The Human Footprint Is Not Small or Harmless

[joewp]

And yet, there is more energy available now than at any time in human history.

That's what you'd expect right before peak energy, actually.

If kind of follows that when you dig up more and more every year of a finite resource, at some point you just can't keep it going.

Doesn't that make sense to you?

 

[Unkotare]

I hope there is something more interesting to this troll act. If this is the whole show, it's already getting old.

Well, unlike you, when I repeat something at least it is not a slight variation on a single sentence.

But then, your screen name could, in Japanese, mean someone who goes round and round in circles.
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If this is the whole show, it's already getting old. I hope there is something more interesting to this troll act.


And you guessed wrong, troll. Back to google, brainless.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There most certainly are NOT 'too many' humans, and we are NOT going to "completely destroy the natural world."

.....not too many humans...FOR WHAT?

And how can you be so certain that our actions will not destroy us?

Anyone who has the slightest tincture of understanding the scientific method knows that no sensible question can possibly be asked, and certainly no answer gained, until boundary conditions are established.
.

And yet you spout nonsense from the warmers and claim that computer models can somehow be programed by us idiots to predict the temperature and weather conditions in 100 years. I repeat where are your boundaries and why do you support supposed findings not even peer reviewed or duplicated, nor even tested?

 

[westwall]

'
THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IS NOT SMALL OR HARMLESS

Biomass

The total biomass of planet Earth (the total mass of all plants and animals and other organisms all over the world, on land and in the seas) is about 75 billion tonnes.

The total biomass of the human species is about 250 million tonnes, or about one part in 300 of the total biomass.

If the total biomass of 75 billion tonnes were to be spread evenly over the 500 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, it would form a film approximately one-tenth of a millimetre thick.

Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems

In any one year, humans utilize, alter or consume between one-tenth to one-twentieth of the total biomass of the Earth, depending on how you analyze the figures.
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Big deal. Insect biomass is 300 times that of mankind.



Several enlightening studies have been conducted involving the numbers of individual insects in a given area. In North Carolina, soil samples to a depth of 5 inches yielded a calculation that there were approximately 124 million animals per acre, of which 90 million were mites, 28 million were springtails, and 4.5 million were other insects. A similar study in Pennsylvania yielded figures of 425 million animals per acre, with 209 million mites, 119 million springtails, and 11 million other arthropods. Even specific insect species have been found to be quite numerous, with calculations of from 3 to 25 million per acre for wireworms (larvae of click beetles).

Certain social insects have large numbers in their nests. An ant nest in Jamaica was calculated to include 630,000 individuals. A South American termite nest was found to have 3 million individuals. Locust swarms are said to hold up to one billion individuals.

These great numbers of insect species and individuals were created by a number of factors including their long geological history, the capability of flight, their small size that allows survival in many various habitats, their ability to store sperm for delayed fertilization, and their general adaptive abilities to the environment. Insects have remarkable fertility and reproductive abilities, which have usually led to the vast numbers of individuals in nature. East African termite queens have been recorded to lay an egg every two seconds, amounting to 43,000 eggs each day. To appreciate the population potentials of insects the example of the housefly is sometimes used, stating that the descendants of one pair of this insect, provided that they all survived during a five month season, would total 190 quintillion individuals.

Recent figures indicate that there are more than 200 million insects for each human on the planet! A recent article in The New York Times claimed that the world holds 300 pounds of insects for every pound of humans.

Selected References:

Erwin, T. L. 1983. Tropical forest canopies: the last biotic frontier. Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America, Volume 29: 14-19.

Janzen, D. 1976. Why are there so many species of insects? Proceedings of XV International Congress of Entomology, 1976: 8494.

May, R. M. 1988. How many species are there on earth? Science, Volume 241: 441-1449.

Pearse, A. S. 1946. Observations on the Microfauna of the Duke Forest. Ecological monographs, Volume 16: 127-150.

Sabrosky, C. W. 1952. How many insects are there? in Insects: The Yearbook of Agriculture. U.S. Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C.


http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/bugnos.htm

 

[westwall]

There most certainly are NOT 'too many' humans, and we are NOT going to "completely destroy the natural world."

.....not too many humans...FOR WHAT?

And how can you be so certain that our actions will not destroy us?

