George Monbiot - Left Hook - Overpopulation

http://www.eco-tube.com George Monbiot dispels the notion that over population is the biggest challange we face on the planet today

Talks about many ideas of population control, eugenics and the truth about the developing world's environmental footprint

Absolutely fascinating

Filmed at The Rich Mix, London March 4th 2011

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• george monbiot
• lib dems
• nick clegg
• tories
• cameron
• left hook
• rich mix
• politics
• guardian

[hitssquad]

@marmaladekamikaze Yesterday, I wrote: "Perhaps 400 million tonnes of copper has been mined since 1900. At $7,680 per tonne, that's $3 trillion worth."

I downloaded the Excel spreadsheet data from that USGS page, and I summed the annual-production column giving this more accurate figure: 558,298,000 tonnes. Again using the 2010 average copper price of $7,680 per tonne in 2010 dollars, that's $4.3 trillion worth -- 43% higher than my previous estimate.

.

It falsifies the Wired article even more.

[checkyoursources]

@hitssquad Humans make up less than 0.00001% of oxygen using life on this planet so the oxygen would last considerably less time if most plants/photosynthesising organisms were to be wiped out.

My original point was that Humans cannot replace ecosystem services without paying huge amounts of money so we should choose to live within their limits rather than promoting un-ending growth as many economists have done.

[checkyoursources]

@hitssquad Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. Moreover, the UN environment programme confirmed in 2004 that there were nearly 150 "dead zones" in the world's oceans where discharged sewage and industrial waste, farm fertiliser run-off and other pollutants have reduced oxygen levels to such an extent that most or all sea creatures can no longer live there.

[hitssquad]

@checkyoursources My math for the 465,000 years' worth of oxygen:

From the web: "According to NASA the average person needs 0.84 kg of O2 per day"

From wikipedia: "Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earth's atmosphere, taking up 20.8% of its volume and 23.1% of its mass (some 10^15 tonnes)."

That's e18kg / .84 kg/d / 365.24 days / 7 billion people = 4.656e5 years' worth of oxygen in the atmosphere at current population-wide human-body use rates.

[hitssquad]

@checkyoursources "that nature couldn't do better"

What are you talking about? Who has stopped the oceans from making oxygen? When did this happen? Source?

If that's not what you meant, then how are you planning on preventing the oceans from producing oxygen? Please state your oxygen-production-prevention plan right here, right now. If you don't have such a plan, what makes you think anyone else could do it?

[checkyoursources]

@hitssquad The twentieth century saw a rapid twentyfold increase in the use of fossil fuels.

[checkyoursources]

@hitssquad Humans have to be paid (unless you are a supporter of slavery which I hope you aren't), while nature doesn't have to be paid, please feel free to provide evidence that humans could provide oxygen with man made tech that nature couldn't do better and for free?

[checkyoursources]

@hitssquad My soudce was Enerdata: "World energy use in 2010: over 5% growth" and "According to BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy, published today, 2010’s energy consumption was up by 5.6% on the year before" Economist 2011

[hitssquad]

@checkyoursources "in the event that consumption doubled every 20 years"

That's an absurdly-high growth rate -- especially long-term. The US didn't even grow its own energy consumption that fast through the 20th century. What wrong with the EIA's prediction of a 44-year doubling time?

.

"for the next say 2000 years"

That would be 5 doublings per century, for 20 centuries, for a total of 100 doublings -- or a factor of 1.27e30. Multiply that by the current 16e12w, and we get 2e43 watts.

[hitssquad]

@checkyoursources "Why haven't economists realised that "nothing grows exponentially forever"?"

Julian Simon? He said it over and over: juliansimon. com/writings/Ultimate_Resource­/TCHAR24. txt "But we must recognize what Malthus eventually came to recognize. After he published the short simplistic theory in the first edition of his Essay on Population, he took the time to consider the facts as well as the theory. He then concluded that human beings are very different from flies or rats."