Today, A Dark Day For Environmentalists.

[PoliticalChic]

This day is the anniversary of the death of the 'patron saint' of the environmental movement, Thomas Malthus, who died December 23 (1834).



1. You may recall that Malthus' most well known work 'An Essay on the Principle of Population' .... The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to current thinking at the time. He argued that increases in population would eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself and based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way as to overtake the development of sufficient land for crops."
BBC - History - Thomas Malthus


For Malthus, it's as a good as all over for us:
world food supply would increase arithmetically ( 1-2-3...) but world population would increase geometrically (1-2-4-8-16.....)!

Yikes!




Of course, Malthus was totally wrong....another thing he had in common with modern environmentalists.
Technology and changing methods have kept food supply outstripping world population growth.


That brings up this question....why is environmentalism so popular, when they are all about (apologies to Meghan Trainor) the doom....of mankind.


At its core, the modern environmental movement....not to be mistaken for the sensible conservation movement of Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, fears their own shadow....really: they paint mankind as the cause of all things evil, and cause of our impending demise.




2. There no other way to put it: there is an over abundance of insanity found in environmentalism, easily recognized in the way they think/feel about humans, and about other species.

"Environmentalists do not believe that human beings should destroy any part of nature, except under extreme circumstances. They think of animals as individuals, not as populations. For them, interdependence of humans and nature means equality...It is a denial of human nature....placing humans on the same level with the rest of creation."
Kaufman, "No Turning Back," chapter two.


Taken another step, these crazies fail to imagine the catastrophe that would follow if their desires became public policy.
Think of Cass Sunstein wanting animals to have the right to sue humans.....


3. For environmentalists, it's all guilt and gloom, and the blame is placed on their own species.... Man is a virus and a despoiler and must be controlled!
And... if their agenda is not put into effect, there are only two possibilities: either the world had just ended, or it is about to end!



Bet they're wearing their black armbands today for Malthus!

 

[TemplarKormac]

I went outside today. Weather happened, and I swatted a bug on the counter when I came back in. I then drank water from the tap, which was most likely taken from a lake or river with poor innocent fish residing in them. Oops.

 

[Mr. H.]

There is so much arable land in the U.S. that we dedicate 58 million acres of it to grow a crop that ends up in our gas tanks. There is so much of that crop that we export its fermented and distilled product to the tune of tens of billions of gallons per month.

 

[PoliticalChic]

It's often reported that Mark Twain said " The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Someone should apply that to the earth, and report it to the environmentalists.


They won't laugh....environmentalists are almost as humorless as feminists, whose motto is "That's not funny!"



I'd love to see the Sierra Club, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), Fish and Wildlife Service. the EPA, etc, all get together under the name "Hand-Wringers Anonymous."

Or...the CLC....the Chicken Little Consortium!
Catchy?



4. Perhaps we should see some examples of dypeptic doyens of doom, or, what the environmentalists would call their Hall of Fame:


a. In 1865, William Stanley Jevons predicted that the burgeoning Victorian population of English would soon use up all of England's coal! "The conclusion is inevitable that our present happy progressive condition is a thing of limited duration.
Jevons, "The Coal Question," p. 164

Didn't he write "Baby, It's Cold Outside"?


b.This, from 2014: ".... if you start counting not just the reserves known to be recoverable today but the resources thought to be buried underground, the excess becomes huge. The global coal resource is well over 20 trillion tonnes, figures from the International Energy Agency show....fossil fuels....the UK - and the world - has far too much."
why the UK will not run out of oil coal or gas in five years




5. This, from the founding statement of the Audubon Society, 1886: "We may read [the story] plainly enough in the silent hedges, once vocal with the morning songs of birds, and in the deserted fields where once bright plumage flashed in the sunlight."


So.....have you noticed....there are no more birds???


Environmentalism....crying real tears.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Seems that there has always been a hand-wringing contingent.....


6. In 1926, the Federal Oil Conservation Board announced that the United States would run out of oil in seven years....by 1933!
Shades of Al Gore!


7. As I pointed out, Thomas Malthus died in 1834...but his spirit lived on! The front page headline of the NYTimes, September 15, 1948: "Population Outgrows Food, Scientists Warn The World."

