# Man wrecks planet...yeah right. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 20, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172 "2003-06-20T15:00:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Charlee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@Charlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlee)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/21 "2003-06-20T22:26:50Z")
Some points to consider: Over 97% of all species that have existed are now extinct. Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. The earth is now much greener than it was twenty years ago (Last week from CNN): Climate changes making planet greener ``` By Richard Stenger CNN ``` (CNN) – The Earth has become significantly greener over the past two decades, the result of climate changes that have furnished plants with more heat, light, water and carbon dioxide, according to a new Science magazine report. The overall plant bulk went up about 6 percent over much of the planet, with pikes in the tropics and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere accounting for 80 percent of the gains, researchers said. The years since 1980 included two of the warmest decades on record, producing changes that have boosted growth ingredients in regions where they might otherwise have been scarce. A 9.3 percent increase in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a de facto fertilizer, was significant, but not enough to produce by itself the kind of vegetative growth, the study found. Not everywhere has become more vegetated. About 7 percent of the studied landmasses experienced drops in plant productivity. “The biggest winners [becoming more green] seem to be India, Brazil and Canada,” said lead author Ramakrishna Nemani. “Losers are parts of Mexico and northern Siberia [drying and cooling, respectively].” The Amazon rain forest alone was responsible for more than 40 percent of the plant growth, mostly due to reduced cloud cover that let in more sunshine. The southern Saharan desert in Africa has also seen a spectacular retreat (desert to green). ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/22 "2003-06-21T00:42:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Why does it take two people’s incomes to do what one person’s income would do in the 1950s? Because we have far better education, healthcare, transportation and other public and social infrastructure than we had in the 1950.s > [@](#): > > Why do people from 3rd world nations starve. Primarily war and corruption according to the FAO > [@](#): > > Obviously, according to Simon (if you read the link), more people means more production, right? All things being equal yes. But it does require that all things remain equal. It clearly doesn’t work if the resident dictator simply skims off all production beyond subsistence level. > [@](#): > > does not care if you invent a new way to plow the earth, or a new alloy that can be made from carbon sluice and camel dung. Eventually, resources run out. Care to explain how this can be so? What resource is going to run out? The problem is that Ehrlich made the same statement in his now infamous bet with Simon. Remember how that turned out? > [@](#): > > And so long as I’m talking about depleted wood resources And you haven’t been because wood resource are increasing, not decreasing. You have been talking about people preferring plastic over wood for whatever reason. > [@](#): > > how about the cost of paper? It has gone down in real terms IIRC. What does that fact tell use > [@](#): > > all the while, our skies get dirtier Umm air pollution is decreasing markedly. Our skies are getting cleaner. > [@](#): > > our water supplies dwindle A greater percentage of people have greater access to larger volumes of clean water than at any time in the past 200 years, and the number is improving dramatically. Our water supplies are increasing, not dwindling. > [@](#): > > and our ability to sustain the lives around us at a fair and equitable standard diminishes. The standard education, life expectancy, income and leisure time, in fact all measures of standard of living, are increasing worldwide. They are better now than they have been any time in the last 2000 years. Our ability to sustain the lives around us at a fair and equitable standard improves in leaps and bounds. > [@](#): > > As it stands we’re nearly 7 billion people on earth and by 2010, there will be 10 billion total inhabitants. According to every single population projection I have ever seen, including those by the UN, the population will hit C9 billion by 2050, and after that it will continue to fall. The population will NOT be 10 billion by 2010, and in reality it will probably never hit 10 billion. \*\* squidboy\*\* propagating ignorance like this on these boards isn’t tolerated real well. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/23 "2003-06-21T00:43:30Z")
