The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: franksolich on July 28, 2008, 05:52:33 PM
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3686490
Oh my.
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 08:42 PM
Original message
The Easter Island effect
As I understand it, anthropologists think that the residents of Easter Island, either from not understanding the necessity of husbanding their natural resources or from just plain greed, used up everything on the Island that sustained their life and they all died off.
Today, I heard a report on NPR that just stunned me. Apparently, climatologists predict that this summer, for the first time in recorded history, the North pole will be without ice. Common sense tells us that this should be a BIG, HUGE, WARNING FROM MOTHER NATURE! DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON! YOU ARE ****ING UP THE PLANET IRREPARABLY! The effects on our little blue dot, spaceship Earth, our tiny island in the Milky way galaxy from the continued pressures of overpopulation and limitless greed and over consumption of our planets natural resources should be obvious to everybody and the final result should be apparent to all. The end of civilization as we know it.
So what are are world leaders and corporate masters doing about it? THEY ARE GLEEFULLY ANTICIPATING THE UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY TO GET UP THERE AND DRILL AND PLUNDER THE NATURAL RESOURCES THAT WILL BE MADE ACCESSIBLE BY THE ICE MELT!
God help us all.
Atman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 08:45 PM
Response to Original message
1. Maybe if we build some statues...
It's pretty ****ing crazy, no? I think it stems from a defeatist attitude; it will take eons to reverse the damage we've done, so why not just go for it now while we, the still living, can benefit from it? **** our kids and grandkids. There's profits to be made!
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. I saw this comming when I was in my teens and decided not to have children. Now, at 57, I fear what the next 30 +- years I have remaining are going to look like. I feel especially sorry for my wife's grand kids. I just don't see the leadership or the enlightenment of the global population to turn this around.
Yeah, right.
The tumbum primitive decided to not have children because it would take attention and resources away from the tumbum primitive, who thinks he should get all of it for his selfish self.
Remember, the primitives always disguise base motives under a facade of principle.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. Jared Diamond is a dumbass
In "Collapse" he says that the Easter Islanders cut down all their trees in one chapter, but he also says that all the tree seeds were eaten by rats in another chapter. Maybe the Easter Islanders didn't cut down all their trees, but the trees failed to regenerate on their own?
He comes up with some half-assed theory, and cherry-picks anecdotes to fit the theory, ignoring all conflicting data.
donco6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:34 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. That's a pretty harsh assessment.
I liked both Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. I don't find him to be a dumbass.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. I know it's harsh
but I think it's deserved.
A real scholar wouldn't ignore or dismiss contradictory evidence.
Also, Collapse was very badly written. He needs an editor badly.
Fumesucker (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:02 PM
Response to Reply #9
16. Trees and the seeds of trees are two different things..
The inhabitants of Rapa Nui cut down the trees on their island to make tools for moving and carving the stone statues that are lying all over the place there. That rats also ate the seeds of the trees, making it impossible to grow more trees, has nothing to do with whether or not the actual trees growing in the ground were cut down.
Eventually the islanders got to the point there were no trees left needed to make the canoes for fishing, where a great deal of the protein for human consumption came from. Also, with no trees for canoes it became impossible to leave Rapa Nui and the inhabitants descended to barbarism and cannibalism.
Rapa Nui is indeed a good analogy for our island Earth and a cautionary tale to those who would rape the environment for short term gain.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #16
24. All trees have to regenerate, and all trees naturally die.
Even giant redwoods naturally die after a thousand years. Most tropical trees don't even live that long.
How does Diamond know, with no written record, that the trees did not naturally regenerate?
freethought Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:44 PM
Response to Reply #9
19. There was definite evidence that Easter Island was once covered in trees, a jungle island. Now, there isn't a tree on it. The island looks more like a short grass prairie. The PBS show "NOVA" did a fantastic job on the theories and evidence indicating what possibly could have happened.
The trees were there, there is no doubt about that. The natives cut down the trees for canoes, fuel, building material etc... As the culture thrived, they cut down more trees. The trees simply could not grow fast enough to keep the ecosystem sound. Rats were probably just another part of the problem.
