This reminds me of tax freedom day, except the numbers are a lot fuzzier. Carsten Arnholm of Norway tips us to this website peddling this worrisome calculation. I fear and visualize there will be no more food, air, water, or “CO2 filtering” tomorrow. Photosynthesis comes to a halt, gasp, sputter, fade to black. Fin.
from: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/
August 21st marks an unfortunate milestone: the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year. Once we pass this day, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year. From that point until the end of the year, we meet our ecological demand by liquidating resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
What is Earth Overshoot Day?
Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates nature’s supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet generates, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by U.K.-based new economics foundation, marks the day when demand on ecological services begins to exceed the renewable supply.
Click here for Media Inquiries
What is Overshoot?
For most of human history, humanity has been able to live off of nature’s interest — consuming resources and producing carbon dioxide at a rate lower than what the planet was able to regenerate and reabsorb each year.
But approximately three decades ago, we crossed a critical threshold, and the rate of human demand for ecological services began to outpace the rate at which nature could provide them. This gap between demand and supply — known as ecological overshoot — has grown steadily each year. Global Footprint Network’s most recent data show that it takes one year and five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.
The Cost of Ecological Overspending
Of course, we only have one Earth. The fact that we are using (or “spending” natural capital) faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continually exceed income. In planetary terms, the results of our ecological overspending are becoming more clear by the day. Climate change – a result of carbon being emitted faster than it can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas – is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others as well: shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse and freshwater stress to name a few.
How is Earth Overshoot Day Calculated?
Put simply, Earth Overshoot Day shows the day on which our total Ecological Footprint (measured in global hectares) is equal to the biocapacity (also measured in global hectares) that nature can regenerate in that year. For the rest of the year, we are accumulating debt by depleting our natural capital and letting waste accumulate.
[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day Day
The day of the year on which humanity enters into overshoot and begins adding to our ecological debt is calculated by calculating the ratio of global available biocapacity to global Ecological Footprint and multiplying by 365. From this, we find the number of days of demand that the biosphere could supply, and the number of days we operate in overshoot.
Hands up!, Don´t move!…Hey Tony, bring up the straight jacket, this nut is not gonna run from the asylum again!
Brought to you by the same people that said our population would be double what it is right now and we would all be starving…….
but we wouldn’t care because we would all have domestic robots and rocket cars….
Did anyone tell them life evolved with at least 20x more co2 than there is today?
Is this silly story day?
Even stranger than the last one.
Good for a laugh I suppose but I guess some people believe this stuff…
Geez!
That’s as bad as the ‘clock’ used by the Unions of Concerned Scientists.
A day to celebrate that for the rest of the year we’re not burning the forests for fuel.
Too bad they’re serious . Their programs show that the nef is just another redistributionist organization hiding behind environmentalism to further a political agenda .
I guess those global warmers KIDS don´t know CO2 ban will ban candies and chocolates too, as these are made from it.
Well since it is too late anyway, since we have been told for ten years we only have ten years left, I for one am going to celebrate.
Couple of pound+ Rib Eyes will go on the BBQ tonight, then I’ll go out and idle my car and sit in air conditioned comfort for a few hours.
I’m gonna solve this problem right now before we are all done for. I don’t want to be a Hero, but: I will if I have to. I’m gonna cool the Earth off right now. First I’m going to open all the windows, turn on both air conditioners and open the freezer door. Then run outside, start the car, crank up its AC and let it run. That should drop the Earth’s temperature to a safe level.
Whew! I’m glad I thought of that before it is too late.
We need to use it all up before the aliens come and take it.
Desperation rising.
It won’t be long before they have to roll out naked celebrities against CO2.
(That will probably happen before Thanksgiving)
I have a simple solution: Abolish taxes. That removes government consumption and we’ll end up at 100%. In Germany, at 70%.
Wot no polar bears?
Or come to think of it Mammoths.
‘Dog days of August’, is the time for crazies, guess it’s true.
Is howling at the moon classed as MMCO2e?……………In which case aren’t they exacerbating the problem?
Click here for eco-loony immune tablets: http://www.ibelieveinlycanthropy.co.carpathia/silverbullets
Interesting concept……. totally irrelavent to anything resembling inteligent thought but interesting non the less
From the pages:
“The results we expect will redirect billions of dollars of investment flows toward making sustainable human development a reality.”