> [@](#): > > You cannot argue that the world’s resources are limited. You’re quite right. Such an argument is unsound. By and large the Earth’s resources aren’t limited. > [@](#): > > Even if we clone our food and our trees, we don’t have an unlimited water supply. Care to tell us where all the water is going to? Is it vanishing into space? Water is cycled. Of course it’s unlimited. That’s what a cycle means. > [@](#): > > The Yellow River in China is drying up. Yes, and the Thames is getting wetter. So what? > [@](#): > > Ask yourself why the amount of steel in your car is so much less than it was 50 years ago? Because it makes cars cheaper, looks better, gives better mileage and a whole slew of other reasons. > [@](#): > > The steel supply in the US couldn’t handle that kind of demand in every car were fitted with chrome, reinforced doors, and son. Cite. I bet you can’t provide any figures to support that. > [@](#): > > Why you don’t own anything with oak wood Supply and demand. Plastics replaced wood, so timber profits went down making timber more expensive per unit. > [@](#): > > or for that matter why you’re $8,000 in debt (average american), while the bread winner in the 1950s was socking money away, buying a house, a car, and preparing for his children’s college education? Because, like most people, I have borrowed money to make money. Because my standard of living is far higher than my counterpart in 1955. Because my life expectancy is higher. Because I am the first person on my family ever to get a college education. > [@](#): > > Why is it that if we slow our spending the economy itself will slow down? Because that’s what an economy is. It’s money moving. You might just as well ask why it is that if we slow our spin dryer the clothes move slower. > [@](#): > > Toasters breakdown because they are designed to. Cite! > [@](#): > > What happens when China and Nigeria (4th most populace country in the world) and Mexico all decide they want to live like americans. What happens then? They will live like American, replete with American negative population growth. Is this a bad thing? > [@](#): > > And the more I read, UN Reports Would you like me to provide links to the real UN reports that flat out contradict most of what you have said? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/24 "2003-06-21T02:18:05Z")
The figures on increased biomass may or may not be accurate, but even if they are true, let’s make sure we’re comparing applies and oranges here. An increase in Canadian forests does not offset a decrease in tropical rain forests. Species diversity is much, much, much greater in tropical rain forests than in Canadian rain forests. We may be getting more biomass, but the biomass we’re getting in Canada is just an increase in the population of a relatively small number of species, while the biomass we’re losing in Brazil means the extinction of thousands of species, some of which … get this … may be medically, scientifically and/or economically useful. This obvious flaw leads me to doubt the whole thesis. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/25 "2003-06-21T03:16:20Z")
Go back about 70 years, and you will find all the same arguments that people aren’t really harming the globe – air and water pollution isn’t a problem, industry shouldn’t be hampered and should be allowed to dispose of waste in whatever way is most efficient, yeah, ok, so the dodo went extinct, too bad, that’s nature’s way. Nuclear waste, oh, heck, just dump it in the river. So, the River in Cleveland is so polluted that it burns? How cute. Amazing how little we’ve learned. I’m going to start a tree museum, I’ll charge all the people just $1.50 to see 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/26 "2003-06-21T06:15:30Z")
Go back a mere 20 years, and you will find all the same arguments that people are really harming the globe – air and water pollution are getting worse, the world population wil be 20 billion in 25 years time. The world is running out of resources. yeah, ok, so the price of all commodities is coming down, that’s just a temporary glitch. The standard of living is increasing, oh, heck, that will only last 10 years, then we’ll reallypay for it. Industry and invention should be hampered. So, the people in Africa will never acheive our standards of living? They can be cute native guides for the western tourists. Amazing how little we’ve learned. “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.” Professor Paul Ehrlich, 1969 ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/27 "2003-06-21T12:25:46Z")
Since Lomborg’s _The Skeptical Enviromentalist_ (Cambridge, 2001) has already been mentioned, it’s worth mentioning that even his numbers are **broadly** in agreement with Cecil’s. [ul]\* _Today we added 265,000 babies._ Lomborg’s Figure 13 has about 80 million people being added in the 90s. That’s about 220,000 a day, as against Cecil’s 209,000. (No great surprise, such numbers are fairly uncontroversial.) - _Lost 7,500 acres of rain forest._ Cecil suggests 104,000 acres a day. Lomborg settles on a 2001 FAO study (p113) concluding that the average loss of tropical forests in the 90s was 8.6 Mha a year. That’s about 60,000 acres a day. - _Added 46,000 acres of desert._ Lomborg doesn’t seem to discuss desertification. - _Lost 71 million tons of topsoil._ An alarm bell when I read the column, since Brown is probably the single environmentalist most criticised by Lomborg. And, indeed, he lays into this estimate (p104-6). But my reading of this passage is that one can’t really say much more than that, while one might distrust Brown’s estimate, there aren’t any really good estimates with which to replace it. Instead, Lomborg switches to the argument that topsoil loss doesn’t make any difference to agricultural productivity anyway. - _Added 15 million tons of carbon dioxide._ Corrected by Cecil to less than 4 million tons of carbon per day. The book presumably does contain an estimate, though I don’t see it. However, I’d expect this is fairly well estimated in general and so relatively uncontroversial. - _Lost about 70 species._ Lomborg famously disagrees with E.O. Wilson on the topic. His final estimate is 0.7 percent of species per 50 years (p255-6, 257). Using the same 10 million species in total estimate, that’s still about 4 a day.[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/28 "2003-06-22T00:52:11Z")
