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TACD posted:I was absolutely gobsmacked at this difference when I moved to the US. For the past 3-4 years in the UK, living in London (so obviously without a car) I've grown to love the home delivery service offered by every supermarket and pretty much relied on it. I would assume the US would freaking love that kind of service, but it barely exists over here. It's just not a thing. I could understand certain areas not being eligible because the US has some pretty loving remote locations but it just doesn't seem to be offered anywhere. I see the peapod by Giant trucks everywhere, someone must be using them.
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May 31, 2012 19:29
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Fatkraken posted:On the US front, I've heard stories of huge swaths of low density housing which were built during the bubble being completely unsellable now because they are too far from any services and people in the area cannot afford to run a car because of gas prices. Is this the case? They are sitting empty for several reasons. The economy is bad, loans are harder to get, and there's just a substantial oversupply in general. Gas is getting more expensive in the US, but the cost of housing with good location is and has been expensive for a while. It's going to stay that way as long as the supply of transportation infrastructure is kept low, or until neighborhoods are reconfigured to not require lots of transportation to be liveable.
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May 31, 2012 19:43
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sanchez posted:I see the peapod by Giant trucks everywhere, someone must be using them.
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May 31, 2012 20:08
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Grocery delivery is something for which I'vecome to expect derision outside of it's use by the disabled and elderly. I kind of like the idea of logistics being extended right to my door, though, like for so many books
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May 31, 2012 22:09
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Amarkov posted:There's a grocery store near me that offers that, and people just make fun of it. Not because you should be walking instead (this is a pretty high density area), but because it means you're too lazy to drive a mile to the store. Remember, a lot of people wigged the gently caress out when we tried to encourage the use of more energy efficient light bulbs that also lasted longer.
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May 31, 2012 23:00
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The Entire Universe posted:Remember, a lot of people wigged the gently caress out when we tried to encourage the use of more energy efficient light bulbs that also lasted longer. 
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May 31, 2012 23:17
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The Entire Universe posted:Remember, a lot of people wigged the gently caress out when we tried to encourage the use of more energy efficient light bulbs that also lasted longer. The reason a lot of people are pissed off is because incandescent bulbs will be leaving the shelves, while these more expensive bulbs that are also full of mercury will be appearing. It's literally a handout to the companies that make them, and definitely not better for the environment (again, because of the mercury involved) These bulbs are only better for the companies selling them.
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Jun 1, 2012 00:03
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Heres an actual thing: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/ quote:NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal tl;dr North Carolina is making a law forbidding taking climate change + sea level rises into consideration when doing urban planning, etc, because ... some reason. quote:Coastal N.C. counties fighting sea-level rise prediction duck monster fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 00:22
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duck monster posted:Heres an actual thing: quote:O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation - anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of these nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.' TACD fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 00:32
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This poo poo is like World War I, it's a horrific comedy of errors. Also Troika do you have any corroboration? Florescent bulbs are pretty lovely, and I'm not sure LEDs can be made without some complex chemicals. On the other hand incandescent bulbs are incredibly wasteful and have barely changed since Edison (all that heat is wasted electricity, especially when people are using AC).
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Jun 1, 2012 00:40
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-Troika- posted:The reason a lot of people are pissed off is because incandescent bulbs will be leaving the shelves, while these more expensive bulbs that are also full of mercury will be appearing. It's literally a handout to the companies that make them, and definitely not better for the environment (again, because of the mercury involved) How do you figure they're more expensive?