I'm surprised the Times didn't add "...Women and Minorities Hurt Worst!"




8. There are always 'scientists' who are willing and able to promote the impending dire consequences!

In 1948, Fairfield Osborn, the president of the NY Zoological Society, published "Our Plundered Planet," and William Vogt, ecologist and ornithologist, with a strong interest in population control, wrote "Road to Survival," predicted that soil and minerals would soon be depleted!

Both supported the NYTimes headline.




Nothing wrong with sitting in the privacy of your basement, and crying real tears, you environmentalists....but public policy should be based on this sort of asininity.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, we can definately see that it is impossible for man to affect nature. So says PoliticalShit.

Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

A major factor that contributed to the depletion of the cod stocks off the shores of Newfoundlandincluded the introduction and proliferation of equipment and technology that increased the volume of landed fish. For centuries local fishermen used technology that limited the volume of their catch, the area they fished, and let them target specific species and ages of fish.[5] From the 1950s onwards, as was common in all industries at the time, new technology was introduced that allowed fishermen to trawl a larger area, fish to a deeper depth and for a longer time. By the 1960s, powerful trawlers equipped with radar, electronic navigation systems and sonar allowed crews to pursue fish with unparalleled success, and Canadian catches peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[6]

These new technologies adversely affected the Northern Cod population in two important ways: by increasing the area and depth that was fished, the cod were being depleted until the surviving fish could not replenish the stock lost each year;[7] and secondly, the trawlers caught enormous amounts of non-commercial fish, which were economically unimportant but very important ecologically: incidental catch undermines the whole ecosystem, depleting stocks of important predator and prey species. With the Northern Cod, significant amounts of capelin – an important prey species for the cod – were caught as bycatch, further undermining the survival of the remaining cod stock.

 

[Treeshepherd]

The buzzword now in environmental circles is 'sustainability'.

So, we're at 7 billion people now, give or take. You all seems to think that's sustainable. Is there a number at which you might change your tune? How about 20 billion people? Would that be sustainable? Or, would you continue to argue that technology will always overcome the challenges of sustaining any number of people?

 

[Old Rocks]

The problem with the word 'sustainable' is that it assumes normal conditions. Change those conditions, and the definition of 'sustainable' changes. Should we get an eruption like Toba, even two billion would not be sustainable. And if the weather for agriculture gets real dicey, 7 billion will not be sustainable.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Well, we can definately see that it is impossible for man to affect nature. So says PoliticalShit.

Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

A major factor that contributed to the depletion of the cod stocks off the shores of Newfoundlandincluded the introduction and proliferation of equipment and technology that increased the volume of landed fish. For centuries local fishermen used technology that limited the volume of their catch, the area they fished, and let them target specific species and ages of fish.[5] From the 1950s onwards, as was common in all industries at the time, new technology was introduced that allowed fishermen to trawl a larger area, fish to a deeper depth and for a longer time. By the 1960s, powerful trawlers equipped with radar, electronic navigation systems and sonar allowed crews to pursue fish with unparalleled success, and Canadian catches peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[6]

These new technologies adversely affected the Northern Cod population in two important ways: by increasing the area and depth that was fished, the cod were being depleted until the surviving fish could not replenish the stock lost each year;[7] and secondly, the trawlers caught enormous amounts of non-commercial fish, which were economically unimportant but very important ecologically: incidental catch undermines the whole ecosystem, depleting stocks of important predator and prey species. With the Northern Cod, significant amounts of capelin – an important prey species for the cod – were caught as bycatch, further undermining the survival of the remaining cod stock.

I am so very glad to see the vile little potty mouth, you, skewered by the OP.

Thanks for dropping by....it is about little twerps like you who are so very afraid.....and so very wrong.

I will post even more "predictions" by other dolts like you, and you'll see how very well you fit the mold.




So....you believe that if the overfished cod are no longer as prevalent in Canadian waters.....
What???
The end of humanity is near????

This is exactly what I've posted: morons like you see one tiny area that fails to live up to your expectations.....and we'er all gonna die????

Check this out, you moron: "...99.9 percent of the billions of species hat have loved on earth over the past 3.5 billion years have been dismissed into oblivion."
Professor Wallace Kaufman, "No Turning Back," p.12




Isn't it time for you to get back out there with your sandwich board proclaiming "The sky is falling! Run for your lives!!!!"

