Global warming - again! Pointed humor, hasty comments and reactions with anger and hatred get much media attention. Serious effort at solving major discouraging, dangerous and very real menaces do not.

Those who shout warnings of the consequences of the popular catch phrase, global warming, are often blind to the real nature of our problems. They concentrate on and charge this relatively harmless problem almost solely to use of petroleum and other fossil fuels, and condemn and scream hatred for businesses that make profits from these fuels, a very simplistic approach. The few solutions they offer of conservation and cutting energy use would hardly make a dent in the growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Most of their efforts seem to be aimed at condemning those they dislike or with whom they disagree politically, particularly private industry. By concentrating on this single factor, we are ignoring an infinitely more serious menace of expanding environmental destruction by an unsustainable population of humans which continues to grow. The now massive and increasing movement or immigration of people from the third world into a first world with severely limited resources is a very real and present danger. Still, it is but one more symptom of a deeper problem that shows no sign of ending soon.

In the findings of many, the massive and growing deforestation throughout the planet may have more to do with increases in CO2 than use of fossil fuels. It definitely and directly contributes to global warming and climate change. For example: The disappearance of the snows of Kilimanjaro is directly related to the deforestation around the mountain which greatly decreases the amount of moisture in the air and thus the snowfall disappears. Global warming has virtually nothing to do with it. In truth, global warming is a symptom of a far broader problem than use of fossil fuels, which we could phase out almost completely in about ten years if we really tried.

The Kyoto protocols are a physical insult to the world by punishing those who are doing the most to preserve their environments and rewarding those that are doing the most damage. It is recognized, even by many of its supporters, to be quite ineffective in addressing the problem. The real problem is unchecked population growth, primarily in third world nations. This growth has already pushed us past the point of sustainable renewable resources and shows little signs of slowing. Massive immigration of people from the third world into first world nations is already a serious problem and shows signs of continued expansion. This coupled with the results of striving to achieve first world economies by large third world nations like China and India portends an unpleasant future for the whole world. This is pointed out by a number of serious and problems which continue to grow.

1, Deforestation and habitat destruction is continuing almost unabated in most third world nations. Growing economies like China and India have already destroyed nearly all of their forests and are exporting deforestation to places like New Guinea, Africa and South America by importing wood. Even Australia and especially Japan are conserving their forests by importing wood and thus exporting deforestation. These huge net losses of forest contribute to global warming, loss of moisture in the air and climate change, probably far more than use of fossil fuels.

2. Soil depletion and salinization has become a major problem throughout the world and especially in high use agricultural areas. Irrigation depletes sources of fresh water and contributes to higher concentration of salt in many agricultural areas making them unsuitable for crops. Many trace elements essential to the health of animals including man have virtually disappeared from agricultural soils and are not being replaced, even with massive fertilization. Many health problems related to this are growing even in the human population. Agricultural output of food products is nearing a practical maximum and is decreasing in many areas. For example, Australia, once a net exporter of agricultural food now is a net importer. Many other nations are either in the same situation or will soon be.

3. Ocean and fresh water fisheries have also reached a maximum and are declining rapidly as fish and other sea food is harvested far beyond the ability of stocks to replace themselves. Example: Orange Roughy, an Australian are salt water fish that was once seemingly plentiful is in such decline in population that it has virtually disappeared from the commercial scene and could face extinction in a few years. The problem is that it is a long lived and slow growing fish that is a relatively slow breeder. This is the case with many species of both inshore and pelagic fish species throughout the worlds oceans. Most major ocean fisheries have, in fact, crashed in recent years and continue to be plundered by high-tech fishing fleets with the ability to find and capture a larger amount of a decreasing number of fish. The end result is quite predictable and we are almost there. The loss of this protein source has and will continue to increase the demand for land grown animal protein. This in spite of the growth of “aqua culture” and “fish farms” that have their own set of environmental problems. This only serves to aggravate food shortages.

4. Fresh water is becoming less accessible, more polluted and harder to find. Pollution from human and industrial waste, and agricultural run off with insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers creates problems for and decreases availability of drinking water, fresh water fish stocks and water for irrigation. Increases of salt content now makes numerous rivers unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. Increased turbidity (from soil erosion) destroys fish stocks and causes great environmental damage when it enters the ocean, if indeed it ever gets there. Many large rivers now have so many draw downs for irrigation upstream that they are reduced to a trickle and sometimes dry up completely before they reach their mouths. The Colorado in the US and the Murray in Australia are examples. The Ogallala reservoir, a huge natural underground store of water that once was close to the surface in much of the western US from the Dakotas to Texas and from the Rockies to mid continent, has been mined mostly for irrigation water. It is now gone from most of Texas and has dropped so far below the surface as to make extraction impossible or too expensive in many areas.

5. Invasion of alien species, often by deliberate human action has brought about habitat destruction, extinction of many valuable species and devastation of numerous environments. Isolated environments are particularly vulnerable to this type of damage. Rabbits and foxes in Australia, brown tree snakes on Guam (virtually destroyed all native birds.), and many non-native birds and mammals in Hawaii (like pigs and the mongoose and including humans) are but a few examples. The deforestation and subsequent devastation of Easter Island was probably due to the invasion and uncontrolled growth of humans, rats, and chickens.

The common denominator of these five and many other negative environmental problems is the exploding growth of the human population. Virtually all isolated populations - islands, archipelagos, mountain valleys or highlands - that remained stable and maintained a sustainable environment lasted for a very long time, often in the face of climate change. Those isolated populations that did not, perished. Our entire world now finds itself in the predicament of being an island in space. We have nowhere to go! Access to another liveable planet is certainly a remote possibility in the distant future, but we don’t know if there is one out there, where it might be, and most important, we know not how to get there should we ever find it. Also, will man last long enough to do it? If we do and after we find it and find a way to get there, another daunting task will be after we get there????? I’m sure you know what I mean.

Many years ago I wrote a short story that I would post if I could find it in my paper archives. Basically it was the story of an interstellar expedition to a planet we discovered and that looked much like Earth. It was the right size, distance from its star, temperature and other physical attributes. It had an OK atmosphere, had proper oceans, weather, vegetation and probably animal life. When our colonizers finally landed they found a veritable paradise of beautiful plants and interesting animals different from those on Earth but much the same. Plants converted carbon dioxide to carbohydrates and animals ate the plants and each other, just like Earth. These pioneers drank the water and found it fine, but when they ate the plants their digestive system didn’t change them a bit, likewise the animals. The biochemistry of the life on the new planet was just enough different form our own, that eating any life form was as nourishing as eating sand or gravel. In addition, the seeds the colonists brought would not grow in the alien soil. It was just enough biologically different that our plants could not get any sustenance and died soon after sprouting. The colony finally died out from starvation in a veritable paradise of life.

NOTE: Some of this posting is similar to previously posted comments, but is included for clarity of the immediate commentary.

A very meaty and real subject for SFNChat 8-08-06

OK you great minds - think about a very real and rapidly growing human crisis. There should be subject matter for some really important and creative SF novels in your thoughts about solutions to this - - or are none of you interested in very real problems?

Professor Jared Diamond Asks: “Will tourists someday stare mystified at the rusting hulks of New York’s skyscrapers, much as we stare today at the jungle-overgrown ruins of Maya cities?”

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculpture well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stampt on these lifeless things,
The hand that mockt them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“Ozymandias.” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

Examples of total failures of societies leaving substantial ruins, but virtually no survivors:

1. Those total collapses we know virtually nothing about:
a. The Dorset people of the arctic
b. The Cahokia people (St Louis)
c. The Anasazi in our southwest
d. Mohenjo Daro ruins - Pakistan
e. Machu Pichu and Tiwanaku in South America
f. Great Zimbabawe in Africa
g. Angkor Wat and Harappan Indus Valley in Asia
h. Easter Island in the Pacific

2. Those collapses we do know some details about.:
a. The Maya in middle America
b. The Norse in Greenland
c. Rwanda in Africa
d. Pitcairn and Henderson Islands

3. Societies with difficult situations that are still thriving:
a. Iceland
b. Tikopia (small Pacific Island)
c. New Guinea Highlands d. Tokugawa Japan
e. Dominican Republic compared to Haiti
f. China
g Australia
h. Netherlands

Reasons for the collapse of societies and civilizations: Few collapses were due to a single factor as most were destroyed by a combination of these factors, all aggravated by expanding populations.

1. Environmental changes - fragility (susceptibility to damage) and resilience (potential for recovery)
a. Deforestation
b. Soil depletion and salinization
c. Water depletion
d. Wild food sources
e. Domestic food sources
f. sources for non-food goods

2. Climate change
a. temperature
b. rainfall
c. sunlight

3. Hostile neighbors (competition for resources)
a. wars
b. fighting and murder

4. Friendly trade partners
a. difficulty in transporting goods
b. availability of goods to trade
c. willingness to trade

5. The society’s responses to the first four
a. Population pressures
b. Power of the rulers
c. Willingness to cooperate.
d. Willingness to defend oneself from attack

My questions and possible subject for several great SF Novels is this:

How close is humanity to a total collapse (These collapses always happen - and usually very suddenly - immediately after great heights of material and cultural success are reached.) When will it happen? What signs and indications are already with us? How can it be prevented? (Steps and solutions)

Suggested reading: Collapse by Jared Diamond.
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From Rex Wilcox - 8-08-06

That is a very interesting question Howard, and one that I have given some consideration to before now. It is my opinion, only my opinion, that in order for the human race to survive, we must populate other world's. However in or to do so without consuming ourselves, our race must become united. A single species, a single race. Not a fractured race, trying to face the harsh environments that space has to offer, enduring hardships to the point of continual inner conflict as it stands between nations at present. So yes I do believe we are headed for collapse without the strength of, one race, one set of laws, one belief, one purpose, and finally the intent to achieve that purpose. To survive!
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8-12-06 - Rex,

I don't think the human species has to become one race, one government, one set of beliefs, one purpose, etc in order to populate other worlds (not world's, by the way). Why? Because we won't. We've always been diversified, and probably will be for a long time. Oh, we can become alike as we westernize or as technology tends to help standardization, but I don't think we need a high level of conformity in order to set up house on other planets, asteroids, habitats, etc. We just don't need that.

