Global Warming , the facts the facts the facts?

[rogueelement]

Of course there are those who say that as far as evolution is concerned that mankind is currently in retrograde mode. Advances in medicine, social engineering, health and safety are ensuring that those who might previously have died because of their own stupidity are not only alive but breeding like rabbits , leading to a fall in the general IQ median.The basic laws of survival of the fittest have been replaced by survival of the largest social welfare programs.
As to the world population , 6 billion? I read somewhere that they could all have 3 square yards on the Isle of Man, ( Cant be ars*D to look it up ) So that is more than just a red herring it is "greenist" propaganda.
Man has been and always will be able to overcome problems , the deserts can be transformed , the Land mass can be increased.
If there is a population problem , which I do not believe, then it can be addressed.
The Chinese for example to do not pay child allowance after the first child , why the west continues to encourage people to have large families via social security allowances is beyond me.
Education is the key to everything , it is to be hoped that future generations will not allow profligate breeding of an underclass that does little but drain the resources of governments.
It is interesting to note that the brand new Labour party is now promoting back to work for single mothers , benefit takers having to turn up for job interviews , failing to take an offered job being cause to reduce benefits.
a small step for the State a giant leap for Mankind !
The problem is that the above steps are not really vote catchers , until someone comes up with a method of realising the unemployed to make a worthwhile contribution to the general good , then we are going to continue with cradle to grave social security handouts and the more people we elect like Southern in the States the bigger the payments will become, not because they are worthwhile , simply because money for nothing is a vote catcher , ask ex President Clinton! 

[Mark Forskitt]

Of course there are those who say that as far as evolution is concerned that As to the world population , 6 billion? I read somewhere that they could all have 3 square yards on the Isle of Man, ( Cant be ars*D to look it up ) So that is more than just a red herring it is "greenist" propaganda.

The Isle of Man is usually quoted as 227 square miles in area.  A square mile is 3,097,600 square yards.  To make the maths very simple (since you can't be ars*D, as you put it) call that 660 million square yards.  As you can see your 3 square yards per person is out by a factor of around 30.  The rest of your argument is to my mind similarly far out.

[boatyboy]

There is a population problem Rougeelement. Not so long ago in the scheme of things, my grand mother as a young wife used to come into town from St. Ouen’s, by horse and cart, once a month around ninety years ago.

We only need to look at how populated Jersey is now, back then it really did not matter if you had ten kids. Where would your ten kids live now ? where would they work ? the younger generation even in the concrete jungle that is St. Helier and spreading fast are not able to get a place to set up for life.

The most important fact you mentioned, to quote you if I may, there are deserts and, the deserts can be transformed , the Land mass can be increased.

Lets do that, what happens when like Jersey and England they are full enough also? Let alone the problems of mouths to feed and the infrastructure.

I do agree with you on one issue, why and how did the welfare system, an initially good system to provide a safety net for those who had fallen on hard times become, an underclass (not working class ) life style sucking resources out of the main financial artery of the country. Finally, why are Governments still encouraging people to have children through heavy subsidies and benefits? 

boatyboy.

[Nick Palmer]

As to the world population , 6 billion? I read somewhere that they could all have 3 square yards on the Isle of Man, ( Cant be ars*D to look it up ) So that is more than just a red herring it is "greenist" propaganda.

"greenist propaganda"?  The laws of mathematics? What planet do people like you come from? You make a eugenics based argument as follows

Rogueelement - Advances in medicine, social engineering, health and safety are ensuring that those who might previously have died because of their own stupidity are not only alive but breeding like rabbits , leading to a fall in the general IQ median

Your own enumeracy, (do you work in Finance by any chance?) incomprehension and arrogance suggests that you are one of these "breeding like rabbits" characters that you are so bothered about. For the good of humanity, you know what you ought to do!

In my last post I said I was beginning to warm to you - well forget it. You have gone back to being dangerously ridiculous again. You clearly didn't understand my post on population and living space and your latest post shows that you have simply no idea at all about reality. How do people like you have the nerve to expect your opinions to get any respect at all? If you're going to quote some unknown, barking mad, mathematically illiterate idiot and act as if you believe them, why don't you put warning disclaimers on all your posts that you gleefully base your ideas on incompetent fantasy and bullshit or that your mind is made up and not to confuse you with the facts because you'll just quote embarrassingly stupid lies in support of your wishful thinking.

