|
quote:Your conclusion only works if you ignore basic political/economic realities of the world, though. The only way first-world nations maintain their standard of living is by impoverishing the third world. That's just how global capitalism, and capitalism in general, works. I think history has pretty well proven that capitalism can't exist without an underclass. So yeah, I agree that population would stop growing if third-world countries would modernize and industrialize, but they can't do that without impacting the standard of living of the first world (after all, who's going to make all our cheap electronics, coffee, and assorted other nifty things?), and first-world governments won't let that happen. And I haven't even mentioned the dire climate consequences of countries like China and India industrializing to first-world standards. It's not that western leadership 'won't let' it happen (what does that even mean?) - there are a variety of factors impacting the growth of the developing world (this certainly includes the IMF, but mostly because the people running the IMF have an ideological bias in favor of exporting the values of laissez faire capitalism / libertarianism - not because they are consciously attempting to keep labor prices low in Asia). The consequences of China and / or India industrializing depend on the methods used for their energy generation (right now, yes, they use coal. Just like we do. Which is why I think it's important to lobby for alternatives). quote:As usual the Western environmental progressives' preoccupation with people having babies in the third world emerges in its typically half-baked fashion. If you're concerned about resources, consider that each person in the industrialized first world consumes many times more resources (by any margin: energy, nonrenewable materials, food, arable land) than your African baby. Every baby a Westerner doesn't have is worth like 10 African babies (and I mean that with all irony). Citation needed. quote:I would even argue that it's a fraught line to lobby for "global social equality" because this almost invariably gets translated as "increased industrialization;" I say fraught because these developments would likely improve quality of life for the third world, while at the same time vastly increasing the third world's resource consumption. This statement is predicated on your last assertion being true (1 African uses 10x less food/water/energy/land than 1 western citizen), and it probably isn't (I say that because it's an incredibly simple outlook on a very complex series of factors. EDIT: It's also worth noting that's it's a non sequitor, even if you're right on the figures, to claim that because a western lifestyle is wasteful, any industrialized lifestyle must be equally wasteful. The Ender fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Nov 3, 2012 |
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 01:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 15:55 |
|
|
I wanted to contribute my two cents to this topic. I will admit that I didn't read every single page of this thread, but I am merely responding to the topic in general and the original OP in particular. I don't question for a second that in the next several decades and beyond we as a species will experience very profound problems, many of which are environmental. I tend to view all science with an open mind and I keep an eye on projections regarding climate change and the various voices that speak out on this topic. I think we all should do this. The problem I have with this debate is it is assumed that the solution can be found if only our government, or some international body passes some piece of legislation or creates some new program to solve this problem. I can tell you with great certainty that the worse and more complicated a problem is, the less we should look for a political solution and the more we should rely on ourselves and individual initiative and cooperative action to work on a local level to achieve a reduction in pollution. Due to the nature of the process, politicians are incapable of designing policy that will have long term benefits. The entire political process is always and forever geared towards short term "benefits" to get the politicians reelected, forget about the long term consequences. Politicians care only about reelection. Special interests and government programs and departments care only that there budgets grow year after year regardless of their performance. Thus, the idea that good policy can be devised that will only bear fruit decades after the original authors of the legislation have retired and entirely new people are in charge is ludicrous if you think about it logically. Not only that, but some special interest groups use environmentalism and climate change as an excuse to engage in crony capitalism and get a special deal from government to make a lot of money. Some politicians merely want to regulate human behavior and exercise more control over the economy, without much concern for the environment. The only way this thing is truly hopeless is if we resign ourselves to a posture that accepts the fallacious premise that "only the government can offer a solution to this problem". If we do that, then we are truly doomed. The only thing we can do for the environment is to work in a voluntary manner to educate others and persuade them to alter their behavior. We should have a better understanding of property rights and see pollution as an act of aggression and bring lawsuits against corporations or businessmen who pollute your air or water. We should work in our own cities and local communities to clean up our environment like so many states and local governments have done. We need to give up the idea of a top down approach to this problem. We cannot control other countries and any attempt to bring in an authoritarian approach by our Federal Government attempting to regulate all manner of human behavior, enforced at the barrel of a gun not only won't work but will inevitably be hijacked by would-be tyrants who lust for power over others. It is this subversion of true environmentalism by special interests and power hungry politicians that seek to use the issue as a guise to push other agendas that drives some of the skepticism and criticism that is leveled at politicians that champion this issue. But the demagogues tend to conflate this critique by saying that all those who oppose certain legislation (Cap and Trade for example) are anti-science or hate the environment when in reality a much broader discussion needs to be taking place on the various ways we can design sane environmental policy locally. And we should never assume that we should allow the political process to hijack this issue for their own ends.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 02:49
|
|
|
...Are you trolling? The best examples to come to mind of how government policy has much more meaningful impact than local community action is on the topic of deforestation. If you look at India, for example, you can actually distinguish from aerial photographs between different political boundaries by the amount of timber that's been removed from forests. I'm sorry, but people are: 1) Stupid 2) Lazy 3) Selfish Yes, we do need a strong government body to kick people in the rear end about this issue, and no, we absolutely cannot wait for people to slowly wake-up to the idea that their inexpensive luxury lifestyle can only be maintained by cannibalizing the lives of other people. Someone needs to say, "No, we're not doing this anymore. You will do it [X] way, and you will stop behaving in [X] manner," and the only body in a position to do that is the government. It's just unfortunate that current administrations don't really seem up to the challenge.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 03:21
