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Global Warming was just one issue The Club of Rome (TCOR) targeted in its campaign to reduce world population. In 1993 the Club’s co-founder, Alexander King with Bertrand Schneider wrote The First Global Revolution stating,
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
They believe all these problems are created by humans but exacerbated by a growing population using technology. “Changed attitudes and behavior” basically means what it has meant from the time Thomas Malthus raised the idea the world was overpopulated. He believed charity and laws to help the poor were a major cause of the problem and it was necessary to reduce population through rules and regulations. TCOR ideas all ended up in the political activities of the Rio 1992 conference organized by Maurice Strong (a TCOR member) under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The assumptions and objectives became the main structure of Agenda 21, the master plan for the 21st Century. The global warming threat was confronted at Rio through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was structured to predetermine scientific proof that human CO2 was one contribution of the “common enemy”.
The IPCC was very successful. Despite all the revelations about corrupted science and their failed predictions (projections) CO2 remains central to global attention about energy and environment. For example, several websites, many provided by government, list CO2 output levels for new and used cars. Automobile companies work to build cars with lower CO2 output and, if for no other reason than to appear green, use it in advertising. The automotive industry, which has the scientists to know better, collectively surrenders to eco-bullying about CO2. They are not alone. They get away with it because they pass on the unnecessary costs to a befuddled “trying to do the right thing” population.
TCOR applied Thomas Malthus’s claim of a race to exhaustion of food to all resources. Both Malthus and COR believe limiting population was mandatory. Darwin took a copy of Malthus’s Essay on Population with him and remarked on its influence on his evolutionary theory in his Beagle journal in September 1838. The seeds of distortion about overpopulation were sown in Darwin’s acceptance of Malthus’s claims.
Paul Johnson’s biography of Charles Darwin comments on the contradiction between Darwin’s scientific methods and his acceptance of their omission in Malthus.
Malthus’s aim was to discourage charity and reform the existing poor laws, which, he argued, encourage the destitute to breed and so aggravated the problem. That was not Darwin’s concern. What struck him was the contrast between geometrical progression (breeding) and arithmetical progression (food supplies). Not being a mathematician he did not check the reasoning and accuracy behind Malthus’s law… in fact, Malthus’s law was nonsense. He did not prove it. He stated it. What strikes one reading Malthus is the lack of hard evidence throughout. Why did this not strike Darwin? A mystery. Malthus’s only “proof” was the population expansion of the United States.
There was no point at which Malthus’s geometrical/arithmetical rule could be made to square with the known facts. And he had no reason whatsoever to extrapolate from the high American rates to give a doubling effect every 25 years everywhere and in perpetuity.
He swallowed Malthusianism because it fitted his emotional need, he did not apply the tests and deploy the skepticism that a scientist should. It was a rare lapse from the discipline of his profession. But it was an important one.
Darwin’s promotion of Malthus undoubtedly gave the ideas credibility they didn’t deserve. Since then the Malthusian claim has dominated science, social science and latterly environmentalism. Even now many who accept the falsity of global warming due to humans continue to believe overpopulation is a real problem.
Overpopulation was central in all TCOR’s activities. Three books were important to their message, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968) and Ecoscience: Population, Resources and Environment (1977) co-authored with John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, and Meadows et al., Limits to Growth, published in 1972 that anticipated the IPCC approach of computer model predictions (projections). The latter wrote
If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.
Here is what the TCOR web site says about the book.
They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection.
They estimated the current amount of a resource, determined the rate of consumption, and added an expanding demand because of increasing industrialization and population growth to determine, with simple linear trend analysis, that the world was doomed.
Economist Julian Simon challenged TCOR and Ehrlich’s assumptions.
In response to Ehrlich’s published claim that “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000” – a proposition Simon regarded as too silly to bother with – Simon countered with “a public offer to stake US$10,000 … on my belief that the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run.”
Simon proposed,
You could name your own terms: select any raw material you wanted – copper, tin, whatever – and select any date in the future, “any date more than a year away,” and Simon would bet that the commodity’s price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.
John Holdren selected the materials and the time. Simon won the bet.
Global warming used the idea that CO2 would increase to harmful levels because of increasing industrialization and expanding populations. The political manipulation of climate science was linked to development and population control in various ways. Here are comments from a PBS interview with Senator Tim Wirth in response to the question, “What was it in the late 80s, do you think, that made the issue [of global warming] take off?” He replied,
I think a number of things happened in the late 1980s. First of all, there were the [NASA scientist Jim] Hansen hearings [in 1988]. … We had introduced a major piece of legislation. Amazingly enough, it was an 18-part climate change bill; it had population in it, conservation, and it had nuclear in it. It had everything that we could think of that was related to climate change. … And so we had this set of hearings, and Jim Hansen was the star witness.
Wikipedia says about Wirth,
In the State Department, he worked with Vice President Al Gore on global environmental and population issues, supporting the administration’s views on global warming. A supporter of the proposed Kyoto Protocol Wirth announced the U.S.’s commitment to legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Gore chaired the 1988 “Hansen” Senate Hearing and was central to the promotion of population as basic to all other problems. He led the US delegation to the September 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo Egypt.
That conference emerged from Rio 1992 where they linked population to all other supposed problems.
Explicitly integrating population into economic and development strategies will both speed up the pace of sustainable development and poverty alleviation and contribute to the achievement of population objectives and an improved quality of life of the population.
This theme was central to Rio+20 held in June 2012 and designed to re-emphasize Rio 1992.
The Numbers
The world is not overpopulated. That fallacy is perpetuated in all environmental research, policy and planning including global warming and latterly climate change. So what are the facts about world population?
The US Census Bureau provides a running estimate of world population. It was 6,994,551,619 on February 15, 2012. On October 30, 2011 the UN claimed it passed 7 billion; the difference is 5,448,381. This is more than the population of 129 countries of the 242 listed by Wikipedia. It confirms most statistics are crude estimates, especially those of the UN who rely on individual member countries, yet no accurate census exists for any of them
Population density is a more meaningful measure. Most people are concentrated in coastal flood plains and deltas, which are about 5 percent of the land. Compare Canada, the second largest country in the world with approximately 35.3 million residents estimated in 2013 with California where an estimated 37.3 million people lived in 2010. Some illustrate the insignificance of the density issue by putting everyone in a known region. For example, Texas at 7,438,152,268,800 square feet divided by the 2012 world population 6,994,551,619 yields 1063.4 square feet per person. Fitting all the people in an area is different from them being able to live there. Most of the world is unoccupied by humans.
Population geographers separate ecumene, the inhabited area, from non-ecumene the uninhabited areas. The distribution of each changes over time because of technology, communications and food production capacity. Many of these changes deal with climate controls. Use of fire and clothing allowed survival in colder regions, while irrigation offset droughts and allowed settlement in arid regions. Modern environmentalists would likely oppose all of these touted evolutionary advances.
Ironically The Fallacious Problem is The Solution
It all sounds too familiar in the exploitation of science for a political and personal agenda. But there is an even bigger tragedy because the development the TCOR and IPCC condemn is actually the solution.
All of the population predictions Ehrlich and others made were wrong, but more important and damning was they ignored another pattern that was identified in 1929 and developed over the same period as the Mathusian claims. It is known as the Demographic Transition.
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It shows and statistics confirm, population declines as nations industrialize and the economy grows. It is so dramatic in developed countries that the population pyramid results in insufficient young people to support the massively expensive social programs for the elderly. Some countries offset this with migration, but they are simply creating other problems. Countries that don’t allow or severely limit migration such as Japan face completely different problems. Some countries offer incentives for having more than two children, such as the announcement by Vladimir Putin in Russia. China took draconian, inhuman, steps by limiting families to one child. The irony, although there is nothing funny about it, is they are now the largest producer of CO2 and their economy booms. If they had simply studied the demographic transition and let things take a normal course the tragedies already incurred and yet to unfold could have been avoided.
The world is not overpopulated. Malthus began the idea suggesting the population would outgrow the food supply. Currently food production is believed sufficient to feed 25 billion people and growing. The issue is that in the developing world some 60 percent of production never makes it to the table. Developed nations cut this figure to 30 percent primarily through refrigeration. In their blind zeal those who brought you the IPCC fiasco cut their teeth on the technological solution to this problem – better and cheaper refrigeration. The CFC/ ozone issue was artificially created to ban CFCs and introduce global control through the Montreal Protocol. It, like the Kyoto Protocol was a massive, expensive, unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem.
TCOR and later UNEP’s Agenda 21 adopted and expanded the Malthusian idea of overpopulation to all resources making it the central tenet of all their politics and policies. The IPCC was set up to assign the blame of global warming and latterly climate change on human produced CO2 from an industrialized expanding population. They both developed from false assumptions, used manipulated data and science, which they combined into computer models whose projections were, not surprisingly, wrong. The result is the fallacy of global warming due to human CO2 is a subset built on the fallacy of overpopulation.
Global warming appears to be exaggerated, but I’m all for reducing world population, and I’m fed up with growth for growth’s sake.
On the Malthusian Fallacy, don’t miss Dan Brown’s latest ‘Robert Langdon’ tale Inferno.
GregS, I have never met anyone who promotes population growth for growth’s sake, so stop with the silly strawmen.
The only conceivable reason for stopping population growth would be if you could demonstrate that it is a problem. To date, no one has been able to do that, indeed, the opposite is probably true. As Julian Simon stated, more people means more minds working on the world’s problems.
re: “population declines as nations industrialize”
I think it’s the advent of pension systems. No pension: = people have ~8 kids to ensure there is one to take care of them when they are old.
Coldly calculated Industrialization means the need to keep people in the workforce and not taking care of elderly parents. Social Security wasn’t just DC being nice.
Why don’t any of the stop-overpopulation campaigners get this? I don’t mean you. I mean folks like Bill Gates.
So the world is not overpopulated: I’m sure the 300 million women who have no access to family planning will feel a lot better when you tell them that.
Family planning remains the most cost-effective technology we have for reducing poverty.
So the world can produce much more food? Tell that to the elephant, orang-utan and tiger. I’m sure they will happily give up their habitats for you to grow more food.
Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.
I forgot to add, I want a sustainable earth, too. Its just that the way to do it is
-have everyone on earth due an old age pension
-change the monetary system to one where money is not created as debt
CO2 is irrelevant. CAGW is the warmists way of praying. They simply do not know how to actually achieve what they really want.
Thank you Dr Ball a very good article. Much needs to be done to educate our current crop of politicians.
GregS: How would you reduce world population? Grinding poverty, lack of industrialization, diseases like malaria, Chinese-type population control, war, euthanasia? And for what reason? The predictions made by Malthus, TCOR and idiots like Ehrlich have been demonstrably false. Remember, Ehrlich was predicting mass starvation, wars over non-existent resources, failure of energy supplies and the next ice age by the mid-1980’s.
Good essay, Dr. Ball. You very nicely summarize the failed predictions of the environmentalists and others. I keep being amazed by the fact that people can still make claims like climate refugees, climate wars, energy failure from peak oil/coal/etc, when the facts are demonstrably just the opposite.
Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity nor the power of human stupidity. Which will win?
@Cheyne Gordon,
the very fact that you need to invite me on an imaginary journey to “the slums of Africa or Asia”, to let me see what you want to show me, proves that your argument doesn’t hold water. If THE WORLD were overpopulated, similar sights would logically be found less than a few miles away from you or me, not only on other continents. The situation in the slums of Africa or Asia might indicate that these slums are overpopulated, it says NOTHING about the world as a whole.
What are CBR, BDR? Combined (?) Birth Rate & Combined (?) Death Rate? It is left to be ciphered or researched.
I hope more people read this article than this blog. It demonstrates the wider battle the average person is up against, against the Left (I am Left because I can use your money to destroy your way of life!).
There is a big universe out there and we don’t occupy much of it.
Bob Geene wrote
“Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity nor the power of human stupidity. Which will win?”
The ingenuity will be used to get out the hole stupidity dug
You mentioned Julian Simon!
Don’t you know that he was supposed to be written out of history?
He used real data to blow all the doom-mongers out of the water, and is a hate figure of the Left second only to Margaret Thatcher. They spent a lot of time and trouble suppressing his memory. By now I honestly didn’t expect to hear his name spoken of again…
GregS says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:19 pm
Global warming appears to be exaggerated, but I’m all for reducing world population, and I’m fed up with growth for growth’s sake.
_______________________________________________
You may lead by example.
Malthus was correct concerning populations in a native environment. Boom-bust populations have been verified in predator-prey relationships; overview seminar slides here (pdf download). Boom-busts occur because natural populations overshoot their food supply and then crash. It happened in early human societies, too, with crashes mainly occurring due to famine years after poor harvests. Malthus grew up in a society that had only just emerged from the ever-present threat of famine and mass starvation.
Darwin applied Malthus’ idea to the natural populations he observed, and was correct to do so. His perceptive hypothesis has been widely verified since then.
Humans have escaped the Malthus trap only because of science and technology, plus the creative innovation brought by individual freedom. The first door out of the Malthus trap was the early modern agricultural revolution that began in Holland in the 17th century and then spread to England. Amazingly, that revolution involved the dual discovery that clover crops increased soil fertility, and that rotating crops husbanded soils further. These two truly revolutionary discoveries increased available farmlands immediately by 1/3 and increased crop yields, both. Holland and England were free of famine by 1750, with the rest of Europe following later.
Malthus was wrong about humanity only because he could not forsee the impact of science and technology. These, operating in freedom, are the drivers of the good news about the non-crisis of population in Tim Ball’s essay.
Modern farming can feed the entire present population of the world without increasing the land now under cultivation — something that cannot be said of organic farms. One may suppose that, as Africa and Asia enter into modern industrialized economies, the improvement in their own agricultural methods up to modern standards will actually reduce the amount of land needed for food production. The truly eco-conscious will applaud that transition, in view of the concommittant increase in wilderness habitat that will accompany it.
Cheyne Gordon: 300 million women have not access to family planning? Does approximately 8% of the world population not having access to family planning cause world poverty? And why don’t they have access or practice family planning? I believe you will find as technology and societal wealth increases, the population growth rate decreases. Poverty is the problem, not some lack of family planning.
The slums of Africa and Asia are signs of over population or are they really signs of lack of technological growth, such as clean water, inexpensive power and the like? Environmentalists policies will do more to increase and sustain poverty than technological growth.
Population control to reduce poverty? How would you do it? I believe we’ve had enough failed eugenics policies over the past century or so.
Doug Huffman says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:23 pm
I enjoy Dan Brown’s novels, and the portrayal of Langdon by Tom Hanks in the movies. But, they are fantasy novels, not reality. The best fiction, or at least, the most fun for me, draws you in because it has vestiges of truth which allow you to become absorbed in the story while suspending disbelief. But, the Merovingians were not actually descendents of Jesus of Nazereth, and an air-burst of a nuclear weapons-level explosion above Rome at helicopter altitudes would actually be much worse than a ground burst.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“So the world can produce much more food? Tell that to the elephant, orang-utan and tiger. I’m sure they will happily give up their habitats for you to grow more food.”
Elephants, orangutans, and tigers are threatened by poachers who can sell their body parts to get scarce food, not by efficient plots of farmland which could be created to feed those poachers and their families.
What should appall you, if you really care about endangered species, is the slaughter of rare raptors by useless windmills.
A quote from part 3 of a BBC radio programme The Age We Made sums up its themes, in particular CAGW, that humanity is doomed to annihilate itself:
“I like to compare what’s going on today to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, except now we’re the asteroid.”
http://wanderinggaia.com/2012/11/15/anthropocene-radio-series-on-the-bbc/
(Andrew Luck-Baker, a science producer at the BBC, is with the Spirit of Mawson expedition and was involved in making The Age We Made.)
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/aae-media/
Population is on track to level off at ~ 9B by 2050, a UN calculation no less.
U.N. estimates for 2050 are down from 9.4 billion to 8.9 billion. The population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion by 2300.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-09-worldpop-usat_x.htm
As an engineer, I like to size up “problems” rather than stare at a big number. Some years ago, I calculated that 6B people could fit into Lake Superior, each with 15sqm to tread water in – not a nice thought but it did quantify the problem. The rest of the math was that 90B people could fit into the lake with a square meter to tread water in. Now spread them out over the globe…. and think about it.
The declining fertility rate with economic development is well known. If, instead of blocking economic development in Africa by denying them fossil-fired or even the hated clean hydro electrical power, plus the activities the anti-development NGOs and their minions who frustrate development of mineral resources and other prosperity avenues, the peak would probably come earlier (I’ve seen NGOs in action from fledgling beginnings in Africa from as far back as the 1960s and in later visits a decade ago, I was appalled to see so little real development – apparently by 2000, over $50 trillion had been spent and this is what they got out of it!)
There is no lack of resources, just lack of imagination by the naysayers.
Thank you, an excellent article, Dr Ball. It has always seemed to me that people who protest about overpopulation come from crowded cities and often travel from crowded city to crowded city at high speed via planes. This gives a warped view of the rest of the world, most of which does not contain anyone at all.
The world is a lot larger than we think, and a lot tougher, too, yet people are taught to think of it as small and fragile. Add to that looking out over crowds, and you have a population sucked into believing the worst of humankind and seeing “sin” everywhere.
I would like to see some of these alarmists taken out to wilderness areas and left to walk home. I’ve lived out there, I know what it’s like. They’d soon learn appreciation for vastness, but alas, we are too kind with them.
Gary Pearse says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:06 pm
Well said.
There was no Great Famine ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_famines
Most of the world is near zero-population growth (ignoring immigration), the main exceptions being equatorial Africa and parts of south Asia. Even there, population growth is slowing.
We may well see a stable global population by the middle of this century.
As Dr. Ball polnts out, the main driver to less fecundity is a modern lifestyle. In other words, widespread affluence will ultimately reduce the pressure on the world’s resources, a counter-intuitive result.
Taking their elitist thinking to its logical conclusion, they would view genocide as a viable option to reining in the growth of human population.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.”
Why spend all the money on a plane ticket? Just take a stroll through the slums of America . . .
The economies of Asia and much of Africa are among the fastest growing today.
Much of Asia already has a problem of declining populations, it’s only a matter of time before industrialized Africa faces the same demographic transition.
Cheyne Gordon says:
“Family planning remains the most cost-effective technology we have for reducing poverty.”
Well, that is a completely wrong statement. Captialism is the most cost-effective effective technology we have for reducing poverty, bar none.
When you begin with an incorrect premise, your conclusions will necessarily be wrong.
Dr Ball writes:
The world is not overpopulated.
That is certainly true. We had this discussion here a few years ago. The entire population of the Earth could fit within a 1-cubic kilometer sphere, with plenty of room to spare.
The ‘problem’ is that people want to live in choice places, and since there are not enough choice places, those places get crowded. But we live on a big, big planet, and we can easily produce enough food to feed everyone. Therefore, “overpopulation” is an invented non-problem. Want to avoid overpopulation? Then move to the boonies, and away from everyone. ‘Problem’ solved. But of course, new problems will appear.
AGW is a similar non-problem. But because there is a Chicken Little syndrome present in a large part of the population, self-serving scamsters have appeared to prey upon their fears. But the reality is that AGW is only a tiny acorn — it is not the sky falling.
I argue that resources also increase exponentially:
1-we explore more of the earth’s surface
2- We explore deeper in the earth
3 – we can recover less concentrated materials
4- we material more efficiently
Example: oil – deeper wells; fracking
thanks
jk
Reblogged this on Johnsono ne'Blog'as.
Another educational and provocative post by Dr. Ball. A question, stemming from this: “It confirms most statistics are crude estimates, especially those of the UN who rely on individual member countries, yet no accurate census exists for any of them” I’ve searched the www but cannot find a serious answer as to how many, or even which countries carry out a census.
I did GIS estimate of my country’s populated area by both cadastre data, and by clutter usage (more accurate by showing where the actual people are, but less politically correct) and both my conclusions were WTF! and WTF!!! respectively.
There is no such thing as an overpopulated country. There are some densely populated hot spots, but that still is not a problem of overpopulation. The vast majority of arable areas are in pristine wild condition, and the population is not growing. The other resources fare the same.
So yeah, nice one Dr. Ball
Egads, what a terrible article.
Reblogged this on Power To The People and commented:
Greens Kill Birds and Bats and Other Living Things. They kill by Building Bird and Bat Killing Wind Turbines and Skyrocketing Energy prices that causes fuel poverty that impoverish and Kill Poor people. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/15/james-hansens-policies-are-shafting-the-poor/ Greens kill by Converting tropical rain forests and land that grows food crops into land that grows biofuel crops. Eugenists with a Green shirt.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
So the world is not overpopulated: I’m sure the 300 million women who have no access to family planning will feel a lot better when you tell them that.
Family planning remains the most cost-effective technology we have for reducing poverty.
So the world can produce much more food? Tell that to the elephant, orang-utan and tiger. I’m sure they will happily give up their habitats for you to grow more food.
Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.
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And that has nothing to do with overpopulation and all to do with corrupt governments and corrupter greens who won’t allow cheap energy into these places.
You are really too kind. The emotions behind Agenda 21 and Club of Rome are raving racism and misanthropy coupled with strong class privilege and a desire by a small class of men to create a Neo-Feudal New World Order.
Some members of The Club of Rome:
Algore
George Soros
Bill Clinton
Kofi Annan
Henry Kissinger
Mikhail Gorbachev
Anne Ehrlich (wife of Paul Erlich)
The green elites see the world as portrayed in the book and film Soylent Green.
Al Gore and the rest of the green elite (who deserve it, naturally) live in air conditioned luxury with pretty girls and strawberries, while the rest of the world peddles bikes to keep a light going and eats dead people.
And they will do WHATEVER it takes to ensure this future.
it sure looks like all the consternation is pretty much the nature of living in a city.
we don’t have pollution in the country, we don’t have crime (well, ok- people dump stuff in the woods sometimes), we don’t have a lot of violence or waste or neighbors we don’t know…we don’t have much of anything worthy of enquiring minds’ daily feed…
Cheyne Gordon says: @ January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
So the world is not overpopulated: I’m sure the 300 million women who have no access to family planning will feel a lot better when you tell them that…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You missed THE WHOLE POINT!
Those 300 million women have been intentionally keep poor and therefore breeding like rabbits by the policies of the world elite. It is industrialization that slows birth rate to replacement rate or below. You can see that in this chart
Although I will agree the ‘Poor Laws’ need to be redone. The US government has created a new job catagory – Unwed mother.
This (post) won’t end good.
Best I hold my tongue.
The most cost effective plan for reducing poverty is the creation of wealth.
Gary Pearse says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:06 pm
Gary,
Solid reasoning, from the first word to the last.
MtK
[quote] North of 43 and south of 44 says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:01 pm
You may lead by example.[/quote]
Agreed, and I am, so far, anyway – 49 with no children. Try to follow my lead everyone. A lot of you will fail, which is ok because if you all succeeded that wouldn’t be good.
Argh – I can’t even quote properly – just as well someone stupid like me hasn’t bred.
GregS says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:16 pm
“Agreed, and I am, so far, anyway – 49 with no children. Try to follow my lead everyone. A lot of you will fail, which is ok because if you all succeeded that wouldn’t be good.”
Congratulations for not having offspring. It makes the next generation smarter.
Translation from progressive/commie speak:
Life for me, but not for thee.
u.k.(us) says: @ January 5, 2014 at 4:59 pm
This (post) won’t end good.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately the truth sometimes hurts. The facts Dr. Ball presents can all be backed up from many different sources. I figured the same thing out from a completely different angle.
You can search key words: UNESCO Huxley eugenics and get for example: Over the course of his lifetime, Julian Huxley developed a multifaceted position regarding eugenics, the applied science of improving the genetic composition of the human population. Eugenicists sought to achieve this goal through both encouraging reproduction among fit individuals and discouraging breeding among unfit populations. Huxley was the first director of UNESCO.
or The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget
Now consider the fact that both in the USA and the UK newborns have their DNA taken and stored without the consent of their parents. The USA is also taking the DNA from those accused of a crime and even at police blockades set up for the purpose along with doing alcohol tests.
Then there is the USDA grant used to develop a spermicidal corn. link
So in this day and age, Why is Royal Society hosting pro-eugenics conference? (2004)
England’s population density, spread over the earth…Approximately 130 Billion…
England, not too crowded. Japan – Too crowded due to lack of flat land space. Italy similar problem.
If the USA wasn’t so “cowardly” we could have had 1000 of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A
Say one has a reactor go bad. What do you do? Tow it to the Marianas Trench, sink it. Consumed by the subduction zone eventually.
Sorry I forgot to make my point. Had we produced, say, 1000 of 500 MWE Roving Liberty Ship power plants, we could have ELECTRIFIED THE WORLD after WWII. The PR would have been INCREDIBLE.
Instead, the USA has Pearl Harbor and 9/11 because of our ill educated, self centered, fear of technology, and Neanderthal population.
The link Dr. Ball provided (Demographic Transition: http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/Demotrans/demtran.htm) should be reviewed in depth. There is a wealth of information there that may focus critical thinking and (perhaps) realign preconceived notions.
Good post, Dr. Ball!
Doug Huffman says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:23 pm
On the Malthusian Fallacy, don’t miss Dan Brown’s latest ‘Robert Langdon’ tale Inferno.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks for the recommendation, here are a couple more. “1491” and “1493” both by Charles Mann
and “How Civilizations Die” by David Goodman.
Steve from Rockwood says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:37 pm
Egads, what a terrible article.
++++++++++
Pray tell, why? Make some cogent claim.
When New Zealand had a population less than 2 million it had about the highest standard of living in the world. When I came to New Zealand the population was a little over 2 million. The standard of living was pretty good. University education was free. There was little crime and murders could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I could carry a rifle down the main street of Wellington and no-one would even notice. The police were unarmed. The forests were free to shoot in and trout fishing was a sport of the working man. Now the population is just over 4 million. The standard of living is now near 30th in the world. University education is not free. The crime rate has gone through the roof, comparatively. The murder rate appears to have gone up tenfold. Bank robberies are not unknown. If I appeared on the streets of Wellington carrying a rifle I would probably be shot out of hand by the police. The police now have a gang of rambos or thugs known as the armed offenders squad. They are a bloody menace. The forests are largely closed to shooters. River fishing for trout has been largely buggered with the implementation of green policies. Business regulation has eased but there is far less freedom to pursue one’s interests. Political correctness rules. Give me New Zealand as it was with half the population.
As for what is happening into Britain I would thank my god if I had one that I shook the dust of that country off my feet nearly 60 years ago.
Cheyne Gordon said:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.
———————————–
The world is not overpopulated, we just need redistribution of population, not of wealth 🙂
However, we also need distribution of education and economic freedom. If the populations of the slums of Africa or Asia were relocated, they would most likely establish new slums.
Consider Hong Kong: one of the most densely populated areas in the world, yet this tiny sector, an enclave of freedom in a communist country, enjoys a thriving economy. Its laws, like those of the U.S., are based upon English common-law, which provide a high level of civil liberty. Their education system is also based upon English models. Compare that to the teeming slums of Africa, Asia, India, etc; they are spawned by ignorance, caste systems and other social stratification, repressive governments, repressive religions.
Freedom, liberty, education, self-determination; these could solve many of the problems in Dr Ball’s excellent article.
The common enemy of humanity is liberalism/socialism/communism.
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
I think the Overpopulation Lie is the single most dangerous lie threatening the well-being and existence of the human species. As pointed out in this article the Global Warming Lie and the Overpopulation are are linked, as each provides justification for the other–and for wars and mass murder.
I just recently acquired a book on the subject from one of my favorite authors, Robert Zubrin. “Merchants of Despair,” 2012, is chock full of information you activists can use to counter these lies. It reveals Malthus as the source of Darwinian racism, and Darwin’s misunderstanding of the competition for survival as the source of the Jewish holocaust of WWII–and identical holocausts perpetrated by Britain and the USA against other peoples.
I also have a catalog of horrors called “Death By Government,” 1994, by RJ Rummel.which discusses “169,911,000 Murdered.” Many or all of those atrocities are also based on the scarcity think discussed in this article.
As to irrigation, that is usually done by the most wasteful methods know, and there are indications that the practices will cause desertification and a reduction of the carrying capacity of the Earth’s land masses for vertebrate life. The solution is neither population reduction, nor a crash in economics and technology, but healthier agriculture, using Israel’s drip irrigation–and Permaculture and Sonic Bloom (R).
The real solutions are not government and bad news, but abundance and tons of fun.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.”
Take a walk through Kasachstan and tell me that the world is overpopulated.
People move to the slums you cite voluntarily to improve their situation. A city might offer some combination of: better food security, better sanitation, electricity, schools, safety from violent conflict, better access to safe water, jobs, a higher standard of living, cinemas, internet, cellphone networks, doctors, culture, availability of illicit drugs, availability of mating partners.
People do not move from the countryside into a city slum if they have no reason to. So there must be reasons, don’t you think so.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“Tell that to the elephant, orang-utan and tiger. I’m sure they will happily give up their habitats for you to grow more food”
err not food, not in Borneo, they are being pushed aside by loss of habitat, and in the case of Orangutans actively hunted and killed, to safeguard the new Palm plantations that have been put into the cleared rain forest to produce PALM OIL for BIODIESEL.
I suggest you consider that before you quote the example and try to tag population growth with a Green created issue. Yet another error that the so called Greens have made.
http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutans-Survival-Information/About-Palm-Oil.aspx
Pat Frank says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:03 pm
Amazingly, that revolution involved the dual discovery that clover crops increased soil fertility, and that rotating crops husbanded soils further. These two truly revolutionary discoveries increased available farmlands immediately by 1/3 and increased crop yields, both. ……….
****************************************************************************************************************
Crop rotation was written by Moses in the bible 3500 years ago so nothing new there.
Exo 23:10 “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield,
Exo 23:11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
Roger Dewhurst says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:30 pm
“When New Zealand had a population less than 2 million it had about the highest standard of living in the world. […] The standard of living was pretty good. […] Now the population is just over 4 million. The standard of living is now near 30th in the world.”
So you blame that on one single doubling of population. Hmmm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_density_1994.png
Man, are you lucky that you don’t live in Germany. Must be terrible here.
Well said Dr Ball. I would like to add that there is only one problem in the world. A trillion+ dollar a year arms race to “protect” ourselves from each other. Now I’m not a pacifist or a “beat your swords into ploughs” type. There is a certain amount of arms required.
Can you name me a problem that can’t be solved with 20% of the arms race funds? Nobody can because a problem that size doesn’t exist. Look at the boom we had world wide in the 1990s. There was a 10% reduction in the global arms race for most of the decade.
Now imagine double that for the rest of time! Not much chance of that happening is there. So we continue to spend to protect our empire (yes it is, get over it). Any percentage of that spent on raising the standard of living for the poor will drop the birth rate as fast as anyone can imagine. But the Mathusians must have their way and humans must be the problem so more war is the answer.
How primitive, sad and pathetic.
GregS @3.19 says: “I’m all for reducing world population, and I’m fed up with growth for growth’s sake.” Humans are the highest development on the planet, the most creative and adaptive animal. Why on earth would you want fewer? Economic growth has driven huge improvements in human well-being over the last 200 years, and particularly the last 60. What’s wrong with that?
TobiasN @ 3.32 attributes slowing population growth to pension systems. It has been most pronounced in countries without pension systems.
Cheyne Gordon @ 3.34: see above. It’s only when incomes get past a certain level that we begin to put resources into caring for other species and their environment. I first saw Asian slums over 40 years ago, living standards of Asians have soared since then, stopping growth won’t help those still in poverty. Births will fall as they get wealthier.
TobiasN @ 3.37 want “a sustainable earth.” Tobias, the Earth will sustain itself until it is overwhelmed by the Sun in 4-4 billion years time. The nature of our planet, and all existence, is continual change – nothing is sustainable; there is no “ideal” state which we could or should preserve.
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:24 pm
“Unfortunately the truth sometimes hurts.”…………
—-
Don’t attempt to lecture me …..
I just said it “won’t end good”.
See what I mean ?
Steve B says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:42 pm
Steve B.,
Nice! The lessons taught in the Bible are manifold, to those who can read and understand.
MtK
So the bottom line is that the world is being socially engineered by people who have never been right about anything.
Well…that’s annoying!
The bottom line is – who has the right to decide how many of us live?
A.D.Everard @ 4.08: Good point on how people see the world. Travelling overland from England to India in 1972, I got a much better feel for how we are related to our environment and the aggregates with which economists (like me) often deal arise from individual decisions and circumstances. Two years in and around India reinforced this. CAGW proponents generally seek highly centralised, anti-democratic, solutions. As a retired economic policy adviser, I understand that policies to bring about change depend (in a democracy) on a compact between people and government, they can’t be imposed by fiat. Cf the EU. Even in a dictatorship like China, tensions arise when change is imposed by, and favours, an elite few rather than being through a compact with the people.
Dr. Ball,
Great post! I clearly remember reading books like Ehrlich’s back in the ’70s – Remember “Famine 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive?”. Google “Neo Malthusian” and you’ll get this on wiki:
“There was a general “neo-Malthusian” revival in the 1950s, 60s and 70s after the publication of two influential books in 1948 (Fairfield Osborn’s Our Plundered Planet and William Vogt’s Road to Survival). During that time the population of the world rose dramatically. Many in environmental movements began to sound the alarm regarding the potential dangers of population growth.[1] The Club of Rome published a famous book entitled The Limits to Growth in 1972. The report and the organisation soon became central to the neo-Malthusian revival.[26] Paul R. Ehrlich has been one of the most prominent neo-Malthusians since the publication of The Population Bomb in 1968. Other prominent Malthusians include the Paddock brothers, authors of Famine 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive?.”
Of course it was all tosh and nonsense. Speculation based on conjecture mixed with all kinds of turgid, self-centered, self-hating thought patterns generated by wealthy, do-nothings – so-called intellectuals.
Overpopulation? No. Crowding – perhaps in places.
A bigger question for people’s well-being is demographics. Aging populations with a dearth of new births are headed for trouble because there isn’t a new generation to pay for health-care and social security. When populations crash so do economies – look at Detroit and various locales in Eastern Europe to name a couple of places where the local population has crashed. Property values plunge, things fall into general disrepair – people in general are filled with despair and the young do everything they can to move someplace that is “happening”. A balance of young and old – growing; life; hope for the future.
Crowding. Demographics. Forget “Overpopulation”. It is a figment of human imagination. There’s plenty of room for everyone.
DirkH says: @ January 5, 2014 at 5:35 pm
….People move to the slums you cite voluntarily to improve their situation…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not necessarily, often they are intentionally driven there.
Two examples:
More recently:
6,994,551,619 relative to 7,000,000,000 is 99.92%. The article is trying to suggest inaccuracy where no such inaccuracy exists, thus setting up the strawman argument that if this is inaccurate, everything else must be inaccurate too.
This is silly. Most of Canada is uninhabitable. It is either too mountainous, too barren, too cold, or water covered (and frozen in winter). 85% of Canadians live below the 49th parallel, far less than 10% of the total land mass of our country. How many people live on Mt. Everest? How many people “could” live on Mt. Everest? Probably the same number of people who could live in much of Canada.