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Jun 1, 2012 00:53
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McDowell posted:This poo poo is like World War I, it's a horrific comedy of errors. There is mercury in fluorescent bulbs, but really more is released by burning the extra coal for incandescent than is in the fluorescent bulbs themselves. That's assuming you just toss them in a landfill rather than recycling too. A more significant matter is that while CFLs are a big step up in most applications (I haven't bought an incandescent in at least ten years now), there are places where they just don't work well. Like brief/intermittent usage, cold environments, a lot of recessed fittings, or locations with a lot of vibration. In those, CFL bulbs have shorter lifespans, lower efficency, or both, making them both more wasteful and expensive than the alternative. So it makes a sort of rough question, especially when you distill it down to a binary question of "business as usual" vs "ban sales of incandescents" as some have. If you keep incandescent bulbs on the market people will keep buying them since they're cheaper in the short run even if more wasteful in the long. If you block sale of them entirely, it means that you now have millions of places where, by law, only crappily suited bulbs are available. LED bulbs seem to be a fix on a lot of CFL shortcomings and have gotten a lot better the last few years, but especially when the push started there was a lot more to the opposition than the "grr, grr, they're takin' my freedom!" joke some have assumed.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:01
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Even in the past few months there have been improvements in LED bulbs for situations like the ones you described. There are things like dimmable CFL and LED bulbs available that look really good.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:05
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A friend recently finished his house and managed to wire it all up with 12 volt led lighting. At full brightness its incredibly bright inside, so he keeps it dimmed, but it still uses an absurdly low amount of power. Its pretty drat good technology.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:18
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Narbo posted:Even in the past few months there have been improvements in LED bulbs for situations like the ones you described. There are things like dimmable CFL and LED bulbs available that look really good. Oh, definitely, and if I had any fixtures CFL didn't work for I'd definitely be going for LED now. But when it was being planned five years or more ago it was mostly a guess on where they'd be by now, so at the time the options were looking pretty lovely and the maximum benefit was a few percent of residential emissions, most of which could arguably have been gotten by less coercive measures. In retrospect I think that sort of legislation was a useful kick in the pants for development, but I can't delegitimize the initial opposition either.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:21
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duck monster posted:A friend recently finished his house and managed to wire it all up with 12 volt led lighting. At full brightness its incredibly bright inside, so he keeps it dimmed, but it still uses an absurdly low amount of power. Its pretty drat good technology. That's awesome, you could run that right off a solar system. I don't have a problem with a problem with phasing out incandescent bubls, I was just acknowledging that CFLs are made from pretty toxic stuff (but what electronics don't have some funky trace elements?)
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Jun 1, 2012 01:22
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Killer robot posted:Oh, definitely, and if I had any fixtures CFL didn't work for I'd definitely be going for LED now. But when it was being planned five years or more ago it was mostly a guess on where they'd be by now, so at the time the options were looking pretty lovely and the maximum benefit was a few percent of residential emissions, most of which could arguably have been gotten by less coercive measures. In retrospect I think that sort of legislation was a useful kick in the pants for development, but I can't delegitimize the initial opposition either. Some people didn't like it but some people always have to be dragged into saving energy. It was a guess, but it was a good guess that shaping the market would lead to improvements in the technology. Lots of people oppose demand side management measures too, where the government mandates that every rate-payer pay a tariff for investment into electricity savings measures, but there's no question that DSM is a smart investment.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:33
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McDowell posted:That's awesome, you could run that right off a solar system. I think thats his plan. Up northwest australia its pretty sunny country, and a lot of folks up there are already on solar because power distribution is so expensive in the north-west due to the ridiculous distances. Especially in places where houses can be up to 100kms apart on stations.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:33
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the kawaiiest posted:I still can't believe that actually happened. Somehow encouraging people to use better lightbulbs is "taking away their freedom of choice". I mean... what? I put this in the same category as older jackasses who like to sit there and reminisce about how we in America had the 'most powerful toilets on the planet,' of course referring to pre-regulation era plumbing where each poop would flush with like 10 gallons of water. And I've heard not so old people spewing this tripe too, mimicking a parent or a relative. There are people in this country that just don't care enough..or are so programmed to knee jerk against any kind of sensible resource usage that they will lament the fact that we don't waste more water flushing our own poo poo. We're doomed.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:51
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It's not even banning the incandescent, it's just mandating it be higher efficiency.
