Check out this link! Bjorn Lomborg is my new hero!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs
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These are the proving grounds. This is where we separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the strong from the weak ..................... Surf this!!
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18 minutes? What kind of a culture do you think we live in, Blutarsky?
I can't do anything for 18 minutes - unless it involves liver disease.
Good for Bjorn, but does he ever visit the concept of overpopulation? They are where we were 100 years ago - when having 15 kids was retirement planning.
In Sri Lanka, pumping out a dozen puppies ensures at least one of those kids is bound to live past 5, succeed in Water Buffalo herding and provide for the village elders.
The problems in the third world go WAY beyond AIDS, Malaria and distended abdomens. Without electricity, fundamental social upheaval and readily available $5 fellatio, rural Uganda is just another Nanny State.
Again - people are a problem. Multiple people moreso.
Since you can't find it in yourself to forgo one rerun episode of Saved by the Bell, I’ll have to fill you in a bit ole Tobius of the Horneth. I mean for cryin’ out loud, give the TiVo a rest! I mean you think Desperate House Wives is surveillance video!
The respected Mr. Lomborg offers a message of prioritization as it applies to the world’s biggest problems. The economist seeks consensus on the greatest good at the least cost. He points out that we can’t solve ALL of the World’s problems so prioritizing makes sense. If we do one thing we are not doing another. So to maximize the bang gained from resources he suggests on a world scale that the following would maximize the number of people pulled out of circumstances involving one of the world’s worst problems:
4) Malaria, (2 billion people…13 billion dollars),
3) Free Trade worldwide (pulls 2 to 300 million out of 3rd world poverty in 2 to 5 years)
2) World Hunger (12 billion dollars could affect half the world by attacking malnutrition with micronutrients)
1) Aids Prevention (27 billion dollars over 8 years prevents 28 million new cases)
Climate change was mentioned as a problem, but one about which we can do very little at a very high cost.
To answer your question, world population is woven into the entire list.
It’s not about the actual order of the list. It’s about giving the topic some economic analysis and creating a priority list then actually doing something about the highest priority, then the next and so on. It’s about taking a little money and doing A LOT of good as apposed to taking an enormous amount of money to do very little good.
You probably just missed another episode of Laverne and Shirley. Better get back to the twinkies! Wait, I kinda like Laverne and Shirley.
The subject of "world's biggest problems" is totally subjective. Bjorn's list of "world's biggest problems" is largely associated with death and misery in the third world.
Thing is, death is a good thing. It defines life. Gives us reason to celebrate birthdays and holes in one.
If all 6 Billion of us on this planet lived to be 100, we would have a whole new set of "world's biggest problems."
Dying is OK. Death is natural. Mortality is beautiful.
vkBluto,
I know Bjorn is well intentioned but he is a poor historian, especially concerning the problems on the continent of Africa. More than 50 billion have been spent trying to solve the poverty, etc. in Africa and things are no different there today than they were 50 or even 100 years ago. Why?
Over 100 years ago the continent was primary ruled by the British, French and Dutch. They divided the continent and decided that present day national borders. What they failed to take into account were the tribal boundaries that had been set for thousands of years. Now you have nations overlapping tribal territory. The hundreds of tribes in Africa have historically been at war with one another for thousands of years. If national boundaries had been set according to tribal boundaries then it is my opinion there would be much more progress there today.
Almost every problem in Africa today or in the past 50 years can be traced to tribal warfare. Tribal warfare keeps the children from being educated. Tribal warfare has led to incredible genocide. Tribal warfare has led to incredible corruption. Tribal warefare has kept perhaps a continent with incredible resources from being totally self efficient and one of the richest continents in the world. Africa is potentially an agricultural wonderland. It could be self sufficient and supply much of the world with food if it were possible to bring modern agriculture to the continent. But corrupt and powerful dicators led primarily by tribalism will not let this happen. We can send 50 billion to Africa and 45 billion will end up in the Swiss bank accounts of these dictators.
Look what has happened in South Africa and Rhodesia since the Dutch and Brits were kicked out. There once thriving agriculture economies have totally collapsed. There healthcare systems have collapsed and corrupt governments have practically destroyed two nations that less than 50 years ago thrived. Tribal wars are rampant all over the country. Darfur is a primary example of a tribal and religious conflict. Uganda, Ruwanda, etc. The atrocities and lack of progress in these nations can be traced to tribal warfare. Even Kenya, once thought to be a stable nation is now embroiled in tribal warfare.
I believe until national boundaries are redrawn by the UN and returned to the true tribal boudaries that existed before Brits, French and Dutch divided it up, nothing will change. Africa will still be a poor third world continent embroiled in tribal warfare 100 years from now.
