jeskill

Knowledge of everyone's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, really won't affect the fact that you haven't provided any evidence, nor have you really provided any convincing counter arguments. In fact, one might say that the reason you are now resorting to offensive logical fallacies in order to continue this discussion is because you know you can't back your "opinion" with evidence.

Provide evidence that Somalia's famine is CAUSED by drought. I have provided evidence that famine is NOT primarily caused by environmental factors. You obviously get a kick out of "qualified scholars", so you might want to check out Amartya Sen's Nobel-prize winning research on the causes of famine. Of course, I know you won't, because you've already shown you're too busy trying to prove you're smart to actually read. BTW: If famine caused drought, then how come there was no major famine in Texas this summer? (Hint: the answer lies in the distribution, not production, of food.) Well, I've provided numerous links to essays by tenured professors and known scholars who disagree with your premise. Why don't you actually check out those links to prove your point that they lack education and have underlying religious agendas?

Evidence please? I have provided links and supporting evidence for pretty much all my arguments. You, on the other hand, have not, suggesting that you are little more than a gust of hot air. Nor have you, I suspect, bothered to read anything from any of the links multiple people have provided. It seems to me that you're too focused on proving you're the smartest person here (Mr. "I have a BSc.") than actually having an intelligent discussion about the topics at hand. This is starting to look a lot like trolling to me.

Famine is not caused by a lack of global food production. See here: and here and here So, you are correct, increasing production will not prevent starvation, which is undoubtedly already occurring in many areas of the world. As stated before in the population post, there are many organizations working to improve local food security by improving the capacity of small communities to grow their own food. These organizations are pretty successful, although they'd be more successful if the concept of food sovereignty was widely accepted. It should be pointed out that the new "green revolution" the UN was calling for is a “green revolution for Africa built on technology and innovation aimed at the needs and capabilities of millions of smallholder farmers and at coping with the continent’s varying climate conditions." i.e. they're advocating something completely different (small farms, low-tech) that the original concept of green revolution (large farms, high-tech, high input). While I disagree with many of the UN's suggestions, I agree with the overall concept. Improving the capacity of small farmers does improve food security and reduce the likelihood of famines.

Warren Buffett thinks he should be taxed more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html A lot of people are disillusioned with the trickle-down effect. This is but one example of many: http://rationalrevolution.net/war/trickle_down.htm

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically-modified-crop I saw these researchers speak at the ESA meeting. Meredith Schafer (the Masters student) stated that 86% of canola sampled in transects (away from farmers fields) contained transgenes that allow the plant to resist herbicides glyphosate and/or glufosinate. Farmers are seeing these feral transgenic canola plants growing in fields in which canola has not been planted. So Monsanto, since it's YOUR genes that have escaped, are you going to be responsible for the extra cost to farmers caused by weedy pesticide-resistant canola growing in their fields? mmmm probably not.

I apologize for not responding sooner -- thesis and ESA conference has been keeping me busy. I think you're misunderstanding my point. I strongly believe that all women should have control over their ability to reproduce. I strongly believe that women need to have more power within their political structures and communities, especially in regions with extreme poverty and inequity. I do know that there is (to an extent) a correlation between improved women's rights and decreasing birthrates. That's all good and fine, but there is no feasible way we would be able to ETHICALLY reduce the population size of developing countries significantly within the next 50 years with policies that solely affect fertility rates. If you don't understand that, then you need to read up on basic concepts of population demographics, and how young populations contribute to population growth even when fecundity declines. Again, if you understood population demographics, you wouldn't have to ask this question. My suggestion is to read the following articles. It's more efficient than me regurgitating it all. On population: Sex, lies, and statistical correlation: A caveat for populationists (AKA: The penis argument) "There is no correspondence between emissions and population density" Vandermeer blogs about 'necessary vs sustainable' population.If you read closely, he's basically saying that human populations can not be modeled by the L-V model because food shortages in the short term actually cause an increase in population size when food production requires human labor. Historical Context: Why Population size was not the cause of the Irish Potato Famine. From a thought experiment on population reduction: On improving energy efficiency: Stabilization Wedges: A big picture for improving energy efficiency A discussion on how reducing our use of plastic water bottles and plastic bags can contribute to reductions in CO2 emissions. Green roofs reduced energy consumption of Toronto buildings by 30%: www.upea.com/pdf/greenroofs.pdf On effectively improving sustainability in impoverished communities without reducing population sizes: Increasing seed biodiversity improves sustainability Planting mangroves in Eritrea Hunger, poverty and sustainability. (edited to add a link)

