'Hot, Flat, and Crowded'

I'm not so sure that 'as [India and China] get wealthier and healthier, they're going to have more children'.  Most of what I've read indicates that as women are empowered and as birth control technologies spread, the tendency to have SMALLER families spreads....  The world's rate of increase in population growth has been slowing for some time.

That said, the vast majority of the world's people still look to children (and grandchildren) to provide their 'retirement program' and to provide cheap labor within the family circle.

Unfortunately the world could easily support 1/10 of the present human population at First World standards of living -- but there's little in view (barring major epidemic) to suggest such a massive reduction in human population.  So onwards we barrel....

It's a peculiarly American trait to see all problems as ultimately solvable.  It's most realistic to foresee problems resolving themselves by catastrophe rather than through planning and foresight.  Being human involves both crazy and unjustifiable optimism (which motivates folks to try things with little chance of success) and resignation (for instance in the certainty every single person will ultimately die...).  In other words, being human involves a lot of paradox.

What the future will bring is uncertain.  That much IS certain!

sage words, Doc, reflecting a great deal of reality.  In my genealogical research, I note that one great-great grandmother had eight children and died in delivering the eighth, but within the next year, the great great grandfather married a second wife who had nine more.  The epidemic phenomenon of which you spoke, came in the form of smallpox, and about half of the blended family lived.  But the children did work on the family farm in Quebec and then some came to the city and others stayed around the farm to care for their parents, and so the cycle went.  They had come from Ireland originally -

The fatalities from the typhoons in the south east Pacific areas are examples of current catastrophes in heavily populated areas with few resources for rescue and earthquakes are another.  Talked recently with a friend who had been in Sezchuan Province at the time of the big (recent) earthquake - a soon-to-retire physician, he was looking for owls -  and he said they were actually a mountain range away from the quake's destruction, but Chinese authorities suggested they leave sooner rather than later.  He believes it was more an issue of liability for their safety.

We do go forth into the world not knowing what lies before us - but hope does spring eternal!  Glad to share the platitudes!

I think we should march over there to India and China and explain to those people what is Good For Them. Tell them to get rid of those nasty polluting 2 stroke engined motor scooters and sell a few of those shouldn't have had her in the first place daughters into slavery and buy a Prius. They need to spend more time working on minimalism and self realization and less time on things like material wealth. Material wealth is so, like uncool.

Or maybe, like, they could go, you know, off the grid, and grow some really good ganja, man. Live a clean life. You know, get up every morning around 11, aim the solar panels, pedal the generator a few times to stoke the sattellite hookup and  then just Wait For The Harvest.  Their parents would probably like, send them some big bags of M&Ms and stuff. They wouldn't HAVE to be the kind with personalized slogans, cause the regular kind are just as nutritious. I've heard about this guy who converted his old man's old Range Rover to run on like, old French Fry grease .  Totally cosmic, man. and his carbon footprint like went BACKWARDS.

OK, so here's 10 ways to go green:

1) Go to one of the stores that buy ad space in this publication and purchase some clothing that costs more to look worn out.

2) Buy organic dog treats.

 3) Pay the stores for reusable shopping bags. Never mind that you always leave them at home- the more you buy , the better you feel.

4)Only eat at fast food places with BROWN paper bags.

5) Recycle your newspapers.

6)Never ever drink coffee in a styrofoam cup.

7) Buy any product that says "green" in its marketing campaign.

8) Buy more stuff, so that companies that donate  a percentage of their profits to environmental causes will have more money to give away.

9) Never circle the block more than twice looking for a parking place outside the gym.

10) Bigger packages mean more cardboard to recycle. 

I had the honor to hear Thomas Friedmans ideas a few years ago when I attended a taping of Oprah.  a few months earlier I had read a review of his book & was very interested in hearing him expound on those thoughts.  I found him to be really well versed in the idea of how to help the earth & not be an overly Crazy Enviromental Freak t the same time. I still have to read the book (its on the list I Swear) Yet toady i am finding thathis idea has gotten lost in the shuffle & noone seems to want to pick it up & really give it a chance. Which is disheartening. 

