I'll look for it...

I can't quite remeber where I got it from, but I'm 97.1923802^123 percent sure it's true..

This post has been edited by Channler: Sep 20 2005, 03:38 AM

I'm not disagreeing, it's just that News Channels often print stories that aren't true, or stories that come from the EPA which has lost all credibilitiy.

I tend to agree with you there..

Thats why I make sure to research everything when I do a story for my school news paper

And can you believe that I'm actually objective?!!

I'm going to switch gears and go back to a little biology argument about over-population and carrying capacity.

My argument: Humans have to reverse the path of environmental destruction and put our reliance on renewable resources starting immediatly.

Humans industrialized farming to extend our carrying capacity to a number we haven't quite hit yet but are coming toward quickly, that is the assumption. After all, every other species in our Phylon follows Logistic Growth Patterns (meaning their population stops growing once they do not have enough resources to support more).

However, Exponential growth species overshoot their carrying capacity and then face a die-off. Most of you know this, especially the guy who's majoring in the stuff.

Here's the thing. Industrialized farming is not giving what's we're doing quite the attention it deserves, let me break it down:

Synthetic Fertilizer: Normally to get nitrogen, nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert nitrogen into ammonium, a form the plants can take with their roots and process it. However, syntheic fertilizer produces human-processed nitrogen that is not put into the environment naturally. Without it, we would not be able to support the population. The downside is watershed takes this nitrogen into the lakes and bays, and upsets the nitrogen-oxygen balance, pushing oxygen out of deeper water, creating deadzones where no life aside of anaerobic bacteria could survive. Synthetic ntrogen also makes farmers less inclined to rotate their crops, and whether it seems that way or not, farms are an ecosystem like any other. They rely on varient species to occupy the different niches. That brings me to the next point.

Monocropping: Monocropping is when one species of crops occupies acres of farms. When a disease hits, the ecosystem of a monocroppic farm dies, and the farmer goes out of business.

Clear-cutting: There is about 1 quarter inch of top-soil in the average rain-forest. The rain-forest requires things to constantly die, and for their bodies to remain there for decomposition. If not, then the top-soil is washed away with watershed and the nutrients are depleted, and you transform the second largest producer of oxygen in this planet into an unrecoverable wasteland.

Pesticides: So much evidence against the usage of this stuff, and its still used because we require it to support our population. Even though there are plenty of alternatives, none get the marketing of Pesticides. Something funny, certain chemicals have been found in very toxic amounts in Inuat (Eskimos) female breast milk, people who have never eaten a single vegetable that been doused with pesticides, but the same chemicals are found. These chemicals bioaccumulate in organisms. Watershed takes the pesticide out to sea, and they get breathed in, very small amounts, by the fish. Too small to care about right? Well, it stays in them, and when a larger fish eats them, all the toxins go into them, and bioaccumulate in their fat. Then bigger fish eat them, and then the Inuat eat the bigger fish. One of the biggest sellers of pesticides is Monsanto, with their product, "Round-Up." Want to know what Monsanto also does?

Genetic Manipulation: Do I even need to go into this? Well, let's just say humans have introduced animals into new environments that have completely wiped out species. Now, certain humans want to make new species. The results are in the news.

Okay, on top of that, we have gotten ourselves hooked on finite resources. You've heard of the Oil Peak, well think of it like this, ignoring the problems of modern farming we would have a carrying capacity, reach it, and level off, except that our carrying capacity shrinks every single day as we have become a bacteria feeding off a dead body. Once it's all gone, something like ninety percent of the Bacteria die, That's the Oil peak, luckily we don't rely on it for food, so most likely it will just cause a Depression that will make the one in the Early 1900s look like a slight slump.

So yes, over-population is a threat, not because we don't have enough food, but we are continuing to poison our habitat and ourselves. In my opinion, we've already overshot our carrying-capacity because we could not support the current population without most of the harmful tools I listed above, and eventually, when we do meet the reprocussions, there will be a die-off.

