Do you worry about the Environment?

[jlyon]

If so what is your biggest concern in the next 20 years? and Why?

For me my concern is the supply of clean fresh water I don't know why maybe because I was raised in the desert and still live in a part of Texas that is growing rapidly.

Is overpopulation clogging your best biking roads?

Air pollution reducing your VoMax?

Ethanol reducing your mileage and enjoyment of corn on the cob?

Or something more serious.

[MattTuck]

Honestly, I worry about the tail risks, rare events and the unknown unknowns.

[josephr]

If so what is your biggest concern in the next 20 years? and Why?

For me my concern is the supply of clean fresh water I don't know why maybe because I was raised in the desert and still live in a part of Texas that is growing rapidly.

Is overpopulation clogging your best biking roads?

Air pollution reducing your VoMax?

Ethanol reducing your mileage and enjoyment of corn on the cob?

Or something more serious.

all that plus...

but what really gets me going mad is the easy stuff that doesn't get done...like recycling plastics, paper, etc...I can't stand getting gas a seeing an aluminum can or plastic water bottle in the garbage can.

[OtayBW]

We are the only species on the planet that seems to be intent on destroying its own nest. That's what worries me...

[Louis]

I can't stand getting gas a seeing an aluminum can or plastic water bottle in the garbage can.

Sometimes at work it's in a garbage can that's only 15 feet away from the recycling bin. It's unbelievable how lazy and uncaring some people can be about stuff like this.

[David Kirk]

I worry about how poorly we tend to treat others unlike ourselves and the BS ways we justify our actions. I think most other issues seems to stem from this most basic thing.

dave

[Peter B]

We are the only species on the planet that seems to be intent on destroying its own nest. That's what worries me...

I worry about how poorly we tend to treat others unlike ourselves and the BS ways we justify our actions. I think most other issues seems to stem from this most basic thing.

dave

What these guys said.

[KidWok]

We are the only species on the planet that seems to be intent on destroying its own nest. That's what worries me...

Not true...any species that goes unchecked will destroy its own habitat. Look up wolves in Yellowstone as an example. Elk went out of control after they got rid of wolves.

Tai

[Louis]

Not true...any species that goes unchecked will destroy its own habitat. Look up wolves in Yellowstone as an example. Elk went out of control after they got rid of wolves.

But that was due to outside interference (humans getting rid of the wolves).

Humans manage to mess things up on their own, without an outside hand.

[weisan]

Humans manage to mess things up on their own, without an outside hand.
Well said, Louis-pal.:)

[Peter B]

<snip>

Humans manage to mess things up on their own, without an outside hand.

Humans are the outside hand.

[KidWok]

But that was due to outside interference (humans getting rid of the wolves).

Humans manage to mess things up on their own, without an outside hand.

I think you and I are pretty much saying the same thing differently.

Tai

[speed]

Yes

[Louis]

Humans are the outside hand.

Most of the time, yes, but not always.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rx5u8J6nboU/TuGIPpLZp5I/AAAAAAAAAR4/syzkSKD3fDI/s1600/Dinosaurs2.jpg

[JWDR]

My biggest concern over the next 20 years is that my currently 5 year old daughter will bring home a halfwit for a significant other.

[Uncle Jam's Army]

I worry about the known unknowns (with apologies to Don Rumsfeld).

[bart998]

While I agree we should all take basic steps to keep our nest clean, I too am more worried about the way people treat each other.

[yashcha]

Living where I do, overpopulation is a definite and real fear.

[AngryScientist]

it's a good topic, and yes, i have concerns.

as a matter of reality, i think environmentally speaking: i'll be fine, it's really my kids generation and beyond that is the major concern at this point.

also, while i try to do everything i can personally, to me, the real problem is not soda cans in the trash (dont worry, i recycle myself), but big philosophy changes that need to happen to save us.

as a global economy, i see one of the major environmental hits as the transportation involved in moving widgets around. what is the carbon footprint of buying a bike tire made in china through a UK distributor, delivered to my door? eek.

over population has such far reaching implications from a lack of food, clean water to increased per-person emissions, including power consumption.

it's a huge problem to wrap your head around, and there are no easy answers.

[soulspinner]

I worry about how poorly we tend to treat others unlike ourselves and the BS ways we justify our actions. I think most other issues seems to stem from this most basic thing.

dave

Yes................

[William]

Well, if you buy into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, one could explain mankind's shortsightedness in the constant time and energy needed to satisfy his physiological and safety needs. Long term planning and focus on the greater good is much easier when the basic needs are met. The percentage of people who exhibit "Metamotivation": Constantly striving for betterment beyond basic needs appears to be fairly low in comparison.







William

[jr59]

I worry about how poorly we tend to treat others unlike ourselves and the BS ways we justify our actions. I think most other issues seems to stem from this most basic thing.

dave

Dave once again proves to be a very wise man. I would agree with both parts of his statement!

Dave Kirk for President!

[67-59]

The education and upbringing of America's youth.

By setting "basic" educational requirements ("No child left behind"), our schools have changed their focus from helping the best and brightest become better and brighter...and instead focused on simply getting underachievers to pass basic proficiency tests. Those with the potential to lead our country languish while teachers are focusing on the bottom of the class. Dozens of teacher friends are on the verge of leaving the profession over the frustration they're feeling by being forced to do this.

And it is appalling how so many parents totally shirk their part of the education of their children. Kids arriving at kindergarten never having held a book...teachers meeting with parents of disruptive kids, only to have the parents blame the teacher for being "too hard" on their kid. Too many parents have developed the belief that the school system is the only element in the education of children...when in fact schools should sit in a distant second behind the parents themselves.

[EDS]

Over-population and the inability of each generation to do more to be good stewards of the environment for the next generation.

Part of me thinks people should live either in a city or on a farm. No suburban sprawl so as to preserve green space.

[feFIFO]

Geopolitical destabilization as a result of climate change. Doesn't keep me up at night, but it's more concerning than resource scarcity to my mind. It's already happened in Darfur and (possibly) Syria. Admittedly, you can't pin the totality of those conflicts on climate change, but it sure as poop didn't help, and in both cases was a somewhat localized spark that led to widespread conflagration.

Also, August in NYC is bad enough as is. Ratchet it up a few degrees? Phew.

[avalonracing]

If so what is your biggest concern in the next 20 years?


Losing the rest of my hair.
Oh yeah... and the fact that the human race seems to be racing to kill one another and to destroy anything it feels justified in doing... that concerns me too.

[oldpotatoe]

If so what is your biggest concern in the next 20 years? and Why?



Being alive(JUST received my first SS check...whooo hooo, on the Gov't tit.)

[texbike]

WARNING - Opinion of a hypocrite ahead....

Rampant consumerism is my biggest concern and the environmental, health, and psychological impact that stems from it.

Instead of focusing on bettering ourselves and the world around us, we're concerned about the next HOT thing - TVs, phones, cars, bigger houses, toys, and yes, even bikes. I'm guilty as well. It would be great if we could redirect the energy spent in the pursuit of "things" into positive social activities.

Then there's the environmental impact of all of the crap that we buy - Pollution generated from the production of the materials needed for the goods, pollution generated from the production of the goods, pollution from the energy needed to produce those goods and materials, pollution generated from the production of the packaging needed for said goods, pollution from the transportation of the materials/goods/packaging, pollution created by the production of the materials needed to build the factories and stores and ships and planes and cars and... well you probably get my point. And this is just for the upstream portion of the process. There is still the downstream impact on the environment of the disposal of said goods and materials (and the creation of the facilities, planes, trains, cars, etc needed to facilitate that disposal).

This hits a real nerve for me as it's being soap-boxed in our house right now. Less stuff - more quality experiences and dedication to improving ourselves and the world around us.

Texbike

[josephr]

Well, if you buy into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, one could explain mankind's shortsightedness in the constant time and energy needed to satisfy his physiological and safety needs. Long term planning and focus on the greater good is much easier when the basic needs are met. The percentage of people who exhibit "Metamotivation": Constantly striving for betterment beyond basic needs appears to be fairly low in comparison.







William

think of the most average person you know.....half the world is dumber than that person.
Joe

[redir]

We are the only species on the planet that seems to be intent on destroying its own nest. That's what worries me...

Throughout geologic time there have been species that died off due to their own waste. But we are the only ones who actually know we are doing it. It's usually overpopulation that is the cause. The resources get used up beyond the fragile point of recovery and it's gone. In our case, humanity, we will not just suffer because of the changing environment but in the battle for resources. There will not be much water left in Mid East countries before too long unless they achieve energy hungry desalination on a grand scale. The water in the great aquifers in the Mid west USA is also going to be soaked up. A lot of it ironically being used for fracking out materials that will be burned and further cause environmental issues.

It really is the definition of madness.

[bluesea]

I stopped worrying but can't help feeling weighed down by it.

[Black Dog]

Overpopulation...everything else is a symptom (more or less).

[R2D2]

Worry about a pandemic at some point.
Nature has a way of leveling the playing field at times.

Also having nice clean water..........

[54ny77]

I worry about that which I can control....which at the moment is fixing an f'd up central heating system that will be vitally important to keeping my fat ass warm, starting in about 2-3 weeks. :p

[Ahneida Ride]

I worry about the non federal non reserve non note.


3 minute video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP9H5fADC0E)


and the new world order.

One concept, one thought ...

[Ahneida Ride]

Overpopulation...everything else is a symptom (more or less).

yup .... overpopulation of people and fiat currency

[MadRocketSci]

parents, teach your kids to delay gratification....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification

Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, is the ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward. Generally, delayed gratification is associated with resisting a smaller but more immediate reward in order to receive a larger or more enduring reward later.[1] A growing body of literature has linked the ability to delay gratification to a host of other positive outcomes, including academic success, physical health, psychological health, and social competence. Walter Mischel has led the research on delayed gratification, most notably the Stanford marshmallow experiment, which shed light on the long-term results of a person's ability to delay gratification...

[Kirk007]

Overpopulation leads to too much consumption of natural resources and will create increased social strife (what are wars typically fought over....), as well as overcrowding leading to aberrational behavior (think back to Pych 101 - remember the rate studies?), all this combined with an outdated sensory perception apparatus that recognizes and responds to short term stimuli but underestimates or ignores chronic problems with deadly latent impacts. Oh, and greed plus, an almost exclusive anthropocentric outlook that undervalues every other living thing on this planet, and logically concludes with a mistaken and deadly assumption that our evolutionary path is to god-like status. All environmental problems are symptoms of the above. Our kids are f8cked.

