Save the Planet!

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

What nonsense , there are fixed resources , water , pollution loadings, oil , etc that cannot be circumvented.

You can call it nonsense, but why do you assume Oil will be needed 100yrs from now? Why won't a new clean source of energy come along and make Oil as useful as a buggy whipp?

See back when horses pulled people around in cities there was a huge problem with horse crap. Those looking at huge cities like we have today would be screaming the same panic about we can't have a the size of Los Angeles...we will run out of room to put the horse crap. What the doomsdayers of each eara don't factor into their equation is technological development. Sure there is polution and a mess along the way, but if we would have listened to the "world/city carring capacity" pushers of the day we wouldn't be where we are today.

I see most of the list of fears here being stuck in today's technology...and having a lack of vision for what is around the corner.

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

On the simple measure of species extinction, we are in the midst of one of the planet's great mass-extinctions; this one caused by us. .

Mike if you REALLY believe we are in the midst of the greatest mass extinction, then I can recommend some good Evolutionary Biology books I still have from my school days. As you might not be aware, looking back at Geologic History of our planet shows that Extinctions are the RULE for the vast majority of living species that have ever lived on the planet.

This is the hype metality so often thrown around as scare slogans in todays so called Enviromnental movement. As as scientist myself, holder of environmental clean-up patents and years in the Enironmental clean-up and control field it hurts SCIENCE when exaggerations are throw around to scare people into believing one point of view or another.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

You can call it nonsense, but why do you assume Oil will be needed 100yrs from now? Why won't a new clean source of energy come along and make Oil as useful as a buggy whipp?...

LOL, why....back in the 70's I heard predictions that FUSION was gonna be just around the corner. Hell, FISSION nuclear energy was gonna be too cheap to meter!

So you disparage 1970's predictions you don't like (even though they are on track), but ignore those failed predictions that run against your bias?

Too cheap to meter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Too cheap to meter describes a concept in which a commodity is so inexpensive that it is more cost-effective and less bureaucratic to simply provide it for a flat fee or even free and make a profit from associated services.

Although sometimes attributed to Walter Marshall, a pioneer of nuclear power in the United Kingdom,[1] the phrase was coined by Lewis Strauss, then Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, who in a 1954 speech to the National Association of Science Writers said:

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter... It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age."[2]

Below a an interestingly balanced view

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/...uclear-fusion/

I am sympathetic to delayed predictions, and the fact that fusion has failed to deliver on the promise that it’s “just around the corner” for decades does not mean that it will never arrive. I can compare this to Malthus’ insight that exponential population growth was on a collision course with finite agricultural capability, or to various warnings about collapse along the way. Just because the predictions have not yet been satisfied does not mean that they will not be someday. In fact, the two divergent predictions become related. If we can manage to hold it together this century and maintain a high-tech civilization during our forced transition off of fossil fuels, it becomes far more likely that we will get to the point of employing fusion. If, on the other hand, we overshoot and collapse, we may descend too far to viably pursue fusion this century.

- See more at: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/....W8dDD5rz.dpuf

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

You can call it nonsense, but why do you assume Oil will be needed 100yrs from now? Why won't a new clean source of energy come along and make Oil as useful as a buggy whipp?

.

Because ( a) I'm not prepared to bet that technology can always bail us out and (b) more importantly , vague promises of a future Utopia in no way diminish the resolve to fix the problems we have today. For example the mere notion that some technology might in the future render a particular form of pollution redundant , in no way should be construed as permitting such pollution to continue today.

Dave

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by hpeer

So you disparage 1970's predictions you don't like (even though they are on track), but ignore those failed predictions that run against your bias?

No not at all. As a Scientist I don't like or dislike predicitons, data sets, computer models, or predictions. All I have to go on is the facts on the ground and when the popular science of the day from the 70's predicted a lower planet carring capacity than we have today (off by factors) then I have the lense of history and DATA to call them Bogus. No right or left wing conspiracy...just Bogus Science.

Look, people love a good doomsday story. It's good for science funding, good for new headlines but in the end it only hurts the reputation of science when bogus predicitons of doom never happen. Like the boy who cried Wolf.

The needed regulations will be passed, people will complain and when we dirty things up we will fix them....as we have since Nixon created the EPA.
The over the top panic what's I'm calling BS on folks, not the need for regulations or reasonable controls to keep baby squirls from dying

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Because ( a) I'm not prepared to bet that technology can always bail us out and (b) more importantly , vague promises of a future Utopia in no way diminish the resolve to fix the problems we have today. For example the mere notion that some technology might in the future render a particular form of pollution redundant , in no way should be construed as permitting such pollution to continue today.

Dave

Unfortuantely Dave...I think all ya got is my approach, because if you really think 300 million Americans are going to give up their livestyles or that a Billion in China are not going to want the "American Dream of Waste" then you have not studied the human Animal close enough.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Unfortuantely Dave...I think all ya got is my approach, because if you really think 300 million Americans are going to give up their livestyles or that a Billion in China are not going to want the "American Dream of Waste" then you have not studied the human Animal close enough.

