• "Gangreen" has set in

It looks like the UK political establishment has got the (green) message:

"Yet on BBC's Newsnight the same day as Sachs' lecture, the Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, declared that it was impossible for the rest of humanity to aspire to the level of consumption that we currently enjoy: "If the world were to have the same living standards as we have in the UK, then we'd need three planets to support us." In the studio the environment spokesmen of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats nodded sagely."

From Dominic Lawson: Jeffrey Sachs is wrong once again: rising population isn't going to destroy the planet.

The only antedote for this sort of Malthusian nonsense is a good dose of Bright Future.

David Mc glibly sticks the 'Malthusian' label on arguments which he perceives to be green and environmental but I'm sure he is better acquainted with Malthus than he lets on.

Malthus, in the 19th century,  predicted that the world would get relatively poorer as the population grew. One argument was that the food supply would rise linearly  ( 2,4,6, 8 etc) whereas the population would rise exponentially ( 2, 4, 8, 16...) and so the amount of food available per person  would decrease. Clearly he was wrong about this. Productivity, in both agriculture and other forms of production has more than kept up with rising levels of population in the developed world, although we should forget that there is still the undeveloped world to consider.

Malthus certainly didn't foresee the day when we might pass "peak oil" production or  when we might have to evacuate vast areas of land due to the problem of climate change, rising sea levels and other environmental degredation. It is not just a problem for sub-Saharan Africa. Even in the rich economy of Australia this is alraedy happening. Farms that have been viable for the best part of 200 years are being abandoned due to the combined effects of rising ground salinity and widespread drought.

Capitalism has a history of neglecting environmental problems in favour of short term economic profit. The challenge for socialism in the coming century is to address all economic, political, and environmental issues. Not in a defeatist Malthusian manner, but with a realistic and scientific appraoach to all problems.  

 

Cyberman

Even in the rich economy of Australia this is alraedy happening. Farms that have been viable for the best part of 200 years are being abandoned due to the combined effects of rising ground salinity and widespread drought.

Can you provide data or other details on this.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s10533.htm

 

http://www.crrmh.com.au/pages/pdf/drought_report.pdf

 

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20269534-5005340,00.html

 

The first link quotes a figure of 100,000 hectares p.a. for land lost to salinification in WA. The second link mentions a figure of 15 families per week “walking off their farms”. The third link is a collection of drought stories from SE Queensland, which is where I live, I have to say that is pretty severe here. Decent rain is just a thing of the past, or so it seems. I’d be interested to see official government figures for Australia as a whole but I can’t find a reference in the net. Maybe somone else can supply one.

 

I’m not saying that the Australian drought is necessarily caused by global warming. Australia has always had them but nevertheless it is still an environmental problem to be reckoned with. We can’t assume that there is always going to be water available for increased agricultural irrigation. However, Australia is better placed than most countries to handle environmental problems and there are many scientists at Australia’s CSIRO who are doing excellent work. There are a long list of problems, which I won’t go into as it is getting slightly off the point.

 

My original point was to question the use of the word “Malthusian”. Its not Malthusian to say that we can can either choose to go flat out for growth, growth  and more growth in the most unsustainable of ways or we can plan, in a socialist way,  to have sustainable development. Most of the spectacular progress that has been made by the world’s capitalist economies in the last 30 years has been largely fuelled by supplies of cheap oil.  It is hard right now to see how we can wean ourselves off this dependency. Oil is not going to just run out, what will happen, if it hasn’t started to happen already, is that it will become more and more expensive. We do only have one planet and there probably aren’t big reserves of oil and gas in it still to be discovered. The residents of the richer countries have been used to getting more than their fair share of a finite resource. This will have to change and it is only fair that it should. From a socialist point of view it seems quite obscene to see fat Americans, and Australians, driving around in gas guzzling SUVs and complaining about the price of petrol. If they think it’s expensive now, they haven’t seen anything yet!

Here is a report on Dryland salinity 2001. The situation has worsened since then.

 http://audit.ea.gov.au/ANRA/docs/fast_facts/fast_facts_21.html

Dalek

 

A more up to date report.

I would say it is a real problem. (Or is that too Malthusian?)

http://www.ndsp.gov.au/About_NDSP/Managing_Dryland_Salinity_in_Australia/Breaking_Ground_-_Key_Findings/index.aspx

Jennifer Marohasy of the Institute of Public Affairs has some interesting stuff on salinity on her blog. She is very critical of the stuff produced by official research bodies.

• Dryland salinity
• Soil health
• Salt

Good that  the Jennifer of the IPA has uncovered yet another conspiracy by Gumumint Professors. (After she was alerted to it by Professor Bob Carter - who has taken time off from classifying dead things to challenge global warming and dryland salinity - he clearly is an objective scientist . She cites Shepparton? Shepparton is in the middle of an irrigation system! The biggest irrigation system in Australia, Dryland salinity??.

Dalek

 

dalek knows no limits to dishonesty, or maybe he's just so full of self-confidence that he only sees and hears what he wants rather than what is written and said. Those voices in the head again!

