h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Try just breathing in for a few days.

Isn't it the Scots who do that? Too mean to breathe out?

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I don't know a huge amount about this, but..

Jared Diamond wrote a book called 'Collapse', about societies which , collapsed due to environmental factors. A fine read it is too. He's spent a lot of time in the developing world, particularly Papua New Guinea. He says that the locals are desperate for contraception, because the population growth there (and by implication, most other places) means that the land is not being used sustainably. The locals are all too aware of this, and would like to limit the size of their families. This *may* mean they only want four kids instead of eight, I don't know, but environmental problems go hand in hand with political and economic ones, and not having enough land, food or water because there's too many people would be obvious to anyone.


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Here we part.

We could also let the forests that used to cover most of the UK regrow. Not in central London, but there must be thousands of square miles of heather in the Highlands which are burnt off every year to stop trees growing. We'd have to pay for it though...

We were doing so well too.

It's unfortunate that you choose to ignore facts due to them being unpalatable.

"In 1990, Amartya Sen published a shocking article detailing the number of females in Asia and North Africa that were lost to foeticide, infanticide and general neglect (i.e. lack of adequate nutrition, healthcare, etc). He put that number at 100 million and coined the term “missing women” to describe these females lost to the strong cultural preference for sons. " http://www.endvaw.org/resources/gendercide.php

"Son Preference and Sex Selection

In many countries girls suffer from deep-seated cultural preference for sons. In many poor communities, little girls are often neglected and denied education and medical care. Parents on all continents are more likely to send their sons to school and keep them there longer than their daughters.

Strong preference for male children has led in some countries to sex-selective abortion of female foetuses and even female infanticide. Increased availability of reproductive technology such as amniocentesis and ultrasound has made possible this particular form of gender-based discrimination, resulting in higher-than-normal male-to-female sex ratios, as in China, the Republic of Korea and India. Laws in India and China now ban sex-determination testing. Nevertheless, in Asia alone, at least 60 million girls are "missing" due to these phenomena."
http://www.unfpa.org/intercenter/cycle/earlylife.htm



"Was the old Chinese saying, “better to have a crippled son than eight healthy daughters” still valid for their mother, family, and kin? And in that case why?



Apparently this is still the case today as new data reveal how would-be daughters in not only China but also in other Chinese societies and in South Asia are aborted in their millions as foetuses because of their sex. Already in 1990 it was estimated by the later Economy Nobel prize laureate Amartya Sen that one hundred million women were “missing” in the world, most of them concentrated to South Asia and China[1]. So many young girls have already been eliminated that it is showing in the demographics of the youth in these populations[2]. International and Chinese media have devoted a number of reports to the plight of the “surplus” of fifty million young men who cannot find a wife, while mainly women’s organisations have asked the crucial question, “Why has fatal discrimination of daughters returned to China?”
http://www.cefc.com.hk/uk/pc/articles/art_ligne.php?num_art_ligne=5701



Last year, 20 children were born to the women of Xicun. Sixteen were boys. The year before, 24 were born and 19 were boys. There is a reason for the preponderance of males: In 1999, the medical center that serves Xicun bought a cheap, Chinese-made ultrasound machine that allowed doctors to determine the sex of a fetus. Sex-selective abortions followed. And now the town, like hundreds of others in China, is facing a boom in boys.


Recent census figures show that 117 boys are born in China for every 100 girls. Boys are even more prevalent in rural areas, where they are needed to work and eventually inherit the land. (Stephen Shaver - AFP)


Sex-selective abortions, infanticide and significant differences in children's access to medical care are contributing to an increasingly skewed sex ratio in China's countryside, Western and Chinese researchers say. Figures released this year as part of China's census show there are 117 boys born for every 100 girls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A77925-2001May25


How tragic it is that the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide
still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized.

Girl children are often abandoned or aborted.

Statistics show that me now increasingly outnumber women in more than 15
Asian nations.

Boys are wanted. Boys are wanted because their worth is considered more
than that of the girl.

Boys are wanted to satisfy the ego: they carry on the father's name in
this world.

Yet too often we forget that for Muslims on the Day of Judgement, each
person will be called not by their father's name but by the mother's
name.

To please her husband, a woman wants a son. To keep her husband from
abandoning her, a woman wants a son.

And, too often, when a woman expects a girl, she abets her husband in
abandoning or aborting that innocent, perfectly formed child.