Anyone who has the slightest tincture of understanding the scientific method knows that no sensible question can possibly be asked, and certainly no answer gained, until boundary conditions are established.
.

How on earth do you live? Everytime you take a sip of water, you might be taking an action That Destroys Us?

He's not smart enough to understand that. Besides he's a sock for saigon (IMO) so who cares what he says anyway.

 

[skookerasbil]

Maybe we should just get on a rocket and move to Mars? How about that?

Seen alot of jackass threads in my time in this forum but this one is perhaps the nuttiest. There is an uber-fringe narccisistic element in our society......the truest form of flat-earthers. The k00k level is profound. Im fascinated about one thing though.......how these people navigate in life? These people want to go back to the stone age and even then, they'd be complaining about big headed neanderthals rubbing sticks together to make a fire......."THOSE ******* NEANDERTHALS SPOILING NATURE!!!!"


I love this forum!!!


When you have those days where the walls are closing in with life's stresses, spend 5 mintues in this forum and you're good to go!!!!!

 

[editec]

The planet has nearly 7,000,000,000 people who use the resources of this world and who by doing so also cause pollution, Anyone claiming they believe that can have no effect on the planets ecology is either honest, but dumb as a post, or lying for political reasons.

 

[westwall]

The planet has nearly 7,000,000,000 people who use the resources of this world and who by doing so also cause pollution, Anyone claiming they believe that can have no effect on the planets ecology is either honest, but dumb as a post, or lying for political reasons.

No sceptic has EVER claimed that. However, when you look at the effect that JUST insects have on the planet...and put mans impact in context you realise that EVERYTHING has an impact on this planet.

Some good some bad. Wind and rain erode mountains down from thousands of feet high to nothing, insects destroy vast swaths of plant ecology, herbivores eat huge quantities of plant material and man does tremendous amounts of damage to his local area....but sometimes he fixes what he has destroyed (and he should certainly do more of that)...and even sometimes makes it better than it was...

Funny how that never gets mentioned....ever....

 

[CrusaderFrank]

 

[polarbear]

The planet has nearly 7,000,000,000 people who use the resources of this world and who by doing so also cause pollution, Anyone claiming they believe that can have no effect on the planets ecology is either honest, but dumb as a post, or lying for political reasons.

Yeah, but demanding that we change our "evil ways" in North America aren`t you barking up the wrong tree?
File:World population density map.PNG

Perhaps it was a mistake to research (epidemic) disease remedies ????
Or contribute to UN WF-Programs ?
What should we do ?..promote free for all abortions in North America, Siberia and Australia ?
Or aid them in modern agriculture so they can chop down rain forests and start farming like Brazil?
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/perspektiven-die-bilder-des-jahres-2009-fotostrecke-50121-11.html
Soja-Ernte in Brasilien

You enviro-activists are in all the wrong countries...the relatively under populated western democracy countries that allow you to mouth off without having to fear that you either wind up in a prison or being assassinated.

 

[hoosier88]

'
Myxomatosis was introduced to the wild lagomorphs of Australia in the early '50's with spectacular declines of the rabbit population of well over 99%. However, there were enough rabbits with an immunity to the disease who survived, and very soon the rabbits were back to their original numbers.

I have often fantasized about genetically engineering a disease that would not be fatal, but which would sterilize 99% of the human population. If I were younger, I would be tempted to go into genetic engineering.

This, of course, presupposes that the human remnant would be more intelligent than rabbits --- a proposition about which I have serious doubts.
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(My bold)

It's been done - or close - in literature. Gore Vidal, Kalki - which doesn't end that well from the human point of view. But then, Vidal wasn't a biological engineer - the genetics sound off, but the book was published in '78.

 

[numan]

'
Humans like to think that "it won't be so bad." They fight like hell to avoid considering that it may be even worse than the "worst case scenario."

Arctic Permafrost CO2 ‘Underestimated,’ Poses Threat

Arctic permafrost, the frozen soil beneath polar snow and ice, contains twice as much carbon as previously estimated and may spark a further increase in temperatures should global warming continue....

There is as much as 950 billion tons of carbon stored in Arctic organic matter, most of it long-dead vegetation, the United Nations Environment Programme says. The Arctic region already accounts for as much as a third of the world’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, of 150 million tons to 250 million tons annually....

