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“The “Population Bomb” Echoes
Pack your portfolios with agricultural plays like Potash (POT), Mosaic (MOS), and Agrium (AGU) if Dr. Paul Ehrlich is just partially right about the impending collapse in the world’s food supply. You might even throw in long positions in wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice.
The never dull, and often controversial Stanford biology professor told me he expects that global warming is leading to significant changes in world weather patterns that will cause droughts in some of the largest food producing areas, causing massive famines. Food prices will skyrocket, and billions could die.
At greatest risk are the big rice producing areas in South Asia, which depend on glacial run off from the Himalayas. If the glaciers melt, this crucial supply of fresh water will disappear. California faces a similar problem if the Sierra snowpack fails to show up in sufficient quantities, as it has in recent years.
Rising sea levels displacing 500 million people in low lying coastal areas is another big problem. One of the 79 year old professor’s early books The Population Bomb was required reading for me in college in 1970, and I used to drive up from Los Angeles to hear his lectures (followed by the obligatory side trip to the Haight-Ashbury).
Other big risks to the economy are the threat of a third world nuclear war caused by population pressures, and global plagues facilitated by a widespread growth of intercontinental transportation and globalization. And I won’t get into the threat of a giant solar flare frying our electrical grid.
“Super consumption” in the US needs to be reined in where the population is growing the fastest. If the world adopts an American standard of living, we need four more Earths to supply the needed natural resources. We must to raise the price of all forms of carbon, preferably through taxes, but cap and trade will work too. Population control is the answer to all of these problems, which is best achieved by giving women an education, jobs, and rights, and has already worked well in Europe and Japan.
All sobering food for thought.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.
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So weak. Since when matter of responsiblity is determined by impeding the developpment of human species?
Do you think that a guy breaking into your house will impede the developpment of human species?
Your comment has nothing to do with mine which was on responsibility and why US citizens choose to ignore climate change because acknowledgement would open the question of responsibility.
Dipshit... why don't you increase the sea level by 50 feet and estimate what fraction of our civilization's great urban centers would be underwater...
Homo Sapiens wasn't developing in New York and London... either you are trying to be clever or are just too stupid to realize what you are saying.
hey stalin organ master. as a soon to be PHD in worthlessness you most likely can explain to this forum how greenland got its name in the middle of the last millenium. greenland, today covered by ice, was a green land where grapes used to grow.
i guess the big cargo planes caused that effect back in the centuries. bonus question: why are the tempertures on every planet of our solar system rising? i guess the aliens are producing CO2 with their spacecraft as well.
If you think that because some Viking called someplace Greenland, no doubt as part of a marketing ploy, 900 years ago, that it refutes the wealth of evidence to the contrary, I am very sorry. I mean, its so fucking obvious that all these people are wrong. Clearly, you should set the facts straight. Here, go to
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676
and write a paper about where they went wrong and submit it to
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Journal/Journal.html
BTW, it was Vinland, modern Newfoundland, that alledgedly had grapes. You can't even get your spin straight. Read "Collapse" by J. Diamond to least get introduced to the subject of the Vikings in the New World
Ah the ol' infrared absorption.
Look up Water Vapor. Absorption and percentage of atmosphere.
When you've covered the oceans in saran wrap call me and I'll listen to you about the CO2.
Global warming does not necessarily mean "warming" where you happen to live but broader shifts in global weather patterns. Like MHFT said, it's about the growing unpredictability.
Seems to me "global warming" means all weather statist liberals don't like. And I'm pretty sure MHFT's record (or anyone else's) for predicting the weather before global warming wasn't any good either.
Remind us sandy heads again what started/ended the last ice age please.
95% of green house gas is water vapor
humans make 1% of global CO2
so we make 1% of less than 5%
or....less than .0005% of greenhouse gas
AGW fail
"We must to raise the price of all forms of carbon, preferably through taxes, but cap and trade will work too."
any time you read that, shudder in fear
stupid people support this
how is doubling the price of energy and therefor food gonna do anything but create poverty and starvation?
unless you are looking to finance dieback, in which case its a damn fine start to killing off 90% of earths population
"Global warming", "climate change", blah, blah, blah.
