Make less garbage.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by bennelson

We invented the car, the fast food restaurant, the drive-in movie theater, the Chinese takeout container, and the suburb.

If by we you mean Americans, your hubris is showing (not to mention something else). The Romans had suburbs: even the word suburb is Latin, fer gawdsakes.

In addition, cars were invented by a bunch of Europeans, most prominently Karl Benz, and while I've no specific knowledge, I'd be pretty surprised if earlier cultures didn't have their equivalents of fast food. I'll give you the drive-in movies, though, but AFAIK they don't exist any more, except as an occasional nostalgia thing.

Our hero finds a pair of sunglasses. When he puts them on, he sees the world as it actually is. Billboards simply say CONSUME. He sees that the rich and powerful are actually ugly aliens in charge of the place.

Ever wonder how the rest of you look to the rich & powerful :-)

[bennelson]

Hey James.

Yes, Daimler had the first major auto patent. Of course there were many folks, especially Europeans involved in all sorts of car related things in the early days. But it wasn't until Ford and others that the car really starting becoming what we call a "Car" today.

While the Romans did have outlying cities (and excellent roads!) They didn't have urban sprawl the way we do now. I had heard that once a Roman city got to a certain size, they actually had a bunch of people go out to start a completely NEW city. How nice and orderly of them.

What they didn't do was commute using two gallons of gasoline per person per day, to live in one city and work in another.

My point is that in the United States, we have a long tradition of both automobiles, packaging, and waste, (which often are all related) like not quite any other place on the planet.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by dennyt

So this is why people are putting pizza pans on their wheels... I'll take 15" pepperoni with a side of brake dust, thanks!

...ah, but that brake dust will co$t you--it's an additional "topping" (wink,wink)!

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by bennelson

While the Romans did have outlying cities (and excellent roads!) They didn't have urban sprawl the way we do now. I had heard that once a Roman city got to a certain size, they actually had a bunch of people go out to start a completely NEW city. How nice and orderly of them.

It was the ancient Greeks who practiced that form of colonization. Rome the city had a population estimated in the 1 millon range, and practiced its own form of urban sprawl. Moving people was impractical, given the technology of the time, so they moved grain instead, shipping it to the city from great slave-worked farms in Egypt, Sicily, and North Africa. This had its environmental effects, which still exist today: compare climate & vegetation in those places pre and post-Rome.

[04_Sentra]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Whoa, that's rich!!!

Egomania running wild! I wonder what the rest of the Earth's inhabitants would say about that...

P.S. I Love pizza!

They would say that they'll be dead by the time that the Earth becomes uninhabitable so what do they care. Another one that I run into all the time is "I don't have any kids so why should I care about the environment."

People who are responsible (environmentally responsible, financially responsible, etc.) should be having more children. Unfortunately there is no way to stop the irresponsible people from breeding.

[redyaris]

"waste not, want not"

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by 04_Sentra

They would say that they'll be dead by the time that the Earth becomes uninhabitable so what do they care. Another one that I run into all the time is "I don't have any kids so why should I care about the environment."

People who are responsible (environmentally responsible, financially responsible, etc.) should be having more children. Unfortunately there is no way to stop the irresponsible people from breeding.

I was going to say non-human inhabitants but I didn't think I had to...

You actually think there's a sub-group that should be replicating more? Oh man, show me where the human shortage is....

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by bennelson

My point is that in the United States, we have a long tradition of both automobiles, packaging, and waste, (which often are all related) like not quite any other place on the planet.

"Tradition" is a good word. It seems so rooted that any move to reduce vehicle use, pollution or garbage production is interpretted by many as an attack on their Freedom, on the American Way of Life. Many people seem to believe that senseless driving, polluting, etc., is a part of patriotism.

Thankfully, not all people are like that, and this forum is a good place to find many of them. Thank you Ben for deciding to try to reduce your garbage footprint even further. Good luck!

[04_Sentra]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

You actually think there's a sub-group that should be replicating more? Oh man, show me where the human shortage is

Saying that the problem is overpopulation oversimplifies the problem. The problem is over consumption not over population. Humans have always managed to over consume their resources even with much lower population than we have today.

[bennelson]

I had heard that the Romans did a fine job of stripping the countryside.

Supposedly, they ran through so much of the available useful fuel, that they ended up being the first to really make use of solar heating as an alternative.

These are the same people who had wood-fired heated floors and baths! To go from such luxury to renewable energy by necessity is very interesting.

I think we are at a similar place today. We are over-consuming, and at a rate that the ancients could never have imagined. (The amount of energy in a gallon of oil is AMAZING!)
Continuing at that rate, means we are going to run out of it REALLY fast! I just recently read an article that Peak Oil already hit.... in 2006!

Richard Heinberg is the author of a number of books, but PEAK EVERYTHING is particulary interesting. The chapters detail how much of absolutely EVERYTHING we are burning through right now.