Forge. wrote:Malthus used to lose sleep about this stuff in 18th Century England when there was less than 10% of the world population we have today. He would be simultaneously gratified and possibly catatonic with shock at the reality of it now.
Honestly, I really don't want to sound like a miserable bastard, but I will anyway... I feel like I've been paying a lot of attention to these weird creatures called humans and what they're up to for a long time now and I have almost no faith whatsoever that we can pull ourselves out of this.
The only actual realistic thing that we WILL do if things carry on as they have been is try and find clean energy sources that will enable us to carry on doign what we already do in a less damaging way. If we get most of our electricity cleanly then electic cars etc could be far less damaging way than they are currently. We'll probably kill half or 3/4 of the rest of the planet in the process before we actually manage to make all energy on the planet green, but we'll find some way of clinging on for a while.
Just look at the carry on in our own politics. The last election was the most green votes ever, and yet it seems the "masses" wanted to vote in the climate change denying LNP because they didn't like Julia Gillard's voice and never forgave her taking over from Kevin. Maybe they have held that wolf from the gate for the moment, but the point is the environment and climate change was not high on the list of priorities.
Otherwise, in all likelihood we will carry on doing exactly what we are doing now without making anything like enough changes until we all die out, and even as the last of us are dying there will be some corrupt president appointing monsanto or oil guys to high places and telling us we're actually dying for some other vague reason that has nothing to do with oil or the poisons they are putting in the food and water.
I'm sorry to be such a bummer, and you can cycle as much as you like, but honestly you are in such a minority that there is zero to no hope whatsoever of your method actually REALLY solving this problem. The vast, vast majority of other humans on this planet will not do what you are doing.
The only other hope is that there is a massive solar flare or EMP attack that sends us back to the stone age.
Hi Forge,
You don't sound like a miserable bastard to me, you sound like someone who is genuinely trying to make sense of what has become an insane society.
And because, as I mentioned before to Stringtapper, that I don't believe in 'hope', I don't find your view of my passion and belief in live (including humans) to be a 'bummer'. A non belief in hope, is simply that, the concept of 'hope' or 'no hope' has no meaning for me.
Why I don't believe in 'hope'.
'Hope' is about the future, it's about something that we have no control over, therefore, it's fairly pointless to think this way (in terms of 'hope'). 'No Hope', is much the same, the problem with 'no hope' is that whilst it's about the future it can help to create a self fulfilling prophecy via inaction. Interestingly, those that are 'hopeful' about the future continue the inaction, apart from crossing their fingers (the 'hopers' believe in governments and/or technological solutions that will save us without our lifestyles changing, etc). So, 'hope' and 'no hope' (futility) are both about 'inaction', 'lack of personal responsibility' and 'the luck of the gods'.
What I do believe in is 'action'.
Action makes 'hope' irrelevant. What I mean by this is that I take the time to look at the facts and try to understand, as best I can, what is actually going on, factually, and then I 'act' in a rational way based on the information. In an insane society, this is often seen as a radical action (or 'ideological', or 'altruistic', etc), but it's not, it's sane, it's simply a decision based on good factual information.
If we take the 'car' as an example, the facts that I have already presented on this thread demonstrate that personal car ownership is insane given it's gross inefficiency, it's impact on poorer nations and it's current impact on the environment. I have many more facts about the car from the book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y74XX0 that demonstrate far far more of the problems associated with cars, they really are an ecological disaster, right now, let alone what they (we) are doing to the future.
Yes, the way I live my life puts me in a minority, but I know that it's possible for many more people to make these changes because of the simple fact that I did, and I did it in a very short space of time. It's not only 'greed' that stops people making rational decisions, it's also 'fear'.
