I’ll just let this one stand on its own … until I start getting the inevitable wacko comments.

Thanks Tony.

This is the elephant in the room. This is the taboo subject that even most environmentalists won’t discuss. And yet, all of the other severe problems facing humanity stem from this one issue. We may discuss carbon footprint, but not the number of feet. We may discuss the risk of thermonuclear war but not the population pressure that increases both the size and severity of warfaring. We may discuss poverty and starvation but not the fact that reducing population automatically reduces poverty.

Please join in the Global Population Speak Out.

Why is it that we can discuss all of the symptoms of severe human overpopulation but not the root cause?

Is it religion? That is certainly an issue. There’s the misunderstanding in thinking that god said “be fruitful and multiply” when what s/he really said was “be useful and multiplex”. OK, I’m joking on this last bit, of course, being an atheist.

However, religion is probably not the whole picture. People are horrified by China’s one-child-per-family law. Even people who are not religious are often horrified by this. Even I have strong feelings against it and am an atheist and misanthrope. There has to be a better way. Right?

Of course, right.

However, in order to have a rational discourse on how to reduce human population in even the free societies of the world, we must actually start with a discussion. As yet, this is not happening. We still consider the entire topic to be taboo. If we do not discuss this topic and work toward peacefully and voluntarily finding ways to limit human population, it will be limited for us … and with a tremendous amount of pain and suffering.

Already, we have seen the world’s first Malthusian conflict, in Rwanda. Though this is controversial, it is the opinion of a mainstream, Pulitzer Prize winning anthropologist.

Already, we have seen the first climate change conflict, in Darfur. Though this too is an opinion, it is the opinion of the Secretary General of the United Nations. Climate change is not technically a problem of overpopulation. However, is there a reader out there who thinks that climate change would be an issue today if there were just 6 million people on the planet rather than 6 billion? Perhaps.

Perhaps I should avoid getting too sidetracked on climate change, however. The main topic of this post is still overpopulation.

So, who out there can name a major problem facing humanity as a whole today that would still be a major problem if the global human population were 6 million people instead of 6 billion?

Good luck. And, please talk about overpopulation with your friends and family. We need to make this a normal and mainstream topic for discussion.

And, if you’re considering breeding, please take the following test to see whether your intelligence level qualifies you.

Semi-Humorous Pre-Breeding IQ Test

In another wonderful example of animal intelligence, this video shows an octopus deliberately collecting two coconut shell halves and making a spherical home for protection/hiding.

The video and full article on the subject can be found on the site for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Aussie scientists find coconut-carrying octopus

… otherwise, the few hundred peer reviewed articles summarized and referenced in this pre-Copenhagen summary showing, once again, that climate change is worse than the uber-conservative IPCC has been estimating might really scare me. I mean, what if it were really true that these few hundred recent peer-reviewed articles show that:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society—with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases—needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

Boy … if there really were several hundred recent peer-reviewed articles to show these things, we’d really be toast.

Oh wait … there are. You’ve just read the executive summary. Don’t believe it? Download the full report. After that, feel free to wade through the hundreds of articles in the references section, downloading whichever ones you question and reading them in their entirety.

Here’s that URL again in case you missed it up top.

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report

Footnote: Do you think that the leaked emails prove anything about these few hundred articles? Well, let’s look carefully at what even the very few selected emails quoted out of context by a bunch of literal thieves with an agenda show. Nothing in those emails indicates a global conspiracy of climate scientists to get rich and take over the world.

Read these two articles on the subject. I think they make clear what the emails do and more importantly do not show.

The CRU hack
The CRU hack: Context

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: The office of the president has actually responded to our letter. The woman who responded apologized for the bad experience, credited our account for a month, and even gave us her direct phone number (which I will not post here) in case we have future problems. So, the customer service department still sucks, as described below, but the corporate office at least does what they can to fix it if you take the time to write. It’s all we can hope for after that experience. — M. Scott 11/17/2009.

[Please visit despair.com for a demotivator for every occasion.]

And now on to the text of a letter that we sent to the president of Time Warner Cable. All I can say is that if you have any other option for your TV and internet access, take it. I don’t. So I’m stuck with this complete and utter load of crap.

Mr. Glenn A. Britt
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Time Warner Cable Inc.
60 Columbus Circle, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10023

re: Customer Service

Dear Mr. Britt,

With you and your company advertising that you are working for a company based on customer service, I can only assume that you are completely unaware of the complete customer disservice that you are providing to your customers. Time Warner is behaving as a true monopoly, a company that couldn’t care less about providing decent and reliable service to its customers. I can only hope that you will take action to correct this horrifically bad situation.

