Re the population: NYTimes says that fertility rates are dropping almost everywhere except for sub-Saharan Africa. Too bad we can't say the same for carbon ppm.
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Re the population: NYTimes says that fertility rates are dropping almost everywhere except for sub-Saharan Africa. Too bad we can't say the same for carbon ppm.
There can not be infinite growth on a finite planet.
Industrial civilization, our culture, is killing our word.
I've been reading a lot of Derrick Jensen's books, and he's got it right.
Here is an interview (text) with Derrick Jensen.
Thanks for this.. One more reason to look at money in a new way. As the song in Cabaret says, "Money makes the world go 'round." If money is driving growth, the environmental destruction will continue. We have to tell money how to operate differently. And we have to tell ourselves to think differently about money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardenarian
Consumption may be part of the puzzle, but re-using baggies and riding a bike is not going to change the world. This is a game that industry plays to try and make citizens feel like they are the problem. It is not us, as individuals, who are the problem; it is government bureaucrats funded by industry, and industry itself that is to blame.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Which is not to say we can maintain our current lifestyles and stop the destruction of the earth. But the entire culture has to change - car culture, globalization, "defense", technology. Clotheslines and CFLs (and even the simplest living) are not enough.
Trying to tell people that they can do "50 simple things to save the earth" is just a distraction, a way to make people feel guilty instead of angry. Angry that there is a mass of plastic garbage the size of Africa floating in the Pacific; that human breast milk is tainted with dioxin; that plastics in the ocean outweigh phytoplankton by 10:1; that 200 species become extinct each day; that are bodies are full of toxic waste; for global deforestation - for so many reasons, we should be outraged.
It is greed run amok that is the problem, and it can and should be stopped.
Derick Jenson is a bit of a poser though. Does he live what he preaches either?
Is anger any better than guilt by the way, without strategy?
I agree--I'm not saying you and I can change the world by washing out zip locks (or not using them at all). Working to enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water act and holding people accountable for their actions would go a lot further. But the basic paradigm shift has to occur that more is not better, and that economic growth is not the only important measure of national well-being.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardenarian
The big problem is, whenever you suggest a change, the retort is bound to be "what's in it for me." That's the hard part.
He preaches change, by any means necessary. He is one of the founders of Deep Green Resistance. I don't think he in any sense a poser.Quote:
Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
And he has a strategy, it's called Decisive Ecological Warfare (outlined in the book Deep Green Resistance.)
The more I read and think about global warming, the more I oscillate between despair, and, well, worse despair. I regard it as axiomatic that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible and that some kind of steady-state economy is the only answer (unless someone perfects a totally clean, cheap energy source tomorrow).
The problem is, there's not a scintilla of a hint that anyone is willing to do what's clearly needed: a program of carbon reduction, accompanied by a steady population decrease, that exceeds WWII mobilization in urgency. The solution must be political--as several people here have observed, individual efforts just won't cut it, and are often a distraction from the worst culprits. Unfortunately, "If elected, I'll confiscate your car, severely ration meat, and tell you how big your house and family can be" isn't a winning political platform. So politicians will continue to make pious noises while doing nothing.
I fear that the inhabitants of rich countries will never consent to dramatically lowering their standard of living, and inhabitants of poor countries will never stop wanting the same standard of living as rich countries. Those two facts mean a bleak future for coming generations. There are too many people on the planet, and Mother Nature is going to right the balance. Sadly, it looks like that correction will take the form of famine, war and disease. And those who survive will end up living on a superheated planet anyway.
Somebody please convince me I'm wrong.
oldhat, unfortunately I agree with you.
Gardenarian, thank you for the link to Derrick Jensen.. I had heard of him, but hadn't read him.
Here he is in an article that pretty much said just what you said about the ineffectiveness of just living simply as a cure for our problems: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/08
There's another form of "steady-state" no one is mentioning - boom and bust. There's a number of species that do that - population explodes, population crashes, but it's a system that continues. It's how an "infinite growth" model corrects itself. Maybe this is the only way a global economy can function? I don't know. We've never had one before. But I know you can't grow forever. And our current economic system reacts badly to no growth. And even "optimal" growth is still growing forever.
I think eventually the whole system is going to fall on its face. Global economic collapse followed by famines, wars, etc. And we'd take a big bite out of the population problem in a relatively short number of years, not that it will be in any way pleasant for anyone.
Yeah, I agree that no one is voluntarily going to work to change the status quo, because they can't envision the alternative. So we're left with the consequences of our own short-sightedness and lack of imagination--protecting something that doesn't even exist.