The environmentalist

Keppler space craft better find another livable planet we can reach quickly!

We are not likely to destroy our planet,degrade it maybe,but not destroy it.We may make conditions for human life impossible,but the earth will live on past humankind. The next generation of earthly biota may evolve into better stewards,or possibly,the planet earth simply experiences an ongoing series of mass extinctions every few eons followed by regeneration of new life forms.

But back to the here and now,the pesky environmentalists are barely being heard and the fun loving entropists are having their way with mother earth.Live for today,don't ya know.

Mr. Gore, that shirt is never going to fit you. May I suggest an XXXL. Or Sniff, sniff, smells like hippie.

nucanuck says, "the pesky environmentalists are barely being heard"

That's great, I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Tell us some more.

This is great.

What a wonderful message, same as religion, live it, not just talk it. The throw away society and over population will have consequences.

We have three major barriers to improving our environment: 1) greed, 2) ignorance and 3) over population. It's unlikely we will ever significantly change the first two, but the first two may provide a solution to the third.

Actually, EaTn, you've likely 'hit the nail squarely on the head'. At least as far the major barriers are concerned.

The only part of your statement I find fault with is the fact, as it was told to me many years ago, "You can overcome anything in life except ignorance, yours or theirs. Yours, likely because that is what you wanted and theirs because it was also likely the path of least resistance."

So, it would follow, if ignorance is the only stumbling block in the way of progress,or reclamation, we're doomed.

Thank you for your time and attention, Woody

As usual, your cartoon is the "fats"meow! It signals that we'll HAVE TO trim down PURRdy soon, or else.

No doubt, he'll have to lose A LOT of weight to fit into that shirt.

Honestly, I don't know how even SCOTTYM can argue against a sensible reduction in our country's consumption of natural resources. The United States may be a world leader, but it's leading in the wrong direction. With less than 5 percent of the planet's population, we produce almost a quarter of its greenhouse-gas emissions, consume nearly a third of the world's electricity, and use 43% of its gasoline.

Our nation's consumption of global resources will always being disproportionate to population size, but that doesn't mean it has to be so obscenely out of whack. You don't have to be a 'hippy' (as SCOTTYM seems to assert) to understand that we need to reform our gluttonous ways.

EaTn called it - population growth especially in third world countries is the real threat to the environment. Global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it may well be an issue but it's mostly hysteria designed to suit special interest groups (and make Big Al even richer). What caused "global warming" when the glaciers melted millions of years ago? Certainly not human activity. Nature does have its cycles y'know.

Ollie, You forgot to mention how much of the world goods and services we produce. It changes the perception a bit.

Thank you EaTn!

Sailorman

While third world countries' population is certainly a large and growing problem,it is we in the developed world who are gobbling up the world's resourses.1.5 billion of us are consuming 17 times more resourses than our counterparts in the third world.We,I'm afraid,we are the bigger problem.

Now the question is,what is each of us willing to do about it?

My three generational family household is trying.We are down to two cars(one econobox and one hauler)for four adult drivers;we walk to most services(grocery,bank, post office,etc.);we bicycle;we rent out the extra bedroom to a Chinese student who helps my grand daughter with her Mandarin;we are increasing our garden output each year and planning an 'aquaponic' greenhouse for the near future;and we recycle everything possible.Our household of seven creates about one small can of waste a week.

We don't feel virtuous,or even that we are doing enough,but we do feel that we are making a start and teaching our two grand kids to think toward becoming good stewards for our endangered planet.

And you, nucanuck

Clara

I don't understand your last comment.

Nature is a relentless, non-linear, physical process that goes on and on and on .... It doesn't care about our politics or religion. It just happens. We are annually dumping gigatons of pollutants in the air and nature deals with it. All the climate models do is help us try to figure out a response. In a few hundred thousand years or so, a new human species will probably evolve that will be more adaptable to a more toxic environment. Prokaryotic cellular life has existed for about the last 3.5 Billion years and will continue to exist until the sun becomes a red giant, expands, and destroys our earth in about 1.5 billion years. In the meantime, species will continue originate, exist, and die, as on ongoing natural process. Keynes was right: In the long run, we're all dead.

nucanuck, Per your 12:45 post, good on you and your family. Seriously. My family has a very small footprint as well,though I wish there were a person around to teach the girls Mandarin. Our 950 SqFt house removes that option.

