World Population Growth is slowing, may see global decline

[Typhoon]

I suppose "A lot of" is a relative term.
Since you seem well informed of the physical properties of many radioactive isotopes, would it be an imposition for you to express the MD50 of the aforementioned Cesium-40 isotope in standard metric mass units for us? You know, kilograms, or tonnes, or what have you?
I'm pretty sure it's poisonous, I just wondered how many kilos of pure Cesium-40 an average person would have to take in to get a lethal dose?

The Cesium-137 isotope is the one that is of concern.

As human death due to Cs-137 is very rare I was not able to find such data.
However, there is animal [dog] data which gives one an order of magnitude estimate:

81 kg [average US male weight] x 44μg/kg = 3321μg ~ 0.003 grams

Caesium-137 reacts with water producing a water-soluble compound (caesium hydroxide), and the biological behavior of caesium is similar to that of potassium and rubidium. After entering the body, caesium gets more or less uniformly distributed throughout the body, with higher concentration in muscle tissues and lower in bones. The biological half-life of caesium is rather short at about 70 days. [13] Experiments with dogs showed that a single dose of 3800 μCi/kg (140 MBq/kg, or approximately 44 μg/kg) is lethal within three weeks. [14]
Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated with Prussian blue, which binds to it chemically and reduces the biological half-life to 30 days.

re: Health risk of radioactive cesium

Cesium 137 - 44μg/kg body weight. 0.000044 x 50 = 0.0022 = 2.2mg if I weighed 50kg.

A fatal dose of cyanide for humans can be as low as 1.5 mg/kg body weight [an assuredly lethal dosage is significantly higher] .0015 x 50 = 0.075g = 75mg.

So Caesium-137 is approximately 34 times as lethal by weight as cyanide?

If your values for cyanide are correct, then yes.

Thank you very much for your efforts! I just grabbed the cyanide nimber from what seemed like a reliable source:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/wa ... ex-eng.php


From your above quote, 140 MBq/kg ~ 44 μg/kg = 140 MBq of caesium-137 ~ 44 μg of cesium-137 (MD100 for 1 kg of dog/human)
Tepco says the combined incidents at Okuma released 360,000 TBq of cesium-137 into the atmosphere alone (no numbers for ocean and groundwater release).
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-chernobyl- ... ation-145/

By the above formula, that's enough to MD100 71428571kg of human. About 1 million 71kg human beings.

So 1 fraction of the atmospheric release from Fukushima is enough poison (caesium-137) to kill about a million people?

Wouldn't that suggest that Japan has released a lot of poison into the world lately?

No.

By this line of argument, plants are deadly as they release enough CO2 at night time to kill millions*.

Number of deaths due to radiation poisoning from Fukushima Daiichi: 0

Number of deaths due to Tohoku tsunami: 15,878



Note the log scale.

More Cs-137 was released into the atmosphere by the above ground nuclear tests of the 1950's.

*The key point is concentration [Bq/litre] or [Bq/m^3] in the case of radioactive isotopes and [mol/m^3] in the case of other gases.

The world, fortunately, is a very big place.

[Farcus]

Cesium 137 - 44μg/kg body weight. 0.000044 x 50 = 0.0022 = 2.2mg if I weighed 50kg.

A fatal dose of cyanide for humans can be as low as 1.5 mg/kg body weight [an assuredly lethal dosage is significantly higher] .0015 x 50 = 0.075g = 75mg.

So Caesium-137 is approximately 34 times as lethal by weight as cyanide?

If your values for cyanide are correct, then yes.

Thank you very much for your efforts! I just grabbed the cyanide nimber from what seemed like a reliable source:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/wa ... ex-eng.php


From your above quote, 140 MBq/kg ~ 44 μg/kg = 140 MBq of caesium-137 ~ 44 μg of cesium-137 (MD100 for 1 kg of dog/human)
Tepco says the combined incidents at Okuma released 360,000 TBq of cesium-137 into the atmosphere alone (no numbers for ocean and groundwater release).
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-chernobyl- ... ation-145/

By the above formula, that's enough to MD100 71428571kg of human. About 1 million 71kg human beings.

So 1 fraction of the atmospheric release from Fukushima is enough poison (caesium-137) to kill about a million people?

Wouldn't that suggest that Japan has released a lot of poison into the world lately?

No.

By this line of argument, plants are deadly as they release enough CO2 at night time to kill millions*.

Number of deaths due to radiation poisoning from Fukushima Daiichi: 0

Number of deaths due to Tohoku tsunami: 15,878



Note the log scale.

More Cs-137 was released into the atmosphere by the above ground nuclear tests of the 1950's.

*The key point is concentration [Bq/litre] or [Bq/m^3] in the case of radioactive isotopes and [mol/m^3] in the case of other gases.

The world, fortunately, is a very big place.

So we use the entire atmosphere and oceans as our mixing zones before we can measure, and therefore one must raise adulterant concentrations of the entire earth atmosphere before one can say Fukushima released "A lot" of pollution?

