Just keep on shovelling...
When debating sustainable lifestyles, resources depletion, lowering carbon emissions, etc., there are two elephants in the room, and they are (1) the size of the planet's human population and (2) the idea that economic growth must be maintained.
There seems to be no way that any meaningful dialogue can be had on either topic, so I guess we'll just go on shovelling fuel for this runaway train ... right up until the train wreck happens...
And so we're left with whacky "positive" postulations clutched-at by Prozac-popping desperadoes who are unable to cope with the impending doom of their much loved offspring... or that good old psychological cop-out, denial...
I'm starting to think it's the height of hubris to suggest that humans are the most intelligent life form on this planet. That clearly cannot be an evidence-based assumption.
There seems to be no way that any meaningful dialogue can be had on either topic, so I guess we'll just go on shovelling fuel for this runaway train ... right up until the train wreck happens...
And so we're left with whacky "positive" postulations clutched-at by Prozac-popping desperadoes who are unable to cope with the impending doom of their much loved offspring... or that good old psychological cop-out, denial...
I'm starting to think it's the height of hubris to suggest that humans are the most intelligent life form on this planet. That clearly cannot be an evidence-based assumption.
posted by The Editor at
6:01 AM
9 Comments:
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When a population that consumes resources grows beyond the size that available resources can support, it doesn't diminish gracefully, it crashes. Humanity may survive the coming crash in some form, but even if the human race becomes extinct, the planet won't care.
If the maximum sustainable human population is less than the present population (which is likely), then you're either going to get an uncontrolled population crash or a human induced one (i.e. a war with mass killing of the civilian population). Nobody bar extremists wants the latter, so of course we'll do nothing and let nature take its course.
Lemmiwinks, sorry for the delay in getting your comments up, but Blogger had for some weird reason parked them in the "spam" folder. Good thing I checked it.
And they are great comments. thanks for the link. Very interesting.
Several questions nag me:
[1] How will the "developed world" cope with the inevitable collapse of globalised capitalism?
[2] How much "fun" will those millions starving in the huge cities be having? (During the Great Deperssion, those cities were much smaller and the rural landscape much more able to support urban refugees..)
[3] What economic/political model will replace the busted one? (Forget about democracy, it's the sick joke which got us into this mess.)
(The remaining questions are too depressing to post here.)
Andrew, I concur.
I doubt the human race will become extinct due to an economic or resources based crash, but I suppose it's always possible that the environment becomes hostile to human life (bacteria, diseases, nuclear fall-out, etc.)
I was watching Spooks on TV last night and they were playing with the concept of a "genetic weapon" which targets specific ethnicities. I can see huge possibilities for major stuff-ups in that scenario.
Prozac anyone?
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There's so many good points in these comments, I'll deal with them in new posts soon.
The crucial point here is that the planet, universe or [insert diety of choice] does NOT care. Only us dopey humans become worried by these notions.
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