Good points all... my only change in your arguments would be the references to the logic models that other species follow. Humans really cant be compared to those models because to my knowledge we are the only species who directly manipulates its own food supply.

Oddly enough though this poisoning of the environment is also solving the problem in a strange way. For decades now, researchers have been trying to discover why sperm counts in men have been slowly declining. The answer so far they have come up with is that estrogen-replacement drugs taken by millions is excreted in urine which is passed into our sewage treatment plants which have no means of breaking down the hormone. So as the treated waste is finally returned to the environment the estrogen remains. Water levels everywhere in North America have trace amounts of female hormones, which are increasing. This estrogen reduces the ability to create sperm and hence you will see ever decreasing birth rates.

Very well put Doomed.

except ammonia is not the preferred nitrogen source of plants, it is nitrates NO3. nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil and roots of legums turn atmospheric nitrogen into nitrate. when an organism dies the nitrogen compounds are broken down into ammonia(poisonous) by fungi and bacteria, which is then turned to nitrite(also poisonous). the nitrite is then turned into nirate by a totallydifferent bacteria.

also the leaking of nitrogen into lakes and streams doesn't really ofset a nitrogen-oxygen ratio. excess nitrogen leads to explosive growth in plant life. algae being very adaptive protists take advantage of the excess nitrogen and have a population explosion. eventually the protists run out of nitrogen and being unable to support the population size begins to die off. decomposition requires the use of oxygen...and lots of it so you see a depletion in oxygen becuase the decomposition of the algae. this when reaching critically low levels deprives fish of oxygen, thus causing the fish kill.

this is of course freshwater, saltwater gets even more complicated and much worse.

I'm muy sorry Doomed but I most say I'm a very stone-aged man.

Three menn try to get to the pretty valley on the other side of the stream.. Ok streams are pathetic... the mighty river of none ending doom!. Anyways, so these guys scratch their head a little and think.

I need to get from A......................... to ....................C but B in my way.. What can I do?

First the man trys to swim, that doesn't work, he drowns and his two brothers are left. The second brother thinks that maybe I can just avoid the problem and builds a catapult and flings himself over.. He makes it but in a big red mark. The third brother thinks of how much he wants to get there and decides that just maybe a boat might do it. He gets within 20 meters of the land and his boat sinks and he drownds

Ok, all three of the brothers are dead... 450 years later.

The land where these brothers came from is experiencing the worst famine ever known, and so they search for a new source of food and life. They come across the same spot where they called the brothers idiots for attempting to cross. Yet out of desperation the decided to try and cross together.

The people make very similiar mistakes to that of the brothers, yet finally, the people start working together and make a plan.

They'll build a bridge, and afte rmuch work and heartache it is finished. The people can cross into the better place.

Now my story may seem simple and very... well.. simple.. however.. Look at this as the "over population problem" and look at previous probs of the past. With human inginuity, and the technology that comes with that man has overcome many obsticles, save war.

While I don't think your fears are dumb or ungrounded, I do think you always overlook how well the human mind CAN perform in dire circumstances.

Neela,

That would solve the problem, if the problem was overpopulation. It's not, we produce enough grain alone to feed every single human being 3500 calories a day. The problem lies in where we get the food. Anyway, infertility also naturally rises in organisms that are heavy in population. Also, correct humans may not follow an exponential pattern, despite how the human growth graph looks like one. The difference is that some major changes would be need to be made to stop the drop.

Megil, Yeah I over simplified iy.

Channler, So you're saying, we shouldn't worry about all these environmental threats because once we are at the worst possible situation we will finally start working together? It starts now by raising awareness of what we need to do, get off oil and on renewable energy, find unharmful ways to farm, etcetera.

I must say that our dependence on about 7 grains is ridiculously risky. we can thank the green revolution for that. I am just glad scientists saw this and we have a seed bank of wild cultivars should massive crop die out occur. Of course it will take time between the planting of the seed bank and cultivation during which we will have to ration out remaining grain supplies. It is a very very dangerous situation should it ever occur.

