The vision of children shivering in the cold is indeed a possible, perhaps likely outcome - but only if we adhere to the stupid and malevolent prescription of the procrastination cabal. All they do is take man's worst qualities - greed, selfishness, stupidity, ignorance, fear, and perhaps most of all laziness - and bind these into an ideology of obscurantism and obstruction. I have no idea why the "delayers" aren't more reviled, aren't more hated, on these boards, given how they're trying to drag mankind into the coffin they've fashioned for themselves and seal everyone in before the landslide arrives to bury us all.

The stark fact is that civilization is currently unsustainable, and we face a choice:
-We can rationally effect a transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy and lower impacts all around. It'll certainly be difficult to do this, and there will be plenty of sacrifices. It will certainly no longer be possible for the greedy to follow their bliss wherever it leads. (I think this is what is most terrible to those who preach denial. They reveal themselves as simply existentially greedy, as congenitally unable to envision the world in any other way. They apparently could never live any other way.)
But doing this we can build a sustainable world where everyone has Enough.
(By the way, in the current world everyone does not have enough. In this world, so perfect to chamber of commerce types, there are plenty of "children shivering in the cold".)

The other option:
-Listen to the lies, do nothing, business as usual, everything hums along, la de da....until civilization goes off a cliff. I don't know what form the collapse will take, but it's likely to be abrupt and catastrophic, and then man will just have to try to cobble things together. Who knows how or even if he'll be able to recover some semblance of well-being, or just dwindle...

This is what I believe is at stake here, right at this moment, indeed for a long time now. And that's WHO I believe we're up against, what they're trying to drag us into.

So far, they're winning.  

Santa Rosa has made it to the list of some of the greenest cities in the US largely because of its Geysers' wastewater-to-electricity project. This project converts 12 million gallons of wastewater the city pumps to the steam fields daily into 85 megawatts of power, enough to power 85,000 homes.

I have no idea why the "delayers" aren't more reviled, aren't more hated, on these boards, given how they're trying to drag mankind into the coffin they've fashioned for themselves and seal everyone in before the landslide arrives to bury us all.

Maybe it's just the "don't feed the troll" principle.  Nobody really gives a damn what is said on Gristmill.  What's important is money.  Money buys power, as the coal industry well knows in donating to Presidential candidates.

The stark fact is that civilization is currently unsustainable, and we face a choice:
-We can rationally effect a transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy and lower impacts all around. It'll certainly be difficult to do this, and there will be plenty of sacrifices. It will certainly no longer be possible for the greedy to follow their bliss wherever it leads.

The existence of cities has given most of humanity a choice: live a high-consumption lifestyle, or sit out in the slums without an economic future.  So people pursue the mass suicide of consumer society in order to avoid the sort of humiliation and pain that individual adherence to principle would get them.  Never mind that the principle they would be following would be one of "let's have a future!"  Greed pays the rent.

-Listen to the lies, do nothing, business as usual, everything hums along, la de da....until civilization goes off a cliff. I don't know what form the collapse will take, but it's likely to be abrupt and catastrophic, and then man will just have to try to cobble things together. Who knows how or even if he'll be able to recover some semblance of well-being, or just dwindle...

It's not really like world society is doing nothing -- it is, after all, burning 85 million bbls./ day of crude oil, accounting for only 36% of the total of greenhouse gases, while bringing dozens of new coal-fired plants on line...

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

Still think efforts to shift human activity to cooperate with nature, rather than fight it, are too expensive?

For capitalists, not being able to exploit the natural world to depletion and death is an opportunity cost.

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

  Isn't this really the old dilemma:
"If you don't let us eat the seed corn, children will go to bed hungrey tonight!"

  Or if you don't let us cut the last old growth forest, lumbermills will close.....

   The problem with all unsustainable endeavors is that it is hard to stop in time.

Just send ME $39.95 and I will solve all of your alternative energy needs at once, in the process curing everything from abrupt climate change to the gout.

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

There are now 6 Billion people on this planet.

The largest percent of that number owe their existence to Global Warming.

The warming that occurred after 1830 has driven productivity to all time highs.   Human science and engineering of the 21st century would not have been possible except for the warming.  

Oh, there were some side effects, like CO2 from melting tundra, but the natural feedback mechanisms of the atmosphere prevent it from causing harm.

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -- Galileo

jabailo, while that statement does hold some truth, you're vastly oversimplifying things.

That's like sayin' that Doberman dogs owe their existence to England's tax system.

Yes, and while most think it's due to genetic engineering, an equal argument could be made that it's due to increased sunshine, warmer weather and a longer growing season.   In the same way I would also argue that global warming is more responsible for the decrease in diseases such as smallpox than any vaccine.

Dobermans?  Not sure what the parallel is...

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -- Galileo

Dobermans?  Not sure what the parallel is...

The Doberman was originally a cross-breed created by a tax collector in England called Dober who used the dogs to protect himself since he was bein' attacked by angry peasants who were upset over his high assesments and collections.

Did the economic system lead to the creation of the Doberman?  Yes, in a round-'bout way, but there were also many other factors involved.  The specific person, the specific people he was collectin' taxes from, the economic factors of the specific area, not to mention the health and genetics of the dogs originally used for the cross-breed and the home environment they grew up in.

In the same way, yes rising temperatures after the last major ice age lead to an increase in agricultural production, but there were many other factors as well.

Genetic enegineering is one, but more importantly were improvements in farming techniques, mechanization, introduction of new crops from foreign locations, globalized trade of foodstuffs, irrigation, and (sometimes with unfortunate side effects) new means of fertilizer and pest control.

Temperature change was a big part of it, but by no means was the sole, or even the largest, reason for the explosion in agricultural production.

I would say that short term monopoly capitalism is really corporate feudalism.  under that regime short term bottomline considerations rule.

Under competitive capitalism where the future of your small business, like your fishing business, passed on to the next generation, is the ultimate consideration.  Just as in a family, where giving the next generations the best chance at happiness and success is the ultimate consideration, the health of the resource, in this case the salmon assumes primary importance.

When a big fishing corporation takes over it will catch all the fish as fast as it can, then move ontop another fishing ground, and when the fish are gone, another business.  For smaller local businesses only a sustainable future works.  This is sane capitalism.  Corporate feudal capitalism?  Insane.

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