[velotel]

Just about every day I think about it, and definitely every time I ride. The worst is that in reality there is nothing than can be done now. All the solutions have existed for a very long time, the awareness of what is happening has been known for a very long time, etc. But every single solution has always been instantly dead on arrival because of an insane need to procreate. To the point that today there are four or five times too many people on this planet. A world wide decision should have been agreed to years and years and years ago that each man would have one child only. Period. That would have reduced the population to a sustainable level and then we could have gone on about how to manage our place in this world. But it's too late now.

To my thinking the second source of the problem is capitalism which is really simply another word for consumerism. And it doesn't matter which type of capitalism, the american form, the communist form, the socialist form. The only difference between them was/is how the capitalism is managed. Capitalism, like population, has run amuck and there is no power on earth that is going to change that anymore than any power is going to make the world's human populations change their procreation models.

So yea, I think about it a lot. There are times when I'm on the bike and the scenes in front of me are so unbelievably beautiful, the sky, the mountains, the trees and fields and flowers, all of that and more, that I almost cry because of how we are steadily, irrevocably destroying a wonderful, magical world. And for nothing at all except maybe overflowing obituaries from people who are mostly celebrating that it's not them that died. Yet.

[Kirk007]

Just about every day I think about it, and definitely every time I ride. The worst is that in reality there is nothing than can be done now. All the solutions have existed for a very long time, the awareness of what is happening has been known for a very long time, etc. But every single solution has always been instantly dead on arrival because of an insane need to procreate. To the point that today there are four or five times too many people on this planet. A world wide decision should have been agreed to years and years and years ago that each man would have one child only. Period. That would have reduced the population to a sustainable level and then we could have gone on about how to manage our place in this world. But it's too late now.

To my thinking the second source of the problem is capitalism which is really simply another word for consumerism. And it doesn't matter which type of capitalism, the american form, the communist form, the socialist form. The only difference between them was/is how the capitalism is managed. Capitalism, like population, has run amuck and there is no power on earth that is going to change that anymore than any power is going to make the world's human populations change their procreation models.

So yea, I think about it a lot. There are times when I'm on the bike and the scenes in front of me are so unbelievably beautiful, the sky, the mountains, the trees and fields and flowers, all of that and more, that I almost cry because of how we are steadily, irrevocably destroying a wonderful, magical world. And for nothing at all except maybe overflowing obituaries from people who are mostly celebrating that it's not them that died. Yet.

This. Sadly.

Working in the conservation field, there is probably not a day that goes by that I don't question what I do as nothing more than a quixotic endeavor, but it is one that keeps me from going completely insane or becoming a total hedonist. The coldly rationale part of my brain tells me to move to the Islands or the Mountains, and just enjoy each and every day in nature. But that biological imperative... I work for my kid's sake, even if it is a venture doomed to fail.

And I continue to be amazed by the biological imperative to procreate. My younger colleagues, many are now having kid no. 2 or 3, despite working everyday with the inexorable numbers, graphs, projections and likelihoods staring at them on computer screens. They are either completely, irrationally optimistic or overwhelmed by their DNA (or careless). It is all I can do not to say what the f8ck are you thinking? We are in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction Event, and we will be lucky not to suffer the fate of the species we currently are extirpating.

[redir]

Gosh you guys are gloomy. The truth is harsh though isn't it. I like people and I like kids and family too but I chose not to have any because of a lot of what we are talking about but if you just give up then you will create your own destiny too. There are people working very hard on the problem now like this for example: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=construction-begins-on-new-carbon-capture-plant and http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/innovators-under-35/2013/pioneer/leslie-dewan/ and population is a tricky thing. The population in the EU for example has some leveling affects going on. Education is the key. Also population tends to go wild in poorer nations especially ones with social norms that are tough to break. Can you imagine if the President of the US even suggested to the people that they should only have one child?

There are ways of solving this problem and it is not necessarily too late.

[Kirk007]

There are ways of solving this problem and it is not necessarily too late.

Indeed there is good cause to be gloomy if you think too much about long term trends and implications. And to be gloomy (realistic?) is different than throwing in the towel and giving up; yes there is still reason to fight the good fight to make a difference - one tried and true way to give meaning to one's existence on this rock.

BUT: Will we have the collective will to solve these problems....before it is too late?

I see far too little indication that we will take the necessary corrective action in time to avert an unplanned and uncontrolled event that does a lot of it for us. Here we can't even have rationale national discussions of a single important topic let alone agree on any type of unified action like healthcare or social safety networks or climate change or deficits or .....it goes on and on. (interestingly many of these have impacts on the population discussion: increasing life spans, the cost of end of life care, the Gates Foundation's mission to cure the world of all disease.... more people ......) What will it take to change these political/societal dynamics?

Latent impacts tend to get you before you're even aware you have a problem; so many folks are in denial and lack fundamental understandings of biology, population dynamics etc. And now there's a rising tide of folks who think we have transcended the Malthusian theory of populations dynamics, that our intellect and ability to transform our world through technology will always solve every challenge; that like Prometheus, we are in reality gods.

On topic/off topic: Jobs and the future. As our population increases, our material thirst continues unslackened, and traditional job bases are disappearing, from robots on assembly lines to computers that do the thinking of lawyers and accountants. What are all these people going to do to sustain Western lifestyles? Service sector jobs do not an American dream lifestyle support. So many issues; at least there's no shortage of challenges to take on.

If you like suspense novels as diversions read Dan Brown's latest - Inferno for a fantasy view of overpopulation and its control.

ok, time for a ride in the fresh air along the waterfront of Puget Sound to erase these dread thoughts.

[cfox]

It's not just population growth, it's where it's taking place. Japan and many European countries are facing major demographic problems, while birth rates in poor, unstable regions are exploding. That's not really a model for success.

[AgilisMerlin]

quote from my father : water" / long term

[OtayBW]

Throughout geologic time there have been species that died off due to their own waste. But we are the only ones who actually know we are doing it. It's usually overpopulation that is the cause. The resources get used up beyond the fragile point of recovery and it's gone. In our case, humanity, we will not just suffer because of the changing environment but in the battle for resources. There will not be much water left in Mid East countries before too long unless they achieve energy hungry desalination on a grand scale. The water in the great aquifers in the Mid west USA is also going to be soaked up. A lot of it ironically being used for fracking out materials that will be burned and further cause environmental issues.

It really is the definition of madness.
What really gets me is that not only do we know that we are destroying our own nest, but we seem to think that we have some kind of impunity, are superior to the natural world and are therefore somehow privileged, and can engineer ourselves out of any possible dilemma. Whack-o.

[1centaur]

Going back to Maslow, what % of the world's population would have enough of their needs met by trying less hard to get more? And as a derivative, when everybody tries less, there is less wealth to spread around to those less fortunate. We are animals and we live for today as do other animals. It would take forced sterilization and a grim determination by all to prioritize mother nature and the grim reality of future generations over our own capacities for greater pleasure to create a "sustainable" world. That's a pipe dream.

Slowing down the degradation to make it more likely that we survive to head off to other planets is a more reasonable goal. People like clean air and clean water and would prefer solar cells to fossil fuels if only the economics worked out for real (via engineering, not subsidies). Taking harmful chemicals out of the product stream is a positive, all things fairly equal. The environmental movement is changing things (especially where Maslow's peak is a little closer), so Kirk007 should not despair but simply accept that little will happen in any one lifetime.

The success of capitalism (by which I mean capitalism, not communist or socialist capitalism) is based on its symbiosis with human nature. Human nature is animalistic and will remain so for many generations to come (if some bio experiment does not kill us first). Those who yearn for greater sustainability need to marry capitalism with the environment. Get rich, get clean, get more of something you value today. Tesla gets that, for example.

We are here for the briefest of moments and we will live for that moment, not the moments of others to come. If nobody ever lived for their own moment, what's the point?

[Kirk007]

It's not capitalism per se, it's thoughtless capitalism without foresight. Animals, yes of course, but we are the ones who are supposed to be able to reason etc., and every religious ethic I know of has preached a message of good stewardship over the environment and other creatures yet we ignore it all.

We know what we are doing when we externalize costs to the environment, and for many companies, take Exxon etc., many of those externalities are what they are not so that Exxon can make a reasonable profit but so it can make an exorbitant one. The live for the moment mentality also stands in stark contrast to thousands - millions of years of evolution that have lead to use having very long gestation periods, a social framework that makes it adaptive for co-parenting and monogamy (some would argue that point for males) all so our relatively smaller number of offspring can pass on our genes. Our DNA is very much invested in future generations as is every other species. Yet we act against our own offsprings' interests constantly not so we can have enough but so we can live to excess (at least in the West). Living in the moment, and enjoying the moment, is not incompatible with ensuring a reasonable future for future generations.

All for marrying capitalism with environmental protection, yes that can happen but it takes a different mentality - with CEOs, with investors - for that to happen (and with many suspicious environmentalists). An acqaintance of mine was Pres. of a Thunderbird International Business School and he modified its curriculum to require concepts of sustainability and social concerns. Not sure how that worked out as he's moved on to be President of a larger University.

If the untouchable mandate of capitalism is to maximize short term profits at all costs, without regard for long term impacts; if it is to push to the limit every law, break every law when you can, taking advantage of lax enforcement or moving to locations without laws, when it is taking every opportunity to take and use natural capital at below a reasonable market rate, with no accounting for its environmental service value or its value in maintaining healthy resilient ecosytems, well, that type of capitalism will never be compatible with any type of environmental, conservation or socially responsible ethic.

If we want a reasonable future it will take both sides - business and environmental advocates coming together. Yes we all want and will continue to want and demand that our basic+ needs be met. But the coming together can't be pie in the sky Anthropecene epoch feel good speech where technology will save and we can continue to squander what we presently have BS. That wave of thinking completely discounts the importance of biodiversity. It's not just about clean air, water and enough food (unless you want to live in pods and eat fake food and have no actual experience with nature). We are part of a complex system, a fact we regularly ignore at our peril. And as a result, I'm quite sure that the moments my kid will live in will be a whole lot more challenging 30-50 years from now.

My idea of living for the moment leaves space for the rest of creation.

