clearthinker's Blog

It's the population, stupid!

2009-10-07T16:59:03Z

For a while now, I've tried to warn people that nearly every problem discussed on TPM has, at its root, the issue of too many people for not enough resources. Issues of energy, which is what drives our economy, are particularly subject to this issue, but so too are issues of available water and climate change as we humans continue to terraform the planet.

The latest issue of New Scientist is devoted to the issue of overpopulation.

I suggest you look at it. I would also suggest you recognize, for those of you who are up in arms about the "rich", that by world standards, you are rich. Remember that even a homeless person in America has twice the carbon footprint of the average world citizen! Or to quote from this issue of New Scientist:

Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, calculates that the world's richest half billion people - that's about 7 per cent of the global population - are responsible for 50 per cent of the world's emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions. One American or European is more often than not responsible for more emissions than an entire village of Africans.

In other words, the present life in the Western world, particularly in North America, is simply unsustainable. Period. You will note that people like Jesse Ausubel never talk in terms of real numbers. His supposition boils down to "like magic, technology will save us".

If anyone wants to argue how technology will "save us", I'm ready to get dirty with the real numbers you want to present.

For all the complaints on TPM about the selfishness of the "rich", it's always amazing to see how when faced with their desire for children and grandchildren there is no selfishness involved. Indeed, the very nature of wanting genetic copies of yourself roaming the planet is the very height of selfishness, possibly be driven by narcissism of being around after you go.

And so it goes, until now we are at a point where the solutions (like the Green Revolution) bring about their own set of problems (like destroying the environment). People on TPM love to talk about how the US needs to take a leading role in the environmental issues (like Kyoto Protocols and the upcoming Copenhagen discussions). Well, the US needs to take a unilateral leading role on population reduction as well -- particularly since the US is the worse offender in the world (when normalized to resources consumed).

Baseball is as American as Apple Pie

2009-09-14T23:25:00Z

Our President plays hardball at age 8:

Our President plays hardball at age 48:

The president is going to appear on five Sunday talk shows - five - to press his case for health care, White House officials disclosed. That is a presidential record.

Mr. Obama is going to appear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. And Meet the Press on NBC. And Face the Nation on CBS. In between, he is going to sit down for interviews on CNN and Univision. (Fox News didn't make the cut).

How Does One Vote?

2009-09-08T17:36:16Z

The now-famous Al Franken addresses his constituents video starts out with this question:

Are you going to vote the way the people want, the people who elected you, are you going to vote their voice, or are you going to vote how Obama wants you to vote?

And Franken's response:

I'm going to vote the way I want to vote. Now let me tell you how I decide to vote: I use my independent judgment and I just don't always go by polls.

We hear a lot these days about "the people want this according to national polls" and "Dems should line up together". We also hear about politicians voting merely to get re-elected which is sort of a take about voting how people want, but now the people are his local constituency.

Was wondering if people here at TPM would be siding up with Franken if they thought he were against the public option or single payer.

In an ideal world, how would you want your elected rep to vote in general? Are polls a good rational? Is party unity? Or should they politicians think more broadly?

Note to Josh

2009-09-02T18:28:54Z

While I understand that advertising raises funds, it's possible to determine the types of ads on your site.

With that in mind, can you please get rid of the roll-over banner ads. They are very intrusive to my TPM experience as they really interfere with my navigation of the menu at the top of the page! They literally cover up tabs and buttons on a consistent basis if I bump my mouse.