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Are we running out of resources?
11–20 of 204 posts
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#12I don't think we are running out of resources.
I think we are infinitely resourceful and capable of re-imagining and re-engineering our environment - in a good way!
But the problem we face is vested interests and the institutions they have captured. In the name of protecting us and the environment, the governance structure creates artificial rules on behalf of their stakeholders (corporations) that stops innovation and pushes the costs and risks on to the population at large.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#13There were a lot of words here to simply fall back on the argument that innovation will solve every problem and do so before there is significant suffering. I agree that life will always go on, but this idea that consumption and quality of life can do nothing but rise when it is so dependent on the limited cheap energy and resources that we only learned to exploit a century ago is insanity to me.
Our ever increasing population and consumption will cause the price of energy and materials to increase as the low-hanging fruit is picked. It won't be the end of the world, but we will all be poorer and there will be suffering while we adjust. I too hope for some near free energy and material source to appear somehow and prevent this, but I struggle to see how you could blindly expect this to occur, not even entertaining the thought that even if such an innovation exists, we might not be able to discover it before the consequences of our current behavior sets in.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
You never just run out of something one day. Demand goes up, supply goes down, and as you realize that, prices go up. As prices go up, alternatives are used and adjustments are made. As an example, I've heard people say that if Russia shut off the gas supply, Europe would freeze to death. Maybe that's true at first glance, but it ignores that gas is used because it is the best option. But it's not like freezing to de…
Wood stoves aren't just a relic of old homes. They are becoming increasingly trendy in the UK again now.
They were really, erm, hot over a decade ago. I've always wanted one having grown up in a house (UK) with log fires. But the particulate pollution is really bad and that sadly killed the dream for me. Many areas ("smoke control areas" under the Clean Air Act) don't allow them any more as they were bringing down air quality considerably.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell that to the inhabitants of Easter Island.
> A settler on Easter Island stood beside the island’s last tree. He or she looked around the treeless horizon, every one of those trees removed by man, and chopped it down anyway. Afterwards, the island died — the nutrients washed away, the landscape stripped. The population collapsed into warfare and cannibalism. I have always had a hard time believing this story. It assumes these Easter Island people were really d…
The thing is trees take a long-ass time to grow, and if you need wood now to make tools to produce food, what are you gonna do, starve to death so someone else can make tools in 50 years?
Man-made deforestation of islands is fairly well documented. Iceland was largely deforested by early settlers as well.
Deforestation alone may not be what killed the settlers of Easter island, but it sure as hell didn't do them any favors to not have access to wood.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#16There were a lot of words here to simply fall back on the argument that innovation will solve every problem and do so before there is significant suffering. I agree that life will always go on, but this idea that consumption and quality of life can do nothing but rise when it is so dependent on the limited cheap energy and resources that we only learned to exploit a century ago is insanity to me. Our ever increasing…
Perhaps we should petition the governance structure to create a maximum threshold of 10 million dollars per person.
Sure, billionares will lose much of their wealth, and will try to hide in off shore funds (even more so than they do at present) but we can legislate for this and de-anonymise the wealth. We would then collapse those off shore legal structures, allocate the wealth to individuals, and apply the 10m limit.
It wouldn't be that difficult, it would leave everyone with plenty of wealth, and is a simple answer.
PS - I don't think this is the right answer. But then how can the answer to the environmental issues be to socialise the risks and expenses across all the population, while allowing the owners of the corporations that have exploited the world's resources for profit get keep and hide their immorally-gained wealth?
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#17> Everyone should be living much more like the most wealthy people in the most wealthy nations are living now. It should be considered a moral abomination that billions of people are not living in multiple story homes with robotic assistants to control their lights, security, doors, air-conditioning and the temperature of their pools. As with the rest of the article, I'm really not sure if this is irony or hubris? If…
The multistory rather than merely spacious homes and 'pool' with the implication of a private pool, which are both very space inefficient make this seem foolish to me, but I see no issue with billions of people living in cities with easy access to pools, parks, schooling, jobs, and comfortable safe, warm/cool housing and living standards that are science fiction to their immediate ancestors.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#18Re: Are we running out of resources?
#19I had to check if this submarine advertisement for fossil fuels was written in the 90s (century optional).
> But only because no resource has yet been discovered that is objectively better at producing electricity more cheaply.
Um, no. Only if you hide most of the deaths it causes off the balance sheet and pretend they don't exist.
Re: Are we running out of resources?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell that to the inhabitants of Easter Island.
> A settler on Easter Island stood beside the island’s last tree. He or she looked around the treeless horizon, every one of those trees removed by man, and chopped it down anyway. Afterwards, the island died — the nutrients washed away, the landscape stripped. The population collapsed into warfare and cannibalism. I have always had a hard time believing this story. It assumes these Easter Island people were really d…
>It assumes these Easter Island people were really dumb and irrational.
No it doesn't. It assumes a tragedy of the commons. Everybody who cut down trees did so out of rational self-interest. The same kind of thing happens even in supposedly advanced civilizations, e.g. with the Atlantic cod fishery. Coordination problems are hard to solve.