Yes but increasingly regulations are applied in America and elsewhere to attempt to curb our worst excesses. Hopefully before its too late. My Air is cleaner then 20 years ago , my car pollutes less, my washing machine and toilet use less water. My central heating is more efficient due to vastly improved insulation standards, etc,etc,etc

All this through regulation , which funnily most people " accept"

Dave

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yes but increasingly regulations are applied in America and elsewhere to attempt to curb our worst excesses. Hopefully before its too late. My Air is cleaner then 20 years ago , my car pollutes less, my washing machine and toilet use less water. My central heating is more efficient due to vastly improved insulation standards, etc,etc,etc

All this through regulation , which funnily most people " accept"

Dave

Which was really my point, we will accept the regulations necessary (and bitch and moan all the way about not being able to buy an Old School Light bulb anymore...that's the American way) but at the end of the day....we are not really doing that bad. Regulations are part of the human condition and I don't know anyone who seriously wants to get rid of them all. Even the most strident Capatialist sees the needs for good efficient regulations...there's the Rub....some regulatons (can we say ETHANOL) are disasters and need to be looked at scientifically rather than politically and as money give aways to the Farmers at the expense of the poor, just to buy the votes of the farm states. Burning food for fuel that is a results in a net LOSS of Btus is flat out crazy...yet....it is the perfect example of how the Government gets out of control and we can't stop questioning authority!

[sabray]

What's a light bulb?

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by sabray

What's a light bulb?

My kids actually have NO IDEA either, they call them LEDs...I call them dramatic Irony.

[nimblemotors]

Ethanol made sense if oil prices keep going up up up, but they didn't, oil sands and fracking made cheap c02 again. This is unfortunate, we need oil at $500/barrel to stop burning it.
It is so useful for making other things, like epoxy, but we burn it all up.

Technology tends to actually make things more sensitive to crashes, more uniformity, more dependency. Sure, they will figure out how to turn slime and jellyfish into food,
but it won't bring back tuna. Chickens have been modified they can't even reproduce without technology intervention.
So this kind of thing sets up an even bigger crash if things go bad and the machines don't work anymore. I mean, the internet is great, until it stops working, your computer or company or website is hacked, etc.

I certainly have not given up.
I am working on the solar powered boat and electric cars.
My son has also been motivated to find ways to make positive changes in the world.

"Help your brothers boat across, and your own will reach the shore" -- Hindu Proverb

[captain58sailin]

Just in case anyone is interested, here is the web site for the Anti-Pebble mine people.Save Bristol Bay
Save Bristol Bay is the anti,
Pebble Partnership is the pro.
Anyone with half a brain can see that building this mine is a bad idea all around. The potential down side far out weighs any possible good.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Mike if you REALLY believe we are in the midst of the greatest mass extinction, then I can recommend some good Evolutionary Biology books I still have from my school days. As you might not be aware, looking back at Geologic History of our planet shows that Extinctions are the RULE for the vast majority of living species that have ever lived on the planet.

This is the hype metality so often thrown around as scare slogans in todays so called Enviromnental movement. As as scientist myself, holder of environmental clean-up patents and years in the Enironmental clean-up and control field it hurts SCIENCE when exaggerations are throw around to scare people into believing one point of view or another.

Perhaps it is time to update your reading from your school days Third. First off, I refer to the current mass extinction going on, which some name the Holocene extinction. As I assume you know, extinctions are common, but mass extinctions are not. There have been five mass extinction events that we know of right now. Researchers have been debating and discussing what appears to be a sixth one, of which we are in the midst of, and which seems to be linked to humans. This scientific discussion has been going on for a decade or more.

I offer for you some papers on the subject. Perhaps you can offer some informed critique once you've updated your readings:

• Nature: Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?
  
• Royal Society (Biology): The Present, Past and Future of Human-Caused Extinctions
  
• Trends in Ecology and Evolution Journal: Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact
  
• PNAS: The current biodiversity extinction event: Scenarios for mitigation and recovery
  
• Centre for Biological Diversity: THE EXTINCTION CRISIS

... I could go on.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Unfortuantely Dave...I think all ya got is my approach, because if you really think 300 million Americans are going to give up their livestyles or that a Billion in China are not going to want the "American Dream of Waste" then you have not studied the human Animal close enough.

In this I agree with you Third. This is exactly why I am pessimistic about our future on this planet. We as a species are able to see that our current rates of resource consumption and waste production are unsustainable, yet we are unable to do anything about it. Just like all other animals, we will only stop our exploitation when we hit hard limits.

We really are no different that every other species on this planet. Species expand to their ecological limits. Population growth then stops (and sometimes crashes) and a balance is found. Our principle evolutionary adaptation; our big brains, have allowed us to adapt to a far greater extent than most other species, but we still face the same realities of living within a finite resource.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

In this I agree with you Third. This is exactly why I am pessimistic about our future on this planet. We as a species are able to see that our current rates of resource consumption and waste production are unsustainable, yet we are unable to do anything about it. Just like all other animals, we will only stop our exploitation when we hit hard limits.

We really are no different that every other species on this planet. Species expand to their ecological limits. Population growth then stops (and sometimes crashes) and a balance is found. Our principle evolutionary adaptation; our big brains, have allowed us to adapt to a far greater extent than most other species, but we still face the same realities of living within a finite resource.

Mike, if you are correct and I think you are, then are we fighting a losing battle? Are all the "green" things we do just postponing the inevitable? I look at some of the mess here in the US and think yea we can clean this up, but then I look at the mess in Thailand and think .. no way this can be turned around or stopped. The plastic alone is strangling everything.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Doodles

Mike, if you are correct and I think you are, then are we fighting a losing battle? Are all the "green" things we do just postponing the inevitable? I look at some of the mess here in the US and think yea we can clean this up, but then I look at the mess in Thailand and think .. no way this can be turned around or stopped. The plastic alone is strangling everything.

Purely because we may think its a loosing battle , doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying , if anything we should accelerate our efforts. Every major country is making some attempt to clean its mess to a greater or lesser extent. All of it helps

We keep bailing even of the ship is going down , cause we ain't got an alternative , were going with it.

Dave