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grufty jim G
grufty jim Sep 20, 2008 18:40:44
Replying to handofdave

As I say, handofdave, we are a million miles from one another. But that's OK. The limb I'm out on is a million miles from just about anywhere.

Let me state my position in a radically over-simplified manner. The numbers I'm using are plucked out of the air, but they are -- I believe -- of roughly the right orders of magnitude...

Western society MUST make the required dramatic changes within the next 3 years (and I'm talking about a radical restructuring of our entire way of life). If we fail to do so, then it will be too late. And within 15-20 years, western civilisation will undergo a complete collapse, including the collapse of most of our food and energy production and distribution systems. This will be accompanied by unprecendented environmental damage. Between a half and three quarters of the entire global population will be decimated by resource wars, famine, drought and disease. Most of the rest will experience extreme suffering.

Oh, and the timescales may not be as generous as I'm suggesting.

You're saying that I'm arguing "best case scenarios". I'm about as far from that as I know how to be. I'm saying we have a choice between extreme disruption and death. And that we must make that choice and implement our decision within 36 months.

Everything else is pissing in the wind.

H handofdave
handofdave Sep 20, 2008 20:42:28
Replying to grufty jim

What you're proposing isn't possible without totalitarianism, if I'm reading the extent of what you mean by radical changes within three years.

We'd be talking about physically relocating millions of people into denser communities (camps?), seizing private land, seizing private property, etc.

No democratic nation's people is going to stand for that! It would require a rather brutal authoritarian consolidation of power, which is a more honest way of saying 'strict enforcement'.

As environmentalists are not the types to crack skulls to advance policy, I just don't see your recommendations ever having a chance of working.

There will be trouble on this planet, and to some degree there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. We're prolific breeders, we're very clever, and we've almost continually found new ways to overcome our limitations and the hurdles nature throws at us.

That's of course why we're in trouble now on a global scale- we've conquered a lot of the things that used to keep population and environmental degradation in check; diseases, malnutrition, low-level warfare, etc.

One thing that's remained unassailable is the fact that you cannot put a Genie back once you've let it out of the bottle. And Genies are notoriously difficult to control once released. We are like teenagers, us human beings, we possess more power than we have the wisdom to control. And like teenagers, we'll likely put ourselves thru some serious bruises learning how to mature.

Disasters are nothing new. There will be disasters. What must be avoided is the perpetration of a worse disaster in the attempts to prevent another one.

I'm not trying to equate your position with his, but George Bush rushed into war with little planning and made a bad situation worse... a three year emergency plan to restructure the entire western world would likely create more problems than it solved and hasten violence and suffering.

Listen, it's totally OK we have different positions on this, since anything of such a magnitude deserves a thorough airing of all sides before action is agreed upon and taken. We're on the same side, just with different ideas about how to succeed in getting to that common goal.