Why's this not in *EIA? Would be great if Styrofoam were, instead of detrimental to the environment, instantly lethal to humans upon consumption.

The free market at work. If only cocaine wasn't illegal, then it wouldn't be so dangerous (and such a risk associated with its production, distribution, sale, and consumption).

There should be no minimum payout for people. You should work and contribute to society.

All the more reason to replace the tax code for a consumption tax. Every ones finger is in the pot and hence a big reason we are are disillusioned in government.


There should only be a very few breaks for the people and only a few for business.

There are those who for no fault of their own are dealt a bad hand in life and they should be well taken care of.

But we vote for the guy wearing the right jersey regardless of their true ideology and we all end up getting screwed.

"But I also like to snowboard and camp and lots of other things where I need a 4wd."

Sure everyone has their "exceptions."

"The fact that it's less of a net negative effect than others in my socio-economic bracket is irrelevant."

Yes, totally irrelevant.

"business will continue a race to the bottom."

As well as all the individuals with their particular "exceptions."

"Unlike your holier than thou stance, I recognise that I am a part of the problem"

Haha, that doesn't sound like real contrition to me!

"If we are going to fix this, it will only be fixed by efficiencies of scale."

Good luck with that. In the meantime, enjoy traveling the world and outdoors activities. I do too.


EDIT: "I recognise that there is a problem, and I recognise that the solution is going to be incredibly hard work either way."

You're not going to do anything about it. This is all an abstraction to you. But, then, the rest of us already know that.

"I am probably among the worst in the world in terms of resource consumption. Unless you're dirt poor and living in the third world, you are too."

Yep. More reasons why those who most protest global warming are the least likely to do anything about it.

These debates are just "entertainment," to keep you occupied with nothing of consequence while you get plundered and beg for more. But, as you recognize, there are no "victims" but only willing participants. So maybe "plunder" is too strong a word. "The people" seem to actually like it. And that's their right.

Oh fuck man, those are some of my favourite vices, but you forgot lust, you sexy dumbass.

The people aren't innocent. We have brought this on ourselves. At least I recognise that. Unlike your holier than thou stance, I recognise that I am a part of the problem, I recognise that there is a problem, and I recognise that the solution is going to be incredibly hard work either way.

Like @newtboy, I try to do my own small part, I grow some of my own food and I try to source what I can't as locally and sustainably as I can. I don't have kids, and I have plenty of trees on my property.

But I also like to snowboard and camp and lots of other things where I need a 4wd. I hate the fact that I drive it to work everyday, but it's really my only option (I don't have room for a second car, I live 15kms from work and there's no shower at my office, otherwise I'd bike.).

Despite your pathetic little insinuation to the contrary, I went to university, and I'm a highly paid professional. That means that as someone who's better off than most people in the first world country I live in, I am probably among the worst in the world in terms of resource consumption. Unless you're dirt poor and living in the third world, you are too.

I've travelled in Europe, Asia, Oceania and a small part of North America. The carbon footprint of that is massive, but I still want to see more of the world.

These are all my contributions to fucking up the environment. I recognise them, and I do what I can to mitigate them, but if I'm honest with myself, I know I'm having a net negative effect. The fact that it's less of a net negative effect than others in my socio-economic bracket is irrelevant.

But the fundamental difference between us is that I believe that if the problem can be solved (and at this stage, I'm dubious that it can) it will be solved by working together, not individually. If we are going to fix this, it will only be fixed by efficiencies of scale.

And the only way that we encourage clean industry is to level the playing field with regulation. Until there's no competitive advantage to polluting the environment (and it's always cheaper not to clean up after yourself), business will continue a race to the bottom.

But hey, you know what will fix this? Go downvote a bunch of completely unrelated videos because the nasty man was mean to you.

@ChaosEngine

While long term, it is continuous, relatively easy to encourage (than directly constrain population growth) and historically effective.

As for resources consumption, see my posts about automatic adjustment, comparison to nuclear family, fallacy of fixed factors in an economy etc ... If you disagree with any of these, why?

@gorillaman

Which is politically infeasible, short of a dictatorial state like China.

At this point there are no significant physical resources that you have pointed out that are genuinely becoming scarce. If they were, we would see prices sky-rocket and an adjustment away to another type would take place.

I gave the example of labour resources becoming scarce and the adjustment to dual income households. That was a gradual adjustment.

But okay, suppose energy resources genuinely became scarce. Current alternative energy (nuclear/renewable) techniques are not as cost effective as coal/gas/oil. But if there were genuine scarcity in fossil fuels, they would be.

We would know about the coming scarcity for at least a decade ahead and would build out alternative capacity over that period. Even if the average cost were twice current energy costs, how would that be different to the change to dual income households? Society wouldn't like it, but we would adjust.

