Is the human mind capable of grasping the complexity and the scale of the system we are trying to control?
The social organizations and coping habits we used 50k years ago are still in place today. Can we raise our consciousness enough to survive, as a species?
Ashby’s law of sufficient diversity. Ability to manage must expand geometrically with each linear expansion of the system that sustains us.
Asks, Prof. William Reece, UBC ecological economics
Humankind is little more than a vast collection of tribes and other self-interested groups who will fight tooth and nail, kill their neighbours without regret, and breed themselves out of existence rather than impoverish themselves to save some unrelated strangers ten thousand kilometers away.
World Society is a myth perpetrated by money-hungry corporations to sell widgets.
The few ridiculously rich people who adopt starving Ethiopean children or who kid themselves that recycling cardboard cereal boxes will make the slightest difference to the climate, aren’t enough of an ameliorating influence on the violent mobs that predominate the world population.
When the house gets cold, and food gets short, altruism goes out the window. It is a luxury of the rich and those who delude themselves that they are well off. Neighbours will come to blows over garden watering violations. It is foolish to think that food or fuel shortages, will somehow bring a population together to live in harmony more than a few weeks, as in say, a natural disaster. The latter only stimulates charitable behaviour when it is temporary and singular. When disaster is widespread and long term, altruism goes out the window.
The UN estimated 9.2 Billion population by 2050, should be a headline on every newspaper, every day, if we were serious about sustaining our current level of sophisticated world society. It isn’t.
Evolutionary forces operate on a time scale beyond the scope of most people to grasp.
The smartest people alive today are not more intelligent than people who lived before the earliest recorded civilizations. We have risen from the nomadic tribes of 10,000 years ago to the space age technological world society we have today. However the competition between groups, whether tribal, ethnic, cultural, gender, age, cult, gang, secret society, has not diminished.
Survival of a world society, however it is conceived by big thinkers, is a short-lived concept.
The industrial age, information age, as dependent as it is on cheap energy, is short-lived. It arose in less than two hundred years and can become medieval in nature and structure again in a few centuries.
In other words, human nature hasn’t changed enough for this complex, energy dependent, unsustainable society of 6-9 billion people to survive. How it will collapse will be a matter of dramatic and tragic events cascading one upon another until a dynamic stability is achieved.
Another way of looking at the question, “Is our world society sustainable? Can it be?” is to realize that the perception that we have a world society is not a universal one. The third world population, Africa, India, Asia, South America comprises 80% of the world’s population. They are poor. They do not perceive that there is a sophisticated wealthy, world society. Rather they think that there are a few rich people who have exploited them unfairly. They are right. 20 people living well, does not typify or identify the nature of a society when the other 80% are starving in sub-standard shelters with inadequate supplies of fresh water.
The chattering of hosts and guests on TV shows about this or that fashion, musical event or new widget (I-phone, say) is just a few rich people yakking with each other about how great their lives are while the vast majority of people – 5 billion or more worldwide – worry about where their next meal will come from.
There is no sense of reality in the world, just mass-deception and denial.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Amazon's Kindle Book Reader
Amazon unveils Kindle an electronic device that can store up to 200 books and downloads titles sold by Amazon - 80,000 titles already.
It’s not the first portable reading device, Bill Gates unveiled a book reader by Microsoft on a TV interview New year’s Day 2000 – for the new Millennium.
Sefton’s worried about the experience” of reading being degraded,, but being able to size the print for your eyes eliminates the need for Large Print editions as well as “normal” print sized books – surely a boon to an increasingly aging demographic. Flipping back and forth, etc. are all features that they will develop as soon as the readers give feedback. The Kindle 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0 cannot be far behind. We are no longer using Windows 3.1, anybody miss it?
Scavella says books are biodegradable – Kindle cuts no trees in the first place
If cameras can be waterproof so can Kindle book readers, plus, nobody has yet died from a 9-volt battery discharge.
Rik wants finger touch screens, he’ll have them before Xmas 2008 – and more.
And, yes, Howard, top-to-bottom for Chinese characters as well. I bet they are already available in Taiwan but they never bothered to tell us waiguoren (foreigners).
Rachel – never mind page refresh and bleeding eyes – before you know it there will be an audio available with headphones for blind people. Character recognition from digital sources (ascii text) is easy – right now it sounds like Stephen Hawking but that will change. There will be a new industry for people with nice voices who can sight-read out loud. Screens have been improving amazingly in recent MONTHS!
Having your 200 volume library take up no more space than a pohone book does now is a huge boon for storage space, allergy sufferers who put up with book dust.
