Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
It is going to be very hard, but we have NO CHOICE - if we are acting ethically.
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We actually will eventually have no choice - at all. Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. And we are already into overshoot.
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The point I keep trying to show people is the scale of our consumption. We are living in a one time carbon energy pulse. Which made possible the Great Acceleration after 1955 and the start of the Green Revolution. Which is the story of applying huge amounts of cheap fossil energy, and fossil fertilizer and insecticides, to replace growing food and picking weeds and destructive insects by human and animal muscle power. And then in the 1960's, the wide spread availability of antibiotics. Which fended off world starvation and allowed the population to triple in 70 years. It is not hard to replace 17.7 TeraWatts, 87% from fossil fuel, with solar and wind. It is proving to be impossible. Even half of it. We still get 3 times more energy from burning wood than from solar and wind. And it is not possible to grow the same amount of food by hand and horse and without fertilizer. Most people will have to give up having a "job" and go back to "work" growing food. The carbon slaves freed the human slaves (mostly). Let's make sure we do not go back the other way.
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Fortunately our opulent modern lifestyle leaves a big cushion to fall back to once we all realize that growth of consumption cannot continue and accept that everything will have to change.
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