I've had an interesting correspondence with Dave, who lives somewhere in New Zealand, but apart from that I know nothing about him. He had read my homepage, and my concerns for our environment and future, and he sent me a very brief e-mail, stating his preference for Bjorn Lomborg's assessment of our planet's health. Our correspondence blossomed, though perhaps that's not quite the word. My letters are in green, his in blue. I have never claimed any major intellect for myself, if anyone reads this it will be up to them to judge the context, and the intellect. As for being socially predjudiced, well, if I knew what social class Dave belonged to, then perhaps I would be! The correspondence started with a misapprehension on my part, I thought Dave was referring to Bjorn Lomborg's denialist stance on global warming, rather than the population issue.
13/9/05No, I don't think so.
I prefer Bjorn Lomborg's assessment of the planet's health.
Dave.
13/9/05 Dear Dave,
Thanks for the feedback. Global Warming is not a matter of preference, would that it were, but it has to be a matter of science. The scientific evidence for global warming is overwhelming, the very few sceptics such as Lomberg notwithstanding, and the vast majority of climate scientists agree.
Please visit this site http://www.realclimate.com for up-to-date climate science information.
Also a number of climate scientists contributed to a rebuttal of Bjorn Lomberg's claims in the Scientific American. This rebuttal is only available to subscribers, I could send you a copy of this if you are interested, obviously you are or you wouldn't have written, and if you have an open mind, you should read it. Otherwise the matter was further examined in the Scientific American when Bjorn Lomberg criticised the rebuttal, visit
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00040A72-A95C-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF&sc=I100322
The basic problem is that whilst a few sceptics, and they are very few, can garner a lot of publicity, especially by being promoted by self-interested cliques, such as Mobil and right wing policy groups such as the Cato Institute, the world isn't going to wait for a final proof, whatever that would be, by then it will be too late. Is it more than coincidental that the major sponsors of scepticism are those that think they stand to loose the most by dealing with the issue? As I personally can't think of anything that much more important than loosing the world, I would have thought that a precautionary principle might save our descendants a lot of pain. If I could afford it I would buy you an air ticket to Spain for a holiday, and I would arrange for you to have a chat with the widows of all the fire-fighters who have died this year in the drought and fires in that country. I think you are in desperate need of a bit of perspective.
Yours faithfully,
Dr John K Monro
13/9/05Dear Dave,
I noticed after I sent my e-mail that you were talking about Bjorn Lomborg's opinions about population growth, not global warming. Should check the subject line, but I just read your brief "No I don't think so". Sorry to give you the e-mail equivalent of a bit of a lecture, for all I know you may be as concerned about global warming as I am.
I have copied out the relevant part of the Scientific American article I referred to last letter in regard to their riposte to Bjorn Lomborg's "Sceptical Environmentalist"
John Monro,
Scientific American.
Around the world, countries are experiencing unprecedented demographic change. The best-known example is an enormous expansion in human numbers, but other important demographic trends also affect human welfare. People are living longer and healthier lives, women are bearing fewer children, increasing numbers of migrants are moving to cities and to other countries in search of a better life, and populations are aging. Lomborg's unbalanced presentation of some of these trends and their influences emphasizes the good news and neglects the bad. Environmentalists who predicted widespread famine and blamed rapid population growth for many of the world's environmental, economic and social problems overstated their cases. But Lomborg's view that "the number of people is not the problem" is simply wrong.
His selective use of statistics gives the reader the impression that the population problem is largely behind us. The global population growth rate has indeed declined slowly, but absolute growth remains close to the very high levels observed in recent decades, because the population base keeps expanding. World population today stands at six billion, three billion more than in 1960. According to U.N. projections, another three billion will likely be added by 2050, and population size will eventually reach about 10 billion. Any discussion of global trends is misleading without taking account of the enormous contrasts among world regions. Today's poorest nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America have rapidly growing and young populations, whereas in the technologically advanced and richer nations in Europe, North America and Japan, growth is near zero (or, in some cases, even negative), and populations are aging quickly. As a consequence, nearly all future global growth will be concentrated in the developing countries, where four fifths of the world's population lives. The projected rise in population in the developing world between 2000 and 2025 (from 4.87 to 6.72 billion) is actually just as large as the record-breaking increase in the past quarter of a century. The historically unprecedented population expansion in the poorest parts of the world continues largely unabated. Past population growth has led to high population densities in many countries. Lomborg dismisses concerns about this issue based on a simplistic and misleading calculation of density as the ratio of people to all land. Clearly, a more useful and accurate indicator of density would be based on the land that remains after excluding areas unsuited for human habitation or agriculture, such as deserts and inaccessible mountains. For example, according to his simple calculation, the population density of Egypt equals a manageable 68 persons per square kilometer, but if the unirrigated Egyptian deserts are e cluded, density is an extraordinary 2,000 per square kilometer. It is therefore not surprising that Egypt needs to import a large proportion of its food supply. Measured properly, population densities have reached extremely high levels, paticularly in large countries in Asia and the Middle East.