 

Jennifer Marohasy refers to the Shepparton region in her article because that's where the Pyramid Creek Salt Interception Scheme is located near. The point of her article is to draw attention to the declining groundwater stores that result to some extent from the salt scheme. She is asking a perfectly legitimate question - "What's the relative value of the water to the salt?" I concur with her when she concludes: "What about a prize for a technology that gets rid of the salt without evaporating the water?"

 

dalek hopes that by using the term "conspiratorial" he will 'score a point'. Ditto his disparagement of Bob Carter.

 

dalek doesn't refer to the other linked articles. There is one about Dicks Creek in New South Wales, which is the place highly publicized as an example of dryland salinity. Here, Marohosy is out to challenge the methodology used by the National Land and Water Audit. She finds support from a paper by CSIRO scientist, John Passioura, who also argues that the "rising groundwater salinity model" has some major flaws.

 

In all the links, it's worth reading the comments by readers. There's a comment in the article about Dicks Creek from the guy who actually too kthe photos and did the measurements. Here's what he says, dalek:

I took the photo and EC measurements at Dick's Ck above. I also took EM38/31 measurements which indicated low salinity levels (~40ms/m). I had to make a quick departure on one occasion when 2 coach loads of Govt. personel pulled up and all piled out to listen to a speech by the leading 'expert' about how salty the site was due to rising groundwater (couldn't help overhearing as I packed up my gear). Funnily, I wasn't asked what I had just measured or found. 

 

dalek just can't argue convincingly against Carter and Mahorosy. His essentially 'green' world view is challenged by them effectively and so he resorts to charges of 'conspiracy theory' rather than tackling their arguments head on.  Methinks Bob Carter would do him like a dinner in any debate.

 

Barry

 

 

David re: "I concur with her when she concludes: "What about a prize for a technology that gets rid of the salt without evaporating the water?".

There is a technology that gets rid of the salt without evaporating the water, it is called "Reverse Osmosis" (RO). Also you can do the same thing with a thermal method called vapour compression which recovers the latent heat of vapourisation by a neat trick. These both produce a highly concentrated saline "waste" stream (Brine- that is a useful feedstock for other processes) and a pure product stream (water) from salty water. She has no idea of what she is talking about.

Dalek

dalek, do you really think Marohasy doesn't know about desalination? In the context of the article, she is advocating a prize for a new technology that would be more cost-efficient. This remains a big issue for desalinating technology.

 

To say "She has no idea of what she is talking about" merely lets you off the hook in terms of having to debate reasonably, rather than via 'cheap shots' and throwaway lines.

 

Anyone who reads her articles can see how she undertakes thorough research and presents persuasive arguments. I am happy to be persuaded that she is wrong (for instance, on her claims about the flaws in the National Land and Water Audit methodology) but you'll have to do better than you have thus far and actually address her arguments.

 

Barry

 

Sorry, but I did not see the words "cost efficient" in  "What about a prize for a technology that gets rid of the salt without evaporating the water?" (why, if she is so smart ,does she assume that you need to evaporate the water- you don't). If you knew any-thing about it you would know that there is an irreducible entropic price that you must pay for desalination - RO gets close to this limit. Talk about a prize for a cost efficient process is just metaphysical blather. The most "cost efficent" form of desalination is called rain. 

See:

http://urila.tripod.com/Seawater.htm

Dalek

 

I don't think that we are going to make much progress with detailed scientific argument. We should get back to the politics.

Can we, at least,  agree that generally the political right tend to downplay potential environmental problems ( eg Bush, Howard etc) whereas the political mainstream left  are more concerned? It's curious that there is a very small group of supposedly "left " opinion in the form of "last superpower" that is very much allied with the political right.

I know that you're going to say that a right wing opinion isn't necessarily a wrong opinion, but it does worry me that every scientific reference,  cited  by "lastsuperpower" supporters, is from a right-wing source. Tell us more about the "Institute for Public Affairs". Who funds it? Its meant to sound like some government body but I'm sure it isn't! Just occasionally, couldn't you find a government or university reference, to support your argument?

I shouldn't have to explain on a 'Marxist' website that "he, who pays the piper, calls the tune".   

 

 

I'd say it was a fair metric to judge a person by their friends:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs

 

Cyberman,
I would say that the people here are more 'influenced' by Bjorn Lomborg than right-wing anything.  But even then that is not exactly true to say they are influenced as they were doing the research 20-30 years ago and came up with the view that the green agenda was mostly about catastrophisation and that things haven't changed very much since then.  Personally i am against the green agenda as i see the theoretical shortcomings and contradictions of the various positions.

BTW I noticed an item on the news tonight where Bjorn Lomborg is promoting his latest book called 'cool it the skeptical environmentalists guide to global warming'.  Would you classify him as a right-winger think tanker. 

Out of interest Dalek what do you think about the Joe Cell?

Anita, you asked my view of the "Joe cell" well I had not heard of it before but I found a number of sites that gave it a big rap.

