🚀 go-pugleaf

   Yep, Jon M. Taylor wrote to All on 19 Mar 95  13:52:07 
    about:   Re: Anne Ehrlich - Burlingame March 31st:

T> From: taylorj@ecs.ecs.csus.edu (Jon M. Taylor)

T> In article <3ka10p$k2k@onramp.arc.nasa.gov>,
T> John S. Watson - FSC <watson@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
 >In article <3k7ron$9vg_001@simi.rain.org> noah@rain.org (Matt Noah) writes:

T> [snip]
 
 >I don't know if they still publish any "real" scientific
 >papers, or where their funding comes from (other than a pay check 
 >from Stanford University) or been "drummed out of the scientific community",
 >whatever that means.

T> In the 70s, Paul Erlich made a $1000 bet with some other 
T> scientist (forgot his name) that the worldwide crop yields would drop
T> in  the 1980s because of overpopulation and overfarming.  He lost
T> bigtime -  crop yeilds more than doubled.  Erlich's doomsday
T> predictions have fallen  out of favor with a large and growing chunk of
T> the scientific community  in the last decade or so.
 
  I believe the $1000 bet he lost was made with economist Julian Simon 
  and covered the price of certain commodity futures (e.g. tin) over a 
  ten year period.

  This has far from discredited his work, which is scientific in every
  detail.  It did however illustrate that price is not a good indicator
  of scarcity.  It also gave the growthmania crowd much glee to find that
  their main detractor had made an error.  (EEEEK!) Much has been made 
  of this, including their nick-name "Never-been-right" Ehrlich.  
  
  In fact, "Never-been-right" Ehrlich is the way many have had first
  exposure to him.  I can only urge such people to with-hold judgment
  until they learn more about it.  He is well respected.  In my opinion
  more respected because he is one of the few scientists willing to risk
  his reputation. 
  
  For example, we now know that in forecasting any unbalanced 
  species population's sustainability, that we can usually predict 
  that, but not a good time frame.  

  Personally, I don't much care for his I=PAT, and prefer my own
  S=E/PC if S>1, but they address separate situations and conditions.

 >I've somewhat divided feelings about their work ... on the one hand
 >I'm very pro-environment (love the outdoors) and they've helped convinced me 
 >that overpopulation is one of the biggest environmental problems we face  
 >(yes there are others).  

T> However, this problem will most likely solve itself in the next 50
T> years or so as the third world goes thru the "demographic shift",
T> which  is the transition from a primarily rural, agricultural,
T> subsistence-based  existence to an urban, non-agricultural one.  It has

   We can hope so.

T> been shown time and  again that wealth and education are the best

   Of course historicism is an invalid proof.

T> methods of birth control -  the US population would be *shrinking now
T> (avg. of 1.7 kids per family)  of not for immigration.  Eventually,

   US Census Bureau disagrees with this common myth.  

T> this'll happen to the entire world. 
 >Adding about 100 million MORE people 
 >onto the planet every year isn't good (even though I'm sure I'd 
 >like each and every one of them).  

T>       It's not the people so much as it is the manner in which they are 
T> supported.  A large part of the overpopulated third world uses
T> extremely  low-tech and environment-damaging farming methods.  Here in
T> the US, we  can get many, many times as much yield from the same amount
T> of land as  they can.  If the entire world used the latest and most
T> efficient farming  methods, the world could support a population of 20
T> billion without any  problems.  This is why it is so important to pull
T> the third world into  the 21st century, technologically speaking, as
T> quickly as we possibly can. 

  While high intensity farming is more productive, every other word 
  above is wrong, in fact backwards.  Why we should demand the world
  also become dependent on nonsustainable use of fossil fuels is 
  beyond me.  The short term high, I guess.

T>       The entire population of the world, if housed with the same
T> population density as New York City, would only take up a small
T> fraction of the eastern US.  Now, I personally wouldn't enjoy living in
T> NYC because it is a bit crowded for my taste, but I could definitely
T> live with it if I had to.  We are a long way from exhausting the
T> theoretical population carrying capacity of the Earth. 
 
  Chuckle.  What?!?  Overpopulation is no place to stand?  Sleep?
  Is somebody suggesting that NYC is sustainable?  That they don't
  seek resources from all over the globe?

T> We are a long way from exhausting the
T> theoretical population carrying capacity of the Earth. 

  "Population carrying capacity of the Earth" is a meaningless number. 
  One must assume a consumption level for this to be real.  If we all
  eat mud, walk everywhere, and live in tents, perhaps you are correct.
  However, there are no scientific studies that indicate earth can 
  sustain one billion at U.S. levels of affluence.

  One would do well to pay attention to scientific consensus.

 >However, I find most of their solutions
 >to the overpopulation problem (although I like them and vote in a minute
 >to put them in place) aren't going to happen (for many reasons ... political,
 >social, etc, etc).  Which makes me rather sad for the future generation(s).

T>       Like I said, the population growth curve will probably peak in 
T> about 50 years or so.  It has already peaked in most of the first
T> world  (Europe, the US and Canada, Japan) and is approaching that in
T> much of the  "emerging" third world and eastern Europe.  Most of Africa
T> and Southeast  Asia are the stragglers here.

  One would do well to pay attention to scientific consensus.
  --Doug

...   "People can't hurt the Earth!"  -  Rush Limbaugh

*    "If current predictions of population growth prove 
*     accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet 
*     remain unchanged, science and technology may not be 
*     able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the 
*     environment or continued poverty for much of the world." 
*     -- Unprecedented joint statement by the National Academy 
*     of Sciences and the Royal Society of London,  1992
AddSig

...  False economic assumptions are the root of all environmental problems