Joel M. Curzon
@JoelMCurzon
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Author of book on the Everglades; environment, serpents, etc.; atheist with a religious past. Physics B.S., Harvard J.D. Same handle on the other place.
San Diego & Tucson
Joined March 2013
Don’t pretend to be an environmentalist if you refuse to acknowledge the problem of human #overpopulation and ongoing #population growth. #EarthDay #environment
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Does anyone remember the 1960s and 1970s, when many people actually cared about the environment (which is not just climate)? Enough so that *Richard Nixon* signed laws establishing the EPA, The Endangered Species Act, The Clean Air Act, The Clean Water Act, etc.?. What changed?.
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This isn’t about physics. This is about anthropocentric hubris. No species that trashes its home planet deserves access to any other.
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Full-grown adults talking seriously about angels, demons, Antichrists, the Rapture, etc. It’s embarrassing.
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If #COVID19 doesn’t make kids very ill, but it kills or hospitalizes their parents, then it is hurting those kids pretty badly, in my estimation. #coronavirus #CloseTheSchools.
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Orcas have seen enough, and have decided that humanity is the enemy. The orcas are correct.
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A note about the current highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) sweeping the globe, killing hundreds of millions of birds, and unknown numbers of mammals: this was caused by people through intensive agriculture. It wouldn’t exist without us. It is not “natural.”. #H5N1
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Urban, fake environmentalists who see deserts as wastelands have endorsed plans to send fleets of bulldozers into the Mojave, Great Basin, and Sonoran Deserts to destroy the habitats of species like this. Nothing “green” about it.
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1. It won’t solve climate change. 2. Destroying *31 million acres* of wildlands is hardly a “side effect.”. 3. There are other alternatives for solar placement. 4. If we don’t tackle growth, all we’re doing is adding to fossil-fuel energy, not replacing it.
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I am not “anti-solar.” I am against bulldozing intact habitats on public lands for industrial-scale solar. Anyone who tells you that we have no choice is misinformed or lying.
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If you think this is a great place for an industrial solar installation, we are not on the same side, and you are no environmentalist, whatever you call yourself, regardless of what NGO you work for.
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This bristlecone pine may have been perched on this spot, overlooking an open valley of sagebrush, juniper, grouse, pronghorn antelope, wolves, rattlesnakes, and deer for 4,000 years. Are we now going to bulldoze all that for industrial solar, with panels that will last 25 years?
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Golf courses don’t belong in the Sonoran Desert. We don’t need to be wasting the Colorado River on this.
Come along with me on my carnage (I mean course) check this morning. What should be one of the most beautiful golf courses in the country is being destroyed by herds of javelina. If anyone has a contact in AZ state govt that can help us find a solution please pass it along.
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Rattlesnakes are welcome in my Arizona yard anytime. I’ll offer them water if they’ll take it. My advice: If you don’t like rattlesnakes, stay out of Arizona.
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Last night my 14-year old daughter was lamenting how everything natural is being degraded and destroyed, every wild place is being overrun with people, and how when she is my age there will be almost nothing left, and I wish I had more encouraging responses to give.
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@evornithology A PhD is not a bachelor’s degree. He has a PhD in evolutionary biology. He is a biologist.
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If we fill valleys like this with industrial solar, we destroy them forever. These are not wastelands. If you lack the taste to appreciate them, stay in your cities. But let these places be.
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This is insanely indefensible. Just rampant environmental destruction being passed off as “green.” This has to be stopped.
Elsewhere we find Nevada's only national park, Great Basin National Park, completely circumferentially surrounded by lands available for solar. This includes lands within the proposed Bahsahwahbee National Monument, sacred to the Western Shoshone & Goshutes.
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Maybe it’s as simple as non-stop corporate propaganda; maybe (I’ll say definitely) conservative religious movements. What else?.
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There is no such thing as “sustainable growth” on a finite planet. Period.
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Think all of that electricity from solar is replacing fossil fuels and reducing emissions?. Haha, no! It’s being consumed by AI and crypto, while the U.S. is pumping more oil from the ground than ever before.
