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Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortality)

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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby MonteQuest » Mon 28 May 2007, 19:46:27

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'R')educing child mortality does not make for a "better world"?!?!


For a short, selfish, short-sighted time in history, yes.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'H')ad we been truly intelligent, we could have limited our numbers on the commons. Think of the world we could have had: a small healthy population, relatively free of disease and suffering with a high quality of life—almost forever. In our insistence to breed with freedom on the commons, we squandered that opportunity. And since the population went up due to the population sustainability of fossil fuels, it will go down as they decline—although there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable global population would be without them.

You want freedom from disease and suffering? You want the freedom to save as many human lives as possible? You want the freedom to preserve your moral ideals and embracement of the sanctity of life? Fine, then you are going to have to give up the freedom to breed without restraint. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby MonteQuest » Mon 28 May 2007, 19:58:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PraiseDoom', ' ')Are you suggesting something like Communism might be the answer, and do you think it can be achieved before we slide into the Gorge?


Communism? No, more like population reduction.

We are sliding into the gorge as we speak.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby PraiseDoom » Mon 28 May 2007, 21:13:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PraiseDoom', ' ')Are you suggesting something like Communism might be the answer, and do you think it can be achieved before we slide into the Gorge?


Communism? No, more like population reduction.

We are sliding into the gorge as we speak.


Now thats MORE LIKE IT!!! Haven't have civil disorder here yet, but I've still got my fingers crossed.

I suggested communism only because you seemed to worry about the disparity between the rich and the poor. I always figured basic communism tries to do away with that disparity, so it might be a solution to equalizing the wealth.
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby crapattack » Tue 29 May 2007, 00:22:07

Tyler_JC wrote:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')educing child mortality does not make for a "better world"?!?!


No it doesn't. Not if we are buying this "betterness" at the expense of having a future. We're living on credit in a way our pre-industrial ancestors never did, literally stealing the present from the future by reproducing uncontrollably. And in this stolen present that you and Starvid think is so much better than the past, as I've pointed out before, literally 11 million children DIE EVERY YEAR. Have you any conception of what that means? Do you understand the scale of it at all beyond some theoretical number? To have that many children under the age of 5 dying every year in our modern world, and we are allowing it to happen because we do nothing to make it stop. More children die now every year than people existed in England during your comparison year 1730. What is your definition of a better world? Do you find that an acceptable "price to pay" for your lifestyle?

Tyler_JC wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only way that inequity really matters is if the rich are stealing wealth from the poor and reducing the average standard of living of the poor over time.

So far, I don't see that happening. The countries that have seen shrinking per capita GDP over the past couple decades can blame most of their problems on AIDS, terrible dictatorships, or civil war.


Well, they are. If you don't see it happening it's because you've got your head so far up your ass all you can see is your own sweet-smelling crap. It's a kind of sense deprivation syndrome that is enabling the rich fucks to feed off the poor folks just about everywhere without any accountability. It's Sergant Schultz saying "I see nothink! I hear nothink!". Wake up fatty, the IMF and the World Bank have created slave countries on which the rich countries gorge themselves drunk and stupid. Worst of all, they seem to like it that way and have the fervent and fevered faith that the feast can continue indefinately.

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/SAP.asp
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms. Dozens of countries must compete for shrinking export markets and can export only a limited range of products because of Northern protectionism and their lack of cash to invest in diversification. Market saturation ensues, reducing exporters’ income to a bare minimum while the North enjoys huge savings. The IMF cannot seem to understand that investing in … [a] healthy, well-fed, literate population … is the most intelligent economic choice a country can make.

— Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt, (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), pp. 143, 187, 235



If you're going to seriously debate this issue, I suggest you do some reading about the IMF and World Bank policies first. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby crapattack » Tue 29 May 2007, 00:49:07

Starvid wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he price to pay... Humans affect their environment. Everyone does. The price you gotta pay is either living with that or paying for cleaning it up again. Some people, like the Americans, just don't seem to care about that. We do. We pay.


My point is that the world's poor pay for the lifestyle of the rich countries. That is the "price to pay", and what so many in the rich world (including my own country) fail to see. Some other smuck lives on 2 cents a day so you have have your cheap "things" that you think make the world so much better. It's precisely this inequality which makes the world not better. We're hooked on an illusion, junkies mainlining the consumerist dream, the dream that half the world isn't invited to share, and the cost of this dream is their blood and pain and deaths in this realiity, this moment, right now. That is the "price" of our addiction, the "price" you seem all to willing to pay in other people's lives - children's lives - so you can have your "better" world. Pretty soon we will all be "paying the price" for the present.