I think it is tempting to believe we need it because many SF writers before us have been a bit lax in detailing complicated worlds.

Diversity has tended to stimulate competition, which has helped development of new technologies. I think that will continue.

- Victory
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From Rex Wilcox - 8-12-06

When you say "Because we won't." Do you mean you think we will never populate other worlds, or asteroids, or space stations, because we are diversified?

I am not knocking humanity's accomplishments, its moral and ethical growth, or its compassion for each other. But there is no denying the fact that we are emotionally volatile beings. Until such a time that we humans grow emotionally enough to succumb, subdue, and eradicate the innate nature of our greed and selfishness, we run the risk that our continuing technological advances will give means to a quick end.

Just because our country embraces technology, doesn't mean we will survive or populate the stars, there are many others that have beliefs that oppose advancement in technology. Ergo, conflict, jealousies, resentment, animosity, hatred, then war. Hey its just a thought.
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Inserted comment from HoJo:

Populating other worlds has got to be in the very distant future. (will man last long enough to do it?) First of all we will have to find another hospitable world and we are still a very long way from doing that. After we find it, we have to find a way to get there, another daunting task. After we get there????? I’m sure you know what I mean.

Many years ago I wrote a short story that I would post if I could find it in my paper archives. Basically it was the story of an interstellar expedition to a planet we discovered and that looked much like Earth. It was the right size, distance from its star, temperature and other physical attributes. It had an OK atmosphere, had proper oceans, weather, vegetation and probably animal life. When our colonizers finally landed they found a veritable paradise of beautiful plants and interesting animals different from those on Earth but much the same. Plants converted carbon dioxide to carbohydrates and animals ate the plants and each other, just like Earth. They drank the water, but when they ate the plants their digestive system didn’t change them a bit, likewise the animals. The biochemistry of the life on the new planet was just enough different form our own, that eating any life form was as nourishing as eating sand or gravel. In addition, the seeds the colonists brought would not grow in the alien soil. It was just enough biologically different that our plants could not get any sustenance and died soon after sprouting. The colony finally died out from starvation in a veritable paradise of life.
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From Gene Herron 8-12-06

Professor Jared Diamond Asks: "Will tourists someday stare mystified at the rusting hulks of New York’s skyscrapers, much as we stare today at the jungle-overgrown ruins of Maya cities?"

No. It's hard to recycle stone. Much much easier to recycle steel. Win, lose or draw, those buildings will be recycled into other forms. At the least into tools. I figure the only way they won't be recycled is if there are no more people. In which case, unless some Greater Power creates a replacement instantly, they'll crumble first.

Why oh why must we dispense with greed and selfishness? We have a name for people who are always selfless and generous - suckers and nice guys.

No, I'm not being cynical. I am a person who was very selfless and generous. Until I met enough people who like to use others, and more over, until I realized that if I didn't take care of number one nobody else would.

Incidentally, emotional volatility has only at best tangentially to do with greed and selfishness.

Also don't think we need to be "one world". IF anything we need to reduce the scope of government's power so that people can truly grow. The State has always first and foremost benefitted itself, not the people it rules, sooner or later.

Gene
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8-12-06 - In response to “Qzymandias:”
I read a writing in an antique file
Which said: "Two thousand years of upward rise
Stand only for a moment; in a little while
Our works will fall to dust before our eyes
And like so many peoples now long dead
We'll yet collapse, stampt into lifeless smear
The dreams of rockets and the paths that led
Unto the stars -- those all will disappear!"
His name's preserved, as are so many things;
Look on his words, my fellows, and be kind!
His thoughts remain, but now our system rings
With life and colonies and Intermind
And one colossal race, with different voices sings,
Diverse in thoughts and faith, still grows today,The stellar missions stretching far away

"Optimisticas" by D. Keith Howington (11:45pm) ];-)
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From Rex Wilcox - 8-13-06 in response to Gene’s message above.

Consider this; the largest proportion, and or the most advanced number of technological enhancements to the human culture, was in one way or another(directly or indirectly) was spawned by most military technological advances. They design a more efficient way of killing ourselves and we reap the benefits through the science process of developing those weapons. A new way of working with a certain material, or in its preparation or processing. We learn many new (but not by no means all) sciences from this, which in turn is applied to the everyday life of the common populace. What works with one thing can be used on another, we proliferate this in spades, through the trickle down effect, exploding our advancement in the comfort of living or to put it another way; the things that improve our everyday working environment. The thirst for ease and convenience to our daily effort to exist.

(Before going any further, I would like to clarify that I am speaking in very loosely generalized terms here, not tiring to pin down any specific instances.)

The selfishness of one race, withholding this technology from another,("Why don't they share their technology with us. We would never use it against them in anyway.") The holders view would be, ("We need to keep this to ourselves so we can maintain superiority, elevating our feeling of security against attack.")

As lame as that example is the truth still shines through, greed and jealousy, the haves and the has not. Wars have been started for far less offenses than what I have mentioned.

All of this greed and jealousy drives countries to steal from each other to even the playing field, and fear drives the need to reinvent. Hence the possibility of a technological spiraling up to the point that we are emotionally unable to contain. Given our rate of emotional growth in comparison to our technological growth.
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8-13-06 - Rex,
What's the "we" business? What do you mean by "emotionally mature"? The human race isn't some giant organism with feelings. It's an aggregate of six billion plus individuals.

I don't wish to sound harsh but too many Sci-Fi writers seem to speak in some parental voice, as if they were the ones fit to judge the whole human race based upon the decisions of a few thousand elites and the people who trust their judgements - the rest of us.

Arthur C Clarke in particular had this hectoring voice, lecturing the entire human race from his idylls in Sri Lanka about the problems of violence (in one of the most violent places on the planet, the Tamils versus the Sinhalese). Mr. Clarke, I think, needed to wheel his behind away from his pleasures and diversions and start lecturing his fellow Sri Lankans about the consequences of special privledges and setasides for the Tamils, which help lead them into a self aware sense of outrage, which the Indian Government abused by bankrolling their insurgency.

The Sri Lankan Government helped create this mess with their guilt trips and nonsense. Today they reap the rewards in some of the violent and remorseless guerilla actions on the planet.

I personally will have none of that.... each of us is responsible to act in a mature manner. We may be our brother's keeper but we are not on the dock for our brother's lack of good judgment. I don't have to answer for Bush and Co, no more than I had to answer for Clinton's bombing of Serbian civilians back in 1999.

Every day billions of people settle disputes in a peaceable way. Most people do not fight wars. Most people just go about their business, doing their thing. They work, they make things or do things that hopefully have value to others. Many folks will live their entire lives without inflicting serious pain let along lethal damage upon others. These peaceable people need not answer for the lack of empathy and judgment of their "betters".

I do know if wars create new technologies. Seems to me the biggest growth in technology has been to meet business demands - for example, IT systems. Health Care and biological research are growing far faster than military non-sense.

The current US campaign in the ME is showing that 4th Generation Warfare works against states. As does "assymmetrical warfare". These are old ideas but they are gaining new currency as people realize that the State has limits to its power and limits to its efficacy. No new technology, just an emphasis upon questioning the legitimacy of elites and their own peculiar aspirations.

In my opinion the biggest problem facing the human race today is a worship of the State. We need government, we do not need government which tries to rule every aspect of our lives. Totalitarianism failed in the Cold War. No need to relearn that tired old lesson. There must be a balance between people and rulers, or a new sense that people do not need a babysitter. That your brother does not need a keeper any more than you.

People make decisions. Among them, a decision I consider mistaken, is blind faith in one's leaders. another is anthropomorphizing the State into a collective of people. Still another is looking to war as a failing of humanity. War is a failing of a subset of humanity.

Gene
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From Rex Wilcox:

Man that was fast. Okay Gene, I'm going to need just a little bit to ponder all that. I'll get back to you. Come to think of it, where the hell is Howard? After all he did start this mess. Like to hear his take on all this so far. He did ask the question.

"HOWARD!!!"
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Hey, Rex, it's just ideas. Ideas are mutable, as they have to be because the Universe is apparently in a state of pretty continuous flux. As is humanity. Don't sweat it, man.

Gene
_______________________________________________________
From Rex:
This totalitarian society that you infer I was suggesting would consist of something like this. 1. A single race; this one is easy. We already are a race, of humans. We just have to eliminate the, "this is ours and you can have any, to, that is there's and we don't want anything to do with it." type of mentality. 2. A single set of laws, (laws that a very huge portion of the population agree, to be fair and just.). 3. Belief, a desire for the betterment of mankind, spiritually, physically, and mentally. 4. Purpose, the desire to achieve something for the people as a whole, a united goal, if you will. 5. Intent; the unyielding willfulness to achieve such a goal, for the betterment of all mankind.

