Weekend Open Thread | 39 comments (39 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

So the population growth in developed pockets can be controlled - via economic pressures, skewed income distribution, and perhaps high, wrong-headed personal choice standards set by pulp, teen media. The undeveloped world is meeting clear overshots, sharpened by debt tributes and resourse restrictions. There will be pain for pumping out kids there. Or can that hockey stick resolevd with no tears?

by das monde on Sun Jul 14th, 2013 at 04:49:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 1)

No, because the very minor reductions in birth rate in particular cases doesn't come anywhere close to solving the overall problem. We are much further past the carrying capacity of the planet than is admitted.

For example, there is actually no problem with burning coal, if the global population is low enough. The pollution just fades into the noise of volcanoes, ocean CO2 buffer, etc.
There is no problem with monoculture farming, if the global population is low enough. The reduction in wild land available to support species variation is absorbed into the noise of land lost to natural periodic floods or forest fires.

Unfortunately for us, you can't fool Mother Nature. Somebody, probably our children's generation, is in for it big time.

by asdf on Sun Jul 14th, 2013 at 08:10:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

Humans have a propensity for thinking the sun shines out our butts and we are above Nature. It doesn't and we aren't.

I think we're looking at dramatic system failures in the Third World by 2025 at best and we could see them by the end of this decade. When Complex Systems move to a new Fitness Landscape they move very, very, fast.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sun Jul 14th, 2013 at 08:33:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

The effect of post 2008-economy will take another decade or two to show up in population numbers.

by das monde on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 03:25:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

To what end? People aren't rational so the situation can't be discussed rationally thus it isn't going to be solved rationally. It's going to be solved Biologically:

Poor sanitation can foster transmission of all sorts of nasty bacterial bugs. But a new study has found that among common bacteria, antibiotic resistance is brewing in the New Delhi water supply--and spreading in at least 20 strains, including some that cause dysentery and cholera. "

A commonplace finding of Ecology is that when a species' population expands beyond the carrying capacity of its ecological niche the population numbers collapse. Doesn't matter if the species is lynx in the Canadian arctic or human beings living in Chaco Canyon or Easter Island.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 10:12:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

A friend of mine came back from a cruise, and reported that the stewards themselves spray sanitizer on your hands before you go into the dining room, and when you come back onto the ship after a land tour. Maybe cruise ships are the canary in the mine...

by asdf on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 10:24:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (4.00 / 2)

That's because cruise ships seem to have an issue with Norovirus.

It's hard enough to clean a hospital. But keeping a highly infectious and persistent virus under control on a floating hotel is pretty much impossible.

And if it's not there already, it only takes one person to bring it aboard.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 11:02:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

We don't eat at salad bars anymore. It's too dangerous.

If we are in El Paso - armpit of the US - we only eat packaged foods. The restaurants hire illegals so they don't have to pay for a health check and parasitic brain worms have been found in dish washers, bus boys, cooks, and waiters.

yuck

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 11:51:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

...can that hockey stick resolved with no tears?

It can but I don't see the necessary actions being taken and plenty of wrong actions, e.g., religious hysteria restrictions on access to birth control and abortion.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sun Jul 14th, 2013 at 08:23:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: EEG questioned by EU (none / 0)

Should this discussion and action be public? Or would it be more "effective" to plan it stealthily, even with some anti-abortion, resource exploitation camouflage?

by das monde on Mon Jul 15th, 2013 at 03:21:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Weekend Open Thread | 39 comments (39 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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