Natural resources: can supply be maintained in a world of increasing demand?

[bilby]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

Increasing demand inevitably places further strain on the system regardless of environment awareness because there are more farms, more agriculture and irrigation.

I disagree. This is purely a political issue - we are allowing people to get rich by externalising large costs that they should be made to bear. Increasing demand is just a convenient scapegoat that these thieves use to distract us from their theft.

If you choose to license a big cotton farm to extract almost all of the water from the headwaters of a river system, then you choose not to continue to have a downstream river system anymore. That's a stupid choice, but not an irreversible one, nor one caused by population or consumption growth.

Shut down Cubbie Station (or require them to pay for all the damage they cause downstream, which would amount to the same thing), and nobody will notice except it's tiny number of wealthy owners, whose wealth would become slightly less excessive than it is now. Its existence owes everything to stupidity, corruption, and greed, and nothing at all to population or economic growth. Of course, those rich corrupt fucks want us to believe that the problems of the Murray-Darling basin are due to some nebulous 'population problem', and not due to their greed and indifference to suffering - but why would we choose to help them with that self-serving propaganda?

 

[steve_bank]

Pompeio said today global warming and polar meting is not a problem. It is an opportunity to exploit uncover resources...

 

[DBT]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

Increasing demand inevitably places further strain on the system regardless of environment awareness because there are more farms, more agriculture and irrigation.

I disagree. This is purely a political issue - we are allowing people to get rich by externalising large costs that they should be made to bear. Increasing demand is just a convenient scapegoat that these thieves use to distract us from their theft.

If you choose to license a big cotton farm to extract almost all of the water from the headwaters of a river system, then you choose not to continue to have a downstream river system anymore. That's a stupid choice, but not an irreversible one, nor one caused by population or consumption growth.

Shut down Cubbie Station (or require them to pay for all the damage they cause downstream, which would amount to the same thing), and nobody will notice except it's tiny number of wealthy owners, whose wealth would become slightly less excessive than it is now. Its existence owes everything to stupidity, corruption, and greed, and nothing at all to population or economic growth. Of course, those rich corrupt fucks want us to believe that the problems of the Murray-Darling basin are due to some nebulous 'population problem', and not due to their greed and indifference to suffering - but why would we choose to help them with that self-serving propaganda?

Yes, indeed, stupid choices.....that is essentially at the heart of what are clearly growing problems, the Murray Darling, the Amazon, Africa, Palm oil plantations in Asia, etc, etc.....driven by an economic system that values profit over the welfare of ecosystems. But in the end, a series of stupid choices.

 

[DBT]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

And increased wealth is the solution. It is the more affluent nations of the world that have ability to care about and for the environment. The people in poverty stricken nations like Haiti or Liberia can't afford to worry about the environment since their concern is basic survival so those nations live in an ecology that has been ravaged. Just a standing tree in Haiti is threatened because it can be used as firewood. Cross the boarder from Haiti into the Dominican Republic and the environment will be seen to be much more healthy.

Increasing wealth also means increasing consumption, more people have money to spend on not only essentials but luxuries, and with a world population projected to be around 10 billion, give or take, that is likely to be a major problem. We have problems now, stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems....

 

[skepticalbip]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

And increased wealth is the solution. It is the more affluent nations of the world that have ability to care about and for the environment. The people in poverty stricken nations like Haiti or Liberia can't afford to worry about the environment since their concern is basic survival so those nations live in an ecology that has been ravaged. Just a standing tree in Haiti is threatened because it can be used as firewood. Cross the boarder from Haiti into the Dominican Republic and the environment will be seen to be much more healthy.

Increasing wealth also means increasing consumption, more people have money to spend on not only essentials but luxuries, and with a world population projected to be around 10 billion, give or take, that is likely to be a major problem. We have problems now, stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems....

Yes, consumption increases but that consumption will be electricity or gas for cooking rather than deforestation for firewood and eating beef, pork, or chicken that is farm raised rather than killing local wildlife for food driving it into extinction. You need to visit Haiti and see how beneficial low consumption is for the environment... trees are scarce and wildlife even more scarce.

And this is besides the miserable conditions that the poor must live in to make those who want to keep them poor so they can feel like they are 'saving the planet'.

 

[barbos]

There is a nice program called google-earth. Go and look at Europe Germany/France for example and see how much land is not used for growing food. Yes. Brazil have some forest left to destroy. Russia has some lots but it's not suitable for agriculture, but Europe has none.