Most of the world is water. Then you have Antarctica. Then the deserts, the mountains, the lakes etc. The reason that most of the world is uninhabitable is because most of the world is uninhabitable.
Yet the author makes no attempt to quantify how much of the Earth is habitable. This is central to his thesis yet it is a statement that goes unanswered.
The two most populous countries in the world (China and India) have rising populations even as their economies grow. Birth rates decline as economies improve so the rate of population increase may decline (population still increases) but the few countries that fall below replacement rate supplant their population through immigration. In fact only Russia’s population is declining that I am aware of (in the developed world).
Quebec also offered such incentives because, without immigration, their population was declining. But these are exceptions to the rule. Why focus on 150 million people when you should focus on the 2.5 billion (China and India) who are increasing in population?
This is my biggest problem with the article. “Draconian” and “inhuman”? No. “Drastic”? Yes. China was facing a serious problem of population growth within its very poor peasant population. Very poor people having many children who would be very poor. They had to stop that and they did. I would refer to the steps as “brave” and “drastic”. The rules have been eased somewhat recently. If you and your spouse were both an only child then you can have 2 children. And of course if you have the money you can have a second child (and always could). I think the cost is around $60,000 to the government. Try spending a few weeks in Beijing and you will realize why these actions were necessary.
You blame China for implementing a one child policy and then blame them for emitting more CO2 than any other country. Do you not realize that without population control the situation would have been even worse? Or are you suggesting that with such over-population China would have failed to improve its economy, far more people would have been in poverty and therefore by total CO2 emissions China would not have “succeeded”.
This is a relative statement and not an absolute one. Yes, the world is not over-populated if you divide the surface area of the earth into the number of inhabitants. But this is a very useless task. The real math is to divide the number of haves into the have nots. In this measure our planet is very over populated.
Conspiracy theory nonsense.
The problem is not how many people are on the planet. The problem is the standard of living of the poorest and how we address that. Clearly, calling CO2 a pollutant and increasing taxes to reduce energy use is not the answer.
Dr Ball, the most worrying thing is that what you say has been demonstrated time after time, yet few are aware of it. They are therefore prone to accept the recurrent scare stories such as the population bomb and CAGW. How to counter this? One tactic I use is to get frequent letters on related topics published in Australia’s national newspaper, The Australian, whose readership is more likely to be interested in such issues than the population at large. I have one or two letters in most weeks, so have developed some credibility with the readers. Michael Cunningham.
In reply to:
“The world is not overpopulated. That fallacy is perpetuated in all environmental research, policy and planning including global warming and latterly climate change. So what are the facts about world population?”
“Population density is a more meaningful measure. Most people are concentrated in coastal flood plains and deltas, which are about 5 percent of the land. Compare Canada, the second largest country in the world with approximately 35.3 million residents estimated in 2013 with California where an estimated 37.3 million people lived in 2010.”
William:
You must be living on a different earth. Have you ever visited China? India? Africa? Are you suggesting that we need more people? That there are not enough people? Clearly you do not have friends or children that are looking for work. I would suggest you spend a week or two in Mumbai and then write something that includes facts and firsthand knowledge.
What you write is removed from logical and reason.
There are limits to resources and more importantly there are limits to the number of well paying jobs.
When there are more people than there are jobs, wages go down. Jobs move to the lowest cost of production. There is a race to the bottom. (Same as happened in the great depression.) Initially the low paying manufacturing jobs moved to Asia. That was followed by call centers and company computer help centers and other medium level jobs. Now the higher paying jobs, such as software and engineering are moving from the developing countries to Asia.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443545504577566752847208984
China’s Graduates Face Glut
“China’s universities have churned out more than 39 million graduates with undergraduate or specialized degrees over the past decade, according to the Ministry of Education. People with some college education now account for about 8.9% of China’s population, according to 2010 government data. While that’s a much smaller proportion than the 36.7% of the adult population in the U.S, it’s a sharp rise from China’s 3.6% in 2000.”
http://www.industryweek.com/the-2000s
America lost 5.7 million, or 33%, of its manufacturing jobs in the 2000s. This is a rate of loss unprecedented in U.S. history—worse than in the 1980s, when BusinessWeek warned of deindustrialization and worse than the rate of manufacturing job loss experienced during the Great Depression. While U.S. manufacturing has clawed back, regaining about half a million of those lost manufacturing jobs since 2010, there’s little doubt that the 2000s constituted the worst decade for manufacturing employment in the Republic’s history.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/05/343888/new-delhi-witnesses-over-40-percent-rise-in-crime-in-2013/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_populous_cities_in_India
You can put the entire population of the world in Texas at one sq. yd./per.
TRM says: @ January 5, 2014 at 5:43 pm
…But the Mathusians must have their way and humans must be the problem so more war is the answer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They make a heck of a lot of money out of war and kill off part of the population while they are at it. A win-win from their point of view.
Those persons most frightened by living, are the most aggressive in trying to impose their solutions on everyone else.
It is no coincidence that the most ardent believers in CAGW are also convinced the number of men on this planet is a signal of doom.
@Greg S 5:15, good work but if you also obsess over atmospheric CO2 you need to hold your breath.
It should be no surprise to find that the most intrusive do-gooder, who seek to control all, run your life for you, usually thro the use of a bureaucracy, are frightened of everything.
Not having a life, terrified of children, they devote themselves to saving you.
Reason and honest discussion are not part of their toolkit.
It is always such an urgent matter, that you must surrender your self determination.
We are here to help, we are from the government.
I am coming to the conclusion, a tax on do-gooders shall be compulsory, for all freemen.
155% of their gross income will encourage wisdom.
Or take the pun and make it like whack a snake day.
For some people are indeed so stupid, unreasonable and dangerous that you must drive them into exile.
For todays Chicken Littles I propose Coats Island in Hudson Bay Canada.
It is perfect, no permanent residents(as far as I know), no “carbon intensive infrastructure.
Exile yourselves to this paradise, show me how this eco-friendly, zero carbon life style works.
Naturally I would predict a guaranteed zeroing of population, if you practiced what you preach.
Moses was a johnny-come-lately. The Sumerians were doing it 2,000 years before that, which was recorded on their clay tablets.
Pat Frank says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:03 pm
. . .Modern farming can feed the entire present population of the world without increasing the land now under cultivation — something that cannot be said of organic farms. One may suppose that, as Africa and Asia enter into modern industrialized economies, the improvement in their own agricultural methods up to modern standards will actually reduce the amount of land needed for food production. The truly eco-conscious will applaud that transition, in view of the concommittant increase in wilderness habitat that will accompany it.
———————————————————————————
Mechanized, corporate style farming is capable of feeding the world well for as long as oil is cheap. But oil won’t always remain cheap if demand exceeds productive capacity. Despite oil prices of $100 per barrel, world crude oil production has been essentially flat for eight years. The use of natural gas liquids as a chemical feedstock has taken up most of the growth in demand in recent years. While energy remains abundant and cheap, the liquid fuels used for transportation and agriculture are beginning to be squeezed. The next decade will be interesting times.
Should have read “The reason that most of the world is uninhabited is because most of the world is uninhabitable.”
TRM says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:43 pm
—
Are you seriously trying to claim that the economic boom in the US was caused by a small drop in defense spending, and that alone?
Sheesh, the ability of people to see only what they want to see remains amazing.
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
—-
Mind naming where that garbage came from?
Nobody had to drive people off the land, technology did it all by itself.
New equipment meant that we could grow more food with fewer workers.
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
“DirkH says: @ January 5, 2014 at 5:35 pm
….People move to the slums you cite voluntarily to improve their situation…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not necessarily, often they are intentionally driven there.
Two examples:”
Okay, maybe I should scratch the “voluntarily” and say “People move to the cities to improve their situation”. I mentioned escape from violent conflict; as forced as that is, the escape might improve the situation of the refugee.
China’s Proletariat has officially abandoned the “One Child, One Family” Policy so beloved by Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore (who are such cowards as not being able to kill themselves for the ‘Good’ of the world and fulfill their own wishes) must have both Paul and Al pissing blood these days.
}:-)
bones says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:22 pm
—
We’ve got enough cheap oil to last several hundred years.
Even the UN believes that population will peak by 2050 and start falling.
In 200 years we’ll have other, even better methods of growing food.
“Thomas Malthus raised the idea the world was overpopulated. He believed charity and laws to help the poor were a major cause of the problem and it was necessary to reduce population through rules and regulations. ”
Could you quote where Malthus said those things? That does not fit my memory of the essay on population. Nor does most of the rest of what you say about Malthus, which makes me wonder whether you are basing it on reading him or reading second and third hand accounts.
His central thesis as I remember it was neither that the world was overpopulated nor that rules were necessary to reduce population. It was that the optimistic future projected by Godwin and Condorcet was impossible because if everyone was that well off there would be no incentive for people to hold down birth rates, and if population expanded at the biological maximum it would outrun the food supply. I don’t believe he claimed that population was expanding at that rate, had, or would in the actual future–only that a stable population equilibrium required that the mass of the population be poor enough to make the cost of additional children high enough to hold the birth rate down to what economic growth could accommodate. That’s one version of the iron law of wages, other versions of which appear in Smith and Ricardo.
William Astley says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:10 pm
——
I’m willing to bet that you have never visited either China or India. They have very crowded cities, but most of the country is lightly inhabited at best.
Anyone who knows anything about economics knows that more people also means more demand which resorts in more production and more work.
William Astley says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:10 pm
“You must be living on a different earth. Have you ever visited China? India? Africa? Are you suggesting that we need more people? That there are not enough people? Clearly you do not have friends or children that are looking for work.”
If there were less people there would be less demand for work. Your argument doesn’t hold.
Unemployment is not caused by a specific level of technology – though technological improvements enforce change that causes suffering for those who are made redundant. See the Luddites. Unemployment is mostly caused by policies that make being unemployed attractive. See Sweden before they reformed their welfare state somewhat. (Currently they are importing and nurturing a new unemployment problem; but that is in the nature of Social Democrats)
Education, industry, technology and manufacturing, in short productivity is the way forward. Japanese study found West is cleaner than the rest. Cleaner by use of fossil fuels. Obvious to anyone without a preconceived agenda.
I’m happy to see Dr. Ball pointing out the origin and motive for the creation of the CO2 boogeyman. It does puzzle me why so many skeptics bravely refute popular opinion, yet are so afraid of being labled a conspiracy theorist. If ever there was a massive conspiracy laid bare, CAGW is it. Depopulation is the goal of the environmentalist movement. If you recall your Greek mythology, Zeus liked to cull the herd of mortals every now and then and became a bit nasty when Prometheus gave man fire. He’s never stopped trying to take it back. The financial oligarchy are the modern Olympians who feel entitled to decide who gets to survive. Those who see it as a right or left issue are missing the point.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
_________________________
What’s the deal, Cheyne? Why don’t you come back and address some of the issues which others have brought forth in response to you? This place is all about the free exchange of ideas. Are you interested in further conversation- or did you just jet blast around the place to reinforce your need to be right?
We are not overpopulated. We are underdeveloped.
Well, there is nothing inherently impossible in molecular nanotechnology, we can see that by now using proven scientific principles. It may be an engineering challenge and a huge one at that, but nothing more. In fact we ourselves are proof-of-concept products of God’s nanotechnology; two molecules of the same enzyme in our bodies are identical down to individual atoms, that is, the molecular machinery we are relying on is standardized to its ultimate limits.
That’s what is in store for us in technological development. With self replicating and programmable nanobots costs of production are no longer proportional to quantities, but to their logarithm, which makes all the difference. We shall be able to manipulate atoms the same way we currently do to bits using descriptions called computer programs along with prefabricated data structures.
There are no rare raw materials any more, for example. We do know from thermodynamics that the ultimate limit of energy needed for enrichment is proportional to the logarithm of original concentration, and with molecularly precise manufacturing we can get reasonably close to this limit.
Neither energy supply is an issue, because solar panels will become viable. They are not supposed to produce electricity of course, but some energy rich, non toxic, non flammable substance like sugar, to be stored locally and used to produce electricity on demand by closely packed arrays of molecularly precise micron sized fuel cells. A nuclear fission reactor with passive cooling, inherent safety and no long half life radioactive isotopes in waste is also an option.
Artificial intelligence to be used in technological design is in the pipeline as well. It can be controlled by an advanced checks and balances architecture to ensure it would never outsmart us or be hijacked by a small group of people who would use it to overpower the rest of humanity.
Of course carbon, due to its chemical versatility, is the default construction material of molecular nanotech. The easiest source is airborne carbon dioxide, so the real danger is to get it depleted to an extent when plant life begins to suffer. To prevent that we may be forced to replenish it from limestone, but we shall have to figure out what to do with the enormous amount of byproduct called lime milk. We can’t simply dump it into the oceans without a very real danger of their catastrophic basification.
Anyway, with this kind of technology space travel and utilization is affordable, which makes all resources of the solar system readily available. It can support several thousand trillion human beings in this region alone, most of them in space habitats.
The timeframe for these sequels is probably less than a century, so it makes no sense to worry beyond that point based on current state of affairs. Anything on the other side of singularity is shrouded into dense fog.
MarkW says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:34 pm
bones says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:22 pm
—
We’ve got enough cheap oil to last several hundred years.
Even the UN believes that population will peak by 2050 and start falling.
In 200 years we’ll have other, even better methods of growing food.
———————————————————-
As the old joke goes, we are only haggling over the price now. You are correct that we will never run out of oil, but that is not the issue. The question is whether or not it is possible to significantly increase the production rate at affordable prices. I believe that is an open and important question.
I created a blog with a title suitable to mock these people
Power and Control.
john robertson says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:14 pm
____________________________
Brother John!
Your words bear repeating, so here they are.
____________________________
Those persons most frightened by living, are the most aggressive in trying to impose their solutions on everyone else.
It is no coincidence that the most ardent believers in CAGW are also convinced the number of men on this planet is a signal of doom.
@Greg S 5:15, good work but if you also obsess over atmospheric CO2 you need to hold your breath.
It should be no surprise to find that the most intrusive do-gooder, who seek to control all, run your life for you, usually thro the use of a bureaucracy, are frightened of everything.
Not having a life, terrified of children, they devote themselves to saving you.
Reason and honest discussion are not part of their toolkit.
It is always such an urgent matter, that you must surrender your self determination.
We are here to help, we are from the government.
I am coming to the conclusion, a tax on do-gooders shall be compulsory, for all freemen.
155% of their gross income will encourage wisdom.
Or take the pun and make it like whack a snake day.
For some people are indeed so stupid, unreasonable and dangerous that you must drive them into exile.
For todays Chicken Littles I propose Coats Island in Hudson Bay Canada.
It is perfect, no permanent residents(as far as I know), no “carbon intensive infrastructure.
Exile yourselves to this paradise, show me how this eco-friendly, zero carbon life style works.
Naturally I would predict a guaranteed zeroing of population, if you practiced what you preach.
___________________
GregS says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:16 pm
[quote] North of 43 and south of 44 says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:01 pm
You may lead by example.[/quote]
Agreed, and I am, so far, anyway – 49 with no children. Try to follow my lead everyone. A lot of you will fail, which is ok because if you all succeeded that wouldn’t be good.
_________________________________________________________________
Maybe, and maybe only so far.
You know Dr. Ball, I watched a version of this video about 8 years ago and thought this was rubbish.. I just watched it again, its not……
I read the 40 chapter document. It is really a horror story for truth, justice and freedom.
Try and search for Agenda 21 through your browser. Just like the term “global warming”, it has changed. In this instance, to sustainable development, or smart growth for many locally. The UN no longer supports the original site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
Berényi Péter says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:53 pm
“Artificial intelligence to be used in technological design is in the pipeline as well. It can be controlled by an advanced checks and balances architecture to ensure it would never outsmart us or be hijacked by a small group of people who would use it to overpower the rest of humanity.”
You mean the NSA will cease to exist?
Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.
The obvious problem in those places is not enough technology.
Women’s literacy (and further educational accomplishments) is the best general predictor of family size.
” MarkW says:January 5, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Are you seriously trying to claim that the economic boom in the US was caused by a small drop in defense spending, and that alone?
Sheesh, the ability of people to see only what they want to see remains amazing. ”
No I never claimed that at all. The “world wide” boom of the 1990s was in part fuelled by a 10% reduction in the GLOBAL arms race. The Soviet Union’s collapse was a huge part of it. The US was actually looking at a budget surplus scenario! Ah the good old days.
North of 43 and south of 44 says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:59 pm,
The first mate and I decided on a minimum of three. We have four. Why? We figured the world could use more brain power.
1. An artist
2. Foreign (Russian) language expert
3. Electrical engineer
4. Chemical engineer
I’d say we have been moderately successful in our goal.
China’s one child policy has some positive consequences:
– The attention that children receive from parents and grandparents is very high – this is good for children’s psychological wellbeing;
– Only the very rich can afford multliple children. This is a kind of eugenics improving the intelligence of the population, even if only slightly. Politically naughty but maybe beneficial.
These factors may explain some of China’s spectacular success in improving its people’s standard of living. Siblings are over-rated.
Let the people promoting this over population silliness be the first to go.
All the information needed to see the evolution of improvement of the human condition can be found at gapminder.org (try this one first; http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6.80645161290323;ti=2011$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1gkNuUEXOGag;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=0AkBd6lyS3EmpdHo5S0J6ekhVOF9QaVhod05QSGV4T3c;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=0.0001;dataMax=252$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=55;dataMax=108111$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds= )
I think the info available at gapminder successfully blows both the old and new doomcasters fantasies out of the water.
I am shocked by how few people, including skeptics,know about UN Agenda 21. More exposure is needed about the way it’s sneaking into local councils etc via the excuse of “sustainable development ” ,I shudder every time I see or hear the phrase. Exposure would put all the CAGW nonsense into context for people.
If I mention Agenda 21 to folks I’m regarded as being nuts because they think that surely the UN wouldn’t propose such things…would they?
It depends on you, guys. I am certainly on the opinion that all secret services should be abolished ASAP. They are good for nothing except circumventing the law, erasing freedom &. making trouble. A well regulated police force subject to constitutional control can do a much better job.
Bob Greene said:
“Population control to reduce poverty? How would you do it? I believe we’ve had enough failed eugenics policies over the past century or so.”
Where is the ‘like’ button!
In reply to:
DirkH says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:40 pm
Dirk says: If there were less people there would be less demand for work. Your argument doesn’t hold.
William: Why? Provide logic to back up your point. Are you asserting that when the population increases there are more jobs? You are confusing consumption and demand with the number of people in a country. Spain has unemployment of 40%. Are saying the solution to the Spanish unemployment problem is an increase in population? More immigrants from Africa? Clearly that would only increase the number of people on welfare in Spain. Unemployment occurs when there are too many people looking for too few jobs.
Dirk says: Unemployment is not caused by a specific level of technology – though technological improvements enforce change that causes suffering for those who are made redundant. See the Luddites. Unemployment is mostly caused by policies that make being unemployed attractive. See Sweden before they reformed their welfare state somewhat. (Currently they are importing and nurturing a new unemployment problem; but that is in the nature of Social Democrats)
William: I do not disagree that technology can improve living standards. The problem is the high paying US and developed country jobs are moving to Asia, as there are very qualified Asians who will do the same job for less money. Supply and demand. We are having a race to the bottom.
The US has lost 33% of our manufacturing jobs. Now software and engineering jobs are moving to Asia. What is left?
There is a second problem. Balance of trade and tax revenue. The US and the other developed countries are losing the battle. The money is running out. All with the jobs that have been lost we have lost the tax revenue. The problem is not that there are not enough people in the US.
P.S. Yes I agree people must work. We must either compete with Asia or face economic collapse. There is no other options. A significantly higher minimum wage in Asia would help to create a level playing field and forced balanced trade.
Steve B, letting some land lie fallow is the system Holland and England abandoned in favor of crop rotation. Crop rotation uses all the fields all the time, with different crops rotating through them. Hence the name: crop rotation.
Not to seem insensitive, but this is a quote from your link
Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. Records show during the period Ireland was exporting approximately thirty to fifty shiploads per day of food produce. As a consequence of these exports and a number other factors such as land acquisition, absentee landlords and the effect of the 1690 penal laws, the Great Famine today is viewed by a number of historical academics as a form of either direct or indirect genocide.[8]
bones, when I was a chem grad student I attended a seminar given by an oil geologist, who described current and coming technology. He ended on a bleak note, warning we were running out of oil. He hoped that the faculty had good ideas for energy production because otherwise, in 10-15 years, we’d be in big trouble.
That seminar was quite a long while ago. Proven gas reserves are up two-fold since 1980. Our known oil reserves are about 2.5x higher now than they were then. Here’s a Julian Simon-like suggestion: oil will never become expensive. Neither will energy. Unless ideologues manage to squelch technology by deliberately regulating it into oblivion.
Great article I’ve always been interested in world population and spent much of the past two decades involved in development and relief work in developing countries.
Some interesting things I’ve read.
1 Any country that ensures the majority of its women are educated untill the age of 15 ( ie 2-3 years of high school) with recuce it’s fertility rate to 2.4. (Ie close to parity)
2 The world population growth rate peaked in 1965/66 around 2.2% it is now down to aprox 1% with no signs or that turning around.
3. UN population figures I last checked (2012) had the world peaking at aprox 9.5 – 11.0 billion around 2090 – 2110 and then tapering off.
I wish rather than feeding peoples fears on this subject, the protagonists would realise that we have made huge improvements in peoples lives and while much more needs to be done we know what to do and need to just get on and do it!
Clean water, toilets, eduction, fighting malaria, it’s not rocket science but it has and will change the world.
Put your brains into gear, all of you. The duty of a government is to obtain the best standard of living, on averge, inter alia, for its population. That means a balance between the productive capacity and the population leaving aside the fair distribution of wealth. The income distribution curve tends to be peaked without long tails in either direction. The standard of living means much more than the gross product per capita. It included crime, corruption or the absence thereof, individual freedom among many other things. When there are more jobs than people pay is good, crime is low and the standard of living tends to be high. When there are more people than jobs pay tends to be low and the income distribution curve has a long tail at the high end. Breeding to maximise population favours the wealthy but that is all. Eventually however the hoy polloi will rebel and slaughter the wealthy.
I wonder if this man would have joined TCOR.
I wonder if this man would have joined TCOR.
I think you have it backwards.
dbstealey,
“The ‘problem’ is that people want to live in choice places, and since there are not enough choice places, those places get crowded. But we live on a big, big planet, and we can easily produce enough food to feed everyone. Therefore, “overpopulation” is an invented non-problem. Want to avoid overpopulation? Then move to the boonies, and away from everyone. ‘Problem’ solved. But of course, new problems will appear.”
But what do you do when you move out to the boonies and away from everyone then find 10 years down the line that your isolated out of the way spot is now one of the choice places?
Apologies for the incomplete post
Josef Raddy says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:10 pm
There was no Great Famine ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_famines
Not to seem insensitive, but this is a quote from your link
Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. Records show during the period Ireland was exporting approximately thirty to fifty shiploads per day of food produce. As a consequence of these exports and a number other factors such as land acquisition, absentee landlords and the effect of the 1690 penal laws, the Great Famine today is viewed by a number of historical academics as a form of either direct or indirect genocide.[8]
Put some simple mathematics in a verbal argument, like Malthus did, and it somehow becomes more valid in many peoples mind. I think it is due to fear of mathematics. This opens the door to enslavement by other people with computer models. Frank Herbert understood this. Perhaps we are exceptional because computing power first became widely available in our lifetimes, but the problem needs addressing.
There is a fallacy very well described by Dr. Tim Ball that man alone can not self-regulate the population, and there is the need to impose another family planning.
Just to confirm the arguments of Dr. Tim will put Brazil’s example that through urbanization and education, universal health program in five decades passed the fertility rate of 6.3 children per women in 1960 to 1.7 in 2013. At no time was taken a government family planning campaign, simply because the Catholic Church, very strong in Brazil, prevented the institutionalization of this type of public policy, couples itself adopted their own successful family planning.
Dr. Ball, please familiarize yourself with the idea of carrying capacity. Then apply to the globally dominant species homo sapiens in all environments/ecosystems. Then apply inevitable resource limitations. I suggest using liquid transportation fuels as the limiting constraint.
You will find in the hard geophysical data a rather conclusive refutation of this Pollyanna post.
The issue to be engaged is not CAGW, nor even AGW. It is simply that we as an exploitative species soon loose the ability to annually produce enough fossil fuel to continue as before.
If one thinks the planet is over populated please start the depopulation with yourself. Thanks for giving the rest of us who want to live the consideration of your going first to set the example.
#AfterYou
As an exploitative species we have lost the ability to put ever more horses on the streets of our cities as before. So what?
How Much Horse Manure Was Deposited on the Streets of New York City Before the Advent of the Automobile, and What Happened to It?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt0mk1b09NM&w=640&h=360]
MattS says:
“But what do you do when you move out to the boonies and away from everyone then find 10 years down the line that your isolated out of the way spot is now one of the choice places?”
That’s one of the new problems, isn’t it? I guess then you will sell out the land you bought extremely cheaply because no one wanted it, and pocket $millions. Then move to the next out of the way place.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rud Istvan says:
“The issue to be engaged is not CAGW, nor even AGW. It is simply that we as an exploitative species soon loose the ability to annually produce enough fossil fuel to continue as before.”
I generally agree with your posts, Rud, but that particular comment sounds very Malthusian.
Humans always manage. When the talk was ratcheting up about the end of fossil fuels, what happened? Fracking provided huge new sources of fossil fuels — so much so that the cost plunged. There are no shortages, and in fact, now the talk is about the US supplanting Saudi Arabia as the world’s top producer.
Here is how it works in the real world: we do not suddenly run out of fossil fuels. The supply slowly dwindles, and as it does, the price gradually rises. As the price rises, other alternative energy sources become cost competitive and begin to take the place of fossil fuels.
There is available energy, and there always will be. Also, the global population is forecasted to peak by around 2050, and gradually decline after that. There really is no emergency, so long as governments allow the free market to work.
But of course, there are forces in government that would prefer to constrain the availability of cheap energy, since that would cause the populace to squeal. Then the government — the original cause of the shortage — will step in, and proclaim that it is the savior, thus entrenching its bureaucrats in their job security. It is already happening: witness Obama’s promise to make energy prices skyrocket. There is no legitimate reason for that. But that is not to say there are not very self-serving reasons for the shortages that he, through his EPA, is causing.
The world is not overpopulated, but it is underutilized.
That said, the population control protocols, especially elective abortion through lethal injection or dismemberment, represents an unprecedented denial of our inalienable right to life. There has never been a period in history where as many human lives were callously terminated and for nothing more than sex, money, ego, or convenience. Modern men and women are not only selfish but they are actual ghouls.
Oh, well. Whether it is devaluation of capital and labor through printed wealth in bubble economics, or devaluation of human life through classifying it as interchangeable and disposable throughout its evolution from conception to death in planned parenthood, we have embraced the Dodo Dynasty with a remarkable vigor.
n.n,
That’s a fact, isn’t it? It is hard to believe how low our society has descended in a very short time. Truly, the most helpless creatures of all — those who depend on us completely to take care of them — are destroyed in the most vile ways imaginable. I still shudder to think about the Planned Parenthood doctor who killed thousands with his bare hands by literally twisting their heads off while they were alive. And he was just one out of thousands.
I sincerely hope that at some point there will be no-holds-barred retribution.
Thanks Dr. Ball. This a very interesting article.
A couple of years ago I attended a lecture by a professor at Florida International University where he presented two other college professors from California that not only professed CAGW but overpopulation catastrophe and peak-oil, peak-food, peak-everything.
Afterwards, when I came out of the lecture hall I invited the two professors to kill themselves.
They would not oblige. I did not go back to FIU.
Several points:
“Are you asserting that when the population increases there are more jobs? ”
I don’t know if he is, but I am. The model “fixed number of jobs, variable number of people, unemployment rate determined by the difference,” which you seem to have in the back of your mind, is wildly inconsistent with casual observation. From the American Revolution to the present, population has increased by about two orders of magnitude, from a bit under three million to a bit over 300 million. Yet during that period, the unemployment rate has been above ten percent for only about one year out of ten, always under unusual economic conditions. Can you seriously interpret that as two independent variables that just happen to move almost perfectly in sync for two hundred years?
So far as the claim that overpopulation is the cause of poverty, it doesn’t fit observation. Forty or fifty years ago, when population played the same role in public discourse that warming does now, I calculated population density by country to see what countries were most densely populated. The five top ones were two rich European countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) and three Asian countries in the process of becoming rich (Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore). Hong Kong, which didn’t make the list because it wasn’t a country, had about ten times the population density of Singapore, the densest on my list–and between then and now its per capita income passed that of the U.K. India and China had big populations but were also very large countries so did not have extraordinarily high density..
I should probably add that I’ve been part of this argument for a very long time. You can find a piece of mine from 1972 criticizing the then orthodox view that increased population was clearly a bad thing webbed at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Laissez-Faire_In_Popn/L_F_in_Population.html
And I should probably add that I think Malthus is falsely claimed by the people who believe in the population problem and falsely attacked by those who don’t, neither of which seem to have read him. He made a prediction and it turned out to be wrong, but it wasn’t a prediction of catastrophic overpopulation.
Pat Frank says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:20 pm
Steve B, letting some land lie fallow is the system Holland and England abandoned in favor of crop rotation. Crop rotation uses all the fields all the time, with different crops rotating through them. Hence the name: crop rotation.
Pat,
Rotating from a corn crop into a simultaneous planting of oats and alfalfa in the following spring produces a crop of annual oats AND establishes alfalfa as a perennial crop for the next 3 years or so. The alfalfa fields produce 3 cuttings of haylage or baled hay per year while the soil is not tilled and the alfalfa sod remains undisturbed. The alfalfa roots fix nitrogen in the soil for the 3 year duration while the soil ‘lays fallow’. It’s the best of both methods!
MtK
Great article Dr. Ball, good to address this subject because Agenda 21 is currently rolled out in Europe and the financial crises aimed to eliminate the Middle Class and transform the consumer society is part of the plot. That’s why your article and Matt Ridley’s “When idea’s have sex” make such a convincing counter argument.
Let there be no misunderstanding here: the establishment is waging war on the world population and we’re quickly entering the phase where we arrive in a “it’s them or us” situation.
This is not a joke. Also visit http://green-agenda.com
Roger Dewhurst says:
“Breeding to maximise population favours the wealthy but that is all.”
Where to begin? How about like this: that statement is flat wrong.
As David Friedman points out above, a growing population creates wealth for everyone. The faster the US population grew, the more equally the wealth was allocated. As population growth began to slow, wealth became more concentrated in the “top 1%”.
The more people there are, the better off everyone is. There is more opportunity. There are more jobs. People are happier in general. You can observe that in numerous countries, and you do not need to limit your observations to North and South Korea, or the old East & West Germany.
The current US government is deliberately implementing policies that make the population more miserable and poor. That callous policy is designed to give the incumbents more political power. The fact that they point to their opponents with endless accusations of what they themselves are doing is simply a strategy; a tactic. They are formenting unhappiness, in the hopes of cashing in on the very unhappiness they are creating. All you have to do is look, and you can see it.
Rud Istvan,
The hydrocarbons on Titan are renewable geochemical ones, not biological. The same is true here on Earth, where hydrocarbons are a crucial source of food and energy for many living things.
Microbes have been consuming hydrocarbons for billions of years–long before the evolution of the photosynthetic organisms required for producing “fossil fuels.”
Did you ever wonder where the diamondoids in crude oil come from?
quote:
= = = =
“We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all
A boom in oil production has made a mockery of our predictions.”
– George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
= = = =
Pat Frank says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:46 pm
. . . Proven gas reserves are up two-fold since 1980. Our known oil reserves are about 2.5x higher now than they were then. Here’s a Julian Simon-like suggestion: oil will never become expensive. Neither will energy. Unless ideologues manage to squelch technology by deliberately regulating it into oblivion.
————————————————————-
Reserves are not the issue, and proved reserves are only a small fraction of the known resources in any case. Production rate is the issue. Never is a long time. Unless we find out that crude oil is a renewable resource, I would say that exponential growth in production rate won’t continue indefinitely on a finite planet. And when growth stops it is likely that prices will increase. Interestingly enough, they only have to increase enough to cause demand to cease to increase and you might not say that it was “expensive” yet.
@Rodger Dewhurst 7:50.
Sorry I would disagree, government cannot do that, obtain the best standard of living on average…without picking winners and losers,bending the rules, in rebalancing, somebody pays.
The only function of government is to maintain the illusion that we have civilization.
All other activities are theft by government AKA kleptocracy.
Other than maintaining the basic institutions of law, order,equality before the law, property rights (defence), government destroys more wealth than it is worth.
A simple comparison between tribal societies, where you only build what you can protect and trust is local, self defence a large cost, contrasted to western civilization, where we can share extra wealth because we cooperate with strangers.
The expectation of the same rules being applied to all and enforced by those elected and appointed paid actors who begged for these opportunities to play the roles.
Government is a morality play, which must perform to convince the majority of us citizens that civilization exists.
Currently the whole show is in the hands of the B shift and it shows, when people stop believing, civilization vanishes.
When the cost of government exceeds the benefit of civilization, tribalism become cost effective.
Roger Dewhurst says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:50 pm
“When there are more jobs than people… When there are more people than jobs..”
So, jobs are a finite resource which simply spring out of the ground spontaneously?
Steve from Rockwood says:
Where I live is desert, and we’re doing fine.
The average annual rainfall here is just 14 inches. I’ve lived in other places where rainfall was just 4 inches.
Now, to the unimaginative man, most of the world is uninahabitable.
To the rest of us, it is pure opportunity, as long as you and other unimaginatives don’t prevent us from taking the challenge.
Henry Ford is quoted as saying: “Whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you are right.”
There is the matter that mineral resources are limited. I think it is better to have more time before we have to mine landfills.
Another matter is that worldwide on average, cultures who believe in being fruitful, multiplying, and outpopulating other cultures tend to have a smaller percentage of their children becoming scientists or engineers, and a larger percentage becoming soldiers or chronically unemployed. They also, on worldwide average, have a smaller percentage of their children getting married.
And as I have seen it, nations believing in faster population growth tend to be more war-like, and I have seen warfare being done in ways to destroy or steal food shipments in faster-population-growth areas, especially in Africa.
There must be a different Malthus because the sterilized version I see here of an irrational Malthus is a lot different to the ideological one which proclaimed it was a natural law that people die of starvation and why an aggressive tyranny is the driver of life .
Until Malthus came along,evolutionary geology and biology was written by the fossil record in rock strata,a delicate process developed by people like Steno and Smith. Then Darwin,as typical of his age,focused in on a social commentary of Malthus and a one-eyes view of evolutionary biology and ran with it in much the same way they try to squeeze planetary climate through a minor atmospheric gas.
Even when shown the actual texts and where the reasoning of Malthus leads , and it is more a justification for one nation’s dominance over another, people today still retain a one dimensional view when they really,really shouldn’t. I am sure Malthus would be pleased to see his work cleaned up by contemporaries to appear rational but history itself bears the irrationality of it all. I have yet to see any higher reasoning applied to any terrestrial science or astronomy because people can rewrite history when it suits or assert anything and everything without physical considerations.