Why does this matter? The effect of population trends on human welfare has been debated for centuries. When the modern expansion of human numbers began in the late 18th century, Thomas Robert Malthus argued that population growth would be limited by food shortages. Lomborg and other technological optimists correctly note that world population has expanded much more rapidly than Malthus envisioned, growing from one billion to six billion over the past two centuries. And diets have improved. Moreover, the technological optimists are probably correct in claiming that overall world food production can be increased substantially over the next few decades. Average current crop yields are still below the levels achieved in the most productive countries, and some countries still have unused potential arable land (although much of this is forested). Agricultural expansion, however, will be costly, especially if global food production has to rise twofold or even three-fold to accommodate the demand for better diets from several billion more people. The land now used for agriculture is generally of better quality than unused, potentially cultivable land. Similarly, existing irrigation systems have been built on the most favorable sites. And water is increasingly in short supply in many countries as the competition for that resource among households, industry and agriculture intensifies. Consequently, each new increase in food production is becoming more expensive to obtain. This is especially true if one considers environmental costs not reflected in the price of agricultural products.
Lomborg's view that the production of more food is a nonissue rests heavily on the fact that world food prices are low and have declined over time. But this evidence is flawed. Massive governmental subsidies to farmers, particularly in the developed countries, keep food prices artificially low. Although technological developments have reduced prices, without these massive subsidies, world food prices would certainly be higher. The environmental cost of what Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich describe as "turning the earth into a giant human feedlot" could be severe. A large expansion of agriculture to provide growing populations with improved diets is likely to lead to further deforestation, loss of species, soil erosion, and pollution from pesticides and fertilizer runoff as farming intensifies and new land is brought into production. Reducing this environmental impact is possible but costly and would obviously be easier if population growth were slower. Lomborg does not deny this environmental impact but asks unhelpfully, "What alternative do we have, with more than 6 billion people?"
Lomborg correctly notes that poverty is the main cause of hunger and malnutrition, but he neglects the contribution of population growth to poverty. This effect operates through two distinct mechanisms. First, rapid population growth leads to a young population, one in which as much as half is below the age of entry into the labor force. These young people have to be fed, housed, clothed and educated, but they are not productive, thus constraining the economy. Second, rapid population growth creates a huge demand for new jobs. A large number of applicants for a limited number of jobs exerts downward pressure on wages, contributing to poverty and inequality. Unemployment is widespread, and often workers in poor countries earn wages near the subsistence level. Both of these adverse economic effects are reversible by reducing birth rates. With lower birth rates, schools become less crowded, the ratio of dependents to workers declines as does the growth in the number of job seekers. These beneficial demographic effects contributed to the economic "miracles" of several East Asian countries. Of course, such dramatic results are by no means assured and can be realized only in countries with otherwise sound economic policies.
Lomborg approvingly notes the huge ongoing migration from villages to cities in the developing world. This has been considered a welcome development, because urban dwellers generally have higher standards of living than villagers. Because the flow of migrants is now so large, however, it tends to overwhelm the absorptive capacity of cities, and many migrants end up living in appalling conditions in slums. The traditional urban advantage is eroding in the poorest countries, and the health conditions in slums are often as adverse as in rural areas. This points to another burden of rapid population growth: the inability of governments to cope with large additions of new people. In many developing countries, investments in education, health services and infrastructure are not keeping up with population growth. It is true that life has improved for many people in recent decades, but Lomborg does not acknowledge that this favorable trend has been brought about in part by intensive efforts by governments and the international community. Investments in developing and distributing "green revolution" technology have reduced hunger, public health campaigns have cut death rates, and family-planning programs have lowered birth rates. Despite this progress, some 800 million people are still malnourished, and 1.2 billion live in abject poverty. This very serious situation calls for more effective remedial action. Lomborg asks the developed nations to fulfill their U.N. pledge to donate 0.7 percent of their GNPs to assist the developing world, but few countries have met this goal, and the richest nation on earth, the U.S., is one of the stingiest, giving just 0.1 percent of its GNP. The trend in overseas development assistance from the developed to the developing world is down, not up. Unfortunately, the unrelenting we-are-doing-fine tone that pervades Lomborg's book encourages complacency rather than urgency.