But let's try to define what you mean by better. Tell us Starvid, since it was your statements that started this, what do you mean by "things are better". What things? Better than when?

Starvid: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ho knows if we can ruin the climate even if we tried?


We're ruining it pretty nicely.

Starvid: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')By the way, I am tired of your fascist wars.


Me too.

Starvid: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')r hey, you're Canadian? Did you guys go to Iraq or not?


Nope, we didn't go there. We defied the Bush hegemony on that front. We are in Afganistan, much to my horror and dismay.

Hello, I_Like_Plants! Thanks for the warm fuzzy :)
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby PraiseDoom » Tue 29 May 2007, 02:52:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', 'S')tarvid wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he price to pay... Humans affect their environment. Everyone does. The price you gotta pay is either living with that or paying for cleaning it up again. Some people, like the Americans, just don't seem to care about that. We do. We pay.


My point is that the world's poor pay for the lifestyle of the rich countries.


????

So...I drive an SUV...and someone in Africa sends me a check so I can fill up my tank?

Or do you mean they work for tiny wages for a multinational, thereby subsidizing my lifestyle here in the US?

And you believe they should be elevated to an American standard of living, or we should be brought down to theirs, or we should meet somewhere in between?
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby I_Like_Plants » Tue 29 May 2007, 03:50:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')The only way that inequity really matters is if the rich are stealing wealth from the poor and reducing the average standard of living of the poor over time.

So far, I don't see that happening.


That's because you're a good 'Murrikan and have been taught since birth not to see it.
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby crapattack » Tue 29 May 2007, 04:29:56

PraiseDoom:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Or do you mean they work for tiny wages for a multinational, thereby subsidizing my lifestyle here in the US?


Da. Keep up k, I hate running backwards.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd you believe they should be elevated to an American standard of living, or we should be brought down to theirs, or we should meet somewhere in between?


I am illustrating that the world is not better as Starvid would have us believe... "things are better" and that "there is always a price to pay". I am pointing out that the poor are paying the price. I think soon we all will be.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby Starvid » Tue 29 May 2007, 10:31:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'W')ith the exception of climate gas emissions that we really can't do that much about as we have already done most of what can be done, even if the left and greens fight so very hard to increase our emission again.

But still, if all developed countries emitted as little CO2 per capita as we do, pretty much no one would worry as much about climate change as they do now.


Its a nice boast but its not true.[smilie=eusa_boohoo.gif]

Sweden emits about 6 tons of CO2 per person per year.

There are over a hundred countries with lower per capita CO2 emissions then Sweden.
Which is why I said all developed countries.

And it's more like 5,5 tons per capita. Anyway, it's good enough for now. Emissions will be forced further down as the supply of oil falls away. As long as fossil fuels are not used for heating and power you can't go wrong.
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby PraiseDoom » Tue 29 May 2007, 10:39:31

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', 'P')raiseDoom:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Or do you mean they work for tiny wages for a multinational, thereby subsidizing my lifestyle here in the US?


Da. Keep up k, I hate running backwards.


Well I'm sorry. Making the leap from poor people working half a world away to equating that with them somehow subsidizing my lifestyle is one heck of a leap. I wanted to make sure thats what you REALLY meant.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', '
')

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd you believe they should be elevated to an American standard of living, or we should be brought down to theirs, or we should meet somewhere in between?


I am illustrating that the world is not better as Starvid would have us believe... "things are better" and that "there is always a price to pay". I am pointing out that the poor are paying the price. I think soon we all will be.


I don't think the poor are paying a particular price, if they don't want to work as slave labor they can go back to doing whatever they were doing prior to a multi national showing up and showering them with the vision of how the modern world works. Disparity in living standards is just a fact of modern economies, I'm not sure I consider rearranging it into the poor somehow subsidizing my lifestyle is anything other than a semantic stunt.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby Starvid » Tue 29 May 2007, 10:46:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')The 6 tons of CO2 emitted by every Swedish person every year builds up in the atmosphere just like the CO2 emitted by people in other rich countries, and helps to cause Global Warming. Sweden, like every other rich country, would have to reduce their CO2 emissions to near zero to stop adding new CO2 into the atmosphere. [smilie=headbang.gif]

There isn't enough oil and gas on the planet to create any serious temperature increase. The IPCC is widely off, violently overestimating it and off course completely ignoring peak oil.
Image

Further, professor Kjell Aleklett, the chairman of ASPO, states that there isn't enough coal either. I don't know about his data and methodology here, but I could ask him the next time I meet him.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby MonteQuest » Tue 29 May 2007, 11:54:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')here isn't enough oil and gas on the planet to create any serious temperature increase. The IPCC is widely off, violently overestimating it and off course completely ignoring peak oil.


