MaxQ

Just a couple thoughts from someone who has never been to The Netherlands.
A post gave a link to a Farm Journal article about the Govt. shutting down farms due to combat climate change. The article actually speaks of the direct pollution of nitrogen, not climate change. A small quibble though as I took his main point as the Govt taking direct action of closing some of "the means of production" that a socialist Govt would elsewise actually own. Kind of a hybrid situation, but it appears to be Govt regulatory action that has dramatic impact on private business in order to address a pollution problem.

Hubcapped went and researched it some, using Govt sources. On one hand it can be said that, yeah "they" will present it as a way to justify their decisions and actions. On the other hand it can be said that the Govt would present their observations, conclusions, and actions with a view encompassing that of all citizens versus just those of a specific business, or business in general. Farm Journal most likely would take a stringent view regarding Govt/farmers and the BBC would likely try to just report the actions, without a lot of background.

My personal thoughts lack knowledge of the specifics, so they are general. Also, due to ignorance, I may make some assumptions (that I draw conclusions from) that simply aren't true. I will justify that in saying this is not a paper being submitted to Nature and I don't think anyone in the Netherlands will either care, note, nor long remember what I say here.

Obviously there is a serious pollution problem that the Govt is trying to mitigate.
Just a very quick read of the BBC link makes the attempts to address these problems seem quite drastic. I find it hard to believe that these are the first attempts. I assume that people have been grappling with this for some time. I don't buy into accusations that regulators are by nature evil people. I do know that some can be inflexible in applying rules/laws and that over time attitudes of conflicting parties can harden. When that happens proposed solutions, and the cooperation in finding solutions, become less malleable. Adjustments to how business is done gets delayed and delayed until a problem becomes a crisis, and then either a catastrophe occurs or the regulatory fix/action is draconian.
I obviously don't know if this is the case, but it fits what little I understand of human nature.

The Netherlands are a Democracy. If enough of the voting public thinks these actions of the Govt are overreach, they will pressure the Govt to change their actions, or even vote them out of office. If enough feel that these actions are needed....then it will probably be what they do. While any group may see something as wrong headed, they don't live under a dictatorship that has people shot or imprisoned. They have recognized rights and institutions that give them a voice.

Excargo points out that much of the land there is reclaimed from nature so as to make room for the population to live and make a living. I suspect this magnifies run-off problems involving waste material. It should also magnify the impact of pollution that is confined to a small space that lacks an outlet. Making an assumption, it strikes me they are bumping up against one of the true limits to growth that any civilization runs into...pollution. It then cascades into limits to productive output. Either you limit the source of the pollution, or the pollution itself will limit productive output in one way or another. Responsible thoughtful people attempt to deal with it while it is a problem. Unfortunately, by the time it is a recognizable problem it is unlikely that attempts to solve or mitigate will not involve hardships/costs.
There will be more and more of these issues as we have a worldwide economy that is based on monetized debt, so we need constant monetized growth to maintain a certain living standard. Which in the reality of the world, (rather than that of finance), means a constant growth in resource extraction/consumption and in our waste by products. It is obvious that there are limits to such growth.
Interesting times.


1.

Excargodog

Excepting the fact that one man’s waste is another man’s fertilizer, I think you make a reasonable attempt at understanding the problem for someone that has never been there, but one problem facing the Netherlands you appear unaware of is that much of this is externally driven by EU agencies where the people of the Netherlands have little if any effective input. The EU is making a single standard that all EU states must conform to or face economic sanctions imposed externally:

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/dutch-waters-too-polluted-to-achieve-eu-norms-nrc/

So from that point of view, they are not really a democracy capable of dealing with this in their own fashion, they are being whipsawed by the bureaucrats in Belgium. Who are in large part pushing for a standard that some EU members can meet easily but the Netherlands can only meet with great difficulty if at all. The derivation of the country’s name - the Netherlands - derives from the word nether:

nether

neth·​er ˈne-t͟hər
1
: situated down or below : LOWER
Snakes nested in the nether reaches of the cave.
2
: situated or believed to be situated beneath the earth.

This is not a new problem for them, but neither is ammonia or cows hit some deadly poison either. It’s fertilizer, and it results in some of the most productive agriculture in Europe. And they have been dealing this for centuries because - yeah, they are literally at the bottom the pipe where it all collects - even runoff from every country upriver from them and it’s ALL upriver be a use they are in the nether.


Now I won’t pretend that there will be massive starvation in Europe without the Netherlands farm output, but nonetheless the Netherlands is the largest meat exporter in the EU and after the far larger France and Germany, the third largest EU milk producer.

