An inconvenient Irony

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

RG, the other thing is that more and bigger stuff, money, material possessions, above a given threshold, DOES NOT MAKE PEOPLE HAPPIER! What really makes most people happy is spending time with people they love and doing something meaningful with their lives, and yet we are all caught up doing things we hate to win this race to own and consume.

I opted the fvck out of that BS 5 years ago, and now I'm trying to do all I can to show people the truth that is right in front of their eyes. If we all sacrifice a little, the aggregate effect is huge, and in a little while you forget that you actually sacrificed anything in the first place (great example of this is drought-stricken Australia and the water restrictions of the last 5 years). I honestly believe that if we all had a little less, and for that got back some of our time, not quite as much would be produced (a good thing) and the net happiness of humanity, able to spend more time with those we love, would increase.

Answer me this - why is our entire economic (and thus political and social) system FOUNDED ON THE PREMISE OF GROWTH=GOOD, given that the resources of our planet are FINITE? It is a historical hangover from a time only a century ago when the earth had 16% of it's current population (1bil vs 6+bil) and its resources appeared to be infinite. We have to change this idea - it is outmoded and unrealistic. We must somehow change our values such that growth is okay if it is SUSTAINABLE.

So there ya go. To the neo-cons I am just a shrieking hippy who doesn't know how the world works. (I've done enough ty jobs and seen enough of the slime to know how the world works.) To me, neo-cons are wilfully blind , and in being so, morally culpable for the damage they are doing to this and future generations under the motto "Greed is good, and more is better". Wish I could make them see, but unfortunately they are really good at holding on to the power...

G'night.

[101A]

RG, the other thing is that more and bigger stuff, money, material possessions, above a given threshold, DOES NOT MAKE PEOPLE HAPPIER! What really makes most people happy is spending time with people they love and doing something meaningful with their lives, and yet we are all caught up doing things we hate to win this race to own and consume.

I opted the fvck out of that BS 5 years ago, and now I'm trying to do all I can to show people the truth that is right in front of their eyes. If we all sacrifice a little, the aggregate effect is huge, and in a little while you forget that you actually sacrificed anything in the first place (great example of this is drought-stricken Australia and the water restrictions of the last 5 years). I honestly believe that if we all had a little less, and for that got back some of our time, not quite as much would be produced (a good thing) and the net happiness of humanity, able to spend more time with those we love, would increase.

Answer me this - why is our entire economic (and thus political and social) system FOUNDED ON THE PREMISE OF GROWTH=GOOD, given that the resources of our planet are FINITE? It is a historical hangover from a time only a century ago when the earth had 16% of it's current population (1bil vs 6+bil) and its resources appeared to be infinite. We have to change this idea - it is outmoded and unrealistic. We must somehow change our values such that growth is okay if it is SUSTAINABLE.

So there ya go. To the neo-cons I am just a shrieking hippy who doesn't know how the world works. (I've done enough ty jobs and seen enough of the slime to know how the world works.) To me, neo-cons are wilfully blind , and in being so, morally culpable for the damage they are doing to this and future generations under the motto "Greed is good, and more is better". Wish I could make them see, but unfortunately they are really good at holding on to the power...

G'night.

Unfortunately, your world view, even though I am somewhat following your model, is what is not sustainable. Enlightened self-interest is not commonplace. People are driven by individual desires; materially, physically, and spiritually. That is why capitlism generates SO MUCH more wealth than all other economic strategies ever attempted - and why the more socialistic an economy becomes, the less productive the members of its society become; the more they cannot reap the fruits of their own labors, with immediate gratification, the less they are willing to do. Eventually there is a level at which simply not enough is getting done. Compound that with modern medicince (primarily antibiotics), and you can keep people alive much longer than was possible in the nirvana-like 1 billion population earth you reference...and of course people are going to continue to reproduce; well, you see the problem. More and more people, less productivity - completely unsustainable situation. Now, if you want to outlaw antibiotics world-wide, you might have something...

Also, if the 1st world countries chose your "stop and smell the roses" plan; it would most likely slow the growth of the economies of third world countries; condemning those to a relative eternity stuck in the WAY over populated they are currently under; with the richer countries not having the motive to do business with them; nor the excess products and goods to help them.