[Kirk007]

Oh and about the reproductive drive and human's inability to self regulate - plenty of other "animals" routinely regulate litter size etc. based on the carrying capacity of their surroundings (available food source or territorial space) and can increase or decrease production seasonally. Wolves are but one example of a species with this capacity.

[93legendti]

I am sickened by the talk of limiting reproduction. Seems some people need to hear my famous uncle's lectures on the topic. I guess we are a long way away from the T-4 program. Some people learned nothing from the atrocities of the 20th century.

The hypocrisy of blaming capitalism is stunning, especially since we haven't had proper capitalism in the USA in a very, very long time.

My suggestion, before you blame our ills on what you improperly label capitalism, is get your own house in order. The article below is just one of many govt backed green firms that left a toxic legacy, as well as a large tax payer bill for cleanup.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22666212/colorado-orders-abound-solar-clean-up-hazardous-waste

Yes, it's never thoughtless socialism (with a good dose of crony "capitalism" thrown in) and green energy/environmentalism that's the problem:

Colorado orders Abound Solar to clean up hazardous waste at four sites
By Mark Jaffe
The Denver Post
POSTED: 02/25/2013 05:14:41 PM MST
34 COMMENTS
UPDATED: 02/26/2013 04:50:27 PM MST

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says Abound Solar is responsible for thousands of "unsellable" solar panels containing cadmium in warehouses. Barrels of toxic liquid also were found. (Special to The Denver Post)
Colorado health and environment officials have ordered Loveland-based Abound Solar, the bankrupt solar-panel maker, to clean up hazardous waste at four Front Range locations.

The Abound facilities are storing thousands of "unsellable" solar panels and thousands of gallons of toxic liquids, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports.

"The Department views these 2,000 pallets of solar panels as a characteristic hazardous waste for cadmium," a report on a Denver warehouse said...

The cost of the cleanup is estimated by the trustee to be $2.2 million...

Abound made solar panels by applying a thin film of cadmium telluride to a sheet of glass.

Cadmium is classified as a toxic substance and is a known carcinogen, according to federal health agencies...

The company spent $70 million of a $400 million federal loan guarantee that will leave taxpayers with a bill of $40 million to $60 million, once the bankruptcy is settled.

Abound stopped shipping nonfunctioning panels to a recycler in Wisconsin in February 2012 "due to cost constraints," according the bankruptcy trustee.

Health-department inspectors found 3,600 pallets of Abound panels in a Denver warehouse and said a little more than half of them were not sellable.

At Abound's former Longmont factory, inspectors found 30 55-gallon drums of cadmium-contaminated fluids and two large tanks with a total of 2,500 gallons of cadmium-contaminated water.

At a Longmont warehouse, 500 pallets of defective panels were found by inspectors.

And at a research-and-development facility, additional cadmium waste was found, Schieffelin said.

"At both manufacturing facilities, there is a probability of cadmium contamination throughout the buildings," Schieffelin said.

[93legendti]

"...While solar is a far less polluting energy source than coal or natural gas, many panel makers are nevertheless grappling with a hazardous waste problem. Fueled partly by billions in government incentives, the industry is creating millions of solar panels each year and, in the process, millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water.

To dispose of the material, the companies must transport it by truck or rail far from their own plants to waste facilities hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of miles away.

The fossil fuels used to transport that waste, experts say, is not typically considered in calculating solar’s carbon footprint, giving scientists and consumers who use the measurement to gauge a product’s impact on global warming the impression that solar is cleaner than it is.

After installing a solar panel, “it would take one to three months of generating electricity to pay off the energy invested in driving those hazardous waste emissions out of state,”said Dustin Mulvaney, a San Jose State University environmental studies professor who conducts carbon footprint analyses of solar, biofuel and natural gas production. [Emphasis added]

The article then discusses solar panel companies in California, which leads the U.S. market:

The state records show the 17 companies, which had 44 manufacturing facilities in California, produced 46.5 million pounds of sludge and contaminated water from 2007 through the first half of 2011. Roughly 97 percent of it was taken to hazardous waste facilities throughout the state, but more than 1.4 million pounds were transported to nine other states: Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/10/associated-press-solar-energy-actually-has-a-big-hazardous-waste-problem-and-how-much-did-solyndra-contaminate/

[avalonracing]

93legendti-

You always find the best Nutjob websites for us to check out.
Thanks for the laughs! :D

[rain dogs]

The hypocrisy of blaming capitalism is stunning, ...

My suggestion, before you blame our ills on what you improperly label capitalism, is get your own house in order.

So, what's your suggestion then? Burn more petroleum? Keep the status quo? Keep the pedal to the floorboard even though the signs read "Bridge out ahead?" :confused:

Most of the time, when this topic gets thrown around, it'd be good to refresh and remind ourselves of steady rates of growth, doubling time and the exponential function.

I blame Maths for our problems.... darn numbers, formulas and provable concepts.:eek:

[Kirk007]

[QUOTE=93legendti;1433961]I am sickened by the talk of limiting reproduction. Seems some people need to hear my famous uncle's lectures on the topic. I guess we are a long way away from the T-4 program. Some people learned nothing from the atrocities of the 20th century.

The hypocrisy of blaming capitalism is stunning, especially since we haven't had proper capitalism in the USA in a very, very long time.

My suggestion, before you blame our ills on what you improperly label capitalism, is get your own house in order. The article below is just one of many govt backed green firms that left a toxic legacy, as well as a large tax payer bill for cleanup.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22666212/colorado-orders-abound-solar-clean-up-hazardous-waste [UNQUOTE]

I guess green businesses aren't capitalists? And its not my house, its some corporate house; just because its "green sector" doesn't mean its a responsible company. I've spent 30 years having to deal with the toxic crap that comes out of the bowels of business; business of all types. Sometimes working for the polluting company sometimes suing them from the outside. I spent ten of those years reading every published decision of merit concerning hazardous wastes while teaching Hazardous Waste Law. I know what comes out the ass end of businesses and I know why; in virtually every case in my experience it is all about the benjamins. With the exception of the rare true accident, most of our toxic crap that invades then environment is avoidable, but it costs money to do so. In my experience its not the industry sector, its the folks who own and/or run the business (and this includes wall street investors who punish companies on a quarterly basis, providing every incentive to cut corners to cut costs to increase earnings and profits). Yet plenty of businesses, and plenty of people make plenty of money in a responsible, ethical way. It's a choice; a moral, ethical choice that every person, every business gets to make, day in and day out.

And it sickens you to hear discussion of limiting the number of humans on earth? Will you be sickened by the heartache to come as we outstrip carrying capacity or reach densities and living conditions that give rise to the next global pandemic? Will you cry for those persons in coming generations who pay the price for our environmental debts?

Living with your head in the sand to biology, ecology and math may be convenient but it won't save your kids or future family members from the heartaches of our own folly.

[velotel]

Kirk007 - Reading your posts is nothing but pleasure. Well written, clearly presented, solidly thought out, and remarkably calm. Thank you. Of course the fact that I agree with what you say doesn't hurt my appreciation of what you write.

Glad to see you mention robots. I keep wondering if people realize this movement to more and more robots translates into fewer and fewer people working. Productivity increases simply means fewer people producing more goods. Who is going to buy the increased production since there will be fewer people earning the money to pay for them is always my question. And simultaneously societies and religions are encouraging more and more procreation. All in all rather crazy. On the other hand not crazy at all for capitalism since huge unemployed numbers is good for business; easy to pay minimum wages when there too many people for too few jobs.

A sort of friend of my wife is a (apparently) brilliant physics guy who likes to talk about how there is no population problem, there's room for 10 times more people. He conveniently neglects to think about the fact that all that supposed unoccupied space on planet earth is in fact populated, just not by people, which means that once again someone is going to have to be removed to make room for more humans. So much for the concept of diversity.

Perhaps there is a model of capitalism that could fit within an environmental framework; I don't know. I rather doubt it because capitalism is all about capital, the new god of much of the human race today. Capital recognizes no other needs than its own growth. Constant growth is simply a form of cancer; it eats up its host until there's nothing left. I'm afraid that the modern human race has become this planet's cancer.

It's a marvelous world with mysteries beyond imagination and powers that no one has even begun to fully understand. I mean a bat flying blind in the night can find a mosquito! Astounding, absolutely astounding! Whales can apparently communicate at insane distances without a telephone nor an internet connection, at least in the forms we know them. An eagle so high in the sky we can’t even see it with the naked eye can spot a rabbit in a field. There are trees in the tropics that are able to change the dna in their branches in response to environmental changes. Nothing but mysteries. And yet somehow man thinks that he is supreme.

This may seem strange but what really saddens me in all this is not the demise of man but the fact that we’re taking so much of the rest of the world’s life forms with us. Obviously it’s not the end of life because life is just energy and the energy will remain in some form, or at least I suppose it will. I’m not a scientist nor have the education to know much about all that. We build a new subdivision in a previously unused field and build highways to get the people to and from those homes but to achieve all that, how many life forms did we destroy. And for what.

Anyway, thank you for your wonderfully written posts.

[verticaldoug]

There is a lot of unintended irony in this thread.

For the Tesla lovers, the 'collective we' are better off if you don't buy the Tesla, keep your old car, drive less and purchase carbon credits instead. From a capitalist point of view, it is cheaper and more effective.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324128504578346913994914472.html

Lomborg is not the most honest of environmental skeptics, but in this case, he is mostly correct. The manufacturing carbon footprint is complex but a large component of the overall mess.

(for another take on this, go watch the old South Park episode Smug Alert)

I can go hot and cold on Patagonia, but their footprint chronicles for some of their products illustrate how hard it is to really reduce waste. Ultimately, the conclusion is you really need to consume less. Hence, they launched their 'Don't buy this product' campaign.

Along the lines of consuming less, Japan is a good case in point. As a result of the Fukushima disaster , the shuttering of all their nuclear plants, the country has power capacity problems. The Gov launch a campaign for everyone (corporations are people too) to use less electricity. People raised the thermostats, reduced lighting etc. For many Americans visiting Tokyo in the summer, you probably feel uncomfortable in the office because the thermostat is basically set around 80 degrees. But on a per capita basis, Japan uses less than 1/2 the carbon as a typical American.

[Seramount]

might as well stop worrying about the future, there's entirely too many humans for this movie to have a happy ending...

we are the problem, not the solution.

have a nice day.