On a similar note is the coming plague. Basically it is a result of the massive amount of antibiotics humans produce and ingest. You know how doctor's always tell you to finish yourmedication even if you feel better. There is a reason for this apart from preventing the dumping of antibiotics. When you feel better it emans the antibiotics has killed MOST of the antigen( foreign particle usually bacterial proteins and viruses) Antibiotics kill those bacteria or destroy those viruses that are ill-apt to deal with the medicine. so basically the weak antigen are destroyed. there are still those that remain that have a genetic resistance to the drug and can tolerate certain levels and times of exposure. should you stop taking the drug these strong bugs will multiply and in doing so create new variations some of which will be able to tolerate even higher levels of medication. Eventually a point is reached where a strain develops that is entirely immune to one, sometimes even 2 antibiotics. This is very serious becuase then no matter how much medication you take these 'bugs' are not affected by them.

Of coruse I am summarizing here, i could get more technical but I shant.

Not only is medication to blame. Notice all the antibacterial products out there that kill 99.9% of hamrful bacteria and viruses? well guess what that .1% are the few(in the thousands and even millions we are taking here) bacteria that manged to survive the antibiotics. these will reproduce to make equally resistant bacteria and through sexual reproduction (yes bacteria exchange plasmids in oder to maintain variation) create even "stronger" bacteria that can tolerate or are immuno to the antibiotic. the hihgh-resistant bugs are thus being dubbed "super-bugs" because they are reaching the levels of immunity every single day. You se it in papers where a young man dies from a simple staff infection. why becuase the drugs could not fight the bacteria.

And even worse than the creation of these Super-bugs is the weakening of our immune systems from constant help of anti-biotics. This means a high percentage of people's immune systems will be unable to act (an immune response takes several days ) fast enough to destroy the pathogen before the pathogen overwhelms, or kills, the host. so the coming plague will be a combination of superbugs that will be immune to a majority of antibiotics, and facing weakened immune systems equallin massive catastrophe.

antibiotics are not easy to make, and there are only like 6-7 that have been developed. and they were shortly after the discovery of penicillin. I think currently there are 2-3 antibiotics that are entirely useless, and there is only ONE that ahs yet to be distributed. It was put aside after scientists theorized the ability for bacteria to become immune.

Just one example of how our technology has made a bigger problem than the one it solved.

However Megil if not for technology we would still be hunting gazelle in the wilds of africa and none of us would go to college and know all this stuff and be able to talk smack...

And doomed, I never said that, people should be well aware. Though I don't see any solutions to the problem in your post..

I care for our wildlife and the fragility of our ecosystem but I'd like to see you give up your internet and cellphones and BOOKS for the better of the enviroment before we start throwing out problems and trashing human advance...

It's not just about our ecosystem here, it's about us. People have assumed because we manipulated our ecosystem to rely on farming and tamed animals for survival the ecosystem is nothing more to us than some pretty thing to look at. This is unfortunately the idea formed in many people's heads. We are still apart of the ecosystem and still rely on the balance of the ecosystem for survival, even if we can grow our own food. There is a cycle that feeds into our own.

Channler, if you didn't say that, what did you say? You gave a story, I interpreted it that when faced with a problem on the brink of death people are willing to cooperate to find a way where others who were not under the same stress failed. This has made me intrepret your story to suggest that we don't need to act yet, because it's not life-threatening yet.

You'd be surprised how certain situations can cause cooperation between two partys...

And near death experience doesnt have to be the providing factor in it either

A good example of that is the movie Crash. One of my favorite movies.

