population, energy, and simple math

Started by dug, March 03, 2011, 05:04:07 PM

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dug

Though this lecture is a bit dated it reinforces what I believe is the obvious truth. No glitz, no special effects, no agendas. Heck, even the graphs are boring black and white.

Politicians distort facts, propaganda targets, but math doesn't lie.

There are 8 parts in this series, I know time is valuable but I think this is well worthwhile.

most important video you'll ever see

Sassy

http://glennkathystroglodytecabin.blogspot.com/

You will know the truth & the truth will set you free


muldoon

I'm 99% sure he is talking about this series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY  (1 of 8) follow the youtube links for the rest

dug

Oops, must have hit the wrong button.   d*

Thanks Muldoon, that's it.

peternap

I just watched a Doc on the same thing Dug.

It pretty much reinforces what most of us know and most of them won't accept. The natural balance is way out of whack and something is coming.

We take more and more out of this earth and don't give anything back.
The real question is...What is going to start killing us off first ???
These here is God's finest scupturings! And there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches, except for this right here!


considerations


OlJarhead

I haven't watched the video but wanted to comment first:

We are part of nature, therefore nature is not out of balance, nature is as balanced as it ever was -- it's just our perception of that balance that is 'out'.

As I slog through the snow and ponder the temperatures this year, and read what I've read etc etc I know one thing is for certain:  Anthropogenic Global Warming is a political agenda, propaganda, hogwash.

While sitting in my cabin I contemplate:  Those typically screaming the loudest about the earths plight (and yes WE are polluting it) live in the biggest cesspools created by mankind:  The Cities.  Those same city dwellers, who ARE the problem, attempt to tell those of us not living in the city (you know, actually living out of the city and trying to reduce our own waste while producing natural foods and giving back via composting etc etc) how to solve it.

Reality is that there are too many people on the earth and it will not change no matter what anyone does or thinks, through any political campaign.  Worse still, those who try to get things to change fail to notice they have been co-opted by socialists -- the worst scourge on the earth but who's paying attention?

I beleive that nature will solve the problem sooner or later -- either by allowing us to pollute ourselves off the planet (unlikely) or by allowing us to kill ourselves off (likely), or by allowing nature or the heavens to do so (possible).  Anyone who thinks that through government lies the answer is a fool -- just ask the Russians who lived by the Aral Sea that one.

So in the end I guess it all comes down to this:  If you care then leave the city (no excuses), live as clean a life as you can, return to nature as much as you can and do you part but be wary of anyone who wants to force others to do the same because those are more to fear then mans blight.  After all, nature will take care of itself, it always does, and you cannot change that, but if you give man the power to force people to be more 'nature friendly' you also give him the power to gas people and I have not yet seen a race, religion, color, creed, or type of man yet who can resist the power to rule.

Erik

MountainDon

I read somewhere that if all the people in NYC were spread out in a less dense pattern, something more like a small town density, they would occupy all the land in all six New England states plus Delaware and New Jersey. So in a way the dense pack population makes much better use of roads, pipes for this and that, electricity and so on, than if all those people were spread out. Think of all the miles of sewage pipes that would be needed.

I don't think cities are necessarily evil and rather like living in a moderate size city (pop. 80,000) near a medium size city (pop. 600,000). There are a variety of sources for a wide variety of goods. It's not so big that it is difficult to get around. My motor fuel use is much less than the friends we have in the mountains near our cabin. I believe if we all lived in the countryside we would have an even bigger energy hole to deal with. If the 80,000 population of my home town were spread out over the empty parts of the state I shudder to think of how many septic systems there would be, each at many thousands of dollars, or how much sewage would be improperly disposed of. Add the expense of drilling thousands more wells, many reaching 600 foot depths.

How can we have factories to make things in America, if we don't cluster in cities to make it easier for people to get to those jobs; can't tele-commute to make refrigerators or Hondas? Maybe the cities don't have to be the size of NYC, LA, etc. I think a size of around 1,000,000 makes for a good maximum size. Five hundred thousand to a million brings a certain economy of scale. Alexandria, Egypt had a million before Christ. Rome, Baghdad, several cities in China reached populations of a million "way back when".

Just an opinion.
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

OlJarhead

I watched train car after train car of garbage being transferred to trucks and trucked up a hill to be dumped into a pile the size of a mountain....from Seattle.

Suburb after suburb is built after mowing down forest after forest.