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/what_we_do/
Hmm, is this “irrational exhuberance”?.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance
Some comment on this ‘Fake Charity’ accounts from 2009:
http://timworstall.com/2009/01/03/nef-funding/
try not to choke on your cornflakes !
Put head in paper bag and breathe.. breathe.. CO2 does have it’s uses in improving crop yields and preventing panic attacks. Do not use plastic bags unless they have been approved by the Soylent Corporation. Never heard of this lot before, but they list 50 or so staff, but like so many green charities, no accounts. They do have some novel finance products though-
Sounds even more useless than carbon trading.
Well, we have about 2.5 billion humans to get rid of to fit into the budget. . . I guess we’ll have to start with Norway. I know, I know. . . barely puts a dent in the deficit.
Fred says:
August 21, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Well since it is too late anyway, since we have been told for ten years we only have ten years left, I for one am going to celebrate.
Couple of pound+ Rib Eyes will go on the BBQ tonight, then I’ll go out and idle my car and sit in air conditioned comfort for a few hours.
I had a teacher in Jr.High who told us: “I don’t know why I’m bothering to teach you anything, the world will be destroyed before you ever become adults from (insert disaster here)”. He changed the disaster according to his current belief i.e. pollution, nuclear war, asteroids, etc. This was back in 1970. Personally, I’ll have the flat iron steak and BBQ’d corn on the cob.
Oh, and this gives me an opportunity to post a very interesting solution to the resource problem: brand new hyper-effective chinese public transportation: The straddling bus; a giant catamaran-style land-leviathan of a bus:
http://www.mnn.com/transportation/alternative-transportation/stories/chinas-new-bus-straddles-cars
From what i read they really plan to build it.
Atomic Hairdryer – I missed that one . Think of a Just Bond as just …. (fill in the blank).
How do people dream up these scams? How do they get funding? Well maybe I get it if I think about Hansen, Gore, Pachauri and Phil. When I think about it further Obama and Jackson have a hand in it as well. Then there is Kerry, Waxman and Pelosi. Well as I think about it further it all makes sense.
Instead of getting all serious about CO2, I say lets all sit back and listen to this great song and be happy. EVERY LITTLE THING IS GONNA BE ALRIGHT!!!!
EARTH FIRST! (we’ll do the other planets later)
Life must be so easy when all you have is groundless opinions.
Accounts are up for 2009, has some interesting bits on derivatives:
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ScannedAccounts/Ends54%5C0001055254_ac_20090630_e_c.pdf
Probably like a Just Bond, but get a ‘free’ red nose with every tonne of CO2 purchased. An anonymous donor bunged them £500k, which may keep the wolf from the laundrette. Streetview is a wonderful thing.
Good… that means we are recycling!
http://notrickszone.com/
Tomorrow!
Good… that means we are recycling!
Yeah. Recycling Malthus.
Congress pushed to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion,
which in turn allowed the federal debt to increase to $14.3 trillion, coincidentally the size of our country’s entire yearly economic output.
So my handy dandy hectare calculator tells me that the hectare on the Hill is unsustainable for the biocapacity of the biologically productive land and water available per person on the planet. Because I do have a hectare calculator, and I encourage everyone to get one, and do the math.
Does this mean we are out of beer?
No one can really say for sure about the CO2, or if it even means anything, but the thing about “carrying capacity” is complete hokum. There is a ridiculous amount of unused land that could be farmed if the incentive existed–food prices indicate that there is no shortage of fresh produce, hence there’s a lot of glorious, open land.
These people need a real hobby.
The basic concept is sort of valid. Overfishing, overhunting, misuse of topsoil, and cutting forests without replanting: all real problems.
Unfortunately, the message is aimed at countries that are no longer guilty of those practices.
Even more unfortunately, the Carbon Cult wants us to stop replanting forests, stop hatching fish, and tear down flood-control and irrigation dams. When the Cult wins, we will again be guilty of those bad practices.
This reminds me of a story. Some time ago there was a little boy who had the unfortunate job of tending the farm’s sheep. The little boy was bored, so to get some excitement he cried “WOLF!” All the farmhands stopped what they were doing and came out to help save the sheep from the wolf, but there was no wolf. The little boy just made it up. The little boy had fun with that, so a few days later he cried “WOLF!” again. Once again, all the farmhands came out to help save the sheep from the wolf, but again there was no wolf. Unfortunately the next day a pack of wolves really did find the sheep and so the little boy cried “WOLF!” But no one came this time, they didn’t believe the little boy.
