Movie Time: The Age of Stupid

[Flyfisher]

Yes, I was simplifying things, but if each woman only had one child the population would be halved over time. But it's all rather academic really.

 

[Penners]

China, with it's one child policy, has done a great deal to limit population growth, yet their population is increasing at about 12 million per year.

That can possibly be explained (at least in part) by the fact that not all parts of China have a one-child rule. It's only applicable in some areas.

 

[biffvernon]

Russia's population fell 4.7% in the 15 years 1993-2008, most of the decline happened over 8 years, 1999-2007.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well it's a start, but (if you believe Lovelock) woefully short of the reduction we really need:

"The high-sounding and well-meaning visions of the EU of 'saving the planet' and developing sustainably by only using 'natural' energy might have worked in 1800 when there were only a billion of us but now they are a wholly impractical luxury we can ill afford. Indeed, in its way the green ideology that now seems to inspire Northern Europe and the USA may be in the end as damaging to the real environment as were previous humanist ideologies. If the UK government persists in forcing through impractical and expensive renewable energy schemes we will soon discover that nearly all of what remains of our countryside becomes the site for fields planted with biofuel crops, biogas generators and industrial-sized wind farms - all this when what land we have is wholly needed to grow food. Don't feel guilty about opting out of this nonsense: closer examination reveals it as an elaborate scam in the interests of a few nations whose economies are enriched in the short term by the sale of wind turbines, biofuel plants and other green-sounding energy equipment. Don't for a moment believe the sales talk that these will save the planet."

 

[biffvernon]

Of course it won't save the planet. But it will help keep some of the lights on while we adjust to a completely different way of living.

There is no one solution to our problems but that it not a reason to oppose a technology that has a contribution to make. I don't agree with Lovelock in his support for nuclear power either. Notwithstanding the operational risks and resource contraints and CO2 emissions during construction, by his own reckoning, there is a real chance that there will not remain a society capable of maintaining the safety of nuclear sites into the long term future that is required.

 

[Flyfisher]

I've never quite understood the green position on nuclear power. On the one hand fossil fuels have led the world to the brink of an ecological catastrophe that seems increasingly likely to destroy humankind as we know it (not to mention the countless thousands of people killed directly as a result of oil, gas and coal exploitation), whereas nuclear power offers 'clean' (in CO2 terms) energy that could massively eliminate the CO2 emissions and the coming catastrophe and has caused far fewer deaths during its exploitation. I find this a bit odd.

Certainly, nuclear power is not without it's risks. Nor are most medical interventions, but when faced with almost certain death, the balance of risk seems to favour the medicine.

As for the CO2 emissions during nuclear power plant construction, is it reasonable to use this argument against nuclear power but to dismiss it against wind turbine construction?

A wind farm of twenty 1 MW turbines requires over 10,000 tons of concrete. It would require 200 of these wind farms covering an area the size of Dartmoor to equal the constant power output of a single coal-fired or nuclear power station. Even more absurd, a full-sized nuclear or coal-fired power station would have to be built for each of these monster wind farms to back up the turbines for the 75% of the time when the wind was either too high or too low. As if this were not enough to damn wind energy, the construction of a 1GW wind farm would use a quantity of concrete, 2 million tons, sufficient to build a town for 100,000 people living in 30,000 homes; making and using that amount of concrete would release about 1 million tons of CO2 into the air.

 

[biffvernon]

The trouble is that Lovelock is just plain wrong on windturbines. He doesn't like the look of them - that's his opinion, fair enough - but then he gives figures which are just wrong. I've seen how much concrete was poured into the foundations of the turbines near me. Not much.

Obviously nuclear doesn't give off as much CO2 as burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, though one has to take into account the power station construction and, importantly, the mining and processing of the fuel, so it is not true to say that nuclear is a zero carbon energy source - by a long way.