As it happens, the current world population on the Isle of Man would get about 0.93 square feet each - that's a square 11.57 inches on a side. My original post pointed out that in the early 70's, when the global population was about 3.6 billion, that dangerous idiots claimed that they could all fit onto the Isle of Wight

and scoffers worked out that the entire world's population (then about 3.6 billion) could fit onto the Isle of Wight, thus making the world back then appear a pretty roomy place.  I did the complementary calculation at the time (no calculators then...) and discovered that if the global population was evenly distributed over the land surface of Earth, then each person would only have an area of land 220 yards square as their personal environmental space! Obviously some of this area would be hostile desert, ice fields, mountains, rainforest etc. The world suddenly looked rather cramped.  I recently did similar calculations again, using the current world population figure of 6.6 billion, and our current personal environmental land space has now shrunk to 150 metres square (164 yards square) or about 12.5 vergees per person. These calculations have not been widely publicised although a version of part of them now features in the United Nations Environment Programme report a couple of years ago (Global Environmental Outlook 4 - GEO4).

The 3.6 billion back then in 1970 got 0.87 square feet each of the Isle of Wight to squeeze onto (a square 11.2 inches on a side). Although the deranged scoffers have had to find another, bigger, island (I. of Wight=147 sq miles, I. of Man=221 sq miles) to peddle their mindless bullshit, the argument is fundamentally the same.


As Stuart said:

Trying to present rational, evidenced cases to some people is akin to trying to have a rational and logical discussion with a religious fundamentalist.

Essentially - a futile exercise.

Actually I've argued it out with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and won (or at least they went away).

Oh, I almost forgot - Spooky came back with some point about how awful and unfair it is that deniers get labelled as that. They got labelled that for a reason. If you are not aware of the history of these people, and the way they have repeatedly changed their arguments according to whatever they thought would influence the people most, and the shoals of red herrings that they have manufactured, then you shouldn't comment. I don't know for sure if these people are consciously aware that they are peddling crap or if they are simply guilty of self-deception and are too irresponsible to check themselves out. Why do people like you choose to believe the deluded, the bullshitters, the liars and the propagandists instead of those trying to clarify humanity's best shot at the truth?

[Mod 4]

You may not agree with a persons point of view Nick thats your right.

But personal attacks are completely unnecessary , and not welcome on planetjersey.

Mod 4

[rogueelement]

Quite right too Mod 4!
I think Nick is being very picky,,, lets face it , the isle of man may be wrong may be way out but how about Australia , how about the Sahara desert?
The point remains that the uninhabited bits of our planet account for a very much larger proportion than the inhabited bits and I mean a very very very much larger proportion.
So if Nick believes that people breathing and farting are a significant part of global warming we can look forward to genocide, compulsory euthanasia , and decimation as a part of the environmental,economic,greenist future . I do hope we can save the wales, porpoises and polar bears whilst indulging in this forward thinking ecofriendly future.
Strange how the further left you go in your thinking you end up meeting the extreme right .Fascists all!

[rogueelement]

 If the worlds population was divided into families of 4, and given 1/4 acre per family, what would be the total land mass occupied?


Presently the population of earth is 6,446,131,400. Lets round that off to 6.5 billion.(April 2007)

6.5 billion divided by 4 is: 1,600,000,000 (1.6 billion)

Given each a 1/4 acre we divide again by 4 for: 400,000,000 or 400 million acres.

that would be 625,000 square miles.

to put that into perspective. That would be a square of land 790.569 x 790.569 miles.

The total area of Texas is 268,601 sq miles

The total area of California is 163,707 sq miles

The total area of the USA is 3,718,711 sq miles


Now i,m not suggesting we should insist on people living in family groups , but these figures appear to be at variance with some of the earlier postings , so where is the mathematical failure  er,, Nick


The total landmass by the way is 148,940,000 kilometers sq.
So we still have enough room to swing a cat I would suggest.

[rogueelement]

in square mile terms that is 57,505,791.

We can therefore deduce by simple math that the land mass available for each individual is as follows:-

57,505,791 divide by 6.5 billion = .088sq miles /person
a sq mile comprises 3,097,600 square yards
x .088 =272,588.8 sq yards for every living soul , a tad different from your figure. perhaps you could explain the maths to me . I take it you do not work in finance?

