Because we had more to fall back on before, and we were slower at destroying it. Deforesting a particular region or turning it into wasteland in the past wasn’t a good thing, but we had the rest of the world to fall back on. To suggest that man could do the same to the whole planet was laughable in the days of the axe and the horsedrawn plough, but what we can do now is several orders of magnitude different.
The “being aware of global events now” explanation is a good one for why it seems like there are more disasters now than previously. But don’t forget another explanation for higher death tolls: There are simply more people now than in historical times. An earthquake of the same size will kill more people in a densely populated area than a sparsely populated one, and there are more densely populated areas now.
What was the entire global population in the year 1500, for example? A few hundred million? Fewer?
Note that this explanation only works over decades or centuries, but Jehova’s Witnesses keep coming to my door and claiming that higher death tolls now vs. Biblical times (apparently they kept REALLY good records in Biblical times) signal the end of the world. And yet…life expectancy keeps increasing.
Damn, just lost a post. Anyway.
I’m not so sure about this idea that people will generally self regulate and that the need for government controlled oversight is overstated.
Many of these problems are The Tragedy of the Commons writ large. I don’t accept that enough people will self regulate against non self evident, latent, long tail problems caused by small contributions by a large number of people, just because a bunch of eggheads tell them to. I think that collective action regulating the individual (ie government intervention) is a useful tool in such circumstances.
Anne Neville, the reason I ask when the SF writers you mention made their predictions is that good practical birth control, and what happens to the birth rate when you have that plus education and wealth was not known until the last few decades. You say rather glibly “but make contraception available and make it so that parents can assume that all of their children will survive…” and the population will control itself. Wealth, good healthcare and good birth control were not popular responses to a population crisis. They just came to the West at a particular time and took care of the problem as a side effect. You can’t extrapolate from your example to say that self regulation will control such problems, as a rule.
John Corrado, you say (again rather glibly) that ozone depletion was controlled in part “by small governmental shifts in policy”. My understanding is that for “small government shift” read “prohibition of many ozone depleting substances”. Small maybe, but utterly crucial.
I think we need to be a bit more specific about the different things we’re lumping together as “environmentalist rhetoric” here.
Doomsday overpopulation scenarios based on the speculations of science fiction authors (for heavens’ sake) would definitely count as examples of alarmist overreaction. But that’s not the same thing as, say, a reputable climate scientist publishing peer-reviewed research about threats from global climate change.
We need to devote some attention to sorting out the serious calls for concern from the frivolous or hysterical ones, not just combine them as an undifferentiated mass of “environmentalism”. Sure, there will always be popular panics and over-hyped media alarmism about all sorts of threats to humanity, some real and some imaginary. But that doesn’t mean that all the threats are really pretty much equivalent in their importance or unimportance.
Of course not.
But overpopulation was considered a serious crisis, and it has more or less resolved itself in first-world countries, without huge social disruptions or a lot of government interference in decisions to have children. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll find a similar solution to the peak-oil problem, probably involving nuclear power. I doubt we’ll have a huge sea change in society like some of the doomsayers are predicting.
I’m not saying the threats aren’t real- they are. I’m saying that the doomsday scenarios proposed by some (not all) environmentalists aren’t likely. Not impossible, but IMO not likely.
Because some people actually believe the ages of the patriarchs in the bible are 100% accurate, in spite of no evidence outside of that fictional book.
Methuselah lived 969 years. Right. :rolleyes: Hygiene, nutrition and organ transplants were so much better then – that could explain it.
John Corrado, that’s an interesting perspective, the one that boils down to us, the general population, demanding the government legislate us into doing what’s best for us. No doubt there’s a significant element of truth in that sentiment, because when it comes to world ending issues like global warming, IMO, we’re pathetic at the self-regulation thing. I see Princhester echos my feelings on this idea too.
I found it intersting to read that we as a society actually took effective action with the CFCs etc. that were responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. I’m well aware of the campaign to limit the production of ozone depleting chemicals in the western world, but I’ve been unable to find any info on what " the rest of the world" was up to in regards to these things. I was just assuming that countries like Russia and China weren’t “with the program”, so to speak.
I have to assume you guys have already done a peak oil thread, but I can’t find it. Maybe it’s this limited membership I’m working on, or maybe threads on this board really only go back three pages, but if someone would be so kind as to point it out to me, I’d be most grateful.
But IMO, we’re better at the self-regulation thing than we’re usually given credit for. Sure, CFCs were banned by the government, but what non-Asian governments stepped in and made any effort to regulate population growth? How did governments innovate to produce more food?
Only full members can use the search function fully. Here’s the thread we did on Peak Oil.
Accurate or Not as you please.
Plot the ages at time of death of the O.T. patriarchs and others as given vs. time and the longevity of man till the present.
The plot minimizes at the time of Christ and has been on the increase since.
Perhaps you can explain that in light of the fact that the OT was written by numerous authors over hundreds of years.
I don’t agree with your assumptions or your premise, but continuing along these lines might be a hijack of this thread, so I’ll just invite you to read a previous one on this topic and feel free to start another if you wish:
I have my doubts about out ability to self-regulate, sure we’re good at talking about self-regulation, and boasting about how green we are in comparison to others ( take all the fuss about SUVs as an exapmel ), but how much we’re actually willing to compromise our lifestyles for the sake of the planet is debatable.
I could fill a page about how “green” I am, but I don’t want to bore you to death, however I might be forced to admit that my real motivations for doing things like hanging my laundry to dry are motivated by economics, rather that heartfelt concern for the planet.
AS to population growth, I usually attribute that to the lessening popularity of having large families like they used to need to do back in days of yore. You simply don’t need six children to ensure the viability of the homestead anymore. Plus, I have this theory that liberals tend to have less children than conservatives, and given the growth of liberal ideology over the last 50 years or so, I feel this contributes significantly to our western self-regulation of population. I could be talking complete crap here though.
I better get on with the full membership thing.
I think the best way to get people to be greener is to find a way for them to do so without compromising their lifestyles very much.
There’s also the fact that we have effective and convenient contraceptives now, which we didn’t until recently. Using a condom or pill is much more palatable to most people than modifying your lifestyle by not having sex, so more people are willing to have fewer children. There’s more to it than that, of course, but I think this illustrates my point that a good way to get people to live greener lifestyles is to make it easier for them to do so.