largely die with there originators, and I can pass on my genes and principles to a better next generation.
Gail Combs says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:51 pm
You can tell ’em, but they won’t listen until the myriad windmills stand rotting and the fields must be reclaimed for food.
No doubt this lesson, like those before, will have to be learned again and again. I wonder what the next lesson will be?
Or do we just recycle them? I saw a hydrogen fuel (as in burning it in cars) website the other day – someone has a math problem.
Gail Combs says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:51 pm
…
Biofuel is also a fraud:
Cornell ecologist’s study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy
In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:
…
The figures that you gave are not carved in stone. My understanding is that they assume present energy-intensive production methods. In the distant future, when coal, oil, and natural gas prices all go through the roof, we’re going to see the re-introduction of more labor-intensive and mule-power-intensive agricultural methods. Then the figures will be different, and some of them may very well smash through the energy break-even barrier to make biofuel for the cars of the wealthy.
For the near-to-medium future, a more useful figure of merit would involve comparisons with the Fischer-Tropsch process for using relatively plentiful coal as a feedstock for producing hydrocarbon fuel for our cars. Even though the process is expensive, at some point, it’ll be cheaper than using oil that we pump out of the ground. Why? Oil prices will rise faster than coal prices. And the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
We should also look at the energy budget for producing hydrocarbon fuel from tar sands. Alberta and Venezuela are the Saudi Arabias of tar sands.
>>Larry:
>>we’re going to see the re-introduction of more labor-intensive
>>and mule-power-intensive agricultural methods
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, , ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,……..
Don’t you just love these pipe-dream Greenies – they will kill us all one day.
The only reason we have enough food to make fuel from it, is because of intensive farming. Go back to the mule or horse, and we will all be starving, like so many were before intensive farming came along.
Merovign says:
July 26, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Gail Combs says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:51 pm
….I saw a hydrogen fuel (as in burning it in cars) website the other day – someone has a math problem.
_______________________________________________________
hydrogen fueled cars sounds like a good way to earn the Darwin Award.
The tendency for Americans to wrap kids in cotton leads to a greater number earning the award when they grow up.
Ralph says:
July 27, 2010 at 3:03 am
……Don’t you just love these pipe-dream Greenies – they will kill us all one day.
The only reason we have enough food to make fuel from it, is because of intensive farming. Go back to the mule or horse, and we will all be starving, like so many were before intensive farming came along.
__________________________________________________________________
You are correct.
1830 – About 250-300 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels (5 acres) of wheat with walking plow, brush harrow, hand broadcast of seed, sickle, and flail
1850 – About 75-90 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels of corn (2-1/2 acres) with walking plow, harrow, and hand planting
1862-75 – Change from hand power to horses characterized the first American agricultural revolution
1926 – Successful light tractor developed
1945 – 10-14 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels (2 acres) of corn with tractor, 3-bottom plow, 10-foot tandem disk, 4-section harrow, 4-row planters and cultivators, and 2-row picker
In 1860 we had 58% of the labor force working the same number of farms as today to feed 10% of today’s population
In 1860 farmers made up 58% of labor force and the number of farms: 2,044,000
Total population: 23,191,786 (use of the horse as a farm animal)
by1940 Farmers made up 18% of labor force and the number of farms: 6,102,000
(use of light tractors)
by 1990 Farmers made up 2.6% of labor force and the number of farms: 2,143,150
Total population: 246,081,000
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm4.htm
1840’s – The growing use of factory-made agricultural machinery increased farmers’ need for cash and encouraged commercial farming
1841 – Practical grain drill patented
1842 – First grain elevator, Buffalo, NY
1844 – Practical mowing machine patented
1847 – Irrigation begun in Utah
1849 – Mixed chemical fertilizers sold commercially
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm1.htm
Everyone assumes the burning of coal and use of oil was confined to the 20th century – it was not. As soon as a practical steam engine was invented it was put to use in mining and farming. In 1868 – Steam tractors were tried out in Agriculture and by the 1890’s Agriculture became increasingly mechanized and commercialized.
Too bad no one bothers to teach history anymore.
Ralph says:
July 27, 2010 at 3:03 am
“>>Larry:
>>we’re going to see the re-introduction of more labor-intensive
>>and mule-power-intensive agricultural methods
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,”
It’s encouraging to see that the fine art of out-of-context risposte is alive and well. I was describing a scenario for a possible *distant* future, in which the CONGs (coal, oil, natural gas) are seriously depleted and prohibitively expensive.
Q: What’re you gonna do when you can’t afford to fill up the tank of your tractor?
One possible alternative: Muscle-powered agriculture is better than no agriculture at all.
I did *not* say that population would remain constant. In an earlier post in this thread, I briefly mentioned the Demographic Transition. Because of the DemTr, birth rates in the US dipped below replacement levels in the 1930s. Many couples decided to postpone having children until the Depression was over. Psychic Larry predicts that a similar thing will happen in the *distant* future in response to outrageously expensive CONGs. The US population will decline.
I also did *not* say that muscle-powered agriculture was particularly efficient. In our energy-intensive culture, not only do we drive oil, but we eat it as well.
It’s very likely that a pared-down population will be able to feed itself, even with less productive agricultural methods.
Of course there will be innovations to partially compensate for the sky-high oil prices. How about steam-powered tractors that use Strontium-90 as a heat source? Just don’t ask me to drive one!
As someone who signed up for VHEMT I am shocked at how many people assume it’s a suicide cult without even having looked at the 2nd line on the FIRST PAGE.
“Phasing out the human race by [b]voluntarily ceasing to breed[/b] will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.”
No suicide required. Everyone simply doesn’t breed, leading to the end of humanity by natural (individual) causes. Jumping on a good cause like it’s a comet cult.
Really, I just don’t like kids, so I don’t want any. XD
People are more like ‘Lemmings’ than lemmings are like ‘Lemmings’. Like lemmings, and weather, and climate, people too have their ups and downs. They generally can’t distinguish when they’re up or when they’re down, especially while they’re up or while they’re down; but years later, their children –especially the ones who go to college– seem to have no trouble recognizing these up and down periods, and telling them how great or stupid they were way back then. My kids think the world is OK now but that it went to the dogs and everybody was so stupid fifty years ago. No wonder old folks think kids are more stupider than at any time in the history of the world.
So much above is the same for me. My goal as an 8 year old was to have the reading ability to read a SA from cover to cover. Now the information density is so low, I do not even bother to open the cover.
The Cause, Margaritte Holloway… I determined this cause many years ago.
I collected SA’s, and have a large bound collection, that is until the early 90’s when I gave up in disgust at the lack of truth.