> [@](#): > > But my reading of this passage is that one can’t really say much more than that, while one might distrust Brown’s estimate, there aren’t any really good estimates with which to replace it. I have to disagree with that assessment most emphatically! Lomborg does indeed say that we should mistrust Brown’s estimate. It is perhaps more pertinent that both the author that Brown derives his figures from _and_ the International Food Policy Research Institute also say that we should mistrust Brown’s estimate. And far from Lomborg saying that there aren’t any good figures to replace it with, he cites a long term study covering 15% of the total area as being a good figure to replace it with. That study reveals that “the topsoil layer probably did not grow significantly thinner between the 1930s and 1980s” The actual passage: > [@](#): > > However there are two serious problems with these figures on erosion. First, they are based on very few and uncertain estimates, primarily stemming form the US. Pimentel found in 1974 that the US lost 30 tonnes of topsoil per hectare, whereas we now know that the true figure was 12 tonnes per hectare. His estimate of 17 tonne sper hectare for all of Europe has turned out to stem- via a string of articles, ach slightly inaccurately referring to its predecessor- from a sigle stud of a 0.11 hectare plot of sloping Belgian farmland; the author himself warns against generalisation form this. The 7 billion tonnes figure comes form an environmental atlas from Myers. IFPRI concludes that “the early, high estimates of soil degradation have not ben substantiated”. One of the few studies actually to have looked at long-term measurements in China and Indonesia (making up 15 percent of the globally eroded area) has found very little support for these high estimates. Indeed, as regards topsoil, the study shows that “ the topsoil layer probably did not grow significantly thinner between the 1930s and 1980s in either China or Indonesia.” ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/29 "2003-06-22T05:46:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/30 "2003-06-22T05:53:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/31 "2003-06-22T06:00:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/32 "2003-06-22T06:07:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/33 "2003-06-22T06:12:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/34 "2003-06-22T06:35:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/35 "2003-06-22T06:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/36 "2003-06-22T06:47:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charlee \* > Nature put over 140 billion tons of carbon into the environment each year. I’ll assume your little factoid here is right. But it is basically irrelevant to the debate on global warming. The problem is that the increased output due to humans is upsetting the balance between carbon emission into the atmosphere and re-uptake from the atmosphere that has existed. It is completely undisputed by any serious scientist that the level of carbon dioxide has significantly increased in the industrial era. (In fact, they have very good numbers on exactly by how much…I think it is by something like 30% or so.) So, I have no idea what purpose your factoid serves other than trying to confuse the issue and make people believe that things that are well-understood are still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/37 "2003-06-22T13:04:22Z")
I’m sorry, jshore, I didn’t quite get that last post. Could you repeat it? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/38 "2003-06-22T13:50:56Z")
Holy cow, I didn’t submit that 7 times! I just submitted it once…well, okay, maybe twice because the first time failed I thought… and went to bed while it ground away. Urgh! Sorry! ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/39 "2003-06-22T19:01:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > And far from Lomborg saying that there aren’t any good figures to replace it with, he cites a long term study covering 15% of the total area as being a good figure to replace it with. That study reveals that “the topsoil layer probably did not grow significantly thinner between the 1930s and 1980s” No, he doesn’t conclude that there’s a good replacement figure. He only notes that “ **one** of the few studies” (emphasis added) had this conclusion. I don’t see him doing anything more here than offering this as one striking data point in an area where little is known. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172/40 "2003-06-22T20:42:41Z")
By the way, I know that Lomberg may be a hero of the Right but he really doesn’t have much standing scientifically. He wrote a book in which he talked about a whole slew of areas in which he has never even published any research papers and scientists who are well-published in those fields have taken him to task for various inaccuracies, etc. He was then rebuked by the Danish Scientific Academy for presenting what was claimed to be an honest research book but what they believed was a one-sided polemic. In order to believe his book over the research in the field requires quite a bit of either conspiracy theory, imagining a lot of rampant incompetence across a wide variety of fields in the scientific community, or the like. [The hamsters seem to be doing a much better job this afternoon, so I hope you folks only have to endure this post once.] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-wrecks-planet-yeah-right/183172.md?page=3)