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Alex Fitzsimmons
Resu Deretsiger
Join date: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,605
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08-03-2006 12:43
On this: valid point. However, it's still a little like playing Russian Roulette with the entire human species (not to mention almost every other species) to bet the future that global warming didn't play a significant role, nor would it prove that warming couldn't also kill us even if that proved to be the case. Care to spin the cylinder and take the first shot at your own head? (Of course, we've already done that, and now we're just waiting for a delayed bullet.)
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"Whatever the astronomers finally decide, I think Xena should be considered the enemy planet." - io Kukalcan
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Alex Fitzsimmons
Resu Deretsiger
Join date: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,605
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08-03-2006 12:57
From: Colette Meiji Of course technology and Economy matter. Do you honestly beleive, for example the US is producing its limit of food at the current time? Or that 1500 years ago we could have supported the number of people on earth we do today. See, now you're just restating an argument that was already debunked without really addressing the argument against it. Are you sure you read the link I gave you? Again, quoting from the paper I referred you to, "... as many nonscientists fail to grasp, technological achievements cannot make biophysical carrying capacity infinite. Consider food production, for example. Soil can be made more productive by adding nutrients and irrigation; yields could possibly be increased further if it were economically feasible to grow crops hydroponically and sunlight were supplemented by artificial light. However, biophysical limits would be reached by the maximal possible photosynthetic efficiency. Even if a method were found to manufacture carbohydrates that was more efficient than photosynthesis, that efficiency, too, would have a maximum. The bottom line is that the laws of thermodynamics inevitably limit biophysical carrying capacity ..." Quite aside from that, Colette, are you taking the energy needed to do all of this into account? Were you aware that we're up against a very serious energy crisis, still with no source that can produce an ERoEI remotely competitive with oil? Technology is amazing, but it isn't magic. The most brilliant scientist in the world still can't give you a way to materialize something out of nothing or to directly circumvent the most basic physical laws.
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"Whatever the astronomers finally decide, I think Xena should be considered the enemy planet." - io Kukalcan
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Alex Fitzsimmons
Resu Deretsiger
Join date: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,605
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08-03-2006 13:00
From: Finning Widget I have plenty of data that testifies to the fact that rural populations have the same or better rate of STD spread as urban populations - and that the rate of infection is directly attributable to lack of education, not to religious affiliation or piety. Promiscuity isn't any different in rural populations than urban populations - it's merely less talked about and more under societal pressure to keep quiet about, which hinders - significantly - efforts to track down infected individuals to inform them of their status. Ignorance as to methods of preventing the spread of STD's - because of a refusal to discuss them or condone them - costs tens or hundreds of thousands of people their health and lives even now, in a relatively open and free discussion-tolerant society because pockets and subcultures perpetuate myths, superstition, and ignorance.
Herbal medicines have never yet dealt with HIV, nor HPV, nor Ebola. Ebola is contact. HIV can be transmitted through a simple open wound or by an emergency medical transfusion. Science has handled more effectively and with far greater success major epidemics than applying herbal remedies has.
Pure water is required to irrigate a wound or incision - granted, really pure water is easily made from a solar still. It's also necessary for intravenous transfusions, cleaning, washing, rinsing...
If you don't know a single diabetic, you're the exception and not the rule.
And - I caught with my own walking stick, handled, killed, skinned, stripped, cleaned and gutted, and cooked an Eastern Diamondback when I was twelve - hooray Explorer Scouts! My father taught me to field strip and clean a modern pistol, I can field strip and clean most rifles and shotguns and have measured and packed my own ammunition and know better than to handle shot with bare hands. I know where to put the arrow flight to humanely drop the hart and have my own recipe for venison chili. I've slaughtered a pig and dressed it with my own knife (I own about five and sharpen them myself).
I can run a trot line, trout line, snare, trap and hunt. I have my grandmother's sewing machine and have and can make my own clothes, spin and weave, card, dye, preserve or tan leather, have worked a bellows, know how to forge iron and can teach it (but I can't lift that hammer - that's for strong men, and I'm neither) - have swordfought and made armour, built shelter, built a house, raised a barn, and contradanced in it afterwards. I can engineer "simple" machines (if compound and simple bows are simple machines, if trebuchets are simple machines). My favorite country song is John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" - and I have more book-larnin' education than %99.95 of the population. My childhood was spent in both my mother's world of countryfolk and my father's world of modern academics.
I can more than meet you halfway. Can you more than meet me halfway? Now that we've established the "More Goth^w Country than Thou" credentials ... As an aside, I'm jealous.  I'm pretty much limited to being able to survive fairly long-distance bike rides even in extreme temperatures (since I commute that way) and knowing the proper way to distill clean water with minimal tools. Oh, and I'm a pretty accurate shot with a rifle, provided I have glasses or contacts.
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"Whatever the astronomers finally decide, I think Xena should be considered the enemy planet." - io Kukalcan
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Alex Fitzsimmons
Resu Deretsiger
Join date: 28 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,605
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08-03-2006 13:14
From: Colette Meiji A lot of that would depend on how fast the warming takes place, how fast disasters increase and how fast food shortages happen.
Additionally on if there was an ordered response to the issues.
If for example 20% of all arable land disapears in 1 year and major cities flood in a similar time - Panic will be huge as you suggest.
If it takes 20 the panic will be much more controlable. Another good link that, in part, relates directly to this: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1778 Under the section " Q. I've read that the world average temperature fluctuates naturally over time. Is a little more climate change really something we should worry about?" note especially this phrase: "There is also growing evidence that the Earth has seen dramatic and rapid changes in climate in the past over a period of years, rather than decades or centuries, adding to concerns that we could suddenly experience very abrupt and significant, possibly irreversible, changes at any time as average global temperatures rise."
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"Whatever the astronomers finally decide, I think Xena should be considered the enemy planet." - io Kukalcan
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Tre Giles
Registered User
Join date: 16 Dec 2005
Posts: 294
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08-03-2006 17:59
Global Warming, how will we stop it. It really scares me, one of the few things on earth except gay people that scare me! Man, I hope day after tomarrow or those other movies don't happen. With the ice caps melting as fast as they are, it seems we can't stop this? What is this for me, the hottest summer in.. years?
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