Monday, February 21, 2011

Alarmism

Somehow- this assertion that more food needs to be produced in the next few decades will be more than was produced in the history of civilization- seems like the kind of hyperbole that plagues us these days.  I guess you can say that it is crying wolf.  After hearing it so many times, it gets discounted, and then summarily dismissed. Then the real wolf comes and you've got a problem.

Let's not be too hasty in dismissing this threat.  Rather, let's see if there are some ways to deal with the problems. After all, that is what this blog is all about.   Let's try to rise above alarmism.

In Mining the Sky,  the author John Lewis says that there is enough habitat in the asteroids to support 20,000 times more people than are currently residing on Earth.  Without the benefit of double checking that source, let's assume my memory is correct.  What can you do about overpopulation besides a mass die off? Controlling population growth won't be enough.  Perhaps you can expand the Earth's carrying capacity.  Or you could start colonizing space.  Perhaps a combination of these strategies could be employed.

Rather than merely following what hasn't worked, why not actually do something constructive about the problem?  If crying wolf raises awareness, what good is it if it isn't taken seriously?  Why should it be taken seriously when the alarmists have been wrong?  On the other hand, bad things have happened in the past, and could very easily happen in the future.  Instead of crying wolf, how about suggesting solutions?  How about colonizing space instead of crying wolf?

I went on Huffington Post to suggest a way to deal with the so called global warming "problem".  My efforts were rewarded with an insult and silence.  Not one of these liberals would step up to the plate and support my idea.  The criticism was that it would cost too much.  Compared to what?  Compared to the 800 billion dollar stimulus which is already been spent?  What has it produced?  Yet, space travel is considered expensive.  In some ways, that is correct.  Yet even if money was spent the way that NASA spends it, it would still only be a drop in the bucket compared with the rest of what government spends.  But it is too expensive, they say.

The last several months since, I have slowly been gathering knowledge about the space program and now I am firmly convinced that it does not have to be expensive.  Perhaps it can pay.  But, the politicians who cry wolf probably already know this.  No, the crying wolf part is to get people to keep supporting them and their interests as opposed to actually solving any of the problems they claim to care about.

You see, this all segues into politics and the politicians failure to deal effectively with problems.  In fact, the politicians are more interested in causing problems than fixing them.  But that is another subject.

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