So it goes with these so-called scientists. They are crying “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!” And people rush to the cause; but the world doesn’t come to an end when they say it does. And so they cry again “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!” And again, people rush to the cause only to be disappointed yet again. Eventually the credibility is damaged and then when an actual factual crisis appears, nobody pays attention. They cried wolf one too many times.
You can expect Goulman Sachs and other parasites on Wall St to come up with a trading strategy soon.
regards
The solution is a Global cap and trade commitment and Global Governance.
Otherwise we are forced to eliminate 75% of the world population.
Straitjackets anyone?
With all the facts we have received about the “Hockey Stick Graphs” being altered and what not, why cant everyone come to the realization that we are being mislead about ALL of this…. Thats my opinion about it all. If we have already been misled about major global temperature data then can we really believe the other stuff they throw out there at us??
David T. Bronzich says:
August 21, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Sounds like my “habitat and man” teacher from around 1974.
I do want to note that if global cooling occurs, world food production will drop and there will be lots of people starving (and freezing) to death.
August 21st marks an unfortunate milestone: the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year.
We would have made to September 26th if it wasn’t for Al Gore.
Someone got hit too many times in the head with a hockey stick.
W^L+ says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:42 pm
David T. Bronzich says:
August 21, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Sounds like my “habitat and man” teacher from around 1974.
I do want to note that if global cooling occurs, world food production will drop and there will be lots of people starving (and freezing) to death.
was his name steimetz?
Good. Maybe we won’t hear from Al Gore for the rest of the year since he has used up his CO2 allowance.
Be Aware of your diminishing freedom when:
Commerce,Science,Government,and Religion,
combine to save something or somebody.
Beans, beans that magical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot! The more you toot, the warmer it feels, so the globe warms with every meal!
New Economics Foundation — what is this, an offshoot of the Club of Rome, touting more of their limits to growth meme?
Who knew that it was EOSD?
If they’d only warned us of our impending doom sooner, I would have spent the day doing something worthwhile. Instead, I squandered the day doing repairs around the house when I should have been eating my last few jars of caviar and popping a bottle or two of champagne as the earth swirls down the drain.
sigh…
These crazy greenies don’t know when enough is enough. They already have Earth Day, Arbor Day, Earth Hour, and God knows how many others… now we have Earth Overshoot Day! Good grief!
“August 21…the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year.”
Speak for yourself, toesucker. I set out 2 dogwood trees, 12 apple trees, 2 pear trees, 14 peach trees and 16 pecan trees this year. 7 of the total of didn’t make it so far, but I figure I still have quite a surplus in the bank, thank you. And I will do much more next year, if the idiots in Washington and elsewhere don’t ruin my prospects by bankrupting the world economy. Not to mention all the excess food I’ve had to buy just in case they succeed!
this is very interesting… even the comments posted here are truly interesting..
i would have to agree with Lefty’s comment.. – every little thing is going to be alright, we don’t have to worry.. 🙂 i also love bob marley…
I think we can see what these guys are about on the “about use” page:
“nef has developed alternative measurement tools”
“Rich countries must consume less”
“The pursuit of growth has failed on its own terms, and for people and the planet. We are working on a new way to structure the economy. ”
Aha – restructure the economy. Where have we heard all this before?
Glen Shevlin …. totally irrelevant to anything resembling intelligent spelling …. but do keep trying. nevket240 …. did you mean Goldman Sachs or Ghoulman Sachs ? It’s a little early for Halloween ! Cheers.
Global Footprint Network’s most recent data show that it takes one year and five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.
My own most recent data shows that it only takes five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.
And I got my data from the same place GFN got its data.
Wal-Mart…
These Green Khmers dream of forced depopulation, nothing less. Politicians want “just” our money and control.
It is interesting, that whatever threat to humanity emerges, it can be always “solved” by increasing taxes.
Sounds like an excellent excuse for a national holiday. And just think of the benefits….The reduction in produced CO2 on this holiday each year into the future could be accumulated and offset against CO2 production now. There’s a potential spreadbet market on whether the holiday falls earlier or later each year.