There are those unobtrusive people that muddle through life, unaffected by the conflicts and tribulation of others, domestic cattle. The, "I got a nice green pasture here to eat, no one's yanking on my chain, so why should I care what the world does with itself," kind of people. You said, "We may be our brother's keeper but we are not on the dock for our brother's lack of good judgment. With that mentality you could get; brother Bob, just got elected president the other day, and in his first order of business was to send a bomb over to brother Neil's house, living only a few miles away from your own home. Kaboom! This doesn't concern you? think someone else has the right to so permanently affect your life? With no neigh or say in the matter, just domestic cattle.

IT systems. Health Care and biological research. Well let's start with IT systems, the government constantly searches for and at least attempts to employ the very brightest IT specialist in the field. Or just graduating from IT school, in order to work on and develop their computer systems, satellites, communications, and abort any covert intelligence gathering systems or technology. They get the best stuff, so as to stay on top. Eventually, this technology trickles down to industry, business and economics. Health care; developing new procedures, medicines and equipment to repair injuries and/or save lives. Now days is of even greater importance to them, in or to protect the investment of training and education needed to operate their complicated war systems. And from that, we again receive the trickle-down effect. Biological research; think the CCD was created just for the monitoring of nature's natural deadly diseases. Think they're being funded by the government just for the protection and betterment mankind? Benefits in medicine have been seen from the research and development of biological warfare weapons. Two things hold heavy influences over governments: prevention and contingencies. These are the biggest drivers in the race to first place. In a manner of speaking.

As for me, I'm hanging out with the cattle.
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8-13-06 - Hi all,

I would dispute the entire idea of the collapse of civilzations, with a few notable exceptions which Howard cites. (eg. Classical Mayan civilization, Easter Island, Angor Wat are a few) But other so called collapses are more accurately supplanting of one civilzation by another. Ancient Egypt remained a world power from 3000 BCE to the end of the western Roman empire. Even as a province of Rome, it maintained a separate identity as a culture and a 'civilization. Classical Greek civilization didn't collapse, it was conquered and to a large extent adopted by Rome. Even the socalled 'collapse' of the Western Roman empire was really more of a retrenchment to the East where Roman civilzation survived as a distinct culture in Constantinople until it was supplanted by the Turks.

The "Dark Ages" in Europe were dark because written records are sparse and there was no central power. Rome was gone as a political power and constant wars filled that power vacuum, but the cultures of western Europe were not stagnant. The fuedal system shaped and directed the eventual emergence of the modern nation state based on economic power rather than land and slaves and was a very dynamic stage in the emergence of our current 'civilization'.

I believe that the invention of writing, and more importantly printing, has made 'collapse' in the sense that Howard implies all but impossible. Add to that the dissemination of information through printing and electronics and you have a powerful insurance policy against the total collapse of human civilization. That's not to say that our western capitalistic civilzation will last in its present form forever, but barring an extiction level event that eliminates ALL human life, our knowledge base is virtually indestructable, simply because it is so decentralized. And despite the environmantalists dire predictions, the Earth and its ecosystem is far more robust that we give it credit for.

Catastrophic ecologic changes have occurred in the past and life survived. Humans are more adaptable that any other life form on the planet and thrive in any environment that has existed on Earth since the emergence of multicellular life. Adaptability plus the wide dissemination of knowledge equal survival, not just of humans as a species but as a civilization.

Fair winds, Bruce
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Rex, here’s a bit more for the mix.

Bruce, I wish I shared your optimism. You said, “Catastrophic ecologic changes have occurred in the past and life survived.” Not with six billion and growing human inhabitants! Not with the scale of environmental destruction and rate of extinctions we now are experiencing.

The New Guinea Highlands are one of only nine independent centers of plant domestication in the world where sustainable agriculture has been ongoing for about 7,000 years—one of the longest experiments in sustainable food production in the world. This culture, discovered by the western world only in the 1930s who assumed the interior of New Guinea to be forested and uninhabited. Evidence suggests that people have been living sustainably there for about 46,000 years with virtually no outside influences. Until the 1930s they lacked metal making their tools instead of stone, wood and bone. “Primitive” to European explorers, they lived in thatched huts, were chronically at war with each other, had no kings or even chiefs, lacked writing and wore little or no clothing even under cold conditions with heavy rain. Yet their farming methods were so sophisticated European agronomists still don’t understand why their methods work. They controlled their population, renewed their soils, rotated their crops, preserved and replanted their forests since long before the ancient Egyptians worked the Nile. It is quite possible (though now unlikely) that they would continue for another few thousand years even if the whole of the rest of the world collapses into oblivion.

It is my belief that unless the rest of the world adopts something of the essence of the social philosophy and methods of environmental and population control similar to the New Guinea Highlanders, we will, like the Easter Islanders, destroy our forests, our environment, our food resources, and finally, ourselves in personal warfare and cannibalism. Surely there will remain a few to continue the species, but under what sort of social order and with what remaining creatures? I am not optimistic.

For more on this - and I am once more beginning seriously to study, think and write about it - here are a few related blogs I have written along with links to them:

Decimation of the Environment - Click Here!
The Last Elephant - Click Here!
Global Warming & the Gulf Stream - Click Here!

I’m not very optimistic about the future of humanity unless we get serious about population control and sustainability - and fast . We are already past our population optimum for food sustainability according to many scientists in the field. (See: Decimation of the Environment)

Ho
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From Rex:

Woe, woe, woe their Howard. Just a cotton picking minute, you through all that meat and vegetables into the pot and politely turned around and left. Leading me to play the dumb Samaritan, stepped up and stir the pot while you're gone. Damn, my arms are getting tired.

And now you show back up just to throw in some more ingredients, but no help? What? I don't even get a kiss with that?
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From Gene Herron:

You mean like when that big assed asteroid hit around Yucatan and ninety percent of the world's species were wiped out?

The greatest asset for human sustainability is the ability of people to take care of business. If we had used 1800s technology it would be impossible to feed everyone today.

To go back to 1800s energy sources - solar mainly - would doom millions to death by starvation. All energies called "sustainable" are basically solar energy.

No, I'm not a doom sayer, unless we go for Statist controls on energy and technology. And political solutions to technological problems. Gene
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Gene’s response to Rex R. Wilcox - Rex’s words in italics:

This totalitarian society that you infer I was suggesting would consist of something like this. 1. A single race; this one is easy. We already are a race, of humans.

Yet we are different. We do not react to certain foods the same. We do have racially unique appearances which any child can discern.

Some of us, such as myself, are multi-ethnic. Others are multi racial. In this case it is harder to see where and to whom we belong. One denies these facts at their own peril.

One tries to adopt arbitrary measurements of "good" and "bad" at their peril, saying that this race is better because of this particular reason. The Nazis tried this sort of thing and tried to destroy a strong moral voice out of foolishness.

What isn't acceptable is to harm others based upon different racial characteristics. One can be tolerant and discriminating.

We just have to eliminate the, "this is ours and you can have any, to, that is there's and we don't want anything to do with it." type of mentality.

Why not? Why must we all think the same, act the same and believe the same thing? This is the old dream of Kings and tyrants, with themselves as the ruler.

2. A single set of laws, (laws that a very huge portion of the population agree, to be fair and just.).

Least common denominator..... which means we get chaos. We also should show lack of respect for particular cultural mores. These need to be respected, as they give people a sense of familiarity and identity. These are important in a world where practically everything else is in flux.

3. Belief, a desire for the > betterment of mankind, spiritually, physically, and mentally.

Who makes this call?

As a Christian I would counsel you to adopt Jesus as your personal Savior. As an old style Liberal I would insist that the State not coerce you in any way to embrace that choice. Some latter day Christian politicians would insist upon applying Biblical quotations to law, in effect adding elements of theocracy to our Republic.

A Muslim would counter that everyone should submit to Allah's will, and invite us to read the Quoran, feel Allah's will and submit to Him. Of course depending upon whether they are Sunni or Shia we would have different requirements placed upon us.

We would both look with askance at a secular humanist, thinking that they were devoid of any sense of God. We might conclude that they lack a moral compass, even though many Humanists are quite moral.

The three of us might view a Dialectical Materialist as a believer in a man-made religion. We might conclude that this person is a dangerous radical who needs to be curbed. We would hope that they kept their "faith" to themselves. The Dialectical Materialist would conclude that we were deluded by bourgeois sensibilities and counter that we need to embrace Class Struggle in order to raise our consciousness.

The Taoist would consider the rest of us to be out of touch with the ebb and flow of the Universe.

A Hindu might conclude that we will never fit into the overarching scheme of things as a non-believer.

A Buddhist would worry that the rest of us are condemned to needless pain and denial of escape from cycles of reincarnation.

So, Rex, who calls the shots on this one? Winner take all? Most Sci-Fi writers pick a war or some other awful means of getting the job done.

My counter is this - people constantly evolve belief systems. To insist upon a single belief is to deny the ability of people to evolve. Better to let people seek their own way, but curb their violence.

4. Purpose, the desire to achieve something for the people as a whole, a united goal, if you will.

Again, why? What is the purpose for a collective goal? Why the "we"? I don't see a necessity for it.