Contrary to what many may think, being conservative politically does not preclude being a good steward to nature. It's is just that the blatant hypocrisy of some and the misanthropic misconceptions of others drives me up the wall. Just like other life forms who have inhabited this planet, we will change the environment to suit ourselves. This is a perfectly natural course of events, as we are a part of nature. If we all died off tommorrow, in 100 million years from now there will be no trace of us except a few footprints and assorted junk we left on the moon, and perhaps a few fossils scattered around the planet.

I am not excusing flagrant wasters of resources, however it is up to the individual to decide an appropriate level of consumption for themselves. My complaint about many greens is the attempt to make up for their own massive consumption by attempting to force their "green" ideas on the rest of us. Increasing the cost of energy and therefore everything we use, has the greatest affect on those least able to afford basic needs.

For those who can afford to, go ahead and buy an electric car, put solar cells on your roof, move into a small house in the city center, do all you want to to lower your own environmental impact, but do not try to force it on every one else.

nucanuck,

I was taking a short cut to say that I really appreciate what you are trying to do.

I live 2 1/2 miles from a small town with a Dollar General which doesn't sell anything in groceries but milk, eggs, bread, and snacks. The nearest groceries are 12 and 14 miles away, Walmart, and some other groceries are 22 miles away. When I first moved here, I immediately considered getting a bike, but the state road is dangerous, curved and narrow with lots of blind spots. The road is lined with ditches.

I live on a dirt road. I used to grow some veggies but now my plot is 8X8 ft. and I can't even handle that.

I have summer people on my road that are strictly weekenders. Lots of them own their little trailers and shacks here, and 2 or 3 houses and farms elsewhere.

I save cans etc. compost my vegitation, and otherwise try to conserve the little bit I own in trees. I used to clear brush with a small hand saw.

When the children were small, I'd take them camping, and one main rule was...you leave it cleaner than you found it. They still follow that rule and I hope the grandchildren do too.

All these efforts are so small when you consider what has happened around the steel mills, chemical manufacturers, paper mills, mining, and I don't know how many other polluters. Three Mile Run stands out.

I'm sorry I confused you.

Una61 also had something intelligent to say. I had heard that our sun would end as a white dwarf, but I won't be around to be called stupid and mistaken when, and if, that happens.

Off to a meeting.

Clara, You and Una61 are both right. (Caution: astronomy geek stuff ahead) The sun will eventually end as a white dwarf when it can no longer sustain helium fusion in the core. Between now and then it will use up it's supply of hydrogen and the core will contract allowing the above mentioned helium fusion. The contraction of the core will also cause the outer layers to expand and, tada! we get the red giant Una61 spoke of.

There is a high probability that the Earth will actually be inside the distended stellar envelope, but if not it will be very close. This is all purely academic as none of us will be around to see this stellar evolution, and good thing too as the oceans will boil off and the atmosphere will heat up enough for the individual molecules to reach escape velocity and wander off into space. Now there is some real global warming, eh?

SCOTTYM, Thank you for the geek stuff!

Looks like "Consumer" is using the shirt as a barf bag. Several layers of meaning there...

SCOTTYM

I don't see the level of misanthropy that you have referred to several times.Deep concern for the direction that we seem to be moving may cause some to express themselves in ways that could be interpreted as misanthropic,but I would posit that the emotional motivation is more likely love,rather than hate.JMO

re:pushy greens and energy cost

My take on energy cost is that we are in a box.If we do nothing,prices will continue to rise faster than our income and may actually soar to levels that cause severe economic disruption.If we impose some type of carbon tax(hopefully revenue neutral),and push conservation,solar,geothermal,wind and maybe some nuclear (in the mid-term),then we just might be able to stabilize energy prices,albeit at a higher level than we might like.I'm afraid if we simply wait for market forces to provide an energy transition,we would get economic chaos as oil supplies recede and replacements can't keep up.