|
|
|
rscott posted:
Then we could be in an untenable situation. Still, at least I'm kind of getting the impression that hurricane sandy might have spurred a significant amount people to look at the real fallout of Climate Change in their lifetimes, and stop acting like its all in the far future. Of course I don't know if there's any evidence at all that the hurricane was in any way influenced by Climate change, but its still drawing attention to the issue.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 03:26
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Then we could be in an untenable situation. Sandy almost certainly wasn't a result of climate change; it was a low-category hurricane that was allowed to form due to weak wind shear. The predictions going forward are that as climate change worsens, wind shear increases, and water temperatures rise, we will see fewer hurricanes in total, but a very large increase in high-category hurricanes, as well as an increase in high-category hurricane wind speed (about 10%~). I do hope that Sandy prompts more people to think about the future of the climate anyway, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 03:38
|
|
|
quote:Personally, I believe there is (must) be a way to use technology responsibly while preserving biodiversity because the alternative is plain untenable. Well, I think it would be awesome if I could shoot lasers out of my eyes, but that doesn't mean it'll ever happen. How do you think we could possibly use technology like cars, computers, jet airplanes, industrial farming tools, etc. and still preserve biodiversity?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 03:39
|
|
|
I really don't think technology is the problem, at least when taken in concert with population increase. The guy writes about how populations rapidly expand and then rapidly starve out, but that really isn't the situation industrialized countries are in right now. Most of them either have a stable or declining population, because having lots of kids is a lot less important when there's other methods available to guarantee retirement. I know it's easy to think that humans are inherent breeders, since we were all raised on science fiction where when there are aliens, they get cool stuff like super-strength or something while the human advantage is always "high fecundity", but worldwide population trends just don't bear this out. It seems obvious to us because England's daughter countries populized a ridiculous part of the world compared to their small island, but I'm willing to bet that if England (and Europe at large) wasn't such a lovely place to live before the twentieth century it wouldn't have even occurred to people to move halfway across the planet and bring their horrible breeding lifestyle with them. Now, technology is more directly the problem in that it's what's slowly destroying the planet and we're all dragging our feet in switching to sustainable methods. But that really doesn't have anything to do with Malthusian scenarios and I very much doubt those are going to show up unless everything hits the fan and we have very little technology left at all.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 04:08
|
|
|
quote:I know it's easy to think that humans are inherent breeders, since we were all raised on science fiction where when there are aliens, they get cool stuff like super-strength or something while the human advantage is always "high fecundity", but worldwide population trends just don't bear this out.  EDIT: I'd also point out that the very steep upward climb roughly corresponds to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Better exploitation of resources = more sophisticated machines = more efficient farming = more food = more people. Who'd have ever thought? Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Nov 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 04:40
|
|
|
quote:Better exploitation of resources = more sophisticated machines = more efficient farming = more food = more people. Who'd have ever thought? It's more complicated than that. There is extremely little agriculture in Japan or South Korea, for example, yet those countries have extremely high population densities. Most of their food, in turn, is imported from countries that produce much more food than they would ever possibly need. Technology also isn't exclusively used for agriculture or transportation (although both of those things are certainly important, and modern agricultural practices - like crop rotation & till-free planting - are much more sustainable than their old counterparts). Solar panels, wind turbine, satellites, nuclear reactors, etc, aren't exactly divine gifts delivered from on high.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 04:57
|
|
|
The Ender posted:Citation needed. code:quote:This statement is predicated on your last assertion being true (1 African uses 10x less food/water/energy/land than 1 western citizen), and it probably isn't (I say that because it's an incredibly simple outlook on a very complex series of factors. So it turns out that you're right: the factors in judging per capita environmental impact are complex, but if we add any more "complexity" to my argument that impact ratio only gets worse. From what we know of history, the burden is very much on you to show me a plan for an industrialized lifestyle that is not wasteful.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 05:03
|
|
|
The Ender posted:It's more complicated than that. There is extremely little agriculture in Japan or South Korea, for example, yet those countries have extremely high population densities. Most of their food, in turn, is imported from countries that produce much more food than they would ever possibly need. I agree with all of this, and none of it addresses the point I was making.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 05:08
|
|
|
quote:World Bank (sorry this isn't the green lefty source you were expecting) data as of 2008 on metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per capita (source). Some highlights: That's not what you said. You said that 'in every single metric you could measure', any person in the industrialized first world consumes 10 times the resources of an African. The data from the World Bank features carbon emissions per capita. I mean, yeah, a country with highly developed energy infrastructure running on mostly coal emits far more carbon dioxide than a conglomerate of countries with extremely undeveloped infrastructure. And bears crap in the woods. What about per capita water usage? What about per capita food consumption / food waste? What about per capita waste treatment? What about per capita land use? What about per capita waste re-use / recycling? quote:From what we know of history, the burden is very much on you to show me a plan for an industrialized lifestyle that is not wasteful. ...'From what we know of history'? What does that even mean? If you make a positive claim ('any person in the industrialized first world consumes 10 times the resources of a contemporary African'), the burden is on you to demonstrate the truth of this