Last year I started using nylon bag while grocery shopping I started out with 2 I know have the 2 nylon bags & 2 insulated bags that I always take grocery shopping with me I get 20 cents off my bill for doing so. But the Looks I get from the baggers are murderous.. I think they feel I'm a little to bossy, no plastic wahtsoever!!!! Frozen/Refrig goes into the Blue & the Yellow bags, the rest in the orange ones. anything else in paper, which is than recyled.

I did put this one my christmas list for this year also ~ I just fell in LOVE with it ~  http://www.fredflare.com/customer/product.php?productid=3816&cat=316 I've heard that the container store also has them.... See I'm trying, despite my carbon footprint that was left last weekend in Chicago, I think I can make up the difference in the next few months.      

I'm a bit jaded on this topic. But jade's derivative IS 'green,' so maybe there's hope for me. 

I spend a lot of time outdoors, too. I just tend to savor it more now, as I have seen how quickly it's changing for the worse.

Trask,

Very funny stuff. 

America is actually doing a lot already to 'go green'. I mean, we're building hybrid cars, using solar energy to heat our homes and produce electricity, putting up buildings with gardens on top to a) clean the air, b) reduce the effect of that mean noonday sun, c) filter water used in the building, and I'm sure there are some other great effects that I'm not thinking of because it's early - at least for me.

I mean, on the one hand, we've got sprawling forests, National Parks, plenty of places for environmentalists to get some footage of green areas in the United States; and yet, those same environmentalists, seeking change, can find plenty of places to film the devastation of economy and industry. Places in China indeed have certain little streams that pass through towns that are so polluted that trying to cross them will leave you with a painful rash on your legs, and any other part of you that you'd be stupid enough to dip in this sludge-water.

The United States has gone a lot farther than most other countries - probably due to both its affluence and its love of catastrophe. We're so obsessed with the next big thing that's going to happen to the world, we all jump on the bandwagon. We've had evidence both that we can and that we cannot fix global warming, but it's probably right to err on the safe side. The result is a complete change in culture - people are spending more to spend less - green is the new... whatever colour was cool before green - being environmentally friendly is now just as important as dressing nice or being well-groomed. Tell me that it wouldn't turn you off if on a date your potential swain tells you that they've got a huge carbon footprint. It's almost equivalent these days to saying that you kill baby seals in your free time.

Hey TOATD,

so you mean telling people I stomp baby seals with my huge carbon footprint won't work any more?

(In a more serious, but mildly curious tone, earnestly, really) How long has it been now that the baby seal thing has been notorious? Does anybody know if they are still doing it? Has the seal population been affected in any way by the universal disapproval? ( deadpan seriousness giving way to more snarkiness) what has happened to all of those baby seals that grew up? Or are they being ground up and secretly put into tofu?

Sorry, I recently watched Am Evening with Kevin Smith II ( Evening harder) and his approach is infectious.  The most incendiary thing I have ever heard was his idea of how to make a movie about Jesus, in whom KS pretty clearly believes.  But that doesn't stop him from, well, twisting things a little:

KS opines that the probelem with every movie about the Life of Jesus is that you know how it is going to end. So he says, get that part taken care of at the beginning- START with the crucifixion. And then most people will assume the movie will be one big flashback. BUT NO. As Our Lord is on the cross, in agony, suddenly two NINJAS appear. With grappeling hooks, they climb the cross and one of them pulls out a claw hammer. The son of God protests "I am supposed to die"

But the ninja ain't having any of it ( Think of DeNiro in BRAZIL) "NOT ON MY WATCH, BUDDY. Come on. Let's go home." and he throws the Saviour of Mankind over his shoulder and away they go, fighting the centurions as they retreat.

And Jesus spends the rest of his life as an accountant or something and  I guess God goes with Plan B for the Salvation of Mankind. Mr. Smith is strangely silent on this part, but he does acknowledge nobody much would fund his version. 

 Hey' it's raining here and it is just turning into One Of Those Days...

"Friedman disparages magazine articles that give householders 10 easy ways to go green." Why? What's wrong with personal responsibility and involvement? By encouraging consumers to "think green" doesn't that, in turn, bring an immediate everyday alertness to this issue? It makes it something we cannot ignore. Not only do these simple ideas make us feel empowered but I don't see anything wrong with the notion that says it's our problem to fix. It's not something that we can just blame on someone else. We have an obligation to make an effort to make the planet healthier, for ourselves and our children. Let it begin with us.