All the above presupposes that peak oil is real,here,and now.We differ on that,but I believe that may be why you feel we greens are pushy.If you can believe our motives are pure,maybe it won't rub you so wrong.

To whoever put a non-useful check in the first post, I apologize! I was still asleep and forgot to put in the smiley face. I'm aware of the distances involved. If Kepler found one close, it might take MUCH more than 3 generations of humans living aboard a space ship to reach it. and that is in our own galaxy!

And don't question my math! I'm one of those who use fingers, toes, and etc. to count. C:-)

nucanuk,

"Deep concern for the direction that we seem to be moving may cause some to express themselves in ways that could be interpreted as misanthropic,but I would posit that the emotional motivation is more likely love,rather than hate.JMO"nucanuk

This is a beautiful sentiment.

It also highlights the place where our basic philosophies diverge.

I believe that emotion can often override an understanding of effect. I'm not a motivation guy, I'm a results guy.

The moment I hear "the problem is there are too many people"(quoting no one) , quite often the next thing I(maybe just me) hear is a way to reduce the population.

While the motivation may be to make things better for everyone, lots of us are required to NOT be here in order for the desired result to manifest.

How are you(anonymous bureaucrat) going to do that?

It WILL require an anti-people policy.

Is this not misanthropy?

I will agree that the motivation, for most people who advocate energy progression, is from an earnest desire to make the world better for all of us. BUT, there ARE vampires about.

An EPA bureaucrat disregarded the EPA scientist's own recommendation and banned DDT . 10 million+ humans have died from (preventable)malaria since then. Mostly children.

Their motive was pure.

The road to hell and all that...

Clara, You're math is fine. Very close to the speed of light, those other stars are still along way away. With current technology, we could maybe build a generational ship that could reach "the stars". It would not be cheap, but on the up side, it would be slow. ;)

If the 3rd or 8th generation arrived at the destination, would they still be us?

Running on the misanthropy thought....

Sometimes the enemy of good is better. A little fertilizer is good, it helps the grass grow. Too much kills it.

A little sun helps your body make the active form of vitamin D. Too much sun can give you cancer.

A little alcohol dilates the coronary vessels, too much hardens them.

Having a baby, good. Octomom??

A healthy diverse population is good. Having too many people to feed and dispose of their waste is bad.

I don't think anyone is talking about getting rid of people who are already here.

I love wine. Just because I don't get blasted every night does not mean I dislike wine. Just because I don't lay out all day at the beach, does not mean I dislike the sun. Just because I think we should recognize and encourage responsible population control, does not mean I don't like people, or children. Rather, it means I want the people who are here and future people to have a quality life.

Now, for the sticky part... exactly how we do accomplish population control. Some of the countries with the highest pregnancy rates are also some of the most impovrished and the people and yet big families are prized socially. Forced sterilizations have occured in the past, and this was an ugly practice.

Moonpie,

The old, but accurate guide to living..."Moderation in all things."

SCOTTYM, It would definitely call for a wide spread of the gene pool. I read somewhere that 500 people was probably the lower limit from which to draw. It would also require the screening out of those with inheritable unwanted traits, such as hemophilia and sickle cell anemia.

I guess it would be a few hundred years more to consider the program, plus the riots that would occur because people were not permitted aboard.

Ah, well! From this is science fiction written, or has probably already been written.

This does not eliminate the problems of day to day living though, and what we humans have caused and ignored.

moonpie

Excellent post!Very well thought through and presented.This forum stimulates good thought from many,and regurgitated thought-free banter from some,but hopefully we all learn a little along the way.

The harsh reality of population overshoot is that by not addressing it(because it's a sensitive subject),we risk over population induced self corrections such as desease,wars,and famine.The world's poorest would die off by the tens of millions,less so up the wealth chain.

It's issues such as this one that make our quest for more consumer goods look way out of balance with the real needs of man and the planet.

What is wrong with thought-free banter?

This is a risiblity poking blog on humourous/serious cartoons, poking fun at the human condition.

Clara

You are right,there's nothing wrong with thought-free banter.I was attempting to call out those that engage in partisan dogma and I did it inartfully.Sorry.

