The great population debate

Double wank and shit chips
Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: The great population debate

#61

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Where did I say Matt wants to end all human progress?
I believe it was in the schoolyard, lunch period, when you rebutted my arguments with this bit of technical data:
Oh noes... we ... we can't do things! Because things have costs! We must stop doing things immediately!
*
I agree I said he was scientifically illiterate (I didn't say dumbfuck, but the sentiment was there).
This, coming from someone too verbally challenged to know the meanings of the words "meet" vs. "exceed." :doh: Who tried to disprove the negative effects of rising food consumption by showing ... there was rising food consumption. :doh: Who claimed trees don't count as resources. :doh: Who defends someone who thinks CFLs offer no energy savings, and who opposes wind because "it's ugly." :doh:

my first entry was discussing why rational skeptics do not tend to call out overpopulation hysteria, noting that some have predicted doomsday scenario
Answer begging the question. You have failed to substantiate that overpopulation is not a problem (only that people are eating more food!) The reason rational skeptics don't "call out" overpopulation concerns is because they are rational concerns. Contrarians like yourself are not skeptics.

As for prognostication prowess, I recall as a child being told that the scientists & engineers would soon transform the Sahara into a lush garden. How's that coming along?

JudgeFudge
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Re: The great population debate

#62

Post by JudgeFudge »

I wonder how much per KW hour would nuke plants cost if they had to be 100% privately insured for the maximum potential damage without any evil statist subsidies or guarantees?

In the US, the insurance fund contains only a few billion for all nuke accidents, after that it's up to the courts and congress, meaning the taxpayer will foot the bill for the private operator's screw ups as usual. Fukushima alone cost $58B, according to estimates so far.

How much would a wind power facility need for insurance? I guess one might fall over and smash a cow.

Oh, and by the way, a little labor arbitrage is no big deal, right?
http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/09/japan-fu ... ed-labour/

You get what you pay for, I guess.

ThePrussian
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Re: The great population debate

#63

Post by ThePrussian »

another lurker wrote:Spence wrote:
Mind you, the pig probably has a better grasp of physics than you do. As ThePrussian notes, your response to me is by and large a pack of lies
Prove it. It should be relatively easy for someone with your intellectual prowess to prove Matt wrong with a mere flick of the wrist.
Simple and straightforward. I made a few comments on wind-farms and solar, explaining why I don't like wind-farms and why I think solar still needs work, which is what I hear from the people who do their PhDs on this stuff. The problem is about having a variable power source plugged into a national grid - that is not a trivial problem to solve. Ditto the issue with bird deaths from wind farms - the figures Matt cites do not account for what happens if we get a massive expansion, nor does he take on board my point that they are hideous eyesores (their energy production isn't what it might be; there are a lot of headaches with integrating this stuff properly).

Now Matt just asserts that I have "been proved spectacularly wrong", when the extent of his response to the integration problem is "build another grid!". Well thank you for that.

Same thing with his other arguments - he yowls that its wrong to think about technological advances, except when it's the ones that he approves of. I'm happy to discuss the current state of green energy, but not like this.

That's not an honest way of debating and that is why I have no desire, none, to engage with him. I'm leaving him to his bile.

ThePrussian
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Re: The great population debate

#64

Post by ThePrussian »

another lurker wrote:Spence wrote:
So far, number of strawman fallacies correctly identified: zero. I'm almost tempted to put one in deliberately to see if you spot it. I guess if you point at everything and call it a strawman, eventually you'll be right. Could take a while though.
And I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. You've been pulling the 'guilt by association' card all along and it is painfully obvious. .
If you read back to the start of this, I specifically tried to separate honest concern out from the toxic muck that so much of the "overpopulation" debate consists of. I repeatedly offered conciliation - but since Matt is hell bent on nailing that dunce's cap to his own head, why should I not let him do so?

Dornier Pfeil
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Re: The great population debate

#65

Post by Dornier Pfeil »

Isn't the problem with solar/wind the fact that the cost of carbon is 'baked' into the cost of them. For decades the claim has been that when carbon costs climbed to a certain point renewables would become economically competitive. This claim was made by both greens who looked at is as a blessing and by denialists who just wanted a way to ignore the fact that we were depleting limited carbon stocks and the associated problems.

But no one has yet created a solar panel nor a wind turbine that can be delivered from raw materials extraction through to manufacture to final assemblage with zero input from carbon based fuels. This has prevented renewables from becoming cheaper than carbon in a way that would permit mass exploitation without subsidy(of whatever variety). The best general audience/layman's analysis is probably at the "Do the Math" blog.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... gy-matrix/

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... kty-to-me/

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... ergy-trap/

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... owth-last/

The entire blog is worth reading and is still small enough that a person could get the whole thing read in a reasonable time.

