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Hmm, where do I start here?

The word 'cull' seems strong, but I don't know what else could be used in this situation. The article discusses what would happen if we had less Australian or American children, and more African children. That CO2 emissions would be lower is indisputable. This I think is designed to draw attention to how high carbon emissions per capita are in developed countries as compared to developing countries (a point used by China for their inaction on carbon emissions for some time). If we are to take reducing carbon emissions seriously (assume we are for the sake of argument) then we either need our children to produce less carbon, or we need less children.

Nowhere in the article is there a call for mass extermination, you're being completely ridiculous in that. They may call for people to have less children, but killing children already here? Are you so deluded that you actually think a major British newspaper could call for such a thing and get away with it? Also, John Holdren advocated placing sterilants in the water supply? No he didn't.

Finally, the graph. Ah yes, like I've never heard that before. The analogy I use is that we have a pair of scales, with 100 kilograms on each end and place 3 kilograms on one side (or 220 pounds on each side and place 7 pounds on one, take your pick). That's a 3% change. What will happen? According to the logic here, nothing. But in reality, 3% can make all the difference.

I'm confused. If poor people have more babies than rich people, poor people have more abortions than rich people, and more poor babies die than rich babies die, how is making everyone poor going to reduce the growth of population?

Serenity, you stupid dingbat,

The word "cull" is used by the author in the piece, and it's definition is the reduction in the size of a herd through killing some members of it. The author may have been unaware of the proper definition, but it is the word he used.

Second, it's arguable whether Holdren advocated putting sterilants in the water. In the refutation "Politifact" provides, he seems to object the idea only because such sterilants had not been developed and might have environmental side-effects. He does not express a moral or ethical objection to their use. It is not arguable that in that same book he argued for coercive birth control, coercive abortion, and for state control of reproduction. He is also on video calling for the redistribution of wealth from rich countries to poor ones in the name of environmental justice.

Third, you're a complete twit. The environment is not some delicately balanced mechanism where everything has to be just perfect or it falls apart. It is a massive and complex organism that is constantly changing and adjusting. To be stupid enough to think humans control the temperature of the Earth is like thinking the spiders in the basement control your thermostat.

Hello, V the K. Nice opener there.

So, you're not actually sure the author is calling for a cull? You entertain the possibility that this is just a misunderstanding, and the author used a stronger word then they perhaps should? In which case, where's the controversy? This is about intent, not semantics.

Second, we've gone from "we already have a Science Czar who has advocated putting sterilants in the water supply" to "it's arguable whether Holdren advocated putting sterilants in the water" in the space of a few messages. He considered the possibility, rejected the possibility, and later said focusing on 'optimum population' should not be an aim of the US government.

Third, so that about does it for the fine-tuning argument then? Either way, I don't think I can argue the finer-points of anthropogenic global warming theory in these blog posts. But as far as I'm concerned, I learned about the theory back during the late 90s, found it be convincing, and have seen nothing since that has changed my mind. Your weak analogy (Hint: Humans have sentience, we can have a greater than normal effect for an animal of our size, I'm sure spiders with human-level intelligence could well find a way to operate a thermostat) has not changed that.

We've got to cull the children! It's...uh...for the children! /liberal

Serenity, you appear to be under the influence of Holdren's Kool-Aid.

Re-read the politifact article you linked. Holdren's office issued this statement:

The quoted material was from a section of the book that described different possible approaches to limiting population growth and then concluded that the authors’ own preference was to employ the noncoercive approaches before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones.

Your denial of his views focuses on his statement that he would prefer, "to employ the noncoercive approaches."

His statement is classic authoritarian doublespeak. Notice that it ends, "before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones."

Notice how that is phrased? This is a classic Nuremberg defense, which places the blame for the coercive methods on a "desperate society."

The book itself presents the "coercive" methods in a detached, matter-of-fact tone, and from a third-person view.

The book and response are deliberately written in such a way as to prevent the extraction of smoking gun quotes. This has been standard operating procedure for the ivory tower intelligentsia for centuries.