"...we need leaders not lightbulbs." Well, aren't leaders supported by the populace? If the people of our country are concerned about global warming, take personal pride in doing what they can do to contribute to the solution, and believe change to be essential, then I think they will choose leaders who also have environmental awareness...leaders to represent their interests and insist upon metamorphosis; set the example and challenge the world to follow. 

One good reason why being jaded doesn't mean you don't believe change is possible:

I live in Detroit. I work in Detroit. Most of you know, my paychecks are pretty closely tied to one of the Big Three. For decades people have tried to find a way to make Detroit more economical on gas and roads. Make it a 'commuter' city, with an El or a subway or better bus systems, etc. And nothing happened. Just politics and talk.

Then gas prices soared. And OH MY GOD DID YOU HEAR ANYONE TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE FOR MONTHS??? It was killing me. Not the prices. The talk. And I secretly thought, this had to happen. This is the only way people will change.

And within a month the copy of Ad Week on my desk had a cover story marveling over the overwhelming increase in small car sales. And the carpool lots were full. And soccer moms started  sharing rides. Go figure. How do we not get this about ourselves? 

People will change, but it has to personally benefit them, in the very near future, to do so. Period. Do I believe in selflessness and altruism? Yes. Sporadically. But people are survivors. And that often deals with immediacy. How can I survive now? How can I better put food on my table tonight? Do we worry and even care about the world a century from now? Yes, but immediacy trumps that. Doesn't it? And, to be more bold, shouldn't it?

So the tax incentive, fines, raising prices, etc. I think it has to happen there. Being optimistic about our 'love of the green earth' will never move people en masse. And that's alright. I still like people.

And the whole celebrity bandwagon for green? Puh-lease. So Jennifer Anniston says she now shuts the water off in the shower while she shaves her legs, and we should too.

That means that girls will turn the water off while they shave only when their new boyfriend is IN THE SHOWER with them, so that in this small way, she will appear more like Jennifer Anniston in his eyes. And as the girl tells her new boyfriend about Jennifer Anniston's movement, hoping that the transitive majic will take place and he will see her as more like J.A., he, in fact, will be picturing Jennifer Anniston shaving her legs. Who wouldn't? 

Trask,

Love Kevin Smith. Was very skeptical after Dogma. Actually walked out of it waiting for the lighting to strike. And then I saw Catch and Release, expected not much more than a chic flick, and fell in love with his writing. There's something about him.

Doesn't he say something in that movie about the ethics of catching and releasing fish? I'm guilty of that. It really got to me. So much so that the next fish I tried to release fell into my waders. Not good. For either of us.

Kindlee ~ You SEE the looks I get form the Cashiers & Baggers when I am using my bags. Sometimes it jsut not worht the judgement IMHO. I know its a personal thing, but there are more people in the world that are liek me, one cross look from a checker & I'm willingly to forgo the whole idea HEAVEN FORBID I PUT THEM OUT even though its their JOB.  So you get 5 people who try to do good by using nylon bags, & 4 quit after the 1st try because of the looks & sighs given by the employees.  What good has it REALLY done?  

If my date told me he had a huge carbon footprint, I'd be breathlessly waiting to see it.

MissIve, you're absolutely right!  Mankind must huddle together for warmth to survive and the fact that it warms someone else is just a bonus.

Anyhow, you all have good points...small changes to help but the really big ones help a lot more....give all those geniuses out there some major tax incentives and big things will happen quickly.  Thos Friedman was interviewed recently and one of his many points was...let's get Steve Jobs to take over one of the Big Three and we'd see efficient cars in a year.

"let's get Steve Jobs to take over one of the Big Three and we'd see efficient cars in a year."

Yet that makes me ask the ? of would I be able to afford one?

Rings,

If Steve Jobs makes ANYTHING, afford it. Just do it. I'm pretty frugal, but his stuff is WORTH it. And, it's pretty.

Shandonista,

"If my date told me he had a huge carbon footprint, I'd be breathlessly waiting to see it."

Bloody hilarious.  