The perceptions of the historical and technical details are so narrow and designed to promote an individual agenda such as Darwin came up with evolutionary biology that the wider world knows literally nothing about the non aggressive approach of Smith and Steno but boy,are the consequences grave with the narrow view –
“One day something brought to my recollection Malthus’s “Principles of Population,” which I had read about twelve years before. I thought of his clear exposition of “the positive checks to increase”—disease, accidents, war, and famine—which keep down the population of savage
races to so much lower an average than that of civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also.. because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain—that is, the fittest would survive.… The more I thought over it the more I became convinced that I had at length found the long-sought-for law of nature that solved the problem of the origin of species.” Charles Darwin
“Till at length the whole territory, from the confines of China to the shores of the Baltic, was peopled by a various race of Barbarians, brave, robust, and enterprising, inured to hardship, and delighting in war. Some tribes maintained their independence. Others ranged themselves under the standard of some barbaric chieftain who led them to victory after victory, and what was of more importance, to regions abounding in corn, wine, and oil, the long wished for consummation, and great reward of their labours. An Alaric, an Attila, or a Zingis Khan, and the chiefs around them, might fight for glory, for the fame of extensive conquests, but the true cause that set in motion the great tide of northern emigration, and that continued to propel it
till it rolled at different periods against China, Persia, italy, and even Egypt, was a scarcity of food, a population extended beyond the means of supporting it.” Thomas Malthus
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.3.html
“Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation. The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area—viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics—between our
historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence” Mein Kampf
As part of my Masters in Mineral Economics I read the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth and “Scarcity and Growth” by Barnett and Morse. The latter effectively debunked the CoR’s efforts. No more need to the said. Significantly the CoR overlooked technological change and material substitution.
Scarcity is essentially a non-issue as far as resource economists are concerned. That’s what markets are for … assuming well-meaning (or not) politicians haven’t tampered with them. Malthus, the CoR, Ehrlich, and peak (fill in your favourite resource) modellers are equally unreliable. They generally make good headlines and increase media circulation. That’s about as far as it goes.
Having trivial arguments about population density is a bit silly without mapping out what percentage of the globe is either uninhabitable, barely habitable or poorly habitable.
Canada is sparsely populated because vast tracts of it are too cold to allow high density populations to survive without importing food. Unless you have some permanent wealth to trade, risking starvation seems a pretty stupid reason for 10 million people to invade the lands of the Inuit.
Siberia east of the Urals is similar. Yes there is a short growing season, yes some people can live there, but it will never be the density of Shanghai, California or London. The area referred to is vast.
Australia will always be limited to high density populations on the Eastern and South-Eastern seaboards. Much of its interior is desert which can happily support only a small itinerant population. Currently.
Ditto with the Sahara desert.
The only thing about population is whether it can support itself. If the world suddenly gets brilliant at vertical growing ,you may find that cities like London can become semi-autonomous in food. It’d require a construction revolution, but it could happen by 2100. If indoor growing becomes possible in the frozen north, then maybe populations in Canada and Siberia can increase. If water management technology improves, who knows which parts of the world will become bread baskets in future.
The immature thugs who want to stop the poor from breeding should ask what value they add to the world if all they do is work as spies to steal from more intelligent people than them. I would contend they add zero value to humanity. Zero. They are thieves incapable of positive contribution. But they are allowed to breed, are they??
PS> I forgot to add a link. Here is the Google books copy of Scarcity and Growth, for those that are interested:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gf-NAQAAQBAJ&dq=inauthor%3A%22Harold%20J.%20Barnett%22&source=gbs_book_other_versions
Although overpopulation was a foundation of the save the earth movement, it is impossible to get a consensus about it, not even a fake one, so it doesn’t get mentioned much. Global warming is a much easier cause to sell.
You must look at the “Low Fertility” version of the spreadsheet http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/EXCEL_FILES/1_Population/WPP2012_POP_F01_1_TOTAL_POPULATION_BOTH_SEXES.XLS , previously called the “Low Band”. It is the only one that has ever been close to accurate. Currently, it has the World peak at about 8.3bn in 2049, probably an overestimate. Thereafter population declines, to about about 6.7 bn by 2100.
When I was born, 1940, world population was 2 billion. Today, 2014, world population has passed 7 billion. I am definitely older than more than 5 billion people on this planet. I expect to be around when world population passes the 8 billion mark predicted for 2020.
Reducing availability or increasing costs of energy will lead to hardship and early death.
Go figure.
MarkW says:
“GregS, I have never met anyone who promotes population growth for growth’s sake, so stop with the silly strawmen.”
GregS did not even mention population growth, so stop with the silly straw men.
The current futility of ever more production of ever more obsolescent material is sapping our resources and our lives. GregS was referring to economic growth, which is more and more dependant on built-in obsolescence.
We have the technology to build durable machines but we do the opposite. How much more could we advance our standard of living if we did not have the buy the same thing year after year?
The current system keeps us like hamsters in treadmill, madly running day after day consuming more and more resources to stay exactly where we are.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
So the world is not overpopulated: I’m sure the 300 million women who have no access to family planning will feel a lot better when you tell them that.
Family planning remains the most cost-effective technology we have for reducing poverty.
So the world can produce much more food? Tell that to the elephant, orang-utan and tiger. I’m sure they will happily give up their habitats for you to grow more food.
Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.
///////////////////////////////////////////////
Cheyne, FYI: Zeal NEVER beats knowledge.
What you are stating is just another fallacy in a fallacy: Rain forest is being destroyed, BECAUSE everyone is using palm-oil as a substitute (bio-diesel) for fossil fuels and raw material for the chemical industry – quote:
“Facts about palm oil and rainforests
Palm oil is an edible plant oil which has become a common ingredient in many consumer products. Today, around 50 percent of the goods we use every day contain palm oil, from processed foods to candles, grooming products and “biofuels”. Read on for more information on why palm oil has become so pervasive, and how it is destroying rainforests.”
http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/topics/palm-oil
and
“Orangutans and oil palm plantations
Hanging on – but just barely
Of approximately 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations globally, about 6 million hectares are found in Indonesia1 (in 2006) – and counting. But in many places, these plantations are taking over rainforests, the natural habitat of endangered species such as orangutans.”
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_forests/deforestation/forest_conversion_agriculture/orang_utans_palm_oil/
I could go on for HOURS like this. So please tell me, what your excuse for your own zeal-induced blindness is. Is it, perhaps, white man’s guilt?
http://de.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=white%20man%27s%20guilt
Or, rather, post-colonial guilt?
http://www.academia.edu/3615182/Postcolonial_guilt_and_national_identity_Historical_injustice_and_the_Australian_settler_state
Make your choice.
Greg Goodman says:
“The current system keeps us like hamsters in treadmill, madly running day after day consuming more and more resources to stay exactly where we are.”
‘Exactly where we are’?
So you can do without antibiotics? A washer and dryer? Central heat? Electricity?
I would say the current system has a lot to recommend it.
In support of:
phlogiston says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:09 pm
China’s one child policy has some positive consequences:
– The attention that children receive from parents and grandparents is very high – this is good for children’s psychological wellbeing;
– Only the very rich can afford multliple children. This is a kind of eugenics improving the intelligence of the population, even if only slightly. Politically naughty but maybe beneficial.
These factors may explain some of China’s spectacular success in improving its people’s standard of living. Siblings are over-rated.
William:
The assertion/statements (people make statements without supporting logic and facts) above for an increase in population; leading to a better brighter world are not supported by the facts and/or by logic. We must compete with Asia and particularly with China for jobs and for resources. We are losing. The solution is to our problems is not an increase in population of the world. Our problems are more complicated than that. The Developed countries are spending is not sustainable. They are spending more than they take in taxes and the developed countries have started to print money. That road leads in every case in the past has lead to currency collapse, riots, and wars. We are heading for an economic war with China as certainly as winter follows summer. The most recent issue of the Economist layed out the parallels with the rise of power of China and the ambitions of China and the conditions that lead to the First World War.
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300190526
When the Money Runs Out, The End of Western Affluence
In order for an increased in population to result in more demand, the children born into a country must finish high school, must have a work ethic, and must get a job. That is not the case for many children born in the developed world. China can make rules, does make rules, and can enforce rules; that gives China a competitive advantage over the US and the other developed countries. (See loss of 30% of the US manufacturing jobs above.)
In the Developed countries on the other hand we have incentives for the poor (those how cannot afford to raise their children and that do not have a stable household in which to raise their children) to have more children and the rich to have no children (The more affluent Americans are so busy making money they do not have time to get married and/or do not care to have children. The lack of children in stable economically sound families is a problem.) The more children a single mother has the more subsidies the mother receives (the subsidies/per single family household are twice the average salary of an American family) and the more likely it is that the children and mother are on welfare and/or have problems with the children such as drugs, gangs, and drugs. (No surprise there.)
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-number-of-children-living-in-single-parent-homes-has-nearly-doubled-in/
The number of US children living in single-parent homes has nearly doubled in 50 years: Census data
Today, one-third of American children – a total of 15 million – are being raised without a father. Nearly five million more children live without a mother. Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, blames this trend for many of society’s ills. He claims the way to deal with poverty, drugs, crime and other hot-button cultural issues is to strengthen the two-parent family. Deal with absent fathers, he says, and the rest follows. A growing number of studies show that fatherlessness has a major negative impact on the social and emotional development of children.
The world is not overpopulated. If Alaska had the population density of Hong Kong, you can put all 7 billion people in it and still have a vacant space the size of Texas and the rest of the world will be uninhabited. There are more cows than humans by weight and they eat more food and drink more water than all 7 billion people on earth. The world has too many cows.
Why not read some von Mises? See http://mises.org/books/humanaction.pdf
Human Action p. 668
“Nonhuman beings are entirely subject to the operation of the biological saw
described by Malthus. For them the statement that their numbers tend to
encroach upon the means of subsistence and that the supernumerary specimens
are weeded out by want of sustenance is valid without any exception…. But the case is different with man. Man integrates the satisfaction of the purely zoological impulses, common to
all animals, into a scale of values, in which a place is also assigned to specifically
human ends… Man does not blindly submit to a sexual stimulation like a bull; he refrains from copulation if he deems the costs—the anticipated disadvantages—too high… Rationalization of sexual intercourse already involves the rationalization of proliferation. Then later further methods of rationalizing the increase of progeny were adopted which were independent of abstention from copulation…In the last hundred years the technique of contraceptive devices has been perfected and the frequency of their employment increased considerably”
Human Action p. 136
“Labor is more scarce than material factors of production. We are not dealing at this point
with the problem of optimum population. We are dealing only with the fact
that there are material factors of production which remain unused because
the labor required is needed for the satisfaction of more urgent needs. In our
world there is no abundance, but a shortage of manpower, and there are
unused material factors of production, i.e. land, mineral deposits, and even
plants and equipment.”
>William Astley says:
>We must compete with Asia and particularly with China for jobs and for resources… We are heading for an economic war with China as certainly as winter follows summer
I don’t understand this mindset. Do you also worry about competing with your neighboring state, neighboring city, or your neighbor? If your neighbor is impoverished, have you “won”?
>When the Money Runs Out, The End of Western Affluence
A better title would be “When Other People’s Money Runs Out, The End of Socialism”
> that gives China a competitive advantage over the US and the other developed countries.
Perhaps. Yet US will still have a comparative advantage. See the Ricardian Law of Comparative Advantage.
>See loss of 30% of the US manufacturing jobs above.
US has also lost most of its agricultural jobs – few people are farmers. Yet, Americans still eat.
>A growing number of studies show that fatherlessness has a major negative impact on the social and emotional development of children.
Women do not often need fathers for their children when they have tools to put the men into slavery (“child support”) and steal money from entirely unrelated third parties (“welfare”).
Rhys Jaggar, bad choice using Canada as an example, since some of us regulars live here.
In fact, the habitable portion of Canada, say the main Provinces, are not even at 1% of their potential. This land could easily support 100x the population without encroaching into the Arctic regions. Even if you drew the line at, say, where Edmonton is, you’re looking at a 50 fold increase possible, with the only problem being the fact that immigrants tend to not be good at handling the cold (Edmonton is the farthest north major city in North America).
And if you round the population down to make the math easier, 30 million times 50 is 1.5 billion, in the habitable zone that current has the majority of the population and has a growing season long enough to grow significant food.
Tim Ball:
Thankyou for a very fine article. It summarises truth which has often been said but needs constant repetition because it refutes falsehood which is constantly promoted.
The Malthusian idea wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now – as seen in this thread – the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not significant a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to this obvious truth; for example, Greg Goodman says at January 6, 2014 at 12:28 am
And, of course, his assertion is blatantly untrue: the “current system” has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish.
Richard
The 7 billion population figure is a UN modeled projection, it’s not a head count.
“I am shocked by how few people, including skeptics,know about UN Agenda 21. ”
Also look up “Planet Drum Foundation” started about 40 years ago.
My January 6, 2014 at 2:15 am hit the bit bucket.
[Rescued & posted. — mod.]
Mods:
I write to express exasperation at the WordPress system which has put my post (in this thread at January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am) in the moderation bin for no clear reason.
My post contains no links, does not mention our host, and uses no profanity or other obvious language problem, so it cannot be known how to avoid such pre-moderation. I notice that several similar expressions of annoyance at this were posted by others yesterday and it must add work for the Mods. Is there really nothing that can be done about it?
Richard
[Sorry about that, Richard. Rescued & posted. — mod.]
He claims the way to deal with poverty, drugs, crime
Tackle PTSD which is definitely a factor in drugs and crime. And where does the majority of this PTSD come from? Child abuse.
Totally agree.
Environmental groups are criticizing a charity that helps third world peoples dig wells to provide pottable water in each village. This reduces health problems and gives children, who previously trudged miles to get dirty water, time to go to school. Parents also have time to tend crops. The eco argument is that clean water encourages people to have more children who survive into adulthood. CRIMINALLY STUPID THINKING.
The current futility of ever more production of ever more obsolescent material is sapping our resources and our lives.
It only looks that way from a certain point of view. In actuality there are 3E21 metric tons of Earth. Divide that among 1E10 people and there are 3E11 Tons per person. There is no shortage of resources. We just need to figure how to use them.
Making things smaller helps. The cost of transistors (in bulk) is still going down.
MarkW says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:28 pm
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
—-
Mind naming where that garbage came from?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From Nicole Johnson who uses direct quotes and list pages of references.
Here is an example of quotes:
That is pretty darn clear if you ask me. Why are you surprised? The Highland Land Clearances and the Clearances in England and Ireland are well documented as is the present day on going land grab. After all Thomas Malthus made it clear there was going to be a food shortages (and therefore money to be made) and CNN Money has an article Betting the Farm: As world population expands, the demand for arable land should soar. At least that’s what George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and other investors believe.
Here are some of Nicole’s the References:
……
[1] A.V. Krebs, The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness. Essential Books, Washington DC, 1992, pp 289-299.
[2] Agriculture in an Expanding Economy: A Statement by the Research Committee of the Committee for Economic Development, 1945. Republished by AstroLogos Books, New York. http://www.AstroLogos.org (Books on Demand)
[3} An Adaptive Program for Agriculture: A Statement on National Policy by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development. The Committee for Economic Development. July 1962. http://www.normeconomics.org/adaptive.html
[4] “A Farewell to Farms,” Time Magazine. July 20, 1962. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896357,00.html
.
.
.
[19] William Sperber, “HACCP and Transparency” published by Food Control, Vol. 16 Issue 6, July 2005, pp 505-509
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?
[20] William Sperber, “HACCP Does Not Work From Farm to Table” published by Food Control, Vol. 16, Issue 6, July 2005, p 512.
.
.
.
[33] “Setting Food Safety Priorities: Toward a Risk-Based System” Transcript of Proceedings. RFF Conference Center, May 23-24, 2001. page 2.
http://www.rff.org/rff/Events/Foodsafety/upload/6621_1.pdf
[34] Michael Taylor, “Reforming Food Safety: A Model for the Future” Resources for the Future, February 2002, Issue Brief 02-02, p. 2.
http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-IB-02-02.pdf
36] Testimony of Michael R. Taylor, JD, Senior Advisor to the Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services before Subcommittee of Domestic Policy Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, US House of Representatives, July 29, 2009, p. 8.
http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2009/07/t20090716a.html
[37] William Sperber, Video of “Global Food Protection: A New Organization Is Needed” presented at Food Import Safety Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison: http://mediasite.engr.wisc.edu/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=a3f4fe4f0b75482f9f7ec0cd68ff3462
[38] “Cargill Executive Cites Single Regulatory Agency as Necessary” The Food Safety Consortium Newsletter, Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 2009.
Here’s a mathematicians take on the argument
Dr Albert Bartlett – Department of Physics Boulder Colarado
Since this video was made I believe he has passed away.
It’s a long lecture but worth the viewing
SIG INT Ex says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:34 pm
China’s Proletariat has officially abandoned the “One Child, One Family” Policy so beloved by Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Talko of do as I say not as I do.
Al Gore had four children
Maurice Strong had four children
Paul Ehrlich at least exhibits his believe by having only one child.
There is the matter that mineral resources are limited. I think it is better to have more time before we have to mine landfills.
Engineers are continually doing more with less. In addition old buildings get torn down and new ones are built with a fraction of the materials used in the old buildings. We actually mine our cities.
Bucky’s answer to
Les Francis January 6, 2014 at 2:43 am
http://youtu.be/v7OBTiyMoSE
Do more with less.
Not all of what is in the video is practical. So we need to keep trying news designs.
dbstealey, David Friedman, good posts, saves me making similar points.
Janice says: @ January 5, 2014 at 6:51 pm
We are not overpopulated. We are underdeveloped.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Out of the mouth of Babes.
Beautifully put.
I would add the elites are afraid of the middle class because the aggressive new upstarts challenge their position and wealth. They want a two caste system the elite and the serfs they life off of. Agenda 21 is a modern version of feudalism with the Transit Village the equivalent of a feudal estate. The only difference is you get a choice of corporate masters instead of one feudal overlord. This is why massive red tape strangles small businesses preventing more and more people from moving up the economic ladder.
The USA and the EU could improve their economies overnight just by removing a lot of the idiotic red tape but instead they just increase it. link
A Bucky Fuller Retrospective
When I lived in Bucky Fuller’s Dome Home in Carbondale, Illinois.
http://youtu.be/d0_DKeFfObI
“SIG INT Ex says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:34 pm
China’s Proletariat has officially abandoned the “One Child, One Family” Policy so beloved by Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore…”
The reason is China will not have enough young people to support itself (Work and pay taxes) in a very few years.
Re: oil – I would say that exponential growth in production rate won’t continue indefinitely on a finite planet.
Oil is our starter battery. Fusion is for sustaining civilization. Polywell Fusion looks like our best bet at this time. With Thorium nukes as a fall back position if fusion takes longer than desirable.
I don’t believe he claimed that population was expanding at that rate, had, or would in the actual future–only that a stable population equilibrium required that the mass of the population be poor enough to make the cost of additional children high enough to hold the birth rate down to what economic growth could accommodate.
And from what we know today “poor enough” is incredibly rich. In 1800 terms.
That is the problem right there. Poor people don’t breed less when they have less, they breed more!!! The less they have the more they breed. Wealthier people breed less than poor people. Same for education. Don’t believe a word I have just said just look at the formerly developing countries who have become wealthier since the 1960s. Look at global fertility rates. Why are they falling?
And now for some info. Don’t panic.
http://youtu.be/QpdyCJi3Ib4
An extremely simplistic analysis by Dr. Tim. Overpopulation is not an absolute. It is a relative measure and a function of among others time, geographical area, sex, age, and education. A good bellwether for population levels is the unemployment rate which even in developed nations is today unacceptably high.
Nice one on the future of oil:
http://www.singularity2050.com/2011/07/the-end-of-petrotyranny.html
BTW – women who don’t want to reproduce shouldn’t. Darwin in action. And Darwin is one ugly SOB. But the world that remains will be better for it.
The UN gives its numbers while others, as we can see, beg to differ.
Malthusians hate inconvenient observations.
William Astley says: @ January 5, 2014 at 7:18 pm
…. A significantly higher minimum wage in Asia would help to create a level playing field and forced balanced trade.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The other option is an import tariff that makes the cost of goods equal. This discourages companies from moving to a country with less taxes, pollution controls and slave wages.
The World Trade Organization, pushed by both Bush Sr. and Clinton got rid of import tariffs world wide and suddenly everyone is in competition and the only winners are the large corporations.
Note that for the Grain Traders this is a win because they buy tax payer subsidized grain at below the cost of production and then sell it at a price that deliberately bankrupts third world farmers. Later the prices can be upped to above what the third world farmers were selling. Foreign Policy: How Goldman Sachs created the Food Crisis
As I was trying to point out before, by taking away their livelihoods the peasant farmers are then forced into the cities and desperate for any job. They are therefore willing to work for slave wages. This is a win-win for the large corporations because they have a large labor supply to choose from.
The UK clearances that fueled the industrial revolution I think was serendipity. The ‘Clearances’ in the USA after WWII and the recent clearances were deliberately done to provide the disparate abundant labor the industrialist wanted.
A good bellwether for population levels is the unemployment rate which even in developed nations is today unacceptably high.
That was done by government. Milton Friedman once estimated that we could have an economic growth rate of 10% a year if the government didn’t control so much of the economy. Slow growth favors the rich. And guess who controls government?
Audit the Fed.
The World Trade Organization, pushed by both Bush Sr. and Clinton got rid of import tariffs world wide and suddenly everyone is in competition and the only winners are the large corporations.
This is temporary. China is becoming “high wage” – so production is moving to Viet Nam. Which will eventually become “high wage”. etc.
How can America remain high wage? Keep inventing.
The world is equalizing. This is probably not a bad thing.
M Simon,
“Polywell Fusion looks like our best bet at this time.”
Problem is, the stated goals of Polywell fusion are always about 2 years in the future. In 2010 they said they would know by 2012 whether or not economic fusion by their method was viable. It is now 2014 and they are no nearer to answering that question. Go figure.
Vince Causey,
Yes. You have a point. Except the program has gone dark. It is my belief that they are now developing in secret because it works. If they announce in 5 years they will have a 5 year head start. That is quite a military advantage. If they are not covering up failure.
The importance of the independent farmer is summed up by this quote I captured years ago.
And for those who think the USA would not act against it’s own citizens:
1934, “[Our] future is becoming visible in Russia.” Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell http://www.archive.org/stream/rednetworkwhoswh00dillrich/rednetworkwhoswh00dillrich_djvu.txt
September 1995, Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, stated “Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.” UN’s 4th World Conference on Women: Beijing, China. http://ngin.tripod.com/280702c.htm
I will remind you to visit Hans Roslinds “gapminder”
The birthnumber is not greater now than 20 years ago.
The greater number now in population depends on better Health and thus longer lifelength.
Thus better Life reduces nativity., sometimes too much, but that will be levelled by migration
Look for actual and scientifically correct statistics
The numbers of wasted food visavi developing and developed countries speaks clearly.
Visit gapminder.! Do not get hysterical because of illfounded propaganda.
Have a good Year.
jensen
William Astley says:
January 6, 2014 at 12:52 am
“[…] Today, one-third of American children – a total of 15 million – are being raised without a father. Nearly five million more children live without a mother. […]”
Yeah okay, we get it, life’s terrible and then you die, but what does any of that have to do with the size of the population. If the population were half as big you’d give us the same litany, only with half as big numbers.
Vince Causey says:
January 6, 2014 at 4:06 am
“Problem is, the stated goals of Polywell fusion are always about 2 years in the future.”
That’s 25 times faster than hot fusion; where economic fusion is always 50 years in the future.
Nature just said she is fed up with growth. I’m done with all this change, She says!
I wonder why people often forget we are Nature, and our biology, deep instincts, drives, and emotions, are far more powerful than our intellectual sophistications about how horrible we are as a species.
Hans Rosling had an interesting presentation that basically, we’d always try to have two kids survive, and as medical advances spread, we started having more survive. Now things are starting to readjust and parents across the world are tending towards having two kids, both of which survive. Things will level out around 9 or 10 billion. We no longer have to pop out six to be sure two live.
As for resources, Howard Bloom keeps pointing out that our imagination and deep drive for novelty (at the level of the mass mind, the global organism of humanity, so no human can change it, it changes us) is what takes the most useless of stuff, like sand, and turns it into new novelties, like microchips. Conservation and limits to growth are complete delusions, there is no conservation in Nature, just stagnation and death. Be creative or die, that’s Nature’s imperative. Materialism is also a myth. We live in a world of matter, and our inventions, be they fashion or phablets, are about connecting with other humans.
And for the Western New Agers who created their own version of American Buddhism, “don’t think, feel!” and all that, become a meditating enlightenment-seeking nonviolent vegan nonmaterialistic drop out, read Ken Wilber’s massive critique of that phenomenon, “Boomeritis, A Novel That Will Set You Free” for the long list of cultural dead ends which they took all the young creatives into, with massive self-loathing and formal self contradictions.
It takes a generation or two to shake out these cultural memes, and then we wake up one day and wonder why China just became the Number 1 Superpower.
Mike Mellor:
Your post at January 6, 2014 at 3:47 am says in total
Sorry, but your post is completely wrong.
Population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries.
Unemployment rates in the rich countries are high because
(a) their indigenous populations lack people with skills to match demand for skills
and
(b) their indigenous populations include people with an unwillingness to undertake menial tasks that workers from poorer countries will undertake.
Increased affluence in poor countries could be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase. And this is the underlying reason why there are actions to inhibit developments in poorer countries (e.g. as reported in this thread by johnmarshall at January 6, 2014 at 2:32 am).
I cannot link to my post (in this thread at January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am) which explains the fundamental error of Malthusianism because it is still in moderation. However, if my post ever does appear then I think this link should jump to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
Richard
Mods:
Thankyou for finding and resurrecting from moderation my post at in this thread at January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
Richard
Rud Istvan says: @ January 5, 2014 at 8:27 pm
….The issue to be engaged is not CAGW, nor even AGW. It is simply that we as an exploitative species soon loose the ability to annually produce enough fossil fuel to continue as before.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, the real issue is that humans are an adaptive and inventive species.
If the elite with their propaganda machines (MSM) and useful idiots (NGOs) had not interfered we would already be in much better shape economically world wide.
Thorium nuclear was sidelined in 1976, now U.S. Researcher Preparing Prototype Cars Powered by Heavy-Metal Thorium
This is the type of thinking that is preventing advancing of civilization and aiding the population explosion as a result.
richardscourtney,
Very good post @2:00 today.
Darn it forgot the / in the blockquote close. Mods please fix.
This should be required viewing for anybody posting here. It is unmitigated good news re the population, so I give him a pass on his references to climate change.
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/
Brief synopsis, the number of 0-15 year olds will stabilise at 2BN in ten years time. Asian fertility is 2.5 children per woman, just above replacement rate. Europe and North and South America are below replacement rate. Only Africa is above RR with 4 children per woman, down from 6.5 about twenty years ago. And it continues to fall. Because of technology leading to people living longer, overall global population will stabilise around 2080 at about 11BN people.
Singapore is one of the nicest places to live in in the world. At the density levels of Singapore (7540 per sq km), we would need about 1.5m sq km (just over the size of two Texases). This would include all schools, industry, national parks, entertainment facilities, government facilities, hospitals, etc, etc, etc, and some agriculture, although not enough to feed everybody. At Dutch levels of farming, it would probably require two more Texases to feed all those people, or an area the size of India to house and feed everybody.
And that’s it. The whole of the rest of the world could be totally devoid of humans. I don’t say that this is what we should do, I’m just trying to illustrate that as much as we like to think the world revolves around us, it doesn’t.
Let’s look at the Joker in the pack. Africa. Does it look hopeless? Maybe, maybe not. Malthusians, pay attention.
ARABLE LAND WARS
AGRICULTURAL DECLINE
WATER WARS / WATER STRESSES
ECONOMIC STAGNATION
So much for climate change making things worse. Somehow, it’s making things better. It’s worse than we thought.
I forgot the link for my first quoted paragraph.
“Current and potential arable land use in Africa
Year: 2006
From collection: African environment collection
Author: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Description:……”
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/current-and-potential-arable-land-use-in-africa_a9fd
Global warming and noxious co2 has lead to agricultural declines. The future looks very bleak. We must act now!
Jørgen Randers of the club of Rome and coauthor of “Limits to Growth”, now “professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian Business School” (see http://www.bi.edu/research/employees/?ansattid=fgl99096), managed to get in the limelight in Norway again one year ago when he argued for a one child policy and the need for authoritarian regimes in order to cope with climate change. Apparently, he wrote a new apocalyptic book in 2012 (http://www.2052.info).
I’m surprised to see so many people with poor reading comprehension. Right there in Dr. Ball’s essay is a demonstration that population growth is leveling off. The solution to the Malthusian problems doesn’t even depend on the green revolution or the technological revolution, as brilliant as some of the scientists behind those revolutions were. People are having fewer children. That’s true not only in advanced technological societies, which are beginning to panic because of population deficits, but even the traditionally fertile societies of Asia, Africa, and South America. See, for example, the writings of Nick Eberstadt or Ben Wattenberg for explanations.
How do you suggest we do that? Since you posted first you might have read all the comments and references. Do you think population growth is really as bigger problem now than when you first posted your comment?
I’ll just leave this here I think:
“What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us . . . . In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race.”
-Tertullian, Carthage, 2nd century Ad
Frankly, if Thomas Malthus hadn’t written his daft “theory”, someone else would have, and we’d be talking about Brownian or Smithian overpopulation theories or what-have-you. Don’t expect these idiots to disappear any time soon just because they’ve been wrong every single time for the last two-thousand-plus years 😀 .
You are getting waaaay over excited. Read all the references above. People in Africa and Asia are better off today than their grandparents. People are living longer. Slums are a part of development, they will reduce as nations develop. Take a chill pill man.
This is the problem with crazed Malthusians. They talk about the ‘population problem’ and remain silent on THEIR proposed solutions. I will ask it here, what solutions aside from family planning do you propose? I don’t think anyone here opposes voluntary and affordable family planning for all.
PS The Club of Rome et al would do themselves much good if they looked ahead towards the end of this century and even beyond. Some of the problems can already be seen in Singapore and Japan. Over population will not be our problem in 2100. ;-(
Seattle says: @ January 6, 2014 at 1:37 am
….Women do not often need fathers for their children when they have tools to put the men into slavery (“child support”) and steal money from entirely unrelated third parties (“welfare”).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They also do not need to look for jobs when the welfare pay is higher that minimum wage. Men do not need to look for jobs when they can bully those women in to supporting them off those welfare payments. For example a guy I know has 52 children and is known for his abusiveness…
Fabien George Bernard Shaw, said “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
Altruism has nothing to do with welfare payments. It is all about power and control.
Shaw, a believer in Eugenics also said.
I do not want to be around when this consolidation of power is finished and the other shoe drops.
I’ve been trying to think of case studies to illustrate how resources are running out.
But I can’t think of anything that we used to be able to do that we can’t do now.
Can you?
In fact, I can’t think of anything that we used to be able to do that isn’t more widely available now -except when restrained by regulation.
Anything?
So, with all these extra people fighting for resources, what are we running out of?
M Simon says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:09 pm
North of 43 and south of 44 says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:59 pm,
The first mate and I decided on a minimum of three. We have four. Why? We figured the world could use more brain power.
1. An artist
2. Foreign (Russian) language expert
3. Electrical engineer
4. Chemical engineer
I’d say we have been moderately successful in our goal.
_________________________________________________________________
Well the boss and I decided on two but had three.
1. Systems dude.
2. Business owner.
3. Teacher (classroom and instrumental) and artist (musician).
Such is the way of the world huh?
@Cheyne Gordon
There were slums in underpopulated Victorian England, the heavy use of fossil fuels, public works and legislation got them out of it. There are glittering areas in ‘overpopulated’ India. What am I to take from your meaningless comment.
Even if you halved the population of Nigeria or Calcutta you would still have slums. It’s called poverty not overpopulation.
When you get down to it the Malthusians want mass murder to occur and for it not to be them that gets their head handed to them.
My vote goes to handing them their heads, that way they lead by example.
Jimbo: “PS The Club of Rome et al would do themselves much good if they looked ahead towards the end of this century and even beyond.”
Indeed! If Jørgen Randers had his way, and one child policy would be globally enforced, the human race would be gone in just a little more than 500 years. But Singapore and Macau are now at a shocking fertility rate of 0.79 and 0.93, respectively, i.e. they’re even doing “better” than mr. Randers suggests! The replacement fertility rate is around 2.1 for industrialized countries (higher for poor countries with higher infant mortality), but today half of the world’s countries, including many developing countries have fertility rates below that (see https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html). Even a country like Germany, which at 1.42 has a much higher fertility rate than Singapore, would be reduced to a mere 100,000 inhabitants if they closed their borders for roughly 500 years…
johnmarshall says: @ January 6, 2014 at 2:32 am
… Environmental groups are criticizing a charity that helps third world peoples dig wells to provide pottable water in each village….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Totally agree. This is the one place I see a windmill having a place as long as it is built by the natives out of native materials so they understand it, repair it and build others. Not necessarily just to draw water but for grinding grain, charging batteries, irrigation and other uses where intermittent power is not a problem. The windmill has been around since the ninth century in the Middle East so it is not like the technology is difficult to understand. Finding the needed wood would be the only draw back I can see.
ChiefIO goes into an easy change in primative Ag. practices that works wonders and stops “Desertification” HERE. This was KNOWN in the 1970’s and here we are forty years later with no real improvement despite all the “World Aid” to Africa.
Please remember the Danish Economist, Ester Boserup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Boserup
Who contrary to Malthus argued already in 1965, “that population determines agricultural methods”
Espen,
That method is too slow, they can’t afford 500 years..
Dr Ball is no development expert and has little grasp of human ecology and the ecosystems that support mankind – I wish this site would restrict itself to climate science. When it strays into these zones where most have little comprehension but a lot of prejudgements the whole thing gets very messy. There will be an extra 1 billion mouths to feed within the next 13 years…..not in the developed world, but in those regions currently barely able to sustain their present populations. I have been to these places – looked at soil structure, water resources and agricultural potential, and can tell you, ‘industrial’ development is not sustainable….tropical ecosystems do not respond in the same way as the temperate systems upon which the industrial ‘revolution’ was founded. Moreover, that ‘revolution’ was not simply technological….it was founded upon empire, colonialist grab of resources and labour, clearances, slavery and genocide….all too readily forgotten or never known by ill-educated commentators.
It is too easy to slag off the early ecologists like Ehrlich or the Club of Rome. In my perception, they just got the timing wrong. You cannot have a ‘post industrialisation’ in regions where you don’t have industrialisation to start with. And the reason not all of the world is industrialised is because the resources are not there at the same cheap colonial prices that underpinned the first industrialists. Only China, Russia, Brazil, India and Indonesia can afford to grab what resources are left – and their populations are relatively stable. Their GDP growth rates are between 5-8% and so is their return on capital…which is why there has been a massive relocation of industrial global capital…that fuels more demand.