If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this…
Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.
Lefty says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:21 pm
“With all the facts we have received about the “Hockey Stick Graphs” being altered and what not, why cant everyone come to the realization that we are being mislead about ALL of this…. Thats my opinion about it all. If we have already been misled about major global temperature data then can we really believe the other stuff they throw out there at us??”
No, one shouldn’t. As stated earlier in the thread, this is all recycled Malthusian alarmism. Sadly, this is an even bolder and more transparent argument for hard core population control and usurpation of liberties.
These nut jobs are British?
face/palm
@James Sexton says: August 22, 2010 at 12:45 am
Spot on. And, the very fact that these crooks obviously cannot help themselves lie and cheat is best reasons for not believing ANYTHING they say.
Wow … I’ve never seen a better set of comments that display a collective head-in-the-sand and it’s-my-right-to-do-as-I-want mentality. No wonder the majority of the world is made of exploited people. Guess who’s doing the exploitation.
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.
Tim Williams says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:42 am
“If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this… ”
lol, yeh, you should play it annually and ask him when we are going to get at that tipping point. Same o, same o. Typical communist talking points disguised as environmentalism. And animated no less! Targeted our little people just in time!
lol, “corporations” “forces that will stop at nothing”! Funny stuff.
We can but laugh: Celia Walden’s Daily Telegraph text:-
Climate change has made its mark on the dictionary: from now on, there’s no denying the importance of “carbon capture and storage”, or “geo-engineering”. Which may explain why the environment is one of the few subjects it’s still impossible to joke about, as I have discovered to my cost.
While the humour embargoes appear to have been lifted on Christianity, homosexuality, fatties and Muslims (so long as it’s not in print), the environment is still cordoned off with yellow and black tape. When conversation at a recent dinner party became a little too greener-than-thou to bear, I quoted Groucho Marx’s gag: “What have future generations ever done for us?” The joke was greeted with total silence.
My companions must have missed the Simpsons episode in which Monty Burns rails: “Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favour now? Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well I say, hard cheese.”
This has to be the Hamburger Helper version of AGW. Eat hearty in minutes, for the clock is ticking, and the Wicked Witch has promised to get your little dog, too.
UK Sceptic says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:56 am
These nut jobs are British?
face/palm
I’ll trade you for these, and I’ll throw in a six-pack of Bud.
Enneagram says:
August 21, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I guess those global warmers KIDS don´t know CO2 ban will ban candies and chocolates too, as these are made from it.”
And “Pop Rocks” candy has got to go! That stuff is literally filled with CO2!
okay, just relax everyone… I mowed the lawn today. The clippings ought to last us at least a few more days…
It seems to me that this is just another well funded anonymous NGO with self appointed academical experts and bureaucrats in an ever expanding network of organizations and thinks thanks in the eco-sustainability-global-warming industrial complex connected to the Club of Rome, UNEP, Soros, Rockefeller Foundation who just want to rule us and take over the world.
The victims of this enterprise are ordinary people, real democracy, the truth, science and people in the third world.
Dare I say it! Eco-fascists, that’s who they are!
Follow the money!
Talking about ecology and overshoot it looks like this good professor has just shot himself in the foot.
——————————————
Guy R. McPherson, Professor Emeritus
Educated in the ecology and management of natural resources
University of Arizona 18 August, 2010
See also video
UK Sceptic says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:56 am
These nut jobs are British?
Not so nutty! Look at the accounts again. They get money for doing nothing youknow, a bit like the UK benefit system.
Tim Williams says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:42 am
“If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this…
Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.”
Not bad, but he missed some big opportunities:
-no dramatic opera choirs. “Mars” from Gustav Holst, i suggest. Or something by Philip Glass, maybe a piece from Echnaton – sorry, Akhnaten, as you Americans say.
-mass release of Methane leads to a combustible oxygen-Methane mix and huge firestorms. A must for every warmist disaster film.
-H2S release from marine life decay; leading to planet-wide suffocation of land animals! Again, huge opportunity missed.
And he should replace the stick figure by a Sim; they look creepier.
fredb says:
August 22, 2010 at 1:14 am
“Wow … I’ve never seen a better set of comments that display a collective head-in-the-sand and it’s-my-right-to-do-as-I-want mentality. No wonder the majority of the world is made of exploited people. Guess who’s doing the exploitation.
