By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's paper

[Ghent12]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Without a miraculous discovery, hundreds of millions, if not billions, will die in the next century.

Actually, I'm pretty sure at least 8 billion will die within the next century, with the death toll being as high as around 16 billion or so. Doesn't mean anything, as that would merely cover natural birth/death rates. Go cry your warmongering self to sleep, and let reasonable people worry about the problems facing them.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

worldometer reading as of 2:43PM CT 12/30/09 http://www.worldometers.info/view/



Assuming continuing rates (which is a poor assumption) , and that what is above has some credibility, then over 6 billion would die in next hundred years, but the bad news is 13.8 billion would be born. So a healthy loss of 6 (or 7, or 8B) could still leave an unhealthy 5, 6, 7 billion net increase of human predators. No one should worry who is old enough today to read, though there might be some opportunities to feel some serious pains between 2050 and 2110.

[Ghent12]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Assuming continuing rates (which is a poor assumption) , and that what is above has some credibility, then over 6 billion would die in next hundred years, but the bad news is 13.8 billion would be born.

I can guarantee you that over 8 billion will die, with the number much more likely reaching 10 digits, as it is inconceivable that the centenarian population will outpace the less-than-centenarian population. Assuming static rates is a common fallacy when dealing with exponential issues. While you don't seem to have much trouble envisioning the downsides of exponential rates, I do not have confidence that you are properly assessing the positive aspects.

[LargoWinch]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

COLLAPSE

Dr. No, see also discussion on Ruppert here.

[LargoWinch]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Two articles for your reading pleasure :eek:

Civilization's Demographic Journey (pdf)



Thresholds, Tipping Points, and Unintended Consequences (pdf)



And also What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet

Thanks Rajiv, very interesting: my first great read of 2010! [I read EJ pieces last evening...] ;)

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Assuming static rates is a common fallacy when dealing with exponential issues.

Do you have a more reasonable basis upon which to base your assumptions? I'd love to hear them.

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Actually, I'm pretty sure at least 8 billion will die within the next century, with the death toll being as high as around 16 billion or so. Doesn't mean anything, as that would merely cover natural birth/death rates. Go cry your warmongering self to sleep, and let reasonable people worry about the problems facing them.

I like war. It actually saddens me much more that this essential aspect of masculinity has been rendered obsolete by modern technology.

Anyway, see you at the front, when it finally forms!

[flintlock]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Could you explain more please? Your viewpoints is very interesting to me. What is being misconstrued? What is the nonsense that you see? Is it the premise, or the conclusion, or something else?

I'm curious also Vinoveri. So a population doubling in 100 years is not a problem? I can handle living like the Amish. But will that be enough? And then what about the next 100 years, and the next..? Is your aversion to any "population control" based on religious beliefs or something else? I have three kids and the idea of population control is not very pleasing to me either, but then we all don't live in a bubble. Billions of individual actions and choices, though seemingly insignificant, do affect the world as a whole.

As far as any religious argument goes, I think it is about as immoral as one can be to continue to bring children into this world whom one cannot afford to feed, cloth, educate, etc without relying on the power of the State to forcibly take from others, either through taxes or war, to provide for them. I don't think we need state mandated birth control. I think we need a new emphasis on the old fashioned notion of personal responsibility and consequences for one's actions.

[jtabeb]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Hey this is going to sound funny but I think going back to a little more of an amish way of life might not be a bad thing. I find myself spending way too much time at the comp (I don't watch TV) and the kids way to much time with video games and on the TV.

Amish with internet, off-grid electrical sewage and water well, very much would not suck.

Doesn't sound funny one bit, not at all. I went camping this summer with family. Everyone talked about the economy, and esp. how much everyone missed their hobby farms. (We all grew up on one as children, for those that don't know a "hobby far," is a business where you don't make any real money, but you can feed yourself pretty well with real quality (and have a shit-load of fun as a kid). The only problem is that you usually need a real job to provide income, too. We all talked about how we could try to get back to that life.

I really do miss that 40 Acres...and the cows, sheep, chickens, goats, frogs, ducks, fish, salamanders etc. well , you get the idea.

BTW if you are going to buy a farm, GET ONE WITH A POND! (we had one, it was to die for, cattails, frogs, fish, birds and all). That wild turkey and deer and the occasional blue heron would drop by was just an added bonus.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Yeah, Roger ebert isn't very good at critical thinking. He's an artist.