But the crunch has to come….oil has peaked in production (forget the new 100 billion barrels of new shales and tarsand fields….that’s 3 years supply at current rates of use). Agricultural production has also reached a plateau. The limits are not now technological….but physical: underground water, soil, and protective forests….these cannot be ‘consumed’ in some new industrial revolution in the tropics. As the oil becomes more expensive, the industrialised north will struggle to maintain social stability. Anyone who believes nuclear technology can rescue that situation is living in cloud-cuckoo land.
Why oh why does being a sceptic on climate change science also ally with ill-informed, anti-environmentalist naive belief systems on the never-ending American Dream of increasing material wealth? I despair!
Overpopulation, Malthus and poor old Giammaria Ortes is left feeling out in the cold. Where is the love?
People should at least know his part in human history.
Giammaria Ortes: The Decadent Venetian Kook Who Originated The Myth of “Carrying Capacity”
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
Printed in The American Almanac, June 20, 1994
During their preparations for the United Nations’ so-called International Conference on Population and Development, scheduled to be held in Cairo in September of this year, the genocidal bureaucrats of the U.N. are seeking to condition governments and public opinion worldwide to accept the notion of a “carrying capacity” for our planet. In other words, the U.N. butchers would like to establish scientific credibility for the idea that there is an absolute theoretical maximum number of persons the earth can support. Some preliminary documents for the Cairo conference set a world population level of 7.27 billion to be imposed for the year 2050, using compulsory abortion, sterilization, euthanasia and other grisly means. It is clear that the U.N. and its oligarchical supporters seek to exterminate population groups in excess of the limit.
Academic kooks like David Pimentel of Cornell University argue that the earth’s carrying capacity is even lower, and claim that their studies show the need to cut world population down to 2 billion, the “optimum human population” of “number of people the planet can comfortably support.”
But where does the idea of “carrying capacity” come from? Is there any scientific basis for attempting to posit any limit for the human family? There is none whatsoever. An examination of the history of the “carrying capacity” argument reveals that it originated as one of the epistemological weapons of the dying Venetian Republic during the late eighteenth century–that is, of one of the most putrid, decadent, and moribund oligarchical societies the world has ever known. The originator of the “carrying capacity” argument was Giammaria Ortes, a defrocked Camaldolese monk and libertine, who in 1790, in the last year of his life, published the raving tract Reflections on the Population of Nations in Relation to National Economy. Here Ortes set the unalterable upper limit for the world’s human population at 3 billion.
http://tarpley.net/online-books/against-oligarchy/giammaria-ortes-the-decadent-venetian-kook-who-originated-the-myth-of-carrying-capacity/
“SIG INT Ex says:@ January 5, 2014 at 6:34 pm
China’s Proletariat has officially abandoned the “One Child, One Family” Policy so beloved by Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore…”
Patrick says: @ January 6, 2014 at 3:28 am
The reason is China will not have enough young people to support itself (Work and pay taxes) in a very few years.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is another problem.
In Chinese culture the woman becomes a part of the man’s family. The MAN takes care of his parents in their old age so females fetuses were aborted until a son was conceived. China now has a very lopsided demographics. …It is not only a population problem, but also a grave social problem as many men will fail to find a wife. It’s estimated that by 2020, China will have 24 million more men than women of marriageable age on the mainland.
Gail Combs says: January 6, 2014 at 3:14 am
Janice says: @ January 5, 2014 at 6:51 pm
We are not overpopulated. We are underdeveloped.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Out of the mouth of Babes.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks, Gail. Haven’t been called a “babe” in many years.
richardscourtney says:
January 6, 2014 at 4:27 am
I disagree, richard.
I believe affluent people care more for material things than for other people.
So they have less kids because kids cost a lot of money, take a lot of time, and are a life-long challenge.
God doesn’t give children to selfish people.
Josef Raddy says:
January 5, 2014 at 4:10 pm
There was no Great Famine ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_famines
Of course there was a Great famine, that;s why we now have more Irish living abroad than living in Ireland but it wasn’t a famine caused by lack of food.
During the entire famine Ireland was exporting food to the England.
It was a famine caused by poverty.
Now the US and the UN have used this “weapon” again by introducing the bio fuel mandate and the loss of dollar value.
The bio fuel mandate, processing food crops into bio fuel hiked food prices and in combination with the loss of US dollar value this triggered the food protests that started in Tunis and Egypt where over 50% of the population couldn’t afford their daily bread anymore.
Destabilizing the Middle East and promoting conflict was the principal objective of Obama, the UN and the EU.
Now the entire Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, North, East and Central Africa is turning into a slaughterhouse. All conform “The Agenda”.
Precise, with a great foundation and on point is Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies, examining and damning the foundation and legacy of the Hegelian dialectic as particularly used by Marx. Popper followed ‘Open Society’ with The Poverty of Historicism.
None of Popper is amenable to weak post-modern minds as his masterworks, including The Logic of Scientific Discovery, that gave us falsification as a solution to the Problem of Demarcation of science from non-sense, are ~800 pages footnoted and annotated.
“Peter Taylor says:
January 6, 2014 at 6:07 am”
Well I have been to Ethiopia and all I see is official corruption, everwhere, at the expense of people. Poor people in rich countries funding rich people in poor countries. The land can support the population. Now lets not talk about “multinationals” and “Govn’ts” evicting peoples from their lands in favour of “carbon sequestration” projects!
bones says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:54 pm
——————
Any review of the history of oil extraction shows that we are far from running out of cheap oil.
TRM says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:06 pm
—————
Still seeing what you want to see, I see.
The US budget surplus was accomplished by controlling welfare costs. The small drop in defense spending was a very small part of it.
Peter Taylor’s comment reminds me of my ever-so-well meaning relatives on the left coast who are very earnest in their environmentalism, and who never stop preaching about the need for a reduction in world population, for the good of us all.
I take an odd delight in first pointing out to them that they don’t have any problem with population growth in the post-industrial economies, such as Europe, the US, or Japan? They agree, and think that Japan is a marvelous model for the future. (I disagree, but that’s a different topic) I then ask if they agree that the population problem that they wish to see “fixed” is almost exclusively confined to the 3rd world – they also agree with that, and usually remind me how much they approve of China’s population policy.
And then I say “So what this really boils down to is the Rich White People are trying to figure out how to guarantee that a whole lot less brown and black babies will be born, because that kind of thing scares the Rich White People.”
and then they don’t want to talk about it anymore. At least this has stopped them from ever bringing that topic up again if I’m around.
Malthus is DRM free at, for instance, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239
It seems illogical to ask about the content of a topic/book under discussion, particularly when it is in the public domain. At least make a bald assertion and retire gracefully on its falsification, rather than shore-up your argument with adhockery infinitely regressing.
Rud Istvan says:
January 5, 2014 at 8:27 pm
—–
The world could easily support three times our current population if the entire world would start using the most up to date farming technologies.
With every improvement in technology, that number increases.
That is exactly what they are attempting in a roundabout manner. They think some of us haven’t worked out what they are up to.
William Astley says: @ January 6, 2014 at 12:52 am
William:
The assertion/statements (people make statements without supporting logic and facts) above for an increase in population; leading to a better brighter world are not supported by the facts and/or by logic. We must compete with Asia and particularly with China for jobs and for resources. We are losing….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are just looking at the surface.
WHY is the USA and the EU losing? Because that was the intention of the globalists. They want ‘Interdependence’ but the Chinese are not that stupid (SEE: Economic Interdependence and War: A Theory of Trade Expectations
To achieve the globalist goal of ‘interdependence’ The US government has intentionally betrayed her people.
Bush tried to get the World Trade Organization ratified and did not succeed. Clinton however did by promising it would not impinge on US sovereignty.
However once WTO was ratified we get this interpretation from the FDA (old link)
Seems that little tidbit was never mentioned to Congress.
That bit of treachery was bad enough but it gets worse.
Clinton not only orchestrated China’s entry into the WTO he GAVE them US technology! From the New York Times: Clinton Approves Technology Transfer to China
The technology transfer not only included manufacturing type technology but MILITARY technology.
M Simon says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:04 pm
“Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.”
The obvious problem in those places is not enough technology.
Women’s literacy (and further educational accomplishments) is the best general predictor of family size”.
Thanks to the UN and it’s NGO’s who thrive on misery.
Chili kicked out the UN NGO’s and took a hands on approach to the problems and solving them.
Today Chili ranks in the top 15 of most free countries in the world…above the USA and soon will be the first developed country in Latin America: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/10/chiles-path-to-development-key-reforms-to-become-the-first-developed-country-in-latin-america#
R. de Haan, thanks for the very good TED video from Matt Ridley.
David D. Friedman, thanks for the link to your excellent writings at http://www.daviddfriedman.com
Yes, I should have thought of all that, thanks for leading they way.
Mark and two Cats says: January 5, 2014 at 5:32 pm “Freedom, liberty, education, self-determination; these could solve many of the problems in Dr Ball’s excellent article. The common enemy of humanity is liberalism/socialism/communism.”
The common enemy of humanity is progressivism that does not except the right-wing ruling parties. Progressivism is merely the au courrant euphemism for the conspiracy theory of “making things better.”
DirkH says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:23 pm
GregS says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:16 pm
“Agreed, and I am, so far, anyway – 49 with no children. Try to follow my lead everyone. A lot of you will fail, which is ok because if you all succeeded that wouldn’t be good.”
“Congratulations for not having offspring. It makes the next generation smarter.”
It is my observation, and not only mine, that it is the educated classes that stopped “breeding”.
Mike Mellor says: @ January 6, 2014 at 3:47 am
…. A good bellwether for population levels is the unemployment rate which even in developed nations is today unacceptably high.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You forgot to add “because of bureaucratic red tape and interference.”
Bureaucracies exist to perpetuate themselves. From the point of view of a bureaucrat, especially a low level bureaucrat the safest action is to STALL until the person goes away.
It has been thirty years and I am still waiting for the information a state of Massachusetts bureaucrat promised me about the regulations on the business I wanted to open. (And yes I badgered the heck out of the guy.)
“Arguing with a Bureaucrat is a lot like wrestling with a pig in a mud hole and half way through realizing the pig is enjoying it!”
I asked on January 6, 2014 at 5:30 am
“I can’t think of anything that we used to be able to do that we can’t do now.
Can you?
In fact, I can’t think of anything that we used to be able to do that isn’t more widely available now -except when restrained by regulation.
Anything?”
And Peter Taylor says at January 6, 2014 at 6:07 am:
So that’s a No then. Not yet.
Yet this is rotten-jam tomorrow. I can understand the benefits of Hope. It may not be rational but it is beneficial. It can inspire endurance and survival.
But what is the point of irrational despair?
Steve from Rockwood says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
Indeed Canada has a lot of uninhabitable land, but it’s not the extreme view you take. A lot of my work as a geologist/engineer is in Northern Canada and people live almost all over the place. Yes a high percentage live below the 49th parallel, that is Ontario and Quebec’s major cities. All the western provinces share the 49th with the USA so the pop there is above that line. Your bread, beef, oil, gas, potash, timber and a host of other resources come from there. You Torontonians should get out more.
” MarkW says:January 6, 2014 at 6:43 am
Still seeing what you want to see, I see.
The US budget surplus was accomplished by controlling welfare costs. The small drop in defense spending was a very small part of it. ”
For the USA correct but as clearly stated in my original post the point was “world wide” and “global” NOT just the USA. 100 billion a year dropped into the world’s economy for most of the decade for things other than armaments. That is a very good thing.
We are talking about 2 very different things here.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
January 5, 2014 at 10:13 pm
—
There are huge amounts of all mineral resources in the crust. The problem is that most of those resources are in concentrations too low to mine economically, AT PRESENT.
Each time technology improves, we are able to mine more ore at an economically viable price.
Every time the price of a mineral increasese, we are able to mine more ore at an economically viable price.
Another truth is in how ore’s are distributed. There are very few high concentration deposits, but as the concentration goes down, the amount amount of ore goes up geometrically. Just to put some made up numbers on it, say an ability to mine ore that is 10% more diffuse, means that there is twice as much of that ore available for exploitation. This is one reason why horizontal drilling and frakking have resulted in such huge increases in available oil and natural gas. It’s permitting developers to exploit deposits that were too diffuse using older technologies.
In some places, engineers are going back and processing the tailings from earlier mining activities. New technology has made it possible to economically extract ore’s that were considered trash, only a few years ago.
Rhys Jaggar says:
January 5, 2014 at 10:58 pm
—-
One of the scariest things in the world, are people who talk about whether other people should be allowed to breed or not.
richardscourtney says…
Richard as usual both your posts are spot on. Thanks.
Greg Goodman says:
January 6, 2014 at 12:28 am
—-
Speaking of silly strawmen, you are an expert.
If you want to buy high quality stuff that will last for decades, go ahead. It’s out there, it just costs an arm and a leg. There’s no conspiracy to force people to buy stuff that will wear out soon, it’s basic economics. Building to last costs money, and most people don’t want to spend the money.
One of the reason’s people trade in stuff that hasn’t worn out is because they perceive the new to be better. So if you want to stop technological develpment in it’s track, go ahead and mandate that everything made must last for decades.
Finally, it’s a myth that growing prosperity requires more resources. Compare how much material is used in a flat screen TV compared to an old style one of the same size.
“Texas at 7,438,152,268,800 square feet divided by the 2012 world population 6,994,551,619 yields 1063.4 square feet per person.”
That’s not a valid or remotely complete analysis. All land is not created equal. Some land is fertile, other land is not. Some is steep slope, other alluvial plain; some almost solid rock (and the rock varies, too), other rich loam; some desert, some swamp, some tundra, some rain-forest…
And then even if all land were equal, one must make a judgement call on how many square feet or square miles per person is “optimal”, all things considered. The last I checked, large areas of Montana and Wyoming had about 16 people per square mile. That feels only a bit over-crowded, to me; and in that area there are crowding problems amongst the ferrets, prairie dogs, wolves, bison, elk, dogs, and humans (with associated disease issues, from brucellosis to black plague, brought over from eastern India in about 1895 through Asia and then spread throughout the rodent population of California, then intentionally transferred in an effort to kill off prairie dogs), and forage quality issues. Meanwhile, Union City, NJ, has about 10K people/square mile; totally unfit for a free human, IMO, but others might not be comfortable unless they were living 6 to a room and thousands per square mile. It’s important to try to keep that choice open.
But then, we have water issues. It used to be that people were spread widely enough that pathogenic parasites and microbes died/were killed off before traveling through water from one village to the next. That hasn’t been the case for at least 50 years, probably more. We use chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, UV, filtering…
Atlanta, GA, has gotten large enough that the people in Florida complain about the reduction in flow of the Chattahoochee river, and reduction in mussel and shrimp populations as a result. California, Nevada, and Arizona had similar disputes long before. Too many people, not enough fresh and potable water with the technology of the day, without steep price rises or cost-shifting. Trace radioactive element analysis show that what were believed to have been huge multi-state spanning deep, well-filtered aquifers turn out to conduct rainfall only 8-15 miles, over streets, carrying used motor oil and anti-freeze, brake- and other hydraulic-fluids to what were formerly believed to be pristine springs.
My umpty-great aunt+uncle had a 10K acre ranch with over 630 head of cattle, but they couldn’t make a go of it economically, the soil wasn’t rich enough, the sons and sons-in-law had more pressing matters driving them, wars…; now most of it is an ExxonMobil refinery and chemical plant, with shipping docks next to where their home used to be, before the hurricane of 1900… unless you want an apartment on top of a cracking tower; just think of the morning view of sun-rise over Galveston Bay and the delicate scents on the breeze. Just because it is possible to pack people like sardines does not mean that it is healthy or desirable.
Yes, the leftists leveraged projected over-population and notions of eugenics into their schemes for oppression. I certainly argued vehemently enough against such in my econ classes. OTOH, even some of my best economist friends have from time to time fallen into the fallacy of believing that every square inch of land that does not have a building or pavement on it is “undeveloped”. A farm is a developed farm, a wood-lot is a developed wood-lot, a hunting preserve is a developed hunting preserve, a garden is a developed garden, a stand of timber for lumber is a stand of timber for lumber, an open pit mine is a developed open pit mine, a big side yard is a developed big side yard (providing increased privacy amongst other things)… all are valid economic uses of land. Yes, as some things become more scarce the prices go up and we can shift to substitutes. Substitutes are usually better for some human purposes and not as good for others.
“In 1940, 34 species of burrowing rodents and 35 species of fleas in the United States had become plague carriers, thanks in part to the ranchers’ efforts… In 1992 alone, at least 10 cases were reported in the United States. One man in Arizona died from pneumonic plague after handling an infected domesticated cat…” — Edward Tenner 1996 _Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of UnIntended Consequences_ pg39 (Several cases were reported in Florida in 2002, but the same goes for other diseases: malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, meningitis, equine encephalitis, BSE. Higher densities means more effort+cost to control the diseases and more illnesses and deaths.)
Population decline triggered b collapsing birth rates is a long time subject from Spengler, channeled by Asian Times, who wrote entire books about the subject and several great articles: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-220713.html#
Rhys Jaggar says:
January 5, 2014 at 10:58 pm
—-
Furthermore, your requirement that populations must be able to grow food to support them locally is absurd. It’s much better to put the people where food can’t be grown, in order to leave the productive land available for food production.
Peter Taylor says:
January 6, 2014 at 6:07 am
“I despair!”
_____________________
Obviously.
Want to change the world? Change your thinking.
Peter Taylor says:
January 6, 2014 at 6:07 am
You should despair, because the American Dream isn’t built on “increasing material wealth”–it’s built on American Exceptionalism, Material wealth is simply one of the consequences
And what, exactly, is American Exceptionalism?
Simple: For the first time in human history, a government and country was founded on the belief that leaders serve the population.
All other nations have that in reverse, and America is now going through a reversing transition as well.
Global Warming, like all the other UN-sponsored “people-control initiatives” is designed to get rid of American Exceptionalism. No longer will the government serve the people; people will serve the government and be owned by the state.
We’ll become just like the rest of the world as a consequence.
richardscourtney says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am
—–
Another factor is that when the cost of a resource increases, people find ways to use less of that resource. An example is people voluntarily adding insulation to their houses when energy costs increase.
An excellent essay. There are surely analogies between the simple-minded notion of Malthus, a notion that was easy for people to think was incontrovertible, and that of those who push the simple-minded notion that man-made CO2 is an important, even dominant, driver of the climate system. They assert the science is settled and not to be argued with. In each case, the layperson can get a sense that they have mastered a profound and basic insight.
In each case, awful suffering has been tolerated because the simple-minded views are enough for people to shut-down both their brains and their consciences. See the Irish and Indian Famines of the 19thC for example – why help those people, it would only make things worse for more in the future? See the bio-fuels causing starvation – why stop that since many more would die from rising CO2? The mindset is convenient for some, and also poisonous, and destructive.
Malthus has been contradicted by observations. So has the CO2 conjecture. But both are so attractive to a ruthless mentality that holds humans in low regard, that I fear they will always be with us.
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:36 am
—-
The part you quote supports me, not you.
Technology meant that we didn’t need as many people to farm as we used to.
It was the technology that moved those people off the farm.
The conspiracy is in your mind only.
Mike Mellor says:
January 6, 2014 at 3:47 am
—-
Speaking of simplistic, you could write a book on the subject.
Unemployment has absolutely nothing to do with population. It is instead caused when govt created impediments to working.
More people means more demand which creates work.
The ultimate cause for the “world owes me a living” crowd.
Jimbo says:
January 6, 2014 at 3:50 am
—-
Another problem with the UN projections is some of the assumptions built into it.
The UN assumes that every country where fertility is falling, the rate will continue to fall at the same rate until replacement is reached, and then the rate will stop falling and hold at replacement. Out here in the real world, that has never happened, the rate has always fallen to below, sometimes well below replacement.
The UN also assumes that over the next decade or so, all the countries that are below replacement level will return to replacement level. That too has never happened in the real world. No country that has fallen below replacement level has ever returned to replacement level.
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 3:51 am
—–
Wow, so much paranoia wrapped in so much ignorance. Let me guess, you work for the UN.
1) The WTO has not eliminated tarrifs world wide. I wish it had, but it hasn’t even come close.
2) If countries are subsidizing the growing of grain that is then being sold to others, that’s the stupidity of politicians and only hurts the taxpayers of that country.
3) In your fevered imagination, corporations buying more food causes the price of food to collapse to below production costs?
RockyRoad says: @ January 6, 2014 at 6:28 am
I disagree, richard.
I believe affluent people care more for material things than for other people….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As an educated female, I refute your statement.
When I considered having kids the first thing I took into consideration was their future well being. With my first husband I observed his treatment of animals (pets) and decided he lacked the qualities of a good father. With my second husband I was thirty-five and had been a chemist working with what turned out to be mutagens for years. Shortly thereafter my cousin, two years younger, gave birth to an autistic child. My husband and I discussed the subject and decided not to risk having a child under the circumstances. Instead we now have a small business doing entertainment at children’s birthday parties and tutor for free.
One of the other points missing is the window in which a woman can give birth to healthy babies. It is generally from the early-teens to 35. However on average women in the USA are waiting til they are 25. Fertility rates begin to decline gradually at age 30, more so at 35, and markedly at age 40
Higher education means you just cut the number of years an intelligent woman would consider having kids in half.
MarkW says: @ January 6, 2014 at 7:46 am
Gail Combs says:
—–
Wow, so much paranoia wrapped in so much ignorance.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Right back at you dude.
You might try READING.
What most of you fail to understand, is that this is really just about control. Control over the people in how they travel, eat and most of all… their private property- LAND! Tagged animals, tagged trees etc. Oh , and don’t forget people. All of this falls under Agenda 21; which would not have been possible if not for the Global Warming propaganda. And for those that think i’m incorrect,…. i say this: When you have spent 7 years dealing with corrupt local de-facto governments, lawyers, land rights groups and pseudo environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy of Canada, you to will then come to the same conclusion as i did.
R. de Haan says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:08 am
—–
You seem to assume that education is a viable proxy for intelligence.
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:53 am
—-
I have, which is why I can recognize paranoid garbage when I see it.
Anyone who whines about elites robbing everyone else has sacrificed any right to be taken seriously.
David Friedman says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:38 pm
“Thomas Malthus raised the idea the world was overpopulated. He believed charity and laws to help the poor were a major cause of the problem and it was necessary to reduce population through rules and regulations. ”
Could you quote where Malthus said those things? That does not fit my memory of the essay on population. Nor does most of the rest of what you say about Malthus, which makes me wonder whether you are basing it on reading him or reading second and third hand accounts.
His central thesis as I remember it was neither that the world was overpopulated nor that rules were necessary to reduce population. It was that the optimistic future projected by Godwin and Condorcet was impossible because if everyone was that well off there would be no incentive for people to hold down birth rates, and if population expanded at the biological maximum it would outrun the food supply. I don’t believe he claimed that population was expanding at that rate, had, or would in the actual future–only that a stable population equilibrium required that the mass of the population be poor enough to make the cost of additional children high enough to hold the birth rate down to what economic growth could accommodate. That’s one version of the iron law of wages, other versions of which appear in Smith and Ricardo.
At last about 200 posts before one which actually shows what Malthus actually wrote rather than the mis-statement by Ball!
Malthus argued that it would be better and more humane if the population were maintained by a lower birthrate rather than a higher death rate caused by disease and starvation due to poverty. In the overpopulated cities of Victorian England 20% of children died before the age of 5, the life expectancy was about 40 in the mid-1800s. This in an extremely prosperous country with a consumer boom and rapidly growing industrialization. Large families weren’t restricted to the poor (Victoria had 9 which was typical), the high death rate was predominantly the preserve of the poor in the overcrowded cities.
Similarly in NYC, around 1900 infant mortality was over 120/1000 live births.
You often hear that we can’t produce enough food for everyone. The question is wrong. A lot of food crops go rotten before they reach the market in many poor countries due to lack of refrigeration, infrastructure etc The EU had for years been fighting against its food mountains and milk lakes – too much food. Biotech is making advances each year. Food to fuel is not a very good idea. There is no food shortage problem but a storage and management problem.
PS
Al Gore has (AT LEAST) 4 children & 2 mansions.
David Suzuki has 5 children and allegedly 4 properties and the list goes on…….
These are the kinds of people we are dealing with here folks. Those who believe that they can live as they want but want others to change their ways. They claim they care for the planet but behave in a way that makes you doubt it. They are the eco-hypocrites of today and please don’t listen to a single thing they have to say.
Read more about the saitly Suzuki who hates overpopulation. 🙂
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/10/11/the-two-suzukis-theres-saint-suzuki-the-one-you-see-on-cbc-and-secret-suzuki-the-capitalist-millionaire
Here is a great piece from Haunting The Library on environmentalists’ children and overpopulation.
Africa has an average population density of 31 people per million square meters.
Europe, in contrast, has a population density of 73 people per million square meters.
Why is the former, rather than the latter, more commonly referred to as overpopulated?
One of the reasons, aside from racism: “Overpopulation” is in reality mostly a function of technology and economic development, with what gets blamed on overpopulation being a matter predominately of poverty.
Back when the whole world had 1% the population of today, about the whole world was dirt poor by modern standards.
As relevant projections indicate, world population will peak at around 10 to 11 billion in the mid 21st century and then be declining, a result of the demographic transition (including more and more countries already with fertility rates far below the ~ 2 children/woman replacement rate).
Activists speak in terms of vague “resources.” Let’s rather speak in terms of specifics:
Water:
The cost of some modern desalination plants has already dropped to below $0.50/m^3, not much more than non-desalinated water.
Elements:
Let’s start with phosphorus as an example. Activists claim such will run out within several decades (the standard rule for about all doomsaying: a 2 digit number of years, so late enough to be forgotten by most by when the time passes or be after the doomsayer retires/dies but soon enough to scare the naive). In reality, the 190 million tons/year of phosphorus extracted from mines compares to how there is 30,000,000,000 million tons of phosphorus in Earth’s crust. While the concentration of phosphorus in the average rock is nominally low at 0.1%, its needed concentration in biomass is comparably low. When the USGS publishes a figure of 71000 million tons of “identified reserves” of phosphorus at the ore concentrations favored in present mining operations, there is a whole continuum of intermediate concentrations between those and the 0.1% concentration in the average rock.
The elements used most (aluminum, iron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.) exist at still higher concentrations by far in Earth’s crust, oceans, or atmosphere. For instance, while the Limits to Growth activist book back in the 1970s claimed aluminum would run out within several decades (which didn’t happen of course), actually aluminum is 8% of even the average rock, present in practically unlimited quadrillions of tons quantity (millions of times more than world annual mining production), although there is no reason to mine random rocks when more favorable ores exist in vast quantities too.
There is no show-stopper element for industrial civilization which is simultaneously too rare and yet critical in too large amounts.
Energy:
There are literally trillions of tons of thorium in Earth’s crust, as well as billions of tons of uranium in seawater extractable at a cost of just hundreds of dollars a kilogram as demonstrated. Activists like to pretend nuclear fuel is merely near equivalent to chemical fuel, but, much as a nuclear bomb can be a million times more powerful than a conventional bomb of equal weight, hundreds of dollars per kilogram for uranium is the equivalent of a very tiny fraction of a cent per kilogram of coal if breeder reactors are used and still low even if they aren’t used. (Misleading fuel cost figures are often published which include enrichment costs and fuel assembly fabrication costs, quite separate from the actual cost of mined uranium itself).
Food:
There is order of magnitude difference between the yield per unit area productivity of agriculture in industrialized countries versus in such as the parts of Africa which have problems. Economic development (and, in some cases, fixing problems from wars and local governments) would be the solution.
And one could go on.
The big picture: The only kind of civilization which could truly make Earth’s quadrillions of tons of resources run out is one with industrial capabilities astronomically beyond today to such a degree that massive space colonization would be relatively trivial to it; the only supertech hypercivilization which could actually use up the solar system’s billions of cubic kilometers of material is one capable of drifting to other stars; and so on until the end of the universe under many cosmological scenarios.
If ideology like that of today’s activists existed and was fully implemented long ago, mankind would still be living in a few caves (or be extinct, staying small enough to readily die out).
Dr. Ball is right to refer to “The Fallacy Behind The Fallacy Of Global Warming”: The CAGW movement is one head of a hydra, not its root. A reason serious CAGW movement supporters generally never can be “convinced” by argument on climate topics themselves is that those with much experience tend to secretly already know CAGW claims are invalid but use them as an excuse for a deeper ideology and agenda.
Gail Combs:
At January 6, 2014 at 5:54 am you say
I agree. Windpower is an example of an ancient and proven technology which requires little training to maintain so provides a stepping-stone to a fully industrialised society.
Windpower powered most of the world’s shipping for thousands of years, and primitive wind turbines powered pumps (notably in the Netherlands and England) and mills throughout Europe for centuries.
But the use of windpower in the Middle East is much older than you suggest.
Vertical-axis windmills to mill corn were first developed by the Persians around 1500 BC, and they were still in use in the 1970’s in the Zahedan region. Sails were mounted on a boom attached to a shaft that turned vertically. The technology had spread to Northern Africa and Spain by 500 BC.
Low-speed, vertical-axis windmills are still popular in Finland because they operate without adjustment when the direction of the wind changes. These inefficient Finnish wind turbines are usually made from a 200 litre oil drum split in half and are used to pump water and to aerate land.
This ‘oil drum turbine’ technology is directly transferable to poor, agrarian societies.
More advanced low speed vertical-axis windmills for water pumping and air compressing are commercially available (a selection of commercial suppliers is at
http://energy.sourceguides.com/businesses/byP/water/wPumpMills/wPumpMills.shtml).
But their maintenance would require expertise not often available in poor, agrarian societies.
The horizontal-axis wind turbine was invented in Egypt and Greece around 300 BC. “It had 8 to 10 wooden beams rigged with sails, and a rotor which turned perpendicular to the wind direction”. This type of wind turbine later became popular in Portugal and Greece. Around 1200 AD, the crusaders built and developed the post-mill for milling grain. The turbine was mounted on a vertical post and could be rotated on top the post to keep the turbine facing the wind. This post-mill technology was first adopted for electricity generation in Denmark in the late 1800’s. The technology soon spread to the U.S. where it was used to pump water and to irrigate crops across the Great Plains. During World War I, some American farmers rigged wind turbines to each generate 1 kW of DC current. Such wind turbines were mounted on buildings and towers. On western farms and railroad stations, wind turbines for pumping water were between 6 and 16m high and had 2 to 3m diameter. With 15kmh wind speed, a 2m-diameter turbine operating a 60cm diameter pump cylinder could lift 200 litres of water per hour to a height of 12m. A 4m diameter turbine could lift 250 litres per hour to height of 38m.
Yes, wind power is an old technology of use as a stepping-stone to a fully industrialised society. But its intermitency makes windpower useless as a significant electricity generator, and claims that in industrialised societies windturbines are “new technology requiring support for it to mature” are plain daft.
Richard
MarkW says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:58 am
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:53 am
—-
I have, which is why I can recognize paranoid garbage when I see it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No Mark you don’t ” recognize paranoid garbage when I see it.” You just deny things that make you uncomfortable and destroy your world view.
So how about READING their own D@mn WORDS!
And KNOWING there were food shortfalls predicted in January of 2008 as shown in that article, the Grain Traders write to President Bush in July of 2008.
The following is what you can find if you bother to look. I have plenty more info that backs it up.
Heck all you have to do is research Dan Amstutz, former VP of Cargill, the grain trader. He later went to work for Goldman Sachs. He wrote the Agreement on Agriculture for the World Trade Organization and wrote the 1996 Farm Bill dubbed Freedom to Fail that rid the USA of her grain reserves. SEE: Congressional Record for the rest of the results of Dan Amstutz bill that helped no one but the Grain Traders.
Oh and as a result of all that Dan Amstutz did, like “has produced one of the worst economic crises that rural American has ever experienced.” [above link] the Grain Traders instituted the Amstutz Award, for Dan, who “represented and championed ideas and goals of NAEGA membership.” (North American Grain Export Association ie the Grain Traders)
If you do not like that link How about the Council on Foreign Relations? link
@Peter Taylor,
Please list those developing nations that will, by themselves, add an additional 1 billion people. Could you also provide the median ages of those nations?
And this website should follow population trends, as the IPCC uses those trends to extrapolate future CO2 concentrations.
BTW, from the UN demographics information, every single G20 nation has fertility rates at or below replacement levels. Most have had fertility rates below replacement levels for decades. Additionally, most developing nations (ie Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Algeria, Turkey, etc..) are at or below replacement levels. Mexico, in particular has seen its TFR fall from 6.0 to 2.4 in the last 40 years. For the US, the median age has gone from 24 in 1972 to 37.8 today. China’s has gone from 17 in 1980 to 30 today. In Europe, the median age is around 44. Even India has seen its TFR drop significantly. Only a handful of African nations along with Yemen and Afghanistan maintain high fertility rates (4.0 or greater). Yes, populations will continue to grow, but that is due to longer life expectancies. Populations grow as most societies age.
As a matter of fact, demographics will become the number one social-economic-political topic of the next decade. Most developed nations have their wealth tied their older demographics. Most developing and developed nations do not have large younger cohorts to maintain their tax bases and standards of living. In other words, the world’s GDP more than likely peaked during the period 2000-2007. As societies continue to age, they save more, spend less, consume and produce less. Demand for commodities, energy, and consumer goods more than likely already peaked.
Phil,
“Malthus argued that it would be better and more humane if the population were maintained by a lower birthrate rather than a higher death rate caused by disease and starvation due to poverty.”
Then Malthus was at best a fool, and at worst a precursor to the eugenicists. The solution to disease and starvation is economic development, a fact that is blindingly obvious from the vantage of hindsight.
Malthus has it exactly backwards. He envisages populations as nothing but passive consumers of food – if there is not enough food to go around, then you need a smaller population. Oh, and being humane, he will try to achieve this by reducing birthrates.
History has in fact taught us that industrialisation has fed the people that Malthus wished into oblivion. I wish Malthus was alive today. I would love to hear him recant – Yes he would.
MtK, Mac, I take your point and see that planting oats and alfalfa together like that is a great idea. Collecting three years of haylage crops from a continuous field of alfalfa doesn’t seem like “fallow” to me, though (to lie idle).
bones, I meant to imply that viable alternatives such as nuclear or even fusion will replace oil as the primary energy source long before oil becomes expensive. Meanwhile, oil will apparently remain inexpensive as the primary energy source into the foreseeable future.
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
———-
You might also be interested in a few other things about Mexico.
According to the World Bank Data Mexico in 2011 had 2.28 births per woman. Brazil’s is even lower at 1.81 and much of Latin America it has been plummeting.
It is obvious that (in general) as nations become richer their women have fewer kids. What will Mexico’s rate be like in 2030? Do the latest numbers bode well for 2100? Might they rise again? I don’t know but Malthusians are always getting stirred up over a storm in a teacup.
RockyRoad:
I am copying all your post at January 6, 2014 at 6:28 am so readers are avoided the inconvenience of finding my statement and your disagreement with it.
Sorry, but I fail to see the disagreement. I said,
“Population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this.”
You are claiming that the most important of those reasons is that
“God doesn’t give children to selfish people.”
Importantly, if your claim were true then it would not alter my point (or my argument) in any way.
But, incidentally, your claim is clearly not true: I know several affluent people who have children.