Sewage is dumped into the Columbia in Portland because they cannot handle the load (no pun intended).  Pollution billows forth like steam from an engine.

Yet, in a small town in the country the smog does not hang about, the sewage is handled without dumping into rivers, the garbage is managed locally on a smaller scale and so on.

Doesn't mean cities don't have uses, I just think they are the scourge of mankind.  As for factories etc, they all exist in China now -- ok maybe that's a poor joke but it has some merit.  With modern technology you do not need a city to find employees etc.  Towns can handle that.

I should clarify though, when I say City I tend to mean Megatropolis -- as in anything that has a million or more people living in it and/or the surrounding area (Portland, Seattle, maybe Spokane, Boise etc in the NW and the obvious LA, New York etc).


Windpower

The experiment has already been done on a 'small' scale

64 square mile Easter Island

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_time_were_taking_the_whole_planet_with_us_20110307/?ln

and it didn't turn out too well

Often, our ignorance is not as great as our reluctance to act on what we know.

h0rizon

Humans are an invasive species.  All invasive species rules apply - including the eventual mass dying that occurs when resources eventually run out.

The interesting variable lies in our ability to innovate.  Unlike invasive fish or pigs (wild boars are running rampant apparently) we can invent and create and raise own our ceiling limits.  It's almost impossible to determine when a global backlash would happen; perhaps we figure out tomorrow how to harvest the sun's energy and multiply our energy ceiling x100.  Perhaps we figure out how to raise crops efficiently on building roofs and sides.  Maybe we finally figure out how to recycle materials with 100% efficiency.  Or maybe we finally realize that iPods/iPads are cool but food on the table is more important.

One thing to note:  We've had more breakthroughs, inventions and information in the past few hundred years than we have in hundreds of thousands.  We've also had a growing population.  It seems like the more people, the better the chance for a technological breakthrough.

It may seem like backwards logic, but maybe we need more people on the planet in order to discover our path to balance and harmony with nature.....

Who knows?
"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy

peternap

Quote from: h0rizon on March 08, 2011, 02:13:26 PM

It may seem like backwards logic, but maybe we need more people on the planet in order to discover our path to balance and harmony with nature.....

Who knows?

Pl eeeze.....We need to thin them down. Don't give them any ideas :-\
These here is God's finest scupturings! And there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches, except for this right here!

dug

Great article Windpower!

QuoteThe Mayan elite became, at the end, as the anthropologist Ronald Wright notes in "A Short History of Progress," "... extremists, or ultra-conservatives, squeezing the last drops of profit from nature and humanity." This is how all civilizations, including our own, ossify and die. The signs of imminent death may be undeniable. Common sense may cry out for a radical new response. But the race toward self-immolation only accelerates because of intellectual and moral paralysis. As Sigmund Freud grasped in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and "Civilization and Its Discontents," human societies are as intoxicated and blinded by their own headlong rush toward death and destruction as they are by the search for erotic fulfillment.


I think the whole story is very well stated but I quoted the above because I think that's what bothers me the most about the whole deal. I believe that the human race is technically capable of solving the current and impending problems that plague us. We seem capable of performing all sorts of miracles when properly motivated, cloning sheep, splitting atoms, genetically modified microwavable dinners, square watermelons, nano bots, supersonic ballistic missiles, an I-phone for every pot (replacing the chicken), and the list could obviously go on to no end.

Yet in reality we can't gather any significant interest towards solving the most potentially dangerous threats and seem content and resolved to let everything play out to it's bitter conclusion, preferring instead to focus on the more tangible tasks on hand and assuring ourselves that everything is perfectly fine, will be fixed in due time, or are hopelessly beyond our control anyway. 2+2=3! I would feel much better if people could be more honest and admit that yes- we are behaving like a bunch of punch drunk, hormone saturated adolescents with 3 maxed out credit cards but could you please stop bothering us with your grim reminders and just let me enjoy my scotch and cigar!   That I could at least respect and accept. It's the blind eye that I have a hard time with, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

As for cities, I'm all for them- a country boy's best friend!  :) am very grateful most folks want to live there.













OlJarhead

Quote from: Windpower on March 08, 2011, 11:11:17 AM
The experiment has already been done on a 'small' scale

64 square mile Easter Island

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_time_were_taking_the_whole_planet_with_us_20110307/?ln

and it didn't turn out too well



Bunk.

