----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Stott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 8:50 AM
Subject: [canals-list] Re: Fwd: Transport in the Green Manifesto
> "Niall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>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.
"We *must* be important! We *must*!
Sorry, in planetary terms we're not even on the radar.
>
>>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.
Nothing to do with damage. We'll call this a native species, and this not on
totally arbitary critera, then spend lots of lovely public money encouraging
this and killing that, so we can feel in control.
>
>>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!
So you can't see the connection between "We're emitting loads of stuff so
it *must* have a bad effect", and the precautionary principle?
>
>>> 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.
Sadly, I don't have access to the relevant reference here, so I'll have to
let that one go.
>
> 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).
I've seen a lot of stuff of that nature, but all of it is the usual green
stuff where either the detail in the text doesn't actually back up the big
scary headline, or simply a rehash of some old story which I know to be
wrong.
Have you seen how they "count" these populations? Ludicrously small spot
samples, small areas not randomly selected, statistical analysis which
doesn't follow the relevant rules...
I promise you I have an open mind on these things. But if they don't stand
scrutiny, I don't give them credece. And they *don't*.
>
>>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.
Point is they don't know. If they keep discovering new ones, how can they
know that others are becoming extinct?
I forget the details but there was a new species discovered and an
expidition went to study it. They couldn't find it. On the way back,
hundreds of miles away from the original sighting, they discovered they had
made camp on top of another colony. Now, if that hadn't happened, want to
bet that would have gone down as an extinction? That species is classed as
rare. How can that be? There is no way to tell given the facts.
Then theres those damn Palmate Newts. Supposed to be rare. Except as they
turn up everywhere anyone wants to build anything, it's becoming
increasingly obvious that they aren't, it is simply that noone has ever
looked.
>
>> >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.
And you think *my* worldview is twisted?
>
> "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?
Ah, we're back to "every acre developed represents x species lost". The
bloke who developed that theory *made it up* because it "seemed about right"
to him.
>
> "No shortage of resources". No indeed. All that will happen is that
> the prices of them will go up.
As opposed to the current situation which the greens want to stop, where
stuff keeps getting cheaper in real terms.
> How much do *you* want to pay for
> steel to plate you boat?
Not as much as it will cost when the raw materials and energy used to make
it and transport it are all subjected to arbitary "green" taxes and
surcharges "to take account of the environmental damage making it causes".
>>
>>> And territorial wars.
>>
>>Organised religion is the usual excuse for that one.
>
> Exactly right. "Excuse". But not the real reason.
Are you suggesting there's not enough *space* in Iraq for the Sunnis, Shias
and Christians to live together?
>>
>>> 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.
Where the ancient civilisations lived is now mostly desert and jungle.
People lived all over Scotland until the Clearances.
>
> "What do you have in mind?"
>
> A global effort to reduce birth rates.
>
It's that control thing again.
--
Niall
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