[Typhoon]

"A lot" is a relative term.

[Farcus]

OK.

Moving on...

. . . to point out that there isn't enough $$ in the world, much less tax $$ in Japan, to clean up the poison in Fukushima County for at least a few decades?

False.

Yes, thank you. A Japanese prefecture is more of a 'province' than a 'county'. I stand corrected.

[Zack Morris]

I guess.

I don't love how life for you guys is like the old Arnold movie about last man standing survival for reality TV. Your commitment to destroying human existence is astonishing.

It's funny how seriously disturbed you are. The only thing threatening human existence is that we are more populous than ever and certain people, you for instance, think that poisoning the commons is ok and has no ill effects as long as it makes money.

How is the current global population "threatening human existence"?

The global population is certainly threatening the environment and many would argue that this in turn threatens our own experience. Have animals been driven to extinction by humans or have they not? Are fishing stocks being depleted or are they not? The world is not a static place and clearly, human consumption has the potential to alter the biosphere.

A voluntary reduction in birth rates is a welcome development and whatever factors or policies have led to it should be promoted for the time being. There is no need to even consider deeply immoral solutions such as forcible population control (as in China).

[Typhoon]

In the early days of the old Spengler forum I argued for a world population total of maybe 100 million.

On what do you base this rather low number?

People like Goldman and Mr. Perfect or the president of Uganda (I don't care where they come from) who get all self-righteous about uncontrolled breeding, strike me as outrageously self-centred. Take your hideous and contemptible religion of murder and ecological ruin and shove it.

This seems to imply that breeding should controlled which start to come close to the boundary of eugenics: who should decide who can breed and who cannot.

[Typhoon]

The US centric posts have been collected from here and from Hell and moved to a new thread in the N Am section.

Have fun.

[Enki]

In the early days of the old Spengler forum I argued for a world population total of maybe 100 million.

On what do you base this rather low number?

People like Goldman and Mr. Perfect or the president of Uganda (I don't care where they come from) who get all self-righteous about uncontrolled breeding, strike me as outrageously self-centred. Take your hideous and contemptible religion of murder and ecological ruin and shove it.

This seems to imply that breeding should controlled which start to come close to the boundary of eugenics: who should decide who can breed and who cannot.

I think the point of this thread was to show that breeding is being controlled by natural sociological mechanisms.

[Typhoon]

In the early days of the old Spengler forum I argued for a world population total of maybe 100 million.

On what do you base this rather low number?

People like Goldman and Mr. Perfect or the president of Uganda (I don't care where they come from) who get all self-righteous about uncontrolled breeding, strike me as outrageously self-centred. Take your hideous and contemptible religion of murder and ecological ruin and shove it.

This seems to imply that breeding should controlled which start to come close to the boundary of eugenics: who should decide who can breed and who cannot.

I think the point of this thread was to show that breeding is being controlled by natural sociological mechanisms.

Well, yes. However, the above statement that I addressed seems to have an implicit advocacy of controlled breeding, no?

[Farcus]

Less humans=less human desire=less human suffering.

Where was Buddha on this one?

[Enki]

Well, yes. However, the above statement that I addressed seems to have an implicit advocacy of controlled breeding, no?

Yes, possibly. I think that there is a level to which we can control our own breeding. Most people that have tons and tons of kids have them not through some conscious choice, but because of reckless action. Having children in a controlled and meaningful manner is better ultimately, for the children and everyone involved.

Mr. Perfect and his 2000 children were probably planned. But not everyone having lots of children have foresight involved.

[Mr. Perfect]

Previous two posts sound like something I've heard ascribed to Lucifer, the god of this world.

[Farcus]

Previous two posts sound like something I've heard ascribed to Lucifer, the god of this world.

God didn't invent capitalism?

[Zack Morris]

Less humans=less human desire=less human suffering.

Where was Buddha on this one?

Buddhists believe that the lives they live were created by their past actions. Therefore, an increase in human suffering may reflect an overall spiritual decline brought on by individuals. Souls also enter the cycle at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and the human form is achieved as one of the latter stages of the progression to enlightenment.

[Zack Morris]

Previous two posts sound like something I've heard ascribed to Lucifer, the god of this world.

Really? Where in the Bible does he say any of that?

I just had a thought: if the God of Abraham exists, might it not be Lucifer who is in fact the true deity? Isn't it odd, after all, that Lucifer seems above the fray, choosing not to speak for himself, leaving behind no ambiguous texts to be used as justification for endless holy wars, and leaving behind no record of mocking Yahweh (whereas Yahweh's surrogates have relentlessly besmirched the name of Lucifer)?

Makes you wonder if Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been worshiping the wrong guy all along.

[Farcus]

Less humans=less human desire=less human suffering.

Where was Buddha on this one?