Well one of these events might be the current events of the past few months. With the hurricanes keeping a good portion of refining offline and the resulting sky rocketing fuel costs I would be very surprised if you didnt see a bigger push for alternative fuels here shortly. Also I would like to see them use the reconstruction of New Orleans as an opportunity to show America the benefits of such. When they start rebuilding New Orleans they should encourage companies that produce fuel cells and solar cells to donate or at least sell at cost. The biggest problems with alternative fuels is the tremendous cost of them. The few people who buy solar cells for their homes currently can't support the market and so these units cost some $20,000 or more. Hardly an expense most people would justify on limited budgets when fossil fuel energy was so cheap. As the oil prices increase and more people start buying solar... solar will get cheaper. Eventually the longterm savings of solar will outweigh the cost of oil and you will see things rapidly change all over the country. Concern for the benefits to the environment is good.. but unfortunately it comes down to cost for it to become practical.

Ok time for a new topic...

What are your thoughts about guns and gun control?

Just a short one about guns....in Sweden we are not allowed to carry guns..unless we are hunters, and so have a licence for it.

We aklso are obliged to have a special safe at home for the storage of weapons when not in use. There are regulations about the lock of the safe as well....

So we are not so used to carry weapons here...and if I may say so I´m glad , because I do think that it woud increase violence.

I forgot who originally pushed for the second amendment in the costitution but I remember his reasoning was that he wanted to be able to control his slaves better. I don't like guns but I think it must be a conscious decision not to carry one because it is a right to be able to defend yourself in this country and to make them illegal only shifts the balance to the people who obtain things illegally. Making guns illegal won't take them out of the hands of thugs and mobsters, only out of crazed ranchers and various other rednecks. It should be pointed out most gun deaths in suburban areas result along the lines of a wife or mother hearing noises outside, grabbing her husband's shotgun and shooting the burglar only to find out it was her daughter breaking curfew.

I should also point at that I am not a libertarian, I don't think if someone gets shot they should sue the guy who shot them or lynch him. I think the government needs to restrict guns as much as possible, making them much harder to obtain.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/...ent_3696757.htm

Let it begin.

Anyway, what are your opinions concerning this?

This post has been edited by gamer10: Nov 5 2005, 05:08 AM

Iran has always been a very religious country. I don't mean very religious like people are very devoted to their faith, I mean the leaders of Iran oftenly think Islam or the highway. The see the Holy Land as a place specifically for Muslims. I mean, it's hard not the sympathize with Iran because of the harassment they get from the US, like the threat that they'll do to them what they did to Iraq and so on. This is just their radical take on a conflict though. I think the situation is far too complicated. For one, the Jews were basically thrown at Israel not too long ago in their struggle to survive. They were placed in "Unoccupied land" as our Government reported it near the end of WW2. Of course, it wasn't unoccupied land. The Israelites didn't really have a choice in the matter, they could either kick out the Palestinians or be a people without a land themselves. Currently, however, we have Israelites who are flat-out racists and think of themselves as the Chosen People. They're treating the Palestinians like compassion and we're helping them.

Do I think the US needs to back-off? No, but I think they need to switch sides in the confclit. They need to moderate the conflict so they two people can come to a compromise. It would lessen world terrorism, it would make many of the governments thinking like Iran's to back off Israel and it would make the US look better to a world account. Helping Israel accomplish this racist compassion is inviting the very destructive behavior that our current Government claims it wants to stop.

The conflicts between Israel and Palestinians are just the current focal point of a conflict that has been going on for centuries. It really has nothing to do with how Israel is treating Palestinians or if Palestinians are blowing up innocent Israelies. Both are condemnable in these actions, but it boils down to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all were basically born from the same belief system. A belief system that contained within it that those who followed it were Chosen and all others were inferior. As this belief system fractured and branched into these three religions each group of people took with them this sole belief that they were right and the others were wrong. They all took it upon themselves that it is there duty to "save" the others by converting them to their cause. By word, birth, or sword! Even though the desired outcome truly is unattainable and fruitless.. They still fight on.

If you step back and look at the really big picture painted throughout history... The conflicts haven't changed really...