[Climb01742]

We are here for the briefest of moments and we will live for that moment, not the moments of others to come. If nobody ever lived for their own moment, what's the point?

i sometimes wonder if this belief is really the root of our problem. what if this accepted 'truth' weren't true after all?

i practice buddhism, and practice is a very apt description because i fail more times than i succeed at living by buddha's precepts, but i keep trying.

imagine if this happened: somehow buddha manifested himself on earth today and could prove two tenets of his dharma: reincarnation exists and so does karma.

we don't have just one shot at life. we have thousands, maybe millions. we will be here in 100 years, 1000 years. we will live with the consequences of our actions. and there is a score kept somewhere. the quality of our future lives will be the result of the quality of our actions now.

this isn't a PSA for buddhism, but it is a question. how much of how we act is based on our personal understanding of how, supposedly, life works. if we believe we get only one shot and once we're dead, we're gone and there are no repercussions to our choices, then we act a certain way. if we knew the reality were exactly the opposite -- that we're here forever and every lifetime is a reflection of all our past choices, and the only way to change our next and next and next life was to act with greater merit -- would we act and choose differently?

to change the trajectory of our life on this planet, many areas of change must be explored. and we must question almost everything. including, maybe, if our fundamental understanding of 'reality' is right.

[redir]

There are ways to make money that actually help the environment and they can be very lucrative too. I for example own several hundred tree's in Costa Rica that will be harvested in about another 10-20 years. They don't cost much to buy when they are planted but a Mahogany or Cocobolo tree is worth quite a bit at maturity. After these tree's are cut the land is then replanted and left as protected forest unless the government collapses or something like that but Costa Rica is pretty stable.

That's just one example. I would never invest in a company like Wal Mart, that's another example of how to invest green ;)

In fact if investors were held accountable for what the companies they they own shares in do then I think you would see a lot of change. But now Corporations are people and the investors in some cases get away with murder.

[Kirk007]

i sometimes wonder if this belief is really the root of our problem. what if this accepted 'truth' weren't true after all?

i practice buddhism, and practice is a very apt description because i fail more times than i succeed at living by buddha's precepts, but i keep trying.

imagine if this happened: somehow buddha manifested himself on earth today and could prove two tenets of his dharma: reincarnation exists and so does karma.

we don't have just one shot at life. we have thousands, maybe millions. we will be here in 100 years, 1000 years. we will live with the consequences of our actions. and there is a score kept somewhere. the quality of our future lives will be the result of the quality of our actions now.

this isn't a PSA for buddhism, but it is a question. how much of how we act is based on our personal understanding of how, supposedly, life works. if we believe we get only one shot and once we're dead, we're gone and there are no repercussions to our choices, then we act a certain way. if we knew the reality were exactly the opposite -- that we're here forever and every lifetime is a reflection of all our past choices, and the only way to change our next and next and next life was to act with greater merit -- would we act and choose differently?

to change the trajectory of our life on this planet, many areas of change must be explored. and we must question almost everything. including, maybe, if our fundamental understanding of 'reality' is right.

I was thinking about this too. I wish I had the discipline to practice buddhism enough to claim it, but it and other Eastern philosophies have always resonated strongly with me; thanks for adding this perspective!

The live for the moment, one time around construct is at odds with these Eastern religions and philosophies, as well as with the world views of, for instance, most, perhaps all Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada. Their 7 generations thinking and land ethic is so different from what was brought from Europe. And what does it say that these cultures have been trounced, and most of those traditional communities struggle in our consumptive live for today world?

[Kirk007]

Kirk007 -
Anyway, thank you for your wonderfully written posts.

Hey I'm just sucking up so I can call someday and come share your roads....

And you are right, it is an amazing natural world. My other recreational hobby is scuba diving - what a remarkable world down below the surface and so much we have to learn, that is if we leave enough of it to learn from. Dolphins for instance - the interactions with divers that I know are often simply amazing. There is a lot of going on in their brains for being "dumb animals"

[redir]

Hey I'm just sucking up so I can call someday and come share your roads....

And you are right, it is an amazing natural world. My other recreational hobby is scuba diving - what a remarkable world down below the surface and so much we have to learn, that is if we leave enough of it to learn from. Dolphins for instance - the interactions with divers that I know are often simply amazing. There is a lot of going on in their brains for being "dumb animals"

In your experience have you noticed a decline in reefs? It's really bad whats going on there.

[Kirk007]

In your experience have you noticed a decline in reefs? It's really bad whats going on there.

Certainly. Bleaching, destruction of structure from human impacts including runoff of nutrients from near shore environments. I'm on an intentional course to get to less impacted areas as well as areas showing significant disturbances, like the Great Barrier Reef, sooner than later. There have been some recent studies though of some corals that are proving resistant to higher temperatures (ocean acidification is another story as far as I know).

I'm reading a disturbing book "The Unnatural History of the Sea" by Callum Roberts (Island Press 2007) that documents human impacts from the 1700s on. It made me realize that we all have our baseline for "normal" and so when I've thought of our declining state of oceans my timeline has always been my life span. Well, of course, that's short-sighted and indeed we've been pillaging the oceans for hundreds of years. And we know so little about those ecosystems, - who knows when a tipping point will be reached; perhaps it already has....

[MadRocketSci]

the endgame of unregulated capitalism...

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060420190922/bladerunner/images/9/9f/Tyrellbuilding.jpg

[jblande]

The success of capitalism (by which I mean capitalism, not communist or socialist capitalism) is based on its symbiosis with human nature. Human nature is animalistic and will remain so for many generations to come (if some bio experiment does not kill us first). Those who yearn for greater sustainability need to marry capitalism with the environment. Get rich, get clean, get more of something you value today. Tesla gets that, for example.


I am really curious about this statement, as I am beginning to write a book on the history of ideas of competition. It seems to me that part of the amazing power of capitalism, since the early eighteenth century, is that it convinced people of its own symbiosis with nature. Any student of history will be able to tell you that the world was otherwise. Any anthropologist will be able to tell you that it still is otherwise. It seems to me that you have mistaken the wood for the trees, and forgotten about the power of ideas to change the form of human life.

I still remember reading Albert Hirschman's The Passions and The Interests as a sophomore in college, as the son of a free-market capitalist, and discovering for the first time in my life that the world was once otherwise and that it took a lot to make it as it now is. Far be it from me to exclude the possibility of an immutable nature, but I really do not think that capitalist theories are going to count as proof of that.

[goonster]

I am sickened by the talk of limiting reproduction. Seems some people need to hear my famous uncle's lectures on the topic. I guess we are a long way away from the T-4 program. Some people learned nothing from the atrocities of the 20th century.
First, per Godwin's Law, you lose this thread.

Second, I would point out that you don't need to go there to make the point. While on a bike ride not too long ago, a sign reminded me of the Buck v. Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell) decision. Twenty-seven states had forced sterilization laws on the books as late as the 50's, with the last such procedure being performed in the U.S. in 1981. My point here is that these are lessons from a real, not-too distant past rather than a dystopian future.

Third, the most effective limiter of reproduction appears to be . . . "capitalism". Birth rates drop dramatically as countries become industrialized/"developed" and see their standard of living rise to OECD standards.

[MadRocketSci]

i sometimes wonder if this belief is really the root of our problem. what if this accepted 'truth' weren't true after all?

i practice buddhism, and practice is a very apt description because i fail more times than i succeed at living by buddha's precepts, but i keep trying.

imagine if this happened: somehow buddha manifested himself on earth today and could prove two tenets of his dharma: reincarnation exists and so does karma.

we don't have just one shot at life. we have thousands, maybe millions. we will be here in 100 years, 1000 years. we will live with the consequences of our actions. and there is a score kept somewhere. the quality of our future lives will be the result of the quality of our actions now.

this isn't a PSA for buddhism, but it is a question. how much of how we act is based on our personal understanding of how, supposedly, life works. if we believe we get only one shot and once we're dead, we're gone and there are no repercussions to our choices, then we act a certain way. if we knew the reality were exactly the opposite -- that we're here forever and every lifetime is a reflection of all our past choices, and the only way to change our next and next and next life was to act with greater merit -- would we act and choose differently?

to change the trajectory of our life on this planet, many areas of change must be explored. and we must question almost everything. including, maybe, if our fundamental understanding of 'reality' is right.

Climb, of all the life/death endgame scenarios, i picked "reincarnation" as the most sensible. everyone else, laugh it up :). Though i came to this conclusion on my own, i found this book a decent attempt at explaining the particulars...

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Physics-Science-Death-Reincarnation/dp/0060173521

With the catapult of logic, astrophysicist Darling (Equations of Eternity) lobs a barrage of scientific data against death's door. But he-and we-never quite gain access to the ultimate mystery. The title notwithstanding, Darling's prime ammo is psychology, not physics, and Zen enters his plan only in the endgame. His main thrust involves presenting cases of amnesia, multiple personality disorder and other afflictions, as well as facts of the brain-mind connection, to demonstrate that our sense of self is not steady, as is generally supposed, but fluid, even temporally discrete. Darling then announces a not quite convincing and emotionally unsatisfying theory of "reincarnation" based on this ever-changing self, in which successive incarnations of "me" retain no personal link from one to the next. With great elegance, he next uses findings of quantum physics to show that consciousness is primary to matter. This contradicts Western scientific orthodoxy, but Darling makes a strong case. Both the fluid self and the primacy of matter accord with Buddhist principles, which is where Zen comes in. Oddly, though, Darling's idea of reincarnation seems to veer from Zen basics, as it eliminates the possibility of conscious reincarnation. Likely, readers will finish this bold brief sensing they've peeked through death's keyhole, but have not opened the door.

[poff]

I do not worry about the future of electronic shifting.

[OtayBW]

i sometimes wonder if this belief is really the root of our problem. what if this accepted 'truth' weren't true after all?

i practice buddhism, and practice is a very apt description because i fail more times than i succeed at living by buddha's precepts, but i keep trying.

imagine if this happened: somehow buddha manifested himself on earth today and could prove two tenets of his dharma: reincarnation exists and so does karma.

we don't have just one shot at life. we have thousands, maybe millions. we will be here in 100 years, 1000 years. we will live with the consequences of our actions. and there is a score kept somewhere. the quality of our future lives will be the result of the quality of our actions now.

this isn't a PSA for buddhism, but it is a question. how much of how we act is based on our personal understanding of how, supposedly, life works. if we believe we get only one shot and once we're dead, we're gone and there are no repercussions to our choices, then we act a certain way. if we knew the reality were exactly the opposite -- that we're here forever and every lifetime is a reflection of all our past choices, and the only way to change our next and next and next life was to act with greater merit -- would we act and choose differently?

to change the trajectory of our life on this planet, many areas of change must be explored. and we must question almost everything. including, maybe, if our fundamental understanding of 'reality' is right.
I am very hesitant to go down this road, but with respect, I'll say that the above embolded statement is only one interpretation of the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Another, and one that resonates better with me personally, is the notion that 'all things change, yet no thing changes' without ascribing continuity of some 'self', or 'we' that remains forever.....