5. Intent; the unyielding willfulness to achieve such a goal, for the betterment of all mankind.

Again, who decides what is the betterment of mankind?

A Green would insist on a life in harmony with observed nature, respecting the interdependency of all living things. I would counter that as a human being I am at the apex of the food chain and will not live as a slave.

The capitalist would say "winners win, losers try again". They would state that scarce resources can be substituted with other resources. That people will adapt, improvise and overcome, this last quality being the bane of bureaucrats and control freaks everywhere.

The marxist would insist upon a permanent state of class struggle with the vanguard of the proletariat protecting workers from exploitation. Eventually a global world of socialism would allow the vanguard to whither away. Ironically, this last thesis died in the middle of the 20th century, when the marxist states began to shoot at each other.

The Muslim would insist upon dar es salaam, under sharia. Wahhabis would take this further with the caliphate ruling all people.

These ideas sound so good, until you try to practice them.

I hate to nitpick, Rex, but there are consequences to ideas. Gene
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From HoJo:

I forgot one blogsite that has an important indication of why the problem can be so difficult.

It makes a very pointed and humorous commentary about our elected and selected leaders and just how seriously they can be taken. Click on Click Here!
to view.

The only sad commentary about this is that it is so very true to the nature of all politicians and particularly attorneys.

Here’s the text of that BLOG:

Government efficiency 8-12-06
I may have sent this to some of you before, but it is so true, so timely and so apropos I couldn't resist sending it once more.

What we need is more bureaucracy!
This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. This guy's response is hilarious, but read the State's letter first. Be sure to read the two comments I received which are copied at the end of these letters.

SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County

Dear Mr. DeVries:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.

A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2006.

Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action.

We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.

======================================================

Response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County.
Dear Mr. Price,
Your certified letter dated 07/19/2005 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two Wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.

As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity. My first dam question to you is:

(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or

(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?

If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of The Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.

I have several concerns. My first concern is; aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.

The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.

If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers -- but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English. In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).

So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2006? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!!) Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.

Thank you,

Ryan DeVries & the Dam Beavers

======================================================

Here are a few observations prompted by the above which I received recently by email:

Although a bit sideways to your point -- that climate change is the greatest threat mankind has ever faced -- there's an indirect tie-in here.

Someone updated the old Beaver Dam bit to apply to the current administration, instead of the previous one to which it actually originally applied. Someone changed the facts to fit an agenda -- and you got taken in, apparently.

There's a lot of that going around. I contemplated a novel pitting scientists against scientists on global warming misinformation[1] -- but I see how "State of Fear" was treated, and note that it only got published because of the clout (and marketability) of the author.

It makes me wonder how much politics controls what novels make it into print.

=================/ D. Keith Howington

[1] By "global warming misinformation", for example, I mean the widespread belief (1.2 million Google hits, plus movies and science "documentaries") that Greenland's ice sheet is dwindling. When pressed, even the GW enthusiasts are forced to admit that it was gaining ice when measured directly between 1992 and 2003-- though they phrase this as obscurely as possible. It's gained about 11 billion tons of ice per year, net, during that time. The new trick is to suggest that global warming *started* in 2003, just after the direct satellite height measurements stopped. People are buying it, because the news media is. ];-)

That this misinformation is SO widespread is an important indication of why the problem can be so difficult.
===================================================
It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction, to which I might add (especially in this case), truth is funnier than fiction. I will also add a serious tone to this by noting it is an example of the kind of things we Americans face at the hands of a ponderously overgrown and still growing, monstrously inept, totally self absorbed government peopled with anal retentive, busy-body lawyers with no sense of reality and far too much time on their hands. This bloated bureaucracy serves mostly its own members, many of whom couldn’t hold a productive job in the private sector because of their poor education, nonexistent work ethic, or combination of both. The only groups of sorrier, more questionable and more self-serving humans I can think of are our elected officials, and the Federal Congress in particular. This includes members of all political parties.

It is amazing to me that our republic has endured for so long at the hands of scoundrels and brigands. This is particularly true since these multitudinous, unproductive bureaucratic "Jabba the Huts" drain increasing amounts of hard-earned cash from the pockets of the ordinary, hard working, harder pressed populace who have no access to and little control over these monsters. Sadly, our supposedly watchdog media are more enthralled with ratings and promoting their own self protection, agenda, income and status than in exposing the real corruption and waste within these Frankenstein creations, the Hydras of government. I say this with due respect and apologies to the tiny percentage of government employees who actually do work, care and probably produce 99.9% of the effectiveness of government. I would wager that we could eliminate close to 99% of government jobs and the nation would move on forward with hardly a ripple noticeable by non-government individuals.
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Keith:

You said, “Although a bit sideways to your point -- that climate change is the greatest threat mankind has ever faced -- there's an indirect tie-in here.

“Someone updated the old Beaver Dam bit to apply to the current administration, instead of the previous one to which it actually originally applied. Someone changed the facts to fit an agenda -- and you got taken in, apparently.”

I see the beaver dam story as applying to government officials attorneys and politicians of all persuasions. I see it as a common disease of constantly growing government regardless of the party in power.

Also, In my opinion, climate change is a minor threat to mankind. No matter how you count it, the population explosion aggravates: decimation of the environment, destruction of wild food sources, deforestation and soil depletion, along with numerous other negative factors, is the greatest threat mankind has ever faced and no one wants to talk about it.

Howard
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I've read that the rate of population growth is decreasing, Howard. Certainly in the EU and the US we'd be experiencing negative growth if it weren't for immigration. Thanks to China's "one child" policy they're probably going to start losing people. Of course they could also emigrate to the Russian Maritime provinces, once the Russians give 'em up.

India is another matter. Maybe they'll knock it down, or they'll emigrate elsewhere too.

I think the greatest threat we ever faced was when that volcano blew up in Sumatra. There were only about 10,000 of us left after a four year long dust induced winter. Gene
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Gene:

What volcano and when was that? I've never heard of that one before.

The single thing so many forget or don’t want to acknowledge is the for the last decade, total world food supplies have been shrinking, primarily because of dwindling supplies of wild protein foods - fish, sea foods and wild animal meat and despite increases in yields for grains and vegetable crops. This means we have already passed the maximum sustainable population and are still increasing fairly rapidly. Sooner or later the collapse of viable food sources will turn food net exporting countries into food net importing countries. Australia is already very close to that point and the US is not far behind. These are the two biggest food exporting nations on the planet. Imagine what will happen to world food supplies when they begin to consume more than they produce. Collapse of the international food supply system will be rapid and very painful.

A few facts from the World Bank population statistics:

Population growth rates are much higher in most low- and middle-income countries than in most high-income countries.

Population growth rates have declined in low- and middle-income countries over the past few decades but remain high because birth rates have not fallen as rapidly as death rates.

There will be more than 1 billion more people in the world in 2015 than there were in 2000 (as population grows from about 6 billion to 7.1 billion), and six out of seven of these people will live in low- and middle-income countries.

Although the population growth rate for developing countries has been decreasing for several decades, the number of people added to the population each year has been increasing because the population base has become larger.

Countries that have a large proportion of their population in their childbearing years often experience population momentum.

Even if couples have only enough children to replace themselves when they die, the population will continue to grow and will not stabilize until the younger group ages beyond their childbearing years.

Birth rates tend to fall when parents have access to family planning, health care, education and jobs.

Population growth can make it more difficult to raise standards of living in some countries and can put pressure on the environment.

Two of the most successful strategies for reducing fertility rates are providing greater access to primary health care and promoting education for girls and women

End of World Bank statistics.

Low growth, first world nations will become magnets for excess populations from high growth, third world nations such as virtually all Muslim nations, all of Latin America and most of Africa. The slowing of growth from lowered birth rates will be more than compensated by immigrations (or invasion). Europe and the US are already feeling the painful results of this. (By 2030 latinos will be a true majority in the US while Muslims will be a majority in most European nations even before then.)

With third world nation populations aspiring to first world lifestyles, (like China and India) the environmental pressures will grow even if population growth is somehow slowed substantially. (An unlikely prospect) Only a substantial deadly catastrophe will slow or stop this juggernaut. For example, the AIDS epidemic has kept the population of Africa from growing an estimated one billion people since it began. With AIDS now spreading in Asia, population growth could experience a major slowdown, painful as it may be. We should be able to utilize less painful methods than disease and warfare to control population.

Russia’s population stagnation is mostly the result of their previous horrible socialist health care system. China’s one child policy is not as effective as originally hoped for and India is a mess. Immigration is but an interim solution until the first world is overrun by third world cast offs. With the present six billion pressing the limits of our food resources, how can anyone not see the terrible consequences of eight or ten billion humans on the planet?

In the past, Only those isolated societies that controlled their populations managed to survive. We are certainly an isolated society on this island planet and unless we control our population growth, Earth will most certainly go the way of Henderson or Easter Island.

Howard

Okay Gene, I'm going give this one more shot before I put it to bed. It appears we are dealing with two points of views here; mine being generalized, in a more broad encompassment, yours being a more focused individual viewpoint. I was looking at it, from a more out-worlder observation. From that view, one would see us as a single race having the same basic physical structures with the exception of the difference between males and females. Barring the different ethnicities, languages, or personal religious beliefs, skin color, and/or their geographical origins, would likely be considered variants on the same scheme. Bipedal, toolmaker, social, with logic driven adaptability's.