Population is not the main cause of the world's social, economic and environmental problems, but it contributes substantially to many of them. If population had grown less rapidly in the past, we would be better off now. And if future growth can be slowed, future generations will be better off.
John Bongaarts is vice president of the Policy Research Division of the Population Council in New York City. From 1998 to 2000 he chaired the Panel on Population Projections of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council. He is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.
14/9/05Thank you for your reply. I'm familiar with the Scientific American response, and feel that Lomborg is still on the right track.
The precautionary principle is absolute fundamentalist nonsense, and will inhibit all scientific development and research with incalculable human cost. And of course, it will inhibit capitalism, which is probably its raison d'etre.
Global warming is certainly real, but what is unknown is the degree of human influence behind it. As a layman I find it hard to believe that our activities are the main cause, when it is known and documented that average mean temperatures have risen and fallen periodically often to levels much higher than is predicted as a result of rising greenhouse gases.
My bible is Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996), and of course The Sceptical Environmentalist.
Interesting too, re overpopulation, that (from what I can work out - please correct me if I'm wrong) the world's population, ie, 6.5 billion people (give or take half a billion) could fit (standing room only) on Stewart Island, and that the heaviest density of population is in the wealthiest society on Earth, the U.S.
Overpopulation, vanishing resources, doom, gloom, ......sorry I don't buy it.
Dave
14/9/05Hello Dave,
Thanks for your e-mail.
So the precautionary principle is "fundamentalist nonsense". Come on, Dave, who are you kidding? Tell that to a million inhabitants of New Orleans or the Louisiana coastal settlements, or doesn't that count as an incalculable human cost?
The precautionary principle applied to this area would have saved hundreds, possibly thousands of lives, and US$100 billion and counting in relief and reconstruction costs. Likely catastrophic damage to New Orleans from a hurricane has been apparent for years, if you read the Scientific American you would have seen such an article just a couple of years ago. And the costs of the precautionary principle? Say US$1-2 billion in strengthening levees and and improving coastal protection. The return on that particular investment would have been 5,000%. That's "my" capitalism for you. The precautionary principle would also have said don't build billions of dollars worth of housing and infrastructure close to beaches in such a high-risk area. But "your" capitalism doesn't recognise the precautionary principle, why should it - the developers don't end up paying the ultimate costs.
Some years ago geologists and earthquake scientists were warning nations bordering the Indian Ocean that the tsunami risk was just as high as in the Pacific. But the nations, admittedly poor nations, said they couldn't afford to put in a warning system. What would the cost have been - I don't know but $2 billion would almost certainly have been enough. And the cost of 250,000 lives?
And the precautionary principle will inhibit all scientific research and inhibit capitalism? Dave, the opportunities for scientific research have nothing to do with the precautionary principle, in fact one of things that global warming sceptics keep rabbitting on about is that it is just an excuse for scientific research. What will new technologies in solar and wind power, and other renewable energy resources, energy efficiency and new transport technology, rail and urban design need but massive research efforts and massive capital investment? The replacing or renewal of inefficient and obsolete infrastructure will cost many hundreds of billions of dollars around the world, it will be capitalists who will provide the money, technology and manpower to do this. This huge re-investment in a sustainable economy will be an unimaginable boon to those capitalists who can see the future . These are the capitalists who will succeed , but the capitalists you are talking about, the car makers, the oil companies, the shopping precinct owners , the sprawl developers, are all dinosaurs, behaving like ostriches. They will weep and they will wail, they will crash and they will fail, and it will be just as the sacred market decrees. They will go the same way as the stage-coach operators, and the canal owners, and then the steam railway owners, and the makers of typewriters, all those old technologies which served their purpose in their time, but are now obsolete.
To say I am anti-capitalist just because I have a perfectly well reasoned and logical fear for the future, if your capitalists keep carrying on as they do, is absurd. Wait for a year or two, when much of what passes for capitalism nowadays starts crumbling around the shopping malls, the airlines, the credit providers, the car dealer yards, the motorways and the urban sprawl, then we can renew our discussion on the benefits or not of capitalism, and whether the greater part of capitalism is just too stupid to survive.