There are all the well rehearsed problems associated with nuclear contamination, with security and weapons proliferation, and the question of whether we can guarantee that future generations will be willing and able to decommission plant and keep waste repositories secure and whether it is ethical for us to leave future generations this legacy when it is us, not them, that benefit.

And of course there is not enough uranium available to replace fossil fuels and not enough nuclear build capacity to beat the post-peak oil depletion rate so any talk of nuclear being more than a marginal energy provider is nonsense. The UK, for example, has no chance of building new nuclear fast enough to match the decline in generation capacity from the retiring old plant.

Solving one problem by creating a different problem does not seem very smart. But then this is the Age of Stupid.

 

[Flyfisher]

As I said, I appreciate that nuclear power has it's own issues, but I'm convinced that in the absence of an effective alternative, i.e. one that provides as much power as fossil fuels currently can, then all the oil, gas and coal we can find will be burned. There is absolutely no indication that any government on the planet is willing to actually reduce energy consumption despite the cheap rhetoric.

Solving one problem by creating a different problem does not seem very smart. But then this is the Age of Stupid.

Although solving a big problem that's known to be destroying our ecosystem by substituting a smaller problem that's less ecologically damaging might be smarter than we seem able to comprehend. You're probably right about the Age of Stupid.

I may be over doing the Lovelock position, but I do find most of his arguments persuasive and there's no doubting his independence from all the various political factions on all sides of the issue. One last quote:

When I am warned that my pessimism discourages those who would improve their carbon footprint or do good works such as planting trees, I'm afraid I see such efforts as at best romantic nonsense, or at worst hypocrisy. Agencies now exist which allow air travellers to plant trees to offset the extra CO2 their plane adds to the overburdened air. How like the indulgences once sold by the Catholic Church to wealthy sinners to offset the time they might otherwise spend in purgatory. . . . I hope that a sufficient number of us are now aware that the lush and comfortable world that we once knew is departing forever.

 

[yamin]

What a miserable, hopeless, desperate, no hope picture a lot of you are painting! Do you know what I think the biggest enemy of conservationalism is? The constant negative, that won't work, we're so stupid. whats the point, its all so and sos fault, that won't work, don't even try it, thats a load of rubbish, we should never have X, Y or Z, it will never improve so long as we.... etc etc etc! With the picture that is painted by this thread (largely), you would think that we are all doomed and may just as well take our hemp ropes and hang ourselves right now! I mean, it may be a bit Alan Sugar, but has nobody in conservation etc heard of 'bring me solutions not problems??' Enough of the problems, enough of the blame, enough of the "'we're all doomed!". Heres a shocking suggestion, how about a scientific and balanced START to finding a solution? How about we TRY to think of solutions, instead of doing a collective Eeyore and giving up??? Those who simply push the negative, tell us what WON'T work, with no hint of what MIGHT be tried instead, who tell us off for having children/cars/lives etc (whilst having all of the above themselves!) would surely be better employed in putting their collective passion towards sourcing, or helping others to source a solution? It may be hard, it may be a long road (possibly, yes, a never ending one) - but if 'you' want the more head in the sand among us to travel that long and difficult road with you, you won't get anywhere by throwing blame and total and utter pessimism at us all, it just won't work! Surely a bit more 'right, lets see what we can do about this' is better - and if naive, still better than the alternative you propose, which seems to be to give up in a flurry of 'I told you sos'!I would also add that there are 2 sides to every argument and whilst I don't for a moment believe that there aren't problems to be tackled, as someone who spent 20 years arguing clinical trial papers, I am also well aware that all the passionate rehetoric in the world won't prove something is true by itself. Scaremongering achieves nothing but panic, and thats not constructive either.

OK, I know I will piss a lot of you off, and I am sorry - I am generally a very passive person, but this kind of blame culture gets my goat whether its talking about resources and our treatment of the world, how we raise our children, or who allowed J Ross and Russell bloody Brand to broadcast their rubbish! Lets draw a line and get moving forward. If the purpose of this whole thread was to encourage a good and balanced debate, or to just have a discussion of 'whats out there' - in my opinion, it hasn't! If its driving me not to look anymore (which it has been til today) - surely I'm not the only one, and thats not making anybody 'think'?