On Friday October 30th at around noon, I called customer service to explain that my cable modem was not working properly. First, I went through the automated troubleshooting system, which has never been helpful at solving any issue I’ve ever had, including this one. It did not understand the symptom of the top two lights and no others flashing on the modem. After an interminable wait, I gave up and tried again an hour later to speak to a human.

An hour later the same message is on your system saying that there is an extended wait for a representative. I cannot spend all day on the phone and proceed with my other commitments for the day, assuming that the problem is on your end and will be resolved. At 10pm that night the problem is not resolved and I finally get through to a representative. I am told that a technician needs to come to my apartment, no information as to why, and schedule the first appointment I can for Monday morning. But I am told that if I call back Saturday after 8am when the dispatch office is open I may be able to get an earlier appointment.

On Saturday October 31 at about 8:15am I spoke to a representative who, in addition to telling me that the dispatcher was not in that early, also informed me that my cable modem service has been out since Friday October 30th at 7am because my cable modem was no longer compatible with the new software upgrade you installed. He proceeded to insist that we received a paper notification of the change two months ago when in fact we received no such thing. I am extremely careful with reading my mail and no such notification ever arrived. I am on paperless billing and do not receive paper correspondence from you.

The conclusion then is that with no notice whatsoever, Friday morning our internet cable stopped working due entirely to the disservice provided by you and your company. Since I always pay every bill on time and still often lose my TV service due to its being actively disconnected, I can only conclude that your staff delights in cutting off the service of those who pay their bills regularly for many years. company does not take the responsibility of providing services that a customer has paid for seriously. [ed. note: We toned that down a bit]

During my call on Saturday I was asked to look at our modem and tell him what model number it is. The representative finally tells me that the problem is that the new software on your end no longer works with my modem. He claimed he will try to get me an earlier appointment once the scheduling office opens, now at 9am. He also told me I can bring the modem in myself to be exchanged for a new one to one of your offices, none of which are in a convenient location or at a convenient time for us. He also informed me that he will try to get me an appointment for either late on Saturday or sometime on Sunday and will call me back by 3pm.

Soon after that conversation, my husband realized that we do not need a full appointment but just for one of your technicians in the area to make a quick stop at our building and exchange the modem. We were told on that call that we would receive a call if there was any problem with this arrangement. We left our old modem in a package with our concierge at the front desk in our building and went out for our appointments for the day. We could not really imagine a problem since all of your technicians were clearly busy all day, there must have been one near here at some point. However, we received neither a phone call nor a new modem at our concierge desk. To neither call nor exchange the modem, a very reasonable request in light of the near deliberate problems that your company had created for us, is the height of unprofessional behavior.

At 4pm, no one has been to our building to exchange the modem. We call your technical support line and find out that nothing was done this morning by either of the technicians we spoke with. While there is a note in the system about our call, there is no record of any attempt to even consider exchanging the modem. There is only still the Monday service appointment in the system. The one I spoke with who claimed he will try to get me an earlier appointment and will call by 3pm did neither. The one my husband spoke with who claimed he will try to have a technician stop by just to exchange the modem did nothing to that effect.

Now at 4:15pm my husband has to race to your 23rd street office to get the modem exchanged, or else be without internet for the entire weekend, an unacceptable situation for us as we have important e-mail that needs to be attended to before Monday. Interestingly, at the 23rd Street office, my husband did not even have to give a name or account number. The serial number on the back of the old modem told them everything they needed to know. This means that your computer system had a record of the fact that we had an incompatible modem and that no one had ever bothered to program your internal customer service system it to warn and re-warn your customers that their equipment will cease to function on a particular date.

After my husband returned with the new modem, doing the job of your company in acquiring a replacement, we plugged it in and nothing happened. We still could not connect to the internet. So I call your customer service line once again. The first question I receive from your representative is “Why did you switch the modem?” Needless to say, my husband and I were completely flabbergasted and annoyed beyond belief. What do you mean that the customer dis-service representative had no idea and no information on the fact that we had a modem you no longer support and now have gone to significant trouble to acquire a new modem with no notice and no help from anyone in your company!

After walking me through unplugging and reconnecting the new modem your representative informs me that there is a problem and we need a technician to come in. He further informs me that there are no weekend appointments available and we are stuck until sometime on Monday without internet service. I then spoke with a supervisor and received the same complete lack of cooperation. She informed me that there must be a problem with the line in our apartment even though nothing has changed. And further informed me that “there is no squeezing in” of emergency appointments and we are simply out of luck.