It all depends on what you think is 'turning out well'.  Easter Island may well return to a forested island some day, we tend to forget that whimpy humans only last 100 years or so and have only been really expanding since the last cold period.  We could well be extinct in 1000 years and that will be nothing more then a drop in the hat in Earth time.  Look at the dinosaurs.

Truth is, we may or may not survive but the Earth will -- at least until the sun goes supernova and nukes the planet, but until then the Earth will plod on with or without us.

I guess my point is that Nature has a way of curing it's ills and in the case of the humans on Easter Island it simply allowed them to kill themselves off - their bad.  Now the island is plodding along and who knows what it might look like in 10,000 years?



Sassy

I noticed some of you are quoting different sources, so I thought I'd quote out of my favorite book...  :)  Romans 1:18-32 in the New Testament pretty much sums up what you guys have been talking about... 

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because
they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.


All this talk about too many people - who's going to volunteer 1st to rid the earth of this "invasive species?"   ???
http://glennkathystroglodytecabin.blogspot.com/

You will know the truth & the truth will set you free

h0rizon

QuoteAll this talk about too many people - who's going to volunteer 1st to rid the earth of this "invasive species?"   Huh?

That's what kind of makes me wonder about this "one world government" or "above the government" discussions around here.  There are certainly people out there that understand this stuff well, and have modeled what the over-consumption/overpopulation double whammy will probably lead to.  And those very people may be trying to course-correct at the expense of individual freedoms (or capitalize on the opportunity).

If the earth can support 10 billion people consuming X resources each, and there are 10 billion people consuming X resources, then everything is in balance.  But what happens when those people choose to consume more or produce more children?  It is their god-given right afterall, their freedom to do so.  Then you end up having 11 billion people, or 10 billion consuming 1.2X resources, and now there is a real problem.  People must then compete for resources, and ultimately some loose and die.  Everyone ends up suffering as a result. 

Or, you take away those freedoms such that people cannot choose to have more children or consume more.  Everyone still suffers from the lack of freedom. 

I don't think there will be volunteers.  It will be forced one way or the other out of necessity, be it from a global entity controlling the world, natural attrition, or God him/herself.
"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy

peternap

Quote from: dug on March 08, 2011, 04:03:11 PM

QuoteAs for cities, I'm all for them- a country boy's best friend!  :) am very grateful most folks want to live there.














These here is God's finest scupturings! And there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches, except for this right here!

dug

QuoteBunk.

It all depends on what you think is 'turning out well'.

I think the point of the article was that they ate themselves out of house and home, and to illustrate how that was a comparable microcosm of what is happening on a much grander scale today. I don't think anyone is arguing that we humans will destroy the earth, only its ability to support us. The earth will be just fine and most likely will hardly notice we were ever here. I'm not bothered that our species will eventually fade into history but I am bothered that we seem determined to make that happen as soon as possible, pedal to the metal and a brick wall ahead, and with no benefit to us (the masses) but only for the elite few.

This is an example of an exponential graph-



And with the population everything else follows- energy use, national debt, consumer debt, Co2 emissions, prison populations, military spending, food production, all have similar graph curves. Mining finite resources will eventually produce the opposite, a downward exponential curve, and with exponentially rising demand this will happen sooner rather than later.

Exponential growth is deceptive. If nothing changes, and there are no indications that it will, we will have to produce as much energy in the next 30 years as we have in all of history. I'm not saying there is necessarily a solution, maybe we control our destiny no more than bacteria in a petri dish.  But I do think that unless this issue is acknowledged all other attempts to maximize energy production are folly. Energy policies, political affiliations, conservation, will little matter.


ScottA

Hey that chart looks just like the national debt chart...and the global warming chart....umm nevermind.

dug



Never mentioned anything of global warming. Poke all the fun you want, I can take it.

I think these signs are worthy of great concern, but I would be very interested to hear a valid reason why they are not.



ScottA

I was more joking at myself since I'm the one who always says the data is faked to shape an agenda. I still belive it is but somewhere in there maybe something useful to the rest of us. Most of what you say is true dug but don't be in a rush to belive the people that show up with the solutions because they may have other ideas you aren't aware of. Population is an issue, but what is the solution? I don't have one and I sure as hell don't want the government to come up with one. So lets see how do we decide who lives and who dies? How do we decide who gets born and who doesn't? You see the delima?

OlJarhead

Quote from: dug on March 09, 2011, 12:03:26 PM
QuoteBunk.

