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Jac de Molay
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Detroit
Sep 2001
time: 05:33
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told you, if you have a problem with the green house effect, take it up with the scientists. Tell them that their understanding of physics and chemistry is wrong. |
I'm not telling them whether they're right or wrong. My point is that just about every ecological issue has complicated and contradictory findings. Ecology is the science of everything, and nobody knows everything.
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30 years ago..." "1600..." you have the most bizzare comparison dates ever. |
Bizarre?  Explain why they're bizarre? You haven't bothered to provide one iota of hard statistics or science to back up your home-spun assertions.
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don't know the numbers, personally - and I'm sure you don't, either - but the the rate of extinction, whatever it is, is generally agreed to be 50-100 times more then what is considered normal |
Again, where is the data? If this is true, why haven't we observed wholesale extinctions in ecosystems based on the assumption that extinction rates are really that high? Because it's precisely that- an assumption. And grossly inaccurate even in the places where deforestation and habitat reduction really has been occurring. Even if the extinction rate I quoted were higher because of the instances of unobserved extinctions, say a little over 1 percent, that doesn't even begin to make a dent in overall global biodiversity, much less a scratch.
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You mean quote meaningless statistics from books? Maybe if you explained how each point was rellevant to global problems, it might actually mean something. |
Compared to what you've provided, it's practically an embarassment of riches. All of these "meaningless statistics" I quoted have included water and air pollution indicators for both Europe and US as a whole, including coastal sea and river watersheds across each region. Would you care to explain to me how those are considered "local statistics" ?
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That's the problem with using local statistics for global matters - they show absolutely nothing. Especially when they have an agenda and don't explain the details surrounding them. |
See above.... And by the way, the "meaningless statistics" I quoted come from such "agenda" laden sources as the Environmental Protection Agency,
Digest of Environmental statistics, Nature, and the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society, as well as several environment science texts, and I would more than willing to provide any and all pertinent citations to back up my statistics 
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What I'd be interested to know about these places that have cleaned up their act is, how has their industry faired? are they producing the same amount, or has industry moved elsewhere? |
The production of goods and services on our planet has increased by 500 percent since just 1950 (thats from a 1993 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development I just checked out from reserves).
Here's another "agenda"-laden source I just stumbled upon in the stacks, Economic growth of nations by Simon Kuznets, a Nobel laureate economist.
"From the end of the seventeenth century until the last quarter of the eighteenth, the per capita GNP of agrarian England and Wales grew at an average rate of 1.9 percent a decade. From the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1960's, industrialized Great Britain per capita grew, per decade, by 13.4 percent. Likewise the U.S. per capita GNP, between the 1840's and 1960's, grew by 17.5 percent per decade. And Japan's, between the 1870's and 1980's grew by an average of 32.3 each ten years"
One would think that all this industry would create staggering overall effects in terms morbidity and mortality. But if that's the case, why do the most industrialised, and hence most "polluted" countries, enjoy the best morbidity, mortality, and income statistics. Heck, I would argue that all our modern comforts and well-being has been borne atop a dense cloud of factory smoke.
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And by the way you - er, maybe I should say the authors you are quoting - should really stop using the 70's and 80's as a standard for environment conditions. |
Why not? If, for the most part, there have been drastic reductions in pollution over such a short period of time, what's wrong with bringing it to light? I think it bodes quite well for the future that such startling reductions have been affected over such a short period of time.
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I doubt this is something that's easily trackable, anyways. But it only takes common sense to finish the equation of "Toxin + Human =" and there's no denying we are exposed to toxins on a regular basis. |
Then why are we living longer healthier lives than ever before?
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Er, criteria for what? You really gotta go easy on that cut and pasting. |
Cutting and Pasting?? Im doing nothing of the sort. I'm simply spending a pleasant Sunday afternoon at the Detroit Public Library main branch with Science, Nature, and a host of environmental science texts. See, I'm actually taking the time to educate myself about the realities of the environmental condition, as opposed to spewing platitudes about the falling sky 
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Let me guess, this is another stellar comparison of from the 70s or something, isn't it? And I bet it's a local statsitic too. |
Nope, wrong again Those statistics are national findings for particle concentrations in both the US and UK dating from 1957-99 and and 1962-1999 respectively, from the EPA and at its UK counterpart. Also, the US data series, just so you know, was collected from several data series with varying numbers of monitoring stations, both purely urban and mixed urban/rural. I know how those pesky "local statistics" can be
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It's common sense that air pollution will make it harder for people to breathe and give them lung problems. |
Sure, and, in typical form, you've provided absolutely no relevant data that the problem is getting worse, not better.
Yes, air pollution is a problem, but not for the reasons you think. When you allow corrupt governments, with a censored press and lack of freedomd to manage air, land, water pollution, you can expect the worse to happen- just look the legacy of communism.
Pollution is a cost, not a problem, and it's a cost of living well. The reason that polluters can't or won't reduce pollution is because theres no economic incentive to do lower their pollution "cost".
Yes, the efforts of environmentalists and government regulation help a little, but not much. The overall improvements that have been affected over such a short period of time in the Western World come from an economic incentive to take on newer technology and reduce cost over the long term.
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12-01-2004 00:17
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