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  • #31
    told you, if you have a problem with the green house effect, take it up with the scientists. Tell them that their understanding of physics and chemistry is wrong.
    I'm not telling them whether they're right or wrong. My point is that just about every ecological issue has complicated and contradictory findings. Ecology is the science of everything, and nobody knows everything.

    30 years ago..." "1600..." you have the most bizzare comparison dates ever.
    Bizarre? Explain why they're bizarre? You haven't bothered to provide one iota of hard statistics or science to back up your home-spun assertions.

    don't know the numbers, personally - and I'm sure you don't, either - but the the rate of extinction, whatever it is, is generally agreed to be 50-100 times more then what is considered normal
    Again, where is the data? If this is true, why haven't we observed wholesale extinctions in ecosystems based on the assumption that extinction rates are really that high? Because it's precisely that- an assumption. And grossly inaccurate even in the places where deforestation and habitat reduction really has been occurring. Even if the extinction rate I quoted were higher because of the instances of unobserved extinctions, say a little over 1 percent, that doesn't even begin to make a dent in overall global biodiversity, much less a scratch.

    You mean quote meaningless statistics from books? Maybe if you explained how each point was rellevant to global problems, it might actually mean something.
    Compared to what you've provided, it's practically an embarassment of riches. All of these "meaningless statistics" I quoted have included water and air pollution indicators for both Europe and US as a whole, including coastal sea and river watersheds across each region. Would you care to explain to me how those are considered "local statistics" ?

    That's the problem with using local statistics for global matters - they show absolutely nothing. Especially when they have an agenda and don't explain the details surrounding them.
    See above.... And by the way, the "meaningless statistics" I quoted come from such "agenda" laden sources as the Environmental Protection Agency,
    Digest of Environmental statistics, Nature, and the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society, as well as several environment science texts, and I would more than willing to provide any and all pertinent citations to back up my statistics


    What I'd be interested to know about these places that have cleaned up their act is, how has their industry faired? are they producing the same amount, or has industry moved elsewhere?
    The production of goods and services on our planet has increased by 500 percent since just 1950 (thats from a 1993 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development I just checked out from reserves).

    Here's another "agenda"-laden source I just stumbled upon in the stacks, Economic growth of nations by Simon Kuznets, a Nobel laureate economist.

    "From the end of the seventeenth century until the last quarter of the eighteenth, the per capita GNP of agrarian England and Wales grew at an average rate of 1.9 percent a decade. From the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1960's, industrialized Great Britain per capita grew, per decade, by 13.4 percent. Likewise the U.S. per capita GNP, between the 1840's and 1960's, grew by 17.5 percent per decade. And Japan's, between the 1870's and 1980's grew by an average of 32.3 each ten years"

    One would think that all this industry would create staggering overall effects in terms morbidity and mortality. But if that's the case, why do the most industrialised, and hence most "polluted" countries, enjoy the best morbidity, mortality, and income statistics. Heck, I would argue that all our modern comforts and well-being has been borne atop a dense cloud of factory smoke.


    And by the way you - er, maybe I should say the authors you are quoting - should really stop using the 70's and 80's as a standard for environment conditions.
    Why not? If, for the most part, there have been drastic reductions in pollution over such a short period of time, what's wrong with bringing it to light? I think it bodes quite well for the future that such startling reductions have been affected over such a short period of time.

    I doubt this is something that's easily trackable, anyways. But it only takes common sense to finish the equation of "Toxin + Human =" and there's no denying we are exposed to toxins on a regular basis.
    Then why are we living longer healthier lives than ever before?

    Er, criteria for what? You really gotta go easy on that cut and pasting.
    Cutting and Pasting?? Im doing nothing of the sort. I'm simply spending a pleasant Sunday afternoon at the Detroit Public Library main branch with Science, Nature, and a host of environmental science texts. See, I'm actually taking the time to educate myself about the realities of the environmental condition, as opposed to spewing platitudes about the falling sky

    Let me guess, this is another stellar comparison of from the 70s or something, isn't it? And I bet it's a local statsitic too.
    Nope, wrong again Those statistics are national findings for particle concentrations in both the US and UK dating from 1957-99 and and 1962-1999 respectively, from the EPA and at its UK counterpart. Also, the US data series, just so you know, was collected from several data series with varying numbers of monitoring stations, both purely urban and mixed urban/rural. I know how those pesky "local statistics" can be


    It's common sense that air pollution will make it harder for people to breathe and give them lung problems.
    Sure, and, in typical form, you've provided absolutely no relevant data that the problem is getting worse, not better.

    Yes, air pollution is a problem, but not for the reasons you think. When you allow corrupt governments, with a censored press and lack of freedomd to manage air, land, water pollution, you can expect the worse to happen- just look the legacy of communism.

    Pollution is a cost, not a problem, and it's a cost of living well. The reason that polluters can't or won't reduce pollution is because theres no economic incentive to do lower their pollution "cost".

    Yes, the efforts of environmentalists and government regulation help a little, but not much. The overall improvements that have been affected over such a short period of time in the Western World come from an economic incentive to take on newer technology and reduce cost over the long term.
    "Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us." --MLK Jr.

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    • #32
      can someone explain how that BBC guy came up with this?

      A few years ago, when the world's gross national product was worth about $18 trillion, the value of Nature's goods and services to us was estimated at $33 trillion.
      "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
      "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

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      • #33
        Somebody has got an ass, and they pulled that stat out of it.
        Last edited by JohnT; January 11, 2004, 16:10.

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        • #34
          It doesn't sound accurate to me either. It would be a lot higher than that, surely. Oh wait, it says "us" so he must mean the U.K.?

          Anyway, the World Census worked out (somehow!) that by the year 2050, our world population would start to decline at an extremely slow rate. If that happens, all we need to do is use the land required to keep 30 billion people alive. But imagine that, if we have to use all this land just to feed 7 Billion, how much land is needed for 10, 20, 30 billion? This is probably where GM foods will come in.

          Hey! Don't worry everyone, Evolution is in control of us and Evolution will find a way to survive. And then the Universe will blow up and we can all do this again!
          be free

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          • #35
            But imagine that, if we have to use all this land just to feed 7 Billion, how much land is needed for 10, 20, 30 billion? This is probably where GM foods will come in.
            At least in the United States, output per acre of staples like corn and wheat has effectively tripled since 1930, and the trend continues ever-upward.

            Lack of food doesn't starve people, politics starves people. There's already enough food to provide 120 percent of current global needs on a near vegetarian diet, and half of that for folks to eat like gluttinous pigs like us Americans. The world has plenty of food.
            "Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us." --MLK Jr.

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            • #36
              The next day the Worldwatch Institute declared modern lifestyles were bad for us
              Well d'uhh! With or Without the environment this system's effed up.

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              • #37
                In the 1970's the Club of Rome predicted mass starvation and end of fossil fuels in 2000. These predictions were way off. Why shou;ld we believe the new predicitons of doom. At least go back and figure out why the old ones were off before making new ones.

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                • #38
                  We obviously can't predict the future, but we do need to caution it for our own survival.
                  be free

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