The idea that humans are bad and must be controlled is a central tenet of the 'progressive' religion.
Carbon dioxide plays an insignificant role in climate change.
Climate change is of course, and obviously a reality....Just as it has always been and would continue to be absent humans.
Solar activity and the ongoing magnetic poleshift have much more to do with the observable climate change.
The political left however views climate change as an irresistable opportunity to persue their perverse anti liberty and freedom agenda (while making a few trill in the process.
If you want some good facts regarding the subject of climate change go to coyoteblog. (you can find it in the ZH links).
If you want some good data on which to base statements you can go to NOAA...
Just don't ask for any data from the scientists at East Anglia....apparently, the dog ate their homework.
Nope. I'm not looking for what you want me to buy. If you want government data, buy away. A very simple fact in this 'debate' is that going back 10+ years, the alarmist have been consistently incorrect with their predictions.
Another reality that ought to challenge those of your faith is that Carbon control is utterly foolish. The world will not see PPM reductions anywhere close to what your 'scientist' profess to be needed in order to avoid the dire effects that they trumpet as inevitable.
Well, I suppose a nuclear war might do the trick, but short of that it's time to talk climate change adaptation/not control.
BTW, before you get your panties in a knot. Read what I have written, I have not argued pro-AGW or anti-AGW, I have only called out the asshats here who speak with an authority that is way beyond their abilities. Nothing more, nothing less.
Flakmeister, you are clearly dealing here with quasi-religious zealots who use specious argument and wholesale denial of reality, not to mention a profound ignorance of science, to attempt to argue a topic whose basic premises are simply beyond their comprehension.
Yes, there are those whose statist agendas are furthered by global climate change. And yes, SOME climate data has been falsified or manipulated to push particular political agendas (on both sides of the issue). None of that takes anything away from the fundamental subject of climate change and mankind's role in it, whatever the degree of our contribution to it may be.
It is interesting to note that the facile denial of the warming climate, and the glib denials of the overwhelming evidence that anthropogenetic CO2 is contributing to it, is clearly directly correlated to the scientific ignorance of said deniers.
You're my hero.
Wow... now that was erudite.
+1
The GW professors dummied up data to get grant money. They are the same union thugs constantly looking for angles to scam taxpayers for more "research" money.
95% of green house gas is water vapor
humans make 1% of global CO2
so we make 1% of less than 5%
or....less than .0005% of greenhouse gas
AGW fail
===
The increase in the mean temperature of the earth mirrors the elevation in the atmospheric levels of CO2. Equating water and CO2 by calling them both green house gas is totally discounting the effect each has individually.
You don't want to believe in AGW that's fine, but you will believe in what happens to our biosphere.
This link does a pretty good job backing up the water vapor POV.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
I was really surprised to see an article on ZH touting 'global warming'.
Funny how the move to 'green' vehicles might actually make matters worse. Being that Electric vehicles produce 'water vapor' as emissions.
Scientist have shown temperatures to be another 10°-15°C higher than present day. That we are on the cool side of the temperature spectrum.
http://www.nctimes.com/app/blogs/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/globaltem...
And electric vehicles are powered by burning coal and liquid fuels to charge them. A lot is lost in transmission.
We understand that the last time the polar caps extended to the equator, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere were 10,000 (ten thousand) times the present levels. Some "greenhouse effect!"
A trivial study of physics will explain to anyone with an IQ out of the single digits that CO2 is irrelevant as a "greenhouse gas" but is essential to all life. Water vapour is also quite useful, unless you prefer the climate of the Gobi, or perhaps Mars...
And higher CO2 levels cause plants to thrive. Good for growing. Read any greenhouse gardening book.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and yours is comically misguided.
No; his opinion, and the facts of physics and physical chemistry that he refers it to, are completely correct. YOu are the asshole; you know nothing about physical science and all you have is your emotionally determined opinion; which is horribly, rather than comically, wrong.
I have authored more peer reviewed scientific papers than you have fingers and toes...
Do you have any thoughts on the manipulation of the "peer review" process by the pro-climate change scientific community?
Usually when 97% of the community agrees, it isn't called manipulation. Science is not a democracy. 97% looks like a concensus to me, I can assure you that any correct paper that showed flaws in any methodology concrning climate science would be accepted.
