On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:31:15 -0500, <jon@dakota-truck.net> wrote:
>
> No doubt clean water is a problem in parts of the world, though I
> would take issue with the statement that resources are becoming more
> scarce. Doomsdayers have been saying we'll run out of this or that
> for hundreds of years, but here we all are. Plus, if you look at
> the areas where scarcity genuinely *is* a problem, one generally
> finds that it is a problem brought about by the government in
> that area as opposed to a physical lack of goods and services. There
> is nothing wrong with the bleak and starving nations of Africa that
> a little capitalism and political freedom wouldn't cure.
>
> I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I am pretty
> sure that the US is still the world's largest exporter of food and
> agriculture. (Even if it isn't still true, the US does export a LOT
> of food.) So not only do we have enough land to support our own
> supposedly unsustainable level of living, but we have enough left
> over to feed the rest of the world too. All this when there is
> still a *vast* amount of land available for farming, AND millions upon
> millions of acres of actual farmland sitting idle because the US
> Government is paying farmers *not* to grow crops, or pressuring them
> in other ways to reduce the amount of agricultural activity so as to
> artificially inflate prices in certain markets. Something just doesn't
> add up here, and I suspect the hysteria about urban sprawl and
> diminishing resources is yet another scare tactic based on politics
> instead of science.
>
>
Certainly true. I don't think anyone is currently suggesting that the
world is currently overcrowded. But we are headed in that direction.
Population grows exponentially. If 100 years ago the world population was
growing at 10% per year for a population of 1 billion, that's only 100
million more people per year. Now with 6 billion people on the planet with
a 10% growth rate, that will add 600 million people per year. Not true
numbers, just trying to illustrate what the worries are and that they hold
water. Potable water is a currently a concern in a lot of the world. Even
in the western united states where aquifer levels are declining because of
heavy irrigation. Places like India have a water supply problem.
Technology and modern infrastructure would certainly help alot of the
places on Earth that have these difficulties. But that only goes so far.
There is only so much fresh water available. The Colorado River no longer
empties into the ocean because of those demands. I don't agree that places
where resources are scarce is genreally because of the government. A lot
has to do with money. That isn't always because of the government.
These issues are real. I don't see how anyone can deny that they exist.
Yes, there are people and politicians that exagerate them. You can't rely
on news reports for accurate information on subjects like this that are
very complicated. They just report small bites of information. But if you
p[ick up a National Geographic, watch some Discoevry channel and some PBS
onnce in awhile, you'll hear the words straight from the mouths of the
scientists. And yes they aren't always exactly right on the button about
everything. But it's not like these theroies or issues just appeared in
the last 15 years. Global warming has been studied for many decades. As
time goes on, they get more information that backs up the theroy. For
those people that said we would run out of oil by now, they didn't
anticipate new technologies or the high price of oil making other sources
viable.
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