Comment by pdonis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pdonis | Hacker News Reader

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we are already taxing the Earth far beyond its carrying capacity

And your evidence for this is?

To continue supporting even our current population will force us to devastate our planet

And your evidence for this is?

What about raising the standard of living of all those who are already on the planet

As the article clearly states, the obstacles to doing this are social and political, not environmental or technological. People are starving or living at bare subsistence level, to put it bluntly, because our social systems suck at empowering people to make a better life. We allow predatory individuals, whether they are tinpot dictators or investment bankers, to siphon off resources they don't need and will squander anyway at the expense of others. That is what we need to fix.

Should we live in a world void of natural beauty?

No, and we don't.

before we poisoned the seas, melted the ice caps and drained the soil of its nutrients.

And your evidence that this is happening is? More precisely, your evidence that all these things are worse than they were, say, 1000 years ago, is?

You can form your own opinions about global warming, rising ocean levels, the acidification of the seas, the destruction of our rain forests or the unsustainable nature of our carbon based economy (see peak oil). I don't have time to reference the multitude of articles on the subject, but they're abundantly available... there's this great site called Google.com which can help you with that.

Regarding the issue of 'natural beauty' in the world, I see it on a micro-level when I go to a lake in the summer that was once pristine but is now overrun with seaweed due to Nitrogen runoff from farmer fields. I see it on a macro level when I read about things my children's generation might never enjoy, like the beauty of a coral reef.

At the end of the day with so much 'pseudo science' thrown around from fringe scientists, all anyone has is an 'opinion'. You now have mine.

At the end of the day with so much 'pseudo science' thrown around from fringe scientists, all anyone has is an 'opinion'.

That was kind of my point, except that you and I would probably have different opinions on which particular arguments about these issues come under the heading of "pseudo science".

Also, you are basically saying that we don't know enough about these issues to make useful predictions about the future. At least, if that's what you were saying, I agree with you. But your post was full of predictions about the future; saying that they're "opinions" doesn't give them any more weight. If you don't know what's going to happen, the correct thing to say is that you don't know--and to base your actions on understanding your lack of knowledge, not opinions that have no useful value.

I do not want to be mean, but can you not just read existing material on Human population growth, pollution and global warming.For a start you can try high school environmental science book.Then may be you can come up with some counter-evidence with hard facts (like shaking up the environmental sciences pile of data of over 50 years).

I've read lots of existing material, including all of the IPCC reports that have been produced to date. If you think those reports, for example, consist of "hard facts", or a "pile of data" that requires detailed refutation if I don't want to buy into somebody's hysterical declarations of a planetary emergency, then there's not much point in further discussion.

As for a high school environmental science book, surely you jest. A politically correct textbook produced for politically correct state-run schools?

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