As far as who makes the decisions that I had suggested toward the first of our discussions. Well, to me logic would suggest a consensus of some sort. This way humans would be able to maintain their individuality, individual faiths, individual languages, territorial governments to counterbalance the world government, and so forth. I was speaking in g-e-n-e-r-a-l-i-z-e-d terms, simply because I don't have the answers to the individual questions or problems that such an undertaking would involve. If I had those answers to give to you, I would with enormous gratification, knowing I had the solution to all the world's problems. But anyone reading this would become a meet in the aware that this subject matter is way over my head. Probably why I spouted it out the other end with such an erroneous smell.

If she'll be so many pitfalls to the viewpoint of my opinion, you have unwittingly bought a curse upon yourself. I say this, because these are many of the problems, the characters in my book will face near the end of the book. And in writing that part, I will need to hire a sharp shooting gunslinger, they willing and able to plug it full holes. And I fully intend to nag you into becoming my sounding board for that particular part of the story.

Sorry, my friend - but you brought it on yourself.

Rex
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Howard Johnson wrote:

I see the beaver dam story as applying to government officials attorneys and politicians of all persuasions. I see it as a common disease of constantly growing government regardless of the party in power. Officialdom breeds redundant, self expanding activities - all officialdom. It's the nature of the beast.

Here, we completely agree. Not that it's necessarily evil -- but it is infamously self-sustaining.
Also, In my opinion, climate change is a minor threat to mankind.

But it was the first two of your "threats of society" topics.

What do you want us to do -- destroy India and Africa? And any other third world populations that might be over a number we don't like? You're certainly not talking about Europe or the US.

We've seen that as the technological level of a civilization rises, its population growth curbs. The correlation is excellent, and well supported. But people are horrified at the idea of making these populations more like the US -- why, the US is "greedy"!

The real correlation appears to be literacy and birth rate, with some odd data points presented by some Muslim countries. High literacy = good! For the planet, certainly, if you feel that population is the big threat.

There are problems, of course. We lack the will in the US to pursue solar power satellites; these would end current concerns about global warming, fossil fuels, pollution from the oil industry, drilling operations, et cetera -- and we'd have to come up with new things to worry about.

We could supply energy and technology cheaply to third world countries; to some, this WOULD be terrible!

No matter how you count it, the population explosion which aggravates: decimation of the environment, destruction of wild food sources, deforestation and soil depletion, along with numerous other negative factors, is the greatest threat mankind has ever faced and no one wants to talk about it.

Perhaps that's why these secret topics are merely whispered in billions of words and pictures in movies and television documentaries and front pages of major magazines and newspapers and science journals and talk shows and coffee houses. Oh, and science fiction novels.

Interestingly, while glancing around at the 770,000 Google hits on the threat no one wants to talk about, I encountered this:
Click Here! Futurist

That matches my understanding reasonably well. What do you think?

===|==============/ D. Keith Howington
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8-14-06 - Keith:

Yes, education and affluence seems to moderate population growth, but even in the article you sighted, written in 2000, (and which I read, thank you) a world population of about 8 billion is mentioned as a realistic ceiling to be reached in 2030. Does anyone seriously believe this is a realistic, sustainable level considering the headlong drive of third world nations like China and India to enjoy first world lifestyles for their people? If you think we are having a shortage of petro-products now, just watch as those two giants continue to ramp up their consumption.

What I believe we need to do is certainly NOT "-- destroy India and Africa? And any other third world populations that might be over a number we don't like?" That’s the Muslim fundamentalist goal – kill everyone who disagrees with them. Most thinking peoples of the world would abhor such a policy and certainly not support it.

My "and no one wants to talk about it." comment may be off the mark as you pointed out, but it reflects reactions I get repeatedly to my lecture on population and to several talk radio shows I have contacted. In contrast, have no problem getting an active audience to my efforts on the energy situation. (See the end of this email) From contacts I have made, I find many environmentalist groups have their own, self-serving agenda having little to do with solving environmental problems. They have much to say and do about obtaining grants and donations to expand their influence and study the problems while condemning those who disagree with their agenda in any way. Apparently, they see real solutions as a reason for their dissolution and loss of funding so survival instincts drive them toward complicated solutions in the distant future (the hydrogen fuel-cell people) and away from simple, immediate solutions no matter how effective. Isn’t that precisely how government bureaucrats think?

What we need to do is find humanitarian ways to solve the most serious environmental problems that are already upon us. Sustainability is one goal, but certainly not the only worthwhile goal, maybe not even the primary goal.

In my opinion, the first goal should be a serious effort to prevent the annihilation of world wide species diversity in our forests, plains, steppes, mountains and arctic. Replacing a diverse forest with deliberate planting of one or two species (as the New Guinea highlanders did) succeeds, but is certainly not a most desired replacement for a diverse forest. Maintaining large enough wild environments to sustain viable populations of wild life, both animal and plant and in many diverse environments on the globe, I see as one worthwhile goal. If we don’t find a way to prevent it, large tracts of virgin forests will soon become a thing of the past throughout the world. The Japanese preserved their own forests by importing destroyed forests from the rest of the world. The US, Germany and several other nations have been steadily increasing their forest acreage, but most growth has been in small patches isolated by surrounding farmland. What is truly needed are large, connected tracts where forest creatures can move freely.

Maintaining sustainable stocks of wild foods - fish, sea creatures, wild animals (bush meat), fruits, nuts and other edibles - should be another. Add to that soil preservation and prevention of erosion damage and air and water pollution. All of this demands rational cooperation of all peoples on the globe - certainly a difficult and possibly unrealistic goal.

Example: With all of the international accord about limiting taking of sea creatures from endangered populations, there are still "rogue" nations with expanding, high-tech fishing fleets harvesting rapidly diminishing and irreplaceable stocks. We are now rapidly diminishing the capability of most fish stocks to sustain a viable population even as our wild fish and sea food harvest grows smaller. This despite use of the latest technology to find and catch creatures in the open sea. Only in areas controlled by nations willing to use force to apply stringent limits to where and when stocks may be taken and where size, species and total catch limits are imposed. Creatures of the open sea are still taken without limit by the previously mentioned, "rogue" fishing fleets. After years of increases in total world catches, those totals are now spiraling downwards as many productive fisheries have crashed and may take decades or even centuries to restore to sustainable levels.

I’m still searching for an in-depth university study I read about ten years ago that reported a maximum sustainable population of 3.5 billion at first world consumption levels and 6.5 billion at third world consumption levels. That was before many ocean fisheries crashed. With billions now living at starvation levels and between 6 and 7 billion souls now on the planet, the appeal of a culture that says, "the Western world is responsible for our poverty so let’s kill them all." is unmistakable. Expanding terrorism and massive migration from third world nations to first world nations is a pretty good indicator of what’s happening -- right now!

You said, "There are problems, of course. We lack the will in the US to pursue solar power satellites; these would end current concerns about global warming, fossil fuels, pollution from the oil industry, drilling operations, et cetera -- and we'd have to come up with new things to worry about.

"We could supply energy and technology cheaply to third world countries; to some, this WOULD be terrible!"

I am currently doing a massive update on a little book on solutions to the energy problem that directly addresses your comments. I decided last year to replace the title, "The SUPER Hydrogen Economy" with, "The Tribrid Vehicle Economy" after several important people mistakenly thought I was supporting research on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. I do not see the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle system as ever becoming a viable, economically feasible system for transport.

Here are a few links to the project before the current update which is actually a major addition and expansion of the scope of the book, but with very few changes. I believe I made these links available to SFN in a previous email some time ago. Now that I have more time to write, I hope to complete the update by the year’s end and have it published.

New Vehicle Fuels - alternatives - Click Here!
Tribrid Vehicle, The - Overview - Click Here!
Tribrid© Vehicle Economy, The - Click Here!

Factual education is the only answer while political and religious indoctrination (so prevalent throughout the whole world) will only serve to amplify our problems. I hope reality is not the triumph of a single ideology in control of all of humanity.

Howard
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Response to Rex - above:

I don't mind being a sounding board. I don't agree with some of your assessments.... for one, the oceans are a perfect example of the "Tragedy of the Commons". Nobody owns the oceans, not even the UN, so they are treated poorly. Fishing concerns simply vacuum clean all the fish and waste the little ones. So they don't mature. If we could parcel out the oceans and let people own them things would change...

Chances are that more fish in the future will be farmed.

People will probably have no more children than they feel that they need. Developing nations shower the undeveloped in birth control. These are not widely used because people need labor to farm. This is because much of Africa seems to rely upon subsistence farming, which is inefficient and vulnerable to crop failure.
In Zimbabwe the trend has been towards such subsistence farming for political reasons. Probably the same thing will occur in Venezuela and other states with retrograde governments based upon Victorian notions of self and State. Doubtless we'll see even less food if these antique governing methods spread. Of course since these ideas often devolve into marxism and farmers are placed into collectives food will be even more scarce.

I am a believer in equilibria.... things will assume a level of activity based upon inputs and outputs. There is a possibility of collapse, but there is a greater likelihood of adaptation.

For example, I expect in my lifetime to walk or ride mass transit rather than drive an automobile. "The Car" will come out for long distance trips, which will be very well planned. I expect gasoline to be very expensive. I do not expect us to use hydrogen - hydrogen is a volatile gas which is hard to manage. We'll probably use compressed light weight hydrocarbons or alcohols both which are far more manageable than hydrogen. Sooner or later battery technology could permit us to use electric cars, but then the bottleneck becomes power generation.