TH,
Something you might have missed is that this is not necessarily Lomborg's list and he spells out quite clearly that the list of priorities will likely vary depending who sets that list up. This list was based on a survey of several non-economists actually. The point is in the prioritization and focusing on getting the most done at the most miniscule of sacrifice.
I lived over 5 years of my life on the Navajo Indian Reservation. In 1960, USU and BYU in cooperation with the Navajo Nation government, was given thousands of acres of land in the central portion of the reservation. The goal was to teach Navajos how to become self sufficient in agriculture. They built a resevoir to provide irrigation and thousands of acres were turned into an agricultural wonderland. The Navajo People called the project, Many Farms. The location was officially named Many Farms, AZ. A large community developed around the farm the the Navajo Nation located their community college, Navajo Community College in Many Farms. USU even built an airstrip there.
In 1972, USU and BYU's agricultural project came to a close. They now believed the Navajo's would successfully take over the "many farms" and make it totally self sufficient. To the amazement of the universities and myself included, within two years the "many farms" were desolate. The Navajos who had been taught how to raise thriving crops had left. To this day I have no idea why this project failed after so much work and financial resources were put into the project. Historically, the Navajos are a nomadic people and are very good in raising sheep, goats, cattle and horses. My answer to the failure is you can't change a culture in 12 years.
In 1975, the Navajo Nation relocated Navajo Community College to Tsaile, AZ, approximately 90 miles away from Many Farms. The college turned into an accredited four year college.
In 1989 I visited Many Farms. It was a ghost town, full of tumble weeds. The buildings and houses were collapsing. It was almost incomprehensible to me how in just 17 years a thriving Many Farms went from the pride of the Navajo Nation to a ghost town.
The Hopi Indian tribe who the Navajos have been at war with for over 500 years are not nomadic. Their civilization is based on agriculture. I believe if USU and BYU had perhaps built their agricultural mecca on the Hopi reservation, it might have been a success. This is speculation on my part and we'll never know.
My point is it takes more than education and money to change the world. Understanding the underlying culture is much more important in my opinion.
Fric Mon,
I see where you are coming from and I believe a similar argument can be made for borders set up by the British in the Middle East that ensure Arabs will war among themselves for quite some time.
As for spending money on Africa, I believe Lomborg's take was not to throw a bunch of money at Africa but to promote free trade worldwide. It seems completely consistant with your take that corrupt government and failed economic policies are the problem.
Another side note: I think most of what Lomborg is talking about is that throwing a bunch of resources and sacrifice at Global Climate Change (though a potential major problem) will yield little fruit relative to other potential attempts at good with a higher likelihood for success.
I think he's taking a poke at environmentalists who are more about controlling the world than saving the world.
Overpopulation as a concept is a joke.
6.684 billion is a pretty good estimate of what we're at.
Texas has 268,601 square miles. That's 5,280 x 5,280 x 268,601 = 7,488,166,118,400 square feet, less unliveable terrain. But you get the idea.
7,488,166,118,400 square feet / 6,684,000,000 people = ~1120 square feet to each person. That's a little bit smaller than my house, per person.
I know that would be like a supercondo, but the problem isn't the amount of people, it's the amount of divided resources among them.
Overpopulation isn't a measure of available terra firma. It's a measure - as you say - of resources.
You can't eat land. And you can't
There are 57 million square miles of land on earth. Much of that is unlivable land in Antarctica, the Sahara and Los Angeles.
Ignoring non-workable land, there are about 300,960,000,000,000 square feet available. Lets call it 301 trillion. That makes 45,033 square feet, or just under the 43,560 square feet in an acre.
So lets call it one acre per person. In 1994, Cornell University released a study showing the following:
* At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.
* This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. AT LEAST 1.2 ACRES PER PERSON IS REQUIRED IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN CURRENT AMERICAN DIETARY STANDARDS. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.
* If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.
* Since food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually, the loss of this income source would result in an even greater increase in America's trade deficit.
* Considering that America is the world's largest food exporter, the future survival of millions of people around the world may also come into question if food exports from the U.S. were to cease.
ANY overpopulation argument is bunk? Pffft.
It seems we're all in agreement. Land shortage has little to do with overpopulation though there are many examples of hazardous population density (Mexico City for instance).
As far as land goes, if we keep burying each other in coffins one cadaver deep, we will run out of land for the dead people long before we run out of land for the living I bet!
That’s exactly why we need people like Lomborg to study the dismal science: Economics, “the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”
hornblower,
You should have been a city and zoning planner. DD retired recently. Maybe they have an opening in Denver.
Tobilinksi Hornikai,
Watchoo be talkin' 'bout Los Angeles...
Don't make me come over there!
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