This is textbook advocacy of authoritarianism through the use of detached language and third person straw men.

If you read the book in context, it is plainly obvious that inflammatory material is presented as a matter-of-fact plan to be used by "desperate societies" facing a perceived Malthusian catastrophe.

It would be no different than if Bin Laden renounced his personal advocacy of Jihad, and started writing academic papers claiming that, "desperate Muslims may begin having to fly planes into buildings to deal with the reality of cultural non-submission by godless, imperial powers."

See how that works? By using an indefinite third person to lay out what the author personally sees as solutions to problems, the author can always backpedal if anyone accuses him of actually advocating it. What this is basically saying is that, "this [the problem] is going to happen, and this is what will have to be done about it by a society discarding its morality and liberty in the face of crisis."

"But, aha!, I never advocated it. I only discussed a plan for what the response could be."

When you frame a problem as inevitable and beyond the control of identifiable people, it is easy to link a horrible solution to that desperation through detached language.

Hitler did the same thing. By building up a large body of anti-Semetic work, framing the Jewish race as being a national security threat, and assembling depersonalized state apparati to carry out his plan, he was able to bring about the Holocaust by convincing SS members that they were simply helping their state respond to crisis. Men and boys who would not normally have killed blindly followed genocidal policy once it was framed as a state necessity conducted by a depersonalized state apparatus.

You have to keep Holdren's comments in context. During the time this was written, he was, in his other work, an unhinged advocate of Malthusian disaster theories and global cooling.

Put two and two together and stop drinking that academic Kool-Aid.

So, you're not actually sure the author is calling for a cull? You entertain the possibility that this is just a misunderstanding, and the author used a stronger word then they perhaps should? In which case, where's the controversy? This is about intent, not semantics.

The author said, and I quote:

By today's standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis. …one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

Cull, Verb

to cull (third-person singular simple present culls, present participle culling, simple past and past participle culled)

1. To pick someone or something.
2. To take someone or something (from somewhere).
3. To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
4. (nonstandard, euphemism) To kill (animals etc).

Definitions one and two do not apply here, since the author states, "one less British child would permit[...]" The word, as used, must indicate an action with effect, since the author clearly describes the consequences of fewer British children.

No, this is not simply semantics or poor word choice. If you will read the author's history, it is open and obvious that he is a Malthusian alarmist, a believer in runaway global warming, and an adherent to the furtherance of social justice through means which punish and redistribute, rather than simply helping to build up those individuals perceived as being marginalized.

The author's intent is to further social justice and equality of circumstance, while at the same time preventing a Malthusian catastrophe, by considering what it would be like if British children were killed. Notice that detached third-person tone again? That is exactly how Holdren framed his ideas without having to take personal responsibility for them. Despite the fact that this is ideologically consistent with the author's positions, and that the author deliberately selected this topic and the proposal for a cull for a reason, he still uses academic language to remain detached from personal responsibility for advocating genocide.

Finally,
I learned about the theory back during the late 90s, found it be convincing, and have seen nothing since that has changed my mind.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

31,478 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs

Are all these scientists on the payroll of ExxonMobil, or did they see something sketchy you may have missed?

