"Niall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>From: "Adrian Stott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 9:53 PM
>> If you don't believe the evidence for global warming, just think of
>> the logic. Several billion of us suddenly started throwing increasing
>> amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. We've been doing it now for,
>> what, 150 years. Don't you think that might have an effect on the
>> system? And don't forget cutting down the forests and increased
>> desertification, which is changing the global albedo.
>
>Nope, sorry, the human race just isn't that significant. 150 years? the
>earth is millions of years old. And the ecosystem is *immense*.
All true. However the increase in carbon emission into the atmosphere
since the start of the industrial revolution is also immense, and
surely the largest since the human species appeared. As I said,
billions of people have been doing it for some 150 years. That is a
very very large effort. It is indeed big enough to affect the
ecosystem, big though that is.
>Greens love to think they can control the natural environment. Always
>culling some species and cossetting others, trying to prove they are in
>control...
Not control it. Just avoid damaging it.
>This is also verging on "the precautionary principle" a green tenet which
>says that if you can't prove beyond doubt that something will have no
>harmful effect you mustn't do it. This is of course impossible.
Hey. a straw man! I *love* straw men!
>> Oh yeah, there are other problems from population increase, too. Like
>> extinctions.
>
>You might like to know that most if not all the species extinction data
>comes from one study.
I might, if it were true. It blatantly isn't.
Also, perhaps you have been closing your eyes a lot of late, but don't
you hear the repeated reports of populations of various species, from
tigers to songbirds to North Sea cod, plummeting by over 90% in the
past few years? There are a lot of specifes now really on the verge,
solely because of humanity (and barmy economics, but that's another
post).
>Even at that they are discovering new species faster than they can declare
>them extinct.
Er, that's "discovering", not "creating". Becoming aware of a species
that's always been there in no way counters eliminating another one
completely. In any case, species aren't interchangeable.
> >And over-crowded and over-used services.
>
>Entirely fixeable. There is no shortage of land or resources, either
>nationally or globally. What exactly did you have in mind?
Of course it is fixable. But the way it works is that the new
population (either from birth or immigration) uses up the formerly
adequate spare capacity in the service, but the whole population pays
to provide repoacement new capacity. The non-new get rather grumpy
about that, as they are being asked to pay over and over when they had
already got things how they wanted it, so the provision of the new
capacity is always late. OTOH, if population were decreasing, service
capacity would be *increasing*, i.e. less crowding on trains and
streets, no new houses being built in the green belt, etc. etc.
"No shortage of land"? On what definition? All the land is already
in use for something, not the least the habitat of other species. What
more are you going to surrender to the increased human population?
"No shortage of resources". No indeed. All that will happen is that
the prices of them will go up. How much do *you* want to pay for
steel to plate you boat?
>
>> And territorial wars.
>
>Organised religion is the usual excuse for that one.
Exactly right. "Excuse". But not the real reason.
>
>> And social conflict from migration.
>Usually cause by the above.
No-one cares if one not-like-us family moves into town. In fact, we
probably like it. When thousands do, over a short period, many of the
original inhabitants feel threatened, and some react violently and
emotionally. Irrespective of religion. It is all about numbers.
>
>> And .....
>And?
>
>> No more than one kid per woman globally looks like a really good idea
>> to me. But perhaps a bit more gently than China has pursued it ...
>
>Most of the earth's surface is *empty*
No, it isn't. It is only (fortunately) not covered by people.
For example, most of England is now a cultural landscape, i.e. used
one way or another by people. In Roman times, it was almost all
covered in forest.
"What do you have in mind?"
A global effort to reduce birth rates.
Adrian
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
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