Costs come down so publishers will more willingly take on new writers or better yet, new writers can self publish as did James Redfield without huge risks in investment.
Writers may finally get paid what they are worth – it just may not be as much as they think it should be. This may herald the end of the wealthy author of a single best-selling book. There now can be thousands of new authors published each year instead of say, 10 per big publishing house, only a few hundred. (per language, per country)
Harry – the first transistor radio from Sony – in circa 1949 was ugly too, now we have Macs with ergonomic curves Gaudi would drool over (So you hate Gaudi, how about Frank Lloyd Wright?) We’ve got designer cell –phones already to match your clothes even.
Melanie, we can program sound effects like page-turning if you but want it – and birds chirping and groaning for the sex scenes too. Reading can be a multi-media experience like we’ve never had before.
We’ve never had it so good.
It’s not the first portable reading device, Bill Gates unveiled a book reader by Microsoft on a TV interview New year’s Day 2000 – for the new Millennium.
Sefton’s worried about the experience” of reading being degraded,, but being able to size the print for your eyes eliminates the need for Large Print editions as well as “normal” print sized books – surely a boon to an increasingly aging demographic. Flipping back and forth, etc. are all features that they will develop as soon as the readers give feedback. The Kindle 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0 cannot be far behind. We are no longer using Windows 3.1, anybody miss it?
Scavella says books are biodegradable – Kindle cuts no trees in the first place
If cameras can be waterproof so can Kindle book readers, plus, nobody has yet died from a 9-volt battery discharge.
Rik wants finger touch screens, he’ll have them before Xmas 2008 – and more.
And, yes, Howard, top-to-bottom for Chinese characters as well. I bet they are already available in Taiwan but they never bothered to tell us waiguoren (foreigners).
Rachel – never mind page refresh and bleeding eyes – before you know it there will be an audio available with headphones for blind people. Character recognition from digital sources (ascii text) is easy – right now it sounds like Stephen Hawking but that will change. There will be a new industry for people with nice voices who can sight-read out loud. Screens have been improving amazingly in recent MONTHS!
Having your 200 volume library take up no more space than a pohone book does now is a huge boon for storage space, allergy sufferers who put up with book dust.
Costs come down so publishers will more willingly take on new writers or better yet, new writers can self publish as did James Redfield without huge risks in investment.
Writers may finally get paid what they are worth – it just may not be as much as they think it should be. This may herald the end of the wealthy author of a single best-selling book. There now can be thousands of new authors published each year instead of say, 10 per big publishing house, only a few hundred. (per language, per country)
Harry – the first transistor radio from Sony – in circa 1949 was ugly too, now we have Macs with ergonomic curves Gaudi would drool over (So you hate Gaudi, how about Frank Lloyd Wright?) We’ve got designer cell –phones already to match your clothes even.
Melanie, we can program sound effects like page-turning if you but want it – and birds chirping and groaning for the sex scenes too. Reading can be a multi-media experience like we’ve never had before.
We’ve never had it so good.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Water, water everywhere..
70% of the world's surface is covered with water, yet..
Southeastern US towns are now officially out of water - Orne, TN, for example.
The US SW especially Phoenix, is sucking eons old aquifers dry and when that deep, deep hole gurgles its last, people will be leaving Phoenix in droves. No water, no city.
They will truck it in, they will sell or distribute bottled water, which has to be trucked in, and that costs money. There is no big pipe they can use to transport water from say, Lake Mead to Phoenix. It doesn't exist. And this is in the world's richest country!
Southern Saharan states like Sudan - of which Darfur is a part - have been in a drought for decades, yet the overall population of Africa continues to rise. 900 million I heard today from the lips of Paul Martin the former PM of Canada.
Wars over water, oil, land, food - all over the world have their roots in poverty. When the poor get hungry or thirsty they get desperate and will become refugees or stand and fight. Fight or flight, it's what all animals do. Some governments prefer to sell them arms to fight their wars rather than sell them the technology to solve the problems. If the money spent of guns in north Africa from Somalia to Dakar had been spent on desalination plants say, nobody would be going thirsty. There would be irrigation. There would be food.
If Georgia and Tennessee had spent the money on water supplies they had spent on NASCAR and buying bigger trucks there would be no water shortage.
Still, water shortages and poverty are ultimately about population. Too many people fighting over finite resources. The problems will not stop until people stop making babies - and we all know how well that program is going to work, but if people don't stop reproducing at the rate that has produced 5 Billion people in 150 years, nature will do it for them.