Dornier Pfeil
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Re: The great population debate

#66

Post by Dornier Pfeil »

ThePrussian wrote:nor does he take on board my point that they are hideous eyesores
Hideous eyesores is entirely a subjective take. I think windmills are wonderfully majestic. Far more attractive than the smokestacks, across the river from me, that I currently depend on electricity for.

windy
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Re: The great population debate

#67

Post by windy »

Spence wrote:And I have to reference windy here, cos windy is pretty awesome, and did actually point out another clanger (another one which Mike Adams would be proud of... seeing a pattern here?): viewtopic.php?p=123387#p123387. This does show that there was at least one call out, when the poster strayed into windy's area of expertise. But other than that we saw little skepticism despite astonishing levels of woo.
Should I know (or care) who this Mike Adams is? :think:

Anyway, given my area of expertise I can't help being equally skeptical of claims that humans (being animals) can't run into carrying capacity problems. Occupational hazard...

But, aside from any discussion of a theoretical upper limit: In the parent thread, I pointed out that many developing countries are currently overpopulated with respect to their infrastructure, which is interfering with efforts to provide people with decent education, health care, etc... Even if you call this simply a question of poverty, would you agree that further population growth is not helping matters in such a situation?

ThePrussian
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Re: The great population debate

#68

Post by ThePrussian »

@Dornier, I think you will find that the bulk of opinion is against you on this one. So regardless if you take the democratic (majority vote) or capitalist (property rights) view, that's not going anywhere.

windy There are situations, I can imagine, where issues are exacerbated by increased population; how many time do I have to repeat that I am not against having contraception and family planning available for those that want it? That, however, is a far cry from the paranoia about "population bombs" and the rest of it that characterises so much of this debate. Simply put, not having so many kids will not make those communities more wealthy, it might - and I emphasise might, because declining population is often linked with economic downturn - merely make them get poorer more slowly.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#69

Post by Spence »

another lurker wrote:And I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. You've been pulling the 'guilt by association' card all along and it is painfully obvious.
The "guilt by association" card is strictly in your imagination.
another lurker wrote:You blab about how you're a rational skeptic, then you blab a bit about how Matt and I are not
I don't usually generalise about people, and I don't recall generalising about you. I did generalise about Matt, but only after he went full retard. Never go full retard.
another lurker wrote:then you give some examples (strawmen) of the non-rational non-skeptical ideas
My original question was: why do skeptics ignore irrational statements in the overpopulation debate. The irrational part was intended to be about the specific statements, not the people making them.

As a rule, I do not make general statements about people, I make specific statements about specific things they have done. I have given the usual examples that people can be both brilliant and stupid (e.g. Linus Pauling) on different topics.

Sadly, I really don't think you understand that. You generalise everything, so if I call out a specific thoughtless action about you or someone else you take it personally and think it is an attack on you, rather than the specific action.

But I see both you and Matt do this consistently. Matt insists that because I criticise wind, I must be anti-solar for Africa or something. I have given no opinion on solar on this thread; I haven't researched solar for Africa and would not give an opinion on it until I had. And you assume because I'm critical of one comment you made I think you are "non-rational".

You've layered a generalisation fallacy on top of specific things I've called out and then got butthurt about the generalisation. But the generalisation exists only in your mind.
another lurker wrote:because we are not simply accepting that technology is some sort of magical cure all for society's ills.
Oh look! Another false generalisation, as well as second guessing my opinion. You aren't even arguing with me any more, you're arguing with a hydra in your own mind which bears no resemblance at all to anything I've actually said.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#70

Post by Spence »

Objective costs of power generation: http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publicatio ... ricity.pdf

Wind is around 1.5x to 2x nuclear; 2x+ fossil fuels, even without backup. With backup it is (obviously) worse. It's an old report so prices may be a little higher now, but ratios are similar. This is certainly consistent with renewables obligation charges in the UK, and the high price of electricity in Germany compared to the UK (Germany has much more wind power, residential electricity is about twice the price), so the prices estimated in the report and actual real life cost are quite consistent and probably about right.

On nuclear power plants: most are privately insured, the US is unusual in that it has a state run insurance programme, this is no different to any other state monopoly, e.g. if your state provides a monopoly on water supply, you get your water from the state, it doesn't mean that a private industry couldn't supply you with water. Many other countries use private insurance to cover nuclear power stations. "Maximum cost" is meaningless for several reasons: risk/cost/damages are a continuous distribution so "maximum" is not well defined or meaningful. All insurance policies have maximum payouts so this is not exceptional to nuclear power.

The $58bn cost of clearing up Fukushima is non-trivial compared to the estimated $240bn-$300bn cost of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, but not a game-changer. FWIW it is estimated around ~$30bn of the $300bn costs were insured, so in the region of 10%. This puts the nuclear cost into perspective.

Recent best estimates of death rates per TWh of electricity generated shows wind power causes more deaths than nuclear, but both are far better than fossil fuels, eg here:

Code: Select all

[b]Energy Source              Death Rate (deaths per TWh) CORRECTED[/b]

Oil                                 36  (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas                          4  (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass                     12
Peat                                12
Solar (rooftop)                      0.44 (0.2% of world energy for all solar)
Wind                                 0.15 (1.6% of world energy)
Hydro                                0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao)     1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear                              0.04 (5.9% of world energy)
Coal (elect, heat,cook –world avg) 100 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal electricity – world avg        60 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal (elect,heat,cook)– China      170
Coal electricity-  China            90 
Coal – USA                          15
(I moved coal down the bottom so nuclear doesn't need scrolling to)

So nuclear uses less raw materials, less resources (and thereby less energy input), kills fewer people than wind and is cheaper. Based on actual evidence.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#71

Post by Spence »

Dornier Pfeil wrote:Isn't the problem with solar/wind the fact that the cost of carbon is 'baked' into the cost of them.
Yes. As noted, wind farms require staggering amounts of raw material inputs in terms of steel and concrete. These things require energy as input.

