31–40 of 58 posts
This article is from 2014. The fact that it is 2018 and we still have to convince people this is a bad thing is alarming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have co…
If you really want to make a change, leave the city and go live in the countryside. You'll be able to consume less, grow your own food and be closer to nature.
Not sure what to do about civilizational collapse though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have co…
If you really want to make a change, leave the city and go live in the countryside. You'll be able to consume less, grow your own food and be closer to nature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have co…
Your actions are not meaningless. They are what one person can accomplish, and thats what everybody has to be content with when in doubt. If you make the world better by being less bad, then chances are you are already doing what one human can do. That is fine and enough for one human, by definition. When we aim for the stars we first must learn to walk, and be content with little steps for a very long time.
The other option is to run for office and effect change that way. That one just might do something.
We have spread invasive species all over the place. Many of them haven't even been noticed yet. This includes stuff like soil fungus.
Even when we do notice, we do nothing. Cats are a huge problem, but obsessed cat lovers are well-organized politically. They show up in force at every town council and country commissioner meeting where a cat issue comes up, defending stuff like giant feral cat colonies right next to the beach where endangered beach mice should be reseeding the grass that holds the beach in place. [edit: getting my cat lover downmods... but this is an actual problem causing beach erosion in Florida, and there is indeed a giant cat colony in my area that isn't more than 500 feet from the beach]
If we disappeared today, the extinctions would just continue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a few people, I think. It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and instead of panicking, just shrugged. There are probably fifty times a day I feel a deep seated dreadxiety about something I'm doing. Wearing synthetic fibre. Finding out a soap has triclosan in it. Using a disposable nappy. Eating an avocado. Eating fish (appropriately enough, eating said synthetic fibres in that fish). And yet I have co…
Get used to it. Everything comes to an end. All your favorite animals will, and humans will, and whatever comes after them. I highly doubt consuming meat today affects lifestyle of most humans in 50 years noticeably.
What if say 200 years from now, we have a human population of 20 billion people where everyone lives like the current top 10% of people in the USA. There is long life-expectancy, very low childhood mortality. Low inequality. There are however no wild animals on land. Every land animal is either a pet, livestock, or in a zoo or preserve. Except for the limited species above, every other land species is extinct (but th…
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In a less personal sense I think Nature is sentient and could destroy us overnight if She wanted to, but apparently She doesn't, at least so far.
Perhaps the natural, wild world is like the yolk to humanity's chick embryo and the Earth is a cosmic egg... What we are experiencing could be totally Natural.
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Along a completely different tack, I don't think that scenario would be stable: I believe eventually something would go seriously out of whack in a simplified and artificially-controlled ecosystem (cf. Biosphere II)
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In any event, I believe there's a better option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo
"Toby Hemenway - How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your actions are not meaningless. They are what one person can accomplish, and thats what everybody has to be content with when in doubt. If you make the world better by being less bad, then chances are you are already doing what one human can do. That is fine and enough for one human, by definition. When we aim for the stars we first must learn to walk, and be content with little steps for a very long time.
I just meant that my reduced negative externalities will be produced instead by an opportunistic actor. If half of Americans said "burning carbon is bad, I'll ride a bike instead" it would largely be making gas cheaper for the other half, who would then just buy bigger, heavier SUV's. This doesn't apply to all things, just cost-limited goods where the negative externalities aren't priced in. Plastic is basically free…
I don't think this is true. Humans are deeply social and copy each other. One can easily see this with young humans, but I didn't fully appreciate this with adult humans before I saw it myself. When I turned semi-custom-vegan, I did hear that it is kind of pointless because animals will still be slaughtered for others. But even suprising to me it turned out that several of the people I interact with started to reduce their meat consumption as well. We aren't all egoistical ignorants that only think of their immediate benefit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your actions are not meaningless. They are what one person can accomplish, and thats what everybody has to be content with when in doubt. If you make the world better by being less bad, then chances are you are already doing what one human can do. That is fine and enough for one human, by definition. When we aim for the stars we first must learn to walk, and be content with little steps for a very long time.
I just meant that my reduced negative externalities will be produced instead by an opportunistic actor. If half of Americans said "burning carbon is bad, I'll ride a bike instead" it would largely be making gas cheaper for the other half, who would then just buy bigger, heavier SUV's. This doesn't apply to all things, just cost-limited goods where the negative externalities aren't priced in. Plastic is basically free…
But that example is extreme. There's strength in numbers, even smaller ones. If 5% did what you describe, there'd be that much more people demanding streets that are safe for biking, etc.
What if say 200 years from now, we have a human population of 20 billion people where everyone lives like the current top 10% of people in the USA. There is long life-expectancy, very low childhood mortality. Low inequality. There are however no wild animals on land. Every land animal is either a pet, livestock, or in a zoo or preserve. Except for the limited species above, every other land species is extinct (but th…