As far as I can see it is another perpetual energy source, some sites claim it taps into "Orgone" energy; whatever that is*. I really liked the stufff where it was claimed to work better when disconnected from the engine, and another where the engine was claimed to run at a temperature below ambient! In short, the Joe cell is bullshit. Do not invest in it

The material on this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics is really good as it explains the laws of thermodyanmics in ways that can be understood by mathematical illiterates like me and also for the mathematical literate.

I have, over the years, been asked to investigate similar systems and they all violate the laws - one way or another - mostly the second law.

* http://www.orgone.org/articles/ax9kelley1a.htm

I have no time for Lomborg BTW.

 

 

Cyberman, guess what? Professor Bob Carter is on the IPA research comittee. How amazed should one be? http://www.ipa.org.au/

Check out the Annual report http://www.ipa.org.au/files/IPA_Annual_Report_2003-04.pdf where you will see some interesting names from the extreme right.

So desperate are the LS people that they willingly climb into bed with these monsters. Oh but that's OK they say because Hitler was a greenie. I must be really slow because I don't quite get that logic.

Lomberg? Well try EO Wilson, http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/point/

Dalek

 

lol on this one dalek. And you accuse others of conspiracy theories? What you don't get is that the evidence and argument need to be addressed - this is unavoidable. It's an excuse for avoiding thinking to just say that a source is right-wing or left-wing and that somehow proves a point. What strikes me, and hopefully other readers, is that you can't argue persuasively.

 

If you've read Mein Kampf you'd know that Hitler was a 'greenie'. He drew on the tradition of German romanticism and on an opposition to Modernity that forms the basis of reactionary green philosophy to this day. I'm fairly sure I posted the relevant chapter from Hitler on this site a long time ago. The environmental issue was just a right-wing fringe movement up until the mid-1970s, or maybe a little earlier, when the left lost its way and, most significantly, moved away from Marx.

 

All we are seeing now is that, in the absence of a leftwing movement based on Marxism with a signficiant audience, other ideas fill the vaccum . They may call themselves left, and the mass media (you know, capitalist press) accept them as 'leftwing', but the discussions on this site, and elsewhere, demonstrate how they are not.

 

I want to propose that discussion be more focussed, and as arthur and cyberman have said, concentrate more on the politics. I will post an article for discussion in a little while.

 

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

Dalek,
No-one here argues that because Hitler was a greenie that therefore all green politics is fascist.  Only some trends.  The link you were reeferred to entitled green nazis was posted by keza after she stumbled upon it and posted almost in disbelief.   Not to advocate knee-jerk opposition to green policies.  So can you concur that people here do not consider all greens fascists - wrong/pseudo-left etc yes - but not all fascist. 

Maybe it is embarrassing for greens to discover the origins of their movement but why ought we be criticised for pointing it out.

What do you think about the idea  that Australia supposedly has a  sustainable population  capacity of approximately  3 million?  This is the line being pushed by numerous green pollie's and also by  teachers at my daughter's school.  I find this position repulsive as it was the one being pushed by Australians Against Further Immigration and National Action in the 1990's. 

I consider anti-immigration to be a policy of the right but what i call eco-fascism is the view of some that all species must be native to the area and those which are not ought to be eradicated.  

I urge you to engage meaningfully with the argument and stop mischaracterising people. 

BTW if anyone is getting into bed with each other it is the right getting into bed with us and not vice versa. 

What do you have against Lomborg? 

 

Anita, I once found myself at one of those green talk fests at Woodford and was hounded out becuse I made this proposal:

"We should build huge machines to go through the eucalyptus forests chop it all up into small bits and turn it into mulch and then plant "exotic" trees such as Mulberry that will create a fertile soil. Eucalyptus trees are just mean degenerate weeds that use fire to destroy every-thing else." ETC ETC. The response was amazing, they were shouting at me, abusing me, calling me an fascist (sort of like LS but louder). In the end it was threatening to get physical so I just left  after saying "well I really only came up here for the music and the booze".

 

There is no doubt at all that Australia could support more people in comfort. How many? I don't know, but I do know that it will require major changes to the flora and (Probably) the abandonment of certain crops such as Cotton and Sugar. Of course some of our most fertile land would dissapear with even a modest sea level rise (despite Barry's sea wall). Also the sheep will probably have to go they do compact the Auatrslian soils badly. (My terraformed ones would be better)

 

I am not so sanguine about Genetic Modification, (GM) it seems to me that there could be problems with quality control. We should understand that all organisms (including us) have survived a rigorous 3 billion year testing program; to blithely assert that we are now smart enough to avoid this program is to succumb to hubris perhaps. I would proceed with caution with what is essentially techno Lysenkoism. There is a bit more to it all than the proponents are prepared to admit.

In any event the real problem with food is distribution, if you want a really good microcosmic example of this go to the Green Zone in Iraq where the US rulers wallow in pork and huge serves of food and then out into the streets where the children are malnourished at best.  

Lomborg ah Lomborg, I will deal with him 

Dalek