 

[Treeshepherd]

The problem with the word 'sustainable' is that it assumes normal conditions. Change those conditions, and the definition of 'sustainable' changes. Should we get an eruption like Toba, even two billion would not be sustainable. And if the weather for agriculture gets real dicey, 7 billion will not be sustainable.

Good point. We could turn the planet into a gigantic parking lot. But if we had a Star Trek replicator that assembled food from thin air, it would be sustainable

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The problem with the word 'sustainable' is that it assumes normal conditions. Change those conditions, and the definition of 'sustainable' changes. Should we get an eruption like Toba, even two billion would not be sustainable. And if the weather for agriculture gets real dicey, 7 billion will not be sustainable.

All we know for certain is that more CO2 means bigger and better plants and more arable land

 

[PoliticalChic]

The buzzword now in environmental circles is 'sustainability'.

So, we're at 7 billion people now, give or take. You all seems to think that's sustainable. Is there a number at which you might change your tune? How about 20 billion people? Would that be sustainable? Or, would you continue to argue that technology will always overcome the challenges of sustaining any number of people?

There is a certain kind of imbecile who sees a trend....any trend...and predicts that it will continue unabated.

You.

You probably wonder why babies don't continue to grow to be the size of a barn.

Never happens.

Have you noted the population trends in Europe??
Russia?

Islamic nations???

Hania Zlotnik, director of the population division at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said “In most of the Islamic world it’s amazing, the decline in fertility that has happened,’’ … From 1975 to 1980, women in Iran were giving birth to nearly 7 children per family, according to the latest U.N. population report; from 2005 to 2010 that number is expected to be less than 2. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/un-sees-big-drop-in-middle-east-fertility-rates/


"Environmentalists".....another term for really, really stupid people.



BTW.....the problem of decreasing population is so great in Turkey, that
"Turkey's President Slams Birth Control as 'Treason'"
Turkey s President Slams Birth Control as Treason

 

[Old Rocks]

Yes, PoliticalShit, overfishing is threatoning the source of protean for about 2 billion of the worlds population.

Overfishing -- National Geographic

Ocean overfishing is simply the taking of wildlife from the sea at rates too high for fished species to replace themselves. The earliest overfishing occurred in the early 1800s when humans, seeking blubber for lamp oil, decimated the whale population. Some fish that we eat, including Atlantic cod and herring and California's sardines, were also harvested to the brink of extinction by the mid-1900s.

Highly disruptive to the food chain, these isolated, regional depletions became global and catastrophic by the late 20th century

 

[Old Rocks]

http://irgc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Fisheries_Depletion_full_case_study_web.pdf

Fisheries Depletion and Collapse
By Kjellrun Hiis Hauge, Belinda Cleeland and Douglas Clyde Wilson1
The scope of human dependence on marine life is significant, both in terms of the nutritional value provided by fish and other seafood to populations (especially in the developing world) and in terms of the level of economic security the fishing industry provides for coastal communities. Marine biodiversity, in itself, also offers tangible benefits to society, via revenues earned from tourism as well as by providing useful ecosystem services, such as the maintenance of water quality [Stokstad, 2006]. Currently, however, about 25% of world fish stocks are overexploited or fully depleted and overcapacity in fishing fleets is the norm rather than the exception [FAO, 2007:29]. Indeed, many experts agree that the exploitation limit of marine resources has been reached, if not exceeded, and that this overcapacity of fleets, excessive fishing quotas, illegal fishing practices and the generally poor management of most fisheries are to blame [Rebufat, 2007:5-6]. The complete collapse of large, profitable fisheries such as the Californian sardine fishery in the 1950s, the Atlanto-Scandian herring fishery in the late 1960s, the Peruvian anchovy fishery in 1972, the Northern cod fishery off the East coast of Canada in 1992 and the North Sea cod fishery over the last decade have acted as clear warning signs that fishing practices in many parts of the world are unsustainable and that there are serious governance deficits evident in the management of fish stocks.
Although we concentrate here on overfishing as a cause of fisheries depletion and collapse, the depletion of global fish stocks cannot be attributed to fishing alone. Habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and invasive species also have an impact upon fish populations. Also, a changing environment affects stock abundance, and some stocks experience collapse from environmental causes alone. In many instances, it is quite difficult to determine the main causes of the depletion of fish stocks.