Yours sincerely,
John Monro.
PS If you have house insurance, is not that the precautionary principle in a practical and immediate application? Have you got a fire alarm, ditto? Why cannot you apply the precautionary principle, which almost everyone accepts as part of their everyday lives, and use it for a bigger purpose? What's the difference?
PPS the most densely populated nation, of any reasonable size, is Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest nations. The US population density is 143rd in the world, thirty times less dense than Bangladesh
PPPS, there is nothing wrong with being a layman, so am I, but if you are a layman, then you should allow your judgement to be formed by professionals, including the vast majority of climate and ecological scientists
PPPPS If the world population did fit on Stewart Island, the island would be rapidly covered with metres of crap, and the population would suffocate in it. That is in fact what is happening to the world, at a somewhat slower pace.
15/9/05...shouldn't we then apply the precautionary principle to everyone living in coastal areas of NZ? and evacuate Wellington for fear of "the next big one?" and move away from volcanic cones?
The P/P in action would have prevented the development of petrol, electricity, X-rays and nuclear medicine etc etc ad infinitum....
To use New Orleans as an example is feeble. The P/P wasn't appropriate there, proper civil emergency planning was.
The P/P is Jeanette Fitzsimon's mantra and it is ludicrous.
And re the future of capitalism...and stagecoach operators. Henry Ford's production line apparently put 300,000 out of work, but created 400,000 new jobs within 5 years. Just as internet technology will eventually displasce postal workers. Capitalism will adapt and is adapting already. I used to be told to eat everything on my plate...people were starving in India. They're not anymore...
Dave
15/9/05Dear Dave,
I'm not quite on your wavelength here, I think you must be off the end of the dial.
The PP applied to Wellington does not mean evacuating the city, though of course this might be the most effective, but impractical and unaffordable, way of preventing loss of life and property. But it does mean being as prepared as we can be, such as good emergency plans, rigourous building codes (and paying the extra this requires), avoiding building on the steepest sections etc. Your bizarre antipathy to the PP is colouring your judgement to an extreme extent.
The precautionary principle applied to coastal land would tell us to reduce coastal development, which would also be a good thing from an aesthetic point of view, or install tsunami warning systems, which in fact is being done. It means not cutting down forests where erosion is likely, as in the East Cape, where cubic kilometres of irreplaceable topsoil were washed away in Cyclone Bola, or on the hills behind coastal settlements such Matata in the Bay of Plenty, which was half swept to sea in the recent flooding.
The precautionary principle basically means looking ahead as best one can, and anticipating and dealing with problems before they arise. Many problems won't be anticipated, certainly, but when they are, you deal with them as best you can. You say New Orleans is a feeble example but what's the point in brilliant emergency planning, if the emergency could have been avoided in the first place? Do you dispute that a couple of billions of dollars precautionary effort would have saved a hundred billion dollars of heartache? Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
And what is the cause for your disdain of Jeanette Fitzsimons, for goodness sake? I know her personally, she is a decent human being with a perfectly reasonable concern for our earth and our environment. What the heck's wrong with that? Better than the reactionary bigots on the right who still haven't got the message that humans are not separate beings living in some parallel universe, the laws of nature somehow being suspended in regard to mankind for our convenience. It doesn't work like that, and it won't work like that. When Don Brash promises all our road taxes going to build yet more roads, he is an idiot. There won't be any bloody petrol for people to use these roads, or it will be so expensive as to be unaffordable, and that may well be the case within the lifetime of the coming parliament.
And as for your remark that people aren't starving in India - this is from an article from the Asia Times Nov 2002
At least 40 tribals, most of them children, are said to have starved to death over a span of a month in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. It is a situation of the cruelest irony for even as the death toll from starvation mounts and hundreds waste away without food to eat, India's granaries overflow.
Cultivation has ceased here for the area is reeling under its fifth successive year of acute drought. The local tribals have been reduced to dire poverty. Desperately short of food and driven by hunger, the tribals have turned to eating a wild grass called sama. This grass is hard for humans to digest. As a result, the tribals, especially children, have developed severe digestive ailments, resulting in death.
The starvation deaths in Rajasthan are a replay of a similar tragic story that unfolded in poverty-stricken Kashipur in the eastern state of Orissa last year. There, tribals driven by poverty and unable to buy even the subsidized rice provided through government ration shops were forced to eat fungus-ridden mango kernel.