Yeah, but you could reduce fecundity to replacement levels around the world and it still wouldn't measurably change the global population size for another 50 years, especially since many regions are only still growing because they have a relatively large young population. The only way to measurably reduce population sizes within the next 20 - 50 years is by significantly increasing the mortality rate. I hope you understand the ethical consequences of such an action. So if per capita consumption levels are a significant problem, why not focus on decreasing them? Seems to me we'd get more bang for the buck. We have the technological know-how to do this and it's less morally objective. What's your problem with this avenue, other then the high probability that you've invested a lot of your pride in your argument? It depends on which area of the world you are discussing. A significant proportion of people in the world actually do remain for life in their own regions -- they cannot afford to travel. Specifically, people in the Global South who are dependent on food imports (including food aid) often cannot travel and have extreme food insecurity because of policies and political instability that reduces their ability to grow their own food sustainably. But it is entirely possible to grow food sustainably in many of these regions. In order to do so, they need the land rights and the know-how. How far, exactly? I've seen numbers that suggest people in developed countries could decrease their individual consumption by 80 - 90% without having a negative effect on their standard of living. That seems pretty darn significant. Do you have any data to back up the idea that at a global population of 9billion, we would not have the ability to provide enough fresh water via increasing water efficiency? Have you ever researched how much water is wasted with toilet flushing (13 L / flush = ~ 6 people's worth of water per day);agriculture, even wasted in the process of making plastic water bottles (3 L of water is used to produce 1 L of bottled water). Again, there's a lot of room for improvement for efficiency. I don't know if you realized this, but you just validated my point. To repeat, we are already reducing our fecundity and that will have an effect on population size in the long term. But we don't have the luxury of waiting 100 years. Hence why we need to focus on increasing efficiency and decreasing consumption NOW.

This is like telling someone who's lost 20 pounds in the past year that they need to go on a diet. From a global perspective, humans have been reducing their overall fecundity for the past 20 years and the trend is continuing. Even in African countries, we're seeing a reduction in fecundity. I posted this on another thread, but look up Bongaarts et al. (2009) if you don't believe me. Yes, everyone should be allowed access to contraception, but that is a social justice issue, not an environmental or ecological issue. Policy measures that are specifically formatted to limit fecundity in order to improve environmental sustainability are redundant because, as stated before, FECUNDITY IS ALREADY DECREASING. Moreover, given human life spans, it wouldn't have a measurable effect in the next 50 years anyways. On another vein, when you make grand statements about the impact of the global human population on the world, you're limiting your ability to see the local patterns that affect ecological sustainability. Different ecosystems have different carrying capacities. The technology used to grow agriculture can drastically affect the carrying capacity of a specific location. There are some situationsin which a large population is actually necessary to keep an agricultural system sustainable. I've said it before and I'll say it again: improving the sustainability of the world will not occur if we focus on decreasing the global population size. That's like thinking you can reduce the deficit by simply cutting programs.

Greg (Not JohnB. My apologies.) The Lokta-Volterra model of predator-prey cycles is a fantastic model for understanding very simple relationships, hence why it is taught in BIO101. But the truth is that it is not actually a good model for describing the reality of complex ecological interactions. This is because it does not take into consideration the impact of nonlinear dynamics, which can have a profound effect on the stability of a system. This is an old paper, but describes the issue from a mathematical perspective: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1935675 And here's a book on the subject: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZHoyfY5KgpcC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false As for what can cause nonlinear dynamics, two examples are saturation of predators in the system and limited resources for either predators or prey even if prey is abundant (this can occur if the prey is good at hiding or defending itself). Just want to edit to clarify: the predator-prey cycle is NOT a fact; it's a model used to describe ecological interactions.

CR_Student: How do you know that? Do you have stats to back that up? The last 30 years, globally we have produced enough food to feed the world but people have still gone hungry. The problem is not a lack of production, but a lack of distribution and a lack of support for low-tech, low-input ecological agriculture. Hunger is caused by politics and the types of distribution chains, not a lack of scientific technology and knowledge. I do agree that we have to change the type of technologies we use in agriculture. For example, in our efforts of make agriculture more "productive" and industrialized, we've increased the amount of energy inputs to an unsustainable degree. However, data suggests that a shift from industrial to ecological agriculture will actually increase overall food production per hectare (See Badgley et al. 2007 in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems). Many are arguing that a shift to ecological agriculture will improve our ability to adapt to the effects of climate change (see Reganold et al. 2011 in Science). Ecological agriculture by its very nature is sustainable -- the point is to manage the ecology of the system to improve soil fertility and promote beneficial insects/fungi/etc. This shift does not need new technology. It needs a political shift that supports the rights of small-scale landowners and the concept of food sovereignty. In short, I disagree that we need scientific breakthroughs to support the current population. We already have the technology and surprisingly, it's the low-tech tools and knowledge that has a high probability of doing a better job of feeding the world's poor, not the high-tech tools.

