Comments on: The little car that environmentalists love to hate http://polizeros.com/2008/02/05/the-little-car-that-environmentalists-love-to-hate/ Musings on politics: Antiwar, global warming, peak oil and otherwise Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:22:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Jansen http://polizeros.com/2008/02/05/the-little-car-that-environmentalists-love-to-hate/comment-page-1/#comment-158224 Jansen Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:27:59 +0000 http://polizeros.com/2008/02/05/the-little-car-that-environmentalists-love-to-hate/#comment-158224 Both points of view conflict and have validity ... inovation will save many of us or our children, and the rest would have managed very nicely except that we forced them into our world by stealing their invironment and leaving them scaps, poisons and garbage heaps to live on ... if a moral force exists, we will be punished for this ... if not, half the world will suffer to oblivion, leaving the surviving half to battle over the who is most deserving of the remainder, probably down to the last man/woman. If only we had a new world to start over ... Obviously I'm suffering the letdown after so massive a high over Obama's election ... let's hope we aren't too late. Both points of view conflict and have validity … inovation will save many of us or our children, and the rest would have managed very nicely except that we forced them into our world by stealing their invironment and leaving them scaps, poisons and garbage heaps to live on … if a moral force exists, we will be punished for this … if not, half the world will suffer to oblivion, leaving the surviving half to battle over the who is most deserving of the remainder, probably down to the last man/woman.

If only we had a new world to start over …

Obviously I’m suffering the letdown after so massive a high over Obama’s election … let’s hope we aren’t too late.

]]> By: DJ http://polizeros.com/2008/02/05/the-little-car-that-environmentalists-love-to-hate/comment-page-1/#comment-148419 DJ Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:53:44 +0000 http://polizeros.com/2008/02/05/the-little-car-that-environmentalists-love-to-hate/#comment-148419 We're running into a fundamental problem here: carrying capacity. Some say we've already exceeded it, others say it is close. But we've known for a long time that the world cannot support 6 billion people at the American standard of living-- burning up resources, creating waste, emitting various types of pollution. The only way we in the West manage to survive at this level of luxury (and waste) is by keeping the majority of the world in poverty. 50% of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day! Unfortunately, gains in efficiency have so far been sucked up by growth in population-- the condition of the vast majority of the poor has not changed. The natural course of things would be for population to stabilize when the carrying capacity is reached. By this, I mean the disturbing reality that food and water shortages, severe weather, disease, wars over resources, and so forth will act rather brutally to limit population. Thus the introduction of the Nano is perfectly consistent with capitalist economics: the market (and in this case the planet) will regulate itself. We stand at a time of possibility: will we as a species choose to limit population so that technology may actually benefit the majority? Or will we continue along the Malthusian path and force nature to do the job for us? Because unless we find ways to limit population growth (and its effect on the planet), the promise of technology offers little hope for real forward progress for most people. We’re running into a fundamental problem here: carrying capacity. Some say we’ve already exceeded it, others say it is close. But we’ve known for a long time that the world cannot support 6 billion people at the American standard of living– burning up resources, creating waste, emitting various types of pollution. The only way we in the West manage to survive at this level of luxury (and waste) is by keeping the majority of the world in poverty. 50% of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day! Unfortunately, gains in efficiency have so far been sucked up by growth in population– the condition of the vast majority of the poor has not changed.

The natural course of things would be for population to stabilize when the carrying capacity is reached. By this, I mean the disturbing reality that food and water shortages, severe weather, disease, wars over resources, and so forth will act rather brutally to limit population. Thus the introduction of the Nano is perfectly consistent with capitalist economics: the market (and in this case the planet) will regulate itself.

We stand at a time of possibility: will we as a species choose to limit population so that technology may actually benefit the majority? Or will we continue along the Malthusian path and force nature to do the job for us? Because unless we find ways to limit population growth (and its effect on the planet), the promise of technology offers little hope for real forward progress for most people.

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