I do accept though that economic growth can reduce poverty and starvation, of course it can, and in India the amount of extreme poverty has diminished over the last twenty years. But what I can't accept is that the PP will hold back growth. In almost every instance of environmental damage, or catastrophe, a small investment, wisely spent, in good time, would have prevented major or irreparable damage costing hundreds of times more to deal with. Large tracts of Pakistan are salinised and crops yields are falling due to inappropriate irrigation . How is that advancing society or solving starvation? This problem is even happening in Australia. The Murray-Darling River is becoming more salinised and within the next two generations is likely to be unusable by Melbourne for its water supplies, and vast tracts of productive farmland are being lost to salt. The PP would ensure that the farming practices that caused this state of affairs should be stopped, but just like you, the Australians don't believe in the precautionary principle, and they continue to subsidise landowners uprooting millions of trees to produce more farmland, the exact practice that caused salinisation in Australia in the first place.
I have already used the example of New Orleans - but why don't you travel north and talk to a Newfoundlander fisherman, if you can find one. Where was the PP when boats were culling the seas off that province in the seventies and eighties? This fishery, which had sustained the oldest white settlements in North American, going back to the early 1500's, collapsed in 1991, putting within a few short years 42,000 people out of work, causing the the abandonment of fishing communities all along the coast, and a five hundred year culture and tradition of sustainable fisheries vanished as if it had never been. That was fifteen years ago nearly, and even after that time, no cod have returned. There has been literally no recovery. It is possible that this fishery, so abundant when Cabot first crossed during his explorations that a basket dropped in the water would come up with fish, will never return, that the damage to the genetic diversity and adaptation to these waters is so profound, as to be permanent. You talk to a Newfoundlander about the precautionary principle, and he will hang his head in shame, and if you then denied the need for such a principle, he'd likely fling you unceremoniously into the fishless ocean.
Your faith in technology to solve our problems is touching. I too have a great faith in technology, but technology can't do it on its own. It requires forethought and insight, understanding if you will. It also requires care in its development. It is all too easy to see the advantages in a certain course of action, but to be only made aware of the drawbacks once the investment has been made. It actually requires the PP. If technology was so bloody good, why is that it is causing so much trouble now? It was technology that destroyed the Newfoundland fisheries, what technology do you propose to use to bring the fish back? Furthermore, technology is not the same as energy. We are fast approaching an energy crisis that no amount of technology can fix unless we use the PP to plan for that fast approaching time.
Well Dave, I don't suppose we should bother communicating any further. You belong to a part of the human race that I literally cannot fathom, you might as well be an alien from some distant planet, your thinking processes are so different from mine. If it weren't for people like you, I too would be an optimist about the human condition and our future on this planet. But it is exactly that faith in technology that so frightens me, because it is a blind faith, a faith without understanding, and as such it will lead mankind to some very perilous circumstances. I look on people like you as I look on Capt. Edward Smith, master of the Titanic. Just as his blind faith in technology lost him his ship, so will people like you, with your same blind faith, loose us our ship, our tiny speck of matter sailing in an uncaring ocean of space. What icebergs are we approaching, Dave? But of course you are sailing on autopilot and you haven't bothered to look out the window.
John Monro
15/9/05....just an afterthought John,
....are you "socially prejudiced"? And if so, is that constricting your intellect?
"The development of science...requires...freedom of the spirit which consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices."
(Albert Einstein, "Ideas and Opinions" 1954.)
Dave
16/9/05"We are an extraordinarily lucky lot, us 21st century types. We enjoy longer lives, better health, a safer world, greater freedom and a wider range of wondrous gadgets that our luckless predecessors would've dared to contemplate." (Jim Hopkins, this morning.)
Yet I see in this morning's Herald a full page full colour ad from a Christian group telling us the world is doomed and we are approaching "end times." That is your message too, isn't it? You and Christian fundamentalists are whistling exactly the same tune in this instance.
Quite bizarre, seeing that another group of fundamentalists are circulating anti-green pamphlets.
But to get back to the P/P, you evaded the point that petrol, electricity, X rays, nuclear medicine etc etc would not benefit our lives if the P/P had thwarted their development.
And to get to right the point, you (representing the green party) are advancing the P/P with a view to shutting down scientific development of GE. This New Orleans/civil defence issue is a smokescreen. (Well done for finding that some people are in fact dying of famine in India. 60 was it?)