Hey, my M.Sc. advisor didn't believe in black holes, but it didn't stop him being a respected authority on graviational radiation.
Wow, a few posts up, you're using argumentum ad veracundium, and now, by citing "97%" of scientists, you use argumentum ad populum. Let's never mind that many of those scientists don't know a thing about climate science other than what they hear in the MSM (just because you're a chemistry PhD doesn't mean you know a damn thing about climate); I just want to know one thing: don't you get tired of using fallacious logical arguments to back up your factually fallacious position?
One quick reply as this thread is dead. A few comments, if you happend to pass by:
1) You are better than most. We might have a good discussion under different circumstances.
2) Notice that I did not argue that AGW was real or proven. My opinion is that weighing *all* evidence points to it as being likely. Yes, there are some flawed studies, no different than a bad scientist missing something. All I did was call people out on egregious statements. (BTW, I met an old scientist who missed a Nobel Prize because the signal was in the overflow bin of the histogram)
3) I quickly admitted that I was wrong when called on argumentive fallacies. The asshats here can't ever figure out they are wrong let alone to have the courage to admit it.
4) Nice use of latin... argumentum ad populum, so the fact that ~99% of physicists have a concensus on Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Thermodynamics means nothing? It's just a conspiracy?
5) And its a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics and a M.Sc. that was primarily theoretical.
Could you reference one of them where you are the primary author?
I like to keep my anonymity, but here is one, the experiment was a collaboration but the analysis was mine:
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v79/i12/p2204_1
So you're the primary author or one of the six thousand others listed?
I just explained it to you...I could give other papers, but I ain't giving my name. And IIRC, the collaboration was about 50 people at the time...
Doing a complete search of the scientific archives gives me 350 publications, most of which I admittedly had a minor role.
I played a major role at:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and have been a keynote speaker at other international conferences. If I give anymore info, even a trained chimp can figure things out.
Edited: I figured out who I was within 1 minute...
It's Phill Jones! He's come to clear his name.
argumentum ad verecundiam
Invalid argument
Even if you are the supposed authority.
Yeah, you are right....
But these asshats are not finding out my real name...
And you are the fool for trying to sway the intractable opinions of asshats.
Give it up! Carry on and leave the tards to their smelly pigsty.
Yeah, thanks, I was just trying to figure out who you were.
Examine the starting point of the calculation... Look, the "professional" climate change deniers ain't stupid. It is valid calculation but it doesn't matter as the argument is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the well understood mechanism of heat exchange. That mechanism is understood, the question is whether we have enough reliable data to put into the models to extrapolate with a high degree of confidence.
Why don't you actually read what the cycle is.... The oceans are the heat sink, increased ocean temperatures lead to higher water vapor in the atmosphere.
My post is not about AGW, it is about clearing up your complete misunderstanding of what the fuck is going on...
Except that, rather inconveniently, ocean temperatures are not rising.
AGW fail.
Again.
Are you really that misinformed re: ocean temps? Instead of listening to a shill, I found this in 15 seconds:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/General/temperature.html
Click on
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
It is clear that you have no idea what you are talking about, so just STFU.
Go ahead, Flak, enlighten all of us. Please provide a brief explanation of the following (from page 2 of your second link) and the manner in which it relates to your argument.
I'll assume that because YOU provided the links, that this information favors your position. Please help me to understand. Thanks in advance.
Hey, I am not an oceanographer. Meaning, I don't do personally make the measurements and I am not familiar with all the details of analysing the data
From the paper listed at the link, the discussion section at the end.
Correcting for XBT biases reduces the magnitude of
the interdecadal variability of our earlier estimates of
OHC700 but has relatively little effect on our previous
[
Levitus et al., 2005a] estimate of the long-term OHC trend.
It is important to note that as additional data becomes
available that our results may change somewhat because
of better data coverage and more difference pairs becoming
available for correcting instrumental biases. To the extent
that the XBT temperature bias is due to fall-rate inaccuracies
our method of correcting temperature values empirically
from comparison with near-contemporaneous OSD/
CTD data can be criticized. This is because for a purely fallrate
induced temperature bias, the temperature error for any
particular XBT profile depends on the local stratification.