But making that energy input more expensive by using expensive renewables will only act in one way, to make renewable energy more expensive still.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#72

Post by Spence »

windy wrote:
Spence wrote:And I have to reference windy here, cos windy is pretty awesome, and did actually point out another clanger (another one which Mike Adams would be proud of... seeing a pattern here?): viewtopic.php?p=123387#p123387. This does show that there was at least one call out, when the poster strayed into windy's area of expertise. But other than that we saw little skepticism despite astonishing levels of woo.
Should I know (or care) who this Mike Adams is? :think:
Just to be clear - I wasn't comparing you to Mike Adams, but suggesting that Mike Adams would endorse the woo claims that you criticised - Mike Adams is the owner of naturalnews, the internets no.1 resource for the naturalistic fallacy.
windy wrote:Anyway, given my area of expertise I can't help being equally skeptical of claims that humans (being animals) can't run into carrying capacity problems. Occupational hazard...
I agree that it is possible humans can run into resource limits - and if we hadn't figured out nuclear power by now, I would be very concerned because fossil fuels are not going to last very far into the future at all. But the energy resource in fission alone is enormous - possibly enough to last millions of years - and if you have sufficient cheap energy, pretty much most things you need can come from that. Fusion is the holy grail of course, and to get beyond fission we most likely have to master this. Better harnessing of the suns energy as well - not quite looking for a Dyson sphere, but remote fusion is appealing for many obvious reasons, we just don't really have the tech to harness it yet.
windy wrote:But, aside from any discussion of a theoretical upper limit: In the parent thread, I pointed out that many developing countries are currently overpopulated with respect to their infrastructure, which is interfering with efforts to provide people with decent education, health care, etc... Even if you call this simply a question of poverty, would you agree that further population growth is not helping matters in such a situation?
Further population growth may not help, but I can see no viable way to stop it except through exceptional draconian measures (which I would not support). Family planning is a good thing, and we talked about Malawi earlier which I think was interesting, but the CBR for Malawi was virtually unaffected. I suspect family planning is very good for Malawi in terms of reducing the spread of STDs and reducing unwanted babies (ironically reducing the spread of diseases may *increase* the population by lowering the death rate!). But it won't reduce the number of *wanted* babies, and on that basis it doesn't surprise me that the CBR of Malawi is virtually unchanged from a few years ago. In the coming decades, Malawi should reach a level of development at which the CBR will fall anyway, because people will be freed from surviving hand-to-mouth and will have time to do things other than just survive. That is at the heart of it.

another lurker
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Re: The great population debate

#73

Post by another lurker »

Regarding Africa and contraception, it is definitely going to be an uphill battle:

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/04/ ... ss-africa/

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) Amid increasing calls for legalization of abortion in Africa, botched cases among young women are on the rise, according to recent reports.
Akech Aimba, an abortion survivor who heads Pearls and Treasures Trust, a Kenyan organization that provide post -abortion care to women affected by unsafe abortion.She says abortion kills the fetus, but also kills women psychologically. and emotionally. RNS photo by Fredrick Nzwili


Governments are responding by distributing contraceptives, but the Roman Catholic Church, some Muslim groups and anti-abortion groups are waging their own campaigns against contraception, warning it will further escalate the problem.
More than 6 million unsafe abortions take place each year in Africa, resulting in 29,000 maternal deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Another 1. 7 million women are hospitalized annually for complications from unsafe abortions

A report last month by the African Population and Health Research Center showed the number of illegal abortions in Kenya increased to more than 460,000 in 2012, a 48 percent jump from the estimated 300,000 abortions in previous years.

According to the report, 64 percent of married Kenyan women had an abortion at least once in their lifetime. More than 70 percent of those women said they did not use contraception

Of course, the Catholic Church's solution is sexual purity!
“We also need to look at our religions and cultures to bring out the good values that encourage sexual purity and abstinence,” Kasozi said.

She is now convinced contraceptives are not the answer, either.

Distributing condoms freely, without giving information encourages risky sexual behavior leading to more abortions, she said.

“We are not solving the problem,” she added. “We are not giving them life skills, but with the condoms people are pushed deeper into sexual addiction.”

JudgeFudge
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Re: The great population debate

#74

Post by JudgeFudge »

The bottom line is that it's a gamble: Governments are hoping to dodge a one-time disaster while they accumulate small gains over the long-term. Yet in financial terms, nuclear incidents can be so devastating that the cost of full insurance would be so high as to make nuclear energy more expensive than fossil fuels.

