Modern Environmentalism: Is It Doing More Harm Than Good?

[Alfi]

my error .. thank you for correcting me.

 

[Sheets]

An issue I almost never see properly raised is that of population reduction. In my opinion the most crucial corrective needed. In concert with competing growth economies continued population growth will only keep exacerbating our problems.

One way to address this in our country is through immigration restrictions.

The Sierra Club had a battle on restricting mass immigration 15 or so years ago with the restrictionists losing. Mass immigration restrictions unfortunately seems to be tied too closely with racial politics and probably won't make a comeback with environmental groups.

 

[mege]

One way to address this in our country is through immigration restrictions.

The Sierra Club had a battle on restricting mass immigration 15 or so years ago with the restrictionists losing. Mass immigration restrictions unfortunately seems to be tied too closely with racial politics and probably won't make a comeback with environmental groups.

I don't see the relationship to enviornmental concerns? The immigrants are going to have their same childbearing habits in their homeland or in a newland.

The only relationship I could see is that immigration, in this sense, generally involves an increase in the quality of life and thus increases life span, more consumption/consumerism, etc.

 

[klimatos]

But food and energy are two very critical issues that HAVE to be solved for our very survival,

Not necessarily. Some humans will always get as much food and energy as they want. Others will not. That's natural selection at work.

 

[Prairie]

Monsanto's customers are not just big agri-businesses, they do sell to small farmers. The reason they have such a hold on the market is because they make products that people like. No one forces them to use GMO, they do it because it is better than what they were using before. It's also not like Monsanto is the only GMO seed company, there are plenty of others.

I don’t know if you’ve ever farmed, but the primary desire of the market is actually for cheaper products. Farmers have always been caught needing to increase production to keep up with that market pressure. For example according to the University of Illinois data between the years 1980 and 2006, wheat prices had historically averaged around $3.08/bushel. Peaking at $4.08/bushel in 1980 and $4.25/bushel in 1996 and dipping to their lowest levels at $2.11/bushel in 1999 and $2.16/bushel in 2000. But generally commodity prices have continued to fluctuate on average around the $3.08/bushel range over those 26 years.

Oddly, in recent years, since 2008 by the looks of it, commodity prices have been spiking and yo-yoing quite anomalously. Ah those nasty commodity speculators. But the point is that inputs have always been an increasing cost whereas commodity pricing has remained fairly consistently within its range. In order to maintain a level of per acre return on investment it becomes necessary to make it up through increase production. Enter higher yielding GM products with their herbicide and pesticide tolerances. Why is Monsanto, a chemical company, in the seed industry? Often GM products have brand/patent specific tolerances. It’s the razor-razor blade analogy of creating demand. It isn't in the seed where they find their profits but in the chemicals that service those crops.

Lets not forget why the industrialized world transitioned AWAY from that model: Because it wasn't working. It didn't produce the yields we have now and it also left whole nations prone to cyclical famines. That's right, famines, as in people starving to death, like the Great Finnish Famine that was caused entirely because climate variances. Can you imagine something like that happening in Finland or any other western nation today?

Just because someone dedicated their life to something doesn't mean it was a good choice.

Well, that’s a real oversimplification. The reason smaller family farms have gone the way of the Dodo bird is that the system was forcing farms to become larger (corporate). As noted above, in order to maintain a reasonable farm income farms needed to get bigger. The per acre profit margins are just not there for a small farm to comfortably support a family. Regrettably, where a million acres once supported a thousand families can now only support about half that today. The great Finnish famine? Lol... we don’t subsidence farm anymore. Most farms service the larger economy now.

I grew up on a mixed grain/cattle farm, and later I grain farmed for myself for fifteen years. It got to a point where my off-farm income was the only thing helping to keep my farm afloat. Given the state of commodity pricing at the time. Where many of the farms around me were negotiating million dollar operating loans, I did the only wise thing and got out. That was almost twenty years ago now... wow.

I never grew GM crops. But I did see them coming. And I knew that I didn't want to become even more dependent on the chemical companies any more than I already was at the time. In essence I was already working for the chemical, fertilizer, oil, equipment, and grain marketing companies. These guys had taken the lion's share of my gross revenues. And I'm sure the situation isn't much different today.