My, but your ignorance on GW is showing. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, the earth will still increase in temperature. C02 has that effect longterm.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby Starvid » Tue 29 May 2007, 15:25:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')here isn't enough oil and gas on the planet to create any serious temperature increase. The IPCC is widely off, violently overestimating it and off course completely ignoring peak oil.


My, but your ignorance on GW is showing. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, the earth will still increase in temperature. C02 has that effect longterm.

Sure, there will be an increase in temperature, even if we stopped today. I never said anything else. I said I don't think it will be very serious. We are at, what, 380 ppm today? I wonder if we can go over 450 ppm even if we tried, if peak oil, peak gas and peak coal is for real.
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Re: Uranium Supply

Postby MonteQuest » Tue 29 May 2007, 15:31:35

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', ' ')Sure, there will be an increase in temperature, even if we stopped today. I never said anything else. I said I don't think it will be very serious.


Again your ignorance on GW is showing; it is already serious. Have you not read the literature?
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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby gnm » Tue 29 May 2007, 15:45:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', 'H')ow we going to stop having children without committing abortion? easy. All male testicles above the age of ten to be removed...


At least that would be a lot easier than removing all the female testicles!


8O
You consider this the only SANE way? I think trying to implement this would cause more violence than any benefits! :lol:

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Re: Is Life Getting Better? (Cheeseburgers and Child Mortali

Postby smiley » Tue 29 May 2007, 17:05:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here isn't enough oil and gas on the planet to create any serious temperature increase. The IPCC is widely off, violently overestimating it and off course completely ignoring peak oil.


Don't underestimate human ingenuity (and stupidity).

The epos of Gilamesh describes the south of Mesopotamia as a lush forest as far as the eye can see. Makes sense. Mothern civilisation would not have started in the middle of a desert. Well if you turn on CNN you can see that there is not much left, which can be called "lush". Man did that.

Peak oil is a curse for the climate rather than a blessing. If we run out of fuel we will look for alternatives. And I don't believe we will stop before we have burned anything which is burnable on this planet.

The signs are already there. I was in Indonesia a while back. In the evening the air is thick with smoke, because wood is cheaper than gas and oil. The results are mudslides and soil erosion. The country will be barren in a few decades time.

Look at America where some lunatic had the brilliant idea to run cars on ethanolised food. Think of the implications. We rather burn food than to strive for fuel efficiency.

We still have a lot to burn so I don't expect a sudden reversal of CO2 levels.
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Postby Tyler_JC » Tue 29 May 2007, 17:13:49

Image

Global population growth rates are dropping off dramatically.

Image

And more importantly, population growth rates among people who consume the most resources are dropping much faster than the world as a whole.

There are dozens of countries that currently have a lower birth rate than death rate. Were it not for immigration from the third world, most of Europe would have a declining population.

We can speed up the process by enriching the third world slightly (there is a larger decrease in fertility with the first $1000 of GDP, than with the 25th $1000).

I'm not saying that we should have the freedom to overpopulate the world to an extreme level but I don't agree with the notion that we aren't doing anything to fix the problem. In the less developed parts of the world, the fertility rate dropped from more than 6 children per woman in 1950 to the current rate of 2.75(ish).

More than halving the fertility rate in 50 years is impressive population control by any measure.
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Postby MonteQuest » Tue 29 May 2007, 19:31:54

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', ' ')Global population growth rates are dropping off dramatically.


Good lord, how many times do you need to be told?

Global population growth rates are dropping off dramatically only because the standard of living has been rising for the last 40 years.

It's called a demographic transition. It cannot continue. Do you think China and India are going to be able to live like we do?

Hardly...

Do you posit that in a post-peak world, the SOL is going to continue to rise?

If not, then I doubt we will see a continued decline, perhaps even a resurgence to have more hands to work and grow food.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ere it not for immigration from the third world, most of Europe would have a declining population.


Which is a disaster under our current system. Population growth is required for economic growth and a base for social security systems.
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Postby PraiseDoom » Tue 29 May 2007, 22:32:51

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')
Do you posit that in a post-peak world, the SOL is going to continue to rise?



Well, nearly 2 years in and it sure hasn't changed yet!! You would think this party would have STARTED already.
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