OK, MissIve, I give up. You have beaten me.

I should never have brought a stick to a gun fight. Jennifer Anniston's shower habits...

But what's this "tax incentives" stuff?  Do you mean like taxing older cars more, so that the Poor People will pay for the well heeled to feel better about going green? Or just giving people with $25K to spend on a Prius a direct tax break, while the hoopty drivers continue to double the value of their vehicles every time they fill up? Is anybody wound up about fuel economy now, with gas under $2? How quickly we forget, eh?

Kindlee, I agree, people should do something, but my point ( and I believe Friedman's) is that ten little bullet points, carefully screened so as not to actually discourage people from buying More Stuff, is not going to save the world.  It's like all of the exercise and diet stuff. How best to lose weight? well, walk. and walk away from the food. But neither of those things feeds the economy (aka, patronizes the advertisers) so, instead, we get all manner of editorial cuteness and very little in the way of real help for the environment. I believe the phrase is "selling the sizzle".

But wouldn't it be cool if we turned LA into Amsterdam overnight? Think of all of those moguls aggressively ringing their bike bells at each other. 

Carbon credits? What is THIS? Well, it's a way for people who don't DO anything to sell something and to make people who don't have enough to worry about ( Look out, here  it comes: Mazloh again) feel better about not really doing anything.

PLEASE do not get me wrong. $10 gas would be great for this country. Whole states would see their obesity ratings plummet faster than a fat boy's sex drive, but what would we do with that (tax) money? I am willing to bet it would go first to those underpriveleged people far away in places like Dubai, and the rest would go to putting a dent in the Famous 750 Billion.    Thanks, I'd rather have a little guilt.

Just watch it with that razor, though. I'm naked in here.

I just finished browsing a catalogue for the 10th Anniversary of the LED (light emitting diode) 'Strategies in Light' conference February 18-20 in Santa Clara....

The technology promises to reduce energy use (think less coal burning plants releasing particulates, mercury, and other nasties into the air).  The downside is that lighting only accounts for 6.5 percent of world energy consumption. :-(  . And there's no mention in the conference topics relative to the finite amounts of gallium and other rare metals needed to fuel LEDs....

I often get the feeling the human race is out on what it thinks is the 10 meter diving platform getting ready for the plunge, and is discovering (after jumping) that the platform is actually at 100 meters...  I suspect I'll be gone before the divers hit the water, but it ain't going to be pretty when (probably in mid-air) the next generations discover they're in free fall way over their ability to cope with the inevitable outcome.

Still, humans made it through the Dark Ages, the Black Death, Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler, the Cold War (so far), and a bunch of other mass killers.  I can't help but thinking I should again read Miller's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'....

I have friends who live in Newfoundland and because the fishing industry basically died, their families are now into seal harvesting.  They do it legally and follow the rules to the letter.  They aren't out there clubbing baby seals, but there are poachers who are taking baby seals...and yet the people who are following the law are the ones getting protested and branded as baby killers. 

The protestors don't realise that the seals the legitimate fishermen take are overpopulated and are depleteing the already low fish count in the area, and that culling them is helping restore a more natural balance while providing these families with a way to make a living.

With the green issue I see a mass move to bash people over the head with what we should and shouldn't do...and a lot of the people doing the bashing are complete hypocrites when you look at their actual carbon footprints. 

I say do what you can, when you can, and try to leave the places you visit a little better than you found them.  Have a conscience, educate and encourage but don't vilify.  As a society, we live too far removed from the land.  Technology advanced so quickly that we were dazzled and that we forgot that we all depend on the earth for life.  I'm not saying that we all have to be Amish, but there is something to be said for living close to the land and being a steward of it.

One wrench in the works of fixing the environment is the explosive growth in the numbers of Evangelical Christians who truly believe we are entering the End of Days and see the planet as disposable and unimportant.  Their short-term worldview is a dangerous, and sad to say, growing one.  The book The Long Emergency by Kuntsler did a very fine job of documenting this danger.

I'm just realistic when I say, if we all went out and bought a hybrid car tomorrow and changed our light bulbs, we won't reverse the warming of the earth for a while. Maybe years... The earth will be hotter and sea levels will rise and species will die out. It's really terrible. But that’s just the realism talking. And I'm suppressing the cynicism.