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Fact everyone should know: The global human population is growing by about 80 million people per year, or roughly a new United States every four years. Please keep this in mind whenever you read an article crying about declining birth rates.
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If you think planned degrowth is unworkable, wait until you see unplanned collapse. Those are the alternatives. Physics doesn’t care about your feelings.
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If the point of leaving religion is “to sin,” I’ve certainly done a poor job of it. I left 27 years ago, and have been a monogamous married man for 26 years. No tattoos, no polyamory, no blue hair, no piercings. I just don’t want to dedicate my life to a lie.
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“Should we colonize Mars?”. No species that ruins its home planet deserves access to any other.
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Thirsty #rattlesnake on my front porch, last spring. Sat with it for about an hour before it crawled away. Moments like this are why I bought my house in the Arizona desert 16 years ago.
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Mainstream economists: “The world has never had it this good. More!”
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I didn’t get my concern with overpopulation from Thomas Malthus. I didn’t get it from Paul Erlich either. I have my own eyes.
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The Biden administration is leading an unprecedented assault on wild public lands: 31 million acres opened to corporate solar profiteers; fast-tracked open-pit mines in biologically rich mountains; needless expansion of low-level military flights & flares over wilderness. 1/n
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Species like this are being destroyed to enable profits for industrial solar projects on desert habitats. It won’t solve climate change, but it will destroy large swaths of the Desert Southwest. Put solar on rooftops, parking lots, and already disturbed land, not on this.
Living the Dream!. A beautiful burrow with a Two Tort Garage!. Photo: Mike Schijf
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The magical thinking of growthism — the belief that GDP and human population can and should grow perpetually — is the most dangerous mode of thought there is. Worse than religion, although religion enables it. It is, as Edward Abby said, “the ideology of the cancer cell.”.
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My daughter just found this hatchling in our backyard. Tiny little thing!
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Around 20,000 people are deliberately killed by other people in the United States every year. No one asks, “how can people coexist with other people?”. One person is killed by a mountain lion in 20 years, and people ask “how can humans and big cats coexist?”. 1/n
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This is just ecocide on a massive scale, and a massive giveaway of public lands to private corporations.
Green areas are fed lands available for solar farm development in Nevada under the Biden western solar plan. 11.8 million acres, or 16.6% of state's land area. How much actually gets developed is an open question. The Esmeralda 7 project alone would be roughly the size of Vegas.
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One’s carbon footprint is just one part of one’s ecological footprint: We need to stop mistaking the former for the latter.
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@StatisticUrban The world’s human population grew by 70-80 million people last year. That’s roughly a new United States every four years. Find something real to worry about, like the fact that there are far too many people already.
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If we could please stop treating deserts as wastelands and bulldozing desert habitat for utility-scale solar farms on public lands, that would be great. Put solar on rooftops and already disturbed land, not on this.
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Climate change is real. This “solution” is a hoax. This is an attempt to destroy more than 30 million acres of public land for corporate profits, and it does nothing to keep fossil fuels in the ground. This isn’t replacing fossil fuel energy; it’s just adding to it.
.@Interior is building our clean energy future! This week, we approved the Greenlink West Transmission Project and the Libra Solar Project. Combined, these projects will unlock up to 4.7 gigawatts of clean energy - enough to power nearly 5 million homes.
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“Wildlife numbers fall by 73% in 50 years.”. "Be aware that this is now a fundamental threat . and we've really got to do something now.”. Right. So can we honestly discuss human overpopulation? . “Oh, we can’t do *that.* People might take offense!”
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@angelfairy005 @DaveAtherton20 @mohammed_hijab @SalmanRushdie @DouglasKMurray People like this don’t belong in Britain or anywhere else in the West.
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When I see a newborn human baby, I see a mountain of disposable diapers, rivers of plastic junk, and a lifetime of consumption with an enormous environmental footprint. Nothing “cute” about it.
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Species like this are being destroyed to enable profits for industrial solar projects on desert habitats. It won’t solve climate change, but it will destroy large swaths of the Desert Southwest. Put solar on rooftops, parking lots, roads, and already disturbed land, not on this.
