The new head of the British Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. ‘I am not advocating genocide,’ said Rapley. ‘What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate – by improving contraception, education and healthcare – we will stop the world’s population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.
‘That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.’
Nothing like starting the 2nd half of the weekend with a bona fide and well-educated curmudgeon.
BTW, here’s a little bit of which most people are likely unaware. The latest UN Millennium Development Goals were going to include a statement on limiting population growth as one of our goals for sustainability.
Remember, the development goals were going to specify limiting growth, not reducing population. Since it didn’t make into the final document, I cannot tell you exactly what it said. I expect it said the usual statements about educating people, especially women, and getting women into the work force. This is the single most effective method we’ve found to do so. It also has the benefit of better moral implications than a legislation on number of births, which often results in infanticide of the “wrong-sex” babies.
Unfortunately, three UN members vetoed any mention of limiting population growth in the document. What three countries?
Iran, The Vatican, and The United States.
What do these members of the U.N. have in common? Please ignore any subliminal messages in my post.
#31 – BubbaRay,
I hope I’ve got these right.
1) Condi (counterfactual) Rice
2) absorb oxygen; exude carbon dioxide and methane
3) The dark side of the moon is the one facing away from the sun at any given moment. There is no perpetually dark side. However, there is a side that perpetually faces away from earth. As an aside, when you can see the dark side, what you’re actually seeing is earthshine on the moon.
4) Good choice on kilogram to stick with mass. However, even with pounds (force), the answer would be the same. Equal masses have equal weights on a given planetary surface. Equal weights of any matter are still equal weights regardless of the matter making up the weight. The difference is only that a kilogram of matter would weigh more on Jupiter than on Earth.
Do I win? Or did I get question one wrong? Q1 was the only one I wasn’t positive about.
#32 – iGlobalWarmer,
the human race is evil and must be destroyed.
At last, we agree!! What did I say to convince you?
33–I think you brain farted with Q-2 and thought about it backwards or thought plant meant animal as I don’t know if plants exude methane or if it is only a product of animal digestion or organic decomposition?
What do plants do with methane?
#34 – bobbo,
Yup. Methane coming out of my brain. Dang. I was answering what we absorb and exude. Poor reading skills on my part.
Educated people don’t need to give birth to more people, but perhaps they need to ADOPT more people.
It would be nice if everyone who went to a fertility clinic would adopt instead as well. Do something about the people who are already here instead of trying so hard to make more people…
[totally off topic]
#33, Scott, You win the Fast Fourier Transform Award, given to only those that can quickly reduce data to its essence — congratulations! Dang, wish I could post one of those cool Hopper trademarked animated icons….. 💡
Bonus Question — Who was the last man to walk on the moon and what set him apart from all other astronauts?
#37 – BubbaRay,
Tough one. I had to look up the answer, and am not sure I found the right site (and actually don’t care that much). Was it:
Dec. 11-13, 1972: Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan
?
As for what was interesting, I seem to remember footage of the last two lunawalkers singing …
I was strolling on the moon one day
in the merry month of december …
#32 – A few got it above: Idiocracy and The Marching Morons is happening all around us. We’re probably past the tipping point and all gonna die so I’m gonna have another beer and watch the show.
Comment by iGlobalWarmer — 7/23/2007 @ 5:14 am
Well, when you put it that way, I’m inclined to go buy an SUV and start turning up the AC.
Well… those seeing our dark future in idiocracy, remember that it has been always like this. The poor had more offspring than the elite…
The only thing different from those times is that today the people elects the elite, either by direct vote or by popularity. In a world ruled by TV and Democracy, Idiocracy ensues…
So, logically, for the future to work, we need a world dictatorship…as has always been written by Sci-Fi authors…
just to state that my last post is ironic… please don’t take it literally… I’m just pulling your collective legs…
Gay sex is better, you spend less resources trying to get some (you either click or not within the first minutes.) No point in wasting for a second or third date to get laid. Plus the only thing that will come out of your ass are poo babies.
#43 – Angel,
And santorum.
http://spreadingsantorum.com/
Regardless though, I don’t think people can change just to avoid reproduction. For the straight crowd, vasectomies have the same effect. Whatever your sexuality, choosing to avoid reproduction is the best choice for the planet and the way things are going, quite possibly, the best choice for your hypothetical offspring as well.
[absurdly off topic]
#38, Scott, Harrison Schmitt was the last man to set foot on the moon, just after Gene Cernan stepped out. Sorry, it was kind of a trick question. Cernan still argues he was the last, since he entered the LM last before departure. Schmitt was the only scientist turned astronaut and contributed greatly to the mission and the entire Apollo program.
Somehow I had the impression you were interested in the space program, but very few today even care.
The FFTA is yours.
