We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Loren Pechtel]

I think Infidels will be interested in this, but wasn't sure where to post it. This seemed to be the appropriate thread. The problem of poisonous lead in the atmosphere was about ten times worse than it would have been with only one-tenth the population. The same thing is true of other long-term poisons, and even problems we now know nothing about. Overpopulation is bad, especially with the huge "footprint" technological man insists on.

But why would you expect it not to have taken 10x as long to figure out lead was bad?

Et tu, Loren?

As for "figuring out that lead was bad", I forget: During which part of the 20th century did the ancient Roman Vitrivius live?

Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome. That the flavour of that conveyed in earthen pipes is better, is shewn at our daily meals, for all those whose tables are furnished with silver vessels, nevertheless use those made of earth, from the purity of the flavour being preserved in them.

But they went ahead and used it anyway. Somebody figuring it out doesn't equal wide acceptance.

 

[bilby]

I think Infidels will be interested in this, but wasn't sure where to post it. This seemed to be the appropriate thread. The problem of poisonous lead in the atmosphere was about ten times worse than it would have been with only one-tenth the population. The same thing is true of other long-term poisons, and even problems we now know nothing about. Overpopulation is bad, especially with the huge "footprint" technological man insists on.

But why would you expect it not to have taken 10x as long to figure out lead was bad?

Et tu, Loren?

As for "figuring out that lead was bad", I forget: During which part of the 20th century did the ancient Roman Vitrivius live?

Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome. That the flavour of that conveyed in earthen pipes is better, is shewn at our daily meals, for all those whose tables are furnished with silver vessels, nevertheless use those made of earth, from the purity of the flavour being preserved in them.

But they went ahead and used it anyway. Somebody figuring it out doesn't equal wide acceptance.

And he was right for the wrong reasons.

Lead doesn't "destroy the vigour of the blood" (though acute lead poisoning can lead to anaemia). The neurological effects are of far more importance to health than the hematopoietic ones.

The ancient world is full of medical and healthy living advice, and it's no surprise that some of it (by pure luck) is still valid; Almost none of it, however, is based on sound scientific principles, and none of it should be mistaken for knowledge.

Vitruvius also believed in what would later become the Miasmatic Theory of disease, and thought that bad smells from swampland were the cause of poor health:

For when the morning breezes blow toward the town at sunrise, if they bring with them mist from marshes and, mingled with the mist, the poisonous breath of creatures of the marshes to be wafted into the bodies of the inhabitants, they will make the site unhealthy.

 

[TSwizzle]

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) warned the global fertility rate — the number of children born per woman — is plummeting, leaving the world at risk of economic collapse. The problem is particularly acute in wealthy nations. In the UK, the birth rate is predicted to fall to 1.3 children per woman of childbearing age by 2100, well below the replacement level of 2.1 children

Daily Mail

Western Europe is in screwed.