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If you think that replacing the habitat on the left with the industrial solar plant on the right is “good for the environment,” we are not simpatico.
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If a proposed energy source involves the mass destruction of desert habitat, it isn’t “clean.” . #CleanEnergy
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When this tree germinated, Christianity didn’t exist. Islam didn’t exist. Possibly, Judaism as we know it didn’t exist. Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) growing above 11,000 feet. Basin and Range Province, North America.
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Some people seem to think that 8 billion people could be fed with organic, sustainable agriculture. This is beyond delusional. This is not a defense of our current dependence on fossil fuels for food. It’s an acknowledgment that 8 billion humans is not a sustainable population.
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I don’t see these desert beauties very often. Actually, my first, found under the stars with my daughter.
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Kerry is right about this, but it’s important to add that 8 billion isn’t sustainable either. Nor is 6. Nor is 4.
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@girlsreallyrule That’s real nonsense. If Dems want to lose again in 2020, it’s a solid strategy. No Dem candidate is going to win a general election without a lot of Sanders voters. Maybe consider not gratuitously pissing them off. Just a thought.
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Humans are bipedal apes, and we shouldn’t expect too much of them as a species. 8 billion bipedal apes aren’t going to be rational, and aren’t going to be governable. In its relations to the natural world, Homo sapiens is cancer. No, I will never be a humanist.
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You don’t get to call yourself an environmentalist you favor industrializing the entire Basin & Range Province. This plan is environmentally catastrophic.
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It’s still breaking them. Right now. “It’s clear by now that SARS-CoV-2 is not just a respiratory virus, but also one that can affect organs throughout the body—including the brain.”.
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Soft 18-year-olds, straight from their mom’s and dad’s houses, coming to your front porch, to tell you the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. (But don’t call them Mormons, or they’ll get upset.).
Missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are here to support #BYU against SMU. #BYUFootball
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The proper measure of human overpopulation isn’t the number of humans starving to death: it is the number of other species being decimated, the amount of habitat being destroyed, the degree of damage that the human population is doing to every aspect of the environment.
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“If you’re an atheist, why do religious questions matter?”. Because human society is deranged by religious beliefs, which affect environmental policy, social policy, foreign policy, etc., etc. You might not want to mess with religion, but religion will mess with you.
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Christian: "Muslims will burn in Hell.". Muslim: "Christians will burn in Hell.". Muslims & Christians: "Stephen Hawking will burn in Hell.". Muslims & Christians: "Why are atheists so intolerant?".
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Atlanta’s mayor gets it: “This is not a protest. This is chaos.”. “If you care about this city, go home.” . (HT: @CKHyppolite ) #AtlantaProtest #Atlanta #protests #Riots2020 .
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This Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) has lived through as much as 4,000 years of human-caused decline in biodiversity. It sits above 11,000 feet in North America’s Basin and Range Province.
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This should absolutely be illegal.
"30 a day keeps the doctor away". That is how trappers really view wild animals. It is all just a joke and taking life means absolutely nothing to them. Trappers will wipe out areas of beavers, fox, raccoon, coyote, fisher and otter. #NHCART #BanTrapping
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The world’s human population is still growing by about 70-80 million people per year, which is close to a new United States every four years. Please don’t swallow all the contrary nonsense pushed in headlines. There are far too many of us.
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This is a place that I love. Now people want to destroy it by making it into a national park. If you don’t understand this statement, have you been to a national park lately?
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Great-horned owl scanning for prey atop a saguaro this evening. iPhone pic. Happy Solstice.
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“Overpopulation concerns have been debunked.”. Is that why wildlife populations have plummeted by 70% in the last fifty years? Is that why 96% of terrestrial mammalian biomass now consists of humans and their livestock and pets? Is that why national parks are so crowded? . 🤔
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Degrowth will happen. The only choice is whether we attempt to plan and manage it, or have it occur as an unplanned, catastrophic collapse. We don’t get to opt out.
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Cacti produce some of the most spectacular flowers. These opened on my property overnight, and will have wilted by tomorrow.