The cost of a worst-case nuclear accident at a German plant, for example, has been estimated to total as much as US$11 trillion, while the mandatory reactor insurance is only US$3.65 billion.

“The 2.5 billion euros will be just enough to buy the stamps for the letters of condolence,” said Olav Hohmeyer, an economist at the University of Flensburg who is also a member of the German government's environmental advisory body.

One estimate by a German think tank shows that coverage for every US$1.5 trillion in estimated damages would theoretically cost annual insurance of US$68.5 billion.
...
“Around the globe, nuclear risks — be it damages to power plants or the liability risks resulting from radiation accidents — are covered by the state. The private insurance industry is barely liable,” said Torsten Jeworrek, a board member at Munich Re, one of the world's biggest reinsurance companies.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/gl ... urance.htm

One of the reasons nuclear is so problematic for insurance companies is that they are too difficult to gauge risk.

And yet there is more assistance, in the billions, for nuclear.
A recent report by Scully Capital Services, an investment banking and financial services firm, commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE), highlighted three federal subsidies and regulations — termed “show stoppers” — without which the industry would grind to a halt. These “show stoppers” include the Price Anderson Act, which limits the liability of the nuclear industry in case of a serious nuclear accident — leaving taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of billions in compensation costs; federal disposal of nuclear waste in a permanent repository, which will save the industry billions at taxpayer expense; and licensing regulations, wherein the report recommends that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission further grease the skids of its quasi-judicial licensing process to preclude successful interventions from opponents. But even these long-standing subsidies are not enough to convince investors, who for decades have treated nuclear power as the pariah of the energy industry.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commen ... lear-power

The fact that insurance companies don't see the "No Brainer" in deaths per KW is a major red flag. Insurance Companies would be insuring plants for tens of billions, even hundreds of billions, and laughing all the way to the bank if their estimates matched up with that of nuclear energy advocates.

I don't have a problem with subsidizing things, unlike libertarians. However, it's clear, that at least in the US (and I suspect in most countries), the nuclear industry could not survive without massive capital cost subsidies, waste disposal subsidies, and indemnities for damages. This is a sign to me that, at least at this point, nuclear is not a viable alternative.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#75

Post by Spence »

ROFLMAO whoever wrote that article is completely clueless!

Yes, risk and damage probabilities are continuous functions and if you understand how statistics works that means you can come up with any arbitrary damages you care to invent. Without an associated probability those are completely meaningless.

But we've already had the worst mode of a failure of a nuclear reactor. The worst mode of failure is a runaway criticality event that causes the core to violently explode. That's what happened at Chernobyl. A similar event has a vanishingly small probability in Germany, due to reactor design and secondary containment. Actual measurable deaths from Chernobyl come in at around 100 - mainly caused by incompetent handling of the disaster. Which is why when you see things like this in the article:
“The 2.5 billion euros will be just enough to buy the stamps for the letters of condolence,” said Olav Hohmeyer
You realise the article is not based on fact, but fiction.

Wind power kills more people per unit of energy generated than nuclear, and that is including Chernobyl and Fukushima. That's the real facts on the table, as opposed to the belief that it costs 2.5 billion euros to send 100 letters of condolence. I suppose with arithmetic like that, $11 trillion is believable, but I think he would be better off spending more money on education than billions of euros on some paper and stamps.

The cost of nuclear is not in deaths, but in devaluation of assets contaminated by radionuclides. Oddly enough, home insulation causes more deaths from radionuclides than nuclear ever could - yet somehow that doesn't make anywhere near as many news headlines as Fukushima.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: The great population debate

#76

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Returning to this discussion after a brief sabbatical from the Pit to deal with Teh IRL, I'm struck by how much it resembles equally futile debates with creationists.

One the one side, we have several people raising specific, detailed points, with citation, not to mention common sense. On the other, there's Prussian and Spence, insisting that details don't matter -- one must have Blind Faith in Jesus Human Ingenuity.

Oh, except this isolated fact counts, as it supports my argument! For example, when Spence nixes wind farms as they "require staggering amounts of raw material inputs" then in the next breath lauds the "holy grail," fusion, as the solution, despite the fact that "we just don't really have the tech to harness it yet." A cheap ploy no different than when the biblical literalist insists belief trumps evidence, only to trot out a rotting plank discovered on Mt. Ararat.

Notice, too, how logistics problems that conspire to make renewable energy undoable are suddenly trivial when discussing dirty, expensive, or theoretical energy sources. Again, much like creationists who require no hard proof of Yahweh, yet insist darwinians provide a complete fossil for each generational step of evolution.

When painted into a corner by their contradictory evidence and gross illogic, Prussian and Spence play their last trump -- we are "experts", you are not: nothing you say matters. This, besides being sadly desperate, mirrors Bishop Denys Turner insisting that atheists are not allowed to question the existence of God until they've fully immersed themselves in the minutiae, & use the arcane neologisms, of Theology. Bullshit.