One thing archeologists noted, aside from the large stone figures, was the presence of a symbol carved into the rocks, I tend to remember a bird. It appears everywhere. And one thing they were able to find out was that the bird carvings post-dated(came after) most of the stone figures. It is theorized that a "bird cult" sprung up in the wake of the resource problems that besieged the Island. Those that worshiped the stone figures now had an opposing force to deal with in a "bird cult". Essentially, when the resources became scarce and the competition for what was left became so intense, the people of the Island turned on each other. They don't know how violent things may have become but likely it was not pleasant to put it mildly.
Easter Island should be a monument for what happens when you destroy the systems that sustain you.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:07 AM
Response to Reply #19
28. So there were competing theories...
Diamond only has one theory, the theory that fits what he wants.
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:50 PM
Response to Reply #9
20. Who cares how the trees vanished? ?The point is that their civilization couldn't sustain itself when they did!
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:09 AM
Response to Reply #20
29. There is a big difference between destroying your own environment, and having your environment collapse around you.
javadu (261 posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:16 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. These Two Pieces of Evidence Are Actually supporting JD's theory, suggesting that you are probably the dumbass. It is unlikely that rats were able to eat ALL the tree seeds, until there were very few trees, because they CUT THEM DOWN!! Then, the rats also started starving, ate the few seeds produced by the few trees, and now there are NO TREES. I think you are the dumbass.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:38 AM
Response to Reply #30
32. He said in "Collapse" that EVERY tree seed found had been eaten by rats.
Rats are smart, and YES, they could eat all the tree seeds.
At any rate, it seemed like really flaky scholarship to say one thing in one place and something totally different in another place.
Spouting Horn Donating Member (181 posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:05 PM
Response to Original message
17. We're all gonna die!
Yeah, I'm still waiting for the primitives to off themselves, so as to save the eart--er, planet.
But no, the primitives expect other people to off themselves.
oktoberain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 11:28 PM
Response to Original message
22. Um, the Rapanui natives of Easter Island *didn't* all die off.
It came pretty close at one point, with a little over a hundred of them left, but the population has recovered and is now over 3000. Their population loss was due to a cluster**** of deforestation, invading Peruvian slavers, smallpox and tuberculosis brought by missionaries and explorers, and inter-clan wars between the people themselves. The deforestation alone didn't do it--it didn't even do *most* of it.
That's most of the bonfire; one primitive challenges the last-quoted primitive here, the octopus brain primitive, to prove his comment, and the octopus brain primitive does (quoting wikepedia), but damn, it's too hot to copy and paste any more.
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If people needed trees around them to survive there would be an Arab left.
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OK, DUmbshits -- a little math. The proposed drilling site is 2000 acres. ANWR is 1.9 million acres. That makes it 1/950th or so of ANWR.
Now, look at the old coffee table your mommy put in your basement (or "Man Cave" if you will). If it is standard sized 3'X4', then the proposed drilling site would be about 1/4" square.
Now, Alaska is 19 million acres -- that means that the proposed ANWR drilling range would be .025" square -- 25 tenths of an inch, or about the width of a pencil lead.
Add to that that ANWR is essentially a frozen desert -- it is NOT special in its preservation of local flora and fauna.
So decide: $7 a gallon gasoline or an insignificant speck on a vast wasteland most people will never see in their lives and which affects the world not at all? How about $8? 10?
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You could cut down half of the damn Amazon and in 30 years, guess what you'd have? More trees. In 1980 Mount St. Helen's blew off about 1300-1400 feet of her top, leveling trees for miles. Anyone been there lately? I was there a few months back. Trees all over the f'n place and yes, I'm talking about the blast area.
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OK, DUmbshits -- a little math. The proposed drilling site is 2000 acres. ANWR is 1.9 million acres. That makes it 1/950th or so of ANWR.
Now, look at the old coffee table your mommy put in your basement (or "Man Cave" if you will). If it is standard sized 3'X4', then the proposed drilling site would be about 1/4" square.
Now, Alaska is 19 million acres -- that means that the proposed ANWR drilling range would be .025" square -- 25 tenths of an inch, or about the width of a pencil lead.
Add to that that ANWR is essentially a frozen desert -- it is NOT special in its preservation of local flora and fauna.
So decide: $7 a gallon gasoline or an insignificant speck on a vast wasteland most people will never see in their lives and which affects the world not at all? How about $8? 10?
