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Re: fHuman vs. natural influences on the environment
>
>>charliew wrote:
>>
>>> One pattern I have noticed in these postings is that people
>>> seem to insist that no environmental impact whatsoever occur
>>> as a result of human activities. There is even an
>>> implication that humans intervene in a way that we keep
>>> everything constant where it is. These implications do not
>>> seem reasonable to me. In other words, if you want to lessen
>>> the impact that humans have on this planet, a good place to
>>> start is with the number of humans on this planet. Some of
>>> the posters in this group may be addressing the symptom,
>>> rather than the problem.
>>
>>Hmmm.... I would suggest that the carrying capacity for homo sapiens on
>>this planet would be a few million, about what it was in the early
>>Paleolithic. I suspect not many will agree with me. <G>
>
>I would, if I thought you would volunteer to be the first to leave.
>How about it?
>
>Regards, Harold
This post is not in response to yours Harold But I needed somwhere on
this thread......
I think that this thread is wandering from the original topic, that is
fine but unfortunately I can no longer post to a point where my comments
are appropriate, the old postings are gone.
I find it easy to understand the views of so many posters on the topic
of Human VS Nature in the context of global environmental degradation;
what I find hard to accept is the way so many people seem to believe
they have a monopoly on scientific truth.; and also how abusive some can
be to those who do not share those beliefs.
Several years ago, at a symposium for astrophysicists held in London, an
experiment was carried out. All the delegates were asked to calculate
how much energy it would take to bring one stationary electron from a
point in deep space ( but near a KNOWN stellar object) and bring it to
rest on the surface of the earth.
They would allow for mass and movement of all *major* solar objects but
not asteroids or deep space objects apart from the one mentioned above.
They were all *capable* of doing the sums and several of them did so.
The unamazing fact was that the *answers* that these scientists came up
with differed by as much as 13 orders of magnitude.
The agreed reason for this was that there was no preconcievd clue as to
what the actual value would be so no-one seriously queried the results
as the popped out of the algorithms. This is an ocaisional problem when
calculations are used in a process that involves extrapolation
I accept that I may be wrong but I think there may be similarities to
the "Human VS Nature in the context of global environmental
degradation", problem.
While you argue about numbers, many of which *may* possibly be flawed,
surely you are missing the point.
Globaly we WANT more energy and resources than we NEED. The only way
to redress this balance is.
1 Wait till we run out of something and... squeal.
2 Wait till we destroy our environment... and sqeal
3. Squeal till we stop 1, and 2 happenning
By 3. squeal I think I mean educate, we cannot educate by bickering so
find your common ground and build on it, stop seeking out the weak
points in an argument simply for argument sake.
I get the impressing that *most* posters to this group are fairly
educated and well read, so rather than convert the converted, educate
the uneducated.
I trust this is not simply my turn to be agressive and doing to this
group EXACTLY what I was complaining about.
Cheers Jim
I dedicate this post to Gerry, how is the Festival going?
Jim Barr Machine Conversation, Bedfordshire England
Best is the enemy of good enough
Leaves Rustle....Blades turn..... Water moves
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