Southeastern US towns are now officially out of water - Orne, TN, for example.
The US SW especially Phoenix, is sucking eons old aquifers dry and when that deep, deep hole gurgles its last, people will be leaving Phoenix in droves. No water, no city.
They will truck it in, they will sell or distribute bottled water, which has to be trucked in, and that costs money. There is no big pipe they can use to transport water from say, Lake Mead to Phoenix. It doesn't exist. And this is in the world's richest country!
Southern Saharan states like Sudan - of which Darfur is a part - have been in a drought for decades, yet the overall population of Africa continues to rise. 900 million I heard today from the lips of Paul Martin the former PM of Canada.
Wars over water, oil, land, food - all over the world have their roots in poverty. When the poor get hungry or thirsty they get desperate and will become refugees or stand and fight. Fight or flight, it's what all animals do. Some governments prefer to sell them arms to fight their wars rather than sell them the technology to solve the problems. If the money spent of guns in north Africa from Somalia to Dakar had been spent on desalination plants say, nobody would be going thirsty. There would be irrigation. There would be food.
If Georgia and Tennessee had spent the money on water supplies they had spent on NASCAR and buying bigger trucks there would be no water shortage.
Still, water shortages and poverty are ultimately about population. Too many people fighting over finite resources. The problems will not stop until people stop making babies - and we all know how well that program is going to work, but if people don't stop reproducing at the rate that has produced 5 Billion people in 150 years, nature will do it for them.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Forget Kyoto #4
At last, someone has said it in public and on the air - live - intentionally.
The US / Iraq /Afghanistan war is all about, and only about oil.
This morning, Alan Greenspan, beeing interviewed by Anna-maria Tremonte about his book, said that Hussein, had he achieved control of the Straits of Hormuz, through which 18 of the world's 85 million barrels of oil used each day passes, he could have brought the world's economy to a halt. By reducing shipments of mere 5-8 million barrels of oil per day the world's economy comes to a halt - that's quite a declaration from the former chair of the Federal Reserve Bank and former Chair of the World Economic Advisory Board.
I have been saying that the US will never be able to leave the Middle East militarily while it is dependent on Middle East oil supplies. Therefore US activity in obtaining oil must increase in countries outside OPEC to ensure multiple streams of supply.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, although the White House hasn't declared this to be the case - they continue to spin this as an idealogical struggle to set Iraquis free of an oppressive dictator and to enable them to set up a democratic government - we can see how important oil is and how scarce it is becoming. I am referring to the peak oil scenario which says that, since world oil production has peaked, every barrel that comes out of the ground henceforth will cost more and be more difficult to obtain than the previous one, - a scenario that says oil prices must climb at an ever increasing rate and will soon be no longer viable as a fuel source for personal transportation.
Home heating must move away from oil fired furnaces sooner or later but probably within our lifetimes.
This puts upward pressure on natural gas prices.
There will be a greater political move towards damming river valleys to create hydro-electric power. Hydrogen fuel needs electricity to produce it
Wind generation, tidal power, thermal generation - all will be viable as energy costs soar.
Terrifyingly, nuclear power becomes the vehicle of choice, on the coattails of new coal burning plants.
However you get it the world economy currently requires the energy of 85 million barrels of oil per day to function, plus the current hydro, coal and nuclear power it already consumes. As oil supplies dwindle alternative sources must be brought on line. Number one is coal, as I have already written previously. It is plentiful, relatively easy to obtain and therefore cheap. The world wants cheap power. It will burn coal. Forget Kyoto. It won't happen.
The US / Iraq /Afghanistan war is all about, and only about oil.
This morning, Alan Greenspan, beeing interviewed by Anna-maria Tremonte about his book, said that Hussein, had he achieved control of the Straits of Hormuz, through which 18 of the world's 85 million barrels of oil used each day passes, he could have brought the world's economy to a halt. By reducing shipments of mere 5-8 million barrels of oil per day the world's economy comes to a halt - that's quite a declaration from the former chair of the Federal Reserve Bank and former Chair of the World Economic Advisory Board.
I have been saying that the US will never be able to leave the Middle East militarily while it is dependent on Middle East oil supplies. Therefore US activity in obtaining oil must increase in countries outside OPEC to ensure multiple streams of supply.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, although the White House hasn't declared this to be the case - they continue to spin this as an idealogical struggle to set Iraquis free of an oppressive dictator and to enable them to set up a democratic government - we can see how important oil is and how scarce it is becoming. I am referring to the peak oil scenario which says that, since world oil production has peaked, every barrel that comes out of the ground henceforth will cost more and be more difficult to obtain than the previous one, - a scenario that says oil prices must climb at an ever increasing rate and will soon be no longer viable as a fuel source for personal transportation.