Is this your idea of being customer service oriented?

Well, another ten minutes or so after hanging up with your completely incompetent staff, the modem suddenly started to work. Apparently, all that was required is more time for a brand new modem to initialize and begin normal operation. Why is this a difficult concept to teach your representatives? Why was I not told that I just needed to wait a bit longer and to call back in half an hour if I still had no service? This simple statement would have saved me an enormous amount of stress fearing I was without internet until sometime mid-day on Monday.

So, you performed a software upgrade to your system making our modem unusable. You did not notify us of this impending change. Even if you did send a letter out and it was somehow lost or overlooked, your system should have known that we still have the old unsupported modem. It is your obligation to repeatedly contact us by postal mail and e-mail and phone to notify us of the impending service disconnect.

Furthermore, there were numerous instances when you should have notified us of the problem. When I first called on Friday at noon your automated system should have immediately said that we have an outdated no longer supported modem that needs to be replaced immediately. Your phone technician Friday night should have told me that. And in addition, we call you on a regular basis when you disconnect our TV service and have to get a technician to send a signal to our cable TV box. Those technicians should have had a big red flag to tell us that we still have an outdated modem that will not work as of October 30th.

You have failed to provide any level of service or reliability or accurate information. Your internal software system is completely useless. It does not notify your staff that we have an outdated unsupported piece of equipment. It does not even tell your staff what we actually have in our home; they have to ask us what the model number is. You clearly train your phone technicians to simply say anything to get people off the phone rather than actually provide service and solve a problem.

Perhaps you should consider a new greeting for your customer service call staff, “Thank you for calling customer service where we’re not satisfied ’til you’re not satisfied.” [ed. We removed this as too inflammatory and not likely to further our cause, even though we both like it.]

After being customers for well over a decade, we consider this whole chain of events insulting, infuriating and completely unacceptable. We insist that we receive at least one month of service for free to make up for the terrible inconvenience, hassle of running around and stress due to your lack of planning, system failure and incompetence. You need to seriously look at your internal software system and its lack of information. You need to seriously re-train your customer service staff to actually know something about how your systems and equipment function to provide some level of service rather than dis-service.

Sincerely,

Here’s a humorous time travelers’ forum.

International Association of Time Travelers: Members’ Forum Subforum: Europe – Twentieth Century – Second World War

To be different, I intend to go back to about 70-80,000 years ago. The population of humans was then just 2-5,000 people. I intend to hunt them down and kill them, thus eliminating the source of a great percentage of the suffering in the world. See you later … or not.

(Readers who’ve come here from Dvorak will recognize this as a post from there by Eidard. Thanks Eidard!)

I like this film and much of what I see from the Skeptics Society. I’ve even been to some lectures sponsored by the group. However, I am often not a fan of Shermer on the subject of religion. I disagree with him on the correct skeptical position with regard to god. He believes the skeptics position to be agnosticism. I don’t see enough evidence to give any credence at all to that hypothesis. Consider these two.

God                      Fire-Breathing Dragon
======================== =============================
Much literature about    Much literature about dragons
god(s)

Makes a good film        Makes a good film character.
character

No evidence of any god   No evidence of fire-breathing
ever having existed.     dragons ever having existed.

So, exactly why do we give credence to one hypothesis but not the other? I give equal weight to all hypotheses for which there is not a shred of evidence. Hence, I am an atheist. Shermer calls himself a skeptic and has created the Skeptics Society. Yet, for some reason, he gives some level of credence to the god hypothesis, at least enough for doubt. Anyway, this film was quite good in my opinion and has no mention of atheism versus agnosticism, so does not bug me.

Here’s an excellent write-up that describes the ways in which we are stealing from future generations to feed ourselves and the parallels between doing so and any other Ponzi scheme.

PONZICONOMY: Our global pyramid scheme

I’ve read Plan B 2.0, an excellent book, and notice that there is a link to a new version Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown.

Don’t forget, the article doesn’t even mention the fact that not only is the oil at the pump a subsidized and limited resource, so is the oil we pour on our corn as fertilizer.

That’s right, industrial fertilizers are petroleum products. We’re eating oil!! That can’t be good for either our health or our long term prospects in terms of a very large population dependent on a fossil, non-renewable, resource.

Neil is always great for simultaneous education and laughter … an impressive talent.

Thanks to Rich who adds that if you were expecting to see someone bite someone’s ear off, that was his brother Mike deGrasse Tyson. (OK, we sort of came up with that together. I was considering not admitting any part of it.)