8
   

Is the world being destroyed?

 
 
maxdancona
 
  -2  
Reply Wed 2 Jun, 2021 01:28 pm
@Walter Hinteler,
Walter, we are getting off track (I don't want to argue just to argue). Let's figure out exactly where we agree and disagree.

It is OK for you to agree with me when I am correct... it doesn't take away your right to disagree on other points. Part of the problem here is that people get stuck in their sides and have to be all right or all wrong without the ability to accept when the other side has a point.

So tell me which of these things you agree with (or disagree with).

1) Modern agriculture including synthetic fertilizer and man-made pesticides greatly increases farming yields, decreases the use of land and water to grow equivalant crops, and makes food more affordable and accessible. (You can agree with part of this and reject other parts if you would like).

2) Modern agriculture, including synthetic fertilizer and man-made pesticides can have significant negative impact on the enviroment and on human-health (particularly for farm workers).

3) Organic food is more expensive, and more volatile (crop yields vary from year to year). This causes a problem outside of first world, wealthy nations.

4) We now have a global food supply that depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and man-made pesticides. As a planet, we need to ensure that 7 billion people have enough food to avoid hundreds millions of people dying from starvation (as has happened in the past).

5) There are reasonable things that we can do to make the environment healther and protect farm workers without putting the global food supply in jeopardy. Often these require government regulation (hopefully backed by good science). We should do these things.

maxdancona
 
  -2  
Reply Wed 2 Jun, 2021 02:05 pm
@maxdancona,
The point I am making is that if you focus on #2 while ignoring the other factors, you are not going to end up with a logical or sustainable food policy.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  4  
Reply Mon 7 Jun, 2021 08:19 am
Swiss vote to become first European nation to ban synthetic pesticides
Quote:
* Switzerland holds two votes on June 13

* One referendum seeks to outlaw synthetic pesticides

* Other vote aims to improve Switzerland’s drinking water

* Opinion polls show both are likely to be close

ZURICH, June 7 (Reuters) - Switzerland could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides in a June 13 referendum which backers of the initiative hope will trigger similar prohibitions elsewhere.

Globally, only Bhutan has a complete ban on synthetic pesticides, according to supporters aiming to outlaw the use of products made by agro-chemical giants such as Switzerland’s Syngenta and Germany’s Bayer and BASF.

Supporters of the ban say the artificial products cause serious health problems and reduce biodiversity. Manufacturers say their pesticides are rigorously tested and regulated, can be used safely and crop yields would slump without them.

Another initiative to be voted on the same day aims to improve the quality of Switzerland’s drinking water and food by stopping direct subsidies to farmers who use artificial pesticides and antibiotics in livestock.

Switzerland has been starkly divided by an unusually bitter debate over the initiatives and the votes look set to be close. A recent Tamedia poll showed 48% of voters favoured the drinking water initiative and 49% supported the pesticide ban.

If adopted, the proposals give farmers up to 10 years to make the transition, which would allow Switzerland to become a pioneer in organic food as well as an example to the rest of the world, Swiss wine maker Roland Lenz said.

“Clean water, one of the foundations of life, is endangered,” said Lenz, a 51-year-old organic farmer, whose vineyard is surrounded by farmers opposing the initiative.

Syngenta, which is headquartered in Switzerland and owned by China National Chemical Corporation, opposes both initiatives, saying a ban would reduce agricultural yields by up to 40%.

“The consequences of not using them are clear: fewer regional products, higher prices, and more imports. This is not in the interest of consumers, nor is it in the interest of the environment,” a Syngenta spokesman said.

LIFE UNDER SIEGE
The clean water initiative also wants farmers to stop using imported animal feed, to restrict the numbers of cows, pigs and chickens in Switzerland along with the manure they produce that can pollute drinking water.

“People have been sold a romantic image of farming in Switzerland, which is far removed from reality,” said Pascal Scheiwiller, a backer of the clean water campaign, which estimates 1 million Swiss people drink contaminated water.

