Forum Post: The Truth Most People of All Ideologies Dont Want To Face
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 19, 2011, 10:35 a.m. EST by ParacelsusStirner
(42)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
what we have is unsustainable
-population explosion -depletion of oil -downward competition for jobs -increasing demands from previously third world nations for consumer goods and a higher standard of living, putting ever more strain on the ecosystem
None of the proposals from dems, gop, any of the various OWS manifestos, or anyone else even comes close to beginning to deal with this
Agreed, finally someone hits on the reality.
Our worlds population does continue to rise,. (7 billion projected on holloween 2011!) The finite resources of earth have been squandered so recklessly. We should be using limited resources like Oil to build easily sustainable systems that require less inputs of ancient energy. Permaculture,. shows the way,.
We just need to rest control from the 1% and implement the many systems that will start to regenerate living systems on our struggling planet.
see; postcarbon.org and slowmoney.org
Totally agree with this, there's only so much space on earth. The more we procreate, the larger the problem(s) becomes! Oil is a small part of the problem. Overpopulation is the issue. This drives more competition globally, more demand on natural resources (oil), more need for medicine, food, supplies, list goes on.
Viva, many experts disagree with you. It's a hot topic for debate. Sure there's plenty of oil, but it takes more energy to get it than you get from extracting it.
I would strongly disagree with that assumption. I'm not pro-oil industry by any means, but I have worked worked in it and have seen first hand what is produced. There is no doubt, a lot of energy put into drilling, exploration, and stimulation in a short period of time. However, with today's technologies, it's not uncommon to have wells free flowing 1,000 bbl a day and more. That's 44,000 gal of oil a day that will continue with some variation for a very, very long time. The net return is positive, not negative. If it cost more to drill and produce that oil in resources, e.g. labor, machinery, fuel, and financing, then it would not be a financially viable investment. The energy consumed can easily be derived from the cost, because energy isn't free. I guarantee you that the oil companies are most often in the black on their investments.
Oil demand is increasing at an incredible clip
The saudis are drilling offshore now, that should tell you something
It doesn't suggest that we're running out of oil. There would be more offshore drilling activities off the shores of the U.S. also if they had their way, despite already exploring and producing some of the largest deposits in the world. It's called greed. If they can get to it first, they'll have control of it in the future. A lot of produced oil hangs around in the open market, and in reserve for a long time before it is refined. Demand will continue to increase, of course, until we break our dependency on it all together.
Depletion of oil? Of course there is depletion of oil. It's not an infinite resource, so every time we consume it, it's depleted a little bit more. But, if you're saying that we're nearing the end, you're dead wrong. There are oil sands and deep subterranean shale deposits that can be produced for up to 200 years with current recovery technologies. Where I live, with current technology, only about 1% of the total oil deposits are recoverable. Think about that for a minute. If we can produce 1% of the total oil deposit beneath our feet for up to 200 years, there may well be enough oil to last for many centuries as technology improves to recover more and more of it.
I am not "feeding the 1%". Im totally opposed to them. However Im not going to gouge out my eyes and pretend to not see what I do. If I were truly "feeding the 1%" by discussing this--think about it---all of this would be in the mainstream media all the time. This is actually something they dont want in the forefront of peoples' minds, because it gives people pause about continuing to uphold the current dreamland system
Populations are declining in Western Europe and Japan, but exploding elsewhere
the system is corrupted by a small few, and thus completely upends it. This is what we must do-- http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-occupy-wallstreet-movement-needs-specifics/
"GE: Solar Power Cheaper than Fossil Fuels in 5 years" http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
http://remineralize.org/ "Remineralize the Earth is a nonprofit organization assisting the worldwide movement of remineralizing soils with finely ground rock dust, sea minerals and other natural and sustainable means to increase the growth, health, and nutrient value of all plant life. Adding minerals and trace elements is vital to the creation of fertile soils, healthy crops and forests, and is a key strategy to stabilize the climate."
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
Economic alternatives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
Populations are declining in most industrialized countries (a big worry, actually): http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-is-dying-2009-8 "Japan's population shrunk by the most ever, 45,914 people, in the year ended March 2009 based on latest data. Japan's demographic death is getting worse."
Italy is worse off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline#Long_term_decline_situation
The US is not declining in population mainly only because of immigration.
While you are right that what we have now is unsustainable, fears about the future just feed the 1%. Who profits from them? We could have moved beyond oil and mainstream agriculture long ago if we had wanted to as a society. Or we could have had a real space program to develop space habitats for a trillion dollars a year instead of spending the money on weapons we hope are never used.
Or this government program could have 20,000 employees instead of just 20: http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/dpg/slim.cfm "To prepare for a future where manufacturing has a zero net impact on the environment, the United States industry will require key resources and methods that will enable it to measure sustainability along several dimensions allowing accurate assessment of status and progress. These resources and methods require a science-based identification of dimensions, associated measurements and classification and characterization of information relevant to sustainable products, processes, and services."
Indeed, derek. Build a sustainable infrastructure, balance the system, and all will be fine.
Well, assuming that was meant as sarcasm? :-) clearly we have not gotten to a sustainable (and, beyond that, flourishing) society yet because of political problems. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power "Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current"
But, it is a big difference from saying we have not gotten there yet because, say, war is profitable, http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm and saying we could not get a sustainable society if we wanted to technically because the options don't exist and so we should fight over what resources are remaining. We need to move beyond the fears, because otherwise we can't see the opportunity for abundance for all if we all work together to achieve it (like with solar energy, or fusion energy, or 100% recycling, or space habitats, or ocean habitats, or whatever). Otherwise, scarcity fears just divide us into competitive camps doing ironic things like using advanced materials technologies to build nuclear missiles to fight over oil fields in far off lands instead of just using the same sorts of engineering abilities to make solar panels, windmills, and space habitats.
The Germans in the 1930s made the same mistake (but in a different way than the USA, of course). Just think what they could have accomplished if they had put their ingenuity into building up Germany instead of trying to steal from the rest of the world as a pyramid scheme of conquest. We finally saw that economic miracle in the last couple of decades with Germany, starting with the same resources it had in the 1930s, but making itself into an amazing place using democratic processes.
Those were democratic processes the USA gave Germany, but has since forgotten itself: http://www.salon.com/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2010/singleton/ "How did Germany become such a great place to work in the first place? The Allies did it. This whole European model came, to some extent, from the New Deal. Our real history and tradition is what we created in Europe. Occupying Germany after WWII, the 1945 European constitutions, the UN Charter of Human Rights all came from Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Dealers. All of it got worked into the constitutions of Europe and helped shape their social democracies. It came from us. The papal encyclicals on labor, it came from the Americans."
I wasn't being sarcastic - I agree with you. But I'm glad to have inspired a more detailed post!
You're right! What's needed is a paradigm shift.
Whats the Plan, Stan?