We have shown (Figures S7 and S8) that we have reduced
the XBT bias to near zero for the global integral as a
function of depth and time but there are certainly local
differences due to the local stratification in different regions.
The agreement between our OHC700 time series and IK09
which is estimated assuming that the XBT bias is solely due
to fall-rate error suggests that our two OHC700 global time
series are fairly robust as to the two types of XBT bias
correction techniques that were applied. As noted earlier the
IK09 does not eliminate the time-varying bias in the upper
100 m of the water column. There is unquestionably more
work to be done in understanding and developing corrections
for the XBT and MBT biases discussed in this paper.
[
20] Because of the importance of OHC as a major
component of earth’s heat balance it needs to be accurately
monitored. Analyses using independent data types such as
those provided by
Dickey et al. [2008] are important in
Correcting for XBT biases reduces the magnitude of
the interdecadal variability of our earlier estimates of
OHC700 but has relatively little effect on our previous
[
Levitus et al., 2005a] estimate of the long-term OHC trend.
This is called science and a discussion of the difficulties in making a measurement...note the concluding words.
My point stands.
You're a fool. any matter can be stated in simple english; unless it's vital to obfuscate mightily behind the shield of techno-bable. Sea Level has dropped 1/2 inch in the last 20 years; cause; cooling. end of argument. Global warming thru a meaningless increase in a trace gas has always been impossible.
Reference?
The reason I ask is because the data I see shows the level has been rising for the last 100 years. From Wikipedia: "Current Sea Level Rise has occurred at a mean rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past century,[1][2] and more recently, during the satellite altimetry era of sea level measurement, at rates in the range of 2.9-3.4 ± 0.4-0.6 mm per year from 1993–2010.[3][4][5][6][7].
See also http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
I know we live in an Orwellian world of doublespeak, but jeeze, this is just too easy to blow holes through. I surely hope Exxon Mobil is paying you well. Not that they're getting their money's worth.
That's funny cause I've been going to the same beach since the mid 70's and the water line hasn't moved. How much land should have been swallowed up by the rise? The same boardwalk and same houses that line it are still there. NO displaced population. Food will become scarce because we aren't growing enough when there is plenty of land available for doing so. Because of policies like using ethanol which takes up three gallons of gas for every gallon produced. Because of policies like turning off the pumps in Northern CA to save some endangered smelt fish. In other words ON PURPOSE!
Might I suggest your observational skills are inadequate to discern 7 centimeters average height difference given that tidal variations are >100x larger?
As for swallowed-up land, it is the above-ground ice in the form of melting glaciers that will be the primary contributors to sea level rise. In such a case, what we would look for is an increase in the rate of change of glacial melting.
Have you seen any reports of melting glaciers lately? And just how much food do you think they will be producing in California when the glaciers of the Sierra Nevada range are gone? Or the rice crops that depend on the Himalayan glaciers?
I'm with you on the ethanol boondoggle.
Regarding Smelt fish, you do understand that you are opening advocating extincting a species out of existence, just so that you can have energy slaves at your disposal? I surely hope you are making good use of those slaves, and creating an existence that will be fully self-sustainable into the future. As for those Smelt that you would so quickly extinct, I grieve.
Even if the ocean is growing (notice I didn't say rising) People will realize it and move away from flood plains. Taxing us will not stop it. A fraction of the money that Al wants to tax would relocate them elsewhere. A very small fraction.
This is an interesting technique, replying to yourself with a comment so that I need to reply twice to address both points, and which also places my reply to your original response way down the page. Nonetheless, I note that neither of your responses disputed the facts mentioned in my post nor provided any additional relevant evidence, being little more than logical non-sequiturs. Obviously you are a higher-paid member of the Exxon-Mobil team, as you are not so stupid as to make an easily verifable falsehood, like IQ145 (a completely laughable username, BTW. Might I suggest "Sociopathic Liar"?). Can I please speak to the asshole in charge?
In any event, if the ocean is growing, it is rising. Your statement is logically contradicatory. Where else does it have to go but up? The thermal expansion coefficient of water is positive meaning it expands as the temperature increases. But the key point is that the majority of sea level rise will come primarily from above-ground ice melting, not thermal expansion.