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Jun 1, 2012 02:29
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Ronald Nixon posted:Your Sledgehammer, the points you made earlier are like those Craig Dilworth makes in Too Smart for our Own Good, have you read it? I haven't read it, but it is definitely on my list and I am familiar with his argument. I think where I'd depart from Dilworth is that I'm not so sure we can lay the blame so strongly at the feet of our intellect. Though it is difficult to compare the intelligence of two animals that are very different, there is ample evidence to suggest that dolphins have pretty drat robust cognitive abilities that may match our own. They haven't had any trouble living within natural limits. I think it was ultimately a complicated series of factors that lead us to diverge so strongly from the rest of the community of life. Our problem-solving ability certainly played a role. I've also heard an interesting argument similar to Dilworth's that rather than basic population pressure alone, it may have been some sort of environmental shift or environmental catastrophe that prompted us to take up agriculture and start ourselves down this path. The alienation from wild nature and desire for control that agriculture represents may have been a result of the psychological trauma of an event such as a flood or volcanic eruption. The argument then states that rather than healing emotionally by letting go and moving on, our ancestors continued to re-open the psychological wound by desiring ever more control. I forgot who made this argument; I'll see if I can dig up a link. All of these types of arguments are necessarily "just so" stories, but they are compelling. These types of critiques are why I'm suspicious of a technological solution to our current woes. Ideas like developing a solar-powered electrical grid or extracting resources from space seem perfectly acceptable on their face, but it strikes me as similar to treating an obese patient by giving them liposuction. You may have solved the immediate problem, but you haven't gotten to the root of why the person is having the problems in the first place. Our immediate problems may be climate change, resource depletion, and ecological destruction, but the root of our problems is the deranged inability to accept natural limits. The insanity and egotism of such thinking is best illustrated by techno-evangelists such as Ray Kurzweil, who has the hubris to presume that he as well as all (or maybe only rich?) humans will be able to escape death and become gods. Even when you move away from such extremist positions, though, the same kind of psychologically stunted thinking quietly pervades modern culture (and I am guilty of it myself). Solar-powered grids and space resources are an attempt to thwart natural limits once again, which will only make things that much worse when those solutions eventually fail due to unintended consequences. In a bit of dark irony, this provides a pat solution to the Fermi Paradox. I think these two comments really hit the nail on the head: Ronald Nixon posted:What you should also acknowledge is that it is technology that has created the problems, directly or indirectly. At what point do you think technology will turn from a net problem creator to a net problem solver? rivetz posted:Virtually all of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology. We have consistently failed to measure the true cost of our technological innovations. Some of this is understandable, as it has taken centuries to see the negative effects of some of the stuff we've come up with. Mostly, though, it's just a blind spot that has been reinforced and self-perpetuated by our culture for hundreds of years. Without understanding the true cost of our inventions, it becomes impossible to weigh the cost with the benefit. Take smart phones, for example (and I say all of the following as a smart phone user myself). The benefits are immediately obvious to anyone who has used one - the range of possible applications of such technology is stunning. But what of the costs? Rare metals must be mined, and fossil fuels are used in the manufacturing process (think of all the machines that run on coal-fired electricity or oil) - both mining and fossil fuel use contribute strongly to ecological degradation. Consider all the damage and lives lost due to texting while driving. On a more subjective, human level, we must account for the poor working conditions of the people overseas who put together smart phones, as well as the cultural shallowing caused by a society of people with their noses in their phones all the drat time. It's obvious that many of these costs are completely overlooked. In fact, in many cases it is socially unacceptable to mention such costs, because people understandably do not like being made to feel guilty. If you add up all the costs, do the benefits outweigh them? The answer is unclear, though I'd personally say no, the benefits don't outweigh the costs. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that modern technology doesn't have huge benefits, but I think it's a legitimate question whether or not the benefits ultimately outweigh the costs. Many thinkers have explored a critique of technology as well as the related critique of civilization - Jacques Ellul, Fredy Perlman, Craig Dilworth, Jared Diamond, Derrick Jensen. Desmond also brought up another who has strongly influenced my views, Daniel Quinn. I'd encourage all of you to at least give one or two of those authors a look, even if you don't agree with what I've been saying. Quinn, particularly, has a very even-handed and clear-headed way of presenting the critique of civilization that smooths over some of the more disturbing implications enough that his readers (or at least this one) have some emotional and intellectual room to explore such a critique. That's part of the difficulty here - we as a society have to be willing to step back from our way of living enough to see it for what it truly is. As rivetz and Tactical Mistake mentioned, the subject of ecology is difficult to have conversations about, because people know we're in bad shape and they don't want to think about it. I admire this thread and the folks in it because at least we are talking about it, and I think we have a responsibility to talk about it with our families, friends, and coworkers. We as a society have got to open up about this and start talking to each other, or we're never going to gain enough understanding to prevent future crises. For me, it really comes down to this question: where did we go wrong? I think the one point in human history that represents the most profound break from ecologically stable and psychologically healthy ways of living was the adoption of agriculture 10,000 years ago. The consequences were immediately and overwhelmingly negative. Average life span went down, average stature went down, and health problems such as tooth decay went up. It's only very recently (like the last 100 years or so) that we've caught back up and surpassed the precivilized/pre-agriculture metrics. It really makes you wonder why we've stuck with it for so long. I think part of it is the illusion of control. It gave us greater control over the food supply - at least until the next drought. But that's