Richard
@richardcourtney
I don’t think economics explain falling birthrates. For there is no rational explaination why societies from several different cultures (Japapn, Russia, Indonesia Poland, for example) have seen their their birthrates fall so far behind replacement levels. If economics explained demographics, then a rational couple would have 2.1 children (which is needed to at the very least keeps the population) stable. In the US, the trend amongst younger women is not have small families, but to have no children at all.
As your post explians, there is something else at play.
1. The planet Earth, over the period of human history, had a virtually fixed number of atoms of each of the naturally occurring elements. ***
2. Man is not an animal like rodents or birds or fish or insects or reptiles , etc.
3. Malthus’ false premise in his population problem theories was that mankind, given freedom (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) will act like those other animals.
If one agrees with those statements, then Malthus cannot be salvaged from his irrationalism by anyone who reasons that any given free man (independent of any size of the population) cannot use the fixed number of atoms of elements on Earth to achieve his freely determined rational goals.
Malthus and those who consider him correct do not understand reason and its fruits In Western Civilization . . . they presume mankind as non-rational and/or irrational.
I think they do not understand what reason is. Or they understand what reason is but are ideologically against its use .
*** this may possibly change very slightly in the relatively near future with space mined minerals imported to Earth and / or human colonization off Earth. And of course fissioning / fusion machines alter the number of some elements.
John
JP says:
Thankyou for your interest in my comment.
Your entire post at January 6, 2014 at 9:32 am says
Firstly, as your concluding statement says, I did not say there is a single cause of falling birthrates in affluent (i.e. developed) countries. I said
As I said, there are “several reasons”. However, the single reason I stated is alone sufficient to explain why birthrates decline to below replacement level.
You rightly say that replacement level is 2.1 children per couple. But a couple cannot have 2.1 children (the 0.1 of a child would be still-borne) so 2.1 children is not a rational desire of a couple..
Hence, birthrate cannot equal replacement rate in the absence of altered death rate.
As I said, in affluent countries couples do not have an economic need for large families. Hence, most restrict their number of offspring to two children (“one of each”) or three children if their first two have the same gender.
And if some couples cannot have children or decide not to have children (e.g. as one poster in this thread has said she did) then the average child per two of the population is very likely to be less than replacement rate.
Richard
Peter Taylor says:
January 6, 2014 at 6:07 am
“Dr Ball is no development expert and has little grasp of human ecology and the ecosystems that support mankind”
And as a “development expert” (what development are you talking about -look at the 50 yr track record of development experts in Africa) you then wax strongly on energy and other technologies that you have no grasp of – simply putting forward the a priori linear BS that they they teach you in college. From your condescending diatribe, it is clear you have been indoctrinated (I suspect unwittingly) by the longtime-soc_ialist-hijacked and corrupted “humanities sciences” they’ve been teaching over the past 40-50 yrs. There is no shortage of resources that aren’t being caused by governments and NGOs. Let these people have cheap electric power and let them unimpeded access to investment in their resources and they will replicate the American Dream which, by the way, has long been the target of destruction of the rest of the world and its organizations. Were it not for liberal useful idiots, the UN would have had its wings clipped long ago in this enterprise.
The new oil and gas revolution is real. The UK and France, Argentina, Romania, Australia, the Middle East and North Africa all have resources that are comparable to that of the US. Canada has even more. The entire country of Romania is underlain by rich shales from border to border. Russia, China – most on the list have resources rivaling Saudi Arabia. Who knows what Africa might have? Thank goodness, the US began to develop these and as usual show the world the way or your types would have put impediments to block it generations. US superiority is a superiority liberty and democracy. Oh, and nuclear should be good for all the millennia we need it. Maybe burn your old university course notes and do some real investigation.
MarkW says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:56 am
R. de Haan says:
January 6, 2014 at 7:08 am
—–
You seem to assume that education is a viable proxy for intelligence.
Yeah, I know that one.
“I know you have studied economics successfully but the question is, do you have brains?”
Aaargh! I have done it again.
I wrote the stupid statement
Hence, birthrate cannot equal replacement rate in the absence of altered death rate.
I intended to write
Hence, birthrate cannot equal replacement rate ()in the absence of altered death rate as a result of your “rational choice” of individual couples.
Sorry.
Richard
JP says:
January 6, 2014 at 9:32 am
@richardcourtney
I don’t think economics explain falling birthrates…..
As your post explains, there is something else at play.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All of you seem to think women are mindless animals.
1. First is the cost of raising and educating a child. In the USA it is $241,080 each.
2. Second we have been bombarded with the Population Bomb manta since the 1970’s and before so many conscientious people limit their families to one or two children.
3. We have been bombarded with eugenics notions of only those intelligent and disease free should reproduce.
Unfortunately when coupled with a government who pays young girls to get pregnant, you end up with the ‘dregs’ reproducing like rabbits and the intelligent reframing from reproducing.
I also wonder how much of the differences in birth rates can be traced back to how much is paid to young girls for getting pregnant and the attitude of the society towards unwed mothers.
In the USA when I was a child an unwed mother was shamed and generally gave up her child for adoption. This broke the “third generations of welfare mothers” dynamics we now see.
As nations industrialize, the life expectancy of the population goes up chiefly because more children survive into adulthood. More secure their family will live on, couples have fewer children. Modern family planning methods also become available. It also costs more to raise an infant into adulthood.as the standard of lving increases and couples choose to have fewer children.
Have you ever noticed that many of the world overpopulation zealots are also redistributionists? Isn’t there a logical contradiction in taking money from the wealthy (actually, the middle class) and giving it to the population with the highest birth rates while clamoring about overpopulation?
Gail Combs says:
January 6, 2014 at 10:08 am
“All of you seem to think women are mindless animals.”
____________________
And your point is?
(ducks)
Don’t know if the numbers are accurate but fun nonetheless.
http://www.worldometers.info/
None of you know your history,not in astronomy and not in terrestrial sciences where evolutionary biology and evolutionary geology literally began at the same time .Not a single mention of Archbishop Steno who came up with the notion of superposition where the older rock strata are below newer layers and that marine fossils found on mountaintops were originally on the sea floor –
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/steno.html
Not a single mention in the Wikipedia article on evolution and even though it is the equivalent of ignoring Copernicus in discovering the right arguments for the motions of the Earth,there is a definite reason for that omission .
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/smith.html
Here were two perfectly intertwined disciplines where the interpreters had already pieced together the outlines of a wonderful story about the biological and geological past but empiricists are aggressive and inserted a ’cause’ for evolution based on nothing more on a social commentary meant to justify national tyranny and invasion.
The ‘global warming’ mess and the way it has developed over the last decade or so is a symptom of a much bigger problem where people’s views are so narrow on both sides that they only see each other’s wants and hates and never the subject material free and clear of prejudices.
Can you be more specific about “worldwide” “on average” “cultures” “believe” “outpopulating other cultures”?
The warfare you talk of, is it happening in all African countries?
See my other comments.
Here is a story which one should think about. It relates to the panic over the population issue. It shows how humans manage time and again to get out of sometimes literally ‘sticky’ situations.
——————————-
If your’re going to quote please be honestT
The real quote from the club of rome:
http://www.archive.org/download/TheFirstGlobalRevolution/TheFirstGlobalRevolution.pdf
The common enemy of humanity is Man
In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill.
In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes.
All these dangers are caused by human intervention In natural processes. and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.
—————————–
somewhat different!
Here in the UK population growth is having many adverse impacts right now. Our countryside is being swallowed by housing at an alarming rate, wildlife is driven into ever-smaller pockets or rendered extinct, sports and leisure are curtailed (one playing field is lost every 3 weeks to housing), and house prices are driven ever-higher as demand exceeds supply.
Farther afield, the countries with highest population growth are among the world’s most poverty-stricken – think Yemen, Mali, Horn of Africa, Haiti, Pakistan. Moreover the resultant millions of unemployed youth are ripe for recruitment by extremists making these same countries among the most dangerously unstable.
@Patrick Guinness Frank
I just wanted to give a thumbs up to your comments. I think I’ve seen your comments before and many times disagreed, but this time you are spot on. [I may be misremembering as well 😉 ]. We shouldn’t be too smug in making fun of these past predictions. Population crashes did regularly occur in the past. It’s reasonable to assume they will occur again in the future. While Doomsday culture was way off the mark this time around, their was good reason to think the proposed outcome was probable.
It should caution us though in being too certain in what we consider to be ‘obvious’ consequences, and we should generally assume that things take longer to occur than we think they will; especially when it comes to the ingenuity of man in delaying the inevitable. The US debt crisis provides a good modern day example. That there will be a serious debt crisis ‘seems’ obvious. That it would be delayed over and over, (growing the problem at the same time), was not.
Like Tim says though, it should be also be clear now that the solution to poverty and population crashes is more CO2 usage, more energy use, more praise of technology and less romanticizing of ancient hunter-gatherer cultures and their myth of sustainability (they had population crashes on an almost regular basis).
This all seems to tell us that to both sides of the argument people are not individuals but units to be administered or not by one group or another. What if individuals matter? After all contributers to this blog feel that their opinions matter so they must think they themselves are individuals who matter. or they would not bother to set up the computer. This is the devilish thinking of the social historian who sees amorphous groups not people peforming actions. But what would I know I’m just an individual and don’t matter at all.
( and I mean devilish)
…it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome.
OK. The COR has to change its attitudes and behaviors.
Ian Wilson:
Please explain the point you intend with your post at January 6, 2014 at 11:10 am.
Richard
Gail Combs,
I noticed your dialog on education and childbearing.
Regarding the subject of educated females and their childbearing rates, I have had the opportunity to become acquainted with one segment of the educated female population; females in the process of becoming US educated, certified and licensed medical doctors.
It is not uncommon that they somehow find creative ways have multiple children during the sequence of going from 4 years of undergraduate science degree programs on to 4 years of intense medical school then on to 4 – 6 years of very very demanding hospital residency requirements to practice in their profession.
It is a testimony to the human mind to see their determination, resiliency and imagination in pursuing both a highly cherished multi-child family and also the goal of a high level of education/training that is competitive with the males.
We need to look at individual population segments in rational discussions on subjects like child bearing and education / professional achievement.
John
Jimbo says:
January 6, 2014 at 8:59 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks, haven’t had a chance to check the links out yet but I was aware there is a reverse migration for two reasons.
Employment in the USA sucks (`23% unemployment) so less chance of finding a job.
China is becoming more expensive so when you add in transportation to USA markets, Mexico has now become a better spot for manufacturing.
Welcome to the itinerant labor force… Pensions?, long term employment? – FORGET IT!
Thanks for exposing the ugly Malthusian subtext of the climate change movement, which benefits the elite at the expense of the poor. Is the climate change movement the grandson of the eugenics movement?
Even though global population growth will eventually level off as a result of sensible economic development there are, judging by ‘The Georgia Guidestones’ (see Wiki link below), still plenty of nutters with money and resources out there who want population DECIMATION, not stability. To quote guideline principle number 1:
“Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature”
That is a substantial reduction from present population levels and would make past genocides look like a troublesome head cold by comparison…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
Tim, this is one of the most important posts ever to appear on WUWT in my 6 or 7 years visiting.
I have often tried to point out that the Political and theoretical issues trump the science issues totally, but scientsts and engieers are notoriously blinded by various prejudices and the fact that they are very busy. I am glad you took the time to do this. A+! Paul Johnson is one of America’s greatest and most original historians. He is clearly wrong about some issues but he takes the stances demanded by what he knows, which is a lot. I stil lug his heavy books around with me.
We can see how narrow a view many here have just looking at the comments. People seem to forget that looking out their window and seeing something like snow means it is a universal phenomenon! People here are talking about China,and India, as if you had forgotten they exist!
It’s as if every one of the hundreds of eyes on a fly had its own consciousness and each single eye was the totality of perception! Most people who talk about population reduction have no clue how dangerous and irresponsible their chatter is, because it is accepted as having merit, when in truth, it is ignorant,and unscientific. Phil, who accuses you of not reading correctly is typical of the many people who keep their own eyes closed while reading. Maybe your mind is going, Phil, go read Malthus again, but with eyes open. It really helps.
Dr. Ball’s article, and many of the comments made on it, remind me of the arguments about the number of angels who can occupy the head of a needle. I’d like to remind them of the parable of the seven fat cows and the seven thin cows.
Even IF we currently have the capacity (although this has yet to be demonstrated) to adequately feed 7 billion people (and their work animals and pets) , the critical question for the survival and progress of humanity, which Dr. Ball fails to address, is how much reserve supply of food, and fuel for transport, heating, and cooking do we have, and what redundancy is there in our system of distribution of these essentials for life?
For almost all of the developed world, the lifeline of food and fuel is consists of “just in time” distribution by a complex system of motorized transport for which there is no redundancy. It is a delicate house of cards that may be brought down by solar EMP, extreme volcanism, an asteroid impact, a sudden onset ice age, or even “just” a global epidemic, possibly beyond any hope of recovery.
I have seen several popular “documentaries” about some of these threats, but never any serious attempt at estimating the effective food reserve our major cities would have, were the supply lines cut off, especially if power were also lost for refrigeration. So I’ll just take a wild stab at guesstimating that most urban centres will have less than a week’s supply of food on hand. What happens after that runs out, and there is no resupply?
Humanity is growing like Topsy while crawling out onto an ever thinner branch. And how much bare land is under that branch won’t be any solace to it when the branch breaks and our civilization goes “SPLAT!”. The best hope for humanity, realistically, is that it breaks sooner, rather than later, perhaps leaving us some amount of viable culture and infrastructure and some remnants of unpolluted soil and water for continued existence.
Ian Wilson says:
January 6, 2014 at 11:10 am
Here in the UK population growth….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How much of that population growth is due to immigration of population with high birth rates?
The CIA reports the United Kingdom otal fertility rate is 1.90 so your population should be decreasing.
You seem to have the same thing happening there as happens in the USA. For the United States the total fertility rate is 2.06. link
The break down by race Pew Reports is
White – 1.8
Hispanic – 2.4
Black -2.1
Aisan – 1.8
It is not in that report, but another report mentioned the Hispanic birth rate in the USA was higher because they felt more economical comfortable and able to provide for their children.
………………
Alan Robertson, That snow ball just missed you. link
Sheilaclicks
‘Global warming’ is a pale imitation of Newton’s agenda and few have that kind of intelligence and knowledge of the historical and technical details to go through the infancy of mathematical modeling which began in earnest with the ‘theory of gravity’. When a ‘theory ‘ surfaces that explain so much with so little and where the precepts are vague ,it is certain that distortions and manipulations are involved .For instance ‘global warming’ explains floods and drought,cold snaps and heatwaves or any opposite event or condition.
“To explain: The Newtonian Gravity — a law of Nature — a law whose existence as such no one out of Bedlam questions — a law whose admission as such enables us to account for nine-tenths of the Universal phaenomena — a law which, merely because it does so enable us to account for these phaenomena, we are perfectly willing, without reference to any other considerations, to admit, and cannot help admitting, as a law — a law, nevertheless, of which neither the principle nor the modus operandi of the principle, has ever yet been traced by the human analysis — a law, in short, which, neither in its detail nor in its generality, has been found susceptible of explanation at all — is at length seen to be at every point thoroughly explicable, provided we only yield our assent to — what? To an hypothesis? Why if an hypothesis — if the merest hypothesis — if an hypothesis for whose assumption — as in the case of that pure hypothesis the Newtonian law itself — no shadow of a priori reason could be assigned — if an hypothesis, even so absolute as all this implies, would enable us to perceive a principle for the Newtonian law — would enable us to understand as satisfied, conditions so miraculously — so ineffably complex and seemingly irreconcileable as those involved in the relations of which Gravity tells us, — what rational being Could so expose his fatuity as to call even this absolute hypothesis an hypothesis any longer — unless, indeed, he were to persist in so calling it, with the understanding that he did so, simply for the sake of consistency in words?” Edgar Allan Poe
I have traced the process of what Sir Isaac tried to do while his followers merely took advantage of his voodoo and turned it into a lifestyle based on modeling. What a con job done at the expense of genuine astronomy and the insights of the great astronomers,particularly Copernicus and Galileo.
‘Global warming ‘ is merely a symptom of a Royal Society empiricism and its aggressive approach to astronomy and terrestrial sciences. You play around and feel useful/important but the opposition own the education system so you are simply not up to that higher level of intelligence to know the consequences of that.
The TCOR/Malthusian movement ARE pulling the rug from under our civilization.
You can observe this on may area’s in our economy, our financial system.
The current monetary policy of zero interest rates and Quantitative Easing increasing debt to be shouldered by the tax payer while at the same time the amount of credit available for the real economy is decreased. Most of this money generated out of thin air is distributed into the world wide casino while at home the entire middle class, the job engine of the internal market is rooted out.
We see this in the US and Europe.
Epa with insane requirements for CO2 emissions for vehicles that already hit a brick wall.
Epa with insane policies for detergents and bug killers resulting in a bed bug explosion on 5 star hotels.
The subsidized export of manufacturing industry and jobs abroad and the taxes on imported products like car tires.
The lunatic quest for a carbon tax and “sustainable energy” projects that don’t deliver but drive up electricity prices.
The bio fuel mandate resulting in food riots all over the world resulting in the Arab Spring revolution.
The mafia like introduction of Obamacare.
The permanent lock up of (strategic)resources and the depopulation of the rural area’s.
The war on coal.
The abuse of the Constitution and the Bill of rights.
The totally mad foreign policies.
The total corruption on any level of Government, the corruption of Government institutions, from NASA to NCDC, universities etc. (Climate Change)
The spying scams resulting in billions of losses for the US IT industry.
The way whistle blowers are treated and those who are skeptic about government policies or who dare to to oppose the “political correct” doctrine of US, UN and US politics.
Just to mention a few.
It’s a slippery slop and we’re gaining speed.
Wow…. I had a meeting with Bertrand Schneider in Toronto and dinner in Paris and we ended hosting the first meeting of ICLEI… They are monsters parading around as charming Frenchmen…
I am very, very sorry.
otropogo,
“Humanity is growing like Topsy while crawling out onto an ever thinner branch. And how much bare land is under that branch won’t be any solace to it when the branch breaks and our civilization goes “SPLAT!””
Not true, current UN world population projections have world population topping out shy of 10 billion around 2050 and declining there after. World population growth has been decelerating for at least 50 years.
Tobias, didn’t you know that Bill Gates’ father was a proponent of a sick and twisted idea regarding the eart’s future? I have no doubt Junior shares those views. The fact that rapacious predatory people like Carnegie or Gates or Kennedy give away money seemingly, does not mean they have turned nice! They are using tax exempt foundations to implement policy and they are not going to argue the point with anyone here. Unless those foundations are taken on, we will never have a free society or much of a future either.
Ian Schumacher says: @ January 6, 2014 at 11:16 am
… We shouldn’t be too smug in making fun of these past predictions. Population crashes did regularly occur in the past. It’s reasonable to assume they will occur again in the future….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mother Nature is still in control….
GregS says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:19 pm
Global warming appears to be exaggerated, but I’m all for reducing world population, and I’m fed up with growth for growth’s sake.
Then you’re fed up with something that doesn’t exist. Growth for growth’s sake? WTF?
John Whitman says: @ January 6, 2014 at 11:54 am
….It is a testimony to the human mind to see their determination, resiliency and imagination in pursuing both a highly cherished multi-child family and also the goal of a high level of education/training that is competitive with the males.
We need to look at individual population segments in rational discussions on subjects like child bearing and education / professional achievement.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I certainly agree. One PhD chemist, I worked with had her husband elect to stay home and become a ‘house-husband’ to care for their infant.
Female Doctors having kids during training does not surprise me a bit. We are near Chapel Hill NC and do birthdays parties for them. The most memorable was in the pouring rain using umbrellas to keep the kids dry. Due to tight schedules another day was not an option.
Determined? Yes – VERY!
Peter Taylor says:
“Dr Ball is no development expert and has little grasp of human ecology and the ecosystems that support mankind – I wish this site would restrict itself to climate science. When it strays into these zones where most have little comprehension but a lot of prejudgements the whole thing gets very messy.”
This is just te kind of know-nothing approach that is so dangerous, arrogant and not even wrong.
Tim Ball has a far better idea of the subject than you show here, with your simplistic and beblinkered POV. Theory is part of science, Dumbkopf! Are you really that backward? Maybe you have missed a hundred years of physics.
Was that the mod who told GregS ‘ ( after his reidiculous rant against life itself) you may lead by example? That was what i wanted to say but thought it might get ‘flagged’! Very funny!
Sloppy spelling sorry:]
I’m sorry….I wandered off trying to imagine what a 1 cubic kilometer “sphere” looks like……
OssQss I am glad you have woken up! I suggest to everypne interested to watch the video OSS has posted. I hope it frightens people, because that is only the tip of the iceberg. Our leaders from the Bushes to Clinton and Obama have committed treason against the Constitution by not pulling us out of the UN! Antony Sutton, was the historian who has put this all together from the Hegelian background of our American Skull and Bones elites (Kerry, many Bushes all members) to the reality of the American brand of corporate rule that empowered both the Soviet revolution and the Nazi, as well as FDR’s homegrown Young Plan for the New Deal. It would be better for the UN to be destroyed then to allow them to implement this horrific ignorant and hateful agenda.
I have traveled to Africa, specifically to one of the poorest nations on earth, and while there were populous cities/towns, much of what I saw were miles and miles of open land. Land that is not currently farmable in anything other than a subsistence-only fashion. This country experienced a food shortage this year- not due to population increases, but due to improper farming techniques, improperly managed foreign-trade, local corruption, transportation problems, etc. All of these problems have solutions- technological or sociological solutions. The issue n many of these countries is lack of access to information and the corrupt nature of the institutions governing them. Neither of those is solved through the reduction of population, it is solved through the propagation or information.
Overpopulation is a convenient saw for despots and wannabe despots. It is like original sin in terms of controlling a religious population. If you are guilty of a crime just by being born (either in original sin, or in population) then the powers that be have a lever to control you.
otropogo:
At January 6, 2014 at 12:34 pm MattS provides an excellent refutation of a factual error which is a foundation of the assertions in your post at January 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm.
I write to refute the other main point in your post.
You say
That is a pointless question based on ignorance of reality.
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite.
I explained this in my above post at January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am. This link jumps to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
Richard
Why am I in mod. limbo?
“GregS, I have never met anyone who promotes population growth for growth’s sake, so stop with the silly strawmen.”
BS! Consider every Muslim nation in the world and Muslim population within Western host nations where population growth is not only encouraged but exalted.
cohenite says:
January 6, 2014 at 1:45 pm
“GregS, I have never met anyone who promotes population growth for growth’s sake, so stop with the silly strawmen.”
BS! Consider every Muslim nation in the world and Muslim population within Western host nations where population growth is not only encouraged but exalted.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is not growth for growth’s sake but a method of invasion. They also use women and children as bomb carriers.
It is humans used as a weapon. The fact that other nations ALLOW them to immigrate into their countries is the real problem. Talk about KNOWINGLY opening the gates to a Trojan Horse.
Disclaimer – I am of Muslim/Arab descent on my Mother’s side.
Gail Combs says the Highland Clearances were serendipity!! What nonsense! Gail, surely you should delete or retract such an ignorant remark.The Highland Clearances like the American extirpation of the Indians or the Holocaust, were genocidal in nature and intent and thus even though good may often follow evil, it can’t be right to refer to such a thing as serendipity.
David G says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:15 pm
Gail Combs says the Highland Clearances were serendipity!! What nonsense! Gail….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sorry, You have misunderstood my meaning (And of course the Genocides were atrocities)
It is the link of driving people off their farms and having the same people end up as useful cheap labor for factories that was ‘serendipity’ That is the unexpected bonus to early industrialists that I was trying to get across.
I do not think that connection was done intentionally the first time since as you say the goal was Genocide, but that does not mean the connection was not noted and put to ‘good use’ as a method of providing cheap labor since then.
If you read between the lines in the Clinton quote you can see that was the intention in Haiti.
@otropogo says:
January 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm
Dr. Ball’s article, and many of the comments made on it, remind me of the arguments about the number of angels who can occupy the head of a needle. I’d like to remind them of the parable of the seven fat cows and the seven thin cows.
Even IF we currently have the capacity (although this has yet to be demonstrated) to adequately feed 7 billion people (and their work animals and pets) , the critical question for the survival and progress of humanity, which Dr. Ball fails to address, is how much reserve supply of food, and fuel for transport, heating, and cooking do we have, and what redundancy is there in our system of distribution of these essentials for life?
For almost all of the developed world, the lifeline of food and fuel is consists of “just in time” distribution by a complex system of motorized transport for which there is no redundancy. It is a delicate house of cards that may be brought down by solar EMP, extreme volcanism, an asteroid impact, a sudden onset ice age, or even “just” a global epidemic, possibly beyond any hope of recovery.
I have seen several popular “documentaries” about some of these threats, but never any serious attempt at estimating the effective food reserve our major cities would have, were the supply lines cut off, especially if power were also lost for refrigeration. So I’ll just take a wild stab at guesstimating that most urban centres will have less than a week’s supply of food on hand. What happens after that runs out, and there is no resupply?
Humanity is growing like Topsy while crawling out onto an ever thinner branch. And how much bare land is under that branch won’t be any solace to it when the branch breaks and our civilization goes “SPLAT!”. The best hope for humanity, realistically, is that it breaks sooner, rather than later, perhaps leaving us some amount of viable culture and infrastructure and some remnants of unpolluted soil and water for continued existence”.
Otropogo,
“Even IF we currently have the capacity (although this has yet to be demonstrated) to adequately feed 7 billion people (and their work animals and pets) ”
No doubt about the capability to feed all people in the world.
The food is there, no doubt about it and we could even without much more real problems produce double the amount of food we produce today if we stopped transforming food stocks in bio fuel and take all the lands into production that today are not used because the EU and the US farmers are paid for not using them.
If there is a problem with food it is a distribution problem (mostly caused by war) or a poverty problem or people not having the money to buy food. It is almost never a production problem.
Even during the Irish famine, Ireland wan a net food exporter. So this famine was triggered by the potato disease but the real poblem was that people didn’t have the money to buy food.
In fact we have now acquired the capability to produce sufficient fresh food locally enough to feed an entire city using a stocked “growth building”. Such a building even has multi-purpose properties so you can visit an opera, read a book or take a nice walk among the plants that are grown 24/7, 365 day’s a year.
“what redundancy is there in our system of distribution of these essentials for life?”
You must study our history.
We have made our food distribution system redundant a long time ago.
We did so during the Little Ice Age when the fleets from the Brits and the Dutch couldn’t leave their ports because of the frozen harbors and no trade was undertaken.
The “just in time” distribution system has evolved due to the real estate prices Supermarkets have to pay and the simple fact that “we can” work this way. However we have developed the technique to conserve food for years, we call it canned or dried food and every sane family has a stockpile of canned or dried food at home already and if they haven’t a stockpile it is their own fault. People should carry responsibility for their own situation.
As for disasters:
Most disasters have a local effect and if we have a “global disaster”, well…. that’s a shame than but not something to worry if i were you because it is only a minute risk compared to crossing a busy street or even sitting in a chair doing nothing.
You clearly have watched too many fear mongering disaster movies and probably need mental care, especially if I read your last remark:
“The best hope for humanity, realistically, is that it breaks sooner, rather than later, perhaps leaving us some amount of viable culture and infrastructure and some remnants of unpolluted soil and water for continued existence”.
This is a stupid remark and you break the bank with this.
You clearly support the claim that the biggest threat of mankind and the planet is humanity and that makes you “realistically” an idiot and I say this in a polite manner.
So good luck with that.
My problem with the overpopulation myth is that those who believe it project populations in an exponential manner to infinity and yet freeze Technology. Human overpopulation is of course a myth. You can fit the entire population of the planet in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona with a population density less than the liberal utopia of San Francisco County California.
In fact the number of people the earth can sustain is nowhere near saturation. Why? Well because of human invention. They project current population trends out to infinity while assuming that no human will ever invent another single thing. They say humans will never invent another machine, process, device, tool, or improve any equipment, or devise a new system, or discover anything that will improve life for the people of earth. But invention is innate to humans. It is hard wired into our genetics. And being that necessity is the mother of invention, and with an ever growing population we will have a larger pool of talent to invent solutions to our problems.
Humans can recycle nearly everything, and nothing is really used because we cannot destroy matter. And since matter is nearly infinite and matter is energy, and we have our sun to provide us with new energy constantly, thus energy is nearly infinite.
Also, humans can live anywhere on above or below the surface, we can live in deserts, arctic regions, and even on top of and below water (the earth’s surface is over 70% water) and the ability of us to grow and recycle food in nearly infinite also. We could if necessary even mine other planets for minerals and grow food on the moon or even Mars. The population cap for the earth is as infinite as our imagination.
The biggest error of the Malthusians is not only underestimating technological capacity which, after all, is only of the characteristics which distinguishes humans from the animals to which Malthus was comparing us, but how that technological capacity could apply off planet.
One of the things that impresses and depresses me about alarmists and the various other forms of catastrophists is their navel gazing and inability to look beyond their own egos.
There is a LOT of real estate in the universe and people who say there are too many people should have a telescope glued to their myopic eyes.
@Gail Combs
“All of you seem to think women are mindless animals.”
And why do you say that? And if this was a purely economics issue (ie an issue based upon a rational market) the birthrates of several nations wouldn’t have plunged the way they have. Education is only one of the facets here at play. Jonathan Last, who studied the subject, uses his own demographic as the prime example (he belongs to what Charles Murray refers to as the Cognitive Class). Most women in the developed world do not attend college, nor do they have advanced degrees. Additionally, for the last decade the federal government has expanded the EIC (a family of 8 or 9 can get back up to $12000 in taxes each year); many states now provide pre-school, and many Fortune 500 Companies have generous Family Leave policies. Yet, in both 2010 and 2011, US birthrates (especially among the middle class) plunged to their lowest levels.
In Europe, where governments and businesses have been even more generous, birthrates have fallen to levels where their populations will be halved every generation. Japan not only has generous parental entitlements, but it currently has a shortage of younger workers and wages are rising. Japan’s population is currently losing between 250,000 to 400,000 souls a year.
In a perfectly rational society, especially a society that has offers generous transfer of payment entitlements that cross from the younger to the older, a couple would have between 3 and 6 children to ensure that society has a constant flow of tax revenues (Enlightened Self Interest dictates that the couple would want to make sure that there would be enough taxpayers to support them when they retire). Yet, anything but rational self interest has occurred. And this phenomena cross cultural, racial, class, and economic boundaries. The US has met or exceeded birthrates of 2.1 children per female only 4 times since 1970. Our nation’s median age has gone from 24 in 1970 to 37.8 today as a consequence.
There are 2 sub-demographics in the US that have bucked this trend: Mormons and Orthodox Jews. In both cases, economics plays no part. There is much more at work here than money.
A couple of things:
1) Resources only exist in the first place because of the human mind. Trees were trees until we figured out we oculd make stuff from them. Iron was dirt/rocks until we figured out we could make stuff from it. Oil was an annoying sticky substance until we figured out we could burn it for energy/make stuff from it.
There is no limit to resources as our minds are effectively unlimited (at this stage of our evolution, in any case). There may be troubling periods in the transition to/from energy sources but i dont even believe that will be the case. We can see how the speculative spike in the oil price impacted the economics of alternate forms of energy and we already have other forms of energy in the pipeline (ie fusion has been demonstrated to be theoretically sound; it remains an engineering exerise to obtain net energy production).
2) We already produce enough food to feed the projected future population. We simply need to be more efficient in its distribution and use (ie it is a technological and cost issue). That is ignoring possible increases in food production altogether.
3) Impoverished nations are the result of a lack of economic and political pluralism; simply, the wealth and power of the nation is directed to the few. The absence of property rights acts as a deterrent to economic development and those who try to resolve their situation simply end up losing whatever they produce that is of value to those in power. The old Soviet saying of “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us” comes to mind.
The solution in Africa and other impoverished areas can only happen once the people themselves have had enough and choose a different fate (unfortunately it is not as easy as simply removing the offenders powers that be and replacing the system, it will revert to the prior state unless the people themselves have taken ownership of the situation).
4) How long would we suffer from “limited resources” if we actually directed our incredible minds to the resources available outside the bounds of Planet Earth? I dare say that it is far more important to have as many people (and brains) as possible working on humanity’s problems that to try and enforce any kind of population limits. We arent confined to a petrie dish.
@otropogo
“Even IF we currently have the capacity (although this has yet to be demonstrated) to adequately feed 7 billion people (and their work animals and pets) ”
This is obviously demonstrated fact. World food production is 3,000 kcal/day per capita. More than enough food to make every one on earth obese. Recommended daily diet is only 2,000 kcal. We waste at least 30% of food production and cows alone eat more grains than humans.
“the critical question for the survival and progress of humanity, which Dr. Ball fails to address, is how much reserve supply of food, and fuel for transport, heating, and cooking do we have, and what redundancy is there in our system of distribution of these essentials for life?”
Grains are stored for six months since they are usually harvested twice a year. People don’t stop eating grains and wait for the next harvest season. Oil refineries store at least one month supply of fuel. They don’t store more because it’s costly to keep large inventory.
“For almost all of the developed world, the lifeline of food and fuel is consists of “just in time” distribution by a complex system of motorized transport for which there is no redundancy. It is a delicate house of cards that may be brought down by solar EMP, extreme volcanism, an asteroid impact, a sudden onset ice age, or even “just” a global epidemic, possibly beyond any hope of recovery.”
We can easily store more grains and fuel. All we need is bigger warehouse and tanks. Natural disasters will disrupt supply of grains and fuel regardless of world population size. False argument.
Natural disasters are not caused by big populations.
“I have seen several popular “documentaries” about some of these threats, but never any serious attempt at estimating the effective food reserve our major cities would have, were the supply lines cut off, especially if power were also lost for refrigeration. So I’ll just take a wild stab at guesstimating that most urban centres will have less than a week’s supply of food on hand. What happens after that runs out, and there is no resupply?”
This threat had nothing to do with big population. Inventories of food and fuel depend on consumption rate. Small populations have small inventories. If you want large inventories, just build large warehouses. No need to decrease population.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“Take a walk through the slums of Africa or Asia, and then tell me again that the world is not over-populated.”
———————-
Idiot. Have you walked through these slums, have you ever left your city based condo and the pages of Wikipedia??
I doubt it, but , if you have, take off your Eco-Whacko glasses and use your eyes.
Those countries are Third World because they are Kleptocracies. Corrupt and brutal. I live there, Asia, and the amount of theft from projects is astounding. If that money was to be used properly then there would be less need for family support through numbers.
Get off yer Rse and start looking through your own eyes.
regards
Well, unusually I find myself disagreeing with Anthony here. I believe that the world is overpopulated. There has been an exponential increase in population in just the last 60 years or so. 1.5 billion or thereabouts when Kennedy was president, to the current value. I agree that our ability to populate the planet is limited to geographical constraints. I won’t argue that we don’t have enough food because people are starving in Africa because this is due to the extreme climate in that area. However, there is a shortfall in energy. It diverges significantly from the usage of your average American to people living in the 3rd world.