Yes, the whole climate change issue (however it is caused) may be much worse than we currently imagine. Of course it is likely that the brunt of the impact will fall most heavily on the poor people of the world.

Don't count on that, poor little Bloomberg rich kids. They don't have as far to fall. It is a basic law of thermodynamics that complicated systems are normally harder to maintain than simple systems.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

But, at least it seems more and more likely that we will leave a legacy for which we will be remembered.

Yeah --- remembered with hatred and disgust.

Hitler and Göring and Stalin will be remembered as minor juvenile delinquents compared to us.
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[numan]

the planet has nearly 7,000,000,000 people who use the resources of this world and who by doing so also cause pollution, anyone claiming they believe that can have no effect on the planets ecology is either honest, but dumb as a post, or lying for political reasons.

· · · · or both !!!
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[Dot Com]

its the one's who believe that the earth was given to them to despoil at their leisure that piss me off!!! Very selfish/narrow-minded.

 

[Oddball]

The planet has nearly 7,000,000,000 people who use the resources of this world and who by doing so also cause pollution, Anyone claiming they believe that can have no effect on the planets ecology is either honest, but dumb as a post, or lying for political reasons.

Straw man argument....Nobody has said or is saying that people cannot have any effect on the ecology at all.

Having an effect on the planet's ecology and claiming that it can be positively controlled (which is the core argument of the warmist wackadoodles) isn't the same thing.

 

[numan]

Yeah, but demanding that we change our "evil ways" in North America aren`t you barking up the wrong tree?
You enviro-activists are in all the wrong countries...the relatively under populated western...countries

Well, Polar Bear, you creature threatened with imminent extinction, congratulations for having the brains to see that over-population (especially in poor countries) is a problem.

However, only someone as dumb as a post would not realize that over-exploitation and over-consumption by the rich is as great a problem -- or worse!

Almost everyone in the world could live far better lives and still consume less and have less of a harmful impact on the world.

The basic problem is that most humans can work hard, but they cannot work smart!

What should we do ?..promote free for all abortions in North America, Siberia and Australia ?

No, you silly, illogical man, we should be promoting free abortions EVERYWHERE!!

It would be good to mitigate the stupendous suffering which will soon overwhelm us. One of the best and quickest ways to diminish suffering is to reduce, as quickly as possible, the number of humans, in order to bring it in line with the future reduced carrying-capacity of the planet.

We should provide robust economic benefits to people who have no children, and corresponding economic hardships to those who have more than two children.

Also, providing economic and educational benefits (a new type of "affirmative action") to females in third world countries would help to give them greater control over their own lives, and they would have fewer children.

Once we change our focus from averting catastrophe to minimising it, there is much that we can do.
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[RetiredGySgt]

Woo is me, we are all DOOMED, DOOMED I say. And now we have one of the ghouls wishing for it to happen even faster then his supposed science claims it will.

He openly calls for the death of 90 percent of the population and claims even at that rate he will still be surrounded by idiots. And of course when these deaths occur our genius will somehow be one of the survivors cause well he is special.

 

[Unkotare]

However, only someone as dumb as a post would not realize that over-exploitation and over-consumption by the rich is as great a problem -- or worse!
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There is no overpopulation. Find something else to shit yourself over, *****.

 

[Uncensored2008]

'
THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IS NOT SMALL OR HARMLESS

Biomass

The total biomass of planet Earth (the total mass of all plants and animals and other organisms all over the world, on land and in the seas) is about 75 billion tonnes.

The total biomass of the human species is about 250 million tonnes, or about one part in 300 of the total biomass.

If the total biomass of 75 billion tonnes were to be spread evenly over the 500 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, it would form a film approximately one-tenth of a millimetre thick.

Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems

In any one year, humans utilize, alter or consume between one-tenth to one-twentieth of the total biomass of the Earth, depending on how you analyze the figures.
.

Oh my Allah.

So are you, as a good Bolshevik, suggesting that our governments get together and reduce the strain by 50% or so?

Standard Disclaimer: One thing about the left, they ALWAYS have a plan for mass murder....

 

[Uncensored2008]

You guys have been lamenting doom and gloom and the end of all things for centuries now and it just never happens for you. When will you ever wake up?

He doesn't give a damn about gloom or doom, he's just laying the foundation for the next democide.