Go on, flame me, I appreciate I am neither knowledgeable in this matter, nor have any defence to hold up against the children/car etc arguments. However, I do form part of, much as I hate to admit it, the large part of the population who does care, but doesn't have knowledge, who does want to do their bit, but struggles to know how or what, who doesn't know who or what to believe.............


Living in hopes of seeing some optimism
Pollyanna!

 

[Flyfisher]

No need to apologise! I feel quite guilty about my own pessimism, it's not my normal outlook on life by any means. I don't claim to be an expert but I have been doing a fair bit of reading on the matter and, unfortunately, I've yet to read any 'experts' who really have a practical answer. Perhaps I'm not reading the right material but it seems to me that if there was a half-believable solution for solving the problems we face without putting us all back to the stone age, or at least the 18th century, then it would have surfaced by now. So why hasn't it? Perhaps this explains why the greatest and apparently imminent threat to our global civilisation seems to be largely ignored by every government on the planet. Optimism is a great trait but blind optimism is delusion.

 

[biffvernon]

It's a good rant, yammin, and everything you say is constantly in the mind of those of us who spend a lot of time on environmental campaigning.

The first task is to get people to accept that there is a problem. I for one, was shouting about anthropogenic global warming and how humanity's trajectory was doomed over 30 years ago. It has taken decades for government and policy makers to accept what to some of us was the bleedin' obvious a very long time ago. There are still far too many people who don't believe the scientists. Hence the importance of frightening people and demonstrating that we are almost certainly doomed and there is almost no hope.

Almost, but not quite.

And it is through that ***** of light that our positivism is directed. Don't look for a magic bullet - there is no single solution - no 'answer' out there to be found. We just have to develop the motivation to put into action all the myriad of steps, small and large, that will be parts of the solution.

For my own part, what I do is directed very much towards the positive. Yesterday I spent the day coppicing hazel trees, in a mixed hazel and oak wood, producing hazel rods for a very green building project I'm going to be doing this summer and providing better growing conditions for the oak trees that may one day be used to continue my business of conservation of our built heritage. Then it started raining and we went home.

I spent Saturday with a small group of friends organising a day of activities related to Fair Trade Fortnight. We took over Louth Town Hall, holding a fair with stalls representing various groups who see themselves as part of the solution, Transition Town Louth, Oxfam, Traidcraft, Wholefood Co-op and lots more - you get the picture. A theatre company worked with children through the day and put on a play at the end of the afternoon giving a hard-hitting environmental message to their audience. My daughter, who runs a deli and teaches cooking, gave a demonstration of how to make chocolate brownies, with, of course, ingredients that were organic, fairly traded or locally produced. Do we do miserable? No Way. The day ended with a great party, filling the Town Hall with song, dance and merriment.

Here are a couple of websites I run that show how my focus is on acting locally, while thinking globally:
Transition Town Louth
Louth Fair Trade Town

 

[JoceAndChris]

Aw, Biff, that sounds great, wish I had been there.

putting us all back to the stone age, or at least the 18th century

A return to the 18th century? Yes please!

Going Down Going Up

Cars - Horses
Bright light - Candlelight
Facebook - Letters
Bling - Genteel poverty
Women who juggle their lives - Getting men to work for us
Nightclubbing - Rolling in haylofts with lovelorn swain


So when do we start?

 

[piper]

A return to the 18th century? Yes please!

Mmmm. The trouble with a desire to return to the perceived beauty and elegance of the 18th century, is that you really need to be upper class - and in good health too. Though I concede that rolling in the hayloft wasn't exclusively an upper class pursuit. I suppose prosperous farmer or tradesman would do, just about - as long as you don't need to go to the dentist.
And when thinking about the candlelight and the lovely houses, remember for example that when Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park went away to see to his business in the West Indies he would probably have checked, among other things, that his slaves were being worked hard enough.