As one commentator put it best; "India and China have a rising middle class. They will compete for the same petroleum that middle and lower class Americans take for granted today". "Peak Oil" will occur when demand meets supply, and I expect that shortly.

Chances are that we'll see a greater sense of "small town" America, as it was in older times when automobiles were a luxury item. We also may move into large cities, though I am not hip with sharing my space with the dysfunctional detrius of the "Great Society", who seem to think that people owe them something more than basic courtesy and a chance to pursue happiness. I live beside people of almost every race, creed and color, but I have no patience for gangs of either the private or public sector variety. Our police keep a lid on such childishness, and we participate in local government which keeps the official mischief to a dull roar.

I also think that people are pretty good as settling issues on their own. We in the Western World did found most of today's institutions.

I sneer, and I emphasize the word "SNEER" at the idea of "sustainable". Like so many modern terms it means whatever the Elites want it to mean. For me it mainly means solar energy by another name. Insufficiently dense for a modern civilization. Only a Green or idealist, who probably think that electricity comes from a wall socket, that meat comes from the store and that bread comes from a delivery truck, subscribe to the idea that we can get by with solar power.

Solar satellites require a huge amount of heavy lift launch capability. Gerald K. O'Neill's "High Frontier" was an attempt to house lunar workers in comfortable settings so that the Lunar soil could be mined and refined into materials suitable for these satellites. Probably today we could do the same thing with robots, but who will tell the UN we want to mine up there? They'll probably insist on their "cut", which they'll squander on plush accommodations, perqs and a private UN army. I say "No taxation without Representation"

Gene
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Howard Johnson wrote:
Keith: Yes, education and affluence seems to moderate population growth, but even in the article you sighted, written in 2000, (and which I read, thank you) a world population of about 8 billion is mentioned as a realistic ceiling to be reached in 2030. Does anyone seriously believe this is a realistic, sustainable level considering the headlong drive of third world nations like China and India to enjoy first world lifestyles for their people?

Not a few Americans don't completely enjoy "first world" lifestyles, Howard. Many subsist on poorly paid jobs, working long hours. They drive older vehicles, if they have a car. They live in rental housing. They forgo medical treatment or accept substandard treatment. They don't take vacations. They accept government assistance to educate their kids or to take care of medical needs.

I live on the rim of Appalachia. We have areas where people haven't seen a dentist for most of their lives. They have knowledge of the modern world due to TV but they subsist on meager government aid, poorly paying jobs and sometimes indulge in petty crime to make ends meet. They are not "educated" as much as they are indoctrinated, either by their elders or by government schools. Most of their education comes from life experiences.

I used to work in an urban dialysis clinic. I've met their urban cousins. Aside the likelihood that one will be of African ancestry and the other European there isn't a great deal of difference between 'em.

Still like to know what YOU mean by "sustainable". Forever and ever? You really need to read some Buckminster Fuller and get your head around the idea of "doing more with less."

Gene
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8-15-06 - from Dave - Literary Junkie:

Well, it looks like this thread is playing out. I've been following it, but until now hadn't joined in with any comments.

Here's my dilemma.

Obviously, the right thing to do is manage the planet and it's resources properly. Stop pollution, and slow the growth of the population to an easily sustainable level without putting a strain on the resources or provide a door to off planet colonization.

However, China and the other developing nations are gonna do as they bloody well please regardless of what we say or what sanctions we impose.

Third world country populations live at a subsistence level and will do whatever is necessary to eat today and tomorrow regardless of the effect on the environment. They probably don't realize the harm they do, or if they did know, their only other choice might be starvation.

Return to a society that is in harmony with the environment might be possible with our level of technology, but maybe our level of technology cannot be sustained without harming the environment. I don't think you'll find more than a half dozen per million people willing to give up technology and live a life without modern conveniences, air conditioning, and heat, easy transportation, easy communication, food preservation, food preparation, medical facilities, medicine, and indoor plumbing, (Ever made a trip to the outhouse in the middle of the winter at night? Then cleaned up with slick catalog pages? Or used leaves out in the forest? They tear way too easy. And you better know what leaves are poison.) Sorry, got off on a tangent. But those of us who have lived without modern conveniences know how hard it would be to give them up.

Then there is the problem with population that we have created ourselves by sustaining the destitute. Now don't get me wrong. I think we should help everyone we can. But are we simply creating a bigger problem when we don't let drought, war, famine, pestilence, etc., thin out the population affected? We truck in food and build tent cities, and the result is more babies from those who can't even feed themselves.

Ever watch those infomercials about 'starving children'? They tell how a society has been at war or suffering from drought for 20 years and all the orphans need help. Wouldn't it be proper to explain that sex makes babies and demand population control in exchange for the food? It could be done on an individual by individual bases. Maybe that's harsh, but if you keep feeding them, they keep making more babies who starve or have to be fed.

My dilemma is in thinking that we can come up with a workable solution, or even the perfect solution, but implementation is impossible. Our society is fractured, and the only way to properly implement a solution to the socio-eco problems today would be a world wide totalitarian government with no qualms about isolating or eliminating those who don't comply with the rules. (I could also argue that the Biblical picture of the 1000 years of peace 'Millennium reign' could easily be summed up by the previous sentence.)

So, in my opinion, this leaves us with good two options.

1) Write about it. Put it in your stories. Don't get preachy or your stories won't sell. Also, join Greenpeace or something if you are so inclined.

2) The option I choose. Do something personal within your own means. And I mean more than talking about it. My example. I bought 2 acres with a house on it. The front acre is yard. The back acre is my own little contribution to the forests. It is wooded. It is allowed to be as God or Nature sees fit.

But I will also fight tooth and nail to have the rights to do with my land as I please. Try to force me to preserve it, and I'd have it destroyed before you could get back from the judge with a court order. And that, I believe is the heart of the problem. It's easy to know what someone else should do, but seldom do they agree. The responsible thing is to do what we can.

So, somebody tell me why my arguments are valid or stupid.

What would happen if we encountered another race of beings who considered us global saboteurs? Sounds very possible doesn't it? What would they demand of us? What would be our response?

Terraforming is changing worlds to fit us. Is there a word for the genetic altering of mankind to fit the environments of other worlds? There have been some stories I've read that touch on it, but none that major on it. Wouldn't that be more simple than Terraforming? What about a story altering man to live on this planet so he could be in harmony with his environment, be it water, ice, rain forest, desert, mountains. That would make for racial diversity that makes color or features a joke.
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Word from Don:
All, I have been meaning to comment on this thread for a while, since to some degree it is the central theme of a novel I have been working on-and-off for a while.

First, I would agree with Bruce's assessment of the rarity of actual collapse. Most often, it's a matter of one civilization acceding to another.

I disagree somewhat with the assertion that our knowledge base is indestructible. I prefer to think that AS A WHOLE, it is not destructible, but that without effort to maintain it AS IT IS, it, like practically everything else over long periods of time, will degrade. At first, it may be simple things like (this is factual) losing the original recording of the "one small setep" speechlet by Neil Armstrong, or losing (again, factual) the original plans for the Apollo project / Saturn V. I think this simple fact can have far reaching consequences.

I think the Middle East presents a good example of how some things will persist, and others will fade. There's no running water in some places, no reliable power, no central government in Southern Lebanon, but there are laptop computers, sophisticated planning, a strong military (say what you want here, but you're missing my point), transportation, etc.

What is missing from it all are the luxuries we are accustomed to: safety, freedom, and those other things that come from our heritage. When we cease to maintain those (and others), I believe things will degrade.

Collapse? I don't think so... But it's possible for a civilization to pass its glory days without knowing it. I think that is far more likelyto happen, and the dystopian visions that a good writer could spin would still make for an interesting story.

One final comment re: environmental predictions -- true, Earth is far more capable than we think of "bouncing back" from what we do to it, BUT... We cannot control the WAY in which it will bounce back, nor can we really control the consequences. It may bounce back from global warming by releasing more oxygen into the atmosphere and absorbing more CO2, for instance -- and I'm making this up -- which over the long haul might reduce temperatures, but at a risk of increased forest fires, ocean acidification, changes in the gulf stream, etc. My point is not that we're screwing up the environment -- regardless of whether you agree or disagree, IT WILL CHANGE IF IT'S OUT OF WHACK. And again, the dystopian visions, whatever they may be, make for a good background for a story.

I think as writers we can all look at the world around us, find something we cherish and something we fear, and write about it the conflict that the changes produce. To me, that's the soul of the art.

Don
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From Jeff:

I don't know Don I fear it may be all too possible for essential knowledge to vanish It has happened in the past (the library of Alexandria)... The burning of Rome...The dead sea scrolls. Sometimes lost information is rediscovered...more often it is not. The problem is, that we are by definition unaware of what we have lost. (lol..name something you have forgotten)

While SOME people value knowledge...i fear that most people do not. -------------------- If there was a pandemic (in the vein of the classic SF novel EARTH ABIDES)... Followed by looting and burning... what might be irretrievably lost?
Perhaps I have grown too cynical over time. Just about the time I think mankind has grown up and I read about great discoveries in medicine and technology or cosmology....I read about mass murders in Iraq involving shepherds that have been killed by religious enforcers, because the shepherds violated the most recent edict by the mad mullahs who decided that all goats needed to be dressed in diapers (yes, it is true. The religious leaders in portions of Iraq decided that in the sexually repressed Islam fundamentalist world, the sight of goat genitalia is too much of a temptation for young men.) Shepherds who fail to cover that backsides of their herds are being sought out and shot.