Anthropogenic global warming theory? First of all, no one here really gives .02 about changing your mind, but given the following:
1. The modern thermometer has been around for not quiet 300 years (although standardization of markings came much later).
2. The earth is estimated to be ~4.5Billion years old.
3. There is evidence of very large climate shifts for virtually the entire history of the earth.
4. Universal guidelines for measuring global temperature at all of the various measuring sites has been around since. . . well, never.
5. Universal guidelines for the placement of global temperature measuring stations has been around since. . . well, never.
6. The number of reporting stations declined precipitously with the data of the remaining stations mathematically manipulated to make up for the loss of the stations (mostly in Canada and Siberia) at the end of the cold war. What a coincidence that this is exactly when the data used to support the theory took a stair step up, hmmmm.
7. Ice core data used to be a big part of the normal climate change denier's argument, until someone pointed out that the CO2 rises after, not before, temperature in the cores, hmmmmm.
8. The theory is proped up by computer models that do such a poor job of accounting for water vapour's contribution to climate that this weakness is used extensively as a reason to beg for more funding. By the way, comparing CO2 to water vapour in earth's atmosphere as to "greenhouse" effect, is like comparing a rubber band to a nuclear reactor.
9. Examination of the IR spectrum of CO2 reveals that it has no major absorption peaks anywhere near the main peaks in IR radiation either coming from the sun or re-radiating from the earth. Some say it "reflects" the heat, but that argument implies the molecule is only reflective on the side facing earth apparently, else it would also shield earth from radiate heat.
10. Interestingly, only CO2 from western democracies causes a problem (despite the ratio of GNP/CO2 being more favorable here), while CO2 from socialist or communist countries is no problem. So we have a molecule that is only reflective to IR on it's bottom and also has a sense of social justice!!

In summation, considering the strength of the underling baseline data, sacrificing western industrialization to stop climate change makes as much sense as mandating universal consumption of a potentially dangerous pharmaceutical based on a trial of a fraction of one dose.

If you want to cull humans just have the Wraith stop by. They are experts.

Lets instead just throw several thousand copies of that GUADRIAN in a barrel and burn them certianly would heat up the cold hearted liberal worshippers of the evil gaia THEY WOULD CERTIANLY MELT

THE EARTH IS NOT OUR MOTHER SCREW PAGANS

"The analogy I use is that we have a pair of scales, with 100 kilograms on each end and place 3 kilograms on one side (or 220 pounds on each side and place 7 pounds on one, take your pick). That's a 3% change. What will happen? According to the logic here, nothing. But in reality, 3% can make all the difference."

The problem, Serenity, is that your analogy is defective. CO2 is used by plants in the photosynthesis process, it doesn't just hang in the air as an inert substance.

CO2 + light + plant = carbohydrates that nourish the plant (and any animal that eats it) + oxygyen.

A weight on a scale, OTOH, may be subject to some oxidation, depending on what it is made of, but it's not going to be consumed or converted to useful materials in the same way CO2 is.

I'm all for a cull of the human population in order to stop global warming, as long as it's the strongest believers in global warming that are culled.
In fact, it's only logical that global warming believers should want to set the example for the rest of us and rid the Earth of their awful emissions.

Its like that lunkhead AL GORE calling western society disfunctional If that Gores to see anything thats disfunctional i suggest he look into a mirror

Plus you've messed up the analogy with the balance. Notice the CO2 resulting from human activity is only 3.4% of total CO2, which is 3.62% of greenhouse gasses, so what you're doing is taking a balance with 100kg on each side and adding not 3kg but 123g to one side. A sensitive balance might lean a wee off the zero line. But that's not all! The analogy fails on a more basic level, whereas an increase in the availability of CO2 results in an increase in consumption by plants. The system self-regulates to a remarkable extent, although it does change over time. It's just not anyone's fault. Where I sit was under a glacier some 15000 years ago. Why isn't it anymore? Climate change. Whose fault was it? Those rich white cavemen driving their huge SUVs around hunting the wooly mammoth to extinction? Oh, that's right, IT WASN'T ANYONE'S FAULT! But wow, that's a hell of a lot more change than these assholes are predicating the destruction of our economy on. I'm not comfortable with that.

But as far as I'm concerned, I learned about the theory back during the late 90s, found it be convincing, and have seen nothing since that has changed my mind.

I'm guessing you've never looked.

Water vapor is ~95% of the total greenhouse gas inventory. Why is this proportion of greenhouse gases ignored?


If humans produce ~3.4% of the total of the total CO2 inventory, why is the other 96.6% being ignored?



Answer: One world government.


Man-made CO2 is within an error term that is totally swamped by natural factors that produce water vapor and CO2 (such as the oceans).
Why should we be concerned about an inconsequential fraction of CO2 gas?