The Swiss Farmers Union said many of its members feel their way of life is under siege.

“A lot of people in cities think if they have two tomatoes growing on the balcony of their apartment they understand farming,” said Martin Haab, president of the Zurich Farmers Association.

“I look back 200 years ago when we couldn’t protect our plants and animals, and we had hunger in Switzerland and all over Europe,” said Haab.

Martin’s son Dominic, who runs a dairy farm outside Zurich, said the consequences for the rural economy would be brutal, with local businesses also being hit by a fall in animal numbers to comply with the fodder restrictions.

Wine maker Lenz, however, said to continue using pesticides was “sheer lunacy”, especially when it was possible to use methods such as growing fruit with thicker skins to make them fungus resistant.

“With a ‘Yes’ vote on both initiatives, we will finally move from the chemical age back to the organic age,” he said. (Reporting by John Revill; Editing by David Clarke)



Edit:
Walter Hinteler wrote:
Quote:
* Switzerland holds two votes on June 13
That actually should be better "two votes which have already caused controversy" but I quoted Reuters in original.
There are five votes.
https://i.imgur.com/gEUbzVv.jpg
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 12:48 pm
Blip is a book by Christopher Clugston, who predicts societal collapse by 2050 due to the persistent and ever-increasing extraction and exploitation of non-renewable natural resources. (Societal collapse isn't the same thing as the "world" being destroyed.)

This is from the preface to the book:

Quote:
Human cultural deterioration – political instability, economic fragility, and societal unrest – is becoming increasingly prevalent globally, and increasingly debilitating. Unfortunately, most people understand neither the fundamental cause underlying our deteriorating cultural circumstances, nor the inevitable consequence.

For the vast majority of mankind, who view human existence through the anthropocentric perspective, humanity is plagued by an array of increasingly severe political, economic, and societal problems, which are caused by our increasingly dysfunctional political, economic, and societal behavior – and which can be favorably resolved through "enlightened" political, economic, and societal reforms.

While the anthropocentrists correctly perceive industrial humanity's deteriorating cultural circumstances, they necessarily misperceive the fundamental cause, which they mistakenly attribute to our flawed political, economic, and societal behavior.

They therefore respond inappropriately to our deteriorating cultural circumstances with an incessant barrage of increasingly desperate political, economic, and societal expedients – which is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

To those who view human existence from the broader ecological perspective, humanity's deteriorating cultural circumstances are correctly perceived as the inevitable consequence of our unsustainable Earth exploitation behavior.

Humanity's persistent and increasing depletion of Earth's finite, non-replenishing, and increasingly scarce NNRs (nonrenewable natural resources – the fossil fuels, metals, and non-metallic minerals that enable our industrial existence – is causing our deteriorating natural environment, which is causing our deteriorating cultural environment.

It is not the case, therefore, that our cultural environment is "broken" and in need of political, economic, and societal "fixes". Rather, our cultural environment is "dying of starvation" for lack of sufficient economically viable NNRs,– a geological reality that cannot be fixed.

Viewed from the ecological perspective, humankind has existed in a terminal disequilibrium with Nature since the inception of our industrial revolution nearly 300 years ago. Suffering the catastrophic consequences associated with our unsustainable relationship with planet Earth was therefore only a matter of time. Unfortunately, that time is now.


It's not an "easy read" — Clugston is an engineer and he writes that way — but he supplies plenty of charts, graphs, and figures to bolster his argument. Here's a link to a video on the subject:



Blip – Humanity's 300 year self-terminating experiment with industrialism, 2019, Booklocker.com
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 01:03 pm
@hightor,
Thanks.
0 Replies
 
Mame
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 01:16 pm
@hightor,
That looks like a fascinating read. Thank you.
0 Replies
 
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 02:31 pm
@hightor,
I watched two thirds of this video (just to see if there was anything interesting). It is bullshit.