Buddhists believe that the lives they live were created by their past actions. Therefore, an increase in human suffering may reflect an overall spiritual decline brought on by individuals. Souls also enter the cycle at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and the human form is achieved as one of the latter stages of the progression to enlightenment.

Did he ever specifically human overpolulation, other than in the vaguest terms?

[Zack Morris]

Less humans=less human desire=less human suffering.

Where was Buddha on this one?

Buddhists believe that the lives they live were created by their past actions. Therefore, an increase in human suffering may reflect an overall spiritual decline brought on by individuals. Souls also enter the cycle at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and the human form is achieved as one of the latter stages of the progression to enlightenment.

Did he ever specifically human overpolulation, other than in the vaguest terms?

Who is 'he'? I think there have been several Buddhas. I'm quite confident none of them has contemplated such issues It's almost as silly a religion as -- and much more superstitious than -- Christianity. But overpopulation can work within the Buddhist framework. Overpopulation would lead to suffering (and ultimately, depopulation) and this would be an opportunity for souls to pay back their bad karma. I am also told that Buddhists do not necessarily believe that this is the only world. There is the possibility of other planets and universes in which one can be reincarnated, meaning that even the total annihilation of life on Earth would not invalidate their belief system.

It's turtles all the way down, Farcus!

[Taboo]

Previous two posts sound like something I've heard ascribed to Lucifer, the god of this world.

Really? Where in the Bible does he say any of that?

I just had a thought: if the God of Abraham exists, might it not be Lucifer who is in fact the true deity? Isn't it odd, after all, that Lucifer seems above the fray, choosing not to speak for himself, leaving behind no ambiguous texts to be used as justification for endless holy wars, and leaving behind no record of mocking Yahweh (whereas Yahweh's surrogates have relentlessly besmirched the name of Lucifer)?

Makes you wonder if Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been worshiping the wrong guy all along.

Welcome to the gnostic heresy.

About That Overpopulation Problem
Research suggests we may actually face a declining world population in the coming years.

Global cooling scare, global warming scare...
Overpopulation scare, underpopulation scare...

The problem with Reality is that it seems to fail to deliver enough Armageddons and Ragnaroks-to-be-avoided to keep us satisfied with our own self-importance.

[Typhoon]

. . .

Global cooling scare, global warming scare...
Overpopulation scare, underpopulation scare...

The problem with Reality is that it seems to fail to deliver enough Armageddons and Ragnaroks-to-be-avoided to keep us satisfied with our own self-importance.

Bingo.

[Although I have to admit to having to look up Ragnarök.]

[Taboo]

As the clear-headed cynical misanthrope H.L. Menken put it so well:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

[Farcus]

Less humans=less human desire=less human suffering.

Where was Buddha on this one?

Buddhists believe that the lives they live were created by their past actions. Therefore, an increase in human suffering may reflect an overall spiritual decline brought on by individuals. Souls also enter the cycle at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and the human form is achieved as one of the latter stages of the progression to enlightenment.

Did he ever specifically human overpolulation, other than in the vaguest terms?

Who is 'he'? I think there have been several Buddhas. I'm quite confident none of them has contemplated such issues It's almost as silly a religion as -- and much more superstitious than -- Christianity. But overpopulation can work within the Buddhist framework. Overpopulation would lead to suffering (and ultimately, depopulation) and this would be an opportunity for souls to pay back their bad karma. I am also told that Buddhists do not necessarily believe that this is the only world. There is the possibility of other planets and universes in which one can be reincarnated, meaning that even the total annihilation of life on Earth would not invalidate their belief system.

It's turtles all the way down, Farcus!

Therefore, skyhooks. Of course.
Was thinking of Gautama abluting in the lower Ganges when I somehow omitted the word, "address" in the above.

[Farcus]

The problem with Reality is that it seems to fail to deliver enough Armageddons and Ragnaroks-to-be-avoided to keep us satisfied with our own self-importance.

Not to mention all the smackdowns Reality offers as a matter of course. Psychological determinism has many forms.

[Mr. Perfect]

Really? Where in the Bible does he say any of that?

Nowhere. It's nothing to worry about.

I just had a thought:

I can't wait.

if the God of Abraham exists, might it not be Lucifer who is in fact the true deity? Isn't it odd, after all, that Lucifer seems above the fray, choosing not to speak for himself, leaving behind no ambiguous texts to be used as justification for endless holy wars, and leaving behind no record of mocking Yahweh (whereas Yahweh's surrogates have relentlessly besmirched the name of Lucifer)?

Makes you wonder if Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been worshiping the wrong guy all along.

You could be right. Anything is possible.

[Enki]

Previous two posts sound like something I've heard ascribed to Lucifer, the god of this world.

Coming from the man worships the mad sorcerer of patmos as wishes his ravings would come true.

So saying we have control over ourselves sounds like Lucifer huh?

What bible verses attributed to Lucifer do you think are most instructive as to this biblical character's motivations?

[Azrael]

"A lot" is a relative term.

That would explain the Russian space program