claim. I also don't appreciate the condescension. Do you have some expertise in any of these fields of study? If anyone here is interested in a more nuanced look at resource consumption, industrialization & the challenges we're faced with, climate change aside, as we approach about 9~ billion people in 2050 (where the world population should plateau, barring some dramatic interim change in life expectancy), I'd strongly recommend this U.N. report: http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/decoupling/file/pdf/Decoupling_Report_English.pdf It's 174 pages, so it's not particularly light reading, but it does a better job of explaining the problems (and proposed solutions, based on past precedent) than a couple of inflammatory paragraphs on a message board. EDIT: According to the World Bank's figures, this is what the Freshwater Withdrawal per capita looks like: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.H2O.FWTL.K3/countries That's perhaps, in my opinion, one of the best metrics to use, because it doesn't offer a 'bears crap in the woods' analysis (Electricity usage per capita? Internet usage per capita? loving newspapers bought per person?) It's still not pretty for the United States, sitting at about 478.4 billion cubic meters(? I'm confused as to why the World Bank is measuring water in cubic meters, but whatever?) of water used per year; but then again, you have to remember that the United States is one of the largest exporters of food. China comes in 'first place', and again, they're a major exporter. (So, again, this is more complicated than one figure alone will explain, but nevertheless...) Israel sits at 2.0 billion cubic meters. By contrast, Pakistan sits at 183.5 billion cubic meters. South Africa sits at 12.5 billion cubic meters. By contrast, Zimbabwe sits at 4.2 cubic billion meters (SA is still much higher, but not nearly '10 times' higher). If we're going to cherry-pick some data, here's my stable for the developed world: The United Arab Emirates: 4.0 billion cubic meters. The United Kingdom: 13.0 billion cubic meters. Denmark: 0.7 billion cubic meters. Iceland: 0.2 billion cubic meters. Sweden: 2.6 billion cubic meters. ...vs my stable for the developing world: Vietnam: 82.0 billion cubic meters. Cuba: 7.6 billion cubic meters. Malaysia: 13.2 billion cubic meters. Egypt: 68.3 billion cubic meters. Mexico: 79.0 billion cubic meters. See? Across the board, industrialization is always better! Or, alternatively, we could try to understand why these numbers are all over the place (why the gently caress does France use 31.6 billion cubic meters or however the gently caress the World Bank is doing these measurements every year? Jesus Christ), and what the countries with the lowest figures are doing right, rather than just making sweeping blanket statements in order to push a partisan outlook. The Ender fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Nov 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 05:20
|
|
|
Your Sledgehammer posted:I agree with all of this, and none of it addresses the point I was making. I responding specifically to your statement that implied 'More agriculture = larger population'.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 05:27
|
|
|
Hey guys, I have a question: what do you think would be harder, colonizing space or fixing the climate? Political costs included.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:06
|
|
|
The Ender posted:I responding specifically to your statement that implied 'More agriculture = larger population'. But more agriculture does mean larger population. Your problem is that you are zeroing in on countries - which are arbitrary political boundaries that have nothing to do with population biology - rather than seeing the big picture. You can't create more people without more food; it goes against everything we know about how life on this planet works. To prove this, let's run through a little thought experiment. Imagine, for a moment, that our global food distribution system is perfect. Starvation is a thing of the past. The humans of the Earth decide that since they have eliminated starvation, they're now going to try their hands at eliminating obesity. Food production is calculated for a healthy subsistence level for each member of the global population and is kept at that rate year after year. Enough food for everyone to be healthy, but no more. What do you think would happen to the global population in such a scenario? I can tell you with absolute certainty that it would flatline rather than continuing to grow. There would still be births and deaths, and the population would wiggle around an equilibrium point, but you wouldn't see any real population growth. I am so certain about this because that is exactly how population relates to food supply in every other living species on this planet. We have continued, year after year, to put more land under tillage and work towards more and more efficient production of crops. The food supply has gone up, and unsurprisingly, population has continued to grow unabated. I'm positive that it'll only level out once we get to a point that we can't possibly increase the food supply from year to year anymore. This is because every living species known to humankind experiences population growth when the food supply increases. Humans are not magically exempt from this basic biological fact. This is where people such as yourself commonly bring up the fact that industrialized countries like the United States produce the better part of the world's food supply, yet are seeing falling birth rates. The mistake you are making is conflating the political/statistical definition of population with the biological one. In biology, population is defined as a group of organisms living in roughly the same geographical area such that they can interbreed. Natural barriers - think rivers, mountains, oceans, etc. - commonly separate different populations of the same animal. A population on one side of the mountains may see an increase in the amount of prey animals, which would result in their population increasing. At the same time, the group on the other side of the mountains may have scarce prey, and their population would dwindle. This separation via natural barriers is also a major mechanism of evolution. Humans have completed eliminated the physical barriers that may have separated one human population from another. Oceans, rivers, mountains - none of these pose any problem for free human movement around the globe. We can interbreed at will. We are one global human population as far as biology is concerned. It doesn't matter that statisticians group human populations based on sovereign citizenship. It doesn't matter that arbitrary political boundaries called "countries" exist. It doesn't matter that some people in Africa are starving, or that countries that produce the most food are also seeing falling birth rates. All of that is completely irrelevant to population biology. The science here is quite simple. We are one global population. If you increase the global food supply, the global population will increase. And that is exactly what has happened. I'd bet any amount of money that it will continue to happen, too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:19
