Report: standard of living will fall unless overuse of natural resources is stopped

Associated Press ^ | 7-9-02 | NAOMI KOPPEL

[Oldeconomybuyer]

GENEVA (AP) --

[Semper Paratus]

This is a rehash of the 'Club of Rome' crap I heard in the '70s.

Some conservative economist bet Paul Erlich $10,000 to name the commodity of his choice that will more scarce in 10 years and Erlich lost.

[B. A. Conservative]

Pure unadulterated BS!

[Alberta's Child]

. . . the average African or Asian consumes less than 3.5 acres per person . . .

And it seems that the only Asians and Africans who aren't peeing in their own drinking water are those who live in places that have NO natural resources (Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, etc.).

As soon as I saw that this report had been published by the World Wrestling Federation, I knew not to take it seriously.

/sarcasm off/

[cruiserman]

What does the World Wrestling Federation know about dwindling resources?

What a load of BS.

[Alberta's Child]

"At the summit, world leaders will have a magnificent opportunity to address the root causes of our obvious failure to achieve sustainable development and set us on the path to a truly sustainable future."

Anyone who truly believes that human beings are a burden on the earth can start setting a good example for the rest of us by jumping off the nearest bridge.

[Guillermo]

That's exactly who I thought of when I read the title.

These people are simply Communists. They don't want YOU to enjoy nature and its resources, but they would NEVER give up their SUV's and redwood decks.

[Crusader Rabbit]

Paul Ehrlich was singing this song thirty years ago. Every one of the resources he said we would run out of is cheaper today than it was then.

I guess these clowns figure that a generation later everyone will have forgotten. Or perhaps they are betting the thirty years from now everyone in the media will call them "experts" on this topic just like they do Ehrlich. The correct title would be "Paul Ehrlich - an academic who has never been right in his entire career", but you'll never see that on a TV screen.

[Freedom4US]

These people are the ideological heirs to the communists and marxists. They are like roaches -- once you get them, it's very difficult to be rid of them.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of reality and they will stop at nothing. Since they cannot raise the standard of living for the poor countries, they will strive to reduce ours.

[Alberta's Child]

"It should not be surprising to find that leftists dominate academia and the media. Leftists will always dominate areas in which success isn't required and failure isn't punished."

--- to paraphrase a quote by Thomas Sowell

[hellinahandcart]

So, unless our standard of living falls, our standard of living will fall.

Got it now...

[Kozak]

Yup, we better stop using up all the whale oil, baleen and rubber or our economy will grind to a halt. Same argument circa 1870.

[editor-surveyor]

"Anyone who truly believes that human beings are a burden on the earth can start setting a good example for the rest of us by jumping off the nearest bridge."

Or perhaps taking a few deep drags on their tailpipe...

Enough of this malthusian vomit! - None of their 'prophecies' has ever come true. - They predicted that we would run out of oil by 1988, but the proven reserves are now at three times the level that they were when that stupid prediction was made.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

So, unless our standard of living falls, our standard of living will fall.

Got it now...

LOL!

[hellinahandcart]

They're just such rays of sunshine, aren't they?

[alloysteel]

Oh, does the whining NEVER stop? This is one of the more powerful arguments ever for going into interplanetary space and begin to mine the asteroids, or even other moons and planets. Thee is a LOT of universe out there, and in a million years, or a million million years, mankind cannot possibly pollute it all. SOME of it has to remain pristine.

And where is it written, that the resources we now have cannot be replenished? The earth even now, as we write of this, is restoring burned forests and scorched meadows with new growth, all taking up CO2 from the atmosphere and rebuilding the oxygen supply we all share. Incidentally making more wood, sugars, compost, and shade at the same time, too. In the oceans, the various decomposing wastes in the ocean depths are reverting to their basic chemical components, including methane, which in the depths of oceans off continental shelves, forms methyl hydrate in water that is at steady temperature of 38° F. and at about a half mile or more down. The silt from eroding land surfaces in river basins overcovers this quantity of methyl hydrate, and encases it in a layer of concretion, which turns to sedimentary rock, and new deposits of natural gas are formed. This seems to be happening fairly quickly, and at a rate equal to or greater than the fossil fuels are being consumed by mankind. This may be why oil wells, once thought depleted, seem to be filling back up.

But even if this natural replenishment is NOT proceeding at such a rate, it is technically feasible to create petroleum, should we need it, from organic waste that is now discharged into our streams and ocean bays. We can still reclaim some of the 97% or so of the energy remaining in "spent" atomic fuels now declared to be radioactive waste, rather than reburying it in Nevada, as seems to be the plan now. I have no doubt that technology will solve many of our seeming "shortages" in the next 100 years or so, and what is now termed "waste" shall prove to be among our most valuable resources as we learn how to apply the technology only now being developed in our laboratories and workshops across the world.

[dead]

I read this report thirty years ago.

[E Rocc]

Some conservative economist bet Paul Erlich $10,000 to name the commodity of his choice that will more scarce in 10 years and Erlich lost.

Paul Ehrlich gets Stanford "Reviewed"

For those wondering why things are so good when they should be so bad, the answer is not Al Gore. Rather, we're richer, fatter, and more populous because technology -- the gift of free minds -- has again advanced us. When scarcity rears its angry head, historically it's been techies (the types that consider the "outdoors" to be the parking lot outside the lab) that have kept humanity afloat, and not academic doomsayers or pretentious tie-dyed greens. The Iron Age began after wars in the eastern Mediterranean caused tin shortages; the age of coal resulted from timber shortages in 16th century Britain; the 1850s shortage of whale oil translated into the first oil well in 1859; as pessimists began worrying about the copper shortage that telephone wiring would cause, fiber optic communication emerged.

This was at least the theory of a lone American economist, Julian Simon. And after a decade of being attacked or ignored by Ehrlich, Simon resolved to show Ehrlich what a joke the doomsayers were. The two never debated (Ehrlich refused, calling Simon a "fringe character"), rather he put his money were his mouth was. In 1980, when Ehrlich was still predicting imminent scarcity, Simon set up a bet wherein he would sell Ehrlich $1,000 dollars worth of any five commodities that Ehrlich chose. Ehrlich would hold the commodities for ten years. If the prices rose -- meaning scarcity -- Simon would buy the commodities back from Ehrlich at the higher price. If the prices fell, Ehrlich would pay Simon the difference. Professor Ehrlich jumped at the bet, noting that he wanted to "accept the offer before other greedy people jumped in."

In October of 1990, Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $570.07. As Simon predicted, free markets provided lower prices and more options. Simon would have won even if prices weren't adjusted for inflation. He then offered to raise the wager to $20,000 and use any resources at any time that Ehrlich preferred. The Stanford professor was slightly less bold this time. He refused Simon's offers, mailing him only a check and a table of his calculations, with no note attached. No longer was the bet Ehrlich's way of saving Simon from greedy speculators. Looking back, Ehrlich claimed that he was "goaded into making a bet with Simon on a matter of marginal environmental importance."

-Eric

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!

[Gunner9mm]

"Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) was Malthus's observation that in nature plants and animals produce far more offspring than can survive, and that Man too is capable of overproducing if left unchecked. Malthus concluded that unless family size was regulated, man's misery of famine would become globally epidemic and eventually consume Man. Malthus' view that poverty and famine were natural outcomes of population growth and food supply was not popular among social reformers who believed that with proper social structures, all ills of man could be eradicated." Author unknown, copied from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html.