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.”
fredb – These people say “August 21”; yet they drop not a word about what they computed there. It’s all “take my word for it”. They explain their method of “computation” thus:
“[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day Day
”
Sorry, this deserves nothing but ridicule. I mean; whoa; they MULTIPLY by THE NUMBER OF DAYS???? Heck i didn’t even know communists already invented NUMBERS!
So, lets do the calculation to determine when we’re all toast.
From 1st Jan up to (and including) 21st Aug = 233 days (in a non-leap year).
That means we are using 100% of the year’s allotted resources in just 0.64 years.
Let’s round it up to two thirds of a year to keep things simple.
So by my crude calculations, we’re using about 50% more resources than the earth can ultimately provide (using all three thirds of a year’s resources in just the first two thirds of the year – three thirds is 50% more than two thirds). Now, lets load these figures into my super computer.
Oh no, stop the car! That means we’re all going to run out of resources in the year 2942 instead of the generally accepted year 3408 (after factoring in technological advances, as well as yet undiscovered and untapped energy resources, and an infinite number of “unknowns”). My final figure is accurate to +/- 23 minutes with a 99.84% confidence rating.
If anyone wishes to see my data and computer codes, they can off.
Form their website:
“Together with hundreds of individuals, 200 cities, 23 nations, leading business, scientists, NGO’s, academics and our 90-plus global Partners — spanning six continents — we are advancing the impact of the Footprint in the world, applying it to practical projects and sparking a global dialogue about a one-planet future and how we can facilitate change.”
Just another one of those “I have mine but you can’t have one” groups. They never apply what they preach to themselves. If all of the people they mention above suddenly went away how much longer would this stupid footprint clock run before we ran out? The nerve of these people…..
fredb: August 22, 2010 at 1:14 am
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.
So, what’s the posted speed limit for resource creation, fred?
Be specific, please.
These are pathetic, paranoid little people with low self esteem and large egos that demand recognition of their ( self-declared ) valiant efforts to save humanity from itself. Not a new phenomena by any means, but until the advent of the internet their squealing was rarely heard beyond shouting distance. Best course of action is to ignore them. Unfortunately , some of them have ascended to positions of political power which makes them dangerous, instead of just annoying.
Jimbo says:
August 22, 2010 at 4:33 am
“Talking about ecology and overshoot it looks like this good professor has just shot himself in the foot.
——————————————
Guy R. McPherson, Professor Emeritus”
Googled him; he doesn’t have new product on Amazon to sell, so he’s not just on a promo blitz it seems. And he seems to have abandoned his academia career to live off the grid now. At least he seems to believe in his own words; as opposed to Dr. h.c. Albert Gore.
IOW, he’s doing what we always demand from catastrophists; to let actions follow their words. He’s wrong nevertheless in my opinion, but he’s consequential.
So does the “purchase” of “just bonds” qualify for a charitable deduction on tax day?
Jimbo: August 22, 2010 at 4:33 am
Talking about ecology and overshoot it looks like this good professor has just shot himself in the foot.
“In 2009 at the height of a productive career, McPherson left the university to prepare for collapse. He now lives in an off-grid, straw-bale house…”
He’s left his job, he lives in an off-grid house straw hut, and — he maintains a blog.
Does anybody else find that incongruous?
Per Strandberg says:
August 22, 2010 at 3:55 am
“It seems to me that this is just another well funded anonymous NGO with self appointed academical experts and bureaucrats in an ever expanding network of organizations and thinks thanks in the eco-sustainability-global-warming industrial complex connected to the Club of Rome, UNEP, Soros, Rockefeller Foundation who just want to rule us and take over the world.”
Energy independence on a national, (or even a household scale) would seem to me to really rather liberating.
See what happens when they can’t get their signals straight? Obama spent how much that we don’t have to buy everyone in the US (including illegal aliens) a swine flu (H1N1) vaccine shot, of which around half are getting tossed out, when what this country and world really needs is a good-old-fashioned plague to wipe out the weak who are least able to provide their own food from the land and sea if needed, and least able to withstand extremes of weather.