Think on this... These are not people who see value in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. If information is preserved... It would not be the result of civilizations (and I use the word VERY loosely) whose priorities are killing shepherds who don't dress their goats in diapers. If a worldwide economic collapse occurred and electronic files were lost and libraries burned... If civilizations collapsed to the point that this type of social behavior was the norm... not the exception.... How profound would the loss of knowledge become? Shades of Saint Lebowitz...(another classic post apocalyptic tale)

Think, how long would it take mankind to recreate, rebuild or rediscover the information in that single technical book? It is not something you could memorize (Fahrenheit 451)

I agree with Don on one point. I am not worried about the fragility of the environment (earth's homeostatic equilibrium is far more robust that mankind's socioeconomic house of cards)

But I am far more pessimistic than Don on the fate of civilization and the preservation of knowledge. If troubled times Do occur..i fear that it will be knowledge and information that will be amongst the first wave of victims.

Jeff Robinson

By the way there are some EXCELLENT books on this topic...See Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond And also Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Read them If you dare...they only made me even more depressed :-(

Note from HoJo - That’s the literature that prompted me to start this entire thread.
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From Gene, responding to Don
What about skills? I've heard that NASA engineers are examining remaining examples of the Saturn rocket for clues to build the Constellation. Rocket Science is science.... right? Well, how many of the team who built and engineered that fine machine are still alive?

I'd like to see a show of hands.... how many of you people work with your hands for a living? How about in a skilled trade, for example, as a machinist, or some other form of artisan? How about in creative sciences, such as mathematics and physics, where there is a lot of "taste" and "maturity" issues? Music is an entire universe of taste, talent and skill building. So are graphic arts.

How many of you are willing to admit that even writing fiction requires a modicum of skills? Libraries are important... far more important are the things which are not written down, which cannot ever be written down.
For example, one of my hobbies is learning keyboards, specifically baroque music. There are no existing baroque musicians. They and their style died in the late 1700s. Aside some "barrel organs" which have preserved some playing we are not completely sure about ornamentation practices, performance practices, etc. We have music, especially of J.S. Bach who liked to ornament everything very specifically. However how Bach did it might not be how others would have done it. I am currently learning to play keyboard but I will probably never be able to completely duplicate the sort of music Bach and Handel played. I started too late in life, and more importantly, there is no teachers around who can show me EXACTLY how it was done.

We need to think about this, especially some of you out there who are comfortable with totalitarian governments. A lot of good people got "plowed under" by the Nazis and Soviets. Many of them probably had irreplaceable skills. Go look up a character named "Lysenko" and then reconsider this totalitarian non-sense.

Gene

Response from Keith - my words in italics for clarity. Words in bold italics are comments I have added in response to Keith’s arguments.

Howard Johnson wrote: Keith: Yes, education and affluence seems to moderate population growth, but even in the article you sighted, written in 2000, (and which I read, thank you) a world population of about 8 billion is mentioned as a realistic ceiling to be reached in 2030. Does anyone seriously believe this is a realistic, sustainable level considering the headlong drive of third world nations like China and India to enjoy first world lifestyles for their people?

Yes. I do, for one. I think you are enormously optimistic.

If you think we are having a shortage of petro-products now, just watch as those two giants continue to ramp up their consumption.

Petroproducts? A century from now, we'll probably be primarily using nuclear power and space solar power -- one is virtually unlimited and the other truly is. We'll still burn some coal -- we have enough for hundreds of years -- but will have passed beyond oil per se except as a boutique fuel and source for other materials.

I believe liquid fuels derived from renewable, plant-based products will soon replace petro-fuels. (Otherwise Islamic fundamentalists will soon control all the world’s currency.) Burning of any fossil fuel adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and removes oxygen. I doubt we will have a portable power that is not based on liquid fuel for a very long time. A breakthrough - huge advancement - in battery technology could change that. I see combinations of methanol, ethanol and bio-diesel as the energy hope for the future, at least for transport.

What I believe we need to do is certainly NOT "-- destroy India and Africa? And any other third world populations that might be over a number we don't like?" That’s the Muslim fundamentalist goal – kill everyone who disagrees with them. Most thinking peoples of the world would abhor such a policy and certainly not support it.

Agreed. It was not something I was counseling. But since the population explosion is concentrated largely in the Third World, simply restricting it is not a viable proposition, I think. The drafters of the Kyoto Protocol seem to have aimed at punishing the solution while preserving the problem.

My "and no one wants to talk about it."

Many of the people who need to hear it are not speakers of English. And would not likely listen, anyway. Feeding their dictators foreign aid cash does not seem to be working.

“comment may be off the mark as you pointed out,”

I was trying to be gentle. ];-)

but it reflects reactions I get repeatedly to my lecture on population and to several talk radio shows I have contacted. In contrast, have no problem getting an active audience to my efforts on the energy situation. (See the end of this email) From contacts I have made, I find many environmentalist groups have their own, self-serving agenda having little to do with solving environmental problems. They have much to say and do about obtaining grants and donations to expand their influence and study the problems while condemning those who disagree with their agenda in any way. Apparently, they see real solutions as a reason for their dissolution and loss of funding so survival instincts drive them toward complicated solutions in the distant future (the hydrogen fuel-cell people) and away from simple, immediate solutions no matter how effective.

Do you have one of these "simple, immediate solutions"? I suspect that your values of "simple" and "immediate" are different from mine. For example, if we swapped the entire fleet of passenger autos for hybrids over ten years, I'd wager that the fuel usage would be larger at the end then at the beginning. Thus, it is not a *solution* -- it is a delay in the growth rate of the problem. (Disclaimer: I drive a big V8 hot rod -- but I also have a Prius. Each has its uses.)

“Simple solutions” Yes, I have a lot of them collected in a work I call simply, “Solutions.” In compiling these “solutions” and in doing research with many environmental and energy research groups (among others) I was struck by the concentration and effort being expended on obtaining funds to do research on “far-out” “way in the future” solutions to even immediate problems. (the hydrogen fuel-cell people are a prime example)

I propose using nuclear power to generate electricity. (it’s the easiest, but other, non-fossil fuel burning systems could also be used) Use the electricity to generate hydrogen by electrolysis, react the hydrogen with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (or generated as a by-product in producing ethanol) to create methanol, a viable and easily handled liquid fuel. Blended with ethanol it would become a clean, easily handled, relatively inexpensive, clean burning fuel that didn’t add to atmospheric carbon dioxide. I believe we could be completely converted within ten years. Existing engines could be converted to use this fuel quite inexpensively so it would not make existing power equipment obsolete.

“Simple solutions” are not popular for research groups as they don’t have the longevity or require the long-range commitment to research as do complex solutions. That’s the reason so many “natural” cures and medications are ignored by companies that would prefer to manufacture and advertise synthetic products simply because they are quite profitable. How many drug companies would jump on the band-wagon of a new natural drug that was abundant and almost free? I’ll wager it would be ignored even if it were a perfect and complete cure for cancer or AIDS.
Isn’t that precisely how government bureaucrats think?

Yes -- in fact, one could cynically rename these to "The Society for the Preservation of the Society for the Preservation of [cause du jour]."

What we need to do is find humanitarian ways to solve the most serious environmental problems that are already upon us. Sustainability is one goal, but certainly not the only worthwhile goal, maybe not even the primary goal.

One concern is the ability of many places to adopt the squalor and infrastructure requirements of the "big city" -- and yet miss the standard of living increases that typically accompany this. Almost all big cities are new ones arising in the third world now. In the US, we favor suburbs and have high standards of living, and high food productivity. This trick, if it could be exported, would address the people concerns I think.

In my opinion, the first goal should be a serious effort to prevent the annihilation of world wide species diversity in our forests, plains, steppes, mountains and arctic.

Why? The term "annihilation" is harsh, obviously, but this sounds like a rhetorical phrase. Is your goal to stop the conversion of any undeveloped surface on the planet to human use?

My goal would be to “maintain” a level of wild, pristine forests sufficient to prevent any further growth in the detrimental climate change we are now experiencing from deforestation. Prevention of the continuation of the current unprecedented extinctions of species would be part of that goal. Continuing to destroy “wild” environments on land and in the seas, as we are currently doing, will eventually result in the “annihilation” of a large percentage of life and species on the planet. The moa, dodo and passenger pigeon are well known, but the huge number of other species that have recently gone extinct or are near extinction indicate an ongoing, unprecedented annihilation of species. At least since the Permian extinction.

Replacing a diverse forest with deliberate planting of one or two species (as the New Guinea highlanders did) succeeds, but is certainly not a most desired replacement for a diverse forest.

What are the desires in this equation? Who decides? Note that I'm not taking a contrary position, per se, but exploring how one arrives at such decisions.

Maintaining large enough wild environments to sustain viable populations of wild life, both animal and plant and in many diverse environments on the globe, I see as one worthwhile goal. If we don’t find a way to prevent it, large tracts of virgin forests will soon become a thing of the past throughout the world.