Jeanette Fitzsimons may be a very nice lady. The problem is, she is at heart a liar. I say that because people like Keith Locke and Nandor Tanczos are liars and have no place in political life.
Locke is, as his family were and are, outright Marxists with a clear public record. He is the obvious "watermelon", and I'm sure you know it. Nandor is your major millstone, being I think mad, bad and sad all at the same time. Jeanette and Helen have forced him out of the limelight because he scares the horses, and his plans for dope will comdemn many kids to a meaningless life and cause untold suffering and damage. Both have hidden agendas that Jeanette, and other Greens know about but like to keep quiet about.
I'm afraid the (green) party's over. Germany is showing us that, and although we'll have to tolerate green liars for another 3 years, the next election will be the end.
In the meantime.....Keith Locke has vowed to run naked through Epsom if Rodney Hide gets elected. Will Locke keep his word?
Dave.
16/9/05Dear Dave,
I was determined not to write again, but may be for one more time.
As for evading the point about petrol, electricity etc, that's a bit rich as you have hardly bothered to reply to any of the points I have raised. But I will do so:
Petrol (oil) When petrol fired up the first Benz motor car more than one hundred years ago, would it have been possible for Benz to have seen the amazing changes his invention caused? Of course not. But let's say he and we had been given the gift of foresight, would we have proceeded to allow the domination of the motor vehicle in our lives to the extent we have? If we had known about global warming (which in fact they just about did, Arrhenius was making his first calculations about this in 1896) would we have been quite so profligate in our use of this substance. Or indeed if we had realised that early in the 21st century that we would be entirely dependent on oil for almost all our industry, chemical, pharmaceuticals and transport, yet at that moment we would start running out of the stuff? Would we not have used this irreplaceable asset more carefully and husbanded this resource for as long as we could? We shall shortly find out the answer to some of these questions.
Nuclear medicine, yes , a great advance in some small areas of medicine but not to be disparaged for the patients that need it. Fortunately by the time we have got around to using this we have had a better understanding of nuclear hazards.
Electricity, - I am unsure how this fits in to your argument about the precautionary principle. Electricity is just electrons, it's how it is generated and used that are the problems, I suppose.
X-rays. Similarly to electricity. However, I can see the point you are trying to make is that if people had tried to use the precautionary principle to prevent the development of electricity and X-rays like they now do with GE , then we would never have advancement. I can sort of understand that argument, and I partially agree with you. But you are taking this to the extreme. You are berating the Greens for their opposition to GE, but you are not prepared to give them any credit at all for all the other areas of social, economic and environmental concern where the Greens, and thousands of concerned scientists, climatologists and environmentalists around the world, are trying very hard to break through that carapace of misunderstanding in the population, that the world is a finite resource.
The resources of the world are being stretched to the limit and beyond, we are living off the capital, not the interest. It is not possible to continue this mode of life. That is not politics or economics, it is physical reality. If the glaciers in the tropics melt, tell me the technology that will provide billions of people with fresh water in the summer. If the fish in the sea disappear, tell me the technology that will bring them back. If the farms of Australia become salt pans, tell me the technology that will renew the soil. If the climate warms and the seas rise, tell me the technology that will raise Venice, or London, or Auckland, or Miami or Bangladesh to a safe elevation. If the prairies of American dry out, tell me the technology that will bring rain. If the great apes become extinct, or the thousands of other species under dire threat, you tell me the technology that can resurrect the them.
This is the first time you mention Genetic Engineering. I find it strange that you can confidently predict my opinion about this matter without actually asking me first. As I am someone that uses in my professional life the products of genetic engineering every week, you might be interested to know, but then again you might not, that I am not anti-genetic engineering. I am not a member of the Green Party, I have never even voted for them. But I am sympathetic to much of what they say, and indeed, much of what they have achieved. I think their blank refusal to entertain genetic engineering is short-sighted, and could be seen as an abuse of the precautionary principle. Having said that, there is GE and GE.
My personal position would be something like this. Where the possible risks of genetic engineering are low, and can be kept in safe and defined parameters, as say in the production of pharmaceuticals, in scientific research, in veterinary science and many other areas, then genetic engineering should be seen for what it may turn out to be, a tool and a process for advancement. But if we are talking about the widespread dissemination of genetically altered plants and seeds, with the potential for the continued spread of the material in to the environment, then I think the precautionary principle is of more immediate importance, and we should resist the claims of such companies as Monsanto until we are much more informed about the likely consequences. That is a gradual process and one that we are going through at the moment. I see nothing wrong in this, nor do I see how this is impeding progress. As I keep saying, and as experience has proved again and again, mistakes are expensive or impossible to rectify.