Ah heck, maybe some smart bio-researchers somewhere will do humanity a favor and “cut to the chase,” and genetically engineer something to cull some of the deadwood. Offhand a good choice would be a bacterium, a modification of a common one like E. Coli for good distribution, that healthy people would shrug off but it would take hold and quickly kill off anyone with a compromised immune system. You know, people with HIV/AIDS infections, organ transplant recipients, elderly and infirm, those who due to their conditions are consuming more than their fair share. How many valuable resources are consumed by a single hospital stay? Hey, if we’re going to save the planet we have to make sacrifices, and those who can’t help using more than others should be at the top of the list.
Am I serious? Personally, nah, this article is just more “sustainability” nonsense. But seriously? We already have terrorists and other extremists willing to “do anything necessary” for their important causes. What can be more important than saving the planet? There are people out there considering this, there are people working at making this culling a reality. Count on it.
My first thought when reading this was, the overshoot problem must have been continuously shifting in the past as we increased food production through technology and increased CO2, etc. To me, the real test of this hypothesis would be when the planet can no longer support its population, something that we haven’t yet seen. This whole notion of overshoot seems to be an agenda looking for some rationale to justify it.
fredB
Where do I pay the speeding tickets? Like I don’t have to got to resource court or nothing? It’s cheaper than skipping work at the coal plant!
Articles like this can cause people to have nightmares or worse. A little crap and a little more math can be very dangerous things. By my calculations, given current world population at 6.8 billion, it kinda means that there’s about 2.3 billion more of us than there should be. When we’re given such information it leads us to thoughts we should not think, like who do we need to eradicate or deny reproductive rights to, or turn into energy bars for the rest of us to live on. Life can be so complicated. Ain’t it great that we so often find simple solutions to gordian knots?
Lets see now it is okay to go into monetary debt, spend money we don’t have, consuming earth’s resources we don’t really need to consume, via the most inefficient method (centralized government). But not okay to consume earth’s resources. Hm – I’m confused here, who is the bad guy here?
Tim Williams says:
August 22, 2010 at 5:57 am
Per Strandberg says:
August 22, 2010 at 3:55 am
Energy independence on a national, (or even a household scale) would seem to me to really rather liberating.
Energy independence? Don’t be naive. It isn’t about that at all. But it’s a nice, convenient hook for those willing to buy it. Nor is it about pollution, another one of their favorite ploys.
Tim Williams: August 22, 2010 at 12:42 am
If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this…
Needs more drowning polar bears burning up…
“-income of £68,193 from Comic Relief towards developing an alternative
carbon market product.”
a timely piece of info as I was just about to contribute, against my better judgement, to the funds of a person cycling to France on behalf of Comic Relief.
Upon reading this my double-take was comic, my relief was palpable, and my long held suspicion of the plethora of charitable institutions and the persons who direct them, confirmed.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 22, 2010 at 6:09 am
There are people out there considering this, there are people working at making this culling a reality. Count on it.
There were some people who seriously considered that AIDS was designed to that purpose.
Time to tell a tale.
There was a culture where when people became old and were not productive for the family, they were given a bowl of food and sent away from to seek life and mostly death wherever the road led them.
A grandfather was being sent off in this manner and his young grandson was watching the departure, and asked his father : “why does grand dad have to go?”
The father explained that it was time for grandfather to go, since he was so old and could not help in supporting the family any more.
Then the father sees the child taking a piece of wood and beginning to sculpt it. “what are you doing?” he asked . The child replied: ” I am making the bowl you will need when it is time for you to go”.
The story has it that the father was shamed and brought his father back.
I do not know in the scenario you describe who will be the father and who will be the child, but for sure, a boomerang there will be, as AIDS showed, even if it evolved naturally.
Yeah, with no doubt we are heading toward an ecological disaster: We may have a premature death after reading such nonsense.
Can anyone link to good quality critiques of the NEF claim? Or indeed the ‘world population is over three times the carrying capacity of the Earth’ number that the WWF came up with a few years back? And which is quoted endlessly by every environmental advocacy on the planet.
No-one seems to dare to question the numbers – I certainly cannot find academic papers that do so – but that may be because I am unusually poor at searching the web.
Any pointers would be gratefully received – and presumably of general use in debunking what I suspect is Eco Myth Number One.
Thanks
Dominic
This seems to be little more than a hotch potch of loosely related ideas in an attempt to produce a resource budget. Some of the ideas are contradictory – human release of CO2 is not the consumption of a resource, but the bestowment of a benefit; production of agricultural products, cannot, by definition, be used up 3 months before the end of the year, since there is enough available (CO2 will increase this yield further). They say fish stocks are lower than ever, but prices of frozen fish in my store are lower than ever – how can that be?