Of course, as a moral and upright man, he might have felt a pang of conscience at how some of his wealth was produced if forced to think about it by a visionary campaigner (who had probably been shouting about it for over thirty years) - but then he would have answered that unfortunately in the real world these things were necessary.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I would argue that your average milkmaid may have been more content than today's single mum on a tough estate; and that anyway, some of the happiest children I have met were those dancing along the roads of Swaziland with absolutely nothing but a raggedy pair of keks and a sweetcorn to gnaw at. They seemed more content than the over-privileged Ugg-wearing cocaine-snorting girls I taught at an exclusive school in London.

Happiness is not necessarily in accordance with status, though it is in accordance with health.

We may live longer, but we do have new and terrible modern diseases to contend with. And I would argue that the mental health of our society may be worse than that of a society necessitating hard, though endorphin producing, manual work. The upper classes of the 18th C had their share of miseries too. Hardy's rustics seem happier than his tormented upper classes.

I think we cannot judge and say that any one society or period of history is better, or even happier, than another. The "progress" we have made in some areas involves the loss of things which had their charms and benefits too.

And of course no one would want to see a return to slavery! Just that we should find ways to cast off our own "mind-forged manacles" and perhaps return to simpler pleasures.

 

[Penners]

I would argue that your average milkmaid may have been more content than today's single mum on a tough estate.

Ooh-arrrr. Oi be only a simple journeyman. Oi got no shoes, moi teeth be rotten, Oi worries every day where me next meal is a'comin' from and Oi carries a bucket o' wa'er home from the pump to moi leaky hovel, mornin' an' evenin'. Moi sister's a-doiyin' of smallpox an' me nan's got rickets. Oi'll be dead boy the toime Oi'm 40.

But am Oi downhearted...?

Bloody roight Oi am.

I think you're suffering from a touch of the Lark-Rise-To-Candlefords, Jocelyn. A syndrome that cons you into the belief that, for common folk, pre-20th century life was 'poor but without a care in the world'.

 

[piper]

Hardy's rustics seem happier than his tormented upper classes.

Tess

And to add to Penners' list "If oi lives too close to the coast, 'appen oi'll be picked up boi the press gang"

 

[JoceAndChris]

Tess?

She was fine until her family tried to do a spot of social climbing and pushed her into the path of that scoundrel Alec. If she had stayed a simple milkmaid he shows that she would have remained an unsullied child of nature...

but perhaps this is not the place for literary debate!

 

[piper]

he shows that she would have remained an unsullied child of nature...

but perhaps this is not the place for literary debate!

The operative words there are "he shows" - I think he may have suffered a bit from the syndrome identified by Penners too - but I agree this isn't the place!

 

[Flyfisher]

I agree with Piper and Penners - take off the rose-tinted spectacles and I seriously doubt that life was better in the 18th century. In fact, I really think that, as a post-war child (WW2 that is!), I've been privileged to have lived through the best period in the history of mankind. And if all the eco-doom and gloom turns out to be correct, perhaps the best period ever.

Biff, I admire your optimism and positivity and, in many respects, I'm fortunate in being able to do much the same sort of thing - pottering around repairing my C16 house using traditional methods and materials and with enough land to keep chickens and other livestock (coming soon!) and cutting down my own trees for heating. Perhaps our main difference in outlook is that I consider this lifestyle to be something of a privilege (albeit earned) rather than a solution to the forthcoming problems - it's not a solution that 6 billion people can adopt now, never mind 9 billion by 2050. Still, as Lovelock proposes, we might as well enjoy life while we can.

 

[biffvernon]

Optimistic? I've just read Robin McKie's piece in yesterday's Observer: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/08/climate-change-flooding. Read the article and then tell me if my 250 year old house will make it to 350. We're below sea level now on a high spring tide.