As we gather here today, the cries of the girl child reach out to us.

Address by Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan
at the Fourth World Conference on Women

Beijing
September 4, 1995

http://www.un.org/esa/gopher-data/conf/fwcw/conf/gov/950904202603.txt


It should be noted that female infanticide is expressly forbidden in Islam.

I agree that economic and political factors play a huge part, but it would be a mistake to ignore cultural pressures.

Sorry pedro, I am not being deliberately offensive, merely stating bald facts

While I agree that female infanticide is disgusting and I don't dispute it happens, you simply can't blame killing babies for population growth. That should mean less people, not more.

And I'm not offended, just don't agree with the logic.

I agree that it sounds illogical, but I believe human nature will kick in. It must be an awful decision, whatever the pressure, to kill a baby. I would be absolutely shattered if, for every couple that kills a baby girl, there aren't twenty who choose to keep having children until they have the boy that their society pressures them to have.

Is that an illogical hope?

Ok, I see the logic, although I suppose there would really have to be figures to *show* the effect.

Thinking back a bit, I have no idea if there are any stats to show what kind of birthrate people in the third world actually want. In the West, birthrate declines as wealth increases, so it would be natural for that effect to show in developing countries as they get wealthier. The only problem is, increasing wealth means increasing use of resources, which is the whole problem in the first place. I'm not sure solar power would be much use in parts of the tropics, and hydro-electric power seems to be an environmental disaster everywhere.

Another factor mentioned in Collapse was the export of deforestation. In Japan, they have the highest percentage of forested land in the West, which is great for them. Unfortunately, they import huge amounts of timber, seemingly from Australia of all places, which leads to all sorts of problems for the Aussies. In the report it mentions 18% of emissions coming from forest-clearing, so that must be targeted.

Again from Collapse, Diamond makes some observations which are highly relevant here. First, forests *must* be used sustainably. In places like Malaysia, typically logging companies get the use of tracts of land for a year or so. The natural thing to do therefore is to chop all the trees down. If they were only allowed 50-year leases, on the other hand, they would have an incentive to keep it as a going concern. So sustainable logging could, in principle, be reasonably straightforward. Diamond says that sustainable logging could provide more timber than is taken at the moment, and having no knowledge of my own, I'd trust him on that.

This would be 'farming' trees instead of 'mining' them. With farming, you treat them as a renewable source, whereas with mining you treat them as a non-renewable one. It's fundamental that we change how certain markets work so everyone has an incentive to ensure that farming is the only way to go.

We need to 'farm' pretty much everything from now on.

(PS, Collapse, by Jared Diamond, available from all good bookshops. It's bloody great)

IMO, there's absolutely no need nowadays to use so much wood in construction. So much of it seems to be used primarily for it's aesthetic value, which surely can be duplicated with other materials.

If it's coming from a sustainable, well managed forest, then it might be the best material possible. Might not of course. There are so many factors to consider, it would take a professional economist to do it.


Can't we just keeping taking bits of Hadrian's Wall?

NO! They've already started coming over! Build, build, build Hadrian's wall.

The problem with sustainable, well-managed forests is you need the political will long-term to keep sustaining it.

The slash & burn of the Amazon may look stupid, but if you're a subsistence farmer with a large family, those trees on the land next to yours are mighty tempting.

We have to make the land profitable. As a farmer's wife on Arran told me, "ye cannae boil a view".

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Feel free, if you do it sustainably

Just as well I'm not the touchy victim type eh?

Morning PC

Thanks for that informative dissertation.

I think we wil turn our 'stats down and hug each other while watching TV.

On a serious note , we haven't had as many ideas as I had hoped. The 'standard' methods of power saving seem to be accepted , and apart from alternative sources ( Wind. Solar etc ) not many posters have come up with an 'original' thought.

I thought my own scheme to put out certain street lights had some merit. I recognise that not many want to, or even can, walk to the office, and I understand any reluctance to tax fuel for all private transport and aircraft will not be popular.

But if we are going to do anything meaningful before it is too late for our kids and grandkids, we had better start now. I am well aware of the "Ah but it is China and India etc etc argument - but I think that is "head in sand" thinking. All revolutions start somewhere, and since we started the Industrial Revolution which began this mess, shouldn't we start the one to get us out of it?