It'd be child's play to continue to shoot down Prussian's willful ignorance - for example, that the allegedly intractable "problem is about having a variable power source plugged into a national grid" has already been sorted out, or Spence's intentionally misleading figures ("Wind power kills more people per unit of energy generated than nuclear"; "Actual measurable deaths from Chernobyl come in at around 100 ") by linking to an expose http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/27 ... ies/193299 of the fossil fuel lobby propaganda he cites.

But it'd be overkill, for they've damned themselves many times over with their own polemics and falsehoods. Any rational observer can see that Prussian and Spence are not skeptics, rather ideologues cherry-picking data to support their emotionally-driven, a priori conclusions; namely: Spence's anarchist-libertarian philosophy; and Prussian's bizarre synthesis of the equally bankrupt worldviews of Marx & Rand.

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Re: The great population debate

#77

Post by another lurker »

And regarding nuclear power, one of the biggest problems, is uh, public support. There will always be the threat of some sort of meltdown. Fears about human error. People will always say 'not in my backyard'. Heck, people hundreds of miles away will worry about being 'downwinders' or something. That alone makes it unfeasible.

Spence
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Re: The great population debate

#78

Post by Spence »

Ahahahahaha

- sorry that's not clear enough -

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Matt, you are an absolute riot. I back my viewpoint up with evidence from scientific articles, from scientists and engineers from places like the University of California Berkeley and learned institutions such as the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

On the other hand, we have you disparaging engineers and scientists, providing zero counter evidence to the careful and detailed analysis these people have made, insisting the world is running out of the most abundant chemical in the earths crust, then switching to claiming you are worried about external costs of concrete, then advocating the single most concrete-intensive form of power generation available. When I talked about solar (but referring to it as remote fusion - exactly what it is) you insist it isn't feasible!!!

The only counter-argument you've provided so far is that because you had a job once that involved some kind of cost estimating, therefore you must know more than the people who wrote the detailed reports I provided you with, never once actually providing any figures of your own.

And you think I'm the one arguing like a creationist?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

You're funny, Matt. But not in a good way.

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Re: The great population debate

#79

Post by Spence »

another lurker wrote:And regarding nuclear power, one of the biggest problems, is uh, public support. There will always be the threat of some sort of meltdown. Fears about human error. People will always say 'not in my backyard'. Heck, people hundreds of miles away will worry about being 'downwinders' or something. That alone makes it unfeasible.
Every form of power generation has people complaining "not in my backyard". Except wind has to be in many more people's backyards than nuclear power. Nuclear power stations are always placed away from populated areas, so the "not in my backyard" problem is actually much less of an issue than an equivalent wind farm.

And yes, there will always be idiots worrying about radiation from nuclear power plants, while completely ignoring the massively higher radiation risks they get in their own home from radon gas buildup, or the much higher dose they receive every time they get on an airplane.

Of course, the scaremongering continues which has resulted in Germany replacing nuclear with coal, which will kill approx 3 orders of magnitude more people in order to generate the same amount of power than nuclear does, as well as being the most carbon intensive form of power generation available. Well done, German green activists, great victory.

TheMan
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Re: The great population debate

#80

Post by TheMan »

I dont think humans are that much removed from other animals in being subject to boom and bust cycles. Human population will increase while the supply of food and resources are available. Like with other herding animals like Buffalo, rodents etc once the population levels reach the point where local resources no longer support the levels the population diminishes.

Sure there are pockets of disparities.... rich nations will buy or steal recources from the weaker nations. We are seeing this now with countries like China investing into food producing nations like Australia & New Zealand where these countries don;t have a population big enough to invest into more food production. (Australia already exports 70% of the food it produces). This is within the bounds of nature's way of reaching some sort of equilibrium. Nature's checks and balances and all. Equilibrium will inevitably mean we need to look at what's a reasonable level of lifestyle. Figuring out how to share resources will come down to social philosphies (the way we think) and laws (forcing compliance) rather than technology & science IMHO.

Energy:
One thing that's always had me scratching my head in particular is house designs.... For e.g. I don't know why we still build houses with slanted roofs in aereas where it never snows. I total wast of materials to space that could be used for solar panels. The Australia Govt only recently had to stop the solar panel subsidies. It was taken up with uplomb and any extra energy produced was put back into the grid (it was easy to do). Some households were actually making a little bit of money with the energy being put back into the system.

Bang for buck nuclear power reigns supreme I would think. I reckon find islands strategically located around the world that will become Islands of Nuclear Power plants. Hook up to a world grid.... all nations either put ( based on consumption) in fuel (uranium), cash or scientific know how & personell to keep everything running smoothly. This will help the NIMBY effect and energy becomes every nations respibility and resource. Sorry if that sounds lefty commo but with energy it makes sense to me...and will go towards diminishing any future battles/wars over energy resources.

Poverty: It's always going to be around...especally in India because of the Caste system. Education diminishes poverty...we all know it's the smart people who aren't breeding.

There's me 2 cents worth....

TheMan
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Re: The great population debate

#81

Post by TheMan »

Oh!

Wind power...yes..here in Australia those living near Wind turbines complain about the humming whoosh noises (and something called infrasound) and some claim it's like chinese water torture and are going mad!!! Wind Turbine Syndrome...