1. His argument that GDP is decreasing globally is simply false (you can check that for yourself with a simple google search).

2. His claim that there is "expected human prosperity" is also nonsense (again you can check this on your own). His argument is that human prosperity is increasing, but not as much as it should increase. He doesn't explain how much human prosperity should be increasing, but either way it undercuts his own argument.

3. His use of the general term "NNR" in invented. Note that he doesn't give a real definition or even an example. Is Nitrogen an NNR? Iron?

You can believe anything you find on the internet provided you stick to your own predjudice and don't question your own assumptions.

The argument in this video doesn't make sense. And, yes... I considered the points they are making and then went and checked the facts to see if what they were saying had any validity.
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 02:35 pm
@hightor,
Make the argument for political instabiliy? When in history have we ever had less political instability than right now,?

You think the 1980s were more stable (with the cold war, middle east unrest)

The 1960s (with Vietnam and civil rights)?

The 1940s (With WW2).

The 1910s (With WW1)?

The 1800s (With civil war, the rape of Africa and colonization?)

The 1600s (Witch trials, widespread famine and a disease that actually threatened civilization)?

Go ahead, if political instability is really increase, name a time when humanity was more stable than it is right now?

This mindless sky is falling mentality makes zero sense when you actually consider what it is saying.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 02:41 pm
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there was a great sense of hope, of global liberalisation and democratisation.

This pretty much came to an end on 9/11 where the Patriot Act was used to keep the people in order.

That would make the 90s a time of greater political stability.
maxdancona
 
  0  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 02:59 pm
@izzythepush,
I suppose this is my fault, but this is going to get silly if we compare all of human history in 10 year increments. The 1990s gave us the Bosnian genocide and the Rwanda genocide.

My point is that over the longer term, human progress advances. We have doubled the human life expectancy. We have fewer people dying of starvation globally than ever before in history. We have fewer people dying of wars. We have fewer people in slavery.

And we just ended a global pandemic by developing an mRNA vaccine.

Humans are cool,
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 02:59 pm
@maxdancona,
Hi max!
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Jun, 2021 03:06 pm
@hightor,
Hi Hightor! I didn't think that arguing a pro-human, pro-progressn position would be so ill recieved. But I am holding my ground.

Humans are cool. Progress is good. We are living longer. Our children are almost all making it out of childhood (in earlier time a third of children died even in wealthy families). We now are working fewer hours with greater productivity with clean water and a steady food supply for most of the world. And we now have the ability to stop a global pandemic with a vaccine in a year (the Black Plague... now there was a real catastrophe).

I am sticking up for human beings. All of you are pretty cool.

It is a little weird to see people on the internet, a global information network on semiconductor based digital divices who were sure to get their mRNA covid-19 vaccine. They believe in woman's rights, and civil rights and think slavery was barbaric and that same sex marriage is a good thing...

These are the people who are arguing against human progress.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:24 am
somebody wrote:
His argument that GDP is decreasing globally is simply false (you can check that for yourself with a simple google search)


I did check that for myself. Global growth rate of GDP in the '60s and '70s was twice as much as we've seen the the first two decades of this century.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/gdp-growth-rate

0 Replies
 
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:35 am
Sorry, I am not very patient (I didn't wait for your image).

Here is the graph of GDP per capita for each region of the world. I found this to be pretty interesting, but you will notice that in every region, productiity is trending up over the past 200 years.

Your image didn't work... but from the failed URL, you might be confusing "growth rate" with GDP. A consistant postive growth rate means a consistant increase of GDP.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020.svg
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:37 am
@maxdancona,
I wonder why there is a plateau in Latin America...
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:43 am
If the rate of growth is decreasing, what is the cause? If part of it is the increased cost of extracting and processing NNRs then the author's claim is not simply "bullshit". If the rate of growth keeps decreasing, compared to the spectacular increases we saw as industrialization took hold in the 19th Century and most of the 20th it will, at some point, begin to shrink.