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Hey guys, I have a question: what do you think would be harder, colonizing space or fixing the climate? Political costs included. At the moment, I'd say colonizing space is a hell of a lot more difficult. Sure, we could establish smaller colonies on the Moon and Mars, but without any form of terraforming technology available they'd be hard pressed to expand. And anything out of our local system is just not feasible, with travel times/planets available and whatnot. So for the moment, it'd probably be easier to buckle down and try to fix the mess we're in right now.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:24
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Hey guys, I have a question: what do you think would be harder, colonizing space or fixing the climate? Political costs included. Fixing the climate has nothing but political ill-will to it. Corporations (in general), only one step behind governments in total power, will do everything in said power to make quick gains at any cost (ideally, burden others with the costs), which makes them ardent enemies of climate change activism. Corps have the money, money buys influence, influence buys policy. On the other hand, as soon as there is money to be made in space, we will be all over that poo poo. Colonizing may be a different matter- sending an equipped/manned colony ship is a complete write-off of spent assets, of course, but at least there is no up-front obstructionism.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:32
|
|
|
quote:Hey guys, I have a question: what do you think would be harder, colonizing space or fixing the climate? Political costs included. Hands down, fixing the climate. I mean, for starters, we don't even know that colonizing space / other planets is feasible. In theory, over a few centuries, we might be able to terraform Mars - but all we have right now is a lot of untested postulating, and the cost of performing the experiment (in terms of both dollars and political will) would be unprecedented.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:34
|
|
|
Your Sledgehammer posted:You can't create more people without more food; it goes against everything we know about how life on this planet works. To prove this, let's run through a little thought experiment. Imagine, for a moment, that our global food distribution system is perfect. Starvation is a thing of the past. The humans of the Earth decide that since they have eliminated starvation, they're now going to try their hands at eliminating obesity. Food production is calculated for a healthy subsistence level for each member of the global population and is kept at that rate year after year. Enough food for everyone to be healthy, but no more. What do you think would happen to the global population in such a scenario?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:46
|
|
|
The Ender posted:...Are you trolling? Why would you assume I am trolling? I joined this site a couple of months ago but I haven't got around to posting anything yet. I figured I should add to a few established threads before I create new topics. I simply have a slightly different view of the effectiveness of government policy in certain areas. As far as deforestation is concerned, I think evidence and data is very clear that government is the least responsible caretaker of land that it owns. If you do a survey and compare all privately owned land and forests, with land owned by the government, it becomes quite obvious that privately owned land is far better taken care of from an environmental perspective. Governments have a long are sorry record when it comes to pollution and caretaking of the environment. I haven't specifically studied the situation in India, but what you appear to be describing is an example of Tragedy of the Commons, where "common land", owned by everybody and thus nobody, is stripped of its natural resources because everyone things that if they don't cut down all the trees, kill all the buffalo or extract whatever natural resource that exists in that specific area, then others will and they will be the sucker. My argument is that nearly all land should be privately owned so that the owner has a capital investment in preserving and maintaining the value of that land for future years. Therefore, forest area owned by logging companies is generally in good shape because the business that owns the land is sure to plant as many trees as it chops down so it will have a profitable business and valuable land in future years. This never happens on government owned land. Nobody has a personal incentive to prevent pollution because nobody specifically suffers if someone cuts down too many trees or kills too many animals and so forth. Yes I know we all suffer when the environment is hurt, but unless there is an injured party that can make a formal complaint and has a personal capital investment in that land and can sue the perpetrators of the aggression against him, "public" land will always be hurt and polluted to a greater degree than private land. Yes, when comparing government owned land without specific regulations to government owned land with specific regulations, you might be able to make a case of certain rules that protect the "commons" a bit better than having no rules over the commons. But I am arguing that no policy will be more effective for protecting the environment than shrinking the amount of land owned by government and allowing private ownership with a strict understanding of property rights that considers pollution an act of aggression against the property owners, subject to strict punishment once damage is proved in court. All this is a bit beside my original point. There are degrees of government ineffectiveness. The subject at hand is not debating the worthiness of a relatively small scale environmental law or regulation, but rather that inherent (in my eyes) absurdity of our corrupt and incompetent federal government designing policy that can have an appreciable effect on global temperatures over decades. I don't believe our federal government (or any international government) can have any success in changing worldwide temperatures through legislation or threats of force and coercion. The Ender posted:
I agree wholeheartedly about this. The problem is you seem to think that the flaws of human beings that are apparent make a strong case for government action and authority over large segments of the society and economy. I would say that human flaws like what you describe are the very reason to prevent the growth of the State, seeing as it consists of human beings with the very same traits you describe, except wielding enormous power to do harm that average people don't possess. You seem to think that the smartest and brightest seek power and rise to the top in government. I argue the exact opposite is the case. The most selfish, most power hungry, most sociopathic and most corrupt rise to the top in politics and governments. Even a cursory examination of history will attest to that. Thus, if we cannot persuade our fellow man to be good stewards of the environment or make any progress at the local level on environmental issues, then it should be a given that there is NO change of a federal or world government (comprised of people like you and me) will rise to the challenge. The Ender posted:Yes, we do need a strong government body to kick people in the rear end about this issue, and no, we absolutely cannot wait for people to slowly wake-up to the idea that their inexpensive luxury lifestyle can only be maintained by cannibalizing the lives of other people. Someone needs to say, "No, we're not doing this anymore. You will do it [X] way, and you will stop behaving in [X] manner," and the only body in a position to do that is the government. So you are promoting a strict authoritarian solution of forcing everyone to live the way you want them to live at the barrel of a gun? Don't get me wrong. The government does have a role to play. But that role is to protect property rights and consider pollution as an act of aggression against the property of others. However, before the government starts "kicking people in the rear end", it needs to be proven in a court of law that said pollution actually occurred and affected the victims in a demonstrable way. Unless you have the rule of law governing the situation and every party is allowed their day in court, what you are advocating is tyranny, a government body with the right to "kick everyone in the rear end" which means, if you'll allow me to translate your rather crude language into something more specific, that the government will violate everyone's rights and arbitrarily make determinations about how each individual should live and how many resources they should consume. At the very least, it should be apparent how ANY tyrant would love the power over individual lives and the economy that proposed environmental legislation grants to the State. Unless you are under the misguided impression that the State is run by saints and wise scholars who only want whats best for everyone, it should be clear that a great many people in government only want the power that this proposed legislation seeks to grant them. And it should be equally clear that special interests that seek to benefit from legislation are more interested in the money. Most don't give a poo poo about the environment, otherwise they would seriously take a look at the horrible environmental damage that is perpetrated BY the government against the people, including but not limited to wars of aggression where huge amounts of chemicals are unleashed upon innocents, the military industrial complex that uses untold resources to build unneeded weapons to destroy other nations, which then need to rebuild their countries. You have a very naive, fairy tale version of what the State actually is. If you are sincere in your desire to protect the environment and work towards putting a dent in climate change to the extent possible, you would work to lessen the power of the state over the economy and increase the private ownership of land. Local activism and changing hearts and minds through persuasion and voluntary cooperation is a whole lot more effective, not to mention moral, than seeking to wield the violent coercive powers of the state to aggress against your fellow man.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:49
|
|
|
The Ender posted:That's not what you said. You said that 'in every single metric you could measure', any person in the industrialized first world consumes 10 times the resources of an African. It's obvious that we'd see every single one of those metrics increase proportionally to industrialization to different degrees. You mention recycling but recycling operations are already a symptom of industrialization and its attendant waste. You're arguing in bad faith, and thanks for the fake quote. quote:...'From what we know of history'? What does that even mean? quote:Or, alternatively, we could try to understand why these numbers are all over the place (why the gently caress does France use 31.6 billion cubic meters or however the gently caress the World Bank is doing these measurements every year? Jesus Christ), and what the countries with the lowest figures are doing right, rather than just making sweeping blanket statements in order to push a partisan outlook.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 06:58
|
|
|
That's not to dismiss your whole argument but just for brevity. 200 years of nearly unfettered private dominance have failed to stop or slow down the impending environmental disaster(s)--quite the opposite. Corporations have shown time and again their devotion to short term gains, the quarterly dividend, over "stewardship" or "future generations." The best argument here is the simplest: if corporations really would be good stewards of the environment, why do they routinely act the opposite? Why lobby against, say, emissions regulations (which are proven to be helpful if implemented)? Why not invest in energy sources that have legs instead of diminishing fossil fuels? As to your forests, I'd like to see some evidence about responsible corporate stewardship because I don't see states chopping down millions of acres of old growth a year for chairs and paper or depleting rainforests for god knows what. I get the libertarian argument, but it's wrong. The State is pretty loving lousy, too. The State and corporations acting in concert is probably the worst thing ever. Kill everyone.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 07:14
|
|
|
quote:It's obvious that we'd see every single one of those metrics increase proportionally to industrialization to different degrees. You mention recycling but recycling operations are already a symptom of industrialization and its attendant waste. You're arguing in bad faith, and thanks for the fake quote. No, it isn't obvious at all to me. Where is the data that supports this? And what fake quote? quote:Just a reminder, you implied that industrialization doesn't need to be tied to greater waste: "it's a non sequitor, even if you're right on the figures, to claim that because a western lifestyle is wasteful, any industrialized lifestyle must be equally wasteful." Tell me how an industrialized lifestyle could get those numbers down. I've gone to pains to show my claims are true. What about you? No, I said that it's a non-sequitor fallacy to claim that because one instance of industrialized society is wasteful, the whole concept is wasteful. Whether or not industrialized society is wasteful, that's a fallacious argument. I don't personally have any expertise or regularly read about the issues involved in land / water / food use, and so I don't know whether or not it's true, but I won't believe a statement that's founded on a non-sequitor fallacy and unsupported by any data on a whim. quote:I mean, yeah, that's pretty kooky and I'm sure we could speculate many scenarios for why freshwater consumption varies. I'm not sure if you're even arguing anything, here. Or are you just trying very hard to obscure or repress the flashing-red-banner fact that industrialization results in massive increases in material waste and environmental impact? No, I'm trying to point-out that you're making a case based on extremely oversimplified data points, and that you haven't even bothered to look at the cause of waste / consumption beyond 'these countries are industrial'. As I pointed-out, there are multiple instances of industrialized countries that fare far better than developing ones. This is a dynamic system, and we need to look at the details in order to come to a sound conclusion, not sweeping generalizations based on our political outlooks.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 07:34
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Hey guys, I have a question: what do you think would be harder, colonizing space or fixing the climate? Political costs included. The ISS is a multi billion dollar marvel that wouldn't be able to keep its handful of people alive for more than a few months without regular refueling and resupplying. The smallest (mostly) self-sustaining habitat we've managed to keep running for more than a year or two is about 27,000 miles around, and it's still externally powered. Space is great, but actually living there just isn't an option with our current technology and understanding of the universe. It may never be.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 07:49