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/wind- ... 2j3j5.html

ThePrussian
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Re: The great population debate

#82

Post by ThePrussian »

spence you are doing fine. Allow me to invite you to my electronic pad anytime. Matt, meanwhile, fails to understand that if you have a view of economics so divorced from morals and reality that both Marx and Rand would smack you, it is time to reexamine your life.

Cannot believe the abject stupidity of Germany's energy law right now.

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Re: The great population debate

#83

Post by Spence »

ThePrussian wrote:spence you are doing fine. Allow me to invite you to my electronic pad anytime. Matt, meanwhile, fails to understand that if you have a view of economics so divorced from morals and reality that both Marx and Rand would smack you, it is time to reexamine your life.

Cannot believe the abject stupidity of Germany's energy law right now.
I will try and drop by your blog from time to time. Life is a bit hectic just at the moment though, so not getting much time as I would like to circulate the interwebz. Hopefully I will be a bit more active online in a couple of months or so.

TheMan: your thoughtful moderate position will get you nowhere on a thread full of polemics!

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Re: The great population debate

#84

Post by ThePrussian »

Courtesy of the Let's Kick Them While They're Down Department, a recent story of more water being discovered in Kenya:

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles ... eshape.htm

Wasn't someone saying that we were Running Out Of Water?

another lurker
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Re: The great population debate

#85

Post by another lurker »

And I could find oil in my backyard?

So?

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Re: The great population debate

#86

Post by Spence »

Interesting op-ed in the New York Times from one of those biologist/ecology types:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opini ... .html?_r=0

And follow up on dotearth by Andy Revkin:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/ ... ry-limits/

Also, Prof Paul Sabin's much anticipated book "The Bet", documenting the bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon has been out for about a fortnight:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bet-Ehrlich ... 0300176481

Many interesting observations; the bet became a high profile event, but commodity prices are largely a lottery so it is doubtful how meaningful the result was, although it was interpreted as a unanimous victory for the "optimists". Interesting to note though, and documented in the book, how much more income the "pessimistic" viewpoint of Ehrlich made - millions awarded in prizes from advocacy groups, even though ultimately his "pessimistic" view was shown to be wrong. (Not so much from the price of metals, but more from the success of so many countries in feeding their populations when Ehrlich predicted famine and starvation)

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Re: The great population debate

#87

Post by Spence »

And on the other side of the coin, David Attenborough has been busy in the last week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24144593

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... -will.html

http://www.theguardian.com/global-devel ... population

To me, Attenborough's commentary makes little sense. He respects the right of an individual to have children - in which case there is no viable solution to preventing overpopulation, as people will continue to want children. There is considerable evidence on misanthropy in his arguments as well:
Telegraph wrote:When asked about comments he made on population control earlier this year, when he said human beings were a “plague on the Earth"
Also, as I have already demonstrated on this thread, we already produce sufficient food to feed the entire human population. So the food is available, yet famines still occur. They still occur because famine in today's society is a political problem, not a food production problem. Attenborough says:
Attenborough wrote:They've been having... what are all these famines in Ethiopia, what are they about? They're about too many people for too little piece of land. That's what it's about.
Really? According to wikipedia, Ethipopia is currently the worlds 121st ranked of 243 country in order of population density. So nothing special about its position there, although one could argue its land is more marginal than others, many of its wealthier analogues have a higher population density and fewer problems feeding their populations. Furthermore, Ethiopia was just as susceptible to famine hundreds of years ago when the population was a fraction of its present level. It really shows that population density is not a driving factor here.

Attenborough thinks it is crazy to send food aid to Ethiopia when famine strikes. This is misanthropy, plain and simple, because there can only be one outcome from that approach. We produce enough food for the world, but when there is a local resource shortfall, we should just stand by and let them die, in Attenborough's view. Because he is worried about overpopulation.

Note the 1888-1892 famine in Ethiopia wiped out one-third of the population, when the population was far smaller than today. Modern technology - even in third world countries - mean modern famine hits much less hard than famines of over one hundred years ago. We have become more resilient with a larger, wealthier population than we ever were with a smaller, poorer population.

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Re: The great population debate

#88

Post by ThePrussian »

Though, do remember spence according to Matt it is horribly unfair to judge overpopulation anxiety by the statements of its most public proponents.

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Re: The great population debate

#89

Post by Spence »

Sadly another lurker and Matt "hard-of-thinking" Cavanaugh are trying to drag the overpop debate back to the main thread. So returning it to its proper place:
another lurker wrote:Don't talk about overpopulation and pollution. It makes you a 'racist'. Yes, really:P

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=359
Curiously, I searched for the word "racist" on the link you give (first page of this thread). Six occurrences, of which 5 of 6 were either Matt or someone quoting Matt.

In other words, Matt's ratio of being called racist to whining about it is only slightly better than Ophie's use of the word "cunt". Talking of idiots:
Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Why worry? Spence read an article about the potential for nano-clothes irons.
No, please Matt. You keep worrying. Don't you know the world is facing peak sand? So much to worry about and so little time!

