: Of course, the farmers raise the grain to feed cows, which reduces the number
: of people fed by about 40:1.

: I dont have any problem with the sierra club sticking up for the butterflies,
: even if it is somes absurd sounding. And, I wouldnt worry too much about
: 700 million people in the world. I heard it put eloquently like this once:
: If the limitation on population growth is misery and starvation, then we
: will continue to breed until we are ALL miserable and starving.

: AIDS, or war, or mad cow, an earthquake or a comet, or some other equalizer
: will come along and wipe a significant chunk of us out one day. It's
: nature's way. And the more dense our population, the more likely it is to
: happen sooner.

Actually, that 700 million is in the US alone (current pop ~280 million), there are somewhere in the order of 6000 000 000 people living in the world today.

What the tree huggers are worried about isn't necessarily the loss of a species or two, it's when you've lost so many species that the ecosystem can no longer sustain itself and the whole thing comes tumbling down.

I read something about this in the paper the other day. They were saying that if an aircraft loses a rivet, that's no big deal. If it loses a few more, then thats probably ok too. But, if you lose so many rivets that the wings fall off, then you've got a problem. The Tree Huggers are worried we'll lose so many species that the wings will fall off the whole shebang.

They are probably right, it would be helpful if they were a little less fanatical though (at least the ones down here in Australia, they're usually well intentioned and ill informed).

Cheers,

Paul L.