Now nobody in Europe is likely to die if you halve the output of the Netherlands for meat or dairy products but it will come from somewhere. And in the old world that will mean ultimately it’s Africa that gets screwed. It always is. A 50% cut in Netherlands production in these areas ultimately will mean more starving kids in Africa, just like the Ukraine war is threatening mass starvation in Africa today.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/africa-bear-brunt-ukraine-crisis-40-mln-people-worldwide-face-food-insecurity-2022-08-05/

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/10997...vasion-drought

So I understand you are trying to be the voice of reason here MaxQ, but this isn’t just about a few endangered species, it’s life or death for thousands of kids.​​​​​​​

Hubcapped

Let’s stay in target. My original dispute is with this guys statement. It’s just not true, and he/she/it are either a) no integrity liar, or b) mentally incapable of understanding the various forms of propaganda from both sides.

Cargo: you say the Netherlands are screwed either way so they should just keep going? You say that because China and India won’t play we should just throw in the towel?

With the utmost respect I call that cowardice. I don’t mean that you are a coward, you are clearly a good dude and a professional in your discussions, it just sounds like you’re quitting, and mama don’t like quitters.

It’s going to sting, gluttony always comes with a price, there is a middle ground.

I also find it ridiculous that somehow the concept of introducing massive amounts of chemicals into any eco system wouldn’t upset the balance of nature.

Excargodog

I’m not saying that the Netherlands is screwed either way, I’m saying that the Netherlands is fairly unique, largely artificial, and being held to arbitrary bureaucratic standards made in Belgium by bureaucrats interested in conformity, not common sense. And damn right they should keep going, unless you can come up with a less polluting way the EU can offset the loss of food production these restrictions have caused. Ever see a little kid with kwashiorkor?

Let me show you:




https://discover.hubpages.com/educat...Rehabilitation

or did I sat the Netherlands were screwed either way. They should explore REASONABLE ways that the NETHERLANDS can insure the health of their people. Not necessarily a one-size fits all solution from Brussels.

Nor did I say anything about “throwing in the towel” if the Indians and Chinese won’t play ball.” What I said was that if the Indians and Chinese won’t play ball than the current plan can only lose. That’s not defeatism, that’s math. We cannot eliminate enough admissions to offset what they are adding. We aren’t making that much to begin with. Explain why we should go down a course that cannot work? With utmost respect, I think pursuing a course of action that mathematically CANNOT meet the goal borders on the irrational.

Perhaps wide scale inherently safe modular nuclear power reactors would. Most of the few nuclear power reactors currently be used are 1950s technology. H€||, that’s older than the 737. 😉

As for gluttony coming with a price - see the pictures above. You don’t think that still happens today? You haven’t travelled where I travel.

https://www.worldvision.org/hunger-n...t-spots-hunger.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122032

Tell it to these people. And if you say that doesn’t matter because these kids are in Africa and a huge dent in the food production in the Netherlands will be no big deal in Africa you are either ignorant, uncaring, or a racist, and momma don’t like racists or uncaring people, although she’s more tolerant with ignorance.

As for massive amounts of chemicals, I don’t really know how much chemistry you’ve had in high school or college. We are basically talking a chemical standard for NH3 (Ammonia) present in every unflushed urinal you’ve ever seen and cow****. Yeah, there are other chemicals too, since rivers flow into the Netherlands from the heavily industrial areas of Germany as well as France, Belgium, etc..



For that matter, I suppose some of their cow**** does too. But keeping THOSE chemicals out will require source control, since water - yeah - flows downhill and the Netherlands are the ‘nether’ for the continent.

So if the EU really wants to help out on those chemicals, they can mandate source control. The Netherlands can’t turn off the Roer or the Rhine and even if they could, that would quickly lead to their own groundwater becoming salt water from seawater intrusion.

Now look, I don’t really think you are a bad guy (or a racist)and I don’t honestly know what your background is and how easy or difficult it is for you to follow this discussion, but I think you are taking a very superficial look at a highly complicated biological issue without understanding either the underpinnings of the problem or the costs of proposed solutions. The world isn’t as simple as most people think.

MaxQ

You are correct that I didn't factor in the EU in my response. I should have, but most responses I put some thought into tend to become too long and then it becomes a tree falling in the forest.

A couple of quick ones regarding the EU. Each country has more autonomy than EU detractors acknowledge. They also have ways to get variances and flexibility. Also the bureaucrats are not as myopic to the impact of EU decisions on the world as a whole. I would be very surprised if it hasn't been estimated how much these decisions impact both European and World food supply. We also don't know what the overall impact would be of the decision to do nothing. Is this runoff creating a massive dead zone from the rivers mouths? If so is creating a drop in food availability from destruction of a fishery? (side note: I have no clue, it is a hypothetical I made up to illustrate that rule makers sometimes take more into account than initially appears)
3 key strategic goals of Putin's vision for the future of Russia are: 1. Weakening/destruction of NATO.2. Weakening /destruction of the EU. 3. Weakening/destruction of the unofficial USA/European cultural and economic alliance.
They have had a great deal of success from many years of SVR/GRU active measures. Social media has been a gift to them. It is unlikely that Brexit would have occurred without Russia activity. Due to a natural sympathy that authoritarian Nationalist parties and leaders would have with the cultural/nationalistic/anti-democracy leadership of Putin the EU is less unified, and hence weaker, than it was 10-15 years ago. (I won't even go into what was nearly accomplished by the previous administration with NATO). Europeans have a better economic life with better health and household security with the EU. That also should lend itself to a stronger polity. All of which Russia seeks to undermine. We should be thoughtful regarding whether or not to assist them in their destructive goals.