[Climb01742]

I am very hesitant to go down this road, but with respect, I'll say that the above embolded statement is only one interpretation of the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Another, and one that resonates better with me personally, is the notion that 'all things change, yet no thing changes' without ascribing continuity of some 'self', or 'we' that remains forever.....

Your point is well taken. I was imprecise in choosing my words. I didn't mean 'we' in an individual, personal sense. But something endures, something accrues or does not accrue merit. I agree it isn't the 'self' we think of each day. But something reincarnates, something is one a path to, hopefully, more compassionate, unselfish behavior. I will admit, though, what that 'no self' is is beyond my understanding today. Some days Buddha makes my head swim.;)

[goonster]

Slowing down the degradation to make it more likely that we survive to head off to other planets is a more reasonable goal. People like clean air and clean water and would prefer solar cells to fossil fuels if only the economics worked out for real (via engineering, not subsidies).
People who think it is more "reasonable" for us to relocate to other planets than to maintain the one we're on in working order make me sad. Doubly so when it is someone whose insights I value, and who is obviously gifted and accomplished in another field.

With respect, I'd like to point out that when we last ventured to places extraterrestial, the subsidies preceded the engineering.

[Louis]

the endgame of unregulated capitalism...


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-54Sjx82-0pM/UOdMA3wL7jI/AAAAAAAAEbg/XMFUvJuJtIA/s1600/blade_runner1.jpg

[1centaur]

I could respond to each of you one by one but it would take forever, so I'll put down some random reactions and you can find their reference reading back if you care.

Exxon is not outrageously profitable. It is a commodity producer with massive capital costs and risks. Take a look at 10-year average profit margin and compare it to many other industries.

I don't believe most capitalists break the law when they can. Most capitalists are people who don't check their conscience at the door.

If capitalists paid more than the market demanded to their workers those workers would bid up the price of many things making the wage less livable, and of course workers willing to work for less would be shut out.

I am not advocating moving to rape and pillage other planets, just analyzing achievable goals. The sustainability question is not about one acre, one county, one town, one country or one planet.

Capitalism and human nature: Let's see if we can narrow our differences. People want to move up Maslow's hierarchy. I view that as a given since caveman days, even if they did not know it yet. If you have today's food and shelter you want tomorrow's food and shelter. Man went from hunter gatherers to organized farming to industrial production to get more while defending against threats to what they had. They competed with each other for resources and territory. They cooperated to some extent in such endeavors, and some created philosophies around their behavior and thoughts but underneath it all the prime motivations were there (and would emerge in greater force, as they would today, if required).

In my mind capitalism just formalizes and makes more efficient those instincts to grow the collective pie as much as possible, while socialism and communism inherently suppress those instincts to one extent or another. There's a continuum from some idealized pure capitalism (never existed) to some idealized pure communism (never existed) and most differences between left and right in the Western world seem to be between somewhat socialized capitalism and somewhat capitalized socialism, since that feels like the giant ballpark of win/win. With enough population, neither is sustainable because the balance between genuine GDP and social need can never be met (I believe).

Tesla: I am not saying that Tesla is better than not driving much, I am saying that if you make an electric car that's excellent people will flock to it and be happy not to use fossil fuels. Elon Musk will use as much renewable energy as possible moving forward. It's more idea than reality today, but gives a hint of how the ball has been moved.

Piece in the WSJ today said we can turn carbon dioxide into methanol and use it for auto fuel, but only if (food destroying) ethanol subsidies are removed. That's the kind of capitalism meets environment I am talking about.

[cfox]

serious question, no snark intended: How do those who worry about population growth feel about the following:

-vaccines/drugs
-medicine/doctors
-fertilizer
-plumbing/sanitation
-nukes (we don't have wars anymore where 20-40 million people die)

because, despite the intention of making the quality of our lives better (maybe not the nukes), all of the above have contributed greatly to our planets current population

[Louis]

Unless one is a member of a 1st world religious cult that subjugates women and forces them to have as many kids as possible, poverty in 3rd world countries that are starting to get better health care is what results in big population growth.

Empower women and improve 3rd world economies so more people aren't dirt-poor subsistence farmers, and the population growth will begin to level off. I'm not sure if that will happen in time to save the planet, but it will help.

serious question, no snark intended: How do those who worry about population growth feel about the following:

-vaccines/drugs
-medicine/doctors
-fertilizer
-plumbing/sanitation
-nukes (we don't have wars anymore where 20-40 million people die)

because, despite the intention of making the quality of our lives better (maybe not the nukes), all of the above have contributed greatly to our planets current population

[rain dogs]

Capitalism and human nature: Let's see if we can narrow our differences. People want to move up Maslow's hierarchy. I view that as a given since caveman days, even if they did not know it yet.

Maslow isn't current accepted theory anymore. Manfred Max-Neef's 9 basic human needs is more widely embraced in contemporary peer-review.

I am not advocating moving to rape and pillage other planets, just analyzing achievable goals.

There is nothing in current science that supports this as being an achievable goal. There is a lot of "dreaming" out there, but there were also scientists that could be rounded up to say accelerated climate change was not anthropogenic.

In my mind capitalism just formalizes and makes more efficient those instincts to grow the collective pie as much as possible,

It does? Surely you're not taking about corporate capitalism? and likely you're not talking about free market capitalism (which is an oxymoron). If we could decouple the state, and big business, a freed market might have a chance to do what you say, (and this isn't some wacko Tea Party Libertarian BS) but that isn't being held up by the environmental movement, nor Earth's gravity.

ah.... a bike ride should do it.

[Kirk007]

With the catapult of logic, astrophysicist Darling (Equations of Eternity) lobs a barrage of scientific data against death's door. But he-and we-never quite gain access to the ultimate mystery. The title notwithstanding, Darling's prime ammo is psychology, not physics, and Zen enters his plan only in the endgame. His main thrust involves presenting cases of amnesia, multiple personality disorder and other afflictions, as well as facts of the brain-mind connection, to demonstrate that our sense of self is not steady, as is generally supposed, but fluid, even temporally discrete. Darling then announces a not quite convincing and emotionally unsatisfying theory of "reincarnation" based on this ever-changing self, in which successive incarnations of "me" retain no personal link from one to the next. With great elegance, he next uses findings of quantum physics to show that consciousness is primary to matter. This contradicts Western scientific orthodoxy, but Darling makes a strong case. Both the fluid self and the primacy of matter accord with Buddhist principles, which is where Zen comes in. Oddly, though, Darling's idea of reincarnation seems to veer from Zen basics, as it eliminates the possibility of conscious reincarnation. Likely, readers will finish this bold brief sensing they've peeked through death's keyhole, but have not opened the door.

Along these lines: link from an article in the NYT that popped on my Google news feed today: http://tibet.emory.edu/science/

[Kirk007]

I don't believe most capitalists break the law when they can. Most capitalists are people who don't check their conscience at the door. [unquote]

Piece in the WSJ today said we can turn carbon dioxide into methanol and use it for auto fuel, but only if (food destroying) ethanol subsidies are removed. That's the kind of capitalism meets environment I am talking about.

1. Everyone's view is of course influenced by their experiences. In my experiences, most business owners, execs, environmental compliance officers I have dealt with have been decent enough folks, most with some conscience, but every single one was perfectly willing to push the limits on environmental regulations and actively railed against pollution control laws, cleanup laws etc. They were an expense, and expensive one at that, that lessened the bottom line, therefore the instinct was to eliminate or minimize that expense. Makes perfect sense but there was little recognition that their expense avoidance was pushing that cost onto others, people and other organisms and the physical environment. And some were worse, much worse, than others. Asarco had an entire set of files with nothing but documents dealing with dead animals surrounding their copper smelter in the NW. Dead birds and rats - clean them up before the new local news reporter comes and takes a tour. Dead cattle and horses next door - deny, deny, deny any causal link, despite dead horses and cattle surrounding their other plants. Levels of arsenic in the neighbors (their workers) yards - not to worry, just don't have a garden, or carpet, leave your shoes outside and for god's sake don't be an idiot and let your children play out there!! I could go on and on and that's just one example. And some company's people, well I do believe there is evil in this world and I have sat across the table from some of it as they wiggled and squirmed trying to deny the truth of their bad acts.

2.I'm all for examining subsidies to ag, and timber and big oil and coal -- funny how most Republicans never want to talk about these.

[1centaur]

Maslow isn't current accepted theory anymore. Manfred Max-Neef's 9 basic human needs is more widely embraced in contemporary peer-review.

Unfortunately, I just read the wiki on that. I guess contemporary peer review is a long, long way from something I can sympathize with.

There is nothing in current science that supports this as being an achievable goal. There is a lot of "dreaming" out there, but there were also scientists that could be rounded up to say accelerated climate change was not anthropogenic.

The achievable goal I was implying was slowing our degradation of the planet enough that we can get to the point where interplanetary travel is practicable. I view that as more realistic than changing human nature enough to make this planet a sustainable closed ecosystem.

[1centaur]

kirk - yes I believe there are evil people (or at least pathologically uncaring people) in some corporations, among other places.

[Louis]

The achievable goal I was implying was slowing our degradation of the planet enough that we can get to the point where interplanetary travel is practicable.

IMO it makes more sense trying to keep the planet we have now. (Unless the research on dilithium crystals is more advanced than I think it is.)

[#campyuserftw]

I worry that schools are banning tag, footballs, baseballs and kids running in "packs".

