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I love how we are losing all these freedoms yet the ones telling us we are losing them can not specify beyond the nebulous "them" which ones they are.
Although I appreciate your backhanded insults once again, you misunderstand my argument.. once again. I've seen the suffering and poverty you claim doesn't exist in America first hand. Many young men of lower economic status either join the military are go to prison. It's a simple fact of life for them.
When did I say American's aren't proud of providing for their families? All I'm saying is to take the power and money invested in the government, and return it to the people. Are you really too shortsighted to understand my argument? It's not tough, and it would work out to everyone's benefit. Not the poor, not the middle, not the rich. Everyone.
You do nothing but insult my country; yet, you want to take issue with me returning fire. If you don't want to get hit, don't throw punches.
I understand your argument just fine. You want to take from those who excel and give to those who underachieve and create YOUR idea of a socialist Utopia.
No thanks. I excel to make more for ME and MINE, not provide for some welfare cheat's high-speed internet and cable TV.
Isn't all this talk of an apocalypse getting a bit boring?
Chris Berg
January 27, 2008
Advertisement
THIS year is the 40th anniversary of Paul Ehrlich's influential The Population Bomb, a book that predicted an apocalyptic overpopulation crisis in the 1970s and '80s.
Ehrlich's book provides a lesson we still haven't learnt. His prophecy that the starvation of millions of people in the developed world was imminent was spectacularly wrong humanity survived without any of the forced sterilisation that Ehrlich believed was necessary.
It's easy to predict environmental collapse, but it never actually seems to happen.
The anniversary of The Population Bomb should put contemporary apocalyptic predictions in their proper context. If anything, our world and the environment just keeps getting better.
Ehrlich was at the forefront of a wave of pessimistic doomsayers in the late 1960s and early '70s. And these doomsayers weren't just cranks or, if they were cranks, they were cranks with university tenure.
Despite what should be a humiliating failure for his theory of overpopulation, Ehrlich is still employed as a professor of population studies by Stanford University. Similarly, when George Wald predicted in a 1970 speech that civilisation was likely to end within 15 or 30 years, his audience was reminded that he was a Nobel Prize-winning biologist.
These predictions were picked up by people eager to push their own agendas. And a subgenre of films arose to deal with the "inevitable" environment and population crisis. Soylent Green (1973) depicted a world where all food was chemically produced, and other films imagined dystopias where amoral bureaucrats strictly controlled the population just the sort of things advocated in The Population Bomb.
In retrospect, these fears seem a little bit silly. The green revolution that was brought about by advances in agricultural biotechnology came pretty close to eliminating the problem of food scarcity. Nor did the alarmists expect the large changes in demography and fertility rates that have occurred during the past few decades.
Nevertheless, for people in the 1970s, predictions of apocalypse through overpopulation and famine were just as real as the predictions of an apocalypse caused by climate change are today. And, just like today, environmental activists and their friends in politics were lining up to propose dramatic changes to avert the crisis.
For instance, the vice-president of the Australian Conservation Foundation wrote just last week in The Age that we needed to imagine global suffering before we can tackle climate change through "nation-building" whatever that is.
But there are substantial grounds for optimism on almost every measure, the state of the world is improving.
Pollution is no longer the threat it was seen to be in the 1970s, at least in the developed world. Changes in technology, combined with our greater demand for a clean environment, have virtually eliminated concerns about pungent waterways and dirty forests. Legislation played some role in this, but as Indur Goklany points out in his recent study, The Improving State of the World, the environment started getting better long before such laws were passed.
Goklany reveals that strong economies, not environment ministers, are the most effective enforcers of cleanliness in our air and water. Indeed, the world's 10 most polluted places are in countries where strong economic growth has historically been absent Russia, China, India and Kyrgyzstan have not really been known for their thriving consumer capitalism.
Other indices, too, show that humanity's future is likely to be bright. Infant mortality has dramatically declined, as has malnutrition, illiteracy, and even global poverty.
And there are good grounds for hope that we can adapt to changing climates as well. History has shown just how capable we are of inventing and adapting our way out of any sticky situation and how we can do it without crippling our economies or imposing brutal social controls.
Environmental alarmists have become more and more like those apocalyptic preachers common in the 19th century always expecting the Rapture on this date and, when it doesn't come, quickly revising their calculations.
Optimism is in too short supply in discussions about the environment. But four decades after The Population Bomb, if we remember just how wrong visions of the apocalypse have been in the past, perhaps we will look to the future more cheerfully.
Chris Berg is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and editor of the IPA Review.
Isn't all this talk of an apocalypse getting a bit boring? - Opinion
An article from January in a 9 year old thread. You've been smoking weed again, haven't you?Isn't all this talk of an apocalypse getting a bit boring?
Chris Berg
January 27, 2008
Advertisement
THIS year is the 40th anniversary of Paul Ehrlich's influential The Population Bomb, a book that predicted an apocalyptic overpopulation crisis in the 1970s and '80s.
Ehrlich's book provides a lesson we still haven't learnt. His prophecy that the starvation of millions of people in the developed world was imminent was spectacularly wrong humanity survived without any of the forced sterilisation that Ehrlich believed was necessary.
It's easy to predict environmental collapse, but it never actually seems to happen.
The anniversary of The Population Bomb should put contemporary apocalyptic predictions in their proper context. If anything, our world and the environment just keeps getting better.
