>>Saul, your moaning and groaning is rather unproductive.<
>
>Who's whining ("moaning and groaning") now? It ill behooves someone who
I meant that your comments are totally irrelevant Do you suppose anyone
cares what you think about me?
I would be more interested in hearing your solution for our ecological
crisis? Do you recommend more economic growth?
Jay -- www.dieoff.com
--------------
References:
James White, co-author of a study published in the journal Science, said
that the Antarctica ice cores show a temperature increase of about 20
degrees F within a very short time about about 12,500 years ago. .. Ice
cores from Greenland, near the Arctic, show that at the same time there was
a temperature increase of almost 59 degrees in the north polar region within
a 50-year period, White said. [AP, 10/1/98]
The National Climatic Data Center has just announced that last month was the
warmest September on record - almost a degree F above the previous record
and nearly 4 degrees F above the average. It is the 9th consecutive month to
break the previous all-time record. ... there are areas of the Earth, such
as the Arctic, where the temperature increase is 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is enough to melt permafrost, the permanently frozen ground that
characterizes northern tundra bogs. And melting bogs release methane, a
greenhouse gas. [UPI, 10/8/98]
Large swathes of the planet will be plunged into misery by climate change in
the next 50 years, with many millions ravaged by hunger, water shortages and
flooding, according to evidence published yesterday.
Findings from Britain's Hadley Centre for Climate Change presented to 170
countries in Buenos Aires show that parts of the Amazon rain forest will
turn into desert by 2050, threatening the world with an unstoppable
greenhouse effect. [Guardian (london), 11/3/98]
Industry deregulation of electric utilities in the U.S. has cut utility
investment in energy saving programmes by 45 percent. [Reuters, 10/02/98]
U.S. government scientists said this year's “ozone hole” over Antarctica was
the largest ever observed, leaving an atmospheric depletion area greater
than the size of North America over the southern land mass. [Nando, 10/7/98]
Humans have destroyed more than 30 per cent of the natural world since 1970
with serious depletion of the forest, freshwater and marine systems on which
life depends. [Guardian, 10/2/98]
Age-adjusted mortality in Russia rose by almost 33% between 1990 and
1994.... Russia is not alone in experiencing drops in life expectancy; all
the nations created from the break-up of the Soviet Union have reported a
decline in life expectancy since 1990, although none has been as large as in
Russia. [JAMA. 1998;279:793-800]
Africa is beginning of a full-on Malthusian dieoff. See "Worldwatch
Briefing: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem" at
http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/pr98924.html and
"Life on Earth is Killing Us" press release at
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1998/10/100298/killingus.asp
and study itself is http://dieoff.com/page165.htm
"To put this in context, you must remember that estimates of the long-term
carrying capacity of Earth with relatively optimistic assumptions about
consumption, technologies, and equity (A x T), are in the vicinity of two
billion people. Today's population cannot be sustained on the 'interest'
generated by natural ecosystems, but is consuming its vast supply of natural
capital -- especially deep, rich agricultural soils, 'fossil' groundwater,
and biodiversity -- accumulated over centuries to eons. In some places
soils, which are generated on a time scale of centimeters per century are
disappearing at rates of centimeters per year. Some aquifers are being
depleted at dozens of times their recharge rates, and we have embarked on
the greatest extinction episode in 65 million years." [ Paul Ehrlich, Sept.
25, 1998] http://dieoff.com/page157.htm
As capitalism fails in more-and-more countries, these countries will
disintegrate too. Ultimately of course, this will lead to world wars over
natural resources. See Homer-Dixon's work at
http://utl2.library.utoronto.ca/www/pcs/tad.htm
