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From: Ken James (no email)
Date: Sun Apr 08 2007 - 02:59:08 EDT
Rit wrote:
> I apologize, in advance for my grimness, but it's hard to hold my tongue on
> this one.............
>
> IMHO, I think we have passed the point of no return in achieving our global
> balance with nature.
>
Likely true. Re: the book "The Long Emergency".
> Each and every one of us feels we have a right to have the things that oil
> and chemicals produce. We, as a race, are not going to change. We love the
> benefits of oil and the chemical industries.
> The truth is that the biosphere can't continue to support us or our dirty
> habit of burning up everything in sight. The harsh fact is that there are
> way too many humans on the planet, producing way too much CO2 and other
> pollutants. Only war, famine or some other plague can slow the wild
> population growths and higher levels of pollution coming.
>
Probably correct. Re: The book "Collapse"
> I think it's a race to see if the human race can mutate fast enough to adapt
> to the extremely polluted environment we are creating.
No way. Mutation takes a very long time.
> If we can't, then
> the natural order of things will wipe the human race off the planet and grow
> weeds over our "civilizations"
>
A few humans will survive.
> We and our descendants face a real nightmare of rising seas, polluted air,
> barren seas, wildlife kill off and a host of other surprises from our last
> 150 years of the industrial revolution.
>
> Being sailors, we see, first hand the changes in the oceans, lakes, rivers
> and streams. I see fellow mariners polluting and caring nothing about the
> marvelous sea they are floating on.
>
In what way do they pollute? If it is pumping poop, I think that is a
very small thing to worry about, given the small number of boats and the
fact that the poop would go somewhere in any case and it is after all,
NOT Plutonium! But making that boat and all the gadgets and supplying
it and all the folks on it in the manner they insist on and have become
used to is a different matter.
> What is the answer? I only wish I knew.
>
> Do you have one?
>
If we (or maybe "as we") collapse, I hope that some of us learn how to
develop alternative energy sources to the point that we can achieve a
sustainable balance, then once the 'old wood' is burned out we can begin
anew.
I would add that the solution is "better" technology, not "less" or "no"
technology. Going back to pre-industrial days will only cast us into the
mire we have so diligently tried to climb out of.
And who will be the first to volunteer to fully live that way if there
are other choices? Would you let your kid die because Penicillen is to
high tech? Or would you want to work 10-12 hours a day in a hot bug
infested field trying to grow corn just to keep from starving to death?
Or would you want your wife to have a 70% chance of dying in childbirth?
BTW, the average survival time of a "Mountian Man" in the 1700's was
about five years, he starved, froze, got shot, got an infection, or was
eaten by a bear before too long.
None of these are good things in terms of survival of humans. So if we
do what nature has programed us to do, we will search for an answer that
lets us continue as we do now as much as possible as long as possible.
The idea some seem to have that we can all just forgo anything remotely
modern and willingly go back to being a hunter gatherer society, and
that that will be seen as the best choice, is ludicrous. We lived like
that then because we had no choice. We may get to that point once again,
but if so it will be after huge convulsions that kill the vast majority.
Yes, it is human nature as well as the nature of all life to want to
grow, reproduce and prosper. But these germs seem to have overrun the
petrie dish.-Ken
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