the rub, though - the control that we desire will forever be out of our reach. We were born of nature and are a part of it, and we've never had control of it, even though we often like to imagine that we do. Even in our technologically advanced society, we don't have control. There are a number of things that routinely shatter such delusions - you need look no further than Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake in Haiti to see what I mean. The other thing that resulted from agriculture is that it gave some of us riches, power, and easy lives. Anthropologists make a distinction between immediate return and delayed return societies. Immediate return societies are one in which food is eaten shortly after it is gathered or hunted, without any real attempt at storage. Delayed return societies are the opposite; food is stored. The curious thing they've found about the difference between such societies is that delayed return societies (whether agricultural or hunter-gatherer delayed returners like the Kwakiutl) always produce social hierarchies. That's why Marxism succeeds as a critique of capitalism but fails as a replacement for capitalism - it simply doesn't get all the way to the root of the problem. I think our culture would do well to look at and attempt to understand how indigenous societies have lived and continue to live. They offer a very clear alternative to the "civilized" lifestyle, and what is surprising to me is how attractive an alternative it is (take a look at Marshall Sahlins' seminal essay, "The Original Affluent Society," for one example). The indigenous way is not a perfect way of life by any means ("Noble Savage" type idealism is certainly wrongheaded), but the Hobbesian view that such a life is "nasty, brutish, and short" is dangerously dishonest. Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 02:38
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I don't understand the issue with massive energy usage if humanity is capable of generating that energy with minimal to no harm to the biome. Same with technology using presently scarce resources. Is it wrong to press the limits of silicon and then various photonic processing systems? Or is it simply wrong to do so unsustainably? I can see the argument against unsustainable development, but I don't understand the arbitrary argument against technology simply because we have evidence of bigger muscles on hunter-gatherers. I thought technology was basically the conquest over those kinds of environmental demands (I.e. muscle or height or a lack of childhood disease, etc) and by pressing that advancement we make the need for massive barbarian-style musculature obsolete outside entertainment.
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Jun 1, 2012 03:18
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This might seem a bit pedantic, but I'm curious as to how people in this thread define sustainable. I keep seeing it tossed about, but no one ever really mentions how long something has to be able to support itself to be sustainable. For example, is something that can exist for 10,000 years (agriculture) sustainable? It seems most of us would agree it's not really sustainable as we might be nearing the point of collapse. If we went back in time and told someone from 7000BC that agriculture will continue for another 9,000 years would they agree it is not sustainable? Is a system that lasts for a million years sustainable? If you asked us right now, some of us might say yes it is, but would the people in 999,999 years disagree? Is something that lasts a billion years sustainable? Unless some insane magical poo poo happens we're not going to be able to continue advanced technological societies for long enough to be able to leave the planet. If this is the case, we will perish as our sun continues to increase in luminosity over the next few billion years. Of course, this assumes nothing causes us to go extinct beforehand, which I would say is a bit more likely. Even if we do somehow leave Earth, we're then left with the prospect of the universe (maybe) running out of free energy eventually. Life will cease to exist. No systems will be "truly sustainable" as long as energy is consumed at a nonzero rate. So, is life itself sustainable if it can only exist for a finite, albeit extraordinarily long period of time? It might be pedantic, and I agree with what most posters here are saying about climate change. I'm just curious as to if there's any consensus on how long something needs to be able to support itself to be considered sustainable. Edit: So, for example, say we manage to transition to a world population and resource consumption rate that we somehow determine can be sustained for 100,000 years. Is this okay? Would you still push for a system that could be sustained for 1 million years? If that was reached, would you keep pushing? SonicBoom fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 03:19
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"Sustainable" is a marketing buzzword used to sell tomatoes and no one interested in serious discussion about reducing energy density and overall energy use should use it.
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Jun 1, 2012 03:24
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The Entire Universe posted:I don't understand the issue with massive energy usage if humanity is capable of generating that energy with minimal to no harm to the biome. That's the thing, though - we've never been capable of massive energy use that doesn't harm the biome. Give me one example of massive energy usage that doesn't harm the biome, and I'd be glad to back away from my suspicion of technology. The reality is that even solar cells require large-scale processes that are inherently destructive (think of what is required to produce a solar cell). The Entire Universe posted:Same with technology using presently scarce resources. The major failure of this kind of strategy should be abundantly obvious to anyone who is paying attention to what is currently taking place across the globe. The Entire Universe posted:I don't understand the arbitrary argument against technology It isn't arbitrary. Take another look at what I said about cost/benefit ratios. "Sustainable" means using resources in such a way that you don't outstrip the Earth's ability to replenish them. Anything short of that is unsustainable. That simple. Under this definition, traditional agriculture is unsustainable due to soil degradation and habitat destruction. EDIT: nitpicky comment I wanted to make SonicBoom posted:the prospect of the universe running out of free energy eventually Interestingly enough, I'm not sure all the science suggests that this is actually what is going to happen to the universe. Take a look. Here's something else I find interesting. If the net energy of the universe is zero, and thus the universe is already in a stable state as far as energy is concerned, then why would the universe need to slowly burn out to reach a stable state? Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 03:36
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Narbo posted:"Sustainable" is a marketing buzzword used to sell tomatoes and no one interested in serious discussion about reducing energy density and overall energy use should use it.