You should actually do that yourself before you embarass yourself posting nonsense. Almost a third of Germany's or France's area is forest.

Here's two estimates for Germany: 29.7% not including brushwood https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/date...aeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#textpart-1
32%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_in_Germany

Wow, whole 32%!!! If only they could convert it to agriculture.
You should actually do what I did and advised you to do.
The only reason forest exist particularly in France is because of terrain being unsuitable for agriculture.

 

[bilby]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

Increasing demand inevitably places further strain on the system regardless of environment awareness because there are more farms, more agriculture and irrigation.

I disagree. This is purely a political issue - we are allowing people to get rich by externalising large costs that they should be made to bear. Increasing demand is just a convenient scapegoat that these thieves use to distract us from their theft.

If you choose to license a big cotton farm to extract almost all of the water from the headwaters of a river system, then you choose not to continue to have a downstream river system anymore. That's a stupid choice, but not an irreversible one, nor one caused by population or consumption growth.

Shut down Cubbie Station (or require them to pay for all the damage they cause downstream, which would amount to the same thing), and nobody will notice except it's tiny number of wealthy owners, whose wealth would become slightly less excessive than it is now. Its existence owes everything to stupidity, corruption, and greed, and nothing at all to population or economic growth. Of course, those rich corrupt fucks want us to believe that the problems of the Murray-Darling basin are due to some nebulous 'population problem', and not due to their greed and indifference to suffering - but why would we choose to help them with that self-serving propaganda?

Yes, indeed, stupid choices.....that is essentially at the heart of what are clearly growing problems, the Murray Darling, the Amazon, Africa, Palm oil plantations in Asia, etc, etc.....driven by an economic system that values profit over the welfare of ecosystems. But in the end, a series of stupid choices.

So nothing to do with population growth, or increasing demand then.

Except in the same way that increasing the number of bank branches leads to more bank heists - People enriching themselves without regard for harm they do to others, isn't something we should try to solve by reducing prosperity so that there's nothing to steal, right? Not when we can instead take political and legal action to make the harm part less common, while continuing to allow the enriching part.

 

[bilby]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

And increased wealth is the solution. It is the more affluent nations of the world that have ability to care about and for the environment. The people in poverty stricken nations like Haiti or Liberia can't afford to worry about the environment since their concern is basic survival so those nations live in an ecology that has been ravaged. Just a standing tree in Haiti is threatened because it can be used as firewood. Cross the boarder from Haiti into the Dominican Republic and the environment will be seen to be much more healthy.

Increasing wealth also means increasing consumption, more people have money to spend on not only essentials but luxuries, and with a world population projected to be around 10 billion, give or take, that is likely to be a major problem. We have problems now, stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems....

And those problems will continue regardless of population and general levels of consumption.

You have identified two problems - stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems - but they don't appear to be in any way caused by the population numbers or level of consumption worldwide. How do you make the leap from "stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems, are problems" to "population growth and increased consumption are the causes of these problems"?

Because I am not seeing a causal link here.

 

[barbos]

I like fixing stuff.
The thing which makes me mad are Chinese (is there any other kind?) made electric teapots
I see them very often in the trash. 100% of them have burnt out connector between the base and teapot or switch inside of the teapot.
One had faulty plug but it was mine and I fixed it so it still works but rarely used. Electric heater never fails.
Anyway, you can make a connector and switch which would never fail as well, in fact these greedy fuckers actually know how to do it and actually do it in vacuum cleaners, but these have opportunity to fail for other reasons.

I think in 20-30 years we will be mining land-fields for stainless steel, copper, nickel, and other metals like neodymium and indium.

 

[steve_bank]

If we had 100 year cars, refrigerators, and teapots the economy would collapse....

Before China opened up it was Japan for cheap things. They fixed their quality problems.

Technically any appliance marketed internationally has to meet unified ISO standards which includes safety. At least if you want to sell in the EU.

The teapot sounds like a safety issue.



If it happens more than once get a meter and check mains voltages during the day and at night. If you live near an industrial area the voltage can rise as business shuts down. You could have voltage transients outside the ISO test limits. Switching and load related transients.

If it a simple resistive heater as voltage goes up current goes up. There may be safety thermal fuses as well.

 

[DBT]

Increasing wealth also means increasing consumption, more people have money to spend on not only essentials but luxuries, and with a world population projected to be around 10 billion, give or take, that is likely to be a major problem. We have problems now, stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems....

And those problems will continue regardless of population and general levels of consumption.