T. Boone Pickens was interviewed by Sean Hannity today. I was listening to it on the way home from work today, and Pickens said words to the effect that if we don't do domestic drilling in addition to the other things he has on his site, we'll have $8 to $10 a gallon gas in two years.
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:ohnoes: :ohnoes: :ohnoes: :ohnoes: :ohnoes: Quick! Somebody do something....we are DOOMED!
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Out of one side of a DUmmy's mouth: "Global Warming is REAL and if we don't stop it, BILLIONS of humans will die!!!111"
Out of the other side of the same DUmmy's mouth: "There are TOO MANY humans on the planet and if we don't reduce their numbers by billions, global warming will get worse!!!111"
Stupidity, thy name is DUmmy.
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OK, DUmbshits -- a little math. The proposed drilling site is 2000 acres. ANWR is 1.9 million acres. That makes it 1/950th or so of ANWR.
Now, look at the old coffee table your mommy put in your basement (or "Man Cave" if you will). If it is standard sized 3'X4', then the proposed drilling site would be about 1/4" square.
Now, Alaska is 19 million acres -- that means that the proposed ANWR drilling range would be .025" square -- 25 tenths of an inch, or about the width of a pencil lead.
Add to that that ANWR is essentially a frozen desert -- it is NOT special in its preservation of local flora and fauna.
So decide: $7 a gallon gasoline or an insignificant speck on a vast wasteland most people will never see in their lives and which affects the world not at all? How about $8? 10?
I thought ANWR was 19 million acres in size , and Alaska was 360+ million acres
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I thought ANWR was 19 million acres in size , and Alaska was 360+ million acres
It is. 365,039,104 to be exact.
http://www.state.ak.us/local/facts.shtml
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Unless there is some chicken wire involved I won't buy any theory.
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tmfun
I saw this comming when I was in my teens and decided not to have children.
Thank you for not reproducing and here's hoping all libs everywhere follow your fine example.
.
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OK, DUmbshits -- a little math. The proposed drilling site is 2000 acres. ANWR is 1.9 million acres. That makes it 1/950th or so of ANWR.
Now, look at the old coffee table your mommy put in your basement (or "Man Cave" if you will). If it is standard sized 3'X4', then the proposed drilling site would be about 1/4" square.
Now, Alaska is 19 million acres -- that means that the proposed ANWR drilling range would be .025" square -- 25 tenths of an inch, or about the width of a pencil lead.
Add to that that ANWR is essentially a frozen desert -- it is NOT special in its preservation of local flora and fauna.
So decide: $7 a gallon gasoline or an insignificant speck on a vast wasteland most people will never see in their lives and which affects the world not at all? How about $8? 10?
I thought ANWR was 19 million acres in size , and Alaska was 360+ million acres
Shit -- off by a factor again! I thought the numbers I was using seemed not right -- now time to re-research.
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Unless there is some chicken wire involved I won't buy any theory.
Nah, I'm gonna need more. Now if you add in a concrete slab and some kerosene, I may change my mind.
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Much Better :cheersmate:
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Maybe so for calculus, but I always do my best topology work when I'm half in the bag. :-)
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Maybe so for calculus, but I always do my best topology work when I'm half in the bag. :-)
Well, you can really get turned around and sometimes even backtrack.
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Maybe so for calculus, but I always do my best topology work when I'm half in the bag. :-)
Well, you can really get turned around and sometimes even backtrack.
That's what happens when you drink Jim Beam by the Klein bottle.
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New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Maybe so for calculus, but I always do my best topology work when I'm half in the bag. :-)
Well, you can really get turned around and sometimes even backtrack.
That's what happens when you drink Jim Beam by the Klein bottle.
You get taken to the Kleiners.
-
New numbers -- rounded.
Drilling area vs ANWR is .03 of an inch on DUmmies' Mommies' old coffee table.
Drilling area vs ALASKA is 0.0018 of an inch -- need an lab-rated microscope to see it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/freedumb2003/b-alcoh_solo.gif)
(actually, I claim just getting off my weekly coast-to coast 3,000 mile flight).
Maybe so for calculus, but I always do my best topology work when I'm half in the bag. :-)
Well, you can really get turned around and sometimes even backtrack.
That's what happens when you drink Jim Beam by the Klein bottle.
You get taken to the Kleiners.
The folks who own it are both Oriental and non-orientable.