I don't think anyone would say that these countries are currently self-sustainable. In this paragraph you mention that we would either have to reduce consumption or the population would have to decrease. I agree with that statement. My point is that it is more moral to reduce consumption than it is to drastically reduce population sizes at a time when population growth (i.e. per capita birth rate) is already low and/or decreasing in most parts of the world. I wonder if the real problem is that that many people in US/Canada/Australia are afraid to reduce consumption because they don't realize that it will actually improve their standard of living. They think of it as going back to the 1800s. I don't think that's true. There's a lot we can do that will improve sustainability while simultaneously allowing us to live healthier lives, allowing us to interact with more our communities, or improving the ecological resilience of the landscape in which we live. For example, green roofs drastically reduce energy waste, reduce the heat island effect, improve water cycling, and have a positive impact on ecological diversity. Organic home garden plots reduce water waste, improve access to healthy food and contribute to ecological diversity. Public policy that favors pedestrians, cyclists and public transit-takers improve energy efficiency and human health. Public policy that bans plastic bags and one-time use plastic water bottles .... I hope you get the point. By focusing on population growth, what we're doing is focusing on one aspect over which we don't really have personal control but nevertheless is already improving while ignoring all the other things we could be doing -- at a local or national level -- that actually do improve sustainability. I hope you remember from eco101 that population size is not just determined by available resources. It's also determined by the number of predators, and environmental factors that are constantly changing over time. I would argue that most animal species do not undergo boom-bust population cycles simply due to resource availability. Regardless, we are not most animals. See, we have these amazing things called 'tools' and, probably more importantly, a really amazing thing called 'science'. These allow us to make predictions about the future and allows us to change the way we interact with our environment.

Glad to help!

The other issue affecting family planning is war. War == increased rape == more unwanted children.

Food aid is often sent to developing countries in order to maintain demand for crops that are overproduced in rich countries. The reason they are perpetually holding out their begging bowls is because we've created a system in many countries in Africa in which US food is too cheap and/or free, and farming is too expensive. Quote from Africa Recovery (edited for grammatical clarity)

If you happen to be a visual learner, there are a lot of youtube videos showing the Central Dogma of molecular biology: how DNA is transcribed into RNA, and then how RNA is translated into proteins: (I originally incorrectly wrote transcribed) This second video discusses HIV reverse transcriptase: how HIV converts single stranded RNA to single stranded DNA to double stranded DNA, and then how this DNA is inserted into a human genome.

So I actually joined scienceforums a while back but haven't posted in a few years (in case you're wondering why I didn't introduce myself). Anyways, I was lurking about and saw the post above, which had led to a lively discussion about whether or not climate change is anthropogenic. I don't really want to discuss that. Rather, I'm interested in this whole concept of the global Malthusian dilemma and its perceived effect on the environment. Here's the deal: John Bongaarts wrote a paper in 2009 that seems to suggest fertility rates have been declining in all parts of the world since approximately 1980. (Proc. Royal Soc. B; 364, 2985-2990) Both he and the U.N. suggest that global population sizes will level off at approximately 9 billion. The highest fertility rates are in some of the poorest countries of the world. But here's the thing: I have conversed with people in developed countries (U.S. and Canada) who have refused to have children because they believe that overpopulation is destroying the environment. I don't think this is true and I think this is a silly reason not to have children. Why? Let's use carbon dioxide emissions as an example. The per capita rate of CO2 emissions in Canada was 16.9 GtC/year in 2007, and 1 GtC/year in Yemen. One Canadian is worth 16 times a Yemenite in carbon dioxide emissions. Yemen is a significantly smaller country than Canada (and a significantly poorer country with a relatively high fecundity rate), yet Canada only has 34 million people, while Yemen has 22 million people. Hopefully by now people have realized that my clumsy pedantic evidence is supposed to demonstrate that the amount of resources we consume is very important. While I agree that not having one child in Canada or the US is like not having 16 children in Yemen, do people really think that Canada and the US are overpopulated? Do people really think that we couldn't live sustainably given our current population size? I don't think that overpopulation is the main problem causing environmental degradation. Based on the data we have at hand, it doesn't seem like it would be effective to focus the majority of our efforts on reducing population sizes in regions that pollute the most; they already have low per capita birth rates. It seems more likely that over-consumption is the problem we need to focus on. Moreover .... by arguing that we need to deal with the overpopulation issue first, really, we're basically saying, "Hey, you people over there in Yemen! You need to deal with our problem. We're just going to continue on business as usual." It seems kind of unethical, no?