|
|
|
In the interest of making this thread somewhat less depressing with less nonsense about hurricanes or non-climate change related environmentalism, here is a pretty graph I made: (Source data - yeah, BP of all places. The data spot checked very well with other sources) These are worldwide numbers for year on year growth in actual power generation (as opposed to installed capacity). Note that "solar" includes solar PV only, thermal solar is not included. 15 year annual effective growth rates: Wind: 27.1% (stable at ~27%) Solar PV: 33.5% (strongly trending upwards) Coal is doomed; new wind installations will likely outpace new coal plants in 2012 in terms of generating capacity. Solar PV prices can only get cut in half so many times before a solar farm + energy storage is cheaper than a new coal plant + fuel for base load generation. Natural gas will follow in a few years. Solar incentives have been very effective: residential-scale installation has already reached 5yr parity for grid tie systems in many areas. The only remaining obstacle to a totally renewable grid is storage of intermittent wind/solar power. Batteries (small scale) and pumped water (large scale) are currently the viable methods. Promising storage techs not ready for mass deployment include flywheels, water electrolysis combined with hydrogen fuel cells, large scale thermal storage, compressed air storage. This thread has endorsed nuclear pretty heavily and dismissed solar/wind as not ready for primetime. I argue that nuclear is dead, the public will not allow it, and a change in public attitude on this issue anytime in the next 20 years is about as likely as aliens coming and turning all the atmospheric CO2 into candy. Even if the public wasn't averse to it and we rubber stamped every nuclear plant into construction, new wind turbine construction would dwarf this effort anyway.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 07:59
|
|
|
Your Sledgehammer posted:
Unless you're arguing that the world population is going to be 50 billion people in 2200, that graph is misleading and really pretty pointless. At this point population is only growing in the third world- fueled, admittedly, in large part by agricultural methods of the first world that has made food relatively plentiful while other indicators lag. But in the first world populations are stable and going down. In a hypothetical universe where the whole world has access to modern technology, money's on the population going down, not increasing (at least after a generation has passed and people realize that they don't have to worry about half their children dying randomly). It would, of course, be completely unsustainable because first world living conditions are what's fueling global warming. But they're still largely separate issues. The problem's getting worse because more countries are joining the first world country club. It's not that the countries already there are getting bigger.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 09:10
|
|
|
Cephalocidal posted:The ISS is a multi billion dollar marvel that wouldn't be able to keep its handful of people alive for more than a few months without regular refueling and resupplying. Let alone moving every living human being out of this planet.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 12:27
|
|
|
I think colonizing space is a harder proposition. At the level it would make a difference to the survival of our species, it is functionally impossible for us to get the necessary amount of matter and personnel out of the gravity well. The CO2 in the atmosphere, as someone else already said, is merely politically untenable. This pebble will definitely be our grave, and is almost guaranteed to be the grave for our children and grandchildren. After that I don't think conditions will be sweet enough where anyone will still kid themselves about colonizing space. Yiggy fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Nov 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 15:14
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Let alone moving every living human being out of this planet. To be fair, the hypothetical called for colonizing space, not evacuation. Meaningful colonization (sending enough people to make a genetically diverse population) is no small task either, surely.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 20:03
|
|
|
Oh dear, buddy you got heart but you really have a naive understanding of liability and the tragedy of the commons. I dont have time to address every subject you've touched on but i hope i can clear up some of the practical barriers to your proposed pollution solutions. So you think we should consider pollution an act of aggression? Well i have good news, the U.S. legal system already does, it is called nuisance. A nuisance is the use of property in such a way that it harms someone else or their property. For example if you open a cement plant in your residential neighborhood, it would cause a lot of noise and smoke that would interfere with your neighbors use of their homes, and a court could issue an injunction or make you pay damages. This has even been used to prevent air pollution. In Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co. nuisance was used to shut down a plant whose sulfur emissions were destroying orchards and forests with acid rain. That was 60 years before the Clean Air Act. So if we already had this sweet nuisance doctrine why did we create these nasty regulations? Unfortunately nuisance proved ineffective at controlling pollution. Between 1907 and 1970 the damage from acid rain exploded, but those effected generally found nobody to sue. Sulfur emissions came from so many sources that each polluter could correctly say their own emissions were not the cause of the destruction. The same is true for water pollution, one sewage pipe is not going to destroy a fishery, so who are we going to find responsible when the fish are gone and the water's turned to sludge? The sad truth is nobody. Additionally you have to wait until the fish are already dead because you can not bring a case before there is demonstable harm. These regulations exist because traditional tools used to protect our property and health have failed. Next i'd like to talk about the tragedy of the commons. Private ownership can prevent the destruction of some resources, but it can also cause that destruction. For example land adjacent to water resources may be most profitably used for agriculture or building factories or whatever. Unfortunately that use degrades its value as a source of drinking water for eveyone downstream, who rely on forests to filter that water. If the property owners have unrestricated use of that land it will be developed, because that is what makes the most money and everybody else is doing it, and the water resource will be destroyed. This is why New York city is buying up land in the Hudson river watershed. Its odd you think education is the key. In the context of the T of the C it does not matter if people can see the ruin coming. Everyone knows there are too many sheep, but that's just another incentive to cram as many of your own on the common before it collapses completely. Do you really believe people will voluntarily cut carbon emissions? Even if you convince 90% of the world they should cut emissions is not the most likely scenario they look at the remaining 10% and say "Ill stop when THEY stop?" Finally are there any studies comparing the quality of government land to private land? I hope you would not go and make a strong claim like that without any evidence at all besides a the theory of the TC. I mean i dunno if youve ever been to a national forest but the ones ive visited were pretty sweet, to say nothing of placez like Yosemite. Imagine that in private hands, ugh thered be tourist poo poo everywhere. In fact on the subject of forests in private hands many would just get cut down and turned to cow pastures or something. Which is a big reason they were first created, to prevent the loss of so much forest as to endanger timber supplies. Please excuse the typos, posted from my mobile Squalid fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Nov 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 20:41