Population is a huge problem and to say otherwise (in my opinion) is almost as bad as using Co2 as an excuse to drive population down. So Co2 isn’t a problem and population isn’t a problem. It’s a bit of a recipe for disaster really. What is the problem is that this teaches us to have a scant regard for conserving what we already have. To anyone that may know me I have always been a big supporter of people using energy carefully. Why waste it when you don’t have to. Teach our kids about economics instead of Co2. teach them that having a family comes at a price that should be affordable to them and not the welfare state.
What is happening instead is our gas and coal supplies have a noose around their proverbial necks. The people that can’t afford energy ( and there are many of them) are being forced into poverty. 10 percent of children in the UK live in poverty. And we think that we can increase the population further. Our world is corrupt and cannot support what we already have.
What will happen is people will start to die and it will sort itself out in the end through a simple process of natural selection.
Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
The information pertaining to this excellent Dr Tim Ball piece; The Club Of Rome, Maurice Strong, UNEP, UN, The IPCC and Agenda 21, are as vital to the topic of ‘anthropogenic’ global warming as are any of the ‘sciences’.
They are most definitely not mutually exclusive.
Chris:
Your post at January 7, 2014 at 2:17 am begins by saying you
And you follow that with a list of other beliefs which you have pertaining to your mistaken belief in the world being “overpopulated”.
You have a right to believe whatever you want. Everybody does. I know many people who believe in Santa Claus.
But this thread is about whether in reality there is problem of overpopulation of the world. The issue under discussion is not what you (or anyone else) “believes” except in so far as people express “beliefs” about overpopulation which are plain wrong.
And the beliefs you state in your post are plain wrong.
Your errors are explained in my post in this thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
It concludes saying
Please read my post and provide the reasons and/or evidence you have to refute my arguments.
And if you cannot refute my arguments then perhaps you need to question the “beliefs” stated in your post.
Richard
Chris says:
January 7, 2014 at 2:17 am
“What is happening instead is our gas and coal supplies have a noose around their proverbial necks. The people that can’t afford energy ( and there are many of them) are being forced into poverty. 10 percent of children in the UK live in poverty. And we think that we can increase the population further. Our world is corrupt and cannot support what we already have.
What will happen is people will start to die and it will sort itself out in the end through a simple process of natural selection.”
_____________________________
Chris, the real problem is that people who believe as you do have taken control of the government in the UK and have taken steps to cause the population to die off, which the most vulnerable are doing. It’s all government action, though and has nothing to do with supply and
demand, it’s nothing natural.
Do you feel proud that your thinking puts you in league with those who are taking active steps to reduce mankind? Look around at those people you know and see which of them you’d like to see die next and don’t forget to look in the mirror.
There is a repeated question in this thread about whether and how much importance economic factors have on birth-rate. No-one is doubting that economic factors affect the death-rate. Poverty kills.
However, I propose that economic factors have NO influence on the birth-rate. Poverty increases the infant mortality rate but has NO influence on the birth-rate.
My justification for this extreme position is that the economic value of a baby is not rational. To a mother or a father the life of the child is worth far more than it is to anyone else. People do give up their holidays, ambitions even their dreams for the benefit of their children.
So how much is a baby worth? That depends on whether it is yours. Educated people do spend much of their work/wealth on their offspring. And that is not rational. It is loving.
M Courtney:
I am writing to refute your post at January 7, 2014 at 5:58 am. It says
It is an empirical fact that the birthrate falls to below replenishment levels in countries with sufficient affluence for people to not need families sufficiently large as to be ‘insurance’ against times of illness and old age.
Your error is to assume the desire of most people for offspring means they have a desire for as many offspring as possible. That assumption is wrong.
People have a desire to have as many offspring as they need. When people have sufficient affluence to not need large families then they only have sufficient children to fulfill their emotional need for offspring.
The emotional need for offspring is – on average – less than 2.1 children per couple, and that is why birth rate falls in affluent societies.
There are specific exceptions to this. The exceptions include
(a) people with high libido and no means of birth control and/or abortion,
(b) people with much higher than average emotional need for children,
(c) Royal Families with need for several children until sufficient male heirs are obtained,
(d) to (n).
But your claim that “economic factors have NO influence on the birth-rate” is demonstrated to be wrong by observations.
Richard
Alan Robertson says
“Do you feel proud that your thinking puts you in league with those who are taking active steps to reduce mankind? Look around at those people you know and see which of them you’d like to see die next and don’t forget to look in the mirror.”
I am not suggesting for a moment that we take active steps to reduce anything. So please don’t draw false inferences about what you perceive as my solution. What we can do however is educate the children in school about sustainability and affordability. Everyone wants what everyone else wants. it’s the reason why there is so much war in the world. We live in a welfare state that seems to support the poor. This is at odds with your view that the government is causing the population to die off. It is the exact opposite. We live in a welfare state that treats fat people for being fat and gives new liver’s to alcoholics. We house single mother’s or benefit claimant’s with large families. We support the poor. I would suggest that you perhaps review you theory on the government here as it is at odds with what actually happens in reality.
Chris says:
January 7, 2014 at 6:56 am
I would suggest that you perhaps review you theory on the government here as it is at odds with what actually happens in reality.
_____________________________
You failed to address the fact that 30,000 people were reported to have died last winter in the UK because they couldn’t afford to heat their homes. Gov’t instituted “Green” taxes and policies designed to curb CO2 emissions drove the cost of fuel so high that people died. Are you ok with that?
Richards Courtney said:
But this thread is about whether in reality there is problem of overpopulation of the world. The issue under discussion is not what you (or anyone else) “believes” except in so far as people express “beliefs” about overpopulation which are plain wrong.
I am sorry, but I do think the world is overpopulated. Why is it not about what I believe. Our population has exploded in 60 years. We have more people claiming than are paying into the system. People are living longer and there are fewer jobs.
Now, what we can do and what we should do are 2 completely different things. For example we could all become vegetarians and get rid of livestock. This would provide land to allow an increase in population. It doesn’t mean we can support that population financially with affordable housing or jobs, or the increased energy demand when there is already a shortfall. Why should we have a larger population when we now have 10 percent of children in the UK living in poverty. And it is only going to get worse as less people pay in to those claiming. It’s basic affordability.
Alan Robertson said
I would suggest that you perhaps review you theory on the government here as it is at odds with what actually happens in reality.
_____________________________
You failed to address the fact that 30,000 people were reported to have died last winter in the UK because they couldn’t afford to heat their homes. Gov’t instituted “Green” taxes and policies designed to curb CO2 emissions drove the cost of fuel so high that people died. Are you ok with that?
No I am not ok with it. I agree this is an example where we are being hit in the pocket by green taxes. Go read my posts on Nuccitelli’s blog in the Guardian and see what I think of green taxes. You made a generalised comment about how the government is effectively killing people off. In some respects yes, but in a lot of other respects no. It is not quite as straightforward as you say. I think the threat of Man made climate change is the biggest con this world has ever faced. So please don’t be quite so quick to judge me here.
Chris:
I am replying to your post at January 7, 2014 at 7:10 am.
You seem to be very confused. You say
Then you talk about UK population.
The world need not be overpopulated merely because one country is overpopulated.
The world is a big place and humans occupy a small part of the fifth of the world which is not covered by water, and there are not many of us. If the entire human population of the world were to move to the USA then the resulting population density of the USA would be less than the population density which now exists in the Netherlands.
And the UK is NOT overpopulated. The UK has population density less than the Netherlands.
You seem to be thinking that local issues which concern you are a global problem. Please read the responses to you from Alan Robertson: they may remove some of your confusion of local perception with global reality.
And I again ask you to read and consider my argument in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
If you were to tell me of any fault in that argument then I would be grateful.
Richard
M Courtney says:
“However, I propose that economic factors have NO influence on the birth-rate. Poverty increases the infant mortality rate but has NO influence on the birth-rate.”
This is simply not true. People who live in 3rd world countries have many children because the mortality rates are so high. As people from the 3rd world integrate with people from the western world it is proven that the birth rate falls partly due to the better economic conditions that ensure better longevity, but also due to education in birth control. And this is a good place to start. Teach kids in school to be responsible and have a good grasp of the economics that you don’t believe make a difference. I believe they do.
M Courtney says:
“My justification for this extreme position is that the economic value of a baby is not rational. To a mother or a father the life of the child is worth far more than it is to anyone else. People do give up their holidays, ambitions even their dreams for the benefit of their children.”
There is much I do agree with here. And here lies the inherent problem with humans. We act quite selfishly when it comes to this. To act selflessly and consider the medium or long term future of our planet is practically impossible. We all live for now. Much like we all want to live to a good age and have the same standard of living or better than the next person. It is usually about this time that most species reach a tipping point and it reduces its numbers through greed, disease, war or annihilation. I would probably sleep better if I simply agreed that we can support 10 billion people and provide food for them. The reality I fear is something different to that. I am allowed to say that because defining overpopulation is both objective and subjective and happens also to be intangible in the sense that it cannot be touched. Co2 is tangible – we can control that, or attempt to, which is probably why the government bang on about it instead of discussing that conversation stopper, population. I don’t have the answers and I would never propose that we do this or do that in response. I firmly believe however that we cannot support a larger population.
Richards Courtney said:
“The world need not be overpopulated merely because one country is overpopulated.
The world is a big place and humans occupy a small part of the fifth of the world which is not covered by water, and there are not many of us. If the entire human population of the world were to move to the USA then the resulting population density of the USA would be less than the population density which now exists in the Netherlands.
And the UK is NOT overpopulated. The UK has population density less than the Netherlands.
You seem to be thinking that local issues which concern you are a global problem. Please read the responses to you from Alan Robertson: they may remove some of your confusion of local perception with global reality.
And I again ask you to read and consider my argument in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
If you were to tell me of any fault in that argument then I would be grateful.”
I think perhaps we are talking 2 different purposes here. You seem to be talking about the density of a given population in a certain area and I think I am talking about this from a perspective of affordability. The reference to 10 percent of kids being in poverty in the UK is one of economics, not space. You made reference to the US being able to support a bigger population. What this does not consider is the infrastructure to allow that. As was stated most people either live on the coast or in places where climate allows for sustainability of the population that lives there. Canada is also very sparsely populated. It rather begs the question why? doesn’t it. I understand why Australia is like it is because many places are not habitable.
Your view is rather simplistic because I could agree that we could fit 20 billion people on the planet. I do not believe we could provide for them however. There is a larger and larger shortfall occurring between the money being paid in to the money being claimed.
Chris says at January 7, 2014 at 7:42 am… Well my post was deliberately provocative to economic theorists so it was not likely to be persuasive.
However, the take home point was that economics does not affect the choice to have a family. And the nature of the ties that hold that family together is not economic but social and psychological.
Accidents do happen but some means of family planning (even the withdrawal method) is available everywhere, regardless of wealth. It is the social and emotional factors that determine the size of family.
Are social factors linked to economic factors? Yes. But the social superstructure of a family is not produced by the main economic activity – that occurs on a wider, collective scale. The family is built on social and emotional factors.
Also, the idea that sacrificing your children and your closest responsibilities for the greater good is unselfish – that assumes a level of knowledge that is beyond the reach of most mortals.
Chris says:
January 7, 2014 at 7:17 am
“You made a generalised comment about how the government is effectively killing people off. In some respects yes… I think the threat of Man made climate change is the biggest con this world has ever faced. So please don’t be quite so quick to judge me here.”
Chris,
By your belief that the world is overpopulated, you have aligned your thinking with and are therefore tacitly, at least, helping to support the implementation of policies which are designed to eliminate much of the world’s human population.
Here are quotes by some of those with whom you agree and your thinking resonates, like a guitar string, in sympathy with their thinking:
————
My three goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
”A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Ted Turner,
Founder of CNN and major UN donor
”The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
”Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions
that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University
”We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
Lead author of many IPCC reports
”Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Sir John Houghton,
First chairman of the IPCC
”It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
Paul Watson,
Co-founder of Greenpeace
”Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
David Brower,
First Executive Director of the Sierra Club
”We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
”No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment
”The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
Emeritus Professor Daniel Botkin
”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong,
Founder of the UN Environmental Program
”A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
”If I were reincarnated I would wish to return to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh,
husband of Queen Elizabeth II,
Patron of the Patron of the World Wildlife Foundation
”The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization we have in the US. We have to stop these third World countries right where they are.”
Michael Oppenheimer
Environmental Defense Fund
”Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
Professor Maurice King
”Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
Maurice Strong,
Rio Earth Summit
”Complex technology of any sort is an assault on the human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
Amory Lovins,
Rocky Mountain Institute
”I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. it played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
John Davis,
Editor of Earth First! Journal
“…the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.” ~ David Rockefeller, June, 1991, Bilderberg Conference, Baden, Germany link
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
“I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.”
-Al Gore,
Climate Change activist
“The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and
spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.”
-Al Gore,
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
”The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
Sir James Lovelock,
BBC Interview
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place
for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and
plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams,
free shackled rivers and return to wilderness
millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
Chris,
“There is a larger and larger shortfall occurring between the money being paid in to the money being claimed.”
You have said this more than once. I don’t understand what you mean by it or what it has to say about global population levels. Please explain.
M Courtney
Chris says at January 7, 2014 at 7:42 am… Well my post was deliberately provocative to economic theorists so it was not likely to be persuasive.
I said nothing of the sort. Please don’t put words in my mouth. Growl!!!
@chris
“I am sorry, but I do think the world is overpopulated. Why is it not about what I believe. Our population has exploded in 60 years. We have more people claiming than are paying into the system. People are living longer and there are fewer jobs. ”
But, look at North Africa. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Algeria all have seen their birth rates plunge (most are now below replacement levels) despite remaining in poverty. Indonesia has made modest economic progress, but it’s birthrate has been below replacement levels for a decade or more. The same can be said for Central and South America. None of these nations can be considered well off, but their birth rates haven’t fallen; they’ve fallen through the floor. One group is primarily Islam; the other Catholic. All are below the poverty level.
Alan Robertson said:
Chris,
By your belief that the world is overpopulated, you have aligned your thinking with and are therefore tacitly, at least, helping to support the implementation of policies which are designed to eliminate much of the world’s human population.
I give no such support to the views of the people you quote at all. If you say this, then by association you must also assume that every person who believes the world is over populated also aligns their view to the people you quote. Holding a view or opinion on a situation is a wholly different thing to suggesting what that same person would or should do based on that belief. I do not appreciate people taking my words out of context, misquoting me and at worst cherry picking what I say and putting their own unique spin on it. I would not put words in your mouth, so please don’t put words in mine. I simply stated that I believe the planet is overpopulated, and this is supported by our current inability to provide a good standard of living for the population we have. I do not for a second suggest that we start killing people! It really annoys me when people do this.
@JP
It may well be the case that population is falling in these places, but globally the level is rising dramatically. Surely that is the point here. If that were not the case we would not be talking about whether or not we can support a 10 billion population. And many people in this thread support that view. So local variations is not really the issue here.
As to your reference to Catholics. They actually encourage large families. They also have a no contraception, no abortion and no suicide policy. That’s one way to increase the size of the population I suppose.
Vince Causey says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:49 am
Chris,
“There is a larger and larger shortfall occurring between the money being paid in to the money being claimed.”
You have said this more than once. I don’t understand what you mean by it or what it has to say about global population levels. Please explain.
I am not sure what there is to explain here. Governments generate money on the basis that people pay taxes. As the population gets older and lives longer there is less money in the pot because people claim pensions for a longer time. Sooner or later no-one will be able to afford to retire. As the population gets older there is less money in the pot to support the older generation. Therefore there is a shortfall and this deficit causes people to become poorer and have a lower standard of living. How low does the standard of living need to be, or how diluted does wealth have to become before it becomes unaffordable to have an ever growing population ?
@R. de Haan says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:32 pm
“No doubt about the capability to feed all people in the world.
The food is there, no doubt about it…”
IF the food is “there”, it is clearly not where it’s needed. And more importantly, as I emphasized, it may not be ANYWHERE if any one of several foreseeable calamities occurs.
“If there is a problem with food it is a distribution problem … It is almost never a production problem.”
Yes, and airplanes almost never crash.
“In fact we have now acquired the capability to produce sufficient fresh food locally enough to feed an entire city using a stocked “growth building”. …”
Dream on…Or are you Bill Gates posting incognito?
“You must study our history.
We have made our food distribution system redundant a long time ago.
We did so during the Little Ice Age when the fleets from the Brits and the Dutch couldn’t leave their ports because of the frozen harbors and no trade was undertaken.”
REALLY! You know of an existing infrastructure for transporting food and fuel that doesn’t rely on oil fueled bulk ocean transport and trucks and trains, running on a fragile network of roads and bridges through flood plains, mountain passes and earthquake zones? Do tell!
“… we have developed the technique to conserve food for years, we call it canned or dried food and every sane family has a stockpile of canned or dried food at home already and if they haven’t a stockpile it is their own fault. People should carry responsibility for their own situation.”
I imagine you’ll feel very smug and self-righteous when some of these starving “insane” families come to slit your throat for your stockpile of food. Or do your “sane families” all have a company of well armed and disciplined soldiers at their command too?
“Most disasters have a local effect and if we have a “global disaster”, well…. that’s a shame than but not something to worry if i were you because it is only a minute risk compared to crossing a busy street or even sitting in a chair doing nothing.”
The Dinosaurs must find that thought very comforting.
“You clearly have watched too many fear mongering disaster movies and probably need mental care, especially if I read your last remark:
“The best hope for humanity, realistically, is that it breaks sooner, rather than later, perhaps leaving us some amount of viable culture and infrastructure and some remnants of unpolluted soil and water for continued existence”.
This is a stupid remark and you break the bank with this.
You clearly support the claim that the biggest threat of mankind and the planet is humanity and that makes you “realistically” an idiot and I say this in a polite manner.”
Thanks for being so polite. But your reasoning is extremely faulty.
You somehow manage to misunderstand my clear message that our civilization is at extreme risk of collapse due to entirely natural and previously occurring phenomena – plagues, volcanism, earthquakes, solar storms, asteroid strikes, ice age, etc.. And that it is our lack of localized resources for survival, especially in the areas of medicine, fuel, food, and water that gives these threats the capability to roll back our progress of the past thousand years or more and condemn the remnants of our species to a savage existence among the toxic wastes of our civilization without the tools to navigate them.
I’d like to think that YOU are the one in need of mental care, but I’m afraid that your condition is generally considered “normal”, and this is precisely how I arrived at my “realistic” best hope for humanity.
We will never run out of usable energy. We have vast methane hydrate deposits in the world’s oceans. Then there is nuclear power.
10 Innovative Energy Sources To Help Break Our Fossil Fuel Addiction
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-energy-sources-that-will-keep-the-world-from-melting-down-2012-1?op=1
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/05/five-innovative-technologies-that-bring-energy-to-the-developing-world/
Dr. Strangelove says:
January 6, 2014 at 6:01 pm
@otropogo
“Even IF we currently have the capacity (although this has yet to be demonstrated) to adequately feed 7 billion people (and their work animals and pets) ”
This is obviously demonstrated fact. World food production is 3,000 kcal/day per capita. More than enough food to make every one on earth obese. Recommended daily diet is only 2,000 kcal. We waste at least 30% of food production and cows alone eat more grains than humans.”
a) “adequate” nourishment cannot be calculated in calories
b) having enough food (even with sufficient nutrients) in storage somewhere does not constitute nourishment. The food needs to be in the consumer’s stomach
c) the food that is “wasted” on livestock (or biofuel) is not available to the hungry, what is your point?
“Grains are stored for six months since they are usually harvested twice a year. People don’t stop eating grains and wait for the next harvest season. Oil refineries store at least one month supply of fuel. They don’t store more because it’s costly to keep large inventory.”
And you find this reassuring?
“We can easily store more grains and fuel. All we need is bigger warehouse and tanks.”
This is like the Captain of the Titanic dismissing the risk of being sunk by an iceberg by saying “we can always build an even bigger ship”.
“Natural disasters will disrupt supply of grains and fuel regardless of world population size. False argument.”
Wrong! The size of the populations, and especially their concentration in megacities hugely exacerbates the effect of the disruption and makes the re-establishment of government impossible before a huge die-off caused by lack of food, medicine, clean water, and/or heating fuel. The location of the reins of tools of power in these same urban areas will probably mean that, even if some form of government can be re-established, much of the infrastructure and technology will be lost.
“Inventories of food and fuel depend on consumption rate. Small populations have small inventories. If you want large inventories, just build large warehouses. No need to decrease population.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have the financial resources of a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet. But even they wouldn’t have the means to create warehouses around the world that would provide even six months’ supply of nourishment (let alone heating fuel) to everyone without reliance on the current distribution system (which you have completely failed to address).
As far as I can see, your argument (and that of R. de Haan above) essentially rounds out to “don’t worry, be happy”.
And good luck with that…
The Malthusian premises:
#1. The Earth’s population is ‘X’.
#2. It is changing @ d’X’/dt.
#3. The planet Earth, over the period of human history, had a virtually fixed number of atoms of each of the naturally occurring elements. [this may possibly change very slightly in the relatively near future with space mined minerals imported to Earth and / or human colonization off Earth. And of course fissioning / fusion machines alter the number of some elements]
4. Normal man’s natural capability as a means of living quo man is equivalent to all other earth animal’s capabilities. What happens to them in nature is what will happen to men if man is left unrestricted to use his natural capability.
5. From now on into the future it is a Zero Sum situation in the area of ‘resources’/capita and ‘wealth’/capita. Where Zero Sum situation is that with any increase in population there must be a decrease in resources/capita and wealth/capita. And a Zero Sum situation is also that with a decrease in population there must be a increase in resources/capita and wealth/capita.
Conclusion of Malthusians: Doom unless population is restricted. We are already overpopulated in the sense of having now unnecessarily reduced resources/capita and wealth/capita.
False Malthusian premises are #4 & #5
Therefore falsifying the Mathusian Conclusion
John
Chris says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:11 am
Alan Robertson said:
Chris,
By your belief that the world is overpopulated, you have aligned your thinking with and are therefore tacitly, at least, helping to support the implementation of policies which are designed to eliminate much of the world’s human population.
——————————-
“I give no such support to the views of the people you quote at all. ”
________________________
Everyone I’ve met who hold similar views about overpopulation, when confronted with the ultimate end- game reality of their belief system, say “I give no such support to the views of the people you quote at all.” And yet, policies exist in your country which kill your countrymen for political purpose, policies camouflaged in “too many people, save the planet” rhetoric, concealing their elitist “reduce the population” roots.
Chris says: “It really annoys me when people do this.”
I do hope that your annoyance has prompted you to work to end the belief system promulgated by those who rule and with which they are putting your countrymen to death.
richardscourtney says: @ January 7, 2014 at 6:21 am
….It is an empirical fact that the birthrate falls to below replenishment levels in countries with sufficient affluence for people to not need families sufficiently large as to be ‘insurance’ against times of illness and old age….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your are missing another point. In a rural agrarian society kids are free labor. For example my EX was driving a tractor at age five. In other parts of the world they weed, plant and tend animals. I saw a ~six year old girl tending cows in the Great Pyrenees in France for example.
Also kids can be sold. Tens of thousands of unwanted Swiss children were sold in auctions or given away as cheap labour until the 1950s, according to a shocking television documentary which has forced the country to confront a dark chapter of its recent past. and it is still going on today. Southwest Florida – children sold as sex slaves
When you are living in grinding poverty or under drug addiction you will sell your children, or someone elses. Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery Affecting 30 Million Women and Children
Richard, I am glad you were such a good father to M. That he can not conceive of this. It says a lot about you.
Chris,
Thank you for explaining your remark about the shortfall in money paid in to money being claimed. I asked the question because it wasn’t obvious that you were talking about pensions – I initially thought it was a comment on the increasing indebtedness of Western nations.
I take your point about the pensions crisis. But if you think about it, it is the result of changing demographics and people living longer. More retirees to working people. This situation can occur with any arbitrary sized population and should not be taken to imply an absolute limit on population size.
A society that organizes retirement benefits around a more realistic life span would not have such problems. Retiring at 65 is a legacy from the past where men performed hard manual labour and were physically incapable of carrying on after that age. Their life expectancy was only 72 years anyway.
Since people are living longer I suggest the solution is to raise retirement age. In fact, the UK government has raised it from 65 to 66 for those retiring after 2020, to 67 for those retiring later, and 68 for later still. There is no longer a need for most working people to perform hard manual labour so this is achievable from a biological perspective.
The other question is whether there would be enough jobs to go round.
Chris:
In your post addressed to me at January 7, 2014 at 7:55 am you say
It is ALL “affordable”.
I have repeatedly asked you to refute my argument in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
You have studiously avoided doing that.
Instead, you have misrepresented my words (e.g. I did NOT make “reference to the US being able to support a bigger population”; read what I wrote) and you have added more unsubstantiated assertions which you say you believe.
That is not good enough. I would be interested to know what you THINK and why, but I have no interest in what you “believe”. Address the points I have put to you in response to your “beliefs” or don’t bother me.
Richard
Chris says at January 7, 2014 at 8:57 am:
Communication error, the words “Well my post was deliberately provocative to economic theorists so it was not likely to be persuasive.” were my words!. I was saying I was not expecting to persuade Chris.
I was not quoting Chris.
When quoting I use quotation marks or .
My apologies for the confusion.
or … blockquote.
My ability to use the internet is weak today.
Gail Combs:
You say to me in your post at January 7, 2014 at 11:00 am
Yes, I am aware of that. But it is not clearly an effect of poverty alone. Indeed, here in the affluent UK we have laws to punish parents whose children don’t attend school but in some agricultural areas school attendance falls at harvest time.
As I said, there are several reasons why poor people have large families: the ‘insurance’ reason is the main one.
As to your other matters, I am in general agreement. And – as you may have noticed – my son and I do not agree on much but (hoping he does not read this) I am justly proud of him.
Additionally, I am disappointed that your earlier point about transfer of intermediate technologies only gained support from me.
Richard
Gail Combs, you think I would give any other impression where HE can see me
🙂
As modern societies tend to have declining birth rates and third world countries have high birth rates it is a matter of basic common sense to modernise the poorer parts of the world. And given the Club of Rome members feel so strongly about de-population perhaps they can start the ball rolling by voluntary euthanasia.
otropogo
“What’s your point?”
Very simple. The world today has enough capacity to feed 7 billion people disputing your point that this is yet to be demonstrated. Why on earth is world population increasing if we don’t have capacity to feed 7 billion people? World population should be decreasing! Death by hunger should be outpacing birth rate. Infants must be dying of hunger as well as children and adults. Your theoretical arguments are easily dismissed by this obvious fact.
“This is like the Captain of the Titanic dismissing the risk of being sunk by an iceberg by saying “we can always build an even bigger ship”.
False analogy. Bigger warehouses can store more inventories. Bigger ships don’t diminish risk of iceberg collision, it increases the risk due to larger surface area of ship.
“The size of the populations, and especially their concentration in megacities hugely exacerbates the effect of the disruption and makes the re-establishment of government impossible before a huge die-off caused by lack of food, medicine, clean water, and/or heating fuel.”
Population size is different from populaton density. Hong Kong has low population size and high population density. You are just saying keep population low so less people will die in a disaster. True but irrelevant to the “problem” of overpopulation. Make movie theaters small so less people will die in a fire.
“they wouldn’t have the means to create warehouses around the world that would provide even six months’ supply of nourishment”
Decrease the population, and demand and inventories decrease too. Increase the population, and demand and inventories increase too. The risk of supply disruption is unrelated to population size. Businessmen don’t keep huge inventories in preparation for doomsday.
“don’t worry, be happy”
Yes be happy. Your worrying about overpopulation does not solve the real problems of supply disruption in natural disasters.
richardscourtney says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am
.The Malthusian idea wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Firstly Richard. I am not here to refute or challenge other people’s opinions upon demand or request and you can’t draw inferences from the fact that I don’t reply. I would be correct in everything I say if I worked on that basis. I didn’t answer you because first and foremost I was interested in replying to the posts that were important to me at the time. I have read your post now.
To the above chapter from you. We do suffer constraints on our society. This happens in 2 ways. We either run out of resources or due to speculation or some government constraint they either become unavailable or unaffordable. We are running out of Uranium ( 6 years supply left if speculation or policy hasn’t forced a deliberately low estimate of what is left). This has short, medium and long term effects on our ability to produce energy. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Further to this, because of green policies many of the coal mines in the UK have been closed, along with 3 or 4 coal powered power stations under EU rules, and there is currently much public uproar at the mere thought of gas fracking (mostly due to scaremongering stories about earthquakes and flames coming out of your tap). It doesn’t leave us with very much does it – we are going backwards, not forwards. Try fitting our energy crisis into your equation So we are left with renewables like wind, solar and tidal. Apart from the logistics of putting these infrastructures in place they simply do not provide us with our energy needs. For the record, I have a solar panel on my roof at home. Not an inflated cost bought one. I made it myself and it provides my whole house with hot water during the summer. I did it because I want to save myself money on my gas bills. Not because I think that if I don’t the planet is going to get to hot. I am all for saving money. But we use the wrong motives in policy to drive the saving – the false threat of man made climate change.
It may well be the case that we can provide enough food, but that is not good enough without the other basics. We ran out of water last year in a spell of hot weather because the water utility company refuses to fix leaks and loses most of the water down the drain. We run out of water now. And that is in the western world. Can an even larger population be supported?
There are 2 choice words I use when I consider an increased population – Could and should.
Can we support a larger population
Should we support a larger population
How many billions of people do we need on the planet before we can say “Yeah, we are good at reproducing”
This reminds a little of why, for example, we went to the moon. And the simple answer was because we could. Should we apply the same principal to our global population?
Chris:
OK, I understand your post at January 8, 2014 at 12:23 am. It says you are not interested in rational discussion but only want to make assertions of your unsupported and unsupportable beliefs.
It concludes by posing as set of questions to me which you introduce by saying
I answer each of your subsequent questions to me in turn.
You ask
I answer: YES. My post you refuse to address explains this.
You ask
I answer: YES. More people means more Da Vinci’s, more Einsteins, more Brunels, more etc. Everybody benefits.
You ask
I answer: There is no need for “billions”. Two people who reproduce is sufficient for them to say “Yeah, we are good at reproducing”. But so what?
You ask
I answer: NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! HOW DARE YOU ASSERT THAT WE SHOULD KILL PEOPLE MERELY “BECAUSE WE COULD”?!
Richard
Tim Ball,
I think you have argued that using Malthus’ theory and going through the UN (which contains the IPCC & also the Agenda 21 efforts) there is global authoritarianism in the world wholly caused by the sustained intellectual efforts of small handful of people who call themselves TCOR.
Is that a fair assessment of your argument and conclusion?
If that view of your argument and conclusion is what you maintain, then I think the perspective you have is insufficient wrt the broader dialog in the history of ideas in Western Culture. It is one focus to show Malthus wrong, then show CAGW wrong and then radical / fundamentalist environmentalism wrong, it is another focus to maintain they are a single pervasive unified factor in the whole manifest situation of mankind past, present and future..
I find your argument extremely important in its stimulation of a needed dialog on what that broader important perspective is in Western Civilization. Thank you.
John
richardscourtney says:
January 8, 2014 at 4:37 am
You ask
This reminds a little of why, for example, we went to the moon. And the simple answer was because we could. Should we apply the same principal to our global population?
I answer: NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! HOW DARE YOU ASSERT THAT WE SHOULD KILL PEOPLE MERELY “BECAUSE WE COULD”?!
——————————————————————————————————————————
Richard, you have completely missed the point I was making. I was simply stating that if we can go to the moon because we ‘can’ should we increase the population of the planet just because we also think we ‘can.’
I have never asserted that we kill anyone – where did you get that from. You have misunderstood me. Have a read back and I am sure you will see what I meant.
@Jimbo says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:28 am
“We will never run out of usable energy. We have vast methane hydrate deposits in the world’s oceans.”
Maybe you have, but I don’t. I have to wait for a tanker truck to deliver propane to my 500 gallon tank three times a (normal) year to keep my house warm. And if the grid fails, I have to run a portable gasoline generator to use that propane, because the furnace won’t run without electrical power for its fan. And, IIRC, local fire regulations allow me to store only some 40 litres of gasoline on my property.
BTW, do you have a furnace or motor vehicle that runs on methan hydrate?
“Then there is nuclear power.”
Don’t remind me. I arrived on the Shandong Peninsula for a three month stay two days before Fukushima.
If, as it appears, the Japanese can’t manage nuclear power safely, do you think the Chinese, Indians, French, or Americans can? If so, please explain why no nuclear power utility in the world can obtain liability insurance on the open market.
otropogo says:
January 8, 2014 at 3:04 pm
@Jimbo says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:28 am
Softball questions:
[See my answers in brackets]
“We will never run out of usable energy. We have vast methane hydrate deposits in the world’s oceans.”
Maybe you have, but I don’t. I have to wait for a tanker truck to deliver propane to my 500 gallon tank three times a (normal) year to keep my house warm. And if the grid fails, I have to run a portable gasoline generator to use that propane, because the furnace won’t run without electrical power for its fan. And, IIRC, local fire regulations allow me to store only some 40 litres of gasoline on my property.
[That you can’t get the energy has no effect on whether we will run out of usable energy. Nowhere did anyone say you would have access to it under the current paradigm[
BTW, do you have a furnace or motor vehicle that runs on methan hydrate?
“Then there is nuclear power.”
Don’t remind me. I arrived on the Shandong Peninsula for a three month stay two days before Fukushima.
If, as it appears, the Japanese can’t manage nuclear power safely, do you think the Chinese, Indians, French, or Americans can? If so, please explain why no nuclear power utility in the world can obtain liability insurance on the open market.
[France, US and many, many countries manage nuclear power, profitably and safely. Public perception and people who think like you are the cause of fear that is largely irrational which makes insurance companies fearful of safe energy like nuclear. If you fear health or death consequences, then please add up the health and death caused by anything from flying airplanes, driving cars and smoking cigarettes, and compare them rationally.]
Demographers gobsmacked! Rates collapsing!
Chris:
I have better things to do than to engage in a “I said” but ”You said” argument.
However, your post at January 8, 2014 at 11:44 am distorts my clear words so requires a response from me.
You say to me
Nobody is increasing “the population of the planet just because we also think we ‘can.’ “ Indeed, population is increasing because reproductive pressures are minimally affected by thought: inhibition of reproductive pressures is affected by thought.
Your questions to me which I was answering each express concern at growing population.
And at January 7, 2014 at 9:22 am you said to JP
So, I fail to understand how your question to me could mean other than reducing population growth (towards10 billion) when it asked
Such population reduction can only be achieved by killing people by some unspecified method. Your failure to explicitly state how you want to kill people does not – and cannot – change that. My reply expressed outrage at such an evil suggestion.
But you have objected to my outrage at your suggestion by saying to me
As this answer explains, I did “read back” so I have seen “what [you] meant” and I “got that“ from you, so I refuted it. I still emphatically refute it so I will not engage with you anymore.
Richard
@richardscourtney
From the outset of this thread I have not once said that we kill anyone. I think the world is overpopulated. To how we address that I have no idea.
I made a perfectly acceptable distinction between what can be achieved and what should be achieved. I used the moon as a good analogy because it was once asked “Why did we go to the moon” and the answer was because we can.
