Plunderbund

No, the post went from published to private for an inexplicable reason without my knowledge. It’s back to published.

Her remark was inexcusable, which is clear.

Her column was IMO very good, which is also clear.

Sorry to disappoint (not). Those who know Ann’s writing style know she saves the last in a series for things she doesn’t mean for the purposes of ridicule. Ehrlich is certainly fair game for ridicule, having predicted the end of the world in the 1970s and (of course) not having to say he’s sorry, or even losing any of his cachet.

I don’t have to search very far to find people in the enviro movement who think the world’s population needs to drop by billions. There’s a link to a dozen of them at the end of the post, and they aren’t on the fringe. I take them at their word.

Thanks for clarifying, that is rather mysterious!

That you give Coulter any kind of kudos speaks volumes of your standards – no matter her “style”. Distance would be better, but you can crawl down into the basement with Matt if you’d like. I’m sure he’s got a few cheese puffs he can spare.

Which remark was clearly inexcusable? Love to see links to any evidence that “liberals want mass starvation and devastation”…or were you talking about the faggot comment? Maybe you can also point me to where Ehrlich
advocates eliminating all humans?

Poor Ann. See guys? She didn’t MEAN it! It’s her writing style! LMAO! I think it’s ready for the dryer now Tom, we’ve had enough of the spin.

The going to private thing gets found by me about once a month on previous post I thought was there and can’t find; then I find it’s private and have to make it published again.

If you want the world’s pop to go down by 70%, you won’t get there without doing something very undesirable. You could look at the, what, maybe 40-50 million or more lost to lack of use of DDT for 30 years as a clear current example of “devastation” — I mean, how many million do you need before an enviro-inspired decision qualifies as “devastation”?

As noted, I linked to a dozen who are rooting for a big population decline. You’ll note that a couple are hoping for a virus to do the job. They appear to mean what they say; I don’t see why they wouldn’t.

Proves jack. That some or few want population to decline does NOT support the statement “liberals want mass starvation and human devastation”. Sorry, bud. Don’t pass the test and I assume you know this. Unless you have some “largely if not predominantly so” bullshit qualifier you wanna toss out.

Population pressures are surely a problem, especially when you consider a goal of global capitalism would be for everyone to live basically like we do. That could get scary quick, as we see with China.

The bottom line is that Coulter doesn’t have a “style” per se. She just spits as much hatred and vitrol out there as she can and makes enough shit up hoping that a few lemmings will go along. You heard the calpping at the faggot comment. Nervous at first, but then full force marching over the cliff.

Still awaiting the Ehrlich quote where he advocates the elimination of the human race. Did a ton of research on him for debate and never once came across that one.

Your and Ann’s generalizations are over the top…get real and acknowledge it.

PS – No worry on the post hiccup. I’m still trying to get scheduling down – freakin’ GMT offset!

My point is that she was ri-di-cu-ling Ehrlich; those who read Coulter know that, and know that Ehrlich is richly deserving of ridicule for “predicting” the population bomb… still waiting on that one.

So now it’s BS qualifiers time — Most if not all of the true believers in the enviro movement, as noted in the post and the previous one linked to at the post, believe “what they don’t dare say,” which is that the pop needs to drop hugely. Most dedicated “enviros” believe this; most “conservationists” don’t, but are being dragged along unwittingly. Specific enough?

YOU haven’t answered for the millions lost to DDT due to very mainstream environmentalism. That’s a bit more to answer for than whether I’ve got my qualifiers down pat tonight. Someone should be feeling guilty, and worse. In fact, if I adopted a leftist mindset for a bit, I’d be going after someone for genocide.

Speaking of terms of endearment, readers and listeners know that Coulter and Limbaugh are referring to hard-lefties when they use the term “liberals.” When I quote them, I assume the reader understands their use of their terms. I’d prefer that they’d be more specific, but I’m not them.

The world pop is on track to level off around 2050; the faster capitalism is adopted, the faster the level-off will come, as smaller families have almost always accompanied the widespread adoption of it. And I don’t see the problem with the rest of the world living as we do. The resources are mostly available, and human ingenuity, as it always has, will enable the rest. One of many links with the pop projection is here:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

You’ll have to excuse the slight incoherence if any tonight; I was helping someone who was driving through a snowy icy mess, and I was on the phone with them while they were doing that.

Tom you should be ashamed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope your caller made it to their destination safe. I was busy trying to make my queens outlast ace seven.

I KNEW I’d get a “most, if not all” out of you! LOL. I love it!

Neither of us can predict the future, but given all the data that I’ve seen, it seems to make sense as a prudent individual to be on the side of caution. You probably teach this with money management. Or maybe you teach a “throw caution to the wind you’ll probably get a raise by that time and be fine” style of money management. Debt is globaloney.

Put me on the side of strong consideration for our effect on the planet and resources. If you truly side with human engenuity you’d have been OUTRAGED that Bush defunded alternate energy research to enable more hole drilling. But my guess is you weren’t – or I missed it.