Over population is self destruciton for humans, not nature. Most agree that nature will recover, the real problem with global warming is the disrupting the food chain. As the ultimate preditors at the top of the food chain, all resouces below us must exist or a domino effect occurs.

Take away something as small as benefical insects, bees, and see what happens to human food supplies. Permanetly change temperature and rain patterns in major US agriculture zones that are dependent on soil types, ask the USDA what would happen.

Naure will be fine.

http://www.history.com/minisites/life_after_people

moonpie,nucanuck, I'm with you on nearly all of this.

nucanuck wrote, "The world's poorest would die off by the tens of millions,less so up the wealth chain"

This a large part of my argument against "green" ideas which will have the effect of keeping the worlds poorest people stuck in that condition.

I think we could all agree that greater wealth results in lower birth rates. Artificially raising the cost of energy(given that access to energy = wealth), works in the opposite direction as desired.

Making choices about how many children a person should have, I believe, is a fundamental freedom. My wife and I decided to have 2 and only 2. Self replacement only, by our choice.(We are lower middle class, but we live better than kings compared to most people through out history.)

If I lived in a second or third world country, and had to toil constantly to scratch a meager living from the earth, I might choose to have more. We would need help raising food/tending stock, and as replacements for those who die early in childhood. This is a rational act.

I think we need to use all the cheap energy we can to lift the poor into the modern world. When we do that, they will choose to have fewer children, and the desired population limiting will have happened by free people making their own decisions.

I am not convinced that we are on some kind of brink. We are the most cunning creature to ever walk the Earth. We can adapt to nearly any habitat on the planet. Even if our current energy production causes minor changes to the climate, we will adapt. I am not convinced that CO2 is going do do much more than cause the biosphere to expand as plants move into areas which were marginal before. The more CO2 we put back into the air, the greener the Earth will become.

I will absolutely agree that some people in this country waste a lot of resources. Some of those very same people like to beat those of us who live much closer to the ground over the head with half-baked green ideas. It gets to seem like a religion sometimes, and I am not interesting in being forced to tithe a church I do not agree with.

Clara, I'd love to be on that generational ship, just for the view. I'm sure they would never allow me, as my kooky ideas of free choice could cause problems to the controlled society that would absolutly be required in that situation. People living under the sea on board submarines, or flying to the moon and taking a stroll was sci-fiction in the 1800's. Some times those dreamers are really visionaries.

Thanks all!

SCOTTYM

We're beating around the same bush,but interpreting differently what we find.The population explosion happened parallel to the explosion in availability of cheap energy.That same cheap energy enabled the population explosion,and now that sustainable cheap energy will not again be part of our lives,neither will cheap energy be able to be a lever to pull the world's poor out of poverty.With global oil depletion rates likely to be near 2-3% going forward(and accelerating later); with population growth continuing for at least a few more decades; and with worldwide energy demand continuing to grow at maybe 1-2% per year,we are set up for energy prices to rise faster than ever.

As the largest energy user and the most dependent on oil from others,the US is potentially subject to the most severe dislocations,further compounded by a US dollar that has the potential to fall by as much as half as our government attempts print(spend,inflate) us out of a hole.Any dollar devaluation will further raise the US price for oil.

So SCOTTYM,the chances for cheap energy to raise living standards for the poor is,from my perspective,highly unlikely.I hope I'm wrong.

It's OK nucanuck! I think many of us posting here are aware and thoughtful about it. I just need a change from the reality and dismal outlook once in a while.

As a small spurt to positive thinking, I found an article in the Christian Science Monitor, (a very good source for accurate information, although that is not my faith,) about "BRUCE KENIA", who lives in Montana and found a possible way of cleaning and improving a polluted lake with floating islands. It is WELL worth reading.

It's too hard to copy and paste the long URL, which most times is incomplete when it hits this blog, but I googled "Bruce Kenia", and came up with several sites that told the story of his invention/application.

The idea has already been given to the Corps of Engineers and I have written to local reps of the Corps to see if they could try it on our lake. Somehow the lake is picking up pollution and the warning is out not to eat the fish but about once a month.

There goes another source of food for those with a bamboo pole and a worm standing on the edge of the lake.

Anyway, google "Bruce Kenia floating islands".

Progressive Left whack jobs.