BWAHAHAHAHA

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Re: The great population debate

#90

Post by JudgeFudge »

Good Article about our inability to calculate risk about nuclear power.

http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/ ... shima.html

Again, it's not an accident that no insurance company will write a policy beyond the physical plant. If Nuclear Energy was as safe as advocates proclaim, the multi-trillion dollar insurance industry would happily write an overpriced policy to ensure something really safe and laugh all the way to the bank.

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Re: The great population debate

#91

Post by JudgeFudge »

*Ensure = insure, duh

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Re: The great population debate

#92

Post by BillBryant »

Spence wrote:Ahahahahaha

- sorry that's not clear enough -

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Matt, you are an absolute riot. I back my viewpoint up with evidence from scientific articles, from scientists and engineers from places like the University of California Berkeley and learned institutions such as the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

On the other hand, we have you disparaging engineers and scientists, providing zero counter evidence to the careful and detailed analysis these people have made, insisting the world is running out of the most abundant chemical in the earths crust, then switching to claiming you are worried about external costs of concrete, then advocating the single most concrete-intensive form of power generation available. When I talked about solar (but referring to it as remote fusion - exactly what it is) you insist it isn't feasible!!!

The only counter-argument you've provided so far is that because you had a job once that involved some kind of cost estimating, therefore you must know more than the people who wrote the detailed reports I provided you with, never once actually providing any figures of your own.

And you think I'm the one arguing like a creationist?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

You're funny, Matt. But not in a good way.
We need to make best use of renewable energy resources otherwise war is around the corner.. Our dependency on fossil fuels must be reduced

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Re: The great population debate

#93

Post by another lurker »

@BillBryant

Nah, the solution is to ask people to 'share'.

It's really that easy.

Hey guys, stop fighting over rapidly diminishing resources and play nice!

And all of the world's problems will be solved!

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Re: The great population debate

#94

Post by BillBryant »

BillBryant wrote:
Spence wrote:Ahahahahaha

- sorry that's not clear enough -

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Matt, you are an absolute riot. I back my viewpoint up with evidence from scientific articles, from scientists and engineers from places like the University of California Berkeley and learned institutions such as the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

On the other hand, we have you disparaging engineers and scientists, providing zero counter evidence to the careful and detailed analysis these people have made, insisting the world is running out of the most abundant chemical in the earths crust, then switching to claiming you are worried about external costs of concrete, then advocating the single most concrete-intensive form of power generation available. When I talked about solar panel (but referring to it as remote fusion - exactly what it is) you insist it isn't feasible!!!

The only counter-argument you've provided so far is that because you had a job once that involved some kind of cost estimating, therefore you must know more than the people who wrote the detailed reports I provided you with, never once actually providing any figures of your own.

And you think I'm the one arguing like a creationist?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA


You're funny, Matt. But not in a good way.
We need to make best use of renewable energy resources otherwise war is around the corner.. Our dependency on fossil fuels must be reduced

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Re: The great population debate

#95

Post by BillHamp »

another lurker wrote:And regarding nuclear power, one of the biggest problems, is uh, public support. There will always be the threat of some sort of meltdown. Fears about human error. People will always say 'not in my backyard'. Heck, people hundreds of miles away will worry about being 'downwinders' or something. That alone makes it unfeasible.
I always find it funny that people have such an irrational fear of nuclear energy when coal power actually spews more radiation into the environment on a routine basis than any other electricity generating scheme. A good example is the nuclear plant near my home. It's been in continuous operaation for 40 years without a single problem. It was to be upgraded, but people started protesting, wanting it shutdown. Their reason? A test well showed a radiation leak. Yup, the system worked just like it was supposed to, alerting the plant operators to a small leak (which they fixed) and that was used to "prove" that the plant was dangerous.

Well, just this year the company decided to decommision the plant. It is too expensive to repair. The anti-nuc people are happy right? Nope. They are now protesting the shutdown because it "won't be done right." THey clearly just want to bitch. If I ran the plant, I'd open all the fucking valves and walk away holding up my middle finger the whole time. The bottom line was that the plant would be protested no matter what, simply because a bunch of morons couldn't grasp the technology.

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Re: The great population debate

#96

Post by BillHamp »

JudgeFudge wrote:Good Article about our inability to calculate risk about nuclear power.

http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/ ... shima.html

Again, it's not an accident that no insurance company will write a policy beyond the physical plant. If Nuclear Energy was as safe as advocates proclaim, the multi-trillion dollar insurance industry would happily write an overpriced policy to ensure something really safe and laugh all the way to the bank.
The Fukishima problem was a result of faulty and lazy work during the installation. They cut corners. Had they done it right, there never would have been a problem. What's more, there are other fission methods that are safer that can be used. Why didn't we use them? Simple, we wanted material for bombs.

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Re: The great population debate

#97

Post by BillHamp »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Returning to this discussion after a brief sabbatical from the Pit to deal with Teh IRL, I'm struck by how much it resembles equally futile debates with creationists.

One the one side, we have several people raising specific, detailed points, with citation, not to mention common sense. On the other, there's Prussian and Spence, insisting that details don't matter -- one must have Blind Faith in Jesus Human Ingenuity.

