X-Message-Number: 15242 Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 22:23:46 +0000 From: Phil Rhoades <> Subject: Still more people . . >Message #15233 >Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 10:46:04 -0500 (EST) >From: Charles Platt <> >Subject: Re: CryoNet #15226 - #15230 > >Philip Rhoades writes: > > > point of unsustainability - tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal > > habitation didn't do this - if you like they had a more "socialist" system > >It is foolish to laud aboriginal cultures uncritically. I wasn't doing that. >The spread of >primitive people through the Americas coincided with the extinction of >several species. That happened in Australia too - I am quite aware of it - see Tim Flannery's book "The Future Eaters". >Slash-and-burn policies are inflicted primarily by >peasants rather than large corporations. Usually because they are poor and want to farm . . >There is every evidence that >primitive people would cause more environmental devastation if they were >empowered to do so, Charles, that it speculation at best (and probably by people who have a vested interest to say things like that). > and one of the world's worst polluters, the old Soviet >Union, did it under a regime of centralized social planning. No argument there. >While the >capitalist system has racked up its own score of environmental disasters, >large corporations today are kept in check by the knowledge that they can >be sued. Such powerful checks and balances to not apply to large >government agencies. There are swings and roundabouts to some extent. The US Robber Barons of the 19th century pretty much did what they liked . . Bill Gates has been pretty much doing what he liked . . The point I was making was that in case of the Australia we have the "speeding down the highway in an expensive car not noticing that the gas guage is on empty" analogy. eg I heard a couple of days ago that ONE THIRD of the current arable land in Australia (most of it wasn't arable to start with) will be a salty wasteland in the next couple of decades unless there are some drastic steps taken - this is because of the approx 15 billion trees that have been cut down in the last two hundred years causing the water table to rise and bring the salt with it . . forgetting about other considerations (such as life expectency etc) there still remains an unarguable comparison - the Aboriginals were able to keep the land productive (for their uses) for about 50,000 years and Europeans will be lucky to make 250. > > - the US with about 5% of the world's population consumes about 20% of the > > worlds resources - how does this scale up? > > > Why does it have to be India or Africa? Most of the world's environmental > > problems are caused by first-world countries - so if you want to resort to > > these silly population arguments then I would say that the world would be a > > lot better off with 100 million fewer Americans than 100 million fewer > > Africans. > >The United States produces a higher ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide than >the global average, largely because its managed forests are a more >efficient generator of oxygen than rain forests--known as "jungles" before >they were romanticized--where decay processes cause oxidation. The US is >in fact doing more than most nations to reduce global warming, purely as a >result of its topography. Such as destroying the Amazon rain forest/jungle to enable production of beef patties for US hamburgers . . very well managed! >As for the population issue, a high birth rate is always a more powerful >determinant of population growth than a lower death rate, because when >people have more children, those children have children, tending to create >an exponential growth rate. For Shift magazine last year I wrote a piece >describing my interactions with population groups, none of which had ever >considered the possible effects of a lengthened maximum lifespan. In fact, >so far as I could determine, no population scientist has ever modelled a >future in which maximum lifespan exceeds its current level. Since a >population simulation is a fairly easy program to write, I did it myself, >using the cohort-component method. I found that the net growth caused by a >gradual doubling in maximum lifespan could be balanced easily by a >continuation of the trend toward lower birth rates. Without duplicating your program it sounds about right. >You are of course aware that all over Europe, the number of children per >female lifetime has fallen well below replacement level (as low as 1.2 in >some nations). No centralized system was required to enforce this. People >have chosen freely to have fewer children as their economic situation has >improved in conjunction with lower child mortality rates--often enabled by >capitalist regimes. Third-world nations also have seen sudden reductions >in birth rates, as they pass through the "demographic transition" toward >smaller families. I am not disagreeing with that and in of course I would support voluntary reductions in child numbers - my concern is time and how much can be achieved before some completely forseen or unforseen environmental disaster makes long time cryonic stasis an academic question . . What prompted me to respond in the first place was Lee Corbin's enthusiasm for maximising the world's population apparently for some unstated "go forth and multiply" agenda. >For life extensionists, most of whom live in nations where birth rates are >low, population is not an issue. For cryonicists, it has never been an >issue. The maintenance of a cryopatient for many decades costs less than, >say, the maintenance of a terminal cancer patient for one week, and uses >resources that are relatively plentiful. No argument there either. >Message #15235 >From: "Mark Plus" <> >Subject: Australia's "environmental damage" versus economic reality >Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 11:15:27 -0800 > >In Cryonet #15228, Phil Rhoades wrote, > > >200 years of capitalism have done enormous environmental damage > >to Australia (don't start me on that again) which have brought us to the > >point of unsustainability - tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal > >habitation didn't do this - > >Reading claims like this makes me wonder whether people who worry about >"environmental damage" much harbor some misanthropic aesthetic prejudice. >Although it may be presumptuous of me, living in California, to judge the >quality of the _human_ environment in Australia, let's just see what the >facts are, pulled from the entry about Australia on pp. 763-4 of the 2001 >edition of _The World Almanac and Book of Facts_: See my stuff for Charles above. >Population: 19 million (versus just a few thousand aborigines a couple >centuries ago). I think you are deliberately exaggerating to say "a few thousand" as far as I know it was closer to one million but certainly hundreds of thousands. >Per capita GDP: US$21,200. > >Life Expectancy: 77.49 male, 83.48 female. > >Infant mortality: 4.97 per 1,000 live births (compared to 6.67 in the >U.S.!). > >Sounds like a healthy, life-sustaining environment to me, especially since >infant mortality is a good measure of the overall state of public health. >The rest of the world should be so environmentally damaged. See my stuff for Charles above - I can give more examples - the fact is we are living beyond our means and we are spending our natural "capital" instead of "interest". >So I don't see why you take such a negative view of the bourgeois lifestyle >the Europeans have introduced into Australia since the 18th Century CE. See last response. >Okay, the original lumpen-Brits deported to Australia for their criminality >might not have been all that efficient at wealth-creation. This is not quite racism - MANY of the people were political prisoners who had intelligent, reasonable disagreements with the English ruling class and "legal system" - transported for stealing a loaf of bread etc etc. >But the better >quality immigrants seem to have performed an economic and >human-environmental miracle in what at one time by European standards looked >like an unpromising wasteland. "Looked like an unpromising wasteland" being the operative words. The English thought it was a good place to get rid of troublesome citizens but Australia was actually a biological bonanza - it could still be (and continue to be very economically viable) IF it was managed a whole lot better. It is a fact of biology that deserts of the dry or wet type (coral reefs) produce a huge diversity of flora and fauna simply because of the difficult environment - that is why when rain forests/jungles are cleared for hamburgers, production drops off very rapidly because the soil hasn't got the richness to sustain it. Conversely, richly soiled land tends to produce lower amounts of diversity because the life is easier and the competition is lower - BUT we have to have the diversity to survive in any reasonable shape. R&LL, Phil. - Philip Rhoades Pricom Pty Limited (ACN 003 252 275) GPO Box 3411 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia Mobile: +61:0411-185-652 Fax: +61:2:8923-5363 E-mail: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15242