by Ibon » Tue 12 Aug 2008, 13:23:29
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here's actually quite a lot of open space in Holland - it's not like they paved over the place - and it's also a major net exporter of food. The difference is that the towns are very compact so where in the US a standard suburban house is built on a half acre plot, in Holland they're typically on less than a tenth of an acre.
There is a difference between stupiidity and ignorance. The above statement is made by a person who is certainly not stupid but who is certainly very ignorant in not being able to differentiate between open land altered by humans and wildlife where intact habitats exist rich in biodiversity. Gazing upon a vast expanse of a monoculture of hybrid red tulips in the Holland countryside doesn't do it for me sorry.
We are treading on very dangerous ground here when we define carrying capacity solely on how many humans our planet could support if we would take all the arable land in existence and wipe out our native habitats and biodiversity for the sake of maintaining a "sustainable" human population.
Unfortunately carrying capacity is being defined more and more by what is the sustainable human population once we rape and pillage natural ecosystems and convert these areas into vast monocultures of food and fuel crops and livestock to support our over population.
Oil_be_alroit, I don't want to put you on the defensive or single you out regarding stupidity and ignorance but we do need to be able to understand the difference between open spaces that are sinks of biodiversity and the open spaces that are harnessed for human use.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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