D. King says:
August 22, 2010 at 2:16 am
UK Sceptic says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:56 am
These nut jobs are British?
face/palm
I’ll trade you for these, and I’ll throw in a six-pack of Bud.
lol. I’ve gotta save that one! But I’m wondering if you know their ancestry? Any chances there’s a Brit or two in the family tree?…..whoot!
fredb says:
August 22, 2010 at 1:14 am
“Wow … I’ve never seen a better set of comments that display a collective head-in-the-sand and it’s-my-right-to-do-as-I-want mentality. No wonder the majority of the world is made of exploited people. Guess who’s doing the exploitation.
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.”
Sure Fred, because we know all of the dynamics that go into resource creation and all of the types of resources our descendants will use. And know all of the finite amount of resources available…………….oh, wait, we don’t know any of those things. Get a grip.
What a load.
This has gone beyond religion.
It is pathology.
And fortunately many of you can see it.
That professor living in his grass hut raising rabbits and tomatoes, that is the pastoral Utopia intended for those of us that survive the Eco=Fascist Culling ( to borrow some of the ideas expressed).
The political position and its self fulfilling prophecies feed one another in the worst way possible. They require us to cancel the future.
It is no different from millennial catastrophism in its fatalistic and demeaning repose.
Haven’t any of these Morons seen Start Trek ?
Star Trek.
You know what I mean.
Another name for “earth overshoot”: Lip service
Paying lip service to themselves and others in thinking they can actually quantify this crap with real numbers, in real time, with real results… they’re ‘keeping track’ and ‘staying on top of it’.
What a joke.
So, just in the interest of interest, I clicked a link and read some of the specialist definitions of the parameters that they pretend to calculate.
And then back at the article, and it struck me.
How convenient for them that all of those complex resource, capacity and consumtion data, and calculations from over 150 countries since 1961 can be boiled down to simply
3/4 x 365
An equation so simple even I could do it. ( with time, mind you)
I wonder what really goes on in these places.
2/3… 3/4 what’s a few percent in the big picture anyway ?
Bruce Cobb says:
“Energy independence? Don’t be naive. It isn’t about that at all. But it’s a nice, convenient hook for those willing to buy it. Nor is it about pollution, another one of their favorite ploys.”
Please could you tell me as succinctly as you can what ‘it’ is all about, and who exactly ‘they’ are? Please provide any pertinent links if you think that would help.
“Please could you tell me as succinctly as you can what ‘it’ is all about, and who exactly ‘they’ are? Please provide any pertinent links if you think that would help.”
Sigh, you can look this up yourself, the “they” is as I describe it.
It is about the bankers that have poured money into Carbon trading schemes. Look at the money that has gone into the CCE for one and you can see the people who want that to take effect. A lot of money went into that.
Its a trail of money, pure and simple. Just look up money that went into any carbon credit industry, and you will see a who’s who of “those behind climate change hysteria”.
The scientists are part of the “they” because they have gotten fat off of bad science for years and not doing this will make them lose their positions, careers, and possibly even result in jail time (although I find that unlikely to happen.)
The environmental groups from WWF, to Earth first have gotten fat off of this from donations from “guilty conscious” oil companies all the way down to tax-payer monies. When the first few billion that goes into an enviromental group is spent on “salaries” and upkeep every year, its time to really figure out if that group is worth anything.
Just start there, you will be surprised what you find…and a little shocked. The people in charge of those organizations and the scientists all seem linked. It is not a conspiracy as some claim, but namely a who’s who of people who are stuck in that position and removing themselves is impossible…once money is invested, or the papers published, its a little hard to say “I was wrong, give me my good name/money back.”
BBD wants some pointers to debunking this myth. Dont know whether it is of any interest, but I came across this:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldgrgraph.html
and:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopchggraph.html
from the international database of the US census. The graphs seem to indicate that world population is or will be in decline.
These are good links – worth a look since they show the falling rate of growth in population. The usual line on this is that population growth is ‘exponential’ – which it clearly is not.
Thanks nemesis. The curtain is lifted a bit…
Anyone else found solid sources that rebut the claims that human consumption has outstripped the biosphere?
