The ebola situation

Unless it is, or becomes airborne as some suggest.

Alexandre Orion wrote: If everyone consumed like the average citizen of India, our planet could support about 18 thousand million of us.

I would love to see those calculations, please. I have reasons to estimate there would be a shortage of fresh water, oxygen, sodium and carbon dioxide if we were 18 billion people. And that is indeed ignoring parasite and disease plagues and stress.
Source?

Revan Falton wrote: Unless it is, or becomes airborne as some suggest.

Who? Got a link?

Have you read Tom Clancy novels?

Gisteron wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote: If everyone consumed like the average citizen of India, our planet could support about 18 thousand million of us.

I would love to see those calculations, please. I have reasons to estimate there would be a shortage of fresh water, oxygen, sodium and carbon dioxide if we were 18 billion people. And that is indeed ignoring parasite and disease plagues and stress.
Source?

Ask Sir David Attenborough for the figures. I don't need statistical proof to consider it plausible.

I don't think you took all of the premises into consideration before you got out the "fallacy filter". It might be wrong, but it certainly not wrong that we can't support the population now and deplete our resources as we are.

Some discussion already had about Ebola here;

http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/Health-physical-fitness-and-wellbeing/107570-ebola

Something to consider;
"If someone with Ebola symptoms sneezes or coughs and the saliva or mucus hits your eyes, nose, or mouth, that can transmit the disease, but this is rare, and it's mainly a concern for health workers. It's also not what people mean by "airborne"."

Virologists are down playing it because it has a very low R number (reproduction number) compared to other diseases and because it doesn't target the lungs directly and I guess it must not survive very well in saliva (for it not to be considered airborne).



Here is the source of that pic, and some explanation.

I think it is a rather useless figure though for something like this, because it's not very well known and relatively new.

Alexandre Orion wrote: Earth isn't over-crowded. If everyone consumed like the average (average meaning not the richest nor the poorest, just in the middle) citizen of India, our planet could support about 18 thousand million of us. So, it isn't a problem of us being too numerous. The problem is that we don't all consume resources like the average citizen of India ... We have to have cars, iPods, hair-dryers and Kentucky Fried Chicken ... That is what makes us need three or four additional planets-worth of resources.

Epidemics wouldn't be nature rounding down our numbers to something more convenient ; it would be our screwed-up value system coming back to bite us in the arse. :S

Quality of life versus quantity of life...an interesting consideration. I think that perhaps your comparison might be better if you specified what the average citizen of India consumed exactly.

If epidemics aren't natures way of thinning the herd, so to speak, what do you consider them to be?

I think ebola is a modern day problem now and that we should all be careful when you fly to other states and make sure you wash your hands after you have touched something dirty like the bathroom. Since ebola is airborne, be careful when you ride on airplanes or live in apartments where there are vents in each one. I wouldn't want it and all of you probably wouldn't want it either. My advice is stay safe, healthy and cautious while in public because I hate for our group and family torn apart by one big world issue.

Ebola isn't airborne.

peace wrote: I think ebola is a modern day problem now and that we should all be careful when you fly to other states and make sure you wash your hands after you have touched something dirty like the bathroom. Since ebola is airborne, be careful when you ride on airplanes or live in apartments where there are vents in each one. I wouldn't want it and all of you probably wouldn't want it either. My advice is stay safe, healthy and cautious while in public because I hate for our group and family torn apart by one big world issue.

This is part of the reason for the panic. Misinformation.

This is great advice for avoiding infections in general but ebola... and I quote from the WHO site:

"Ebola spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids."

Ie. Not airborne. you have to have been directly in physical contact with an infected person and their fluids.

Airborne is a technical distinction, and not to be confused with practical understanding..... such that direct contact with secretions means Ebola can be transmitted through sneezing, and some coughing - if at close range.

That contrasts with some virus types that are tough enough and small enough to float around in tiny droplets for long periods ie airborne. Ebola is technically not airborne, but so deadly that its treated as if it were by healthcare workers because for them the distinction is academic and not practical (being at such close range).