Perhaps there may be some unrest in borderline developing/poor countries, especially those dependant on energy exports. But there would be no incentive for inter-country wars. In fact, those with the most efficient renewable technology would have much to gain from trading and selling their technology to those who do not.

Population reduction, obviously.

Your belief that we can continue to prosper while drastically cutting our per capita resource consumption is directly contradicted by all of human history.

The problem with the hypothesis that lifting people out of poverty lowers the population growth rate is twofold.

First, it is a long term (as in several generations) solution.

Second, as people become better off, they typically consume more resources.

The problem is not people it's resources. The tipping point is not x billion people. It's x billion people multiplied by the average resource consumption of a human. The planet is big, but it's finite.

@RedSky

I don't know how many times you want me to explain to you that it is not the absolute number of humans on Earth that signifies. In principle a human being costs no more than a large dog to support.* The number of advanced, high energy, modern lifestyles is the figure in question, which you want approximately to quintuple to around ten billion (as recently as fifty to sixty years ago there were fewer than one billion near-modern humans on Earth); that's using a high estimate of the number already at that level, a low estimate of the growth in their resource consumption over the relevant period and a low estimate of total population growth; that's your plan. Or alternatively, to share two billions worth of resources among ten, a burden civilisation cannot bear.

Corporations pollute only so far as we require them to. These are not cigar-puffing fat cats pouring oil on baby seals for the evulz; the fulfilment of the social function we assign them necessarily involves pollution. Expecting to control that effectively with tax incentives is childishly naive.


*Much less if we forego meat. Carnivorous pet ownership by criminals is a substantial driving factor in climate change.

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

"Absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us
It shapes our minds the most;
maybe the mother of our Nation
should remind us
that we're sitting to close to. . .

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation." -Michael Franti

Smash one in a den or living room near you, today! It's cathartic, reduces energy consumption, and drastically mitigates malignant ignorance worldwide!

Existing infrastructure. All those oil refineries, transportation, just for starters. People make money from every level of production from drilling to selling the finished products. Then we have the dirty secret around everything we do: if it does not produce waste, it's not profitable. Fusion will render a lot of investments moot. Investments that are tied to finances, the structures are not free, they cost money to build and so they are worth something. Even thou everyone knows that free energy is our only hope, it's a death sentence to the big oil. Even if they are controlling it; the unit price of electricity will drop and EVERYONE in the chain loses money. Except the end user. Not even if we double or triple or 20 times exceed current energy consumption, it's gonna make less money. Or so they think, the world is full of business models that really does not work anymore.

I just to think "it'll get better, someday". It just have to. But Mr Fusion is not ready in 2015, that's more than sure, it's fixed to be so. And there is no conspiracy here, just follow the money where it goes and for 100% sure it ain't flowing towards free energy. No one is keeping secret to fusion locked away somewhere, if it works, they will start to use it. But they sure can delay the progress long enough for those Greenspan mates to die wealthy..

I've been following Bob Lazar's work for years.

Watch the video - the latter portion is about a solution to the problem described by AeroMechanical.

I do object to use of the term "the law". It would be more accurate (and encouraging) to say "current US federal law" forbid the sale of Lithium-6 deuteride. Moreover, what law exactly? What chapter and section?

So you could do what alot of the hemp growers do. Leave the country, or produce it yourself for your own consumption, or work on changing the laws.

Hey, if you can't sell it, can you give it away for free then accept donations?

@artician
because you are a fully actualized human being.
the majority of the western cultures have been berated under a cascade of distractions and so-called "entertainment" to further their devolution into little consumption machines...SQUIRREL!

when you attempt to understand someone from their perspective,through empathy and compassion,you begin to love them.this is a natural process which does not fit into the "us and them" paradigm.

the tools for violence and conflict are made flaccid and ineffectual.
religion.
nationalism.
become useless tools to manipulate.


understanding leads to love which leads to cooperation which only serves to undermine the interests of the powerful...so that can never be allowed.

it is the natural state of being that humans cooperate and work together but we,in the "developed" world,are taught that greed is good and selfishness is an admirable trait to pursue.

it is a spiritual cancer.

how ironic that those who live in the "under-developed" world are much more prone to share,cooperate and have a far more dynamic understanding of community.

the more i read your comments the more convinced i am that you are one righteous dude.
you are not alone.
the rising tide of resistance grows each and every day.
stay awesome my man.

I hate the business of GMO, mainly because of Evil Monopolistic Monsanto®, but are there any scientific studies that even claim these products are less safe for human consumption?

Of course, modifying an organism can have side effects such as decreasing nutritional value, but so can not rotating crops correctly or failure to maintain soil properly.