"Niall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Adrian Stott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>>>Nope, sorry, the human race just isn't that significant. 150 years? the
>>>earth is millions of years old. And the ecosystem is *immense*.
>>
>> All true. However the increase in carbon emission into the atmosphere
>> since the start of the industrial revolution is also immense, and
>> surely the largest since the human species appeared. As I said,
>> billions of people have been doing it for some 150 years. That is a
>> very very large effort. It is indeed big enough to affect the
>> ecosystem, big though that is.
>
>"We *must* be important! We *must*!
Just do the arithmetic. The amount of carbon we have emitted has
increased its proportion (there are good records of this) in the
atmosphere enough to alter its retention of the sun's heat
significantly. Sadly, we *are* important.
> So you can't see the connection between "We're emitting loads of stuff so
>it *must* have a bad effect", and the precautionary principle?
No. But I do see the connerction between "we're emiting loads of
stuff" and "we can now confirm the bad effect we are having by doing
so".
>> Also, perhaps you have been closing your eyes a lot of late, but don't
>> you hear the repeated reports of populations of various species, from
>> tigers to songbirds to North Sea cod, plummeting by over 90% in the
>> past few years? There are a lot of specifes now really on the verge,
>> solely because of humanity (and barmy economics, but that's another
>> post).
>
>I've seen a lot of stuff of that nature, but all of it is the usual green
>stuff where either the detail in the text doesn't actually back up the big
>scary headline, or simply a rehash of some old story which I know to be
>wrong.
Many of these reports are actually the result of recent, independent
studies. Although I do own a copy of Lomborg's "The Sceptical
Environmentalist", which I commend generally.
>Have you seen how they "count" these populations? Ludicrously small spot
>samples, small areas not randomly selected, statistical analysis which
>doesn't follow the relevant rules...
Now there's a nice broad generalisation. "One study was found to be
bad, so all of them are bad". Come on!
>I promise you I have an open mind on these things. But if they don't stand
>scrutiny, I don't give them credece. And they *don't*.
Many do.
"Open mind". Hmm. Sometimes when I open a cupboard door, everything
inside just falls out, leaving the shelves bare.
>Point is they don't know. If they keep discovering new ones, how can they
>know that others are becoming extinct?
By no longer being able to find any member of them? In all or a major
part of their former range?
Do you believe that there are still passenger pigeons and dodos, and
evil environmentalists are just hoodwinking us into believing they are
extinct?
Do you believe that the Newfoundland fishers conspired to stop fishing
the Grand Banks, just to fool us, and there is actually still a huge
cod population out there?
>> "No shortage of land"? On what definition? All the land is already
>> in use for something, not the least the habitat of other species. What
>> more are you going to surrender to the increased human population?
>
>Ah, we're back to "every acre developed represents x species lost". The
>bloke who developed that theory *made it up* because it "seemed about right"
>to him.
If the current population of species A needs x ha to survive, and of
species B y ha, and the total area is greater than x + y, then both
populations will survive. If the population of B increases so that it
needs z ha, and the total area is less than x + z, then the population
of A will decline. Not hard to understand, I think.
>> How much do *you* want to pay for
>> steel to plate you boat?
>
>Not as much as it will cost when the raw materials and energy used to make
>it and transport it are all subjected to arbitary "green" taxes and
>surcharges "to take account of the environmental damage making it causes".
Those "arbitrary" taxes are actually to cover the externalities your
acquisition of the plate would impose on the environment, but which
you wouldn't otherwise be paying for. All they mean is you will no
longer be getting something for nothing. If you are paying the *real*
cost of the plate, I don't care how much you buy. But if you want me
to pay part of that cost, through externalities, I will object.
>Are you suggesting there's not enough *space* in Iraq for the Sunnis, Shias
>and Christians to live together?
If there were fewer of them, they would come into conflict less.
However, I (and they, I am sure) am somewhat unhappy about the method
currently being applied to reduce their numbers.
>>>Most of the earth's surface is *empty*
>>
>> No, it isn't. It is only (fortunately) not covered by people.
>>
>> For example, most of England is now a cultural landscape, i.e. used
>> one way or another by people. In Roman times, it was almost all
>> covered in forest.
>
>Where the ancient civilisations lived is now mostly desert and jungle.
Much of today's desert was formerly green. A principal cause of the
desertification has been man.
>People lived all over Scotland until the Clearances.
Have you ever *looked* at Scotland? Where there used to be forests,
there are now bald hillsides, kept that way by the disastrous use of
the territory to raise sheep. I think the Herdwick (sp?) is one of
the very few species I wouldn't mind seeing become extinct.
>> "What do you have in mind?"
>>
>> A global effort to reduce birth rates.
>
>It's that control thing again.
Who said anything about control? Assumptions, assumptions! I
actually favour persuasion, rather than coercion.
Adrian
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
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