An article effectively addressing the elephant in the room.

>>I hate to burst this old-school bubble, but there’s no longer such a thing as economic growth – not in this century. There’s no true sustainability, either – not any more. The ‘environmental tipping point’ everyone loves to talk about was actually reached around 1980, when science tells us that humanity began to consume more of the earth’s resources than the planet could possibly regenerate. We’ve gobbled up more of our planet’s resources in the past fifty years than in all previous human history combined and polluted our way to prosperity in the process.<<

>>If you could go back in time to around 1604, to the spot where Manhattan now sits, you would see a tiny settlement of about 150 people enjoying a pristine coastal wilderness with superb growing soil, ample wildlife and rich timber forests – a genuine paradise on earth. Back then, whales would wander up the clean, fish-rich Hudson River and you could pull lobsters out of the sea half as long as a man. Huge flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the sky.

Today, that same place is wall-to-wall concrete, with one of the highest human population densities on earth. We’ve been so busy ‘improving’ things that we’ve destroyed practically everything. In the end, our legacy as a species won’t be about all the wonderful things we’ve created while we’ve occupied the earth. It will be about all the wonderful things we’ve destroyed.<<

>>What are the solutions to an overcrowded planet? Firstly, to stop getting sidetracked by the climate change industry and recognize that the problem is our sheer numbers and blatant disregard for the planet’s health – not the climate. We must replace political and economic agendas and warped ideologies with better education (especially in science). We need more global promotion of family planning, more female empowerment and government incentives to have fewer children – not more. And sadly, we should have been proactive about all this stuff at least 60 years ago, instead of just waking up to our self-inflicted predicament now.<<

http://globalcomment.com/why-climate-change-is-an-irrelevance-economic-growth-is-a-myth-and-sustainability-is-forty-years-too-late/

Logic should tell us continual economic growth doesn’t make sense, we live on a planet with finite resources that is directly affected by our actions so you can’t keep expanding forever.

If you could go back in time to around 1604, to the spot where Manhattan now sits, you would see a tiny settlement of about 150 people enjoying a pristine coastal wilderness with superb growing soil, ample wildlife and rich timber forests – a genuine paradise on earth. Back then, whales would wander up the clean, fish-rich Hudson River and you could pull lobsters out of the sea half as long as a man. Huge flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the sky.
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They fed slaves so many lobsters that there was a law made limiting the amount of lobsters that could be fed to slaves to allow some variation in diet.

sarahs mum said:

If you could go back in time to around 1604, to the spot where Manhattan now sits, you would see a tiny settlement of about 150 people enjoying a pristine coastal wilderness with superb growing soil, ample wildlife and rich timber forests – a genuine paradise on earth. Back then, whales would wander up the clean, fish-rich Hudson River and you could pull lobsters out of the sea half as long as a man. Huge flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the sky.
—-

They fed slaves so many lobsters that there was a law made limiting the amount of lobsters that could be fed to slaves to allow some variation in diet.

I’m fairly sure that was up in Maine and it was servants stipulating it in their contracts rather than a law and about slaves.

We could do something I imagine but it would require retooling the entire planets economy to fix things for the next 50 years or so and completely changing the human mindset, something perhaps we just aren’t capable of, our brains might be wired to not allow this.

sibeen said:

sarahs mum said:

If you could go back in time to around 1604, to the spot where Manhattan now sits, you would see a tiny settlement of about 150 people enjoying a pristine coastal wilderness with superb growing soil, ample wildlife and rich timber forests – a genuine paradise on earth. Back then, whales would wander up the clean, fish-rich Hudson River and you could pull lobsters out of the sea half as long as a man. Huge flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the sky.
—-

They fed slaves so many lobsters that there was a law made limiting the amount of lobsters that could be fed to slaves to allow some variation in diet.

I’m fairly sure that was up in Maine and it was servants stipulating it in their contracts rather than a law and about slaves.

It was up Maine.Sorry If I am not accurate. I was told a story while eating lobster rolls in Maine. Still..there was once a bounty.

Cymek said:

We could do something I imagine but it would require retooling the entire planets economy to fix things for the next 50 years or so and completely changing the human mindset, something perhaps we just aren’t capable of, our brains might be wired to not allow this.

We are doing something. Populations are falling all over the western world. Electric energy generation is transitioning to fossil fuel free. In areas of the world with still very high birth rates it doesn’t take much of a trigger for the birth rates to fall very quickly. Iran is a great study in this. Educate women and move them into cities and watch the number of babies tumble.

sarahs mum said:

If you could go back in time to around 1604, to the spot where Manhattan now sits, you would see a tiny settlement of about 150 people enjoying a pristine coastal wilderness with superb growing soil, ample wildlife and rich timber forests – a genuine paradise on earth. Back then, whales would wander up the clean, fish-rich Hudson River and you could pull lobsters out of the sea half as long as a man. Huge flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the sky.
—-

They fed slaves so many lobsters that there was a law made limiting the amount of lobsters that could be fed to slaves to allow some variation in diet.

Does that apply to Launceston Hospital?

Cymek said:

Logic should tell us continual economic growth doesn’t make sense, we live on a planet with finite resources that is directly affected by our actions so you can’t keep expanding forever.

I disagree. I think the finite resource is energy from fossil fuels. Solve that and the rest can be done using more and more recycling.

sibeen said:

Cymek said:

We could do something I imagine but it would require retooling the entire planets economy to fix things for the next 50 years or so and completely changing the human mindset, something perhaps we just aren’t capable of, our brains might be wired to not allow this.

We are doing something. Populations are falling all over the western world. Electric energy generation is transitioning to fossil fuel free. In areas of the world with still very high birth rates it doesn’t take much of a trigger for the birth rates to fall very quickly. Iran is a great study in this. Educate women and move them into cities and watch the number of babies tumble.

The World’s population is rising and rising at an alarming rate and not expected to peak until well into the next century, meanwhile they need to be fed, clothed and housed. What is overlooked when we say birth rates are falling, is that it takes around 80 years until we actually get a meaningful population reduction.

Does that apply to Launceston Hospital?

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What about Jane Mansfield?

we thought economic growth was just a euphemism for rich get richer