An Inconvenient Truth

[Occhidiangela]

The West, for now and the near future, makes up the majority of world industrial production.

I think we'll probably die. If not now, then soon enough. Species usually fail to adapt to themselves.

-Jester

We all die, Jester, the question is whether or not we truly live. ;)

As to the rate of change in China and India, I don't expect it to be a low slope linear progression, I expect it to work on a parabolic curve. So will energy demand.

Consider this thought: only the four horsemen -- famine, disease, war, and death -- can save the planet. :lol: This idea argues for a complete review of medical and health care policy, and the cost benefit of keeping people alive for extra decades under a growing continuum of pills, medication and exotic medical procedures. *ducks as the various Lounge geriatrics throw immense rocks at a graying rogue*

Maybe Logan's Run was more prescient than we once imagined. :ph34r: Oh, wait, that means I had better start running now! :blink:

Until the bulk of developing nations accept near ZPG or birth control as a worthwhile societal norm, the Malthusian pressures will continue, and they will spread across borders, just as they do across Europe's Southern Region, across the American/Mexican border, and across the Chinese / Russian border. Its manifestation in strife, disease, famine, or other calamity is an effect of the cause of locally unsustainable population growth. Put another way, the current war in Zaire/Congo is good for sub-Saharan Africa's ecosystem in the long run.

If you want to talk about species, Darwin, and survival, consider those species and cultures who are trying, either intentionally or unintentionally, to win The Battle of the Cradle. That cultural mind set is the biosphere's real threat through the next few generations.

I hope you see the irony in the "Cultural West" being at near Zero Population Growth, and a high per capita energy consumption, with the breeding cultural sets trying to catch up and bringing energy needs with them. The conditions either require the over breeding cultures to adopt "Cultural Western" norms of low to no population growth, or a massive change in how all populations use energy. The one thing "we" can do is be greener and more efficient, and less wasteful. Each choice comes with a cost. The over breeding sets tend to have less margin for adjustment. That said, energy demand growth is not easily moderated.

While excoriated as a tyrranical policy, the Chinese "one child" policy successfully, for about a generation, suppressed a geometric population growth. Had that policy not been well enforced, the impact on the globe, and on the region, would be worse than it has become. The parallel to that in "The West" was a practical, secular ideal of small families that was packaged and sold to, and internalized, by a significant portion of the population. It seems ironic to me that the smart, modern low-rate breeders are slowly non-breeding themselves into a marginal sliver of the population, while the more "old school" sub cultures in a great many countries tend to be more fecund. To quote a Fundy acquaintance of mine: "We breed, those city slicker elitists don't."

Food for thought.

Is it any wonder that the urban secularist is also an elitist, and likely a plutocrat? In a free society as described above, he soon becomes a sophisticated minority. In a more centralized and non pluralist, even heavily socialist society, he stands to be more politically viable . . . for a time.

You want to save the planet, Jester? Teach everyone to "Wrap That Rascal." The side benefit is a likely reduction in the AIDS transmission rate. :)

Buy shares in condom manufacturers, Jester, you'll make a killing. :lol:

Occhi