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:That's not to dismiss your whole argument but just for brevity. 200 years of nearly unfettered private dominance have failed to stop or slow down the impending environmental disaster(s)--quite the opposite. Corporations have shown time and again their devotion to short term gains, the quarterly dividend, over "stewardship" or "future generations." Yes, the State and corporations working together is the problem. That is called fascism. I think there is a misconception that libertarians "trust" corporations or businessmen. That is not the case. I am not suggesting that corporations don't want to pollute if given the opportunity. What I am saying is that property owners need more recourse to defend their property from the aggression of pollution. You seem willing to admit that government is pretty bad on this issue as well. I find it odd that the "fall back" position on any given issue is to have the government take care of a problem, when they actually have the worst record on a myriad of issues, including protecting the environment. You misunderstand my argument. I don't doubt for a second that corporations and governments would want to dump their toxic waste in the environment. What I am arguing is that they tend to dump that waste in "public" land. I am suggesting that the property owners do NOT want toxic waste dumped on their land and therefore deserve a method of fighting back against that aggression. Private property owners do have a greater incentive to maintain the value of their property, I don't think that is disputable.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2012 22:24
|
|
|
Your argument isn't false exactly, but is really weird. Toxic pollution (note this has a specific legal definition) does often get dumped on private property when it is not fired into the atmosphere or pumped into our rivers. The problem is it gets dumped on the polluters own property, who naturally does not give a gently caress. Cheaper to leave it in a big pit than clean up. This causes problems down the line when poo poo starts leaking and everyone responsible died decades ago. How are supposed to fight back against a miner who died in 1850 when his acid drainage is wrecking your spring water? Anyway, how do propose privatizing rivers? Seems challenging. How about the atmospere? And what's your problem with unleashing the unstoppable power of free markets to cut pollution in a cap and trade system? I mean Free Markets should be able to solve everything. Still eagerly awaiting those studies on public land. If you can't find them I'll just assume you were making stuff up to suit your preconceived notions, that'd be embarassing! Edit: I'll remind you they do have a method to protect their property called nuisance law, it's just really impractical. Like if fish in your local river are killed by nutrification, who do you sue? If they go extinct it might not matter since there is nothing that could be done to bring them back. I guess you'd need some way to prevent harm from even occuring in the first place, but oops that sounds lime regulation... Squalid fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 4, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 01:36
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:Yes, the State and corporations working together is the problem. That is called fascism. I think there is a misconception that libertarians "trust" corporations or businessmen. That is not the case. It is very much disputable when you understand that one can extract more value from a piece of land with a factory or hog farm on it than one can from a piece of land with a pristine forest. The reality of your proposal is not a world of individuals stewarding their own private ecotopias, but is instead one where the undesirable byproducts of industry are dumped on another individual's property with an exchange of money/value. Incidentally this is how the world in fact operates with states as well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 01:39
|
|
|
Squalid posted:Your argument isn't false exactly, but is really weird. Toxic pollution (note this has a specific legal definition) does often get dumped on private property when it is not fired into the atmosphere or pumped into our rivers. The problem is it gets dumped on the polluters own property, who naturally does not give a gently caress. Cheaper to leave it in a big pit than clean up. This causes problems down the line when poo poo starts leaking and everyone responsible died decades ago. How are supposed to fight back against a miner who died in 1850 when his acid drainage is wrecking your spring water? I will grant that understanding private property in relation to protecting the environment is quite a bit harder to grasp than in other areas. I merely think that many simply have not been exposed to any alternative ideas in the environmental movement. Unfortunately over the last several decades the mainstream environmental movement has been largely co-opted by ideologues who use the issue to disguise their belief in socialism and central planning by the State. After the fall of the Soviet Union, and other examples of the repeated failures of Communism and central planning throughout the twentieth century, the evidence was seen as overwhelming as to the superiority of the market economy over such authoritarian models. However, many academics have reinvented their ideologies, usually socialism, behind the guise of environmentalism. For many, protecting the environment is NOT the main goal. The main goal is to promote a system of government and economy that, in any other context, could be shown to be a complete failure. However, hidden behind rhetoric about saving the planet and protecting our environment, the implications of a failed political ideology are hidden to most people. I am NOT saying that all leftists or mainstream environmental activists think this way. Many are certainly sincere in their beliefs. But to deny that a large segment of the intellectuals who are pushing for government legislation to address this problem are not motivated by ideology as I have described would indicate that you have not studied the evolution of the modern environmental movement as I have. Why are readily available solutions that are consistent with individual liberty, property rights and the market economy not entertained by these same