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I wrote an essay for a scholarship recently which is supposedly the property of the scholarship committee after I sent it in and they didn’t give me the scholarship (one of the easiest ways to pick up new ideas is through offering scholarships which I always find interesting.) In the essay which I thought was a heavily biased question which questioned whether 300 million people in US is sustainable, I proposed that maybe a very different model of using the environment could occur. The model right now is to cordon off sections and protect them from use. Another idea would be to allow use of all pieces and actively look at the problems created by allowing man into all areas and have man solve those problems with the presence of man. If an area is to be preserved for scenic beauty there is no problem. However perhaps figuring out what uses could still occur on the land and not disturb the scenic beauty might also happen or how to use the land and not alter desired characteristics and not have preservation as a brick wall where you can’t absolutely touch something. The earth and earth systems are used to coming back from change however fragile it is argued they are by scientists, the greater history is the earth ecology recovering despite massive change. Sustainable use would be the focus, but sustainable use through management and not sustainable use with just allowing nature to replenish itself. If the polar bear is declining and can’t kill the herbivores it used to, then have hunters kill the herbivores and balance out the environment with active human management instead of having nature heal itself the entire time. If more poison ivy grows because of carbon dioxide then have people as a job regulate poison ivy somehow – either by getting rid of it, or changing its DNA so it becomes a useful crop. Having human managers of the environment might keep alive several rural skills in the future and it starts to look at the earth as a huge garden that the human race is responsible for tending instead of something they can’t touch . Every animal on the face of the earth impacts the environment – elephants in Africa destroy forests and change the ecology of Africa, perhaps certain environmental groups should consider picketing them. Yes it is important not to take the earth for granted, but it is important also not tread on it in ignorance and fear and I see much of that in the current environmental movement. And wonder if some group might want to develop an alternative environmental strategy where managed impact on all areas was advocated instead of no-impact or mostly no-impact areas. Also some active energy should be put into using land and sea that currently is not utilized for resources – what do you do with deserts, polar regions, jungles, and mountains, and seas in a nutshell. Eventually we’re going to have planets we impact and not just the earth and the idea of cordoning off Titan because it’s a pristine environment isn’t going to be practical for a while – the astronauts on Titan might want a bit of terraforming for safety concerns and would prefer not to be picketed by an environmental activist group while engaged in making the moon of Saturn useful. Just like when an Alaskan gets attacked by a polar bear his or her first thoughts are not about conservation. The conservation movement is not entirely rational and needs to become so and at some point another approach to environmentalism should surface besides leave it alone forever.
Global Warming Holes
On the “absolute necessity” of global warming and greenhouse gasses: I listen closely to scientific arguments that are made and I keep hearing holes in the “overwhelming evidence”
- It was said with much fanfare that Anartica oceans are covered in carbon. The other part of the article was that oceans can absorb carbon and stop CO2 from causing greenhouse gasses and that the Antarctic accounts for 15% of total oceanic capacity which means there is possibly 85% of capacity that is unknown in filling level meaning that the ocean might absorb a great deal of carbon yet and inhibit green house gasses.
-NASA has climate models for Green house gasses and predicts a net temperature increase of 10 degrees in like 70 years. However preliminary data suggests we are cooler than we are supposed to be – questioning their global warming model.
-On CNN –gentleman who was an ardent supporter of global warming hated the idea of biofuels as a replacement for oil. He claimed not only the issue of food competing with biofuels and suggesting that that would starve 3rd world countries and that only wealthy countries could have biofuels, but he claimed biofuels were more environmentally polluting than oil because they are actually grown which is consistent with what I’ve heard before. If you have to grow the fuel instead of just extract it, you end up putting in more work than the energy you get out of it. If you listen closely the evidence is not stacking up neatly behind Al Gore and the standard environmentalist movement although I know some we accuse me of trying to kill them by not stopping terrible pollution. The evidence does appear mixed and we should be careful about US policy or you should be.
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