Home heating must move away from oil fired furnaces sooner or later but probably within our lifetimes.
This puts upward pressure on natural gas prices.
There will be a greater political move towards damming river valleys to create hydro-electric power. Hydrogen fuel needs electricity to produce it
Wind generation, tidal power, thermal generation - all will be viable as energy costs soar.
Terrifyingly, nuclear power becomes the vehicle of choice, on the coattails of new coal burning plants.
However you get it the world economy currently requires the energy of 85 million barrels of oil per day to function, plus the current hydro, coal and nuclear power it already consumes. As oil supplies dwindle alternative sources must be brought on line. Number one is coal, as I have already written previously. It is plentiful, relatively easy to obtain and therefore cheap. The world wants cheap power. It will burn coal. Forget Kyoto. It won't happen.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Guy on CBC says, just turning off a light..
will make help solve global warming. What is he smoking?
Let’s review the Kyoto proposition.
Some simple arithmetic can illuminate the scale of the Kyoto problem.
Roughly speaking, the Kyoto accord goal is to reduce our greenhouse emissions (GGEs) by 50% by 2050.
Let’s restate that in terms of people. Reducing each person’s output by 50% is one way of achieving this, this is the equivalent of reducing the population polluting at current levels by 50% or 16 million people.
According to IIASA – an NGO, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/argu/trends/trend_10.htm
the Chinese population will increase by 260 million people in the next 30 years i.e. by 2037. Thus even if Canada achieves its Kyoto goal by 2050 it won’t mean a thing because, in terms of equivalent numbers of people, we will have reduced our population by 16 million people and they will have increased their population by 260 million, or 16 times our population.
Chinese are lesser polluters per capita you say? If the Chinese currently produce only a third of Canadian’s output, Canadian output from 16 million equals Chinese output from 48 million people, but that’s at today’s rates of output. Chinese industry and its economy is growing at great rates – China is bringing on line a new coal-burning electricity generation plant - every week, right now. By 2050 they will be equal with any developed nation. The comparison is equally valid with the population of India, which grew at 21% between 1991 and 2001, and is now more than a thousand million people and adds the equivalent population of Australia every year. Between 1947 and 1991, India's population more than doubled. Almost 40% of Indians are younger than 15 years of age.
Canada has 33 million people. China & India together = 2500 million people. At 2% growth per year, that’s 50 million more people every year.
Reducing pollution is generally a good idea in any case, but it is completely false to think anything we do, such as replacing light bulbs, switching off a light or driving a car one day less a week is going to have an impact on global warming. Canada is simply too small a population to matter.
Technological changes such as changing gas engines to hybrids are slow, long-term remedies.
In the short run, we can expect greenhouse gas emissions to be roughly proportional to economic activity. Were we to reduce GGEs by 30% in the next 5 years would mean a reduction of income and employment on a scale commensurate with the Great Depression. No government would inflict such disruption, nor should it.
Let’s review the Kyoto proposition.
Some simple arithmetic can illuminate the scale of the Kyoto problem.
Roughly speaking, the Kyoto accord goal is to reduce our greenhouse emissions (GGEs) by 50% by 2050.
Let’s restate that in terms of people. Reducing each person’s output by 50% is one way of achieving this, this is the equivalent of reducing the population polluting at current levels by 50% or 16 million people.
According to IIASA – an NGO, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/argu/trends/trend_10.htm
the Chinese population will increase by 260 million people in the next 30 years i.e. by 2037. Thus even if Canada achieves its Kyoto goal by 2050 it won’t mean a thing because, in terms of equivalent numbers of people, we will have reduced our population by 16 million people and they will have increased their population by 260 million, or 16 times our population.
Chinese are lesser polluters per capita you say? If the Chinese currently produce only a third of Canadian’s output, Canadian output from 16 million equals Chinese output from 48 million people, but that’s at today’s rates of output. Chinese industry and its economy is growing at great rates – China is bringing on line a new coal-burning electricity generation plant - every week, right now. By 2050 they will be equal with any developed nation. The comparison is equally valid with the population of India, which grew at 21% between 1991 and 2001, and is now more than a thousand million people and adds the equivalent population of Australia every year. Between 1947 and 1991, India's population more than doubled. Almost 40% of Indians are younger than 15 years of age.
