[freebeard]

I've never settled on a number for a natural carrying capacity,sustainable population for Earth.

Which number depends on the technology used to sustain them.

*Innovation will be something to watch as things unfold.'Necessity is the mother of invention' has now become,'The necessity of invention is a mutha.'
*We are a technological society,and as my dad would say,'It's a lot easier going forward,'I suspect that we'll see new technology in the pipeline to at least cushion our transition to who knows where.
Thanks again for all the data.We can use all we can get!

This all depends on a correct understanding of the underlying principle. Since the 1930s we've been up against the inability to reconcile astrophysics and quantum physics. The latest attempt to come up dry is String Theory (11 dimensions but 8 are rolled up so tightly we can't see them). Unfalsifiable and non-predictive.

Now comes Quantum Gravity Theory. I like it a lot because of some correspondences to Fuller's Synergetics. Everything is part of an eight-dimensional figure called the Gosset Polytope. We see a four-dimensional shadow and experience it as three. Would you like to know more?

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I don't really blame a municipality that has come to the conclusion that recycling certain things doesn't make financial sense.

Eugene, OR tried to make a separation tower. It blowed up real good when it ingested a half-empty propane bottle.

Packaging [is/should be] the responsibility of them who purchased it.

edit:

We don't know anything before Sumer,except for maybe China

What we do know is the remnants available to us show technologies that we can't replicate. But we've surpassed them in astronomy.

*Nihilism is alive and well.I know plenty who are addicted to it.It's an easy path once begun.

All the nihilists think they are anarchists. Sad.