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/School-bans-tag-running-packs-s-dangerous/story-19922612-detail/story.html#axzz2hTBVXmAJ

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57606514/n.y-school-bans-balls-at-recess-cracks-down-on-tag-games-over-safety-fears/

I worry that some associate "capitalism" with something "evil" when even Brad Pitt and Bono disagree:

http://vimeo.com/53945169#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=964rEJ8KsoI

http://blog.independent.org/2013/08/12/bono-capitalism-takes-more-people-out-of-poverty-than-aid/

I'm concerned that when a politician leaks a name of a female member of the CIA, he is the devil, but when Julian Assange does it, he's cool and heroic. :confused:

The environment is on my list, it's not number one. Female feticide in India and China infuriate me so much more than the toxic waste from these same countries. What is great in America, we each have the ability to fly our own flag, so to speak.

[happycampyer]

What is great in America, we each have the ability to fly our own flag, so to speak.Or burn it, as the case may be (without taking into account the externalities of the act).

[pbarry]

I'm concerned that when a politician leaks a name of a female member of the CIA, he is the devil, but when Julian Assange does it, he's cool and heroic. :confused:

You may be confusing facts with public perception of events. Scooter Libby was tried, prosecuted, sentenced and, wait for it... had his 30 month sentence commuted. The U.S. government will seek to try and sentence Assange if he ever leaves Russia. He won't get a pardon.

[cfox]

You may be confusing facts with public perception of events. Scooter Libby was tried, prosecuted, sentenced and, wait for it... had his 30 month sentence commuted. The U.S. government will seek to try and sentence Assange if he ever leaves Russia. He won't get a pardon.

and I think you are confusing Julian Assange with Ed Snowden (you know, the guy who has been seeking asylum in some of the world's most oppressive regimes to escape prosecution in the US).

[avalonracing]

It took from the beginning of time for the earth to reach a human population of 6 billion. It took from 1999 to 2012 to reach 7 billion. Run the math forward.

[1centaur]

So to use Avalon's arithmetic in another way: is a city sustainable? Can a city be sustainable? I would say no - it sucks resources from outside and dumps waste outside itself. The only sustainable human arrangement I can imagine is modest population in a moderately dense form consciously targeting the status quo in land management and population and not overtaken by outside aggressors with less concern for sustainability. In other words, I don't think it's remotely possible, let alone reasonable. to think that a citified (and increasingly so) world can ever target sustainability. It can (and should) slow its rapacious ways, but only slow them. Everything else is a delusion.

[rain dogs]

The achievable goal....[of] interplanetary travel is .. more realistic than changing human nature enough to make this planet a sustainable closed ecosystem.

Let's hope not. But I see now what you're saying.

What's interesting is I don't think "human nature" is an issue at all. Of all the humans I've met, no one wants to crap in their own kitchen. No one wants barrels of nuclear waste in their backyard, or down the street, or in the ocean.

In fact, human nature is very much in line with preservation of a livable biosphere, working within natural flows and concentrations of substances from the lithosphere into the biosphere (oil extraction for example), and the prevention of physical degradation of the landscape beyond natural cycles (clear cutting/burning the rainforest vs selective thinning of the boreal)

What's OUT of whack, isn't human nature, it's corporate capitalism - that non competition laws obligate you to destory eco-systems for investor gain. That petroleum and pipelines become synonymous with or a proxy for the economy vs one small slice of a possible economy (of which there are myriads of other economic generators that don't also lead to massive increases in concentrations of GreenHouseGasses and further accelerated climate change at end use).

What's OUT of whack isn't human nature, it's current governments who support corporate monopolies, heavily subsidize non-competitive commodity/resource industries like the Petroleum industry.

In fact, I'd say that what is needed is less time wasting intellectual energy thinking of interplanetary travel, flying cars and sci-fi escapist fantasies, and more time addressing the governments and businesses that pass their "political nature" and "corporate nature" off as some perverse and twisted "human-nature"

Humans I have no problem with (thankfully as I am one)... it's what happens when we organize into political/corporate groups larger than five people, and then we all become dumber than the dumbest one in the group.

[#campyuserftw]

From stardust, to single-celled oceanic life, the first lung fish, complex, thinking mammals, groups, hunting, gathering, growing, villages, cities, laws, rule, traveling to conquer lands by foot, by sea and now this. The cosmos is our future, the next ocean front. A place we'll need to find locations to both dump our waste, and utilize nearby planets with needed resources and raw fuels, all the while we find a way out for what's next.

Here is now. Next is back from where we came, space. In the meantime, it's merely a game to exist as long as we can, while we find a way off this third rock form the sun.

TedX events where the word "sustainable" is used 1M times won't change much. Fund NASA and follow private, commercial space ventures; NASA whose budget is slashed to the point it is "unsustainable".

[rain dogs]

In the meantime, it's merely a game to exist as long as we can, while we find a way off this third rock form the sun.
Fund NASA and follow private, commercial space ventures

Beyond the unfortunate reality of physics (and the mind-numbing debate that would follow) there is the simple, but more important, principled question:

When your kitchen becomes a mess, do you actually start cooking in the bathroom? :rolleyes:

[#campyuserftw]

Beyond the unfortunate reality of physics (and the mind-numbing debate that would follow) there is the simple, but more important, principled question:

When your kitchen becomes a mess, do you actually start cooking in the bathroom? :rolleyes:

It worked for the dolphins, "So long and thanks for all the fish":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojydNb3Lrrs

We need a plan like theirs, according to my dolphin, as our kitchen is a mess and there's a long line for the bathroom.

:beer:

[verticaldoug]

I can't comment on Darling's work but the language of physics is math. I tend to be skeptical about physicists journeys into pop-science.

I tend to think the best answer about the future of the human race is the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox.

[OtayBW]

I can't comment on Darling's work but the language of physics is math. I tend to be skeptical about physicists journeys into pop-science.

I tend to think the best answer about the future of the human race is the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox.
As one of the online reviewers said [paraphrasing], 'Darling's book seems to be neither about Physics nor Zen'. From what I've seen, I tend to agree.

[Climb01742]

someone once asked me if i had a philosophy of life. i said something to the effect of, no, not really, i just try to see life, clearly, as it is.

over the years i've come to realize that my answer was bullshiite.

whether we know it or not, i think we all have philosophies of life, we just don't realize it. instead, we think we have clear-eyed, clear-headed accurate takes on how things are. pragmatists, just calling it like it is.

but we aren't. over our lives, we've used our experiences and our learning to create a pattern we recognize as life, human behavior, human motivations, and the cold, hard facts of life.

some of what we believe may be part of the truth, but only part. and more than reflecting Life, with a big all-encompassing 'L', it reflects our small slice of it.

i think this is an important thing for us to realize. not because any of our views are necessarily wrong or inaccurate. but just that we shouldn't, with hard and fast certainty, take our view for the real mccoy.

before newton, very smart physicists thought they knew how the world worked.

before einstein, very smart newtonians thought they knew how the world worked.

before quantuum mechanics, and string theory, and god particles, einstein thought he knew how the world worked. but even albert knew that his ideas were just that. ideas about stuff. he knew that regardless of his ideas, the stuff would do its stuff exactly as it wanted to. our understanding wasn't the stuff itself.

we each have a theory of life. and that's cool, and good, and pretty much of a working necessity to get through the day. but i think it's also good to keep in mind a humble thought. our theory may have a lot going for it, but at the end of the day, looking at the enormity and complexity of life, whatever our theory is, is a pale version of the real deal.

if albert can be humble in the face of life, so, perhaps, should we.;)

[Kirk007]

Let's hope not. But I see now what you're saying.

What's interesting is I don't think "human nature" is an issue at all. Of all the humans I've met, no one wants to crap in their own kitchen. No one wants barrels of nuclear waste in their backyard, or down the street, or in the ocean.

In fact, human nature is very much in line with preservation of a livable biosphere, working within natural flows and concentrations of substances from the lithosphere into the biosphere (oil extraction for example), and the prevention of physical degradation of the landscape beyond natural cycles (clear cutting/burning the rainforest vs selective thinning of the boreal)

What's OUT of whack, isn't human nature, it's corporate capitalism - that non competition laws obligate you to destory eco-systems for investor gain. That petroleum and pipelines become synonymous with or a proxy for the economy vs one small slice of a possible economy (of which there are myriads of other economic generators that don't also lead to massive increases in concentrations of GreenHouseGasses and further accelerated climate change at end use).

What's OUT of whack isn't human nature, it's current governments who support corporate monopolies, heavily subsidize non-competitive commodity/resource industries like the Petroleum industry.

In fact, I'd say that what is needed is less time wasting intellectual energy thinking of interplanetary travel, flying cars and sci-fi escapist fantasies, and more time addressing the governments and businesses that pass their "political nature" and "corporate nature" off as some perverse and twisted "human-nature"

Humans I have no problem with (thankfully as I am one)... it's what happens when we organize into political/corporate groups larger than five people, and then we all become dumber than the dumbest one in the group.

"Human nature" was, I suspect, far different before the constant barrage of marketing telling us we need more and more stuff to replace what is in reality perfectly fine and functional old stuff. The older I get the more I realize that for me more stuff, lots of square footage, fast and fancy cars that are expensive to maintain, all this stuff is a real anchor that slows down living rather than enhancing the experience. A a certain point - enough is indeed enough.

Now I recognize that for millions and millions of folks, getting to what I think is "enough" is but a wild fantasy, and having the opportunity to strive for that lifestyle would be a rich opportunity. But the constant purchasing of new stuff in the average Western life style that fuels the Western economies, well, we are just mice on the wheel, capitalism is the wheel and I suspect all hell will break loose if the wheel ever comes off its axle. On this I am somewhat with 1Centaur - I'm not sure a soft landing is possible (but I think something will get most of us before we can all go jetting off to pillage another planet). I try not to think about these end game possibilities too much though, it might drive me to believing in spaceships and the infinite power of our magnificent intellects and technologies, so instead I go read some Tao and call it good.

[Peter B]

I worry about how poorly we tend to treat others unlike ourselves and the BS ways we justify our actions. I think most other issues seems to stem from this most basic thing.

dave
With apologies to DK if I've misquoted him.

Assuming we successfully adventure into the great beyond to perpetuate our entitlement, and, considering our past (colonialism, slavery, etc.), I wonder what we'd do if/when we encounter inhabitants of those extraterrestrial sources of our future resources and waste disposal.

[Kirk007]

Yvon Chouinard's take on consumption and the economy: http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=1865

[CircuitHero]

I thought we were the environment.

[1centaur]

Yvon Chouinard's take on consumption and the economy: http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=1865

When I was in undergrad, I had an ex Harvard Business School professor ask the class if we thought it was true that a business either grows or dies. My reaction, and those of my peers, was "of course not." But the truth of that notion slowly became apparent to me in the class and over the many intervening years.