For starters , lets us revert to GMT for ever. There is only so much daylight at any given time of year and mesing around with clocks and timetables is a pointless waste.

More ideas then?

Novo
Black Cat removed to save pointless posting!

>More ideas then?<

Seems to me that the long-term solution to the energy crunch might be along the lines of finally harnessing thermonuclear power. Supply of fuel (deuterium) supposedly relatevely inexhaustible in the world's oceans, and reaction products less toxic than conventional fission nuclear power reactors. Apparently, harnessing thermonuclear is easier said than done, however. Efforts to accomplish this on a practical scale have been going on for decades, and I'm not sure we're much closer to success. I know multi-national projects in this area have been undertaken. Anybody here more up to date on the current status and prognosis?

I agree

I have read articles about using the power of waves and tides, the technology is there. There is also a "turbine" to power a hydroelectric plant that looks like a big egg beater. It uses the current flow of a river and does not require a dam. This is being manufactured in the US and marketed in Korea for some arcane reason. There was an article on this turbine in Discover Magazine about a year ago or so, but unfortunately I cannot find the reference now.

This is interesting: http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/ This talks about a process called thermal depolymerization. There is a turkey processing plant in Carthage Missouri that is employing this process successfully. The installation of the plant and the beginning of operations were fraught with difficulties brought on by the existence of the offal which was being processed, there were disgusting, noxious, sickening odors. A lot of that has been addressed and solved.

Our real task is to find a way to limit our power use. Green, efficient construction is important. But so is the question of exactly how much space does each person need in the house that is being constructed. I look around this area and I see giant houses being built all over the place. These are designed for two people to live in. And yet, they have 3 to 5 THOUSAND square feet of floor space. This is 333 - 555 square meters: for two people. Insane.

Also, we need to think in terms of living nearer where we work. The push to suburbia fueled by the cheap car and cheap gas of the 50s and 60s needs to reverse. I work at home, so I don't have to commute. On the other hand, my best friends live 25 miles away from me out in the boondocks, so if we want to socialize and share meals, we have to drive our cars. I suppose I "could" ride my bike out there, but I'm afraid that would take me most of the day, I'm not in that great shape and it is a very hilly ride. I'm sure I would get in better shape, though. And if worst came to worst, I would probably make that change. But then there would be friends who live even farther away that I would never see at all.

We have all become so inured in our patterns and habits. Would talking on line with my worldwide friends on Hootoo make up for Tim and Jocelyn and Jay and Jeri and Caroline and Cliff and Nancy?

I am in total agreement with the turn off the lights idea posted above. Drive around any town in the United States, and you will see far more outside lighting than imaginable. Twenty acres of used car lots brilliantly lit all night long "for security". This is so the guys stealing tires don't have to bring their own lights along, I guess. Plus, since the whole place is lit brighter than day, their little pool of light doesn't stick out while they do their work. If you really need security lights, which I doubt, why not put them on motion sensors?

I also believe that all the street lighting is superfluous. I drive in the rural areas at night, and I find that my car lights are quite good at illuminating the road ahead and the ditches on the side. The argument that the street lighting makes it safer and prevents crime is beginning to be disproved. Bright overhead lights destroy your night vision and create deep dark shadows for the "bad guys" to hide in. More crime tends to occur in brightly lit areas than in the dark. Apparently the criminals like to be able to see what they are doing. You are actually safer walking in the dark with a hand held flashlight to illuminate the ground in front of you.

Why are we so afraid of the dark? And now that our cities are lit so brilliantly all night, why are we now not missing the incredible beauty of the starlit and moonlit night sky?

I'm sorry, I am in the wrong thread? How is daylight savings time a problem exactly?

George Monbiot has 10 suggestions for what we should do in the Guardian today.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/george_monbiot/2006/10/stern.html

Some very good ideas on that link. I particularly like the replacement of shops with warehouse delivery systems. I already do the majority of my shopping on the internet. I miss browsing in the bookstore, but Amazon and UPS get me books very efficiently. And the UPS guy is already coming here.

I also completely agree with the cessation of road building and widening activities. This should be a worldwide ban, effective immediately. Re-allocate that money to developing effective mass transit systems, bike trails.

Raise the price of gasoline by taxation to about 10 dollars a gallon to encourage car pooling and conservation. Use the tax to build trolleys, buy buses and jitneys, build efficient tram systems.