Specifically, the WWF claim about population already being three times over what the Earth can sustain. I am deeply suspicious of this, but it has become a ‘fact’ which is now ubiquitous.
If something is not sustainable, it will not be sustained.
Since the population and the food supply are clearly sustainable, the problem is how to make them un-sustainable.
A carbon tax should do the trick. The tax can be periodically raised until people begin to get hungry — then the blame will be placed on the primary source of widespread sustainability: the free market. When enough people are made dependent on the government, then the continued growth of the bureaucracy will be sustainable.
Win-win! —> [for those who seek control over our lives and assets.]
But for the rest of us? Not so much. ☹
Smokey says:
August 22, 2010 at 5:56 pm
“If something is not sustainable, it will not be sustained.”
When you’re talking sustainability, it’s best to have some lovely global warming, lots of energy, and few restrictions of food production. So why aren’t the Malthusiastic (enthusiastic Malthusians!) groups keeping their mouths shut and just squirreling away what they need to survive the big crash and burn? I think the rest of your comment answered that.
And…..
W^L+ says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:42 pm
“[…] I do want to note that if global cooling occurs, world food production will drop and there will be lots of people starving (and freezing) to death.”
Problem solved, eh? Why isn’t Global Footprint Network sounding the warning? I think Smokey has it about right.
Leaving you all with this TV show/philisophical mashup; “Curb your Malthusiasm!”
“We get gamed by the system because institutions and government agencies are promoting themselves, and most people haven’t taken a statistics class, and aren’t professional science journalists with all this time to wallow around in a scientific paper,” Blum said.
She cautions against believing numbers without some kind of understanding of where they come from.
“There’s some outstanding work out there, and sometimes numbers give us a valuable portrait of what’s going on,” she said. “But if you’re talking policy issues that affect the lives of people and of animals, that influence our lives in an everyday sense, you have to realize that numbers can be deceptive in their simplicity, and often tell a false story.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/08/18/petscol081810.DTL
DirkH, of course multiplying, what else? If you get a 0.65 out of your capacity/usage… not that there is any sustainablility to calculate such nonsense.
How many times have we all died from starvation since Malthus started telling us in 1798 that the population was unsustainable? By the calculations of Paul Ehrlich, we all died in the 1970’s. There are only so many times that I’m going to hear “We’re all gonna die!” before I start saying that it’s just more BS.
Ben says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:51 pm
“Sigh, you can look this up yourself, the “they” is as I describe it.”
Sorry to be so tiresome but before I started reading here it really was news to me to think that a global warming scam had been hoisted on us, the peoples of the world, by the corruption of science, a corruption that took in (and continues to bamboozle) virtually every national science academy in the world.
I’m sorry you couldn’t help me with any useful links to help my research. In my quest to understand I resorted to googling ‘bad climate science’ and first on the list was an outrageous attack on some Dr Richard Lindzen about him not being a very good scientist (preposturous given his envialble pulishing record in peer review).
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/12/more-bad-climate-science-from-the-wall-street-journal-editorial-page.html?cid=6a00e551f080038834012875fad28f970c
Tim Williams says:
August 23, 2010 at 1:21 am
Sorry to be so tiresome but before I started reading here it really was news to me to think that a global warming scam had been hoisted on us, the peoples of the world, by the corruption of science, a corruption that took in (and continues to bamboozle) virtually every national science academy in the world.
I believe the word you want is “foisted”, not “hoisted”. What’s tiresome are Warmist trolls coming here feigning (that means pretending) interest in the subject at hand, and using the same, tired, straw man arguments such as yours.
…preposturous given his envialble pulishing record…
Sorry, what language are you speaking – Trollese? Try learning the English language. You’ll get on ever so much better here.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t help me with any useful links to help my research. In my quest to understand I resorted to googling ‘bad climate science’ and first on the list was an outrageous attack on some Dr Richard Lindzen about him not being a very good scientist (preposturous given his envialble pulishing record in peer review).”
Well, trolling or not, you’ve managed to pick out one of the most obvious
manifestations of this egregious behavior, that the tone of your post, seemingly dismisses.
Continue to peel the orange, and maybe you’ll find that other popular targets are wrongly vilified as well .
Good luck, pilgrim.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm just like when we quit paying for government..WUWT reports you decide.