Sorry but that’s nonsense: just look at the chart.  It has sod all to do with biofuels.

So, let’s be clear: you are saying what you have spent years consistently denying.

We won’t go back into another argument on this issue but increasing wealth requires using more resources; resources we don’t have. Your solution is not a solution; it’s a delusion.

No, I am saying exactly the same thing.

How can it be a delusion when historical evidence shows it to be true? You are just coming out with the same lines that have been used for centuries, yet we now have more people than ever living longer and in less poverty than ever before. 

You are repeating your same old arguments which actually isn't an argument at all, let alone a solution, it's just a tut tut on how bad people are.

I don’t want to derail this thread but your reply doesn’t address my point and is a wilful misrepresentation of my position.  I expected better of you.

I have never said population can continue to rise forever - and there is no indication that would be the case anyway. I've linked the brilliant Hans Rosling lecture on population a number of times and the statistics clearly show that birth rates slow as wealth increases, and population is expected to peak at around 10 billion then slowly decline. I think it is perfectly possible to support that number of people, indeed we already produce enough food for that many people - and at the same time we are actually using less farmland - see 'Wilding' by Elizabeth Tree.

What it comes down to is this, global population is going to rise, more resources will be used, more energy required. Whatever you or I think of that, it will happen regardless.

Your response to that is that it will be really bad, your solution is don't do it - a 'solution' which has zero chance of success.

My response is, yes that could be bad, this is what we'll do about it - a solution which has an unknown but possible chance of success.

Whatever.  You will stick to your flawed view of the future and I’ll stick to mine, which is rooted in evidence rather than wishful thinking.

You mean the evidence which shows Malthusian thinking to be consistently and repeatedly wrong? The same thinking that you are applying now, because like all those before you over hundreds of years you are convinced that this time you will be right. 

Evidence is provided by the past, every bit of evidence we have shows your thinking is wrong. You don't want to see that because it challenges your ideological position but there is no escaping it. 

As for wishful thinking, you are the only one offering that as a solution - the idea that somehow (no actual method has ever been described) Humans will stop using energy and resources simply because you think we have to. Let's be clear, there is zero, zero chance of that happening.

Whether my solution of technology and innovation will work I don't know but at least I recognise the reality.

WHO continue to drag their heals with declaring this an international emergency.

Two questions:

1. Have they been burnt by declaring too soon with other epidemics


2. Are they being influenced by big business and the Chinese government

With such an incubation period of up to 14 days, I do think they are playing with fire here.

Your faith that we can simply continue on the current path without consequences even whilst those consequences are becoming ever more evident is bizarre.

Are you mad actually talking about what the thread is about.

Surely you have noticed that like every other thread in the UIA, this is for the usual suspects to argue amongst themselves.

I understand you always have to have the last word but repeating that you think my solutions are bizarre just indicates you don't have an argument at all. For my part I find it equally bizarre that you have no self awareness of the fact you are just repeating the same arguments that Mathusians have done for centuries, arguments which have always been proved wrong.

If you actually had a framework for changing the path we are on I might take you more seriously but you don't. You just repeat "we must change our path" without offering any practical way of doing so. You might as well hope that Jesus will come back or Santa will wave a magic wand to make everything better. At least my solution has a foundation in reality. 

Fair point. Over population is a massively prominent issue but you are right it should have a thread of it's own rather than cluttering up others.

Apologies.

I would assume they know a tad more about it than you or me. Your second question is probably silly.

Japan has confirmed their first case of human to human transmission of the virus. The patient had not travelled to Wuhan.

Cases in Thailand almost doubled overnight also.

I am surprised and alarmed that there have been no reported cases in India. I very much doubt that nobody with the virus has travelled to India, but the Indian healthcare system is chaotic - if the virus takes hold there, India won't be able to respond with the draconian and effective measures put in place in China and there is a huge human reservoir in India to incubate and spread the contagion.

Germany has confirmed human to human transmission as well

A German man who tested positive for the strain of coronavirus currently sweeping China was infected by a work colleague, officials said on Tuesday, in what is believed to be the first human transmission in Europe, AFP reports. 

There is a confirmed case in Sri Lanka/ To be honest, I think its only a matter of time until it reaches India

Can only be a matter of time before the WHO declares a PHEIC.

We are not doing enough to contain this.

We are a mutation away from a Spanish flu style event.

Honestly think we need to immediately suspend all flights to and from all parts of China and start drafting contingency plans for a partial shutdown of our borders.

Also I'd just like to add this is why rhetoric matters. The last few months have been dominated by 'climate emergency' which is abjectly not an emergency. But this is on the cusp of actually beocming one so people will not take this as seriously.

Also it goes without saying if this becomes a UK epidemic we are beyond f*cked. Which is why our best bet is to stop that from happening while it still might be possible.

I've even started stockpiling. This may sound extreme but we have to take this seriously.

Are we dead yet? 

What is most alarming about this is it combines a highly infectious nature with a high mortality rate. This has the potential to be much much worse than the Ebola or SARS outbreak.

The mortality rate is probably around 10%, at least in China. So 100 times more potent than flu but potentially nearly as infectious.

Source? 

Experts I heard yesterday on BBC News (experts as in, doctors), were quoting that in their view, from what they've seen so far, this looks to be not as as serious as Ebola, MERS, or SARS. 

I think it's one of those occasions where you should stick to the expert view, as it is all too tempting to become an armchair virologist and also a sensationalist. 

You can think that all you like, but what knowledge do you have about viruses?