Your post brings up a key issue regarding the problems and predicaments that Mankind faces. Due to the reality that everything, and I mean everything, is connected any action or inaction we take regarding one issue impacts multiple other issues. Often times these impacts are unexpected. We have to decide which crisis to address, knowing it will exacerbate another crisis.
We have built a civilization of breathtaking complexity. It has become virtually impossible to isolate any significant aspect of it. If a bridge needs repair, we have to disrupt traffic and spend a great deal of resources just to keep it at a level we already have. The powers that be have to decide whether or not to spend, suffer the anger of the public, and fix it...or...leave it be and hope all those engineers are wrong.

You point out that the poorest countries take the hit first regarding food. Racism is mentioned. I actually had to smile at the irony of the argument. I have seen exactly the same argument by people who support action to limit climate change. The argument is that the poor of Africa and Asia will suffer the earliest and the most from climate change, hence if you oppose taking any action an underlying motive may be racism.

Which leads back to my original point. Any action we take to mitigate or solve one of our polycrisis makes another one (or more) crisis worse. It creates situations where a vested interest in one area or another will go to great lengths to prevent any attempt to address problems that would cascade into their area of concern. (convincing the body politic that an emerging crisis is a hoax would be one way to prevent said action).
It also leads to a situation where we are paralyzed as to what to do. We want to find painless solutions to fixing problems that have arisen from the success of our ways. We add band aid fixes, which add to the complexity, which makes the next mitigation even more difficult. And so on.
So...I am not optimistic. We do nothing to address problems....people starve.
We attempt to address problems....probably some of the same.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Excargodog

Putin? It’s now Putin’s disinformation that is now responsible for the fact that the EU BUREAUCRACY in Belgium is becoming unpopular within the EU? You really have never lived in Europe, have you. What started as a free trade union among geographically close but historically separated countries has morphed over the years until it has become all controlling with the ultimate say on everything. It wasn’t just the pre-Brexit Brits that chafe at that bit.

But seriously, blaming Russia? Do the math. Russia has a GDP of ~$2 Trillion, and a population of about 143 million. That’s the eleventh largest GDP in the world - after Canada. The EU collectively has a GDP of $20 Trillion (roughly equal to that of the US) and a population of 447 million.

https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-economy.php

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=The_EU_in_the_world_-_population

Russia is NOT.

I don’t know where you get your ‘facts’ about these things such as the availability and probability of obtaining variances of EU mandates when you have never lived there (don’t say that publicly in Greece by the way) even five minutes research on the internet disproves them but not all detractors of the EU are wrong and you certainly aren’t exactly right in this regard. They’ve already had Brexit and absent the COVID situation might already have lost a few other members.



EU membership approval hangs by a thread in France, one of its biggest economies, and has fallen continuously in Italy. Now I will grant you that the US Congress ain’t exactly overwhelmingly popular with the people in a lot of the states either, but no one has successfully broken away from the central government yet, like the Brit’s did with Brexit.

But clearly, blaming the EU problems in anyone but the EU is superficial at best. Yeah, the Russians have nukes (as do the Indians, Pakistanis, North Koreans, and Brits, but the Red Army is no serious threat to anyone but their immediate neighbors, and maybe not even them.

So again, I think you are looking at this very superficially when even a brief bit of research will disprove many of your assertions.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Hubcapped

Do you support autocracies/despots/dictators as a method of government?

Or do you believe in the rule of people?

I’m genuinely curious so as to understand your viewpoint

Excargodog

Speaking only for myself, I support democracy as a means of decreasing interpersonal conflicts, but not to the point of being the last lemming over the cliff. Democracies provide at best consensus. They don’t discern truth or justice or even reality with unfailing accuracy.

If the community vote was that purple was to be the designated state color, I wouldn’t care. If the community vote was to drink the grape koolaid, I’d do something else.

Hubcapped

I’m sorry to bother you with one more question. Are you saying specifically that if the population of a country does not explicitly agree with your view of how that country should be managed, you would support a dictator?

Hubcapped

Do you equate group suicide to environmental management?

I’m not ignoring your other ideas, just need to think about those after thanksgiving