In general, I agree with most of what you said. My intended point about the rich and the yachts was that their willingness to indulge in extreme personal waste is indicative of their general lack of concern with waste — and those are the people who have the most influence on social policies.

I strongly disagree about Malthus, however. On my last rereading of his essay on population, my understanding was that he was arguing, explicitly, that the absolute limit of the mean standard of living had already been reached and passed, that poverty was a direct result of the carrying capacity of the Earth having already been exceeded, and the upshot, that any effort to alleviate poverty would result in population increases, declining living standards, and increased poverty.

Since living standards and population have both increased since Malthus’s time, his immediate point was clearly wrong. More generally, he misunderstood the nature of production. Since the invention of agriculture, civilization — as in, the social organization of cities — has been based upon the fact that individuals are capable of producing more than they consume. Improvements in technology are best understood as multipliers of production, and while consumption has generally increased, production has increased more rapidly.

Obviously, that cannot continue forever, and achieving sustainable economic policies are clearly very important. However, it’s generally known now that, contrary to Malthus, increasing individual wealth tends to reduce the rate of population growth, and rates of childbirth in wealthy nations would mean declining populations, if it weren’t for immigration. Increasing mean wealth means increasing social support, so that people are not directly dependent upon children for survival; it is also associated with increasing practical and political ability of women to control their own fertility. (I suspect that the gradual demolition of women’s rights to control their own fertility in the US is a significant reason why birthrates are relatively high in the US, compared to other wealthy nations.)

I think it’s much more reasonable to conclude that the population will stabilize when food distribution is equalized.

The environmental impact of commercial production of meat for food is enormous. If the majority of the population were to reduce their consumption of meat to levels that were more common 100+ years ago then it would make more of a difference to the environment than eliminating all the luxury yachts.

The current meat production process starts with producing excessive amounts of corn and grain for feeding the animals (which takes lots of fuel for farm machinery and fertiliser). Farming the animals also takes some fuel – although less fuel is used if the animals are kept in inhumane conditions (squash them in a tiny cage and you don’t have to drive around to find them).

Then meat products need to be brought to the market faster, stored at lower temperatures (which takes a huge amount of energy in hot countries like Australia), and then discarded sooner if they aren’t bought. The risk of getting sick from eating vegetables that have been kept for too long is quite small. The risk from bad meat is much greater.

If the typical Australian house had 1-2 chickens (for which there is adequate room in the typical backyard) and dinner was not comprised of 50% meat then that would make a significant improvement.

A few people who spend a weekend on a luxury yacht make no real difference to the population fuel use. A large number of people who incorrectly believe that a 4WD or SUV is an appropriate vehicle to drive children to school is a much bigger problem.

The only way the small number of rich people make a big difference is when corporations promote products and practices that are bad for the environment. Meat consumption seems largely driven by marketting. The farming industry promotes the false idea that children won’t be healthy unless they eat meat. Then parents force their children to eat meat and learn to like it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus

The problem of hunger can NEVER be solved until the population is stabilised. As much as the food production is increased the population can increase to grow it. Reverend Malthus worked this out 200 years ago.

There’s a general problem with overproduction, and the problem isn’t so much the billions who work very hard and make do with much less than they produce. It’s with the people at the top of the heap who don’t see any problem with colossal waste. The trouble with the giant yachts isn’t (necessarily) that the yachts are a major problem in themselves. It’s that those who own and operate the yachts are willing to engage in grotesque displays of waste.

Consider the problem of “planned obsolescence” — certainly an issue relevant to the free software community. We have a global economy based on the fallacy of the broken window, in which waste is profitable.

We solved the problem of hunger about ten thousand years ago, with the invention of agriculture. Poverty is a weapon.

The article in question only references a single white man (Jams Lovelock) who would not be called rich by most people. He is successful at his work, famous, and probably has more money than me. But I doubt that he could afford one of those luxury yachts even if he wanted one.

It also seems strange that an article which rails against rich white men wanting to damage the environment with luxury yachts but who want to reduce the population references only one white man who wants a population reduction – and that man is totally against carbon emissions.

It’s a tabloid article, written to get attention without regard to factual support or even having much of a point.

I’m sure I could find some other examples of rich white men who do more good than harm if I tried.

Again, the world would be a better place if they all were put in theirs.

My main issue is that the writer uses words which are not neutral and lead to his argument starting from a compromised position. I really wish people would not base arguments on peoples surface appearance but rather their cultural standings. It’s similar to when people assume that all guys are worse at multitasking, or all girls are weaker than guys etc etc.

If people started an argument about people who couldn’t think about two things at once with “It’s no co-incidence that those who are uncoordinated, white guys, have problems talking while working” I’d have a lot of problems accepting the rest of their arguments. It’s unfair on those who are male and coordinated, and unfair on those who are other sexes and are not. If they instead talked about people who couldn’t do two things at once, then it would be a lot easier to take them seriously.