Today's bout with paranoia and despair - A little less than a happy high — LiveJournal

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			A little less than a happy high




			03:04 pm July 15th, 2002

komos


	Today's bout with paranoia and despair
	According to WWF’s most recent Living Planet Report, the state of the Earth’s ecosystems has declined by about 33 percent over the past 30 years. Simultaneously, the strain on natural resources has increased by approximately 50 percent. At this rate, it is believed that we could reach a resource deficit in the next 30-50 years of catastrophic proportions. It is projected that "unless governments take urgent action, by 2030, human welfare, as measured by average life expectancy, educational level, and world economic product will go into decline." Want to learn more? Go here. In the meantime, recycling is on the decline. Many municipalities are finding that it’s more cost-effective to haul certain recyclables to the landfill than to actually process them. To make matters worse, there’s a growing sense that people have "too little time" to bother with recycling. So while more households than ever are being served by recycling programs, there is actually less recycling going on. Joy. Oh, and here’s something that will further brighten your day. It’s a closer look at the so-called "PATRIOT" Act, which provides Attorney General John Ashcroft with special powers... you might even say political powers. Nothing like a little extra-legal entitlement to start you thinking about old Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare. Today’s program has been brought to you by www.hacktivismo.com, your source for Camera/Shy, the anti-censorship software. Update: My firewall no longer allows me to access this site... I'm guessing because of the encryption protocols that are purportedly available to make problematic sites seem innocuous. Someone burn me a copy, k? Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Venice Queen"

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			Thread started by Yogo Makeoshimi

	From: shelbyg	Date: July 15th, 2002 01:38 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Landfills are the mines of the future...

Recycling will take off when it becomes cost effective. That will happen as we run short on natural resources and we have to start mining the landfills for resources.

As for other apocalyptic predications: my dad has a book from the 70's that makes many similar predictions about the 80's and 90's. The doomsayers have been dooming for so long they loose credibility. The scary thing is that they are right in a lot of ways and the as the scientists get a better understanding of the EXTREMLY complex systems involved, they can make better predictions.

We shall see. Interestingly, most of those predictions do not concern us: they concern the third world. That is not to say the cataclysmic events will not eventually effect the West, but our technology and systems are stronger than those of the third world so we can successfully mitigate the pain temporarily.

Richard Leakey wrote an excellent book called “The Sixth Extinction” that outlines what we know and understand of the current Mass Extinction (sixth one in the life of the planet) that we are in the middle of.

What you have to remember is that humans are not strong enough to wreck the earth for life. Not even nuclear war can do that. However, we can create an environment that is unfriendly to our own survival. Doing so is a choice we have to make.

In a side note, I love the Bush administration’s declaration that 1) Global warming is real, but 2) it is too late to do anything about it so let’s not bother.

Man I hate this administration.

Shelby

(Reply) (Thread)

	From: komos	Date: July 15th, 2002 05:21 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Landfills are the mines of the future...

But see, I like the idea of having an earth that's livable for my own species.

I'm weird like that.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

	From: shelbyg	Date: July 15th, 2002 07:16 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Landfills are the mines of the future...

Selfish bastard. : )

Shelby

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)




			Thread started by fuzzy bunny

From: couplingchaos	Date: July 15th, 2002 03:36 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"According to WWF’s most recent Living Planet Report, the state of the Earth’s ecosystems..."

I wouldn't be too upset. I mean, really, what do a bunch of wrestlers know about ecosystems anyway?

Seriously, though, I hope to be dead before the world's resources are damaged that much. It's one of those things that bothers me in the way that all 'bad things for the world that I can't affect' do, which is to say, not much.

(Reply) (Thread)

	From: komos	Date: July 15th, 2002 05:16 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Sorry if this is preachy

I take it you'll be using the "die young and leave a beautiful corpse" method then? ;)

My turn to be serious... I have a very real concern that all of this will be taking place soon enough for me to have a first-hand view. Ok, so I'm a bit alarmist, but I can't say that I'm overly impressed with the world that we've created.

I'd probably be less cheesed off if I could point at something and say that there is clear, universal benefit that comes of our usage, but really it's largely just resources wasted so that we can have unnecessary luxuries like SUV's and junk food.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)


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