If we apply and put into practice all the theories that lead to a ‘potentially’ larger population then it may well be achievable. It doesn’t make it right though.
I referenced real life and current situations where I find we as a people struggle to survive as it is.
You have completely misunderstood some of my comments. I know what I meant. If you have not grasped that, there is nothing I can do nor should do to convince you further.
Your posts are very certain and extremely emotive. Had I gone on record to say that we should kill the population then I could understand your anger, but I haven’t. In fact – far from it. Chris.
Friends:
Chris says to me
My posts may be “very certain and extremely emotive”. Perhaps and perhaps not.
I write to remind everyone that what matters is if a statement is true.
For example, someone who claims there are too many people is calling for the excess to be killed. The truth of that is worthy of debate. But I refuse to lower myself to discuss the truth of it with someone who makes the claim while asserting he is not calling for the excess to be killed.
Richard
richardscourtney says: @ January 9, 2014 at 4:39 am
…For example, someone who claims there are too many people is calling for the excess to be killed. The truth of that is worthy of debate. But I refuse to lower myself to discuss the truth of it with someone who makes the claim while asserting he is not calling for the excess to be killed.
Richard
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually there are two options. Killing off the excess populations or As US Science Czar Holdern put it:
In both cases you are talking about TOTALITARIAN government and that is the goal and the horror.
Sorry I forgot to add the beginning of that.
Having human breeding controlled like you would cattle (or is it chattel) comes to mind.
In Malthus’ theory of the early 1800’s he shared his theoretical view that population was self limiting through either famine or disease, economic or geographical constraints. At a time when there were only 1 billion people on this planet I think he showed a lot of foresight quite frankly. Malthus seemed to demonstrate a very objective and self aware view of the planet’s future. Most people in this world don’t have the conscious thought or consideration to consider the future rather than the now. We are human and selfish with it. We all want the same piece of pie and go out of our ways to get it when we don’t. We don’t care that what we do now may have long term consequences. There is a perpetual and increasing risk of poverty as the population count exceeds the infrastructure to support it. We are, in my opinion, at a tipping point in our evolution and it is only the selfless being that does allow its race to continue past that tipping point. The selfless being that considers the longer good. And it is that species that comes out of the other side of a population explosion. And species is limited by the tools and technology it has. We have technology that is superior to us and capable of causing us more harm than good. You cannot expect a species that has only had technology for a mere 100 years or so to treat it with respect. Give a monkey a gun and it will pull the trigger sooner or later. We are the proverbial monkey. And if anyone needs a reminder of how under developed we are take a look at Syria or Afghanistan or any given country that causes atrocities to its people in measures that I cannot even comprehend. Animals are less cruel than us. And we think we can support another few billion. Wake up. And the world is corrupt. Paper written theories of a potential population what we can support don’t stand up under scrutiny when you consider what drives humans – greed. I am just off to watch ‘The Day the earth stood still’ And after that I may watch a documentary on false flag exercises to remind myself of what we are actually capable of to make an non existent threat a threat.
Richardscourtney said:
My posts may be “very certain and extremely emotive”. Perhaps and perhaps not.
I write to remind everyone that what matters is if a statement is true.
For example, someone who claims there are too many people is calling for the excess to be killed. The truth of that is worthy of debate. But I refuse to lower myself to discuss the truth of it with someone who makes the claim while asserting he is not calling for the excess to be killed.
———————————————————————————————————————————
I haven’t made any assertions of fact in anything I have said. What you have done with my comments is completely unacceptable. You are appealing to the sensibilities of the other posters with your above statement as though I have spoken in absolutes that must be rebutted. I haven’t, and anyone else who may have read my posts will see that. Furthermore, you have stated in a public forum through your own assumptions alone that I think we should kill off the population. You are drawing false conclusions to what I am saying. How many times must I reiterate a view before you will accept it?
There is no worthy debate of anything when you have clearly misconstrued my comments Richard.
I am not trying to be your enemy here and I am trying my very best to address your clear anger and to put into context what I think. Population is a subjective discussion. There is no right and no wrong answer to how many people this planet can support. I believe we have enough as it is; if that’s ok with you.
Chris says:
January 9, 2014 at 6:14 am
In Malthus’ theory of the early 1800′s he shared his theoretical view that population was self limiting through either famine or disease, economic or geographical constraints. At a time when there were only 1 billion people on this planet I think he showed a lot of foresight quite frankly
__________________________
You are making a case for Malthusian ideas and trying to deflect attention from the inevitable conclusions of such thinking. Therefore, you are either unable to face the truth of the ultimate result of such thinking, or you are far more sinister, in that you are quite gentile and apparently reasonable in your words of support for the idea that too many human beings exist. However, your words conceal an ultimate evil. You did not invent the ideas you espouse, but by aligning your thinking with such men, you are helping to legitimize the horror advocated by monsters.
Alan Robertson says:
You are making a case for Malthusian ideas and trying to deflect attention from the inevitable conclusions of such thinking. Therefore, you are either unable to face the truth of the ultimate result of such thinking, or you are far more sinister, in that you are quite gentile and apparently reasonable in your words of support for the idea that too many human beings exist. However, your words conceal an ultimate evil. You did not invent the ideas you espouse, but by aligning your thinking with such men, you are helping to legitimize the horror advocated by monsters.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Malthus came up with a theory of how he thought population levels would control themselves. This was broadly based on the rate of population growth exceeding the ability to produce food to feed that population. I am struggling to find any article anywhere that suggests that Malthus was indicating that the population should be reduced / exterminated / culled or whichever choice words you or anyone may choose. If you know of such an article I would love to see it. I am guessing any such article would likely suggest that he wished to commit mass murder and that view would be based alone on the personal interpretation of the author.
And I am really struggling to grasp how a theory like his has been blown out of context in such a way that here you are speaking of ‘horrors’ and how my comments are concealing an ultimate evil. You really are in the realms of conspiracy theories here and being extremely judgmental with it. And this is the problem with the internet. You know nothing about me, yet here you are, judge and jury, telling me about my agenda. You must be able to read my mind, because it has gone past me I have to be honest. And what were Malthusian’s ideas exactly. I thought he was a theorist who said that doing A would lead to B. I can’t see where he proposed mass extermination. I think you may be confusing him with a rather more famous exterminator of people.
The crux of this thread is in demonstrating how the threat of man made climate change may have spawned from a view that the earth is over populated. So, hypothetically, how do we reduce the population – Invent a faux symptom that is tangible and can be controlled – Co2 emissions. How do we reduce emissions? – curtail what’s causing the emission ( the reason for the thread, reducing population) or reduce emissions – the man made climate change farce.
Rebuttal of man made climate change is quite easy. All you have to do is look at empirical evidence of our Co2 and temperature relationship as has been well demonstrated. On that basis, any connection between Co2 levels and temperature is falsifiable. Climate models are theoretical and flawed. It is enough to demonstrate empirical evidence without getting into the realms of Agenda’s or political motivation.
By proving that you can support a larger population you do not dismiss the threat of man made climate change if you believe that the motives were driven by the threat of an increased population. The evidence speaks for itself. Don’t complicate things by offering rebuttal’s to Malthusian theory. It is overkill
The thread is pretty much dieing, but I think one of the main point is this: the Total Fertility Rate of the globe is falling – it was around 4.4 children per female in 1955, and it is 2.52 today. The 2007 IPCC SPM projects CO2 concentrations and its attendant warming according to population growth and its industrial and agricultural activities. Because of increased life spans, the global population continues to increase. However, it also is aging. The aging is most pronounced in Japan, Europe, and North America and Russia. In the US, the median age has gone up from 24 to 37 from 1972 to 2012. And older populations consume and produce less than younger ones.
The UN will more than likely have to adjust its population projections. At the current birthrates (which have been going down for decades), there is no way the globe will reach 10 billion. The peak will probably come around 2040-2050 before rapidly plunging downward. The demographic momentum that has allowed our populations to rapidly grow since 1945 has pretty much run its course. The developed world will begin losing population within the next 2 decades (Japan and Russia already are), followed by the developing world. This is going to have a rather dramatic effect on the global economies. If things don’t change drastically soon (like yesterday), deflationary pressures could put a damper on things around the world. You need young people (and lots of them) to sustain living standards. And it will be young people that will become the most precious commodity as most nations begin to age.
Chris says:
January 9, 2014 at 10:13 am
I am really struggling to grasp how a theory like his has been blown out of context in such a way that here you are speaking of ‘horrors’ and how my comments are concealing an ultimate evil. You really are in the realms of conspiracy theories here and being extremely judgmental with it. And this is the problem with the internet. You know nothing about me, yet here you are, judge and jury, telling me about my agenda.
__________________________
Is the theory which is resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of your fellow countrymen, blown out of proportion? Earlier, you were given a list of quotes by those who would reduce the populations of mankind. Do you intend to say that those quotes are not a showcase of horrors? Should the musings of men conspiring to end the lives of billions of people be considered evil, or instead, is revealing those words, engaging in conspiracy theory?
Who spoke of your agenda? I spoke of those whose agenda you help advance by your acceptance of their most basic ideas into your own thinking- ideas you then profess.
You (and we- all of us) were told that the basis of your beliefs about human population represented a sort of ecological enlightenment. It’s hard to break through the illusions of our personal beliefs, even when confronted with shocks- reality. That’s something we all share, but comes a time…
Those who decry the reaper, but polish the scythe, write their claims of innocence in blood.
Chris says:
January 9, 2014 at 12:39 pm
“Don’t complicate things by offering rebuttal’s to Malthusian theory. It is overkill”
______________________
Confucious say- Those who drop trou in front of target, get derriere full of darts.
otropogo says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:56 am
++++++++++++
You need to calm down and stop watching those documentaries. You can’t handle them.
YES bad things happen. And life finds a way.
R. de Haan explained it to you in plain English. Read his words and CALM down.
I think everyone needs to calm down. The man came up with a theory. I can’t emphasize that enough. Given that we are talking about him as though he was proposing mass murder I challenge anyone to find one scrap of evidence that suggests this is what he was doing.
People view population from very different perspectives. If it is true that the population growth rate is falling then what are we concerned about. it seems more evident that we are trying to disprove theories of population growth to further undermine the motives for instigating the threat of man made climate change. It doesn’t exist.
Man made climate change is a con that for whatever reason some people seem hell bent on proving. You don’t have to demonstrate the fallacy of a fallacy to disprove it. The evidence speaks for itself. Why colour the water or obfuscate the discussion with conjecture about what is going on or driving it? The planet is cold and Co2 starved. History determines that at some point it will warm up again. 650 million years of average global temperatures of 25 degrees is quite significant. And it begs the obvious question – when will it warm back up again. Climate scientists cannot prove that any warming is attributable to human input because of the falsifiability of the theory owing to empirical evidence. The long term trend for ice melt is dictated by the period of time between each ice epoch. Sea level will continue to rise now by small amounts as the last remnants of the last ice age disappear. That’s got nothing to do with man. And so on and so on and so on. It may seem like I am going off topic here, but this IS what this all stems back to.
I’ve posted this before, but it needs frequent repetition.
The World is NOT overpopulated, and the count is heading for a fall. The UN’s Population Survey actually gets this right. But you have to look in the right place. Previously, it was called the “Low Band” of their spreadsheet, now it’s the “Low Fertility” projection — and it’s the ONLY one that’s ever been even close to accurate. It currently puts the peak at 8.3bn in 2049, and gives 6.7bn as the total in 2100.
Chris’ posts and ideas are replete with disinformation and outright falsehood. Necessary and fundamental to Warmist Believers’ beliefs, of course.
Brian H says: @ January 10, 2014 at 3:28 am
…Chris’ posts and ideas are replete with disinformation and outright falsehood. Necessary and fundamental to Warmist Believers’ beliefs, of course.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Necessary and fundamental to
Warmist Believers’TOTALITARIAN beliefs, of course.This is the whole point Dr. Ball is trying to make. The population Bomb, Global Warming are all window dressing to get us to accept our slave collars. Pascal Lamy while World Trade Organization Director-General stated quite clearly the ultimate goal:
The decision was made in the 1930’s to remove national sovereignty, and therefore the US Constitution. Our ‘government’ has been working on that objective ever since.
The reason is the USA is the only country where RIGHTS belong to the individual and are not just granted by the government. A very critical point that is being erased as rapidly as possible.
Brian H
I said
It doesn’t exist (man made climate change).
Man made climate change is a con that for whatever reason some people seem hell bent on proving.
I must admit I have never had so many people misconstrue anything I say. I can’t be clearer than saying man made climate change is a con.
To say this “Chris’ posts and ideas are replete with disinformation and outright falsehood. Necessary and fundamental to Warmist Believers’ beliefs, of course.” when actually I am a climate skeptic is absolute madness. This is what happens when you try to take some middle ground. WUWT is at one end of the debate and SkS is at the other end. I find no truth in anything that SkS says, but at the same time I will question notions about motives, as has been done in this thread here. That does not make me a warmist. I am extremely offended by that as my opinion on climate change is completely the opposite.
Gail Combs said:
This is the whole point Dr. Ball is trying to make. The population Bomb, Global Warming are all window dressing to get us to accept our slave collars. Pascal Lamy while World Trade Organization Director-General stated quite clearly the ultimate
—————————————————————————————————————————-
And there was me thinking that WUWT was about disputing all the false claims being made about climate change. I didn’t realise it was more about proving conspiracy theories!
Chris;
apologies, sort of. I find your population alarmism OTT, and all the consequences from it. Preparing for warming and getting hit with cooling is self-induced disaster. Fighting population growth and suppressing quality of life to discourage it, when the real trend is curving in the opposite direction is what the FAO once called ethanol biofuel: “A crime against humanity”, the most serious offence in global jurisprudence.
Chris says:
January 10, 2014 at 3:25 am
I think everyone needs to calm down. The man came up with a theory. I can’t emphasize that enough. Given that we are talking about him as though he was proposing mass murder I challenge anyone to find one scrap of evidence that suggests this is what he was doing.
Chris says:
January 10, 2014 at 4:59 am
And there was me thinking that WUWT was about disputing all the false claims being made about climate change. I didn’t realise it was more about proving conspiracy theories!
_______________________
Oh, you’re good…
You’ve been acting like a member of the cheerleading squad “WUWT was about disputing all the false claims being made about climate change “, but all the while, you’ve been throwing up strawmen, you’ve failed to answer any points made, subtly denigrated others, put words in people’s mouths, distorted what they’ve actually said.and generally worked like a troll, trying to deflect attention away from the main point of this article, namely- the whole global warming meme had it’s beginnings within the agenda of individuals who believe… well, you know (but would like us to forget.)
We don’t need to calm down about anything.
Alan Robertson says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:41 am
++++++++++
Alan: Your list is incredibly powerful. Could you provide references? I want to spread this information around and I want to do some diligence before I spread the word. Thank you!!!
Hi Alan Robertson: I take back my request for you to provide references, I checked them out. They are everywhere. These statements by the nut-jobs are in fact real.
Thank you Brian H. I am on your side actually. I just try to be objective about the motives that have caused the man made climate change propaganda. It doesn’t mean that when I question the motives I am in the other camp. Man made climate change does not exist.
Chris says:
January 11, 2014 at 11:53 am
Thank you Brian H. I am on your side actually. I just try to be objective about the motives that have caused the man made climate change propaganda. It doesn’t mean that when I question the motives I am in the other camp. Man made climate change does not exist.
+++++++++++
I think man made climate change does exist. It’s just too small and difficult to measure. And to assign blame for any of the storms is ludicrous. One thing that’s hard to argue though, is that more CO2 does have a lot of benefits since it’s the stuff of life.
Mario Lento…
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
Alan Robertson says:
January 11, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Mario Lento…
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
+++++++++++
Thank you Alan. Just bringing this to light is a worthy cause. Now if we could get these alarmists to do the right thing and self destruct, they could spare others’ lives. We could call them dumb-ass martyrs, and be off with them. Next chapter…
– – – – – – –
Chris,
Through your many comments on this thread I find you sincere.
The issue at hand, I think, is does man’s nature as man define his future?
I see no reasonably evidence of a dooming scenario.
It is incontrovertible that mankind has outperformed the wildest expectations of even the extreme optimists.
So what can be objectively said going forward?
Well, only that mankind has reason and the past and current doomsayers seem lacking in that regard.
John
John H
There seem to be 3 separate aspects to the thread here. The main purpose it seems is to demonstrate that we can support a larger population. If we can, it then follows that the suggestion of man made climate change dues to Co2 levels would be false and therefore no reason to reduce Co2 levels.
Determining the motive alone and then disproving it will not work to stop what has already been set in motion by our governments as a result of the false threat. The warmists will still maintain that global warming is occurring and accuse anyone that suggests it is down to anything other than science will accuse them of using conspiracy theories to refute the science in the absence of peer reviewed scientific evidence.
Being completely honest (and at risk of being accused of cheerleading or being a warmist again) I actually find proving conspiracy theories actually weakens the argument against man made climate change. I read most of the posts on here that ‘actually’ rebut many of the claims made by the warmists – and that is enough on its own. We all know the sites or the media circles that constantly churn out the same drivel about climate change. The warmists have it quite easy to be honest. They have at their disposal a massive amount of peer reviewed papers which either get quoted from or even plagiarised and passed off as their own. If I had a pound for every time I have been asked to provide peer reviewed science that rebuts climate change I would be quite rich. It really is like David fighting Goliath. But this not because climate change ( the man made bit) is right, it is because of the extremely biased way in which that evidence was arrived at and how much their is.
I strongly assert that the task that the IPCC was set was subjective from the start. It states in clear words from the outset that their remit was to determine the effect and impact on man of Co2 emissions. It was NEVER about determining whether there was an effect in the first place. And this is the likely reason that the climate models did not even consider the recent lack of warming. This is quite damning evidence of their biased input into the climate model. In the name of good science the IPCC should have challenged their own theories. I got on about it all the time, but a falsifiable theory is a fundamental basic of good science. I don’t see ( nor am I aware of) any arguments by the IPCC to challenge their own theories. My personal view is that this is central to disproving the theoretical science. And if it can be shown to be biased and not in the good name of science things will change.
It is not good enough on its own to claim a motive. You have to show it. And I believe the IPCC have done the hard work by themselves for no other reason than they didn’t test their theory. What they have done is quite the opposite – they have simply reiterated their collective agreement and increased the likelihood of warming to 97 percent. This is in the face of current temperatures that should be diminishing the certainty of their argument. This is another example of bad science.
Most people that discuss man made climate change simply bark at the moon to their own loyal audience on their website of choice. That won’t address the merits of the argument. The audience is the general public – the voters who vote with their feet. Awareness of what is occurring needs to be conveyed in the right places (not quite sure how you would go about that). I fear that attempting to show that man made climate change was driven by a desire to reduce global population would simply be resigned to the realms of conspiracy theory. You have to look at it from Joe Blogg’s public POV and not the view of someone who researches their own information. It is enough to demonstrate that the IPCC did not follow scientific method in the first place. Add to that a massive amount of information (whether peer reviewed or not) that simply challenges much that is being claimed and further weakens the collective view of the IPCC.
If I receive any more replies from people claiming that I am a warmist I will not contribute further on this site.
Mario Lento says:
I think man made climate change does exist. It’s just too small and difficult to measure. And to assign blame for any of the storms is ludicrous. One thing that’s hard to argue though, is that more CO2 does have a lot of benefits since it’s the stuff of life.
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Agree, it exists in unmeasurable amounts that do not affect the global picture. I have used many analogies on many sites to quantify the net effect, or lack of it should I say. I also refer to our Co2 and temperature record. The world has always been Co2 rich and very warm. And these are the times when historically both man and plants have done very well. When we don’t prosper is in colder drought conditions.
Small disclaimer: Using energy efficiently does save money for everyone and I am all for doing that. This should still be a message that is promoted.
Chris says:
January 12, 2014 at 1:52 am
“If I receive any more replies from people claiming that I am a warmist I will not contribute further on this site.”
___________________________
You put up another strawman- and proved the point. No one said that you are a warmist. However. it is more than obvious that you’ve been trying to deflect discussion away from the point of this thread; the roots of the idea of global warming.
The proponents of global warming have taught us to look for a deeper game. We’ve found your actions to be highly disconcerting and said so.
Perhaps you will either flounce out the door, or address what we are saying and maybe, prove us wrong. You aren’t going to silence anyone by threatening to take your toys and go home.
Alan said to Chris:
“You aren’t going to silence anyone by threatening to take your toys and go home.”
As a matter of fact, I neglected to add: I do hope that you stick around.
Alan Robertson says:
January 12, 2014 at 7:42 am
Chris says:
January 12, 2014 at 1:52 am
“If I receive any more replies from people claiming that I am a warmist I will not contribute further on this site.”
___________________________
You put up another strawman- and proved the point. No one said that you are a warmist. However. it is more than obvious that you’ve been trying to deflect discussion away from the point of this thread; the roots of the idea of global warming.
The proponents of global warming have taught us to look for a deeper game. We’ve found your actions to be highly disconcerting and said so.
Perhaps you will either flounce out the door, or address what we are saying and maybe, prove us wrong. You aren’t going to silence anyone by threatening to take your toys and go home.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
There was a good reason why I did not answer your previous post – I thought it would encourage you even further. Yet here you are again attempting to pull my strings when I was actually addressing John H. I am not going to bite. You continue to question my motives on here, even though I have explained with complete transparency what my views are.
You said this (that I had) ” subtly denigrated others, put words in people’s mouths, distorted what they’ve actually said.and generally worked like a troll”
I have not denigrated any individual. Not only that, you have put words in my mouth by interpreting what I have said in any way that you choose – a point that I have raised once already. You have distorted what I have said. have a read back and look at all your responses to me. I can say with absolute certainty that you are being provocative towards me and in fact the one who is trolling. I have not been rude to anyone, whereas you have been downright unpleasant towards me from the outset.
Alan Robertson says:
January 12, 2014 at 9:23 am
Alan said to Chris:
“You aren’t going to silence anyone by threatening to take your toys and go home.”
As a matter of fact, I neglected to add: I do hope that you stick around.
——————————————————————————————————————————
So that you can continue with your abuse against me?
I don’t think so Alan, with the greatest of respect.
Chris says:
January 12, 2014 at 9:24 am
“I have not denigrated any individual.”
“So that you can continue with your abuse against me?”
_____________________
Like I said, you’re good.
Questioning what you have said is not abuse. Calling attention to your rabbit holes and misdirections is not abuse.
“I must admit I have never had so many people misconstrue anything I say. I can’t be clearer than saying man made climate change is a con.”
You have made elements of the skeptics case beautifully and eloquently. Good job. Most of us here would agree with you and that would put you firmly and comfortably in our midst, wouldn’t it? But that isn’t the topic of this thread, is it? That is just another of your deflections and you are one of the best I’ve seen at misdirection. That’s exactly what brought all the scrutiny down on you. Whenever the thread topic was discussed, you’d respond with a series of misdirections. You also declared that anyone breaching the subject is engaging in conspiracy theory, or might appear to be, to the average person. Hmmm…
Doesn’t matter now… goodbye Mr. or Ms. anonymous Chris. With your fondness for rabbit holes, you might try the name “Alice” next time.
“I have not denigrated any individual.”
~ Chris says:
January 10, 2014 at 4:59 am
Gail Combs said:
This is the whole point Dr. Ball is trying to make. The population Bomb, Global Warming are all window dressing to get us to accept our slave collars. Pascal Lamy while World Trade Organization Director-General stated quite clearly the ultimate
—————————————————————————————————————————-
“And there was me thinking that WUWT was about disputing all the false claims being made about climate change. I didn’t realise it was more about proving conspiracy theories!”
—————————–
What’s that trick called, you know, when somebody tells a partial truth, to hide the truth?
mod: could you be so kind and correct my last format at end of proving conspiracy theories!”
Thanks
“Mario Lento says:
January 9, 2014 at 4:35 pm
otropogo says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:56 am
++++++++++++
You need to calm down and stop watching those documentaries. You can’t handle them.
YES bad things happen. And life finds a way.
R. de Haan explained it to you in plain English. Read his words and CALM down.”
By “calm down” you appear to me to mean, “stick your head back down in the sand, like the rest of us”. Unlike all of the critics of my posts on this thread, I HAVE READ everything that I’ve criticized.
Anyone who has read MY posts carefully would never suggest that I’m an advocate of the global warming viewpoint. In fact, I’m much, much more worried about an ice age.
Nor am I against the development and use of nuclear power, no more than Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, is. I simply agree with her view that Germany (and the rest of the world) is not yet adequately prepared to safely deploy this technology on an industrial scale. In fact, I’m afraid that a major global nuclear disaster will so alienate the public that further research and development will be stifled, thus depriving us of one of the very few technologies conceivably capable of preserving civilization in the event of an ice age.
The argument that world population growth is slowly declining, or that we are presently able to almost feed the existing world population under ideal conditions, is as senseless as a 10M high seawall deployed against a 20M high tsunami.
These arguments assume that we have decades or even hundreds of years to prepare for a global catastrophe. And there is absolutely no evidence to support that view. It’s nothing but wishful thinking. And ad hominem posts categorizing anyone expressing concern about this situation as foolish, ignorant, or even mentally imbalanced, reinforce this fatalistic passivity.
There’s no evidence that any significant effort is being made to protect our civilization against such events. There are undoubtedly secret private and governmental refuges in place or under development. But a few thousand politicians and plutocrats, with their bodyguards, health professionals, and assorted Dr. Strangeloves, scattered in bunkers around the globe, will never be able to reconstitute our civilization, even if they manage to continue the species.
It’s disturbing that this community of avowed skeptics, so quick to find flaws in the global warming propagandists’ logic, seems unable to grasp the fact that the history of human civilization is just a tiny blip in the life of the planet, and that our technological progress likely owes its existence to nothing more than an instant of the globe’s long existence that happened to be conducive to such development.
If we want to preserve and continue the progress of human civilization, we need to direct all the means at our disposal, ASAP, to preserving it through the next downturn. And the essential first step in that direction is to open our eyes to the threat and stop saying “que sera sera”.
“Mario Lento says:
January 9, 2014 at 4:35 pm
otropogo says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:56 am
++++++++++++
You need to calm down and stop watching those documentaries. You can’t handle them.
YES bad things happen. And life finds a way.
R. de Haan explained it to you in plain English. Read his words and CALM down.”
By “calm” you appear to me to mean, “stick your head back down in the sand, like the rest of us”. Unlike all of the critics of my posts on this thread, I HAVE READ everything that I’ve criticized.
Anyone who has read MY posts carefully would never suggest that I’m an advocate of the global warming viewpoint. In fact, I’m much, much more worried about an ice age.
Nor am I against the development and use of nuclear power, no more than Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, is. I simply agree with her view that we are not properly prepared to deploy it on an industrial scale. In fact, I’m afraid that a major global nuclear disaster will so alienate the public that further research and development will be stifled, thus depriving us of one of the very few existing technologies conceivably capable of saving civilization in the event of an ice age.
The argument that world population growth is slowly declining, or that we are presently able to almost feed the existing world population under ideal conditions, is as senseless as a 10M high seawall deployed against a 20M high tsunami.
These arguments assume that we have decades or even hundreds of years to prepare for a global catastrophe. And there is absolutely no evidence to support that view. It’s nothing but wishful thinking. And the attitudes of some posters categorizing anyone expressing concern about this situation as foolish, ignorant, or even mentally imbalanced, help to maintain this fatalistic passivity.
There’s no evidence that any significant effort is being made to protect our civilization against such events. There are undoubtedly secret private and governmental refuges in place or under development. But a few thousand politicians and plutocrats, with their bodyguards, health professionals, and assorted Dr. Strangeloves, scattered in bunkers around the globe, will never be able to reconstitute our civilization, even if they manage to continue the species.
It’s disturbing that this community of avowed skeptics, so quick to find flaws in the global warming propandists’ logic, seems unable to grasp the fact that the history of human civilization is just a tiny blip in the history of the earth, and that our technological progress likely owes its existence to nothing more than an instant of the globe’s long history that happens to be conducive to such development.
If we want to preserve and continue the progress of human civilization, we need to direct all the means at our disposal, ASAP, to preserving it through the next downturn. And the essential first step in that direction is to open our eyes to the threat and stop saying “que sera sera”.
Alan Robertson:
Firstly, my name is Chris. That is not anonymous. Are you simply trying to add wait to your view that I am trolling here by assuming my anonymity?
You then said this to me:
What’s that trick called, you know, when somebody tells a partial truth, to hide the truth?
Are you calling me a concern troll now?
You also said goodbye Mr, Ms Chris, when in your previous post you said you would like me to stick around. Please make your mind up – I am not here to amuse you as and when you feel like it.
Furthermore, you have used the terminology ‘we’ and ‘us’ on a couple of occasions now. This is either based on you knowing that you have support over your posts to me or you are simply assuming that you do. Either way you clearly think you carry some weight on here.
It seems that if I make any comment that supports a sceptical view I am being insincere or disingenuous according to you. Yet, when I make a comment that discusses the motives of man made climate change, and that view does not fit exactly with your view, I am effectively being called a troll. I am simply trying to find some middle ground in all of this.
I find all of your posts extremely unsavoury and full of sarcasm with your references to rabbit holes and half truths. You are making ad hominem attacks and getting away with it.
Alan Robertson:
At January 12, 2014 at 1:16 pm you ask (probably rhetorically)
It is called
being economical with the truth
Chris has persisted in being economical with the truth throughout his/her contributions to this thread.
The worst example of this practice by Chris was his/her repeated assertions that human population should be culled together with his/her repeated assertions that he had not called for anybody to be killed. The dichotomy between those two assertions is so illogical that I refused further engagement with him/her.
The clearest example of this practice by Chris is his/her assertion that he/she is not posting anonymously because Chris is his/her real name. That, too, is both illogical and ridiculous. Chris could be the first name or the family name of a male or of a female, or it could be a diminutive for the female name of Christine, or it could be a diminutive for the male name of Christopher, or etc.
There is no possibility of rational discussion with someone who adopts the egregious practice of being economical with the truth.
Richard
Otropogo:
A good post – very objective. From the very outset I have stated that there is a difference between what can be achieved and what should be achieved. Hypothetical discussions about population capacity are exactly that, hypothetical. The birth rate may well be declining, but the population is still increasing. if it does slow down to equilibrium, where birth rates are matching deaths, discussion of potential population size will mostly become irrelevant.
I believe a nuclear future is the only way forward for us to provide a realistic solution to the disparity that is occurring between energy supply and demand. There is however a limited amount of available nuclear fuel (well, they say there is), and if this is true then we could be in a bit of a dilemma.
Reference Merkel. She is burning coal too. And good, she knows she needs to while the infrastructure for nuclear needs to be put in place. We are the biggest hypocrites in the UK because we closed our coal mines to go nuclear / reduce our carbon footprint. We buy our coal now from Europe. So all we have done is move our carbon footprint elsewhere, whilst creating an even bigger footprint transporting the coal back here. Absolute madness.
So, when I look at the fallacy of man made climate change I see it through slightly different eyes. But that does not mean that there is no evidence of other darker and more sinister things going on. Increased fuel prices affect me directly. The threat or theory of global de-population doesn’t so much.
I can no more prove that the desire to use nuclear fuel caused the fallacy of man made climate change than I can disprove the fallacy of man made climate change through a desire to reduce global population.
As you say, the current population is symptomatic of the technology that has become available to us in a very short time period. We are very short term inhabitants of the planet. Our presence here is a blip in time. Most other species have become extinct either through natural events or we have made it that there isn’t room for them. A good example of how bad this has got is that we would all have to become vegetarian to support a larger population, as we would require the land that is currently occupied by our meat supply. It doesn’t leave much room for other species. I don’t wish to become vegetarian just so that someone else can demonstrate that we can live like that. I quite like my Sunday roast.
When I first started taking an interest in climate change the only possible theory that I was made aware of that gave a possible motive was the desire for some to go nuclear. Coal produces Co2, Co2 is a warming gas, warming gases warm the environment to dangerous levels. It was only recently when talking to a friend who agrees that man made climate change is not occurring, that the discussion of population came up. I said (in my opinion) that our population was growing at an exponential rate and was reaching bursting point; whilst he stated that some claim we can actually support a population more like 10 billion. He then went on to also say that some people thought it was through a desire to reduce the global population that man made climate change was invented. And here is a thread that supports that very view. So relatively recently I have had my eyes opened to this. Though it has clearly been talked about for a long time.
So, we have man made climate change and we have quite a few theories about what drove its inception.
Firstly, I don’t believe man made climate change occurs at the levels that are being indicated. It is also my belief that there is evidence that the threat of man made climate change came about to provide a false threat (my ‘conspiracy’ theory). What I don’t know is what that false threat is. There is circumstantial evidence that could lead people to believe it is any of the following:
A desire to go nuclear
A desire to go green, thus promoting the interest of companies that produce renewables
Overpopulation – reduce population by reducing Co2
Providing careers and funding for the IPCC panel (jobs for the boys)
There are probably many more that I haven’t even thought of and could quote.
In the beginnings of the IPCC there was likely only one motive. I don’t know for certain which it is. My personal opinion is that it was driven by coal being a dirty fuel that pollutes the atmosphere, with an element of Co2 being a warming gas.
I believe the Co2 aspect has been discredited through empirical data from the past that shows our relationship with Co2 in our presence and in our absence.
So what do you do? To discredit the science you must discredit the IPCC. And the way you do that is to challenge their continuing certainty of ACC in the face of contrary evidence – something that Anthony is actually very good at. You can’t prove conspiracy theories. And you don’t have to. If you show good evidence that the IPCC claims are falsifiable, good science will dictate that eventually they will have no choice but to concede the theory. And if they don’t, as theory diverges from data, and they continue to increase certainty in the face of contrary evidence they will end up hanging themselves over it.
It has taken me some time to complete that post whilst doing other stuff, and the post from Richard has dropped in before I submitted it. I am not answering the points you make Richard. To do so would just allow this thread to deteriorate further.
Chris says:
January 13, 2014 at 1:26 am
_______________________
You haven’t left? Good! I misread, or you implied a farewell address.
That’s an interesting quote from Richard S. Courtney- “being economical with the truth” – wouldn’t you agree? Anyone posting anonymously while claiming otherwise is not making a case for their own veracity, right? I am not making any sort of case against people posting anonymously. I used to do that, myself. It’s the ideas we’re getting at anyway, not the person.
What are your ideas that have you in the spotlight?
Everything you have said and done here has been to maintain that “there is no man behind the curtain”. We’ll keep pulling back the curtain. Who’s we? So far, only Richard S. Courtney, Gail Combs and Alan Robertson (all real) have been talking about your tricks. By all means keep it up. The more that see what you’re up to, the better. Also, the more people that view this fight (that’s what you’ve made it,) the more that might have new insight and prove me wrong. That’s how we find out who and what’s real.
Chris:
At January 13, 2014 at 3:51 am you have written a post which says in total
I am bemused.
If I understand your post correctly then it asserts you could “deteriorate” this thread more than you already have. I am at a loss to understand how you could do that, and I would welcome an explanation of how anybody could do that.