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Is there anything more narrow-minded, narcissistic, and bigoted, than the ubiquitous insistence that Homo sapiens is *special,* not subject to biophysical limits that apply to every other species, and always to be valued above everything else in the cosmos?.
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Why is it still seen as respectable to believe this? Come on .
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“We need more public access to wild places.” No. Public access ruins wild places. Wild places need to be protected from the public (and from corporations, ranchers, etc.).
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Understanding “#sustainability” as it pertains to #population. Here’s a graph. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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Evidence for the Resurrection:. • Anonymous hearsay (the gospels and Acts), written decades after the alleged events. • Hearsay recited by Paul, who never met Jesus, and some kind of psychotic episode “on the road to Damascus.”. That’s all there is. Happy Easter. 1/n.
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There is no “housing shortage.” Just an excess of people.
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The Biden administration has decided that this biologically rich area is a great place for an open-pit copper mine. This administration is plundering and destroying the Desert Southwest, while calling its policies “green.”. (Galiuro Mountains. Southern Arizona.)
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There is nothing “clean” about destroying desert habitats. Don’t call yourself an environmentalist if you support sacrificing the desert Southwest to industrial solar, mining, and transmission.
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@1goodtern I wouldn’t. The vaccines really aren’t that great anymore. They’re better than nothing, but the notion that everyone should be getting vaccinated every 4 months (by which time antibodies wane) is nonsensical. I’ve had 6 doses, and plan to get un update soon, but an N95 is better.
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@pidten @ConstantNot @sweatystartup Snakes control rodents, which reduces ticks, but I suspect your phobias won’t listen.
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There is no such thing as “healthy population growth” in a world of 8 billion people. The earth is finite.
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Paul Erlich is fundamentally right about this. Humans are not exempt from the physical limits that apply to everything else.
“The next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we’re used to.”. Humanity is consuming 175 percent of what the earth can regenerate. Biologist Paul Erlich says that our current way of life is unsustainable.
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The Left is embarrassing. The Right is embarrassing. The so called “center” is embarrassing. Let’s be honest: the human species is embarrassing.
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When this tree started growing, Islam didn’t exist; Christianity didn’t exist; Judaism as we know it didn’t exist. Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva). Basin & Range Province, North America. Goodnight.
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“Overpopulation is a myth” is flat-earther-level nonsense. Religions, corporations, and cornucopians have vested interests in denial, but you have your own eyes. Use them.
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The only relevant question here is this: Is atheism likely to be *true*? That’s it. No punch and pie will be served, and no comfort promised. If truth isn’t what you’re after, that’s your problem.
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Scooping baby diamondback rattlesnakes off the road is the purpose for which hats were created.
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“Currently there is not enough silver available to build the millions of solar panels which will be required in the the transition from fossil fuels . ”. There’s no more silver coming. We’re stuck with what we have. Let’s stop lying to ourselves.
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The notion that GDP and human population can and should grow forever is the proverbial emperor with no clothes. Someday, there is going to be a very rude mass awakening.
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I’m so sick of the Democratic Party pretending that it cares about the environment. Dems will lose votes over policies like this, and have no one to blame but themselves.
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You’ll never convince your neighbor to care about the environment if he thinks Jesus is coming back next week.
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Techno-optimism ignores what any honest assessment will show: Technology isn’t saving the world, and never has; technology is devouring the world. All that new solar power that is supposed to be replacing fossil fuels is actually just being gobbled up to power AI and crypto.
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Taken with a 50mm lens. Not the safest thing I’ve ever done, but it worked out.
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Don’t have children. Just don’t.
Have been doing some work with Tim Garrett's (@nephologue) "No Way Out" model. It was originally ported into #Minsky by @ProfSteveKeen a few years ago. I managed to extend the simulation to start in 1900 (vs 2017, in Tim's original run). I'll blog about it this week.
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Snakes are beautiful, and life is too short for those who think otherwise. Ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus). Southern Arizona.
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Look, I’m not a “doomer.” I’m a realist. Realistically, I see no sign that the human species is capable of not driving everything over a cliff. Human nature and human numbers are the problem, and more tech won’t save us from ourselves. I’d love to be wrong about this.
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