It all depends on what you think is 'turning out well'.

I think the point of the article was that they ate themselves out of house and home, and to illustrate how that was a comparable microcosm of what is happening on a much grander scale today. I don't think anyone is arguing that we humans will destroy the earth, only its ability to support us. The earth will be just fine and most likely will hardly notice we were ever here. I'm not bothered that our species will eventually fade into history but I am bothered that we seem determined to make that happen as soon as possible, pedal to the metal and a brick wall ahead, and with no benefit to us (the masses) but only for the elite few.

This is an example of an exponential graph-



And with the population everything else follows- energy use, national debt, consumer debt, Co2 emissions, prison populations, military spending, food production, all have similar graph curves. Mining finite resources will eventually produce the opposite, a downward exponential curve, and with exponentially rising demand this will happen sooner rather than later.

Exponential growth is deceptive. If nothing changes, and there are no indications that it will, we will have to produce as much energy in the next 30 years as we have in all of history. I'm not saying there is necessarily a solution, maybe we control our destiny no more than bacteria in a petri dish.  But I do think that unless this issue is acknowledged all other attempts to maximize energy production are folly. Energy policies, political affiliations, conservation, will little matter.



Yes yes, but the real problem (aside from killing ourselves off which isn't a bad thing in terms of 'natures balance') is that the 'elite few' are not what most who make this kind of statement think.  You see, for the last 100 years (or so) there has been a concerted effort by an elite few to convince the general population that an elite few have held them down when in reality those original elite few want exactly that.

Look to the Aral sea and ask yourself:  which rich corporation did this horrific thing?  And the answer is NONE.  No sir, it wasn't the 'Evil Corporations' that drained the sea but rather those Socialist/Communist/Leninist/Stalinist 'Elite Few'.  You see the problem is a simple one that all efforts to create a 'one world government' forget:  Governments have guns and both good and evil men whereas businesses only have the good and evil men.

Rockefeller was labeled a robber baron and an evil bad guy but he lowered the cost of heating and lighting oil from a place that only the wealthy could afford to where everyone could afford (Kerosene from ~$170/barrel to $16 a barrel) and saved the whales (probably) and for that he got rich and was called an evil man?  Why?  Maybe becuase the rich socialists didn't like the fact that the poor shop worker suddenly could afford the oil too?

All across America freedom has shown one thing: Free men might get rich if they work hard but in doing so they will bring others with them and improve the lot of many around them.

On the other hand socialist/Marxist/whateverist nations show something else:  the Elite run the country and everyone else starves.

So I guess my point is that if you want to solve the problem you must first start with Freedom and Liberty and then let mankind fix himself  -- and before you suggest he won't I'd suggest you read the following book which pretty much proves otherwise:  "The really Inconvenient Book:  7 deadly environmental disasters the Liberals don't want you to know about"

One thing the book proves rather well is that private property solves pollution problems where public property does not -- let that sink in for a bit and then ask yourself:  If I own a piece of waterfront property am I going to let some jerk dump oil all over it?

Finally:  if you do not trust man to run free enterprise then why on earth would you trust him to run government?

Windpower

OJH


Corporations are not evil or good (OK, there are a few exceptions. I think Monsanto, for example, is trully an evil corporation run by psychopaths)

Corporations are not evil or good. They are very powerful amoral entities that have as 'their' goal to get bigger and more powerful and create more 'profit' by any means they can get awy with (including of course buying the Congress and Judges and placing the most pliable puppet in the White House.)

Corporations don't care about the well being of people, the environment, countries anything --  they do care about the well being of the corporation and short term profit.

quote
"One thing the book proves rather well is that private property solves pollution problems where public property does not -- let that sink in for a bit and then ask yourself:  If I own a piece of waterfront property am I going to let some jerk dump oil all over it?"
unquote

case in point --- how's that working for the property owners on the Gulf of Mexico


BP DOESN'T CARE !!!


How's that working for the people of Bhopal India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster



UNION CARBIDE DOESN'T CARE !!!


How's that working for the 13,000,000 families that are getting foreclosed on because banks sold bogus bond funds and us taxpayers had to bail out AIG and others

FCIC report here

http://www.fcic.gov/report


WALL STREET, BEN BERNANKE AND THE BIG BANKS DON'T CARE !!!






Often, our ignorance is not as great as our reluctance to act on what we know.