But it is not the precautionary principle that is holding us back. I have already indicated to you the vast opportunities for capital and industry in the coming energy and transport revolution, supported by the Greens and the environmentally concerned and the progressives in our society - the very people you most despise. It is people like you who are the luddites, the spoilers, the dinosaurs. Your carelessness about the future in regard to our ecology is the other side of the same coin. Because you can't visualise the future, then you can have no vision for the future, and if you have no vision for the future, any endeavour you ever make will fail.
"We are an extraordinarily lucky lot, us 21st Century types", says Jim Hoskins. Indeed we are, but considering we are only into the first five years of this century, that statement is extraordinarily bold, even reckless, certainly fate-tempting. And "lucky" is the appropriate word here, we are lucky to live in that small proportion of the world where wealth and health are the norm, but Jim Hoskins should enquire with a colleague in Baghdad about luck and fortune. I would be more sanguine about our present state, and the future, if Jim Hoskins could truthfully say, "We are an extraordinarily deserving lot", because it is the nature of luck that it changes.
And we have a Marxist in parliament, goodness me. I never realised we are living in a democracy, fancy allowing a Marxist into parliament. At one time I think it might have been true that I was as reactionary as you are, fortunately age has mellowed me a little, and I am much more socialistically inclined, indeed, I have often told my family that if I live to be ninety, I will be looking forward to becoming a fully paid-up member of the Communist Party myself.
Your faith in technology and the ever-improving fate of mankind is basically a moral and an intellectual cop-out. It means that whatever happens you are secure in the knowledge that something will turn up, some new technology will arise and efficiently and affordably put everything back together, so we can continue to grow obese on Macdonald's, Remuera-ise our coastline, and build a four-lane super-mega highway from Kaitaia to Bluff. It's a very comfortable feeling, that whatever we do to our environment or our planet, whatever damage we inflict, whatever problems we bequeath, we don't have to bother about it, someone else cleverer than you and I will come along and deal with them. Well, I'm sorry, that just won't wash. Perhaps you should ask my daughters how they would like to clear up after your mess, or perhaps you could ask your grandchildren. Yours is the stuff of fairy tales, the wish-fulfilment fantasy of the terminally idle.
Good luck for the future, though of course you don't need it,
John Monro.
17/9/05Well John, thank you for your thoughtful exchanges. All good things have to come to an end, and I guess like all complex issues clear answers are not always black and white.
Yes, I believe that technology will continue to transform our existence on this planet, and I have a naive faith that rational and basically good human beings will use it wisely.
Thus, I support nuclear energy for electricity generation, and GE for food production, and continued exploration of outer space (and where does the P/P fit in there?) and nanotechnology etc etc.
And, I have at my side Julian L Simon to comfort and console me if the Greens exert temporary power after this evening....God forbid.
Dave
This is part of United Future's vision for transport in New Zealand:Press Release: United Future NZ Party
Media statement - Friday 1 April 2005, 3:50 pm (note the date - JKM)
United Future transport policy announced
Greater transparency in road funding, the ultimate four-laning of State Highway 1 from Kaitaia to Invercargill, the possible splitting-out of traffic functions from the police force, and driver education in schools are all significant features of United Future's transport policies for the next election.
Transport spokesman, Larry Baldock, announced the policy at today's annual meeting of the Automobile Association in Napier today.
Mr Baldock said the party was also committed to the continued construction of the strategic roading networks in Auckland, Tauranga and Wellington (including the Transmission Gully project.)
To this visionary statement, a spokesperson for Powerless, New Zealand, wrote Larry a letter pointing out:
And Larry's reply?
"Rubbish. If you believe all the doomsayers obviously we are not the party for you."
This is the sort of blinkered attitude from what one assumes are otherwise intelligent people that gives one cause for concern. It's not so much that people aren't entitled to disagree, but when someone who knows little about the oil industry says people like Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons are doomsayers, and when Chevron, one of the oil giants, starts placing large newspaper adverts that say "the era of easy oil is over", then one is not entitled to heap scorn, indeed one should begin to take notice, even if only to educate oneself. But obviously self-education is not part of the United Future manifesto.