There are two reasons for that, both having to do with human nature. First, when people just try to maintain, they tend to start slipping backwards. Study to get 100 on a test and you get 93. Study to get 90 and you get 80. Study to pass and.... We tend to fall short of our goals; our ambition is greater than our achievement. In trying to get more, we tend to get enough.

The second reason is the behavior of others. If we walk when they run, they win (something). If America miraculously tries to create status quo GDP our relative power and ability to defend our resources will wane unless others miraculously agree to not advance. Not to mention that a flat GDP and a rising population means ever less per capita wealth, which would be a political problem.

Finally, if the already developed and wealthy west tries to tell the undeveloped world that it's time to stop growing, we might be perceived as without a clue. kind of like when the rest of the world tells the west to slow their growth via carbon caps it feels like economic strategy to catch up.

Sustainability is a system that requires broad agreement across growing billions of people, many of whom not only have less than others but who have the skills to succeed enormously and would have to put those aside to support a philosophical concept from the already fat and happy. We can't even get agreement from a few people in Washington with similar culture and achievement. And that massive agreement would need to be "sustained" for generation after generation of suboptimal economic growth.

This is why I view sustainability the end point as unrealistic. But directionally, slowing down and doing less dumb consumption is a good way to go personally as well as societally. Just don't blend your microcosm with frustration over the "we must all..." sentiment. It just won't happen.

[rain dogs]

"Human nature" was, I suspect, far different before the constant barrage of marketing telling us we need more and more stuff to replace what is in reality perfectly fine and functional old stuff.

Perhaps we're all defining "human nature" differently. The paradigm I'm directing my thoughts toward is the one that says "Human nature" is inherently flawed to such a degree that our only fate is to destroy the planet. That it's in our nature to destroy ourselves and ruin the environment, and that worse, the conclusion is, why try to do anything positive when it will only be undermined by "human nature" because this is civilization, this is the best civilization and furthermore this is the only possible civilization.

and that argument I think is false, and is held up with strawman examples like: war, inequality, crime, over-consumption etc.

My rebuttal is those are all cultural constructs built on a foundation of "political nature" and "corporate nature" and there is nothing "human" or "natural" about either of those constructs.

and that furthermore, that IF there are those who do believe the alternative - that we are in fact so very flawed - then why have any faith or hope in silly sci-fi escapist fantasies because we'll only continue to be flawed irrespective of where we are in the cosmos, always falling back on our self-destructive nature.

What's needed is leadership from below, from everyone, you and I, and a realization that as long as we can organize into intelligent groups we can shape our future how we want. Based on principles and not scenarios. Based on human needs and not solely the economy. based on compassion not sociopathic cultural constructs.

If you were pedaling down a road, descending through a thick fog, uncertain of what lay ahead and all you had to communicate the future were signs saying "bridge out". Would you keep bombing down the hill into the vastness of uncertainty? Not knowing when you'd plunge off the road to fall to your demise? Or would you turn around and look for a another road?

[1centaur]

Perhaps we're all defining "human nature" differently. The paradigm I'm directing my thoughts toward is the one that says "Human nature" is inherently flawed to such a degree that our only fate is to destroy the planet. That it's in our nature to destroy ourselves and ruin the environment, and that worse, the conclusion is, why try to do anything positive when it will only be undermined by "human nature" because this is civilization, this is the best civilization and furthermore this is the only possible civilization.

and that argument I think is false, and is held up with strawman examples like: war, inequality, crime, over-consumption etc.

My rebuttal is those are all cultural constructs built on a foundation of "political nature" and "corporate nature" and there is nothing "human" or "natural" about either of those constructs.

and that furthermore, that IF there are those who do believe the alternative - that we are in fact so very flawed - then why have any faith or hope in silly sci-fi escapist fantasies because we'll only continue to be flawed irrespective of where we are in the cosmos, always falling back on our self-destructive nature.

What's needed is leadership from below, from everyone, you and I, and a realization that as long as we can organize into intelligent groups we can shape our future how we want. Based on principles and not scenarios. Based on human needs and not solely the economy. based on compassion not sociopathic cultural constructs.


The cultural constructs you cite IMO are extensions of human nature: culture, politics, corporations aggregate the influences of the humans that run them, form them and respond to their outside influences.

I don't think the mention of off-planet release valve possibilites is silly sci-fi fantasy, even if it's further in the future than you would like sustainability to be. If we're coloninzing other planets in 200 years, we'll certainly take our nature/culture with us. Are we flawed? Yes. It can take flaws to achieve certain things, including getting some portion of our population to the point where we can contemplate having "enough" with such certainty that hitting the sustain switch is a reasonable discussion to have. Our flawed, capitalist nature has brought us wealth and with wealth we can have contemplation. But many, many people are not us and want what we have; they will not take kindly to notions of long-term collectivism that happen to ace them out of the progression within their reach.

Here's a good over/under question to ponder: will we get to interplanetary colonization before or after every country on this plant feels that they have achieved enough and it's time to hit the sustainability switch?

And to address the "why try to do anything positive" question: because slowing degradation of the planet on the margin improves the quality of life. Stupid consumption is not a great way to build an economy (nor is building infrastructure without demand, a la China), clean air and water are valuable for our brief moment on the planet. There are probably a ton of win/win actions and culural tweaks to make along the way that would not be made without the movement. But if by chance there was so much organizing from below that Washington was filled with sustainability guys and gals, our economy would slow significantly and the "don't worry, it's good for the planet not to have economic growth that supports well paid jobs for you" argument will butt up against...human nature.

[Kirk007]

Here's another over under: will we jet off to our new home before or after global ecosystem collapse and massive pandemics or wars that solve the population problem? Given current realities I'm not betting on the rocket ship, but who knows, 4th quarter miracles happen

[BryanE]

No

[#campyuserftw]

Apparently some people are obsessed, radicals, willing to do anything. What seems unfair is that she causes $40M of damage, placed human life in danger, and gets 5-7.5 years in jail? Seems awfully light. What a freak.

Canadian eco activist pleads guilty to US arsons

A 40-year-old Canadian pleaded guilty to setting fires in western states in the "largest eco-terrorism case" in U.S. history that did $40 million of damage.

PORTLAND, Oregon — A Canadian environmentalist pleaded guilty Thursday to setting a string of fires across the U.S. West that torched a ski resort and other buildings in what the Justice Department has called the "largest eco-terrorism case" in U.S. history.

Rebecca Rubin, who surrendered to authorities a year ago after a decade on the run, was accused of helping the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front carry out 20 acts of arson across several U.S. states between 1996 and 2001.

Rubin, 40, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of arson and conspiracy as part of a plea deal that prosecutors said could see her spend between five and 7½ years in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced in Portland Jan. 27.

Related: Suspect in ecoterrorism fires pleads not guilty

Prosecutors have said that the arson campaign stood out for the number of fires set and damage caused, which was estimated at more than $40 million. The charges against Rubin were consolidated from cases filed in Oregon, Colorado and California.

Rubin, shackled at the ankles and wearing blue prison togs, pleaded guilty of involvement in an arson attack on the Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse Facility near Burns, Oregon, in 1998 and a similar facility in California in 2001. The horses were released in both incidents.

She also admitted involvement in the attempted arson of U.S. Forest Service Industries in Medford, Oregon, and pleaded guilty to eight counts of arson for the 1998 torching of a Vail ski resort in Colorado.

Related video: Buenos Aires ecological reserve fire possibly arson

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said the Vail plan "was motivated by environment and animal welfare concerns" and that she had carried fuel up the mountain, where it was hidden in the snow for later use. She did not participate in the actual arson that took place later, he said.

Rubin did not speak in court other than to enter her pleas and to repeatedly say that she understood all the proceedings and provisions of her agreement and was not coerced.

In 2007, 10 other defendants in the group pleaded guilty to various counts and received prison terms from 37 to 156 months. Two others charged in the case remain at large.

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/canadian-eco-activist-pleads-guilty-to-us-arsons

[Kirk007]

Apparently some people are obsessed, radicals, willing to do anything. What seems unfair is that she causes $40M of damage, placed human life in danger, and gets 5-7.5 years in jail? Seems awfully light. What a freak.


http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/canadian-eco-activist-pleads-guilty-to-us-arsons

Yes, she is a criminal. Eco-terrorist? That label - such an effective radical right framing.

What do you call the tea party republicans who represent 18% of Americans and have shut down the government? How much damage have they caused? How many lives have they put in jeopardy as the CDC and others can't do their jobs. I call them econ-terrorists. How much jail time will they get??

[#campyuserftw]

They declare they are terrorists:

"The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front

As far as the two sides of the government that are both unwilling to negotiate and compromise, that's a different topic. The day 18% of anyone, anything, black, white or indifferent, cannot have a say, we are not a democracy. Rosa Parks was one person on one bus. Change happens, and it never comes from the 100%. No laws are being broken that I'm aware of. It's a shut down, happened before and it'll happen again.

[gdw]

No. I'm more concerned about what Iran will do when they get the bomb. I can recycle and do my part to reduce waste but have no control over the wackos in the Middle East.

"What do you call the tea party republicans who represent 18% of Americans and have shut down the government? How much damage have they caused? How many lives have they put in jeopardy as the CDC and others can't do their jobs. I call them econ-terrorists. How much jail time will they get??"

Please don't derail an interesting thread by bringing petty politics into it. Both parties and the President are responsible for the current chaos in Washington.

[Louis]

Please don't derail an interesting thread by bringing petty politics into it.

I agree with the intent of this statement, but just for the record, this isn't petty politics. We're talking big-time economic implications of a default, not just tourists not being able to look down into a huge hole in the ground in Arizona.

[gdw]

The "petty politics" comment was in reference to the tea party drift in this thread and the potential it has to wreck an interesting discussion. I'm in agreement with you concerning the potential consequences of the juvenile behavior of our elected officials.

[oldpotatoe]

No. I'm more concerned about what Iran will do when they get the bomb. I can recycle and do my part to reduce waste but have no control over the wackos in the Middle East.

"What do you call the tea party republicans who represent 18% of Americans and have shut down the government? How much damage have they caused? How many lives have they put in jeopardy as the CDC and others can't do their jobs. I call them econ-terrorists. How much jail time will they get??"

Please don't derail an interesting thread by bringing petty politics into it. Both parties and the President are responsible for the current chaos in Washington.