While it's important to have an in depth understanding of the organism/organisms you're studying, it's more important to have a "knowledged toolkit" that allows you to answer the questions you want to answer. You can take courses on the specific clades later on if you decide that you want to use a specific organism to study your specific question. With that in mind, you don't need to pick a clade. Instead, focus on which questions you find most interesting, and then take courses that you think would aid you in answering those questions. Think about the scale at which you'd want to study those questions (genetic, cellular, population, community, biosphere, etc). Keep in mind that many universities have changed the organization of their departments. There are no longer "Botany" or "Zoology" Departments. Instead, the departments have names such as "Ecology and Evolution", "Cell and Systems Biology" and "Natural Resources and Environment".

Wouldn't green roofs also increase carbon sequestration to a degree, given that they're, well, made of plants? Are you sure that white roofs are more expensive? How much more expensive? I agree that with this kind of wedge, there would need to be a public policy that's written in the building code in order it to occur.

I thought the concept of using albedo change as a wedge was interesting. The concept is that if we lighten the colour of roofs and pavement, the albedo, or reflectivity of the planet will increase. This will reduce the ability of the planet to absorb solar radiation, and hence, decrease warming. This made me think: why are many roofs dark? Is it to capture heat during the winter? Or is it just that the material is cheaper and more sturdy? Another option is to create green roofs -- roofs with vegetation cover. Toronto has a green roof policy now. I think both albedo change and green roofs together would be a useful wedge, but just from a pure numbers standpoint, which of the two do you think would be more effective in terms of reducing atmospheric carbon?

Here's Pielke Jr's blog, in case you want to figure out if you like him or not. This may be a dumb question, but how would you actually capture CO2 from the atmosphere?

Is "proscribe" a typo for prescribe, or did you actually mean, "denounce, banish, outlaw" etc.? I'm going to assume it's a typo, and that you meant prescribe in this post. Hopefully I won't make an a&& out of U and I. hahaha. Sorry. Anyways, if I'm to paraphrase your statement above, it seems that you're saying that his policy recommendations will not be effective. If this is the case, do you know what his policy recommendations are to alleviate climate change? I assure you, that they do not include "throw politicians in jail". If you go to his website, you'll see his views on the Kyoto Protocol, and the actions he believes are necessary to ratify it. He doesn't say anything in there about throwing politicians in jail, btw. Hence my belief that it was rhetoric -- "language used to persuade". He does believe that the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified, and he does talk about the solutions he thinks will help ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Now, it would be a VERY interesting discussion if you wished to argue the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol's policy actions, or the actual solutions that Suzuki prescribes in his website. But this whole "politicians going to jail" thing is somewhat of a red herring (in my opinion) and detracts from what really should be discussed.

Dude, I shall clarify. In the above statement, he doesn't say, "It is an intergenerational crime". He says that "He BELIEVES it's an intergenerational crime." IOW, that's his opinion. As someone before stated, there's a very low probability that Suzuki's opinion is going to be enforced through law. So why are you getting all worked up about this? It's rhetoric, designed to urge people to back environmentally sustainable policy. That's his job. Are you basing your opinion that he's a fascist on the sole sentence that's been debated for four pages, or do you have other, more compelling evidence?

On the Suzuki Foundation Website, He says this: So, according to his own writing, Suzuki is saying that he believes the failure to act is an "intergenerational crime", he isn't stating that dissenting opinions re:global warming are a crime. I'm a little suspect of The National Post's article. They never actually give a full quote to show exactly what Suzuki said; instead, they paraphrase half of it. Given the newspaper's conservative leanings, I wonder if they took Suzuki out of context to create a more sensational story. One more thing: yes, Suzuki was a scientist, but he's long since retired and is pretty obviously an environmental advocate now. I don't see a problem with an environmental advocate using rhetoric to plead his case.

In Figure SPM-2 on page 4, it states that, Can someone explain "asymmetric uncertainty estimates"?