Answer: One world government

There is no compelling evidence that CO2 produces a runaway greenhouse effect at the atmospheric pressure of the earth.
Why are we so frenetically concerned about someone else's incandescent light bulb?

Answer: One-world government.

So why only western kids is it becuase western kids dont worship GAIA like the kids of pagan wackos do

My usual answer to these envirowackos is:

"You First!"

As usual, the role model for liberals is communist China, which is praised for reducing its population by hundreds of millions by dictating to parents that they can only have one child — a policy that often results in infanticide for baby girls.

That does not even take into account the observation is that China is a filthy country by any yardstick. Its business and industry has one of the worst environmental records of any nation I can name.

After all, it may only be a matter of years before global warming inconveniences the polar bears unless the human race is reduced to a few barefoot peasants cowering before their socialist overlords.

This is funny. Why?

Because, as you know, it's almost Halloween. In observation of everyone's favorite celebration of tooth decay, depravity and death, the History Channel ran a documentary this evening about Vlad the Impaler, the 15-century Romanian aristocrat who was notorious for murdering his subjects in some of the most brutal ways imaginable, and who later was the inspiration for the Dracula legend.

Why do I bring this up? Because, if you read the history of medieval Europe at large, it seems to be little more than a 1,000-year-long story about a handful of rich elites indiscriminately torturing and murdering people they didn't like, often for the flimsiest of reasons - religious-driven bigotry, a drain on public resources (Vlad was especially guilty of killing the old and sick), political opportunism, or simply because it happened to be Thursday. Over and over again, it seems to have been common over the whole continent to not just slaughter people accused of some (usually minor) crime, but to do so in a way that caused maximum pain and discomfort as the victim slowly died.

You guys REALLY ought to come out to Los Angeles sometime. If you make the trip, stop by "Medieval Times" dinner and jousting tournament, and be sure to cap off your visit with a tour of the Torture Museum.

Where was I? Oh yes. One parallel I draw between medieval Europe and modern Western countries is that we seem to gradually drifting back toward the Dark Ages mentality that some government official (a king or other noble in those days) gets to decide that some populations simply aren't worth keeping around. Who deigns to sit in God's chair for a day and decide who lives, who dies.

Those who make proclamations about the need for population control or elimination of certain demographic groups are no better than the actual mass murderers of history (and today). Merely lacking the authority to carry about the bloodbath does not render the heart pure and the hands clean.

What I'm really trying to say is that we seem to be heading back toward a time when some individual or group who wields the power of The State, claims the prerogative to mistreat people or simply dispose of them any time they see fit. Instead of holding to the only correct view of human beings - that they are individuals with certain basic inalienable rights, precious to God and made in His image.

The abuses of the governments of medieval Europe gave direct rise to the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments (as well as numerous other guarantees) as enshrined in the US Constitution. It is a shame that in our own time, we've forgotten the lessons that the Founders' ancestors (who fled persecution and poverty in Europe) passed down.

He considered the possibility, rejected the possibility, and later said focusing on 'optimum population' should not be an aim of the US government.

Wow, that was big of him. Props to an official working for a government which is supposed to be bound by a document. A document which protects the people from the arbitrary elimination of undesirables - in this case, children in Western countries.

Funny how all the chatter on the Left about "reproductive freedom" seems to be about the "right" to kill babies, not have as many of them as a woman wishes to have.

"Funny how all the chatter on the Left about "reproductive freedom" seems to be about the "right" to kill babies, not have as many of them as a woman wishes to have."

You know what's even more ironic? A transexual man-to-woman who goes by the name of "serenity" thinks it's okay to dictate to heterosexuals how to live their sexuality.

Dear Serenity Now:

Your most telling statement:

"But as far as I'm concerned, I learned about the theory back during the late 90s, found it be convincing, and have seen nothing since that has changed my mind."

You found it to be convincing, so you're done? that's intellectual curiosity? how about the facts that the temperature has been cooling, co2 is harmless, and in order to survive, people have to use energy.