Ibon wrote:Look at the long drawn out debate over on the Overpopulation is Tabu thread where Montequest states that we are not unique and are just like any other organism in reference to overshoot, like yeast for example, and Kublikhan comes up with all these social carrying capacity arguments that we aren't like yeast.
Yes, those arguments are usually borne of hubris. I'm not sure if I ever posted this quote, but it is a good rejoinder: "We like to think that our intelligence and moral code sets us apart from other creatures. When other creatures gain an energy subsidy, they instinctively react by proliferating: their population goes through the well-studied stages of bloom, overshoot, and die-off. If we humans are more than mere animals, we should be expected to behave differently. Yet so far we have reacted to the energy subsidy of fossil fuels exactly the way rats, fruit flies, or bacteria respond to an abundant new food source. A hard look at the evidence tends to make one skeptical of (such) human claims to uniqueness..."-- Richard Heinberg, from his book, The Party's Over
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."