Richard
otropogo says:
January 8, 2014 at 3:04 pm
———————-
My point is otropogo is that when you look at ALL the energy at our disposal and the new innovations taking place from time to time there really should be no panic in your lifetime or mine. France gets 70% of its power from nuclear. No Fukishima or Tsunami to disrupt there power generation.
If we really had to we could get oil from algae and there is a lot of work being carried out on that now using co2 from power plants. So you can still ride your bike. 😉 My point is that innovations are ongoing and I repeat we will not run out of usable energy.
Mini nuclear plant can power 20,000 homes, almost zero maintenance, run for over 7 to 10 years.
http://phys.org/news145561984.html
Algal biofuels
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/algae-biodiesel2.htm
Richard S Courtney:
I will clarify what you have asked. I was in the middle of writing a reply to Otropogo when you posted your remark. I only saw your remark when I submitted my post; hence, chronologically yours appeared before my post to otropogo. Furthermore, my post was awaiting moderation so I don’t know when it actually appeared – probably after I did actually reply to you. Is that ok?
Good post Jimbo. Nuclear energy does not have to be the dirty word here. The risks from nuclear power plants are very low. Even the Fukishima disaster had a very low casualty rate. And this was in an area where a tsunami caused an interruption in the cold water supply that cools the reactors. Ordinarily there is no issue globally. Yes, there is the issue of nuclear waste, but controlled disposal is perfectly achievable. Great progress is being made in nuclear fusion technology. We are at a point where we can instigate the reaction but are not able to maintain it and the net input is disproportionate to the output currently. However, we are clever people, and with enough investment I really think we could find the answer to all the purported energy problems.
I was watching the news tonight ( in the UK) and our Prime Minister is really advocating the use of fracking to supply our gas needs. Unfortunately, where he gives with one hand the Conservatives have taken away with another by closing the coal pits in the UK and forcing us to buy coal from overseas, moving our carbon footprint, but not reducing it. The only issue I have with this is that gas is relatively cheap (4 or 5 pence per Kw/h) whereas electricity is very expensive ( as much as 25p per Kw/h, depending upon who supplies you). Therefore we need to be concentrating on cheaper electricity production in the UK and not gas. There is a mountain of coal. We should be using it if we accept that Co2 is not a threat, which is what I believe. Meanwhile, investment in nuclear fission / and medium to long term investment in nuclear fusion technology should be our goal.
Many millions of pounds are thrown into ventures like the Large Hadron Collider. If we can invest money in finding our beginnings, then surely we can invest money in our energy requirements – achievable, sustainable one’s? And not throwing money at the IPCC just to prove or not a point would be a good start.
Technology deployment depends on cultural maturity. In the age of corporate feudalism where shoddy work is ignored and accountability for catastrophe democratized, all advances beyond the windmill are highly dangerous tools in the hands of malignant dwarfs. Technology can be invented, but the gross minconduct of the over-arching criminal culture ensures it will fail. Fukushima is but one cautionary tale. GMO seeds are another. Men must evolve or we will die from hubris.
Jimbo
However, I don’t believe algal fuels are a realistic alternative. The logistics with regard to required space to achieve this are massive. You are talking tens of thousands of Olympic sized swimming pools to scratch the surface of our energy requirements. We simply don’t have the space, especially if some amongst us insist that we can support an ever increasing population. Do we give up the land taken by our cows and sheep to provide algal oil?
charles stegiel:
The conclusion of your post at January 13, 2014 at 10:55 am says
All men will die and so will all women unless humans evolve to avoid it.
The remainder of your post is similarly divorced from reality.
Richard
charles stegiel says:
January 13, 2014 at 10:55 am
Technology deployment depends on cultural maturity. In the age of corporate feudalism where shoddy work is ignored and accountability for catastrophe democratized, all advances beyond the windmill are highly dangerous tools in the hands of malignant dwarfs. Technology can be invented, but the gross minconduct of the over-arching criminal culture ensures it will fail.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
I have read this a couple of times and I am trying to grasp the sentiment here.
If I have this right, you seem to be suggesting that we have available to us technology that is beyond us. Is that a fair interpretation?
If it is then you do have a point in so much as we need to be very careful with what technology has given us. You have to look at the time frame that man has been on the earth and compare that to how quickly all this technology has been available to us. I made a reference to giving a gun to a monkey in one of my earlier posts. I really don’t think we are at a position where we know how to properly protect ourselves from ourselves. It’s very interesting to see what we have achieved in little over 150 years. It is an exponential increase in technology that is disproportionate to the advances that humans have made in the same time. A few individuals with intelligence way beyond your average person have brought on a technology explosion. The warning signs are there that perhaps we can’t cope with it all and the fatalists would say it is a recipe for disaster. We’ll see won’t we.
You then said
“Fukushima is but one cautionary tale”
Fukushima was caused by a natural event. What it did teach everyone is that under no circumstances can you cut off the water supply to a nuclear reactor. Hopefully, what happened at Fukushima will ensure all stations in areas prone to earthquakes / tsunami’s have adequate protection.
Humans have become very self aware. When we used to look at the sun it was put there by the gods. The world didn’t turn, the god’s moved the sun across the sky. Now, we put people on the moon, send spacecraft to Mars, search for aliens and build the LHC to find out how the Universe started. We want to know how everything works and why. Is that a good definition of Hubris – perhaps?
We also want to prove that we can achieve everything, like support billions more people. Why, because we think we can – is that Hubris too? And that brings me nicely back to the point I have been making all along – should we?
Chris
Chris says:
January 13, 2014 at 7:52 pm
You then said
“Fukushima is but one cautionary tale”
Fukushima was caused by a natural event. What it did teach everyone is that under no circumstances can you cut off the water supply to a nuclear reactor. Hopefully, what happened at Fukushima will ensure all stations in areas prone to earthquakes / tsunami’s have adequate protection.
Humans have become very self aware. When we used to look at the sun it was put there by the gods. The world didn’t turn, the god’s moved the sun across the sky. Now, we put people on the moon, send spacecraft to Mars, search for aliens and build the LHC to find out how the Universe started. We want to know how everything works and why. Is that a good definition of Hubris – perhaps?
We also want to prove that we can achieve everything, like support billions more people. Why, because we think we can – is that Hubris too? And that brings me nicely back to the point I have been making all along – should we?
Chris
_________________________
And that brings me back to the point I’ve been making all along.
@ Jimbo says:
January 13, 2014 at 9:44 am
otropogo says:
January 8, 2014 at 3:04 pm
———————-
“My point is otropogo is that when you look at ALL the energy at our disposal and the new innovations taking place from time to time there really should be no panic in your lifetime or mine.”
Jimbo (and Chris), can you say “pie in the sky”?
“France gets 70% of its power from nuclear. No Fukishima or Tsunami to disrupt there power generation.”
Sure, and before March, 2011, I’m sure you would have said the same about Japan. Atomic waste is easily disposable? Tell that to Frau Merkel, who’s being trying to find a way for years. And how long would France’s nuclear power plants continue to run, if the supply of uranium stopped flowing?
“If we really had to we could get oil from algae and there is a lot of work being carried out on that now using co2 from power plants.”
On what time scale?
In my area there’s a 100km stretch of highway through the Rocky Mountains that has never had cell phone coverage. The local politicians have only just discovered this hole in our public safety net, despite the complaints of the thousands of constituents who’ve been put at risk by it for the last two decades. It requires the positioning of a cellular repeater tower on a small pad on one of the peaks overlooking the route. And now that the need has been recognized by the powers that be, it’s expected to take another three years to install this rather simple, off the shelf machinery.
If you’re suggesting humanity can simply roll out local algae based food production and mini nuclear power plants on a global scale to replace a sudden loss of global food and energy production and/or distribution, I can only conclude that you don’t have a clue as to how the world functions.
Alan Robertson says:
January 14, 2014 at 4:49 am
Chris says:
January 13, 2014 at 7:52 pm
You then said
“Fukushima is but one cautionary tale”
Fukushima was caused by a natural event. What it did teach everyone is that under no circumstances can you cut off the water supply to a nuclear reactor. Hopefully, what happened at Fukushima will ensure all stations in areas prone to earthquakes / tsunami’s have adequate protection.
Humans have become very self aware. When we used to look at the sun it was put there by the gods. The world didn’t turn, the god’s moved the sun across the sky. Now, we put people on the moon, send spacecraft to Mars, search for aliens and build the LHC to find out how the Universe started. We want to know how everything works and why. Is that a good definition of Hubris – perhaps?
We also want to prove that we can achieve everything, like support billions more people. Why, because we think we can – is that Hubris too? And that brings me nicely back to the point I have been making all along – should we?
Chris
_________________________
And that brings me back to the point I’ve been making all along.
++++++++++++++++
I would like to add to the excellent comment by Alan Robertson:
Alan says “Fukushima was caused by a natural event. What it did teach everyone is that under no circumstances can you cut off the water supply to a nuclear reactor. Hopefully, what happened at Fukushima will ensure all stations in areas prone to earthquakes / tsunami’s have adequate protection.”
True, very true. Their diesel generators, which were secondary backup, were flooded and useless. In the US, we have batter carts which can be mobilized in the case of flooding. Still we can do better and we are. Consider all of the damage caused by nuclear, and it pales in comparison to almost any other human activity. Nuclear is safe by almost any measure. And – I want to say I get paid because of the irrational fears. If I had my way, I’d have to find other ways to make money. But I fill a void created by irrational fears.
Mario Lento says:
January 14, 2014 at 4:16 pm
_____________
Hello Mario,
Chris made the comment about Fukushima. I inadvertently copied too much of what Chris said and diminished my own words. Chris made good points about Fukushima and I did not aim my comment at those words.
Here is what I said: “And that brings me back to the point I’ve been making all along.”
I was commenting on these words by Chris:
“We also want to prove that we can achieve everything, like support billions more people. Why, because we think we can – is that Hubris too? And that brings me nicely back to the point I have been making all along – should we?”
_______________________
Chris would like us to accept the idea that there are too many human beings.
That idea is groundless and is the single most dangerous idea which Humanity has ever faced. The very darkest elements of human society have advanced that idea as if it were a fact which cannot be challenged, wielding it as both religious dogma and a cause célèbre. By doing so, they have already caused the suffering and deaths of untold millions of people What they have in mind for the rest of us is detailed in their own words, which have been mentioned and linked in this thread.
The purveyors of mass death have not ceased their attempts to recruit the minds of their intended victims into their hidden cause. The efforts of TCOR and others can only succeed after being broadly accepted within the human population. No matter how reasonable the idea might be made to seem, Chris’s idea should be stamped out wherever it is found.
Alan Robertson says:
January 14, 2014 at 6:45 pm
+++++++
Excellent post Alan. Great that your points are now more in the open! I completely agree with your line of thought and your teachings Alan.
People like Chris are exposed to the truth from people like you –and the truth points to so much damage that people like Chris cannot see it. It is unfathomable to people like Chirs because he sees himself as a good and altruistic person. To open up to the reality of his ilk, would be life changing for Chris. Life changing events are rare. If there was a way that Chris could feel the wrath of the dark side of his ilk’s policies, without the actual harm that those policies cause others, maybe he’d see the error in his thinking.
Well, I have really had my eyes opened now. I can’t decide whether I inadvertently find myself in some kind of religious rant or an episode of Star Wars. I hear references to one’s teachings and ‘feeling the wrath of the dark side.’
May I just be selfish (and not altruistic – another false claim against me) for a second and clarify a point here. It is up to me to decide which information I take as truth. There is no truth in conspiracy theories – even my own – much of it is conjecture. I take any theory, evidence or suggestion at face value and then decide for myself how much credibility it has. I do not need other people deciding for me what I should or should not be opening my eyes to. Conversely, all I have done is express my opinion on given scenarios. I have not told anyone that what I say is correct or that it is the truth.
I actually don’t think I have seen so many posts before that blatently misconstrue the words of a person. You are hounding me out of my opinion and making allegation after allegation. Ordinarily I would probably remind you that you are making these allegations against me ( be it by false association) in a public forum. However, given that people are evidently taking everything out of context and putting words in my mouth for me. I am not concerned quite frankly.
I have just read back and realised that Mario Lento responded to part of a post that was written by me, thinking that it was written by Alan.
Firstly, it is of no consequence to me that someone is commenting positively on anything I have said or part of my post. What is more of importance was that Alan was so quick to disassociate himself from me by pointing out to Mario that he had in fact quoted me.
Chuckles quietly to himself
Alan said:
Chris would like us to accept the idea that there are too many human beings.
That idea is groundless and is the single most dangerous idea which Humanity has ever faced. The very darkest elements of human society have advanced that idea as if it were a fact which cannot be challenged, wielding it as both religious dogma and a cause célèbre. By doing so, they have already caused the suffering and deaths of untold millions of people What they have in mind for the rest of us is detailed in their own words, which have been mentioned and linked in this thread.
The purveyors of mass death have not ceased their attempts to recruit the minds of their intended victims into their hidden cause. The efforts of TCOR and others can only succeed after being broadly accepted within the human population. No matter how reasonable the idea might be made to seem, Chris’s idea should be stamped out wherever it is found.
———————————————————————————————————————————
I have never made any reference to “The Church of Rome”
I have made reference to Thomas Malthus only. And from the outset I pointed out that the man showed quite a lot of foresight as to the future of man. He did not at any point say that he proposed mass extermination. It also DOES NOT FOLLOW that I am suggesting it either. I have also asked for anyone to provide me with evidence that Malthus either said or intended what you so vocally suggest.
As for any theories I have being groundless. There is much discussion on both sides that argue whether or not a larger population can be supported. I have made references to current levels of poverty in the world. Is it groundless to suggest that we can’t support a larger population when clearly there are people living in poverty now. I put to you that these are very good grounds to discuss the merits.
I would ask that you clarify who or what you are referring to when you describe “the very darkest elements of society” It should follow then that I may know which millions of people you are referring to.
I note in your last sentence you refer to Chris’ idea. I didn’t realise I had just come up with an idea. I thought all I had done was reference the words of a theorist in the 1800’s. I have explained in my earlier posts how I came to hear of the view that a larger population can be supported. I also first read of TCOR (as you abbreviate it) in this topic. So given my rather recent introduction I am afraid I can’t claim to have come up with any ideas. Nor have I been brainwashed by TCOR, much to my relief.
But thank you for your view Alan – your comments and the extremity of them have been duly noted.
Chris.:
At January 15, 2014 at 3:50 am you write:
I do not believe you because it would require that you do not read your own words.
For example, at January 7, 2014 at 7:27 am I wrote saying to you
And you replied to that at January 7, 2014 at 7:55 am saying to me
Clearly, I made no such “reference”. Your response was an attempt to ignore my point.
This thread consists of your doing this to several people.
There is an aphorism about a pot and a kettle.
Richard
Chris:
Your post at January 15, 2014 at 6:40 am is more ‘pot and kettle’.
The extremism is yours and not Alan’s.
You are the one advocating reducing the human population, not him.
Alan is only pointing out that you are calling for genocide, which you are.
Richard
Mario Lento says:
January 14, 2014 at 7:07 pm
“People like Chris are exposed to the truth from people like you –and the truth points to so much damage that people like Chris cannot see it. It is unfathomable to people like Chirs because he sees himself as a good and altruistic person.”
__________________________
Mario,
I am not too sure about your good faith in others, especially when their behavior has triggered certain responses in this thread. I’m quite sure that you see yourself as a good and altruistic person. I know it’s hard to realize that people would believe in, or support the idea and make it the basis for entire global “causes”. Can we describe others as altruistic when in their own words, they say that they are not altruistic? From Wiki: Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. As for myself, I do not find altruism to be a motive of anyone supporting the horrific idea that there are too many human beings.
@ Chris,
You have stated that you are entitled to your own opinion. Well, so am I, so are we.
Here’s my opinion- in a nutshell- there is no middle ground here:
Those who decry the reaper, but sharpen the scythe, write their claim of innocence in blood.
You have associated yourself with the idea that there are too many human beings. You have also stated that you do not believe in the extreme horrific goals of others who are on record as promoting the reduction of mankind by whatever means. Nevertheless, you keep inserting yourself as a shield of defense between those who would reduce humanity and those who stand against those monsters.
Standing in front of the target and whining about the arrows is exceedingly bad form, but to then threaten the archers is the epitome of folly, n’est ce pas?
Well, there have been some number of comments since I started my response to Mario…
nothing has changed and there is nothing new to see.
Alan Robertson says:
January 15, 2014 at 8:04 am
Mario Lento says:
January 14, 2014 at 7:07 pm
++++++++
Alan I defer to your good judgment here and side with your sentiments and truth vis a vis Chris. To me, these sorts of people are a stain on the idea of a free society. Perhaps I should have not assumed that Chris truly believes himself as being good. But I know of many people who if they could see themselves as I do, would no longer be able to see themselves in a positive fashion. That’s where I was trying to go with my comment. The lines are sometimes very fine between evil and mental illness.
Mario Lento says:
January 15, 2014 at 8:17 am
________________
Thanks Mario. This is tricky business and encouragement helps. Your words bring up more aspects of what we all must overcome. When we don’t have it within ourselves, we can’t see it in others. It’s difficult for us to accept the truth of things which exist beyond our own experience or beliefs. Once we pick up the knife, our fate answers for the blood we spill.
I didn’t realise I was in some sort of religious forum.
These posts by Alan Robertson and Richard S Courtney are a perfect example of the danger with the internet.
It has resulted in me being accused of supporting genocide, mass murder, extermination etc etc.
And all for simply stating that I think the world is over populated. All I believe is that we don’t need any more humans on the planet. Nothing more and nothing less. And that is my opinion – not yours to decide for me.
I believe that man made climate change is a con. But I do not believe it is being driven by a desire to reduce global population. I don’t really care if anyone doesn’t believe me – what I believe is all that matters here.
I am not a religious person and I do not believe in God. And that is my prerogative. Life is precious and if it is the case that TCOR are actually proposing killing people then I would never agree with that. I simply believe we don’t need any more humans on the planet.
There is more going on in the world that concerns me like the amount I am having to pay for my energy bills. The rest is just semantics.
Chris says:
January 10, 2014 at 4:59 am
Gail Combs said:
….Pascal Lamy while World Trade Organization Director-General stated quite clearly the ultimate
—————————————————————————————————————————-
And there was me thinking that WUWT was about disputing all the false claims being made about climate change. I didn’t realise it was more about proving conspiracy theories!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What are you talking about? It is not a ” conspiracy theory” when a world leader flat out states the decision was made in the 1930’s to do away with national sovereignty or as he put it ” the Westphalian, sacrosanct principle of sovereignty”
If the USA is a vassal state of the UN as the UK is a vassal state of the EU then the bureaucrats in the UN will write our laws. Heck they are ALREADY writing our laws.
If we as citizens have no say in our government then we are nothing better than serfs. The UN has already made it clear that property (land) rights have to go.
Dude, if you can not OWN property (and therefore grow your own food) then you ARE property!
Alan – you said:
Thanks Mario. This is tricky business and encouragement helps. Your words bring up more aspects of what we all must overcome. When we don’t have it within ourselves, we can’t see it in others. It’s difficult for us to accept the truth of things which exist beyond our own experience or beliefs. Once we pick up the knife, our fate answers for the blood we spill.
———————————————————————————————————————————
Are you a religious person?
It just seems to me that your wording suggests so. If you base your opinion on faith alone – fine. I get it. And I would never argue against that. I would never belittle someone’s faith in something because that is up to them. If I am right then maybe you think that all of God’s creatures are precious?
Meanwhile, I am having a look at the club of Rome which seems to be the source of much of the debate here. I inadvertently called it the Church of Rome in my google search. Once I realised my mistake I found some links. It’s all well and good being accused of demonstrating a view similar to something when in fact you don’t know what it is in the first place.
Anyway, so in 1972 a ‘think tank’ ( don’t shoot the messenger) was set up to discuss the relationship between economical population growth and the perceived finite resources to do that. This resulted in the production of a book called “The limits of growth”
Now I could spend hours and hours researching this, but I simply don’t have the time. I have a young family ( I know, call me a hypocrite).
I see references on the net to Malthus as well. In the same article about the COR I also read a reference to the exponential increase in population. Unfortunately for me I also used the same word exponential. I even used the word divergence when describing the disparity (in my opinion) between population and available resources. And all this before I even read about the Club of Rome. So here is my dilemma. I am conveying the view that we do not need any more people on this planet ( though categorically I deny that I think we should reduce the number). That is based alone on what I see with my own eyes. I am 41 years old (yes, born in the same year as the COR produced their book). That’s called irony. I find myself struggling more and more as each year passes to pay the bills which 10 years ago would have been quite affordable. My father retired at the age of 65, having made his contribution to the state. He continues to enjoy his retirement – a legacy that will become unachievable for the next generation, including myself. I dread to think what the situation will be like when my young family go out into the working world to try and find a job or buy a house. In reality, the only way my family will do that is when they inherit from me. 10 percent of children in the UK are living in poverty. Fortunately I do not include my family in that. That is the reality of my selfish western world existence. This is the reality of a third world existence – Millions of children are dying in 3rd world countries from a lack of basic requirements like water and food. They don’t have a sofa like me; they sit on the ground and wipe their backside with whatever they can lay their hands on. They don’t have a roof over their head They die from preventable diseases. It breaks my heart when I see these people suffering like they do. I understand why they have so many children – because so many die. These are my grounds for why it does not make sense to encourage a larger population – which is what you (Alan or whoever adopts the same belief) are alluding to if I adopt your philosophy. If I use your rule of thumb – if you are not discouraging population growth then you must be encouraging it.
Gail
You said:
Dude, if you can not OWN property (and therefore grow your own food) then you ARE property!
——————————————————————————————————————————–
And do you think with the housing shortage it is going to get any better with even more of us on the planet. You are complaining about the very thing that is symptomatic of an ever increasing population.
I do wonder sometimes.
Chris,
Here’s an interesting link that you might enjoy. http://vhemt.org/
Those people believe in the extinction of humanity.
———————————-
Chris says:
January 15, 2014 at 10:27 am
“I simply believe we don’t need any more humans on the planet.”
______________________
People who say that really mean that we don’t need any more “other people” on the planet. They never act when someone suggests a high bridge…
You complain that your utility bills are too high because there are too many other people driving up costs, yet you’re completely aware of the lie behind that idea. Your artificially high utility costs are in reality, one of the more visible manifestations of the belief that too many humans exist.
Don’t complain about having to pay your utility bill. After all, you’ve not complained about the deaths of your countrymen due to those same high bills. Celebrate your utility bill. It’s the symbol and reminder of a bargain you made.
Alan,
I did not say that other people are driving up the cost of my utility bills ( you are misquoting me again). My energy bills are increasing because of the green tax that I am paying to support renewable energy. This has been instigated by the threat of man made climate change. Furthermore, they have gone up because of speculation of fuel shortages. Not really speculation though. All the coal pits have been closed in the UK; so now we have to buy our coal from Europe, which makes it expensive. But for the threat of man made climate change we would be using the coal we have and not spending stupid sums of money on wind farms. That is a fact – not some conspiracy theory about global depopulation. It is down to EU rules and policy on green energy.
Anything else?
I disagree with the article. Of course Mathus was right, as populations do tend to increase geometrically, – and he was obviously hoping something could be done about it. The world listened, and we developed birth control, encouraged smaller families, improved farming etc.
So Mathus was right and the criticisms of him are naive. Maybe the world can accommodate more people, up to some ultimate limit, but why would you want to? We are already stressing the environment.
Alan said:
Chris,
Here’s an interesting link that you might enjoy. http://vhemt.org/
Those people believe in the extinction of humanity.
Where on earth do you find this stuff. Only someone that actually seeks it out would even find this kind of rubbish.
And you say I might enjoy it!!
You are not doing yourself any favours here Alan.
Alan
You quoted me:
“I simply believe we don’t need any more humans on the planet.”
You replied
People who say that really mean that we don’t need any more “other people” on the planet.
I say
What planet are you on? What’s the difference?
This is “You’ve been framed isn’t it”
Nigelj
Thank you. Some normality finally. As I said in my earlier posts – big difference between what we can do and what we should do.
I have since been called a mass murderer and someone that supports genocide. Though technically genocide applies to a specific populus’ of people; usually of religious or ethnic origin and not the general population. A point that is really quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of things atm.
The idea that too many human beings exist is the most dangerous idea that mankind has ever faced. There are any number of individuals and groups working to enforce the untimely reduction of human populations through the direct actions of man.
There is no anecdotal example of human suffering, or death which can support the idea that too many human beings exist. No rationalization can justify the consequences of the willful implementation of policies designed to reduce human populations by bringing about unnecessary deaths of individuals. No amount of obfuscation will hide the fact that such policies must have the willing support of large numbers of the population in order to succeed, which in turn require mass adherance to the philosophical underpinnings of the idea and threat to mankind, that too many human beings exist.
nigelj:
At January 15, 2014 at 12:19 pm
No. Malthus was completely wrong. This demonstrated by subsequent reality.
How and why he was wrong is explained in my above post which this link jumps to
I have repeatedly asked you to refute my argument in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
Richard
nigelj:
I apologise that I copied a line when copying an address.
The line says
I have repeatedly asked you to refute my argument in my post at
It should not be in my post to you and I ask you to ignore it.
Sorry.
Richard
Richardscourtney said:
No. Malthus was completely wrong. This demonstrated by subsequent reality.
How and why he was wrong is explained in my above post which this link jumps to
I have repeatedly asked you to refute my argument in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
——————————————————————————————————————————–
So you are right and everyone else is wrong just because you say so. You state that you have repeatedly asked the poster to refute your argument / POV / whichever you wish to call it. Conversely I could say that neither you or anyone else has provided me with a document that states Malthus wanted mass extermination; which I have asked for in an earlier post.
As I said in earlier posts, people are not here to answer your demands. And to repeat what I also said in an earlier post you cannot draw inferences from an absence of reply.
You have made sweeping generalisations and allegations as to what you consider Malthus implied or meant. The reality of the situation is that you do not know. He died 150 years ago. Don’t assign him to the ranks of all the crank groups that may want global destruction. By the same token, don’t do it to me either.
Chris:
At January 15, 2014 at 2:28 pm in response to my yet again pointing you to my clear,evidence-based argument which you have steadfastly refuse to address and which is at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526318
you have the gall to say to me
NO! I am right because the evidence says so.
Please note the number of people who wrote to applaud my argument in that post which you are unable to address.
That is the trouble with all you religious bigots. You repeatedly assert what you claim to “believe” (as you have repeatedly in this thread) and reply to all evidence and arguments which falsify your beliefs by saying, “So you are right and everyone else is wrong just because you say so.”
Such behaviour is often funny but in your case it is obscene because your self-professed “belief” is genocidal.
Richard
Alan Robertson says:
“There is no anecdotal example of human suffering, or death which can support the idea that too many human beings exist.”
Exactly right. I challenge anyone to show that a rise in population has ever been bad.
That would be a logical impossibility, since the rise in population proves a priori that it is good. Otherwise, the rise would cause a fall in population.
Those promoting the idea that there are too many people are every bit as evil as any murdering Eugenicist.
Alan Robertson:
It seems you are still following this thread.
I write to point you to another WUWT thread where the egregious Chris is stating falsehoods about you (and me).
This link is to the first in his series of astonishingly untrue posts in that thread
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/15/warmists-are-never-wrong-even-when-supporting-genocide/#comment-1537112
Richard
nigelj says:
“I disagree with the article. Of course Mathus was right…”
Malthus was wrong, as the enormous rise in the global population proves beyond any doubt.
Just because “we developed birth control, encouraged smaller families, improved farming etc.”, that does not mean Malthus was right. In fact, it confirms that he was wrong. Human ingenuity was enough to overcome the supposed barrier to population growth of insufficient food, which was Malthus’ central argument.
Malthus was talking about humans, who have the ability to overcome adversity such as insufficient food supplies. Malthus did not take human ingenuity into account. We are not talking about ants, or amoebas. Human intelligence negates the Malthus argument.
You can argue, “But what if…”, or you can accept reality. Reality proves that Malthus was wrong.
richardscourtney says:
January 15, 2014 at 3:32 pm
______________
Thanks for heads up
Chris says:
Alan,
I did not say that other people are driving up the cost of my utility bills ( you are misquoting me again). My energy bills are increasing because of the green tax that I am paying to support renewable energy.
++++++++++
You are not paying it to support anything. You are paying because you have to. What does that buzz-word “renewable” mean to you? Does it give you a good feeling?
So, are you saying that you support burning woodchips and food (that so many people compete for, such that there’s enough humans?) Are you only a proponent of forcing everyone to pay for solar panels that very few people would buy without huge assistance from real tax payers? Do you take all of your subsidies (tax write offs) so you don’t have to pay the full burden of your “fair share” of taxes? Of course you do. It would be foolish if you didn’t. I see hollowness in your words.
That you don’t see it, suggests an ideology that filters reason from you. If I were forced to work with people who thought as you do, I’d fly over the cuckoo’s nest or get pretty close to going postal.
richardscourtney says:
January 15, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Alan Robertson:
It seems you are still following this thread.
I write to point you to another WUWT thread where the egregious Chris is stating falsehoods about you (and me).
This link is to the first in his series of astonishingly untrue posts in that thread
—————————————————————————————————————————-
The only astonishingly untrue posts are the one’s made by you and Alan claiming that I am supporting mass genocide or extermination. You really can’t appreciate that making allegations like that against a person in a public forum is unacceptable.If anyone needs to apologise it is you for your astonishing and clearly demomnstrated insinuations.
Chris:
re your post at January 16, 2014 at 1:07 am.
You are an egregious liar who is posting lies on the other thread. I and Alan Robertson have each objected to your lies about us on that thread and Gail Robertson has explained on that thread what you have been asserting on this thread.
I make no “insinuations”.
I observe that you repeatedly advocate people being culled and claim you are not calling for genocide while excluding all other possible ways to reduce population. And you tell lies about people who disagree with your call for genocide.
Nasty is an inadequate word to describe you.
There is no “insinuation” in any of that.
Richard
Gail Combs:
I write to apologise to you.
At January 16, 2014 at 3:21 am I wrote Gail Robertson when I should have written Gail Combs.
I offer my sincere apologies for this error.
My only excuse is that I was writing to Chris. Dealing with him provides similar feelings to those when removing something unpleasant from the instep of one’s shoe, and such feelings are distracting.
Richard
Richard – you really are a piece of work. You are behaving like a spoilt child that has thrown his toys out of his pram. Your last post demonstrates exactly the type of person you are. To vocalise that you get similar feelings to having shit on your shoes when ‘dealing’ with me speaks volumes quite frankly.
I am amazed that the moderators let you get away with type of verbal abuse.
If a mod is reading this I respectfully ask that all posts that falsely claim I am in support of genocide be removed.
Chris:
I write this to acknowledge your post at January 16, 2014 at 9:57 am.
You have still not apologised for your lies about Alan Robertson and me..
Apologise then crawl back under whatever stone you slid from under.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
January 16, 2014 at 3:20 pm
__________
Chris has now declared (on the more recent thread) that he is picking up his toys and running home. He just couldn’t make anyone fall for his thin philosophy.
Chris says:
January 16, 2014 at 9:57 am
Richard – you really are a piece of work. You are behaving like a spoilt child that has thrown his toys out of his pram.
+++++++++
Chris: Really, you should not be so stubborn here. You will be bullied because you’re being obstinate. You’re taking a stance which leads only to its logical conclusion that you support the things that people who want to limit population hope for. You believe there are too many people, and that belief supports the policies which hurt people who want to live. I’ve never met a person who believes there are too many people and who prove their convictions enough to make room for people. To do so, would be to self destruct.
Economic growth is dependant on a number of inputs. In the classical economic theories these are Land, Capital and Labour, organised by Entrepreneurship. Land, as in natural resources, is of course finite. Modern economic growth is dependant on an increasing population. Europe with a static or in some cases negative population growth is rapidly becoming the World’s economic basket case. While innovation and entrepreneurial expertise can take up some of the slack, without an increasing population depression must inevitably follow. Modern economies are based on growth. To a large extent this growth depends on an increasing population. How many cars does one household need, how many houses do you want, what is a sufficient number of consumer goods. Without an increasing population an economy will stagnate. To some extent built in redundancy is maintaining demand but recycling is unable to cope with the piles of discarded consumer items. I would ask the author what he considers to be an optimum world population (assuming it can be estimated) or for that matter what is an optimum population for a country. These are serious questions that we should be considering now. We are on the back of a tiger that we can’t get off. Perhaps it is time that more emphasis is placed on distribution of wealth rather than economic growth. While I no way advocate carbon manipulation to be used for this purpose it is nevertheless important to make a start in considering these issues these issues.
Peter Fraser says:
January 18, 2014 at 1:16 am
Hello Peter,
I had a freshman class in Economics about _ _ years ago and am not well- versed in the topic.
It looks to me like innovation is the primary driver of economic growth. I don’t know, really.
—————————-
“I would ask the author what he considers to be an optimum world population (assuming it can be estimated) or for that matter what is an optimum population for a country.”
_____________________
I would ask you the same. Without any basis whatsoever, people such as Paul Ehrlich have declared such ideas to be within the realm of what is knowable and controllable by man. We already know the inevitable direction of such thinking. Are you willing to pursue the idea that there is some knowable optimum of human population?
—————————
“Perhaps it is time that more emphasis is placed on distribution of wealth rather than economic growth. ”
_____________________
How is that supposed to work? Haven’t all such examples, when directed from outside the marketplace, ultimately relied upon the use of force to ensure the dominance of one individual over another?
Peter Fraser:
In addition to the excellent replies from Alan Robertson to your post at January 18, 2014 at 1:16 am I suggest you may want to read my post in this thread which addresses the reliance – which you state – of economic growth on population growth. This link jumps to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/#comment-1526403
Richard
Alan Robertson says:
January 18, 2014 at 12:21 pm
Peter Fraser says:
January 18, 2014 at 1:16 am
Hello Peter,
I had a freshman class in Economics about _ _ years ago and am not well- versed in the topic.
It looks to me like innovation is the primary driver of economic growth. I don’t know, really.
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Alan: I would say you’re 100% correct. Economic growth, or productivity is based on the motivation of people to make thing which others want to acquire. If people don’t want the product enough to acquire it, more innovation is needed by the makers. It’s a closed loop cycle. This is a major problem wrt to the green activists who wrongly demonize CO2.
Freedom allows people to innovate without restriction. The government restricts things, sometimes for some good, but always at the expense of some freedoms. It is extremely difficult and complex to take away freedoms. I am not against taking away some freedom, for example, the freedom to steal should be restricted in society. Though stealing is natural, most humans do not like this part of nature because it requires the survival of the fittest. I digress.
Mario Lento says:
January 18, 2014 at 2:25 pm
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Mario,
I’m glad to see you talking about freedom. A large portion of the problems in the world of man are because people do not understand the true meaning of freedom. Freedom means that we are free to live out the consequences of our own thoughts and actions.
Alan Robertson says:
January 18, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Mario Lento says:
January 18, 2014 at 2:25 pm
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Mario,
I’m glad to see you talking about freedom. A large portion of the problems in the world of man are because people do not understand the true meaning of freedom. Freedom means that we are free to live out the consequences of our own thoughts and actions.
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amen