Canada has 33 million people. China & India together = 2500 million people. At 2% growth per year, that’s 50 million more people every year.
Reducing pollution is generally a good idea in any case, but it is completely false to think anything we do, such as replacing light bulbs, switching off a light or driving a car one day less a week is going to have an impact on global warming. Canada is simply too small a population to matter.
Technological changes such as changing gas engines to hybrids are slow, long-term remedies.
In the short run, we can expect greenhouse gas emissions to be roughly proportional to economic activity. Were we to reduce GGEs by 30% in the next 5 years would mean a reduction of income and employment on a scale commensurate with the Great Depression. No government would inflict such disruption, nor should it.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Forget About Greenhouse Gases Part 2.
The nuclear energy industry will kill us all.
NRG Report:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070924006333&newsLang=en
Report
"I’m excited to see an investor-owned company submit the first combined operating license application in nearly 30 years, and I hope it is the first of many to come,” said United States Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), who serves as ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee."
The trouble with nuclear power is not that the plants are going to blow up and coat us with radioactive dust as it circles the globe for two and a half years as the dust from Krakatoa did, or that the plants will inevitably melt down like the one in the movie, The China Syndrome, or like Chernobyl, no, we have learned things from those events and from 3-Mile Island, about how to engineer multiple fail-safes.
Rather the threat comes from three prongs of the devil's trident:
one, the used fuel rods must be disposed of. They are typically encased in concrete and "stored" (dumped) in a facility in Nevada, or formerly dumped into a deep hole in the ocean, where inevitably they corrode and the radioactive waste leaks into the environment.
two, the mining and processing of the raw uranium, pollutes the mine environment hugely. The tailings are piled in huge mountains of waste material which leeches into the groundwater by rain which necessarily falls on the mounds of tailings. Mineworkers in northern Canada have higher rates of cancer than other citizens and die younger, typically, of cancers.
three - One 2700 megawatt plant in Texas - thousands of miles from the nearest source of Uranium - won't threaten the world's safety, but the report linked above speaks of an endless chain of nuclear power plants to replace America's dependence on oil - which will result in trucks and trainloads of nuclear material - used fuel rods and new fuel rods - criss-crossing the country on their way to and from power plants from coast to coast. If you have seen a semi-trailer of hazardous material spill on a highway, say, caustic soda, or diesel fuel, you know what a mess it causes, but in a day or two at the most it is cleaned up and traffic resumes like it never happened. The threat is short-lived. However, nuclear fuel rods have a half-life* of 25,000 years. This may necessitate the digging up of entire roadways for hundreds of metres around a spill to remove the radioactivity - which creates a bigger waste problem as this material - contaminated asphalt - must be safely disposed of.
*Half-Life - radioactive material dissipates half its mass in a period of time known as a "half-life." In the case of Uranium 238 isotope used in fuel rods the half life is 10,000 years. One ton of fuel rods will dissipate naturally to a half ton of mass in 10,000 years, to a quarter ton in another 10,000 years and so on.
"A large nuclear reactor produces 3 cubic metres (25-30 tonnes) of spent fuel each year."
The US Energy Authority say the waste material site in Nevada is secure. This authority is less than fifty years old. The whole country is only 231 years old. How can they claim it will be secure for 100 centuries ???
"As of 2003, the United States had accumulated about 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors."
The country-side surrounding Chernobyl is deadly to all life for thousands of square kilometres. That's one.
NRG Report:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070924006333&newsLang=en
Report
"I’m excited to see an investor-owned company submit the first combined operating license application in nearly 30 years, and I hope it is the first of many to come,” said United States Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), who serves as ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee."
The trouble with nuclear power is not that the plants are going to blow up and coat us with radioactive dust as it circles the globe for two and a half years as the dust from Krakatoa did, or that the plants will inevitably melt down like the one in the movie, The China Syndrome, or like Chernobyl, no, we have learned things from those events and from 3-Mile Island, about how to engineer multiple fail-safes.
