Cheers Norman, you’re a personal hero.

That’s the moment of silence the man deserves (he deserves more, but this is the internet). Let’s hope that some of the very real concerns raised in some of the poorly argued posts above can be avoided with the help of more men like the giant that just passed. He knew what he was doing, both good and bad…let’s hope we can follow in those footsteps.

“…Ted Kennedy, a man who fed no one…”

Some years ago, Kennedy toured parts of Africa to see the affects of starvation first hand. Had his handlers turned their backs long enough, he might have fed a whole village.

So it’s about deforastation but not about producing more calories per acre. How convenient for you.

“It is about the idea, which you probably espouse, that it is great to have more human beings at the expense of anything else living on the planet.”

Yes, I do value humans above all other living things. Next is dogs, then dolphins, then spider monkeys, then palm trees, then all fish (except gar, fuck those guys), then pot plants, then cats. That’s how I roll.

Yes, and modern medicine hasn’t saved lives. It has merely allowed the weak, stupid and genetically vulnerable to reproduce generation after generation.

Of course, anyone with half a brain realizes that only literary theory will save humanity.

Even if this wasn’t a blatantly bullshit conclusion (the article says there’s no proof increased cancer rates are from pesticides and page 8 quotes a scientist from the region who disagrees with you), you’re saying it’s better to let millions die rather than let thousands of those millions get cancer.

This thinking is a great example of environmentalism gone bad. I consider myself an environmentalist, but your attitude is not only cold and inhumane, but disingenuous, as well.

Ben@43 Striving to better feed human beings, thorough selective breeding of plants equals hubris. Claiming to know “where a billion people should be” not hubris.

Either you have “mother nature” on speed dial, or that might be the best example of unintentional irony I’ve ever seen.

RIP Norman

However given that logarithmic is a current reality wouldn’t it be somewhat fair to say that someone who drastically increases the # of calories per acre has done a lot for conservation/environmentalism? If there were no Norman or equivilant I would bet that ALL of the rainforests would already be cut down to meet the food demands of the current population.

You are probably correct (at least I agree with you) that education/ birth control will be needed to stop/slow the population growth. However if a country is too poor to feed its citizens then it certainly won’t be able to afford education/birth control. Perhaps in your ideal world they would cull half the population and then use the resources that would have got food for that half to educate the other half…

“It is about the idea, which you probably espouse, that it is great to have more human beings at the expense of anything else living on the planet. Basically, that we as a species own it and can do what ever we like with it.”

I haven’t heard anybody espouse the idea that more people are a good idea. To me the tribute is about feeding people using fewer resources and if that isn’t conservation I don’t know what is. We certainly have a population growth problem but that is wholely unrelated and would exist without any high yield production.

It means that, if you look at a chart of human population, and compare it to a chart of most other mammals on earth, you’ll see the human population expanding at a logarithmic rate in the past few centuries, while the number of other species steadily declining.

Yes, this is a global warming thing, but it’s more of a deforestation, sprawl and extinction thing. This is not an issue of producing more calories per acre. It is about the idea, which you probably espouse, that it is great to have more human beings at the expense of anything else living on the planet. Basically, that we as a species own it and can do what ever we like with it.

No, I am not opposed to feeding people or saving lives. I am opposed to the general conditions that allow for unfettered propagation and growth of the human species. What I am trying to point out is that this is not due to just increased food production, but to conditions such as poverty, religion, lack of birth control and lack of female education.

We as humans love to think that we live outside of nature. That idea is hubris at best.

Norman Borlaug did not save a billion lives, he created them where they shouldn’t have been. And you know what? No matter how much those people have to eat they’re still going to die. If the land won’t support your population, in the long run you have two options: die or move. Mr Borlaug staved off those options for maybe a hundred years.

Have you ever wanted to choke somebody? I’m halfway through my first morning coffee and I already have bad intentions. Good thing I have a tee time in a couple hours.

No fucking shit we’re beyond what would have been possible in the past. We do amazing stuff, us humans. We figure out how to eat plants, then we figure out how to grow them, then guess what, we figure out how to grow whatever we want almost anywhere we want.

And what the hell does it mean that it’s caught up before we see the consequences of our actions? Is this a global warming thing? I thought that was about cars and electric utilities. Or do you think there’s some great danger in producing more calories per acre? How cold-hearted does one have to be to proclaim that living humans aren’t worth some unforeseen consequences? At least take the extra 30 seconds to explain what those could be.

I wonder why those tea parties are so popular. Modern eugenicists possibly? No way, that sounds like some crazy conspiracy theory.

Don’t equalize food with means of production of food, they are not the same. The former can be given by the catholic church in a moment of charity, while the latter is a process of industrialisation, learning and productivity gain..
They are very much different in their effects. One does further dependency, the other is increasing independency.

And so, this guy was a good guy and Mr. Balko is right, that he will never has the same amount of news coverage and national ceremony, like a Kennedy, who killed a human being and is still cheered for… Sometimes humans make me sick…

Saying that hunter-gatherers don’t show famine is only true in the most banal sense. They starve often, and in “unimpressive” numbers. Why is this a good thing?

Frankly, I find it very hard to take anyone seriously who sees so little value in preventing a billion starvation deaths. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the blithe dismissal the starving poor kid is what makes Ebenezer Scrooge an all-time reprehensible character at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. Treating a billion people as (primarily) an environmental problem is loathsome.

When environmentalists talk like this, it makes people rightfully question whether they care about people to any significant degree.

As others have pointed out, producing more food than you need is the foundation of all modern culture and science, since you only really produce those things when you don’t have to spend all day getting your food.

First off, Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. Whatever happened after that is irrelevant. The fact that he saved a billion lives easily makes him the most important person in modern (if not all history).

That being said, as other people have said, it is impossible to better yourself/your society if your daily struggle is against starvation. Do I agree with you that we should focus on womens rights and education? Yes I do. That being said, if their starving to death women do not have much time to focus on liberation do they?

One of the biggest problems on earth is that we have achieved the capacity to reproduce to a degree beyond what in the past would have been the normal constraints. Worse, we have achieved this well before the majority of humanity has caught up with the consequences of such actions.

Personally, I do not blame Norman for this. If Norman hadn’t done his work, other people would have come along and done so. The question is, where is the Norman Borlaug of conservation and environmental responsibility?