[Extra Stout]

Humans change their behavior as a result of cataclysmic events. They don't change their behavior in anticipation of possible cataclysmic events.

I would hazard a guess that most people don't even know there is a place called Antarctica, much less that it has an ice cap, much less know that it may be melting, much less care, much less figure out that it means sea level will rise, much less comprehend how that might affect them, much less do anything about it, much less change their lifestyle.

I could just be basing that upon the education level of the typical American, though.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Extrastout said "Humans change their behavior as a result of cataclysmic events. They don't change their behavior in anticipation of possible cataclysmic events."

Absolutely. The fundamental tragedy of mankind. The problem is that in the age of mass consumption we have such a complex and fragile system in place that when it does go wrong, which is inevitable, the consequences will be disastrous.

101A, don't label me as a socialist because I'm not. None of what I said advocated a socialist system. I believe in a regulated free market, but somehow (and I don't know how - if I did I'd be running the world) sustainability needs to become the prime driver of the system, not growth.

[Obstructed_View]

If someone wanted to point out that Gore is a hypocrite, perhaps mentioning the Pigeon River paper plant or Gore's zinc mine in Clarksville would be a better way to do it.

Regardless, the fact that he's a hypocrite distracts from the more important issue that alarmists don't do the world any good with apocalyptic predictions about anything, be it pollution, the environment, disease, etc. It seems anyone with a political agenda or a university grant has some cataclysmic prediction they must prove in order to keep the money flowing in their direction, rather than in the proper direction. Anyone who dares question the motives of such people are immediately shouted down and labeled as ignorant. We've been fed this kind of gloom and doom since we were kids. At some point otherwise responsible people just tune it out. It doesn't change the danger of crying wolf.

[Mavs_man_41]

Al Gore may be a hypocrite but i bet he'd be better than that monkey running the country now. Oh wait, hes just a puppet for the real people running the show. I'm probably gonna get ripped for saying this but I could care less if you dont like it blow me.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

If someone wanted to point out that Gore is a hypocrite, perhaps mentioning the Pigeon River paper plant or Gore's zinc mine in Clarksville would be a better way to do it.

Regardless, the fact that he's a hypocrite distracts from the more important issue that alarmists don't do the world any good with apocalyptic predictions about anything, be it pollution, the environment, disease, etc. It seems anyone with a political agenda or a university grant has some cataclysmic prediction they must prove in order to keep the money flowing in their direction, rather than in the proper direction. Anyone who dares question the motives of such people are immediately shouted down and labeled as ignorant. We've been fed this kind of gloom and doom since we were kids. At some point otherwise responsible people just tune it out. It doesn't change the danger of crying wolf.

Agree with the first para, can't agree with the second. Yes, there are alarmists out there making the vast majority of scientists look bad, usually in an effort to sell books or publicise their next lecture tour. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't an impending problem or a massive quan y of research to back up the assertion of an impending problem.

Do you honestly believe that the unprecedented rate of glaciers and icecap melting (the thermostat of the earth), increased coral bleaching, 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 (and 150% in methane), 6 billion people consuming resources/changing land use patterns/modifying or destroying ecosystems is having no effect on the planet? Really? If so, sorry but you are CHOOSING to bury your head in the sand like most other people. It is easier to do that and await the catastrophe than it is to educate yourself and change some of your behaviours. I suggest that most people tune out because then they don't have to take responsibility for their actions, which are directly driving us toward the crisis. That is their choice, but it is an ill-informed and dangerously careless choice to make, and the saddest thing is that while we might be okay, it is our children and grandchildren who will live in a damaged world and bear the cost of our excess.

Did you ever think that some of the alarmists are saying what they are saying because there IS an impending crisis and no-one will listen if the don't SHOUT?

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

I note that Yonivore has gone rather quiet since I pointed out that his "reputable source" is actually an oil company lobbyist.

See, people, don't believe the BS spread by random internet sites and PR agencies. Big business spends billions of dollars a year planting furphies and specious arguments out there and making them LOOK LIKE the real thing. They are NOT. Great example is the UTube video spoofing Al Gore, designed to look like it was made by an amateur, but actually made by a PR firm who also work for Exxon:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article...html?mod=blogs

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!

