Second earth will soon be needed, warns WWF

[SarasotaRepub]

***SIGH***

Swede (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-14-10 05:32 PM
Original message Second earth will soon be needed, warns WWF


Uh0oh.



The over-use and pollution of Earth's natural resources have become so extreme that, at current rates, a second planet will be needed by 2030 to meet the world's needs, a new report warns.

The planet's 6.8 billion people were living 50% beyond Earth's sustainable means in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the biannual "Living Planet" report by WWF, a conservation group previously known as the World Wildlife Fund.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post...

[Rockntractor]

We could send all the liberals to another planet, an atmosphere isn't necessary.

[Odysseus]

That must be one of those "shovel-ready" projects that the stimulus was supposed to kick off.

[3rd-try]

And, we'll all be starved by over population anyway by..what was it? around 2000? If not starved, we'll be starved and/or frozen by global cooling.around 2000 also I believe. Of course, we'll all be deep fried from GW any time now.

[Articulate_Ape]

We could send all the liberals to another planet, an atmosphere isn't necessary.

QFT.

[swirling_vortex]

Here's a post on so-called environmental prediction "successes".

http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/glo...edictions.html

“Fifth ice age is on the way…..Human race will have to fight for its existence against cold.” – Los Angles Times October 23, 1912

"The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot.... Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone... Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds." - Washington Post 11/2/1922

After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder. - New York Times - January 30, 1961

Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two. – New York Times - February 20, 1969


Haven't we learned our lesson from these "experts"? The oceans have not boiled away/flooded mainland coasts, the planet is not a ball of ice/a ball of fire, oil has not run dry, the rainforests haven't disappeared, and we still have a pretty good standard of living.

The so-called unsustainable population can trace its roots back to the book "The Limits to Growth" that was published in 1972. The problem though is that it assumed that all resources are fixed and much like how Malthus's doomsday predictions didn't come true, this one certainly didn't either. What they tend to forget is that resources increase or decrease in quantity, which causes the market to react. If a price gets too high, investment shifts to other forms of energy production. In a way, the market is the key to solving environmental issues since it is the only thing that can accurately quantify anything into a price (provided manipulation and subsidies/limits are kept out). In addition, we also have technological advances, which continually make things more efficient. The computer I was using 8 years ago was made up of various metals like gold, silver, and silicon. According to that book's ideology, that computer's industry (a Pentium 3 at the time) would never change. People would always and forever use Pentium 3 machines because it is assumed that they will. Of course, that is not true, my netbook uses much less power and is faster.

[Wei Wu Wei]

how about giant rotating space habitats that imitate earth gravity/environment and run off of solar radiation?

both pollution and population expansion is practically limitless with this technology.

[FlaGator]

The world ends on December 21, 2012 so there is no need to be worried about ecological disaster in 2030.

[Odysseus]

how about giant rotating space habitats that imitate earth gravity/environment and run off of solar radiation?

both pollution and population expansion is practically limitless with this technology.

Sounds good. Let us know when you have it built.

[NJCardFan]

The level of stupid in some people simply amazes me. I guess the fact that only about 30% of the actual land of this earth is populated is totally lost on these people. And we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the recourses of this planet. The utter arrogance of these people is astounding. I saw a video somewhere where it said that you can take the entire world population and fit them, comfortably, in the state of Texas.