Todd's Mischief Blog

In a very quick cash in of their credibility chips, the website/organization No Labels, having only officially launched yesterday , has already been outted for swiping graphics for their website. To make it worse, the lead designer for No Labels, Dave Warren, initially vehemently denied his thievery. “I do my own thinking, man,” he said. Full article after the jump »

Does God have something to say about global warming? I think He does. But I’m guessing it’s not what you think. That was a teaser. I’m going to tell you some other stuff now before I get to the money quote. First of all, the Bible doesn’t have a lot to say about planetary maintenance. Almost any discussion on Christian environmentalism necessarily starts with Genesis 1:28 . God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” A lot of environmentalists hate that passage because, to them, it seems like Judeo-Christian carte-blanch to rape the planet. Of course that’s not true. Beyond that, there’s some instruction on cropland management ( Exodus 23:10-11 ; Leviticus 25:1-7 ); a few passages that indicate proper treatment of animals ( Deuteronomy 25:4 ; Proverbs 12:10 ; Proverbs 27:23) and directions for proper waste managemen...

Ted Turner says that, to save the planet, the whole world needs a one-child policy. The human population is predicted to reach 10 billion by 2050—that’s pretty soon—and Ted doesn’t think the planet can take it. I did do a little slogging around on Google, and it seems the current expert consensus is on that number for Earth’s maximum occupancy. So is Ted right? Let’s look into it… First, let’s consider the world fertility rate. The fertility rate is basically an estimate of how many children each woman will have in her lifetime. The replacement rate is two (2), meaning if every woman had just two kids in her lifetime, the population would remain unchanged. A tiny bit of math tells you that a one-child policy is half the replacement rate, and would reduce population. So, I found some data on the fertility rates from the United Nations Population Division (graph mine). Total world fertility (children per woman) Actual and projected, 1950-2050 The world’s fertility rate is dropping...