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Jun 1, 2012 03:38
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Narbo posted:"Sustainable" is a marketing buzzword used to sell tomatoes and no one interested in serious discussion about reducing energy density and overall energy use should use it. One of the few good XKCD strips in existence addresses this. Put simply, it's a graph joke about how the use of the word "sustainable" is unsustainable.
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Jun 1, 2012 03:39
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How long can our reserves of good knapping flint last, or are we going to have to give up tool use too?
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Jun 1, 2012 03:45
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TyroneGoldstein posted:There are people in this country that just don't care enough..or are so programmed to knee jerk against any kind of sensible resource usage that they will lament the fact that we don't waste more water flushing our own poo poo. I've often wondered how people living in areas where clean water is scarce feel about the fact that first worlders poo poo into potable water, if they're aware of it. I mean, I'm normally pretty good at empathy but I honestly have trouble guessing what the reaction for someone in that situation would be to that knowledge. Outrage? Mirth? Despair? Torka fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 03:48
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Your Sledgehammer posted:Here's something else I find interesting. If the net energy of the universe is zero, and thus the universe is already in a stable state as far as energy is concerned, then why would the universe need to slowly burn out to reach a stable state? Depending on how passionate you feel about all those people that are going to die due to resource consumption and pollution, you might want to try getting involved in various space advocacy societies and hope to high loving heaven that we start exploiting extra-terrestrial resources before we lose the capability.
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Jun 1, 2012 03:59
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TACD posted:Do you have a better word? Or is the entire concept of structuring society in a way that doesn't require more resources than we physically have in order to remain viable laughable? No I don't have a better word, I think it's completely ridiculous to think that society has ever or will ever be like that and anyway it all depends on your definition of "viable" so why use imprecise feelgood buzzwords?
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Jun 1, 2012 04:03
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Your Sledgehammer posted:EDIT: nitpicky comment I wanted to make I was actually going to add "probably" to that statement, but IIRC the majority of evidence seems to point toward eventual heat death. If I'm wrong about that though I'll gladly retract that point. You could make a similar comparison about the Earth, though. If we are not successful in moving to another solar system the Sun will eventually die and cool to the point where effectively no energy can be harvest from it. Life on Earth would then have effectively no energy to use after the planet completely cooled. I mean, there would be starlight from other stars, but I don't think this would be able to support much in the way of life. Of course, this assumes the sun doesn't literally swallow the Earth as it expands, or that it isn't totally sterilized if it just manages to avoid being engulfed. That was just a point that in the ultra-ultra-ultra long term life is probably unsustainable using the definition of "Using resources faster than they are replenished." I don't really want to derail the thread too badly into astrophysics. (I am not even remotely close to being an astrophysicist by the way. I just find it intensely interesting and have done a bit of reading about it.) If Zorak wants to talk about it or something that'd be sweet. SonicBoom fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 04:07
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I see what you're saying. I guess what I'd say in response is that all the concern about the eventual end of life on Earth (and I'm not trying to single you out here, because it's just as depressing a thought for me) once again represents this central problem that I keep going back to, and that's our inability or unwillingness to take reality as it is and accept that humans aren't, in fact, all-powerful. The end of life on Earth is something that we won't escape, and therefore it is pointless to be concerned about it, in much the same way that it is pointless to be concerned about your own death. Both of them are phase transitions, the matter of your body or the Earth transforming into something else. This process has taken place since the dawn of time, and it produced us, didn't it? I try as hard as I can not to worry about it. What I would like to see is human beings live as long a life as a species as possible, and hopefully through speciation and evolution become a number of different and distinctly awesome things. In my opinion, the best way to achieve this is to turn away from the destructive path that we're currently on.
