dnfyngng said:

for one thing your wrong: human produced co2 does have a significant impact on global climate.

Where did I say it wasn’t? I only said I don’t think it’s the largest. I accept that it’s a very significant contributor.

so its not a matter of believe and waiting of better scientific results, co2 is bad for our climate and therefore its output has to be reduced. further actions to keep this planet habitable do need research but for co2 the point is clear. reducing the carbon footprint also has the bennefit that it helps to reduce the need of natural ressource which are all but unlimited.

        FatBigot said:

Read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M. Diamond. There are examples of overpopulation leading to environmental degradation and the inability to support the population. Kenya now has double the population it had when it had droughts 20 years ago, making the 2009 drought much more severe in outcome.

The total number of mouths the planet can feed may be much greater, but the diet may be less varied, and the effect of catastrophic events will be much more severe owing to less slack in the system.

Please do not confuse a local event with global trends when commenting on carrying capacity. Famine, has been a part of human history since before we were fully human I’ll bet, but it has always been an event restricted to a limited area, or population, While tragic, the fact remains that there is no other reason than political that any population need face starvation today.

The point I was making is that in a global sense, humanity has applied innovation over the years to increase the number of people that a given region can support. Within that context local failures, while regrettable, do not disprove a clear trend.

        DV82XL said:

The progress from gathering to hunting to agriculture and husbandry is clear and undeniable evidence of using technology to produce greater amounts of food and fibre from smaller areas of land.

Read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M. Diamond. There are examples of overpopulation leading to environmental degradation and the inability to support the population. Kenya now has double the population it had when it had droughts 20 years ago, making the 2009 drought much more severe in outcome.

The total number of mouths the planet can feed may be much greater, but the diet may be less varied, and the effect of catastrophic events will be much more severe owing to less slack in the system.

        Shafe said:

With as much time as she spent developing dinosaurs as the dominant species only to have them wiped out by a cosmic event,

Dang it! Yes, I know dinosaurs were not a species.

        Soylent said:

Clearly if you believe in the Gaia nonsense humans evolved to prevent CO2 from falling, or somethnig like that.

George Carlin postulated that the planet may have created humans because it wanted styrofoam.

If we’re anthropomorphizing the planet as Gaia and the evolutionary process is the fulfillment of this earth-deity’s will, then the most likely reason I can think of that the planet would want to create humans is to get some of her eggs out of this basket. With as much time as she spent developing dinosaurs as the dominant species only to have them wiped out by a cosmic event, it makes sense that she would feel her cosmological clock ticking and want to reproduce before another great cataclysm occurred. From that perspective, mankind would be charged with colonizing off-planet bodies so that a global calamity won’t wipe out all traces of Earth’s biological past. Gaia may be willing to suffer some pains (pollution, deforestation, extinctions) in the process of allowing mankind to develop into a space-faring species capable of ensuring her legacy doesn’t end even if the Earth is reduced to lifeless fragments drifting off-orbit. After all, in geological time, Gaia will have no trouble recovering from a few thousand years of mineral exploitation and poor soil management if humans don’t work out as intended, but the reward of success would be an insurance policy for a vulnerable biosphere with no hope of averting cosmic disaster.

        ⬡ said:

#29 has an excellent point. Humans are much like a parasite, the same kind as the mould you’d find on an old piece of cheese, sucking up all the resources. Eventually, there will be no resources left.

It think if you read what I wrote again, you will see that I am asserting quite the opposite. It is our capacity to understand the situation that provides us with any hope of survival, unlike other organisms that do consume untill there is a population crash.

All those that call for a massive reduction in population to solve this issue, are in fact saying it can’t be solved, that Man cannot through his actions increase the carrying capacity of this planet beyond some already fixed limit. Yet the historical record demonstrates that in fact we can. The progress from gathering to hunting to agriculture and husbandry is clear and undeniable evidence of using technology to produce greater amounts of food and fibre from smaller areas of land.

We have not even begun to push the limits of what this planet can handle, and while it is true that management of both resources and the environment need improving, there is no need for any Draconian reductions of the population to achieve this.

        ⬡ said:

I think it’s true that the claims people make in favour of climate change are exaggerated, but I feel they’re doing this with good intent. …

… #29 has an excellent point. Humans are much like a parasite, the same kind as the mold you’d find on an old piece of cheese, sucking up all the resources. Eventually, there will be no resources left.

According to what you have written, humans are not like parasites at all. Rather, they are more like cattle, who deserve to be stampeded according to the latest eco-fashion, with substantial lies and exaggerations of impending doom, so that they do what you tell them.

You have figured this all out for yourself, eh? The proles can be told what to think and have their herds culled … er … controlled like any other parasite or mold on a piece of cheese … as long as it is done with “good intent.”

Just the same, if we tell everyone that climate change, induced by humans, will cause severe problems for us in 100 years, people won’t start to care for another 95 years, and then it’ll be too late. If we exaggerate and tell them it’ll start to cause problems in 5 years, they might actually care now, and do something now. There is a large gap between when it’s too late to prevent the problems from occurring, and when they actually occur.

I also think that even if pollution is not contributing much/at all to climate change, it’s still not a good thing, and making an effort to stop it will benefit the Earth.

#29 has an excellent point. Humans are much like a parasite, the same kind as the mold you’d find on an old piece of cheese, sucking up all the resources. Eventually, there will be no resources left.