Rather the threat comes from three prongs of the devil's trident:
one, the used fuel rods must be disposed of. They are typically encased in concrete and "stored" (dumped) in a facility in Nevada, or formerly dumped into a deep hole in the ocean, where inevitably they corrode and the radioactive waste leaks into the environment.
two, the mining and processing of the raw uranium, pollutes the mine environment hugely. The tailings are piled in huge mountains of waste material which leeches into the groundwater by rain which necessarily falls on the mounds of tailings. Mineworkers in northern Canada have higher rates of cancer than other citizens and die younger, typically, of cancers.
three - One 2700 megawatt plant in Texas - thousands of miles from the nearest source of Uranium - won't threaten the world's safety, but the report linked above speaks of an endless chain of nuclear power plants to replace America's dependence on oil - which will result in trucks and trainloads of nuclear material - used fuel rods and new fuel rods - criss-crossing the country on their way to and from power plants from coast to coast. If you have seen a semi-trailer of hazardous material spill on a highway, say, caustic soda, or diesel fuel, you know what a mess it causes, but in a day or two at the most it is cleaned up and traffic resumes like it never happened. The threat is short-lived. However, nuclear fuel rods have a half-life* of 25,000 years. This may necessitate the digging up of entire roadways for hundreds of metres around a spill to remove the radioactivity - which creates a bigger waste problem as this material - contaminated asphalt - must be safely disposed of.
*Half-Life - radioactive material dissipates half its mass in a period of time known as a "half-life." In the case of Uranium 238 isotope used in fuel rods the half life is 10,000 years. One ton of fuel rods will dissipate naturally to a half ton of mass in 10,000 years, to a quarter ton in another 10,000 years and so on.
"A large nuclear reactor produces 3 cubic metres (25-30 tonnes) of spent fuel each year."
The US Energy Authority say the waste material site in Nevada is secure. This authority is less than fifty years old. The whole country is only 231 years old. How can they claim it will be secure for 100 centuries ???
"As of 2003, the United States had accumulated about 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors."
The country-side surrounding Chernobyl is deadly to all life for thousands of square kilometres. That's one.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Forget about greenhouse gases..
if you don’t stop having babies, NOW!
I’ve shown that if ALL 33Million Canadians IMMEDIATELY cut their greenhouse gas output by 50% - the equivalent of killing off 16.5Million and letting the rest continue polluting as they have been. It wouldn’t matter a damn, because at a growth rate of only 1% China produces 14 million new people per year!
“The current annual population increase of about 80 million will remain constant until 2015.” - Source: "World Population Assessment and Projection, 1996.” the United Nations Population Division.
“Between now and 2050 world population growth will be generated exclusively in developing Countries.” - ibid.
“While such a steep decline, in fact, already happened in many European countries, it is rather unlikely that populous developing nations such as Pakistan, India, Indonesia or Nigeria - which greatly determine world population growth - would quickly follow this trend.” ibid.
Developing countries do not have the kind of regulatory agencies that the developed West - the G7 countries in particular, have. Their industries are notoriously dirty. Air pollution in Beijing has already made headlines - just because western athletes might be at a disadvantage there because they aren't used to breathing crap the way the Chinese athletes are. The facts are much, much worse.
China is planning hundreds of coal-burning power stations in order to compete in the marketplace, and to provide electricity for their increased urban populations as rural residents re-locate to the cities. China has over 200 cities with populations over 1 million people.
Published: Thursday, August 2, 2007 | 2:07 PM ET
Canadian Press
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - An Arkansas couple had a baby daughter today - their 17th child and seventh girl.
And the pair say they're still not ready to give it a rest.
I’ve shown that if ALL 33Million Canadians IMMEDIATELY cut their greenhouse gas output by 50% - the equivalent of killing off 16.5Million and letting the rest continue polluting as they have been. It wouldn’t matter a damn, because at a growth rate of only 1% China produces 14 million new people per year!
“The current annual population increase of about 80 million will remain constant until 2015.” - Source: "World Population Assessment and Projection, 1996.” the United Nations Population Division.
“Between now and 2050 world population growth will be generated exclusively in developing Countries.” - ibid.
“While such a steep decline, in fact, already happened in many European countries, it is rather unlikely that populous developing nations such as Pakistan, India, Indonesia or Nigeria - which greatly determine world population growth - would quickly follow this trend.” ibid.
Developing countries do not have the kind of regulatory agencies that the developed West - the G7 countries in particular, have. Their industries are notoriously dirty. Air pollution in Beijing has already made headlines - just because western athletes might be at a disadvantage there because they aren't used to breathing crap the way the Chinese athletes are. The facts are much, much worse.
China is planning hundreds of coal-burning power stations in order to compete in the marketplace, and to provide electricity for their increased urban populations as rural residents re-locate to the cities. China has over 200 cities with populations over 1 million people.
Published: Thursday, August 2, 2007 | 2:07 PM ET
Canadian Press
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - An Arkansas couple had a baby daughter today - their 17th child and seventh girl.
And the pair say they're still not ready to give it a rest.
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