Except in, say, the US (and Canada too, I understand). But "virgin forest" sounds impressive -- do the trees we've grown since the 1700s count? - Generally a forest with trees a hundred years or more in age is considered a mature forest even though some trees (giant redwoods for example) may live much much longer. True virgin forest means it has never been logged.

The Japanese preserved their own forests by importing destroyed forests from the rest of the world. The US, Germany and several other nations have been steadily increasing their forest acreage, but most growth has been in small patches isolated by surrounding farmland. What is truly needed are large, connected tracts where forest creatures can move freely.

What percentage of current US forests are in such small patches? I've just been driving some eight thousand miles in the east and south of the US in the past few weeks, and I was very impressed at the raw stretches of forest.

Maintaining sustainable stocks of wild foods - fish, sea creatures, wild animals (bush meat), fruits, nuts and other edibles - should be another. Add to that soil preservation and prevention of erosion damage and air and water pollution. All of this demands rational cooperation of all peoples on the globe - certainly a difficult and possibly unrealistic goal.

It doesn't "demand" that, it just works better. The forests of the US, for example, are not substantially affected by Asian or Brasilian rain-forest conversion -- we'd like to see those preserved, but we can still do our thing.

Might be true of specific locals under control of the inhabitants, but the open ocean is still completely vulnerable. I have no idea how to police agreements already in place - I wish I did. That’s why Kyoto was such a travesty. No teeth in enforcement and it exempted those likely to generate the most carbon dioxide.

Example: With all of the international accord about limiting taking of sea creatures from endangered populations, there are still "rogue" nations with expanding, high-tech fishing fleets harvesting rapidly diminishing and irreplaceable stocks. We are now rapidly diminishing the capability of most fish stocks to sustain a viable population even as our wild fish and sea food harvest grows smaller. This despite use of the latest technology to find and catch creatures in the open sea. Only in areas controlled by nations willing to use force to apply stringent limits to where and when stocks may be taken and where size, species and total catch limits are imposed.

See? Violence CAN solve something. ];-)

Creatures of the open sea are still taken without limit by the previously mentioned, "rogue" fishing fleets. After years of increases in total world catches, those totals are now spiraling downwards as many productive fisheries have crashed and may take decades or even centuries to restore to sustainable levels. I’m still searching for an in-depth university study I read about ten years ago that reported a maximum sustainable population of 3.5 billion at first world consumption levels and 6.5 billion at third world consumption levels.

This represents, it seems to me, a failure of imagination. The same sort of thing that produced the statements in New York City that it was limited to near-1900 levels by the prohibitive size of the infrastructure needed to remove horsemanure. Just a few years later, things changed and the original problem was moot.

I don’t see that as a viable example. Where is the technology to replenish ocean fisheries, restore the damaged sea floor and regrow the tropical rain forest? I prefer not to “hope” for a creative solution, but to work to find one. Of course, should most of humanity die, that change would make the problem moot.

That was before many ocean fisheries crashed. With billions now living at starvation levels and between 6 and 7 billion souls now on the planet, the appeal of a culture that says, "the Western world is responsible for our poverty so let’s kill them all." is unmistakable.

But in fact, the reverse is true. Western education and technology -- including the green revolution -- would do a lot for most of those populations. And has, in some places. I note an article mentioned yesterday that says that, for the first time, more than half the world's population is overweight. I haven't read the article, but it was intriguing.

I certainly don’t see the Muslim world rushing to adopt Western education and technology. Overpopulation has always driven invasion of previously unoccupied territory. When the nearby territory is populated with weak or opulent individuals, the hungry hordes have always invaded and taken over, often with much death and destruction, at least eventually. That is true of most animal species. Ever wonder what happened to Neanderthals? What part of our world has the most population density and hunger? Try the Muslim nations, Africa, and South and Central America. Surely there is a message there.

Expanding terrorism and massive migration from third world nations to first world nations is a pretty good indicator of what’s happening -- right now!

Terrorism has little to do with food supplies. There's a better connection to immigration issues, but it's still indirect.

You mean the Muslim nations are not hungry?

You said, "There are problems, of course. We lack the will in the US to pursue solar power satellites; these would end current concerns about global warming, fossil fuels, pollution from the oil industry, drilling operations, et cetera -- and we'd have to come up with new things to worry about. "We could supply energy and technology cheaply to third world countries; to some, this WOULD be terrible!" I am currently doing a massive update on a little book on solutions to the energy problem that directly addresses your comments. I decided last year to replace the title, "The SUPER Hydrogen Economy" with, "The Tribrid Vehicle Economy" after several important people mistakenly thought I was supporting research on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. I do not see the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle system as ever becoming a viable, economically feasible system for transport.

You and I have communicated on this topic before. I agree. As cheap energy becomes available from other sources, it can be turned into hydrogen as a "liquid battery" -- but hydrogen is NOT a fuel on Earth. (It is on, say, Jupiter!)

Here are a few links to the project before the current update which is actually a major addition and expansion of the scope of the book, but with very few changes. I believe I made these links available to SFN in a previous email some time ago. Now that I have more time to write, I hope to complete the update by the year’s end and have it published.

New Vehicle Fuels - alternatives - Click Here!
Tribrid Vehicle, The - Overview - Click Here!
Tribrid© Vehicle Economy, The - Click Here!

Let us know when you've done that update!

Factual education is the only answer while political and religious indoctrination (so prevalent throughout the whole world) will only serve to amplify our problems. I hope reality is not the triumph of a single ideology in control of all of humanity.

I'd agree -- but it isn't that a single ideology is inherently *bad*. If chosen by the people, it's fine. But the populations are large enough that some will choose failed experiments, hoping THIS time they'll succeed. The bizarre approach in China to totalitarian capitalism is new ... and probably unsustainable.

Maybe I should have said, “I hope reality is not the triumph of a single ideology driven by political and/or religious indoctrination in control of all of humanity.” I'll certainly let you know when the update is ready and available.

===|================/ D. Keith Howington,
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From Gene - 8-15-06
Alternate explanation to "ecocide" for Easter Island - the rats they brought along for food wrecked the environment. Click Here! America Scientist

Mt. Toba, the "doomsday" volcano which devastated the human population many centuries ago... Click Here! Bradshaw Foundation Click Here! Life Science Forces of Nature

The punchline is that humans apparently survived this awful catastrophe. We acquired a definite bonus from it - there are many races of human being. All of them can mutually interbreed, all of them are tough, hardy and have adapted to their local environments. Possibly they have trivial differences which may help them to better adapt, but on the whole we are quite close. We are survivors. Gene
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Gene:

Thanks for the info it does put a possible new slant on the Easter Island story. The rats were mentioned in Diamond’s book, but not as the cause of the extinction of the giant palm. That is a definite possibility. Still, it was due to an action of humans.

Never heard of Mt. Toba before. Only goes to show how important some info can be that is missing from one’s memory if you didn’t know about it. Thanks again.
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Hey Gene,

In a message dated 8/15/2006 6:50:23 PM Central Daylight Time, gherron@dp.net writes:
“We need to think about this, especially some of you out there who are comfortable with totalitarian governments. A lot of good people got "plowed under" by the Nazis and Soviets. Many of them probably had irreplaceable skills. Go look up a character named "Lysenko" and then reconsider this totalitarian non-sense.”
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Gene

I get the impression that you thought I was postulating a comfort with totalitarian government. LOL

I was trying to show how impossible I thought a "green earth" government or implementation was to achieve. I use Biblical examples because they often include apparent paradoxes. It's a big book with lots of stuff in it.

I really liked the way you laid out the affect on the average person from a "Green totalitarian government." That was exactly where I was coming from. I believe that 'real' implementation of most of the 'environmental theories' being postulated today, could only be done at the expense of many human individual's lives, livelihood, comfort, lifestyle, ability to procreate, etc.

Just had a thought. Terrorism from anti-population growth environmental radicals. Mass bombings. Plagues. Pollution of food and water with contraceptive substances. Euthanasia. (Enforced life span.) There was a classic book where population control was enforced, conception licensed, and the penalty for unlicensed pregnancy after the first trimester was death. Can't remember the name of it. In every context where terrorism is used, it seems like a stupid plan to me, because it simply inflames those you are trying to influence. Terrorism (mass murders) for the purpose or with the aim of decreasing the population, actually has some logic. Seriously, to truly believe the population is unsustainable, and should be reduced would have to produce a suicidal will that would grow to include massive homicidal desires. Such a cult would suffer a fate of being short lived I fear, but could make for an interesting story.

Seriously, I personally believe that anyone who believes in conservation or the protection of a specific species of fish, etc. should be allowed to do anything they have the funds to do. Purchase the environment from the landholder and protect it. Just don't expect the owner to give up his livelihood for your ideology. Pay for your beliefs. And I also believe this should be the responsibility of the ideologues not the public.

Dave, Literary Junkie
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Gene’s comment, “That’s cool.”
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Dave:

Terrorism by any group or individual is still terrorism. Whether the terrorist is religious, environmental political, social or just a conquering army, the motivation is always, the imposition of one ideology or belief system on others by use of murder and force. Today’s Muslim extremists are not too different from the crusaders or the early Christian church. Force and terror do work, but are not conducive to a pleasant life style for most people. War is always terrorism, even when necessary.

It would be quite impossible to apply your last paragraph to the world’s open oceans without a huge oceanic police force. Remember, to some people, the policeman making a traffic violation stop is considered a type of terrorist.

Ho
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