by John Seager. Here's part of what it says:
It's a good point. And it needs attention.For all the useful talk about new products and innovative ways to cap emissions, there is little or no public discussion about the underlying cause of global warming — human population growth.
It matters enormously whether the world’s population in 2050 is 10.8 billion people or 7.8 billion people — the high and low projections made in 2006 by the United Nations. Consider how much less carbon pollution there could be in a world with 3 billion fewer people.
We’re going to need all the help we can get when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. It’s time to revive the global population movement that once enjoyed widespread bipartisan support here in the United States.
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So why is there no serious discussion about the need for zero population growth? Why are we so fascinated with some as-yet-unproven technologies when a straightforward answer is at hand?
With all due respect, perhaps you should review studies by the Club of Rome and predictions by famed 1970s ecologist Paul Ehrlich.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the environmental experts of the 1970s, we were to have widespread famine in the United States by 1990 caused by the onset of the new ice age caused by pollution and geometric population growth.
As a college student at the time who took these matters very seriously when presented in my ecology class, I was quite concerned, and as a result I have lived a my life recycling and doing the best I can to save the planet. I still recycle, dividing all my garbage into three separate bins and taking plastic bottles to my daughter's high school for fundraising.
It seems, however, that I was far too effective, for not only do we no longer fear global cooling, but now a former Vice President warns me that we face global warming.
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, McDonalds used to keep their Big Macs and Egg McMuffins warm in styrofoam packaging, which we all learned to be disastrous for the environment, so we crusaded to stop this destruction of the planet by Ronald McDonald.
As a result, however, the heat loss from those wax paper wrappers on an increasing number and variety of McDonalds sandwiches has resulted in global warming, apparently.
Back to your statement about population control, I have heard extreme "environmentalists" compare humanity to a pestilence on the face of the earth and that the world will be much better off when we no longer exist as a species. In Europe, they practiced zero population growth, or should I say negative population growth, as many families chose to have one child and enjoy a new Citroen or Saab every few years instead of additional children. The result for Europe has been disastrous, as it has fallen from a once mighty continent to a welfare state that depends on importing Muslims from Asia and Africa to fill jobs. These newcomers often do not choose to assimilate into the culture, and as a result we have situations as France faced a couple of years ago when I happened to be there. 1000 cars a night were being blown up by disgruntled Muslims. In the United States, we fortunately aren't that bad, and our immigrant community tends to eventually assimilate into American culture and become citizens in every sense of the word, but our family planning to limit children for married couples has resulted in a shortage of young people enterring the work force.
No matter what you may have been lead to believe, we are not bumping against the limits of growth. If you don't believe me, get in a car and start heading west on any road of your choice. After three days, you will discover that humans occupy a small part of our country, and I've found the same to be true in Europe.
Ask yourself this about whatever "scientific" theory you may have: does it work in all situations?
If you throw a ball in the air, does it ever keep going up? If so, I will begin to doubt gravity.
On the other hand, did you realize that if the starting date for some of Mr. Gore's models was moved back a couple of years, there would be no global warming but in fact global cooling over the past few decades? Did you realize that global cooling was considered a very real problem according to experts who projected temperature patterns from the thirty year period before the most recent thirty year period?
I know that in an age when snow in Malibu, California, can be called a sign of global warming with a straight face that this might fall on deaf ears, but I believe one of the predictions of global warming theorists is that hurricanes will become worse and worse, yet last season, which based on real historical patterns of decade long hurricane cycles should have been terrible even without global warming, we had a mild hurricane season. Do you know one theory of NASA scientists for this phenomenon? It turns out that dust storms in the Sahara Desert, possibly caused from dry, hot weather, kicked up dust into the atmosphere, and that formed a sort of cloud that shaded the Caribbean resulting in cooler water and a milder hurricane season. In other words, global warming caused global cooling.
The world has been warming and cooling since God created it. I'm not sure man has any more control of that warming and cooling than a flea has on whether a dog decides to sit in the shade or run in a sunny field.
Here's one other scientific fact to ponder. Venus and Mars both have "greenhouse gases" at levels higher than earth, and yet one is hot and the other freezing.