by eyeslice 35 Replies latest jw friends
I'm sure the inhabitants of Easter Island would've agreed.
Easter Islanders damaged their Island in the practice of an irrational religious cult of ancestor and king worship. This is the exact opposite of the sense of my previous comment. They shackled their minds. The rest of Polynesia did not suffer the same fate as Easter Island.
Why not?
There is no limit to human ingenuity, if it is not shackled.
BTS
Who cares if they were producing goods for worship, or self, the point is they used more resources than their environment produced. Who can have the biggest statue? Who can have the biggest house, SUV? It's all the same end result. Easter Island was a small scale example of unsustainable consumption of resources, they ran out and their civilization collapsed.
The other Polynesian cultures weren't nearly as isolated. The Earth is our Easter Island, we have nowhere else to go for now, we should be working towards long term sustainability rather than short term individual gain.
Who cares if they were producing goods for worship, or self, the point is they used more resources than their environment produced.
The environment does not produce resources.
The human mind does.
BTS
It is not just a question of limited resources. We will run out of oil one day.
Bio-fuels may do more harm than good as land previoulsy use to grow food is turned to growing bio-fuels. Clearance of tropical rain forests in order to grow palm oil is a major problem.
We could go nuclear but even uranium isn't limitless. We may be able to use nuclear fusion at some point in the future but although that may produce less CO2 we have a stack of other environmental problems to contend with.
Some have highlighted how quickly anarchy could arise and I agree. We think of society as being stable but there is no question this can break down extremely quickly.
This world as we know it will end one day. The question is when, and will mankind be able to shutdown in an orderly way?
The environment does not produce resources.
The human mind does.
Would you prefer things extracted from the environment to produce goods be called raw material? Whatever you want to call it my point is still the same.
This world as we know it will end one day. The question is when, and will mankind be able to shutdown in an orderly way?
Malthus had similar idea centuries ago. He was wrong, as subsequent history shows. All you see are limits.
Look up. We have probes at the far edge of the Solar System. There are no limits but the ones in our minds.
BTS
The question is when, and will mankind be able to shutdown in an orderly way?
Sadly, I think history points to no. Maybe we will be able to overcome our animalistic tendencies, but I think wars over dwindling resources are likely.
Sadly, I think history points to no. Maybe we will be able to overcome our animalistic tendencies, but I think wars over dwindling resources are likely.
Bah.
There is energy everywhere, and with enough energy, matter can be transformed into anything we like.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/bussards-inertial-electrostatic.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/10/iec-fusion-follow-up-funding-is-in.html
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=robert%20bussard
BTS
Thinking ecologically globally has evolved its self over the years from the first mention of ti back in the sixties or before,
from land to lakes, seas and rivers it made good common sense, now just recently the air and atmosphere has come into focus with the advent of global warming.
There does seem to be a consensus that we need to retool are ideas on how to use natural resources not only for the sake of mankind but for the sake
of nature in its entirety. To quote a well know geneticist here in Canada Dr. David Suzuki " Mankind is mother earth's personal virus " and when you think about it
it makes a lot of sense. We've blindly in the past disregarded the environment, all for the pursuit of a better more comfortable lifestyle. As the world population continues to grow
there is now more reason to think ecologically. Personally though I think it has to be done globally with all countries participating in a responsible fashion or it may all come
to a futile and pointless effort.
Fusion would be great BTS, but it's been just around the corner for about as long as we've been alive. I don't think it would be prudent to assume that fusion power will be widely available anytime soon. I hope it does happen and we can make a successful transition to a type I civilization, but until then we as a species have a lot of growing up to do.