forces? Why is it a given that our solutions can only come from socialism, fascism or an authoritarian State violating the liberties of peaceful individuals? There ARE many solutions to environmental problems that don't violate our Constitution, individual liberty or undermine the market economy. To that end, I suggest you watch a lecture given by Walter Block, who is a libertarian environmentalist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmiknXoow7c And here is a video that is simple in its explanation, but short and easy to understand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY2Lyk-56YQ As to your request for evidence of my claim that private property is better taken care of environmentally than public land, I can hardly believe that this conclusion is not obvious based on thinking of the issue logically. It has been extensively written about and studied. The whole Tragedy of the Commons idea basically supports this fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Here is an article that makes a case for libertarian solutions to environmental problems: http://www.fff.org/freedom/0593a.asp By the way, the fact that you cite Cap and Trade as an example of a free market solution just shows that you have absolutely no idea what a free market is. Collusion between big business and big government is called fascism and it effectively insulates favored interests from market discipline. Cap and Trade is a scam that WILL allow big business to pollute as much as they want, so long as they pay for permits. However, smaller companies will not be able to pay and will be forced out of business to the benefit of the larger corporations. Now, if polluting someones air, water or environment is wrong and an act of aggression, why is it okay if some company pays the government for the "right" to pollute? Shouldn't the company that pollutes pay YOU compensation if you develop health problems or property damage due to its actions? That is what a moral and just legal system would do to protect the environment. Corporations want to hurt their competitors and make money through direct subsidization by the government. Politicians want to have further centralization of control over the economy and more power for themselves to regulate every aspect of human behavior. Cap and Trade is not a free market solution. It is a form of fascism, the collusion of political and business interests that are looking out for their own interests at the expense of the rest of us.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 05:50
|
|
|
Ah yes, if only governments would stop listening to those powerful environmentalist lobbies. Libertarian ideas are so unrealistic, cruel, ridiculous, untenable, useless. And that's all you're talking about here. No society in the real world could exist like that. And that Walter Block guy has an insane wikipedia page; he sounds like a real nut.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 07:03
|
|
|
Haha im too drunk to respond in detail but stop loving lecturing like some libertarian preacher. If you wanna talk poo poo bd specific so we can respond, right now your boring me with platitudes. Buddy you don't know poo poo for poo poo about free markets, literally every market is a government private collusion, government freakin invented property rights. You havent sharex poo poo in the way of solutions to environmental problems, just vaguely alluded to some weak preexisting restrictions on property rights that are totally inadequate for protecting our health and welfare. Do us all a favor and stop thinking logically for a second-think empirically instead. I can't believe you loving linked me to a wikipedia article on the TC, give me a newspaper article or something jesus I want to believe your beliefs have at least some basis in reality. I know the THEORY now DEMONSTRATE it with evidence. PS no wayin hell amI watching an hour long youtube video gimme some frickin bullet points (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 08:54
|
|
|
Oh I'm sorry I forgot the weirdo propaganda broadleaf you posted. Sorry but if it is a source my highschool government teacher would mark me down for quoting in a paper im not that inclined to take its claims unsupported. Especially when it is totally wrong about nuisance law, which failed miserably to handle air pollution. Dont you have anything with like, references? And what are you going on about the Constitution for? Environmental laws have been scrutinized intensely by the supreme court. The is NO disputing the constitutionality of 90% environmental laws and EPA authority, not under any sane reasoning that is. EDIT: Cool fact I just remembered; it is unconstitutional for the government to privatize beaches and navigable waters. See Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois. The activist judges responsible for this crime against the free market died 100 years ago Squalid fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Nov 4, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 09:20
|
|
|
Surely once a major coastal city or two is underwater, the companies and individuals responsible for lobbying against green energy and forming a climate change denial movement will have to pay damages to the former residents of said cities as well as those killed in superhurricanes and in droughts, and this alone will keep them from lobbying for "clean coal" and natural gas power generation. Oh wait that's not happening at all. I guess maybe it would if we had a true free market.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 09:39
|
|
|
Individual liberties, property rights, and the free market are the problem here, not the solution. Quit looking at the world from a narrow, individualist position, and try looking at it for what it is, say from at least as far away as the moon. Go look at a picture of Earthrise. That ball of blue and green is a closed system. With the exception of solar radiation and the occasional errant meteorite, no external resources enter the system. This means that what we see is what we get for essentially as long as life is capable of existing on the planet. As the dominant species, we are inherently responsible for it's care and upkeep. You believe individuals can own areas of land, and have the right to control the resources therein. This promotes division and competition, the exact opposite of what we need to take our stewardship of the planet seriously. Unless humanity learns to act together as a species towards a common goal, our collapse and (in my opinion) extinction are inevitable. Worse still, we intend to continue our reign as the great extinctor by taking most of planet's biodiversity with us. As to the likelihood of humanity actually coming together in earnest, I refer you to the thread title.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 13:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 15:55 |
|
|
jrodefeld posted:As to your request for evidence of my claim that private property is better taken care of environmentally than public land, I can hardly believe that this conclusion is not obvious based on thinking of the issue logically. He asked for evidence, not a hand-waving citation of an idea that 'basically supports' your claim. This is the problem with libertarianism in a nutshell. When asked for evidence of the efficacy of libertarian ideas a libertarian cites concepts of how the ideas should work, theoretically.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2012 14:51
|
|