Oh, except this isolated fact counts, as it supports my argument! For example, when Spence nixes wind farms as they "require staggering amounts of raw material inputs" then in the next breath lauds the "holy grail," fusion, as the solution, despite the fact that "we just don't really have the tech to harness it yet." A cheap ploy no different than when the biblical literalist insists belief trumps evidence, only to trot out a rotting plank discovered on Mt. Ararat.

Notice, too, how logistics problems that conspire to make renewable energy undoable are suddenly trivial when discussing dirty, expensive, or theoretical energy sources. Again, much like creationists who require no hard proof of Yahweh, yet insist darwinians provide a complete fossil for each generational step of evolution.

When painted into a corner by their contradictory evidence and gross illogic, Prussian and Spence play their last trump -- we are "experts", you are not: nothing you say matters. This, besides being sadly desperate, mirrors Bishop Denys Turner insisting that atheists are not allowed to question the existence of God until they've fully immersed themselves in the minutiae, & use the arcane neologisms, of Theology. Bullshit.

It'd be child's play to continue to shoot down Prussian's willful ignorance - for example, that the allegedly intractable "problem is about having a variable power source plugged into a national grid" has already been sorted out, or Spence's intentionally misleading figures ("Wind power kills more people per unit of energy generated than nuclear"; "Actual measurable deaths from Chernobyl come in at around 100 ") by linking to an expose http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/27 ... ies/193299 of the fossil fuel lobby propaganda he cites.

But it'd be overkill, for they've damned themselves many times over with their own polemics and falsehoods. Any rational observer can see that Prussian and Spence are not skeptics, rather ideologues cherry-picking data to support their emotionally-driven, a priori conclusions; namely: Spence's anarchist-libertarian philosophy; and Prussian's bizarre synthesis of the equally bankrupt worldviews of Marx & Rand.
In all fairness, wind is a lousy way to generate power. Besides the fact that it kills wildlife, wind is horribly unreliable and incredibly energy intensive to install and maintain. Wind farms use the same techniques that fracking companies and other oil companies do to get land for their work. They use the same strongarm tactics and yet only the oil companies get called out. Frankly, most environmentalists are no different than those they criticize. They lie about the benefits of their technology, cover up its shortcomings, and refuse to play by the rules that they insist everyone else must play by.

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Re: The great population debate

#98

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

BillHamp wrote: In all fairness, wind is a lousy way to generate power. Besides the fact that it kills wildlife, wind is horribly unreliable and incredibly energy intensive to install and maintain.
Bill, this stream has been gathering dust for some time. All these issues were discussed at length, and copious citations provided to substantiate our points and to debunk the complaints against wind power. So unless you have new material that refutes the evidence already provided that: wildlife deaths are neither a significant issue, nor unique to wind; wind is not "horribly" unreliable; wind is not especially "energy intensive to install and maintain", then don't even bother.
Wind farms use the same techniques that fracking companies and other oil companies do to get land for their work. They use the same strongarm tactics and yet only the oil companies get called out.
As far as I know, wind turbines do not poison the water table. But whining 'both sides do it!' is not constructive, offers no alternative solution to the energy problem, and actually is not germane to the question of whether a particular source of energy is worthwhile. If you have an issue with how big business acquires land, then address that practice. It is not a valid argument against wind per se.

Frankly, most environmentalists are no different than those they criticize. They lie about the benefits of their technology, cover up its shortcomings, and refuse to play by the rules that they insist everyone else must play by
Refuting that an alleged shortcoming is one is not the same as 'covering up.' Please provide specific examples of how "most" environmentalists: 1) lie; 2) cover up; 3) refuse to play by the rules. Or don't even bother.

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Re: The great population debate

#99

Post by another lurker »

BillHamp wrote:
another lurker wrote:And regarding nuclear power, one of the biggest problems, is uh, public support. There will always be the threat of some sort of meltdown. Fears about human error. People will always say 'not in my backyard'. Heck, people hundreds of miles away will worry about being 'downwinders' or something. That alone makes it unfeasible.
I always find it funny that people have such an irrational fear of nuclear energy when coal power actually spews more radiation into the environment on a routine basis than any other electricity generating scheme. A good example is the nuclear plant near my home. It's been in continuous operaation for 40 years without a single problem. It was to be upgraded, but people started protesting, wanting it shutdown. Their reason? A test well showed a radiation leak. Yup, the system worked just like it was supposed to, alerting the plant operators to a small leak (which they fixed) and that was used to "prove" that the plant was dangerous.

Well, just this year the company decided to decommision the plant. It is too expensive to repair. The anti-nuc people are happy right? Nope. They are now protesting the shutdown because it "won't be done right." THey clearly just want to bitch. If I ran the plant, I'd open all the fucking valves and walk away holding up my middle finger the whole time. The bottom line was that the plant would be protested no matter what, simply because a bunch of morons couldn't grasp the technology.
People fear getting eaten by a shark more than they fear the gradual onset of heart disease, right? Same kind of thinking...imo.

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