Many fisheries at risk right now, many have gone past the point of no return.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The problem with the word 'sustainable' is that it assumes normal conditions. Change those conditions, and the definition of 'sustainable' changes. Should we get an eruption like Toba, even two billion would not be sustainable. And if the weather for agriculture gets real dicey, 7 billion will not be sustainable.

Good point. We could turn the planet into a gigantic parking lot. But if we had a Star Trek replicator that assembled food from thin air, it would be sustainable

You imbecile: know what the wonks mean by 'sustainability'?????

Do you????


1. “Sustainable” is the catchword for every activist, bureaucrat, NGO…but try to get a definition. For a hint, the following are considered ‘unsustainable’ by the true believers: single family homes; paved roads; ski runs; golf courses; dams; fences; pastures; plowing of lands; sewers; drain systems; pipelines; fertilizer; wall and floor tile. These and many other elements of life today are on the list for eventual elimination.
Nickson, "Eco-Fascists,", p.9.


Do you understand??
These people are either fascists, or, like you: insane.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes, PoliticalShit, overfishing is threatoning the source of protean for about 2 billion of the worlds population.

Overfishing -- National Geographic

Ocean overfishing is simply the taking of wildlife from the sea at rates too high for fished species to replace themselves. The earliest overfishing occurred in the early 1800s when humans, seeking blubber for lamp oil, decimated the whale population. Some fish that we eat, including Atlantic cod and herring and California's sardines, were also harvested to the brink of extinction by the mid-1900s.

Highly disruptive to the food chain, these isolated, regional depletions became global and catastrophic by the late 20th century

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!"


Thanks for the warning, potty mouth......drop in again on your next day out of the 'n-n-n-nervous hospital.'

 

[Old Rocks]

World news
Soil erosion as big a problem as global warming, say scientists
Tim Radford in Seattle learns how soil threatens humanity


Tim Radford in Seattle

Saturday 14 February 2004 04.01 EST

Erosion of topsoil - already a serious problem in Australia, China and parts of the US - threatens modern civilisation as surely as it menaced societies long since vanished, researchers warned yesterday.
Jared Diamond, a physiologist at University of California Los Angeles and author of Guns, Germs and Steel, told the AAAS yesterday that Iraq, part of the Fertile Crescent in which agriculture started 10,000 years ago, was once the wealthiest, most innovative, most advanced country in the world. But today it was a "basket case", mainly because of "soil problems, salinisation, erosion, coupled with problems of deforestation".

Although more than 99% of the world's food comes from the soil, experts estimate that each year more than 10m hectares (25m acres) of crop land are degraded or lost as rain and wind sweep away topsoil. An area big enough to feed Europe - 300m hectares, about 10 times the size of the UK - has been so severely degraded it cannot produce food, according to UN figures.

In many places, soil is being lost far faster than it can be naturally regenerated.

Soil erosion as big a problem as global warming say scientists World news The Guardian

Absolutely the most ignored problem today.

 

[Treeshepherd]

The buzzword now in environmental circles is 'sustainability'.

So, we're at 7 billion people now, give or take. You all seems to think that's sustainable. Is there a number at which you might change your tune? How about 20 billion people? Would that be sustainable? Or, would you continue to argue that technology will always overcome the challenges of sustaining any number of people?

There is a certain kind of imbecile who sees a trend....any trend...and predicts that it will continue unabated.

You.

You probably wonder why babies don't continue to grow to be the size of a barn.

Never happens.

Have you noted the population trends in Europe??
Russia?

Islamic nations???

Hania Zlotnik, director of the population division at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said “In most of the Islamic world it’s amazing, the decline in fertility that has happened,’’ … From 1975 to 1980, women in Iran were giving birth to nearly 7 children per family, according to the latest U.N. population report; from 2005 to 2010 that number is expected to be less than 2. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/un-sees-big-drop-in-middle-east-fertility-rates/


"Environmentalists".....another term for really, really stupid people.