Ehrlich was at the forefront of a wave of pessimistic doomsayers in the late 1960s and early '70s. And these doomsayers weren't just cranks or, if they were cranks, they were cranks with university tenure.
Despite what should be a humiliating failure for his theory of overpopulation, Ehrlich is still employed as a professor of population studies by Stanford University. Similarly, when George Wald predicted in a 1970 speech that civilisation was likely to end within 15 or 30 years, his audience was reminded that he was a Nobel Prize-winning biologist.
These predictions were picked up by people eager to push their own agendas. And a subgenre of films arose to deal with the "inevitable" environment and population crisis. Soylent Green (1973) depicted a world where all food was chemically produced, and other films imagined dystopias where amoral bureaucrats strictly controlled the population just the sort of things advocated in The Population Bomb.
In retrospect, these fears seem a little bit silly. The green revolution that was brought about by advances in agricultural biotechnology came pretty close to eliminating the problem of food scarcity. Nor did the alarmists expect the large changes in demography and fertility rates that have occurred during the past few decades.
Nevertheless, for people in the 1970s, predictions of apocalypse through overpopulation and famine were just as real as the predictions of an apocalypse caused by climate change are today. And, just like today, environmental activists and their friends in politics were lining up to propose dramatic changes to avert the crisis.
For instance, the vice-president of the Australian Conservation Foundation wrote just last week in The Age that we needed to imagine global suffering before we can tackle climate change through "nation-building" whatever that is.
But there are substantial grounds for optimism on almost every measure, the state of the world is improving.
Pollution is no longer the threat it was seen to be in the 1970s, at least in the developed world. Changes in technology, combined with our greater demand for a clean environment, have virtually eliminated concerns about pungent waterways and dirty forests. Legislation played some role in this, but as Indur Goklany points out in his recent study, The Improving State of the World, the environment started getting better long before such laws were passed.
Goklany reveals that strong economies, not environment ministers, are the most effective enforcers of cleanliness in our air and water. Indeed, the world's 10 most polluted places are in countries where strong economic growth has historically been absent Russia, China, India and Kyrgyzstan have not really been known for their thriving consumer capitalism.
Other indices, too, show that humanity's future is likely to be bright. Infant mortality has dramatically declined, as has malnutrition, illiteracy, and even global poverty.
And there are good grounds for hope that we can adapt to changing climates as well. History has shown just how capable we are of inventing and adapting our way out of any sticky situation and how we can do it without crippling our economies or imposing brutal social controls.
Environmental alarmists have become more and more like those apocalyptic preachers common in the 19th century always expecting the Rapture on this date and, when it doesn't come, quickly revising their calculations.
Optimism is in too short supply in discussions about the environment. But four decades after The Population Bomb, if we remember just how wrong visions of the apocalypse have been in the past, perhaps we will look to the future more cheerfully.
Chris Berg is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and editor of the IPA Review.
Isn't all this talk of an apocalypse getting a bit boring? - Opinion
Rex Tillerson Says He Believes in Climate Change — but That May Not Mean Much
Tapper initially asked Haley to confirm whether or not Trump still believed his famous 2013 claim that global warming was a hoax "invented by and for the Chinese" in order to hurt US manufacturing.
Haley replied: "President Trump believes the climate is changing, and he believes pollutants are part of that equation. So, that is the fact, that is where we are, that's where it stands."
flacaltenn
Up until Republicans took control of the White House, Republicans senators have been denying global warming because lobbyists pay them a lot to do that.
And yet you can't seem to understand that the people you claim are living shitty lives have made the choice to live they way they wantWhat majority of American's do you think you're seeing exctltley? Seeing as how you don't live here. Please do tell us what kind of life we should be leading. Or are you not familiar with the concept of freedom.
I do live here, genius. Get your false accusations straight before you throw them at me. Thanks, citizen.
As far as the kind of life you should be leading: you need to figure that out for yourself. I'm not trying to tell you how to live... just pointing out what I have seen in the 5 states I have lived in. Your freedom is being taken away day by day, and unless you wake up sooner than later you wont be familiar with the concept yourself.
Speak for yourself. At 73 I am enjoying health that allows me to work at a very demanding job, physically and mentally, in a steel mill. When my working schedule allows it, I am taking classes in a University. Through the net, I have access to most of the world's information and knowledge. I have traveled on more of this continent than my parents and grand parents put together. Traveled for pleasure, not necessity. If you or anyone else is living such a shitty life, it is because you choose to.People are living longer. Care to explain?
By most measures, we are better off today than we were 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago.
There are a number of possible reasons for your question, from the caloric intake to how people assess their own health.
Great. People are living longer, shittier lives. This is a cause for celebration, really! Break out the champagne and streamers.
Well, good. Like Governor McCall said, come to visit, leave your money, then go home. LOLIt's not the Feds who are sticking it to my family. The state of Oregon is the one screwing my family. We are given $4-5000 a year in Federal Taxes but the state of Oregon takes $1500-2000 each year.
I must say I'm very thankful that Bush pushed for an increase in the child tax credit. It's more than just a credit on the books. If you don't us it all to cover taxes owed, they give it all to the family. I bring in $4000 a year in Federal taxes that I didn't put in.
You are aware those tax breaks will disappear soon right? None of them were made permanent and the Dems have no intention of making them that. There is a reason I do not live In Washington State or anywhere near that sucking hole called a left Coast. The Liberals have ruined those States and there is no end in sight.