Well, that's about all we can all 'do'..feel good about how we do 'biz' in our daily
activities, take care of our families...and vote.

'Worrying' really does nothing except make you worry.

A lot of these things make me angry...like the death and destruction in the name of some organized religion or another.

Or the follies now happening in Washington, DC...like i said, vote.

It's small but......

[jblande]

Given that one of the budgetary demands from the right is the radical reduction of environmental regulations because they (evidently) hamper the functioning of the self-regulating market utopia, I'd say its all connected.

[redir]

Let's hope not. But I see now what you're saying.

What's interesting is I don't think "human nature" is an issue at all. Of all the humans I've met, no one wants to crap in their own kitchen. No one wants barrels of nuclear waste in their backyard, or down the street, or in the ocean.

In fact, human nature is very much in line with preservation of a livable biosphere, working within natural flows and concentrations of substances from the lithosphere into the biosphere (oil extraction for example), and the prevention of physical degradation of the landscape beyond natural cycles (clear cutting/burning the rainforest vs selective thinning of the boreal)

What's OUT of whack, isn't human nature, it's corporate capitalism - that non competition laws obligate you to destory eco-systems for investor gain. That petroleum and pipelines become synonymous with or a proxy for the economy vs one small slice of a possible economy (of which there are myriads of other economic generators that don't also lead to massive increases in concentrations of GreenHouseGasses and further accelerated climate change at end use).

What's OUT of whack isn't human nature, it's current governments who support corporate monopolies, heavily subsidize non-competitive commodity/resource industries like the Petroleum industry.

In fact, I'd say that what is needed is less time wasting intellectual energy thinking of interplanetary travel, flying cars and sci-fi escapist fantasies, and more time addressing the governments and businesses that pass their "political nature" and "corporate nature" off as some perverse and twisted "human-nature"

Humans I have no problem with (thankfully as I am one)... it's what happens when we organize into political/corporate groups larger than five people, and then we all become dumber than the dumbest one in the group.

I agree with what you say but there is usually a human on top of all that. Look at the Koch brothers for example. Robert Hare developed a test called the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and is accepted as the leading test to check to see if some one has sociopathic tendencies:

http://www.hare.org/scales/pclr.html

Interestingly they find that CEO's score alarmingly high on these tests compared to average.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-stack-the-psychopath-test-by-jon-ronson-07212011.html

Hare even tells Ronson he wishes he’d spent less time studying psychopaths in prison and more time studying those who work in the markets. “Serial killers ruin families,” Hare says. “Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.”


I thought we were the environment.

Ah yes nihilism, it's just about impossible to argue against it.


No. I'm more concerned about what Iran will do when they get the bomb. I can recycle and do my part to reduce waste but have no control over the wackos in the Middle East.
.

Mutually assured destruction has served us well since WW2. Why not in the ME too?

[Ray]

Yes, of course - you'd have to be an idiot not to recognize the train-wreck we're in the midst of.

BUT BUT BUT....

I also recognize that the way we live in the developed world is the overwhelming cause of what we're doing to our environment. And I realize that I've made huge lifestyle changes that have had the effect of greatly reducing my footprint (not claiming that as the main motivation for all of those changes, but it's part of it). And my lifestyle probably contributes to the problem far less than the average westerner.

And yet even if all westerners lived like I did, we'd probably still be the biggest cause of the problem and the scale of the problem would only change by an incremental amount. And I'm not willing to voluntarily reduce my impacts much below where they are now - I'm living as low-impact a life as I can ever see myself living without having more limits forced on me by scarcity.

And I think we're still frucked! So there's not much point in worrying much more about it. So now I worry more about how my kids any any eventual grand kids will get through it more than the direct problem itself. I guess I'm a fatalist. As Bob Weir sang, "We may be goin' to hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoyin' the ride".

-Ray

[#campyuserftw]

"We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation."

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

We need more good men and women, who'll focus on themselves, the pieces and parts, not dwelling on the macro universe, TedX's "sustainability" or the environment of the universe. If we had more good people who would strive for self-nobility, inner-peace and decency, the world would have a lot less toxic waste, which comes in many forms. The ozone is so far away. More humans should focus on the air around them, and the space between each other.

Edmund Burke's words from over two hundred years ago, still ring true, as do Shakespeare's from 1604, "The hearts of old gave hands, but our new heraldry is hands, not hearts."

I think too many people, perhaps even an entire generation of today, focuses on the doom of the planet. They have become daylight pundits, zombies, believing they will create an App, or come up with some great, grand idea, and make millions in their pj's, sleeping till noon, without a shower or shave. Kids today, 15-25, young adults, are more spoiled, more lazy, more high on drugs, committing more violence and yet they'll sit there and tell adults how badly we effed up the Earth. So many youth today are wannabe Colberts or Stewarts, and I look at some of the youth today, the future environment of society, and worry more for them, than our air and water. So much of the youth of today is sooner to "save" wolves in Colorado, bears in Alaska, whales off the coast of some country they couldn't spell, or chunks of ice where Santa lives, than look in the mirror and be accountable for themselves. They are wannabe activists, without their own northern star; focus on something big and simple than something small and hard: discipline, responsibility, accountability and adulthood.

Where is the discipline? Where are the parents, plural? Or is it all just one big Facebook selfie?

People are a part of nature, the environment and the problem is the people, especially the youth, whose got a wise arse answer for everything, and they have no idea how to do physical work, or buck up. It's all zombies, smartphones, smugness, drugness, Facebookness and this current youth rarely lends hearts, or even hands. They're too busy looking down, staring at a "smart"phone5 in their two hands, they couldn't afford, given to them by a single parent.

Note: It's not all the fault of the zombie youth. Perhaps the blame resides with the so-called adults who have not created a bar for their kids to reach, or exceed. "Teach your children well, teach your children what you believe in, and make a world we can live in" said CSN&Y. The greatest "environment" for mankind, more than air or water, are the ones today, who are the next generation.

[Kirk007]

"We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation."

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

We need more good men and women, who'll focus on themselves, the pieces and parts, not dwelling on the macro universe, TedX's "sustainability" or the environment of the universe. If we had more good people who would strive for self-nobility, inner-peace and decency, the world would have a lot less toxic waste, which comes in many forms. The ozone is so far away. More humans should focus on the air around them, and the space between each other.

Edmund Burke's words from over two hundred years ago, still ring true, as do Shakespeare's from 1604, "The hearts of old gave hands, but our new heraldry is hands, not hearts."

I think too many people, perhaps even an entire generation of today, focuses on the doom of the planet. They have become daylight pundits, zombies, believing they will create an App, or come up with some great, grand idea, and make millions in their pj's, sleeping till noon, without a shower or shave. Kids today, 15-25, young adults, are more spoiled, more lazy, more high on drugs, committing more violence and yet they'll sit there and tell adults how badly we effed up the Earth. So many youth today are wannabe Colberts or Stewarts, and I look at some of the youth today, the future environment of society, and worry more for them, than our air and water. So much of the youth of today is sooner to "save" wolves in Colorado, bears in Alaska, whales off the coast of some country they couldn't spell, or chunks of ice where Santa lives, than look in the mirror and be accountable for themselves. They are wannabe activists, without their own northern star; focus on something big and simple than something small and hard: discipline, responsibility, accountability and adulthood.

Where is the discipline? Where are the parents, plural? Or is it all just one big Facebook selfie?

People are a part of nature, the environment and the problem is the people, especially the youth, whose got a wise arse answer for everything, and they have no idea how to do physical work, or buck up. It's all zombies, smartphones, smugness, drugness, Facebookness and this current youth rarely lends hearts, or even hands. They're too busy looking down, staring at a "smart"phone5 in their two hands, they couldn't afford, given to them by a single parent.

Note: It's not all the fault of the zombie youth. Perhaps the blame resides with the so-called adults who have not created a bar for their kids to reach, or exceed. "Teach your children well, teach your children what you believe in, and make a world we can live in" said CSN&Y. The greatest "environment" for mankind, more than air or water, are the ones today, who are the next generation.

Well that's a pretty broad brush. I hear what you are saying, but generalizations are hard, I know more youth who defy this description than define it. This sounds a lot like every generational complaint about youth today.

But if you put yourself in their shoes, given the state of our economy, the general decline of the West as growing economies threaten our world position, world wide terrorists on jihad against western values and religion, the competition for jobs, the uncertain future, the costs of education - many grads are coming out o school with $100s of thousands of student loans and not so great job prospects -- I wouldn't trade places; it is hard to see how the average American youth of today will have the same or better standard of living than their parents.

I do know this. Oyster and mussel larvae are dying off the Oregon and Washington coast because CO2 absorbed 50 years ago is now circulating from the depths to near shore environment (upwelling) causing the ocean to acidify. CO2 levels are only going to increase for the rest of the Century. Moose populations are plummeting across North America - most experts point to changes caused by a warming climate. Pine forest are dying from pine beetle infestation, and it may bridge from Western forests to eastern forests. I could go on and on and on, but the point is, we can't lay any of the current environmental conditions that we face on the youth of today. This is our legacy to our children. It is the mess that we have left them with, and we will be long gone before the main course of impacts gets here. How all this will impact humans is yet to be determined but it will; it already has. Ask the oyster farmer.

In the 1970s there were a lot of pissed off youth who, but for the electronic bent, probably were described similarly to your description of today. Again, I doubt many of us who were youth then would be anxious to trade places with our kids.

[EDS]

So to use Avalon's arithmetic in another way: is a city sustainable? Can a city be sustainable? I would say no - it sucks resources from outside and dumps waste outside itself. The only sustainable human arrangement I can imagine is modest population in a moderately dense form consciously targeting the status quo in land management and population and not overtaken by outside aggressors with less concern for sustainability. In other words, I don't think it's remotely possible, let alone reasonable. to think that a citified (and increasingly so) world can ever target sustainability. It can (and should) slow its rapacious ways, but only slow them. Everything else is a delusion.

If the population continues to expand the city may be the only viable living model as we would need to preserve green space (for farming, etc.), move to more localized argricultural production (e.g., the farm would be 20 miles outside the city, in lieu of suburbs, rather than 1000 miles away), reduce emissions through a decrease in transit (e.g., decrease transportation costs, shorter commutes on public transit since everyone is in the city, etc.).

Mega cities likely would not work, but a planned dense population/work center might.