 Personally, I could do a better job. But I'm not terrible. I don't eat animals products which includes animals from factory farms which produce a HUGE percent of methane gas in this world. And if you guys don't know, methane is so much more horrible than carbon dioxide when it come to global warming. So nobody fart, okay?

 I drive too, I know, yucky. I tried biking to work but the semi tractor trailers don't like dodging cyclists to get on and off the ramps. "I just don't know what their problem is." ha ha

I really believe that buying second hand junk, especially big stuff, from places like ReStore helps tremendously. Most of the world’s trash is construction. Just buildings being torn down instead of dissembled.

I don't know if buying recycled papers and stuff is the big difference. The more people, the more stuff. I just wish there was a more friendly way to promote the "green" initiative. Earth friendly that is. No t-shirts. Jeez. Just good-ol-fashioned helpin' out.

It deeply saddens me that many people don't care. That somehow an issue must directly affect a person's wallet before they consider change to be an option. 

The One at the Desk mentioned 'spending more to spend less.' If one has the resources to spend on newer more energy efficient products, that's fine. But, if as most of you seem to be saying, money is the real issue, then I don't understand why people won't do simple things to save themselves money. Drink tap water, instead of buying bottled. Why, oh why, burn leaves in the Fall only to use up gas and time and more money to run to the home improvement center to by mulch? Why not walk or bike whenever possible? 

I spend a great deal of time outdoors - hiking, orienteering, bird watching, scuba diving, photographing nature - and the most disheartening and disrespectful sight I encounter is trash. Everything from paper to tires. How hard is it to pick up and properly dispose of your trash? I'm not even talking about recycling. 

How do you teach people to care about their home?

OncDoc,

Are you saying it's all about people believing that the world is going to come to an end and I will perish anyway, so why bother?

Kindlee,

Exactly.  Kuntsler does a good examination of it in his book.  Leave the more urban centers of the US and that attitude of religious extremism skyrockets.

Kindlee ~ A Hybrid is priced too high for me to be able to pay it off. I try to do my part ~ Reusable Grocry Bags, having lunch at work, walking to the local Coffee Shop. Money in a way is the REAL issue I would LOVE a hybrid car, its just that at this point it would mean the car over my house. I can't afford a hybrid mortgage & my property taxes. I live in an area were you DO need a car, the public transportation system around here is non existant. which is something that I feel the U.S. REALLY could work on to cut down the junker cars & such that produce a lot of waste. Yet itn will never happen. 

So I do the litttle things, I can't afford all hemp, green clothing but I can afford to reuse, reduce & recycle at least in my own corner. Will it make a HUGE difference most likely not, but than again it may.    

I'm really not sure about the baby seal thing - I just remember in the movie 'The Eleventh Hour' - with Leo DiCaprio, remember? - right between I think a picture of a smokestack and a many with the curious name of Jerry Mander, there was a brief two-second clip of a man clubbing a baby seal. And the film looked pretty recent - none of that graininess or overexposed colour from the seventies and eighties. I'd say it happened in the past ten years.

The thing about all these little things that we can do - not spending money, like no bottled water, walking instead of using cars, paper bags, etc - is that for those things to have any effect, a whole lot of people need to be doing it. The world is an enormous place, and even if one out of every three people in the United States, say - 100 million people - really made a conscious effort to be more green, by doing all of those things above - like awesomelisa said, it'd really take a little while to do anything, if at all. There's six billion people out there, and the majority is doing very little to mitigate the problems that all of this industry is creating. It can't just be in the United States. It's gotta be everywhere - and people can't afford to do it everywhere - be it lacking funds or simply lacking means.

I'm in The Vegas. Fossil water, fossil fuels, and enough electricity consumption to shock a open star. And why are we here? My sweetie's surveying a new transmission corridor. MORE power. Plentyto chew on in this topic for the Eells Horde.

Hey, allow me to importune. I'd appreciate some input on the following idea: changing the spelling of my last name from Eells to Isles. Same pronunciation, same root word, looks way cooler. Thoughts?

an open star? Damned spellchecker. SHOCK A PORN STAR!!!

But not hopeless.. You sir! At the desk!