By the way, he never slanders humanity or suggests that we are anything like "evil", simply that we may become victims of our own success.
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:46 am
@hightor,
What's the cause, you ask?

The only cause is that you are starting out with a rather extreme political viewpoint and then cherry-picking a five year period out of 200 years of data to make a dubious point.

You are being silly. The growth rate has been consistently positive, except for rare years with global pandemics or extraordinary recessions.
0 Replies
 
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11:56 am
@hightor,
Hightor,

What do you think the Global GDP growth rate should be?

If the Growth rate is zero, that means that the Global output each year is the same as the last. Correctly it is fluctuaing between 2.4 and 3% (each year the GDP is 2-3% highter than the last). 2020 we will see a negative GDP growth rate because of a global pandemic, and 2021 we will see a rebound.

What do you think the answer should be on the long term?
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 12:09 pm
If there is a decline, it will have to start somewhere although it will take a bit of time before we can be sure the arc is turning down.

Petroleum extraction is a good example — he supplies plenty of examples in his book but just think of the expense of fracking, drilling in the ocean, and drilling in the Arctic compared to tapping the gushers of yesteryear. Currently we are rather desperately searching for ways to store the electrical energy generated by wind and solar arrays. Lithium batteries are on suggested solution:
Quote:
Every element in the Earth’s crust is finite, and some are rarer than others. With lithium-ion batteries a vital enabler of many national decarbonization efforts, the pivotal nature of the element could jeopardize the global energy transition.

From mid-century onwards, near-comprehensive recycling, vehicle-to-grid applications and battery substitutes must be developed, according to a report by Peter Greim, Solomon Asfaw and Christian Breyer, of the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT), in Finland, and the University of Augsburg, in Germany, which appeared in the academic journal Nature Communications.

“The present production trend of lithium batteries shows that in the short-term the supply and demand are well balanced,” said Asfaw, a post-doctoral researcher at LUT. “The sustainability of the long-term supply of lithium, however, and consequently maintaining the energy transition at high levels of electrification, particularly in the transport sector, is at risk. Lithium battery demand is the main driver of the observed deficit.”

pv

What about phosphorus?

Quote:
The USGS estimates that global phosphorus use will increase to 50.5 million tons by 2022 a increase from 47.0 million tons in 2018. Scientists disagree about how much more food will be needed to feed the planet in coming years, with numbers ranging from 25 to 56% more. Man-made climate change will negatively affect farms in a number of ways, from heat waves to increased pests. Those changes could force farmers to use even more fertilizer, further increasing phosphorus usage.

Unlike man-made climate change, an issue on which the science is settled, there is a scientific debate on "peak phosphorus," a point at which the global amount of phosphorus will decline. Some scientists warn it could come as early as 2030, while a group from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) has found that there could be enough phosphorus to last hundreds of years.

pm

Even if the IFDC is right and more sources are found and exploited, the cost of extraction will likely be more:

Quote:
But one thing's for sure: even without hitting peak, a phosphorus shortage could significantly affect the world's food prices. Thanks to the mineral's uneven distribution, events like a political crisis or growing demand could cause prices to radically fluctuate. The increase in the cost of rock phosphate rose "from about $80 per U.S. ton in 1961 to up to $450 per ton in 2008. Prices since then have fluctuated but are now at about $700 per ton," a study from 2015 showed.


somebody wrote:
The only cause is that you are starting out with a rather extreme political viewpoint...

It's not an "extreme political viewpoint" — he doesn't assign blame to political system, nor does he propose any sort of political response.
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Jun, 2021 12:24 pm
@hightor,
When we use lithium and phosphorus.... it doesn't disappear from the Earth. Except for the small amount of materials we have sent up into space (and perhaps some incoming in metorites), the number of Lithium atoms on the Earth now is the same as it was 10,000 years ago
0 Replies
 
 

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