According to his logic, just use what's left of the oil to develop nuclear power to develop alternative oils (for plastics) and ethanol for cars. While we do that, build solar energy which is increasing theoretical efficiency limitations and hopefully will obsolete nuclear power.

Problem solved!

[0tr]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Without a miraculous discovery, hundreds of millions, if not billions, will die in the next century. If we did not have nuclear weapons or had a good way to defend against them, I would love to have a massive world war that would wipe out the pudgy, overindulged masses on this planet. But, the reality of the situation is that we can have population controls, nuclear war, famine, or disease.

There are no other solutions.

with or without a miraculous discovery, billions will die, simply because we now have billions and vast majority will die, within less than century. No miraculous discovery will be shared.

and that should be 'and' not 'or' except for maybe the nukes. The four horse men are a team, war and famine and pestilence and cancer and heart disease etc.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

I suppose it's possible there'll be a big collapse, but that assumes that human adaptability and ingenuity will find no solution, or even half-solution, that prevents a true collapse.

I was one of those 20-somethings with enviro-apocalyptic viewpoints nurtured by professors and the media. Then, almost by accident, I had to read a book by Julian Simon called "The End of Scarcity." He made a persuasive, statistics-backed argument that these predictions that we will run out of natural resources always prove false because as their price rises, human beings come up with work-arounds and alternative sources.

One compelling example I recall him mentioning was that in 18th century England there was a firewood crisis. The population was deforesting the island and firewood was becoming very expensive. I'm sure that at the time there were people who predicted the end of society because of it. And then, driven to use their ingenuity by the high price, someone discovered you could burn coal for heat....and that there was a practically unlimited supply of it. Problem solved.

Same for when they used to use whale oil for lighting lamps...until whales became scarce, the price rose, and someone discovered that kerosene worked well, was much cheaper, and was very abundant.

The point is that neither of those discoveries were obvious ahead of time. But human creativity, human problem-solving, came up with them.

It's possible, I suppose, that this time no one will find any alternative to oil (ignoring all the coal and nuclear power) and human society will regress to the stone age. But I doubt it. We can't foresee yet what alternatives, what amazing creativity, people will come up with when prices really rise and the profit motive works its magic. But we live in a time of amazing technological progress on many fronts and I wouldn't bet that we won't find a solution.

That's not to say there won't be unpleasant times when the oil prices rise. But as they rise, people will use less, which will flatten out the curves that the alarmists are citing. They are assuming people will keep using oil at the same rate as at present; but they won't when the price rises. That will make the remaining oil last longer. And in fact, we will never completely run out of oil because as it becomes scarcer the price will rise higher and higher, cutting out more and more consumers of it.

I think so many people are drawn to these apocalyptic prophecies for personal emotional reasons. It satisfies some need or longing in them to live through a time of testing or change or something.

I also know that thirty or forty years ago they were predicting with just as much certainty as some people are now that there would be no oil left by 1990 or 2000.

Simon's key point was that the most precious resource of all are human brains, which can figure out an answer to almost anything.

[jtabeb]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Yeah, Roger ebert isn't very good at critical thinking. He's an artist.

According to his logic, just use what's left of the oil to develop nuclear power to develop alternative oils (for plastics) and ethanol for cars. While we do that, build solar energy which is increasing theoretical efficiency limitations and hopefully will obsolete nuclear power.

Problem solved!

Hey MAN! Don't drag me from my HAPPY PLACE!

[Ghent12]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

Do you have a more reasonable basis upon which to base your assumptions? I'd love to hear them.

My assumptions:
1) Global population will continue to increase for at least five decades.
2) The average life expectancy of a human will not reach 100 years or higher within the next century.

Given those assumptions, there is no logical conclusion other than that more than the world's current population will die within the next century. In fact, much more if the global human life expectancy remains below 100. My "reasonable basis" is mathematics, and for my "model" I assume two things.

[Ghent12]

Re: By Roger Ebert: If this man is correct, you may be reading the most important story in today's p

I suppose it's possible there'll be a big collapse, but that assumes that human adaptability and ingenuity will find no solution, or even half-solution, that prevents a true collapse.

Best post on this thread, I think. To a contrarian, the hardest thing to accept appears to be that the future is uncertain.