- I largely agree with your analysis, but believe it should be written in the past tense. At this point, I’m afraid there is no long-term solution. It’s too late for “degrowth.” We’ve set processes in motion which will not be stopped in that way. In retrospect, a smaller, more harmonious existence might have worked. As for the incurious masters of technology, I was astonished by the Musk/Trump show. My assumption had been that Musk had “run the numbers on the climate,” concluded it was hopeless, and foolishly decided he’d move to Mars to escape the apocalypse. I never imagined he was so completely ignorant of the most fundamental science of “the greenhouse effect!” Now I think he simply wants to become “King of Mars” so he can live by his own laws and impose them on his serfs.
- I think one of the most serious problems we suffer from, is a lack of comprehension of the very large, but finite. e.g. pump all of your shit into the rivers, the seas, the air, and it just goes away. I remember thinking as a boy that if sitting in a running car, in a closed garage would kill you, wouldn’t constantly running millions of them eventually be a problem? There’s no apparent harm in cutting down a tree, but what if we denude continents? Need more water? Drill deeper wells! Pump the oil out of the ground, dig up the metals, and the coal, “there’s plenty more where that came from!”
In the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, https://archive.org/details/HitchhikersGuideRadioShowLive Arthur Dent’s friend, Ford Prefect, shows up to save him from the end of the world. He takes him to a pub, for some quick alcohol and peanuts, to help him cope with the effects of a transport beam. As Ford follows Arthur from the pub, the barman asks:
Are you serious sir? I mean, do you really think the world is going to end this afternoon?
Yes, in just over one minute and thirty-five seconds.
Well, isn't there anything we can do?
No. Nothing.
Suppose we were to lie down, or put a paper bag over our heads or something?
If you like, yes.
Well, would it help?
No. …
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