[LINK] Exponential growth [was Microsoft is dead ... were it so!]

[Richard Chirgwin]

I find it odd that so many people are offended even by the idea of 
simple frugality in the matter of resources.

What do we lose by turning off unnecessary lamps?
Why is it considered somehow evil to seek less packaging rather than more?
Why must I look to grain-fed rather than paddock beef? (personally I 
don't but you know ...)

If I look around the world, I suspect a degree of right-wing dogs' 
bollocks associated with the wonders of technological farming saving the 
starving poor. I suspect a "neutral" analysis - ie, one which starts 
with a null hypothesis - might also find that the poor of country X stop 
starving when:

- the country is rich enough to buy food and pay for transport, and/or
- there's enough freedom from corruption that the poor can actually get 
their hands on the food without 10,000% markups sticking to the fingers 
of the regime.

Really: does Monsanto bestow its riches on some dirt-poor third world 
country in complete collapse? Or does it justify the research on the 
basis of the starving poor, and then sell the stuff to the 
already-rich?  And, as Tony notes, we have also been sold the B.S. that 
the benefits came for free; when in fact there's resistance to 
pesticides, topsoil loss and so on coming back to bite us later.

Only a knave or a sucker ignores technical debt; yet in saying "Free 
enterprise saved the planet, all doomsayers are wrong!" that's exactly 
what happens. The technical debt - the hassle of the next generation - 
is treated as a simple externality, and for what? So that ¿2%49**!!!! 
liars can run round saying All Greens are Commies to anyone who wants a 
simple light switched turned off.

There. Now I feel better...

RC

Antony Barry wrote:
>
> On 11/04/2007, at 8:05 AM, Alan L Tyree wrote:
>
> Quoting Ehlich
>
>> "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s
>> hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any
>> crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent
>> a substantial increase in the world death rate..."
>
>
> The green revolution came along with crops which could resist pests, 
> take advantage of fertilisers and irrigation and were suited to big 
> monocultures.
>
> We are losing access to water and thence irrigation because of global 
> warming.
>
> Industrial agriculture won't work when oil and gas run out as we will 
> lose fuel, fertiliser and pesticides.
>
> Insects are evolving which by passour defenses. See this weeks "New 
> Scientist" where Nobel Laureate, Norman Borlaug and the inventor of 
> the Green Revolution is quoted saying "this thing has immense 
> potential for social and human destruction"[1]. Wheat blight is back.
>
> In almost all areas of the world soil is being lost and degraded.
>
> We are going to lose the green revolution. We are already pushing at 
> the limits of  photosynthetic productivity [2] and the other inputs 
> are being eroded.
>
> _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
>
>
> 1. Debora Mackenzie, "Billions At Risk From Wheat Super-Blight," New 
> Scientist No.2598 (2007): p.6-7.
>
> 2. Bruce Bugbee, Oscar Monje, "The Limits of Crop Productivity" 
> BioScience, Vol. 42, No. 7, Crop Productivity for Earth and Space 
> (Jul. - Aug., 1992), pp. 494-502 doi:10.2307/1311879
>
> Tony
>
> phone : 02 6241 7659 | mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
> mobile: 04 1242 0397 | mailto:tony.barry at alianet.alia.org.au
> http://tony-barry.emu.id.au
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>