OlJarhead

Quote from: Windpower on March 10, 2011, 11:43:56 AM
OJH


Corporations are not evil or good (OK, there are a few exceptions. I think Monsanto, for example, is trully an evil corporation run by psychopaths)

Corporations are not evil or good. They are very powerful amoral entities that have as 'their' goal to get bigger and more powerful and create more 'profit' by any means they can get awy with (including of course buying the Congress and Judges and placing the most pliable puppet in the White House.)

Corporations don't care about the well being of people, the environment, countries anything --  they do care about the well being of the corporation and short term profit.

quote
"One thing the book proves rather well is that private property solves pollution problems where public property does not -- let that sink in for a bit and then ask yourself:  If I own a piece of waterfront property am I going to let some jerk dump oil all over it?"
unquote

case in point --- how's that working for the property owners on the Gulf of Mexico


BP DOESN'T CARE !!!


How's that working for the people of Bhopal India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster



UNION CARBIDE DOESN'T CARE !!!


How's that working for the 13,000,000 families that are getting foreclosed on because banks sold bogus bond funds and us taxpayers had to bail out AIG and others

FCIC report here

http://www.fcic.gov/report


WALL STREET, BEN BERNANKE AND THE BIG BANKS DON'T CARE !!!








Do you presume to think that Government with or without corporate influence is any different?  If so, you are sadly mistaken.  The problem, which I am trying to point out, is that there are no 'angels' out there who will run government in the manner those who hate corporations seem to think -- just look at history.

As for BP etc, did you even read what I wrote?  The Aral Sea was completely drained my friend, and NOT by a corporation but rather by a Government.  The worst environments and environmental disasters are not by corporations but by governments or government controlled corporations.

As for the private property impacted by BP etc, I only ask this:  is it over?  Historically it has been private owners who resolved these kinds of problems through court systems and the only time it has been otherwise is when governments get in the way.  BP is a good example, instead of allowing or encouraging private owners from going after BP the federal government brokered a deal which, as always with government, became corrupted. 

In the end the only thing that really matters, which is what I'm trying to get across, is that MEN run corporations and there are both good and bad men AND MEN run governments and there are good and bad men -- but governments have armies, legal systems and regulatory commissions.  Something those corporations DO NOT have.

Furthermore, it is historically factual that while those evil corporations got richer and richer they dragged the masses up behind them.  This is something progressives (socialists et al) do not advertise or teach.  Why?  Because it would not serve their agenda which is to convince you that they alone can solve your problems -- which always results in their tyranny and oppression.

Do not be fooled.

dug

QuoteSo I guess my point is that if you want to solve the problem you must first start with Freedom and Liberty and then let mankind fix himself  -- and before you suggest he won't I'd suggest you read the following book which pretty much proves otherwise:  "The really Inconvenient Book:  7 deadly environmental disasters the Liberals don't want you to know about"

Though I may give it a read the title makes me apprehensive, whenever I hear conservatives bashing liberals or vice versa I see red flags everywhere. I believe this to be a huge problem in itself, a purposely incited civil war between the soldiers of the reds and blues. I won't do battle for either side.
Corporations are neither evil nor immoral IMO, but amoral- land sharks doing what they must do, eat or be eaten. Government and corporations are becoming more and more synonyomous and must be regarded accordingly.

QuotePopulation is an issue, but what is the solution? I don't have one and I sure as hell don't want the government to come up with one. So lets see how do we decide who lives and who dies? How do we decide who gets born and who doesn't? You see the delima?

I find it strange that the first thing that comes to most peoples minds when the population issue is raised is government infringement, loss of freedom and liberties, communism, Hitler, etc. My fear is the opposite, an escalated level of all these evils unless the population rise is confronted. Less people would ease pressure for nearly everything, including government infringement IMO. I fail to see any down side to a world with more elbow room.

As for how to go about it I have no idea either but a single step is at least a start. How about tax rebates for getting a vasectomy, maybe throw in a wide screen TV or something to sweeten the pot a little? Government incentives to have less children (not penalties for more!). Things like this would not infringe on anyones rights or freedoms in any way. Maybe if people were aware that there is a problem they might actually act on their own- crazy talk I know, but as OlJarhead said maybe mankind could actually help themselves without government aid. I've mentioned before that there are species of "dumb" animals that slow their reproductive rates when they are too many or times are hard, so who knows, maybe even we could do it?  I doubt it, but I'm too stupid to give up hope. 
d*