You have identified two problems - stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems - but they don't appear to be in any way caused by the population numbers or level of consumption worldwide. How do you make the leap from "stupid decisions, profit before ecosystems, are problems" to "population growth and increased consumption are the causes of these problems"?

Because I am not seeing a causal link here.

It's not one or the other, this element or that element, but a perfect storm of high population and an ever increasing consumption rate as living standards are raised in developing nations.

Had population numbers stabilized at 2 billion, this issue would not have come up and we would not be having this discussion.

Meanwhile stupid decisions are being made. Rational decision making? Look at our History!!

Decisions that hardly give any consideration to their effect on ecosystems, only profit margins. The Mantra being Growth. Jobs and Growth. Keep the economy growing.

 

[Jokodo]

The local example was just one example, there are many more, as I'm sure we are all aware.

Increasing demand inevitably places further strain on the system regardless of environment awareness because there are more farms, more agriculture and irrigation.

I disagree. This is purely a political issue - we are allowing people to get rich by externalising large costs that they should be made to bear. Increasing demand is just a convenient scapegoat that these thieves use to distract us from their theft.

If you choose to license a big cotton farm to extract almost all of the water from the headwaters of a river system, then you choose not to continue to have a downstream river system anymore. That's a stupid choice, but not an irreversible one, nor one caused by population or consumption growth.

Shut down Cubbie Station (or require them to pay for all the damage they cause downstream, which would amount to the same thing), and nobody will notice except it's tiny number of wealthy owners, whose wealth would become slightly less excessive than it is now. Its existence owes everything to stupidity, corruption, and greed, and nothing at all to population or economic growth. Of course, those rich corrupt fucks want us to believe that the problems of the Murray-Darling basin are due to some nebulous 'population problem', and not due to their greed and indifference to suffering - but why would we choose to help them with that self-serving propaganda?

Yes, indeed, stupid choices.....that is essentially at the heart of what are clearly growing problems, the Murray Darling, the Amazon, Africa, Palm oil plantations in Asia, etc, etc.....driven by an economic system that values profit over the welfare of ecosystems. But in the end, a series of stupid choices.

Africa is a growing problem caused by a (series of) stupid choice(s)? The entire continent, just like that?

Can you explain?

 

[Jokodo]

There is a nice program called google-earth. Go and look at Europe Germany/France for example and see how much land is not used for growing food. Yes. Brazil have some forest left to destroy. Russia has some lots but it's not suitable for agriculture, but Europe has none.

You should actually do that yourself before you embarass yourself posting nonsense. Almost a third of Germany's or France's area is forest.

Here's two estimates for Germany: 29.7% not including brushwood https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/date...aeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#textpart-1
32%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_in_Germany

Wow, whole 32%!!! If only they could convert it to agriculture.
You should actually do what I did and advised you to do.
The only reason forest exist particularly in France is because of terrain being unsuitable for agriculture.

You said "none". 1/3 forest means almost 50% expansion potential. Not that it's needed, both of those countries are exporers of agricultural products.

And you are of course embarassing yourself again with your ignorance.

 

[Jokodo]

Yes, indeed, stupid choices.....that is essentially at the heart of what are clearly growing problems, the Murray Darling, the Amazon, Africa, Palm oil plantations in Asia, etc, etc.....driven by an economic system that values profit over the welfare of ecosystems. But in the end, a series of stupid choices.

Africa is a growing problem caused by a (series of) stupid choice(s)? The entire continent, just like that?

Can you explain?

To add: would that be the Africa of 2019 or the one you heard about in school back in the days, from a teacher repeating what he or she had heard 20 years earlier at uni?

 

[barbos]

If we had 100 year cars, refrigerators, and teapots the economy would collapse....

Nobody asks for teapot to last 100 years, but 15-20 years is quite reasonable, not 1-2 years they normally last it seems.
And that kind of economy should not exist.

Before China opened up it was Japan for cheap things. They fixed their quality problems.

Technically any appliance marketed internationally has to meet unified ISO standards which includes safety. At least if you want to sell in the EU.

The teapot sounds like a safety issue.

How is burning out is a safety issue? Not burning out is actually safer than burning out.

If it happens more than once get a meter and check mains voltages during the day and at night. If you live near an industrial area the voltage can rise as business shuts down. You could have voltage transients outside the ISO test limits. Switching and load related transients.

If it a simple resistive heater as voltage goes up current goes up. There may be safety thermal fuses as well.