The inevitable paranoia of “too few resources” was mathematically proven by a British math professor named Thomas Malthus. He “proved” that food supply was not growing as quickly as the overall population and thus, mankind would have to cut back on having children. Malthus favored moral restraint (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on population growth.
And he published his study in 1798 when the world has fewer than a a billion people. How did that prediction work out?
And scientists 25 years ago were predicting the world was facing a new ice age. Now, the rage is global warming and CO2 production. Funny, I thought we were all going to die of AIDS or bird flu.
Given how fat most of the world has become, we probably have enough food to feed triple our population right now without anyone starving.
It’s so stupid how people are so quick to blame other people for any perceived future problems. If food and CO2 production were really the issue, here is an idea the liberals hate: get rid of our precious pets first. Talk about a waste of resources.
Just like Malthus never got out of the classroom to see how the world really worked, you get the same feeling with this guy Chris Rapley. Here is another liberal convincing others in order for you to keep your fair share, you have to stave off future generations that are going to take from you.
That is the problems with liberals. They think of the world as a zero sum game and are convinced that they have to get their share of the pie. It never occurs to them that the pie is constantly growing.
You would think that after 200 years of this bullshit people would finally figure it out. But it’s the same problem, we are running out of resources, and the same solution, rationing. And who decides how much to ration to each person? The liberals, of course. They will decide who is worthy.
This is just a stealth grab at power by scaring people. What amazes me is how often it works.
jz,
I would ask…
That those that SEE this coming and happening seem to be those Looking up from the bottom.
If this is the case, and such is happening. does it not point to 1 of 2 things happening?
1. those on the bottom, seem to be getting LESS.
2. Yes the Topic, is correct.
I would think, that YES, we can turn this planet into 1 BIG farm/ranch/dairy/rice patty …… but at WHAT loss?
Look at the Amazon..
Look at all the wild life that was in the USA and europe, in the 1700-1800’s and ask…Where did it go.
Look at the Oceans and the Cut backs in Fishing AROUND the world.
IF you didnt know, that the USA supplies 20-40% of most of the worlds Imported foods, depending on the country. Which is a weird accounting of our Food sources… Mexico and S. America are expanding, and NEED the food.
I dont know the exact numbers to feed 1 person, meats and grains, per year But i would say its at least 50 acres…about 1 sq mile at the LEAST….
#45 – jz,
Would you like some cookies to go with your almond flavored Kool-Aid?
Yes, the few scientists that predicted an ice age 30 years ago turned out to be incorrect. Part of this is because we listened to their warnings about the particulate matter in the air that was causing global dimming and cleaned up our act. This does NOT mean that the huge number of scientists currently showing that global warming will happen and indeed is happening (0.75 degrees celsius so far) are also incorrect.
As for Malthus, perhaps he didn’t realize the efficiency with which we would steal the resources from future generations. We are essentially mining our renewable resources at the moment. What does that mean? It means that resources that, if used wisely, would replenish themselves are being used so rapidly that they are in dramatic decline.
What resources do I think are in decline that would otherwise be renewable?
Top soil
Fresh water
Underground aquifers
Ocean fisheries
Wood
I’m sure the list is much longer than this. These are just the top ones that come to my mind at the moment. In areas where farms are dependent on underground aquifers, some have already depleted theirs and, of course, turned to desert. Wide-spread desertification is a problem planet wide. It happens when an area runs out of any one of top soil, fresh surface water, or water from underground aquifers.
The dust storm in China recently that was larger than the entire continental U.S. was the result of such desertification.
The fact that our grain production has been declining for years is a result of a decline in top soil and fresh water.
The fact that the oceans are now 90% devoid of the fish species we eat and that many fish stocks have already been so severely depleted as to be commercially extinct is another such result of mining our renewable resources.
Forestry is a huge problem. With the tiny percentage we have of our original forests, most forests can no longer do their job of transpiration to bring rainfall farther inland. This further reduces our fresh water as well as destroying parts of the biosphere and reducing biodiversity.
We don’t know how much biodiversity we can lose before the biosphere fails to perform the tasks we require of it for our own survival. It seems likely that we are very close to finding out though.
Anyway, I think you are buying into someone’s propaganda machine and believing lines of argument that may work in a court of law or other logical debate, but fail utterly in discussions of science.
One Last Thought:
The way to implement a population reduction scheme is to first take away tax “deductions” for dependants, and then to impose additional, progressive, tax liabilities for those that insist on having children (more than one). It would be pretty humorous if people crossed the Mexico (or other) border in order to have non-citizen children that could not be listed as tax liabilities in the USA.
And birth rate reduction is my catch-all solution of the moment, as I said here http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=11076.
JZ, while everything may not be zero sum, the world is also not limitless. A 100 billion people probably is not sustainable, principally because the waste disposal capacity of the globe is not sufficient.