BTW.....the problem of decreasing population is so great in Turkey, that
"Turkey's President Slams Birth Control as 'Treason'"
Turkey s President Slams Birth Control as Treason

I haven't made any environmental predictions in USMB. I just asked a question.

This Ponzi scheme that our economy has become depends upon infinite growth and ever increasing rates of consumption in order to remain afloat. We live in a finite system. At some point, the shell game becomes unsustainable.

I think that's a rational position to take. It's also rational to identify with our home planet, and care for its health.

I saw a Chinese guy at the harbor the other day. He was asking for directions, in Chinese. Long story short, he throws his milk carton into the water. "No, no, no" I said, pointing to the garbage can right beside us. He motioned with his hands, indicating that his trash would sink. It was a case of a person just not grasping the concept of environmental responsibility.

 

[Old Rocks]

http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/resources/agricultureclimate.pdf

We highlight the following conclusions regarding the current state of the U.S. agricultural sector:
Since the 1970s, U.S. agriculture has achieved enhanced productivity, but has also experiencedgreater variability in crop yields, prices, and farm income. The changes in variabilityare, in part, climate-related, either directly (through extreme weather events) or
indirectly (due to agricultural pests and diseases).

Extreme weather events have caused severe crop damage and have exacted a significant
economic toll for U.S. farmers over the last 20 years. Total estimated damages, of which
agricultural losses are a part, from the 1988 summer drought were on the order of $56 billion(normalized to 1998 dollars using an inflation wealth index), while those from the
1993 Mississippi River Valley floods exceeded $23 billion.
Both pest damage and pesticide use have increased since 1970. Nationally, in the 1990s,
pests were estimated to have destroyed about one third of our crops, in spite of advances
in pest control technology over the last half century.
The ranges of several important crop pests in the U.S., including the soybean cyst nematode[the most destructive soybean pest in the U.S.] and corn gray leaf blight [the majordisease causing corn yield losses] have expanded since the early 1970s, possibly in
response, in part, to climate trends.

Pest and disease occurrences often coincide with extreme weather events and with
anomalous weather conditions, such as early or late rains, and decreased or increased
humidity, which by themselves can alter agricultural output. Recent climate trends, such
as increased nighttime and winter temperatures, may be contributing to the greater prevalence of crop pests.

This is not discussing the affects of climate change on a third world nation, but our own nation. Things that we are seeing right now. And people like PoliticalShit wish to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it is not happening.

 

[PoliticalChic]

World news
Soil erosion as big a problem as global warming, say scientists
Tim Radford in Seattle learns how soil threatens humanity


Tim Radford in Seattle

Saturday 14 February 2004 04.01 EST

Erosion of topsoil - already a serious problem in Australia, China and parts of the US - threatens modern civilisation as surely as it menaced societies long since vanished, researchers warned yesterday.
Jared Diamond, a physiologist at University of California Los Angeles and author of Guns, Germs and Steel, told the AAAS yesterday that Iraq, part of the Fertile Crescent in which agriculture started 10,000 years ago, was once the wealthiest, most innovative, most advanced country in the world. But today it was a "basket case", mainly because of "soil problems, salinisation, erosion, coupled with problems of deforestation".

Although more than 99% of the world's food comes from the soil, experts estimate that each year more than 10m hectares (25m acres) of crop land are degraded or lost as rain and wind sweep away topsoil. An area big enough to feed Europe - 300m hectares, about 10 times the size of the UK - has been so severely degraded it cannot produce food, according to UN figures.

In many places, soil is being lost far faster than it can be naturally regenerated.

Soil erosion as big a problem as global warming say scientists World news The Guardian

Absolutely the most ignored problem today.

Thanks for proving my point, potty mouth.....

"Although more than 99% of the world's food comes from the soil,..."

Your stupid post in the face of the fact that there is more and more food produced every year.

You imbecile.



"Facts

• Approximately 40 percent of food in the U.S. goes to waste. Food and Agriculture Organization
• Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tons — gets lost or wasted. Food and Agriculture Organization
• Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tons) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons). Food and Agriculture Organization
• Over 97% of food waste generated ends up in the landfill. (Environmental Protection Agency)"
• Facts