 Just slower than anyone would like.

Clubbing baby seals... eek. I've got an idea! What if we actually allowed nature to fix that over population? More artic predators, a food shortage, etc.

We've always got our hands err ... clubs in everything.

Of course! Nothing's hopeless, ever! Even one person swearing off plastic bags is putting us a just a little in the right direction. To quote Andrew Marvell - "Had we but world enough, and time..."

Although I think he was talking about something else. Something decidedly unglobal, but somewhat warmer.

Jonathon Eells,

Speaking for myself, go for it. If you already sound like a place where the surf casting would be great in a west wind until around eleven a.m., why not look like it as well.

"We absolutely killed the big stripers off the Jonathons."

Sounds great!

Jonathan Isles,

DO IT. And even if you do not, you will be Isles from here on out at PE. I declare it so.

Kindlee,

Don't let it deeply sadden you. Just go with it. Because it's true. Not that people don't care. And not even that most people don't have green impulses, but that they must ultimately look out for themselves, like Rings and the car budget.

Like Trask (and Friedman), I think the 'ten things' list (printed on high-gloss pages of high-volume magazines, that advertise very consumable goods) are not going to cut it. You have to press on people, and the wallet is great place to do it.

I'll go one step further. I think the 'ten things' are a hinderence to real change. Their a pacifier. A tiny endorphin rush to all. Yeah, I'm green. I shave my legs like Jennifer Anniston. 

I was reading about England's part in the slave trade a few years back. And about how small groups of abolitionists over there got involved. The ladies, apparently, stopped taking sugar in their tea. And then Wedgwood (china) got on board and produced a cameo with a black face on a white background to support the sugar strike, and, no doubt, turn a profit. And that's fine. I'm all about capitolism.

It's the LiveStrong bracelet of yesteryear. But these things are a bit dangerous, in my opinion, because they pacify our consciences (whilst keeping us up on the totally hip and cool, btw) and do little to change. They put a cog in real movement.

You have to read David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise. Good stuff.

Awesome Lisa,

Have printed a No Methane note to post on the senior writer's door. Hope he 'gets it.' 

Having just disembarked from my sturdy "Way -Back" machine from yesterdays trip back to 1957 so I could spend the night playing 500 Rummy with my family and what do I find?

The sky is burning, Jesus was saved by ninjas and is living in the witness protection program, Jenneifer what's-her-name stopped shaving her legs and taking showers, baseball players on steroids are clubbing baby seals and all the "Highway Do Not Litter Signs" noting fines up to $50 dollars are long gone.

See ya later dudes. I'm stocking up on Starbucks coffee and heading back to 1957 when it was still safe to take the bus to the beach and swim in Lake Michigan.

Oh wow, MissIve, that's severe pointage there.

If your senior writer doesn't get it, then let's hope he doesn't write fiction.

PeterLake!

Okay. Here's the thing. I am really bad at conservation. Soooooo bad. Very sorry.

And then last year I went up to Petoskey, the setting of my book and place I cherish deeply. Also a historic Hemingway haunt (btw). And I couldn't swim in Lake Michigan. The algae was so covering the bay. It was so gross. And I cried. I really did. I grew up swimming in that bay. HEMINGWAY fished in that fecking bay. And now this?!

So that got my arse in gear. It takes something personal, I think.

Larry David said the same thing. For him, it was his tuna sandwiches. Gotta keep the tuna clean.

It takes a lot for a cynic to admit that they care about anything. Gushing vulnerability is carefully avoided. But everyone has their breaking point.

That's optimistic, right? 

Awesome Lisa,

Oh, he writes fiction alright. I have to fact check his "quotes." Trust me, he's a regular Lewis Caroll.

Jabberwockies all over the place.

The good news is, according to his documents, THERE IS NOT CONNECTION BETWEEN AUTOMOBILES AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES.

So rest easy, all. This writer can make it all go away. 

Am being very disrespectful now. Must do penance. Will fact check his work for one straight hour. 

Clubbing seals has be outlawed for quite some time, they use high power rifles that kill the animals almost instantaneously.  White coats are not allowed to be taken by law and any footage that shows someone taking a baby or clubbing a seal is either footage of poachers or out of date.