I have great faith in our ability to come up with solutions to problems, but very little faith in those who profit from the problems themselves – ahum, capitalism.

But back to the topic at hand. You can’t point to ONE thing that substantiates the claim that “liberals want mass starvation and human devastation”. You also can’t point to where Ehrlich ever claimed to want to eliminate humans.

Her statements were false and inflammatory and you’d do good to acknowledge that. Step up and admit it, it’s OK. You’re cred will be fine.

On DDT, I’m not well versed in it but do know that it does help in fighting Malaria. The problems come in how it is used and how much. I also know there are alternatives to its use and that it hasn’t been banned. Some may advocate this – and you can agree or disagree – but it doesn’t prove that “liberals want mass starvation and human devastation” anymore than I can say conservatives like to buy crystal meth and sleep with male hookers, or that Catholic priests like little boys.

I personally support a public health exception to the use of chemicals to fight diseases, but want it highly regulated and closely observed. That would be what I call stewardship. That coupled with your ingenuity philosophy should be able to coexist. Absent the stewardship I think it is a dangerous experiment in cross your fingers and hope for the best.

King, Yes Tom should be ashamed for supporting and enabling the likes of Ann Coulter.

I’d just like to point out that the use of DDT was only banned as an agricultural insecticide. It is not banned for use in control of disease vectors.

However, it is becoming rather ineffective, especially in India, as insects evolve resistance to the agent.

I’d also like to point out that acknowledging the fact that the world can’t possibly support 6+ billion people all living at the West’s current standard of living is not wishing catastrophe on the planet, it’s acknowledging an inconvenient truth. If the goal is raising the world standard of living to a standard equal to the high standards in the western world (a noble goal, for sure) then there needs to be a lot fewer people, or the western standard of living needs to come way down. One look at China should make that painfully clear.

Coulter is a cancer. The fact that she’s so wildly popular with conservatives should be alarming. Especially for conservatives with conscience.

I should also make clear that stating that the world can’t sustain 6+ billion people living like Americans live doesn’t mean that we need to return to a Native American subsistence style. That’s ridiculous, and a false dichotomy. We have fabulous technologies that mean we can live at a very high standard of living while dramatically reducing our current environmental impact.

And even beyond technology, paying closer attention to energy use can make a big difference. For example, despite my home not being shaded during the summer, I am able to avoid using the AC for a large portion of the year since I’m oriented in such a way to be able to utilize prevailing west-to-east winds to keep my home cool, provided I’m diligent about when windows are opened and closed, and when shades are drawn back or not.

oh well for free speech

Yes, Brian, and if these things happen because they make economic sense, so be it.

What’s NOT needed is a global carbon-taxing, scare-mongering, business-killing, standard-of-living-reducing, internationally-run by the politically annointed regime that tells nations what they can and cannot do with their economies, and their aspirations (which is exactly what Kyoto, voted down 95-0 in the Senate, and its successors, would do).

But I don’t buy “the world can’t live as we do,” or more correctly phrased, “the world can’t live as it aspires to” (which of course will be different in many ways from how we live) argument. Given the current world situation, that’s condemning billions to poverty, and just as capitalism is showing signs of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty (having done so for quite a few hundred million already).

No, but I take it you support $100,000 tax incentives for businesses to buy SUVs while limiting hybrids to $4,000. So much for a “free” market. Free market economies are the real myth and I figure you know this inconvenient truth.

I also find it hard to believe that you wanna go down the road of bashing “scare mongering”…or shall we re-visit the run-up to the current war in Iraq?

Hi rock. Hi hard place. That’s Tom there in the middle.

King – free speech is great, but there is no such thing as free speech with no consequences. Say something stupid and offensive which also happens to be patently false and expect to get called out on it. Not a hard concept really.

But I don’t buy “the world can’t live as we do,” or more correctly phrased, “the world can’t live as it aspires to” (which of course will be different in many ways from how we live) argument. Given the current world situation, that’s condemning billions to poverty, and just as capitalism is showing signs of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty (having done so for quite a few hundred million already).

It’s a numbers game. If the world aspires to live as we do, there just aren’t the resources to make that happen. They aren’t there. I would hope that much of the world would choose to live more responsibly than we do. We could help by giving them a better target to aim at than the wasteful mindless consumerism we live by now.

China, for all it’s developmental problems, mostly gets it. We don’t. Unfortunately, many aspects of Chinese society that meant reduced energy consumption (high density, mixed zoning, etc) have started to fall by the wayside as China’s cities have begun to aspire to the Western standard of living – big homes in an automobile-based society. And interestingly, they are largely motivated by a desire to protect their economic well-being. They are taking a view that extends beyond next quarter’s returns.

Please note that this is not a broad endorsement of China or it’s policies – just pointing out that even those morons can see what’s going on when it comes to resource consumption.

We need to make changes, and the sooner we do it the easier it will be.