No, heater never fails in modern crap. it's switch and connector which fails and it fails because when contact is bad it starts heating and melts.
This can be easily avoided by having second or even third set of contacts like vacuum cleaners do.

 

[barbos]

Wow, whole 32%!!! If only they could convert it to agriculture.
You should actually do what I did and advised you to do.
The only reason forest exist particularly in France is because of terrain being unsuitable for agriculture.

You said "none". 1/3 forest means almost 50% expansion potential. Not that it's needed, both of those countries are exporers of agricultural products.

Northern and westen France has pretty much no forest, according to google maps. Mountains have forest, if there were no Mountains there would have been no forest in France.

And you are of course embarassing yourself again with your ignorance.

No, it's you who is embarrassing yourself with your retarded comments.
All you needed to do is to look at the fucking map.

 

[bilby]

Nobody asks for teapot to last 100 years, but 15-20 years is quite reasonable, not 1-2 years they normally last it seems.

How is burning out is a safety issue? Not burning out is actually safer than burning out.

If it happens more than once get a meter and check mains voltages during the day and at night. If you live near an industrial area the voltage can rise as business shuts down. You could have voltage transients outside the ISO test limits. Switching and load related transients.

If it a simple resistive heater as voltage goes up current goes up. There may be safety thermal fuses as well.

No, heater never fails in modern crap. it's switch and connector which fails and it fails because contact is bad it it starts heating and melts.
This can be easily avoided by having second or even third set of contacts like vacuum cleaners do.

An electric teapot sounds like an abomination that should die in a fire as soon as possible. Two years is two years too long.

A teapot should be made of glazed earthenware. It is heated by the addition of boiling water, which is then discarded before adding tea leaves and fresh boiling water to make the brew.

I haven't trusted Americans with tea since 1773, and that they have such things as "electric teapots" only serves to underscore the justice of my stance.

 

[DBT]

Yes, indeed, stupid choices.....that is essentially at the heart of what are clearly growing problems, the Murray Darling, the Amazon, Africa, Palm oil plantations in Asia, etc, etc.....driven by an economic system that values profit over the welfare of ecosystems. But in the end, a series of stupid choices.

Africa is a growing problem caused by a (series of) stupid choice(s)? The entire continent, just like that?

Can you explain?

To add: would that be the Africa of 2019 or the one you heard about in school back in the days, from a teacher repeating what he or she had heard 20 years earlier at uni?

You are projecting comments way beyond their intended meaning, which appears to be a means of discrediting your opponents argument without offering an actual rebuttal.

I made no mention of the 'entire continent of Africa' in terms of the same problems for each and every nation or state in Africa.

Making a brief reference to problems in Africa does not mean the entire continent has the same problems.

As we are only making brief references, we do not add pages of qualifications for each and every word or reference we use or make.

You seize on that brevity like a Lawyer with a streak of Bulldog nature and make the most of it, apparently with the impression that you are making some sort of point.

 

[fromderinside]

An electric teapot sounds like an abomination that should die in a fire as soon as possible. Two years is two years too long.

A teapot should be made of glazed earthenware. It is heated by the addition of boiling water, which is then discarded before adding tea leaves and fresh boiling water to make the brew.

I haven't trusted Americans with tea since 1773, and that they have such things as "electric teapots" only serves to underscore the justice of my stance.

Wow. So when the wood burning stove was invented you were out front saying throw it on the barbee?

If one wants truly good tea consistently one would dispose of earthen ware for any heating task. Heat is way too uneven in those monstrosities.

If hating anything american is your stance you should quit this forum post haste.

 

[Jokodo]

To add: would that be the Africa of 2019 or the one you heard about in school back in the days, from a teacher repeating what he or she had heard 20 years earlier at uni?

You are projecting comments way beyond their intended meaning, which appears to be a means of discrediting your opponents argument without offering an actual rebuttal.

I made no mention of the 'entire continent of Africa' in terms of the same problems for each and every nation or state in Africa.

Making a brief reference to problems in Africa does not mean the entire continent has the same problems.

As we are only making brief references, we do not add pages of qualifications for each and every word or reference we use or make.

You seize on that brevity like a Lawyer with a streak of Bulldog nature and make the most of it, apparently with the impression that you are making some sort of point.

your list had "Africa" at the same level as "palm oil plantations in Asia" or "the Murray Darling". Both of those are specific issues. "Africa" is not a specific issue. It's not even an unspecific issues (like "various problems in Africa" would have been). It's a continent.