Yep.
Oh, and I do truly love the:
"Bjorn Lomborg, once deep green himself, argues that they are wrong in almost every particular"
I have BEEN there!
I was ONE of them!
I know how they THINK!
Can ah get an "AMEN"?
If your position isn't strong enough to stand WITHOUT such "credentials" then it isn't strong enough.
Now for the funny part:
#1. "\ufffd Natural resources are running out. "
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Counter: "First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so since the Club of Rome published \ufffdThe Limits to Growth\ufffd in 1972."
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Nice use of generalization to/from specifics there. We aren't running out of resources because we're producing more electricity than ever. And the flaw in this logic is............?
#2. "\ufffd The population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat."
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Counter: "Second, more food is now produced per head of the world's population than at any time in history."
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But is it being produced close enough to the people that they can eat it? We still have starvation and such in all the 3rd World Countries.
#3. "\ufffd Species are becoming extinct in vast numbers: forests are disappearing and fish stocks are collapsing."
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Counter: "Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted."
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Translation: "We're killing the planet. But not as fast as some people say we are. And I'm not even going to talk about the acres of rainforest that are being cleared."
You want to know about fish stocks collapsing? Check out the salmon runs in Washington. Fewer fish every year. More people wanting them. "problem"
#4. "\ufffd The planet's air and water are becoming ever more polluted."
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Counter: "And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are transient\ufffdassociated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it."
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This is great news. And I hope the author will join me in some Washington state shellfish and a quick swim. Maybe some delicious fresh water from a stream in Mexico.
Yes, the pollution does seem to go away as our development improves.
That's because we pass laws against it and the factories have to go off shore where the laws aren't so stringent. The polution hasn't disappeared. It's just changed latitude.
So, we look further into this article. We find that oil is, indeed, limited. We have about 150 years worth. But that's okay because the Solar Energy Fairy will bring us cheap electricity while we sleep, sometime before out oil reserves are gone.
Even though there really isn't much of a limitation on resources.
Anyway, we're far more efficient in mining "Cement, aluminium, iron, copper, gold, nitrogen and zinc". So it's okay.
Can you say "strip mining"? I knew you could. Ever see a strip mine? Care to live next to one?
"In 1968, Dr Ehrlich predicted in his best selling book, \ufffdThe Population Bomb\ufffd, that \ufffdthe battle to feed humanity is over."
Hmmmmm, citing a book that's over 30 years old. That's just smart research. Nothing to do with having to fish for your facts.
"Instead, according to the United Nations, agricultural production in the developing world has increased by 52% per person since 1961."
Yep. Want to talk about engineered grains? The problems with them?
"The daily food intake in poor countries has increased from 1,932 calories, barely enough for survival, in 1961 to 2,650 calories in 1998, and is expected to rise to 3,020 by 2030."
Hmmmm, when I diet, I try to keep my intake at 2000 or less. My average daily intake is usually around 3000. If this is the "average", then why do we still have people starving over there? 2000 calories per day is certainly enough to live on (depending upon your activity level). I'm not seeing this.
"Likewise, the proportion of people in developing countries who are starving has dropped from 45% in 1949 to 18% today, and is expected to decline even further to 12% in 2010 and just 6% in 2030."
That would seem reasonable. If they had the calories available that were previously mentioned.
The part I don't understand is....why are these people still having problems? Their people are fed. If not enough to get fat, at least enough to sustain a decent workload. If all this is true, why are they still "developing" countries?
"The United Nations estimates that most of the world's population growth will be over by 2100, with the population stabilising at just below 11 billion (see chart 1)."
I see chart 1. And I'm looking at it. It seems to show a FUCKING HUGE INCREASE from around 1950 to today (just after the 2000 mark). Strangely enough, I don't see the decrease you've mentioned. In fact, the majority of the "levelling off" seems to occure AFTER 2050. Nostradamous, anyone?
"Third, that threat of biodiversity loss is real, but exaggerated." And so on about 1-2% of our original forests left and only losing one bird.
Would that be the passenger pidgeon? Or were you refering to the spectacled cormorant? Perhaps it was the carolina parakeet? Or was it bachman's warbler?
Yep, no problem cutting down forests if only one species will go extinct. I'm kind of confused on this concept of "one" meaning "several".
"And tropical forests are not lost at annual rates of 2-4%, as many environmentalists have claimed: the latest UN figures indicate a loss of less than 0.5%."
Strange, that we could have gone through 98%+ of the forests he mentioned at that rate. I'm wondering if this is another instance of "one" being "several".
"Fourth, pollution is also exaggerated."
For proof, we'll look at London's air over the past 400 years.
Of course, the polution is climbing in the developing countries, but this is okay as they will drop off just like in the developed countries.
Again, the reason the developed countries can have clean air is that they push the factories to the developing countries. Where are the developing countries going to push the factories next?
"In 1997, for example, the Worldwide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled, \ufffdTwo-thirds of the world's forests lost forever\ufffd. The truth turns out to be nearer 20%."
Okay, but your earlier statements claimed that 98%+ of certain forests were gone. Again, one == several?
"Yet a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if a dispassionate view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm than good."
Of course, "harm" is defined by the person defining it. I guess someone is definning it economically.
"A more balanced view comes from a recent article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society."
Hmmmm, he doesn't say that it DIDN'T cause those 22 deaths. Just that it saved (an estimated) 850 others.
And in other news today, the following people DID NOT DIE.
Right.
"Yet, even if America's trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will still take up only the area of a square, each of whose sides measures 28km (18 miles)."
Hmmmmm, two dimensional measurements for three dimensional objects?
How high is that trash piled?
How deep is the pit?
If I take a pile of 8.5x11 inch paper, how many pages would I have to throw away to take up that much room? (assume I don't recycle).
Math just isn't this guy's strong point.
"Most environmental measures are less cost-effective than interventions aimed at improving safety (such as installing air-bags in cars) and those involving medical screening and vaccination. Some are absurdly expensive."
So what? The cost is passed to the consumer. The consumer can determine whether to pay for the item or not. But a poisoned consumer doesn't have a choice not to be poisoned.
"Despite the intuition that something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem, economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut carbon-dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures."
Translation: "It's cheaper to buy snorkels for everyone on the coast than it is for us to cut emissions."
"A model by Tom Wigley, one of the main authors of the reports of the UN Climate Change Panel, shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1\ufffdC in 2100 would be diminished by the treaty to an increase of 1.9\ufffdC instead."
And this model is accurate? Why do you believe so?
"Yet, the cost of Kyoto, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world's single most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2m deaths every year, and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill."
Hold on! I read the rest of your paper and you seem to be saying that everything is hunky-dorey. Now you say that we have polution problems? Which is it?
"It may be costly to be overly optimistic\ufffdbut more costly still to be too pessimistic."
Ummmmm, I'd have to disagree with that. Here's a glass of water. It may or may not be poisoned with lead. What's the cost of it being poisoned and you drinking it? How much are you willing to pay to avoid that?
