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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DismalScientist who wrote (39003)	10/19/2008 3:41:38 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 149317

Yes, malthusian reality is what we should be focused on. Overcrowding also brings up the rat experiments with overcrowding. It is always on my mind. That and cultural clashing problems in our global village. Dogma versus existential thinking. The permian extinction of 95% of all species was a result of carbon dioxide heating up the earth enough to release methane hydrates which are 23 times more of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and that caused the earth to get so warm, 95% of all life on earth became extinct. We are playing with fire. The entire arctic is ringed with frozen methane hyfrates which are starting to thaw due to global warming. Houses are sinking into the muskeg as the permafrost metls in the far north and trees are growing. My son in law has a PHD in atmospheric chemistry from UC Irving and studies global warming full time at a major northwest university. He says they know man is causing it. I look at the great mass of humanity in Asia and wonder how do we deal with that consumtion and pollution as a species as it fully manifests itself ? " I've read The World is Flat. I recommend it - either the print or the audio version. I've just finished his new book Hot, Flat and Crowded. The theme is the convergence of global warming (energy issues), globalization and exploding world population. I also recommend this book. After reading it, I have several observations. First, the issues relating to globalization and energy/global warming are dwarfed by the effect of exploding world population (my view, not Friedman's, but I've always been a Malthusian - just ask my students). My second observation is that while Friedman has good policy prescriptions for global warming and energy issues, any chance we had to implement necessary policies will be impossible in the midst of a world depression. So a major victim of the economic situation is likely to be the environment. Bottom line - both books are well worth reading."