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Jun 1, 2012 04:17
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Narbo posted:No I don't have a better word, I think it's completely ridiculous to think that society has ever or will ever be like that and anyway it all depends on your definition of "viable" so why use imprecise feelgood buzzwords?  I'm pretty sure society was pretty sustainable when there were ~1 billion people on the planet, aka most of history. Whether it's possible to recapture that sustainability now that there's ~7 billion is debatable but it's kind of silly to say that there's no possible living arrangement for humans that isn't doomed to overflow the planet.
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Jun 1, 2012 04:19
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Your Sledgehammer posted:I see what you're saying. I guess what I'd say in response is that all the concern about the eventual end of life on Earth (and I'm not trying to single you out here, because it's just as depressing a thought for me) once again represents this central problem that I keep going back to, and that's our inability or unwillingness to take reality as it is and accept that humans aren't, in fact, all-powerful. I think this pretty much sums up my feelings on it too. It's very sad that life on Earth (not just human life) will (probably)end at some point in the very distant future. Similarly, I'm a little sad that I'll die at some point. However, it's just silly to let that inevitability distract you from doing something with your life and just enjoying being alive.
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Jun 1, 2012 04:24
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TACD posted:
I thought estimates put the global human population pre-agriculture at only around 5 million.
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Jun 1, 2012 04:29
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Torka posted:I thought estimates put the global human population pre-agriculture at only around 5 million. And already causing mass extinctions, to give this "go back to a time when we didn't make irreversible changes" idea some perspective.
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Jun 1, 2012 04:43
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SonicBoom posted:I think this pretty much sums up my feelings on it too. It's very sad that life on Earth (not just human life) will (probably)end at some point in the very distant future. Similarly, I'm a little sad that I'll die at some point. However, it's just silly to let that inevitability distract you from doing something with your life and just enjoying being alive. Ideas like this one and this one have helped me to come to terms with it  Killer robot posted:And already causing mass extinctions, to give this "go back to a time when we didn't make irreversible changes" idea some perspective. Actually, the cause of Pleistocene extinctions is still being debated. Humans arrived earlier in the Americas than initially thought, and that has implications for the extinction events. It's not nearly as simple as "humans arrived in the Americas and almost immediately wiped out the woolly mammoth" like people think. Here's another article that supports this. The thing is, even if humans did cause some Pleistocene extinctions, there is a major difference between that and what is currently happening. When new animals come on the scene, occasionally some others are overhunted or lose their environmental niche and go extinct. If humans ever did cause that sort of thing, we wouldn't be the first animals to do so. There's a difference between some tens or possibly hundreds of species being overhunted and the catastrophic and near-total habitat destruction that is currently taking place. Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 04:55
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Your Sledgehammer posted:That's the thing, though - we've never been capable of massive energy use that doesn't harm the biome. Give me one example of massive energy usage that doesn't harm the biome, and I'd be glad to back away from my suspicion of technology. The reality is that even solar cells require large-scale processes that are inherently destructive (think of what is required to produce a solar cell). Solar panels can be made largely using silicon for the and to a lesser degree carbon. They currently take about 4 years to recoup the energy used in their manufacture, obviously with advancements this figure decreases. Silicon (14) and Carbon (6) are among the most plentiful elements on the planet and in the universe at large. I am unfortunately posting from a phone right now and out of necessity can't really engage in a lengthy conversation on this until I get home. However, I don't disagree with the position that we cannot continue as we are. I disagree on comparatively minor things like removing agriculture as a manner of food production, as that is limited by arable land (addressed by hydroponics or greenhouses) since the sun is an infinite source of energy on the human scale. In absolute terms, we could be saved by the development of infinite or sustainable energy production combined with industrial-scale subatomic control of materials, full stop. Were there a way to quickly reduce waste to its constituent quarks, gluons, etc; then the ability to recycle with absolute efficiency would solve the open cycle problem in which we have non-recyclable waste that basically sits around until it rots. The energy requirements for atomic or subatomic reduction would be incredibly and unimaginably high from present views. Were there a way to generate that electricity by use of solar, fusion, wind, and tidal energy, then problem solved. No die offs. If you expect a massive reduction in population and in the level of technology we use then it also should be assumed that we have the capacity to find our savior in science.
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Jun 1, 2012 05:35
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TACD posted:
Society was sustainable, until 10,000 years later when population growth exploded, so where did the fuckup happen? I think defining all human endeavor past the pre-historic period as unsustainable proves my point very well.
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Jun 1, 2012 12:22
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