DO SOME PROPER RESEARCH YOURSELF, OR GO TO REPUTABLE SOURCES AND COMPARE AND CONTRAST THEM.

Want a simplified, summarised, but accurate version of the real science that is out there, read mainstream mags like Nature and Science and New Scientist. They rigourously fact-check their articles and conduct quality, responsible science journalism.

[Obstructed_View]

Do you honestly believe that the unprecedented rate of glaciers and icecap melting (the thermostat of the earth), increased coral bleaching, 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 (and 150% in methane), 6 billion people consuming resources/changing land use patterns/modifying or destroying ecosystems is having no effect on the planet?

So you've just dropped a bunch of puzzle pieces on the table. There are three effects and three causes listed above, with no indication of how, or whether, they interrelate. You might just as well say that the heat of the earth draws the sun into the sky because the sun is only up when it's hot. The world did a lot of before we were here and it'll do a lot of after we're gone that we aren't yet smart enough to predict and will never be powerful enough to change.

Everyone is shouting about whatever is important to them at the time, many for their own gain, many more who think they are smarter than everyone else who is shouting about something else. There are a lot of things happening, and so far nobody seems to have figured out exactly how it all fits together. There are an awful lot of people taking ing core samples in icy countries and ing at me because my car only gets 25 MPG that might be better off refining the hydrogen engine or coming up with more economical ways to manufacture light materials for cars or designing mass transit sytems that people will use. I keep the lights off that I don't use, keep my car tuned up and don't shoot freon into the air. I don't need lectures or guilt trips.

The only thing more annoying is people throwing random facts around while thinking they are somehow more educated than everyone else and saying like "don't believe the hype."

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

What do you want me to do, OB? There are tens of thousands of studies intricately linking these things together. How exactly do you want me to explain it all on a message board?

Here's an example of a simple cause and effect model for you, although it massively underestimates the complexity of the systems involved and is thus just a simple metaphorical tool for getting a point across -

human activity has fundamentally changed land biogeograpphy across the planet - fewer forests, more monoculture crops, more desert (due to innapropriate farming practices) - human activity has also spewed massive quan ies of pollutants into the air-->
changing land use affects the impact of solar radiation on the surface, and more heat is retained in the atmosphere than before due to the increased conc. of CO2, CH4, etc. when compared with pre-industrial levels-->
the extra heat retained in the atmosphere is absorbed by glaciers and ice sheets which are melting at a faster rate than ever observed - it is also absorbed by the oceans which raises their temperatures and increases the likelihood of coral bleaching events... these are easily identifiable symptoms of the earth's warming
etc.

Seriously, don't give me because you can't be bothered to go and read some reputable sources on this stuff yourself. The alarmists and doomsayers are but a tiny fraction of the people out there who are talking about and researching these matters, but unfortunately, due to the sensationalist media, they get far more coverage than the hundreds of thousands of scientists from numerous disciplines working on different aspects of human impact on the environment - the information is all out there. Go read New Scientist or Nature or Science magazine for a summary.

As for your personal habits, that's your business. However, we all need to realise that the way WE westerners live (me included) is completely unsustainable over the long-term - read something on the human ecology of energy budgets - and everything we do today will impact on the planet our children live in. Every litre of gas we use will not be there for them, every ecosystem we destroy through neglect will not be there for them, and who knows when the ecosystme we've destroyed will have disastrous flow-on effects into the agriculture we all rely upon? The idea of INTERGENERATIONAL CONCERN has been totally subsumed by me me me culture, and we are all poorer for it.

Don't want to know the truth, fine, but don't give me for trying to encourage people to find out more for themselves, which is about all you can do on a message board.

Oh, and I pointed out about HYPE because there are too many people like Yonivore who say "let me assure you" and quote as fact specious sources like "Junk Science" which are written by big business lobbyists. I'm encouraging people to go to primary sources, and reputable secondary sources like New Scientist magazine, to find out the truth for themselves. DOn't take my word or Steve Milloy's, go to your local university and talk to a climatologist, a human ecologist, a biological anthropologist, a systems engineer, and see what they have to say about these issues.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Hmmm.

Hit a sore spot?

I know people don't want to think about these things because they are inconvenient and make our choices harder, but if we don't start making difficult informed choices now, the millstone of our neglect is going to drag us all over the precipice.