Tau.Neutrino said:
Things we should be doing.
There are heaps of other things to need to do.
I figured out a few years ago that all of the above, all of the things that we should be doing, can be described in three words:
Quality of Life
Not just for humans, but for all living things. Now for details:
> Teaching emotional intelligence to everyone
Not for psychopaths, please not for psychopaths.
> Stopping bully behavior across all of society around the world.
Improving quality of life will do that.
> Reduce world population
Yep
> Planting more trees
Doesn’t go far enough. For sustainability, remember the carbon cycle, the amount of carbon in the biosphere has to increase or all those new trees will die. That means either burning fossil fuels or banning wooden furniture.
> Bring industrial waste to close to zero as possible
Yes
> Planting more ocean plants
Don’t need planting, just add more fertiliser to the oceans. Oh wait, perhaps that isn’t such a good idea. Also remember the carbon cycle.
> Making companies more aware and responsible for the environment
Not just companies. Starving people don’t give a damn about the environment, so fix starvation.
> Reduce creek, river and seawater pollution
Again, fix starvation and it will happen.
> Cleaning up plastics in the environment. Reduce micro plastics in the food chain and in the environment.
Plastics are more harmless than rocks. But you need to recycle the carbon back to the biosphere.
> Breeding more fish. Create more fish farms worldwide
Fish is a gourmet product. There are arguments for and against more fish breeding, what do you feed them?
> Accepting that humanity has an effect on the environment. Accepting that humanity is reducing other lifeforms and contributing to their extinction. We need to stop species becoming extinct.
Well duh. But complete elimination of extinction is excessive because plant breeders are busily creating new species.
> We need to reduce our energy consumption by using smarter energy saving techniques. Building houses to a better energy saving standard. Building smaller homes
Certainly, but there is the assumption there that people are not rorting the system by using more electricity than they need. The problem is not whether the homes are energy saving so much as whether the people living within them are energy saving.
> Taxing larger homes.
No.
> Taxing larger cars and domestic vehicles
Already doing that – fuel tax.
> Building smaller cars
Yes.
> Bring manufacturing energy levels down
Yes
> Focusing on more efficient engines and technologies for transport
Yes
> Reducing domestic waste towards zero
Yes. Domestic waste has skyrocketed in the past 20 years.
> Recycling 100 percent waste
Um. Totally agree with more recycling. Even better is 100% reuse and no recycling. A ban on non-rechargeable batteries would be a start.
> Reducing emissions and pollution in the atmosphere
Yes.
> Eliminating nonrenewables as much as possible
Let’s split products into temporary and permanent categories. Buildings come under the category of “permanent” so ideally should be 100% made from non-renewables.
> Stop coal mining
No
> Reduce other mining operations.
Yes. Mostly, what about batteries for cars, solar panels, for example.
> We need to electrify our cars more and make transport more efficient, reducing time at traffic lights using smarter technologies.
Yes.
> Create more environment jobs worldwide
No, absolutely not.
> Build more solar power stations worldwide
Yes.
> Work out accurate sustainable population levels.
Correlate population levels with quality of life. Higher quality of life implies smaller sustainable population.
> Creating more efficient heating and cooling systems
Yes. But more importantly, stop people from using heating and cooling systems completely. It can be done.