[Nick Palmer]

but these figures appear to be at variance with some of the earlier postings , so where is the mathematical failure  er,, Nick

It's not a mathematical failure or "variance". You are doing GIGO calculations (Garbage In Garbage Out). You fail to appreciate what is meant by environmental space. Your 1/4 acre per family translates into a plot of land only 32 meters square. You are looking at the calculations as if you are merely looking to have an allotment to grow food. The space necessary to sustain our total environmental needs such as oxygen and water, and our economic, manufacturing, extraction and processing of resources infrastructure is very much larger.

Mark Forskitt, who is actually moving towards self sufficiency in food with his smallholding http://st-ouennais.livejournal.com/ could probably say exactly how much "allotment space" is necessary but the environmental space I worked out was the total share of Earth's surface available per capita

Within this spaceship, we cast our personal environmental shadow, using energy, manufacturing goods, disposing of our personal waste, farming our share of animals, growing our own food crops, extracting minerals for our purchases, catching fish and dissipating our personal pollution and cumulative pesticides etc not to mention room for the multitude of wildlife and plants that form the ecological web of life without which we could not survive

You simply did not take enough into account. This error is common to our politicians, our economists and conventional strategists

The total landmass by the way is 148,940,000 kilometers sq.
So we still have enough room to swing a cat I would suggest.

This is correct (apart from the cat swinging). Divide this by figure by 6.6 billion and you get the number of sq kilometers per person - 0.022567sq km or 22,567 sq metres each. This works out at a square of land 150 metres on a side which is what I originally said

Nick Palmer -I recently did similar calculations again, using the current world population figure of 6.6 billion, and our current personal environmental land space has now shrunk to 150 metres square (164 yards square) or about 12.5 vergees per person.

Your family of four's share would be a square 300 metres on a side. Bear in mind that world population is forecast to almost double to about 11 billion before it stabilises which is predicted to happen only if the whole world ends up with a Western European standard of living.

As I already pointed out (big yawn)

The United Nations GEO4 environment report referred to above, also identified two years ago that we are living 25% beyond the biological carrying capacity of the planet.  We are spending beyond the limits on our planetary life support system credit card.  This cannot continue.

That means the "miracle" solution to growing population relied upon by some is a dangerously stupid red herring. There is no getting around it - transition to a sustainable civilisation is the most urgent, imperative thing there is. It is life or death and all the nay-sayers are just some form of criminal.

[Nick Palmer]

57,505,791 divide by 6.5 billion = .088sq miles /person
a sq mile comprises 3,097,600 square yards
x .088 =272,588.8 sq yards for every living soul , a tad different from your figure. perhaps you could explain the maths to me . I take it you do not work in finance?

I make it 0.008713 sq miles - a whole order of magnitude off your calculation. Round about 27,000 sq yards or a square 164 yards on a side which is what I said

current personal environmental land space has now shrunk to 150 metres square (164 yards square) or about 12.5 vergees per person.

I win again.

[tonytheprof]

What's that in vergees? (he asks mischeviously)

[Nick Palmer]

What's that in vergees? (he asks mischeviously)

Hey Tony, try looking in my 3.00pm post (reply 320) - the answer is in the 4th quote box...

[David Rotherham]

And the other thing to remember in calculating average shares of the world's landmass is that quite a lot of that land is uninhabitable or unfarmable, and could never sustainably be made otherwise. What practical use to you or me are our few square feet each of the Sahara, the Himalayas or the Greenland ice cap?

[Nick Palmer]

And the other thing to remember in calculating average shares of the world's landmass is that quite a lot of that land is uninhabitable or unfarmable, and could never sustainably be made otherwise. What practical use to you or me are our few square feet each of the Sahara, the Himalayas or the Greenland ice cap?

And, as I suggested, a significant part of your 150 metre square box has to be kept as viable habitat for the animals, insects, trees, algae and fungi that keep the environment liveable by forming the ecosystem which keeps the atmosphere breathable and the climate moderate.

[rogueelement]

I make it 0.008713 sq miles - a whole order of magnitude off your calculation. Round about 27,000 sq yards or a square 164 yards on a side which is what I saidI win again.

That is because your calculator stops short of the big numbers . just multiply by 10 to get the right answer. 
Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Darwin foundation for idiots.
What do you mean you win again ? that is not only pathetic it is absurd , unless you are trying to prove that the whole genetic scheme of the human race is about winning and damn the consequences in which case ,I win you lose!