Environmentalism v Industrialism

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Well, the debate keeps going on and on. Which do you think should be given more priority? Industrial development, or environmental issues? People keep moaning on about climate change, but will stopping all the emissions really make that much of a difference to the climate? We should take care of nature and the ecosystem, and we can stop most of the pollution from toxic chemicals, and we must. I believe that industry should be allowed to progress, but should be regulated more to ensure that it doesn't release any harmful chemicals into the environment.

Carbon Dioxide isn't exactly harmful to us as humans directly in the way it's being released into the air, but can reduced emissions actually make a difference?

One thing that really gets on my nerves is how stupid people are about it. The most extreme fanatic environmentalists have been known to verge on terrorism in the way they try to intimidate people into going "green". The problem is, they put the environment before harmless industrial progress. And when nuclear power is proposed, people go all apelike about it, even when it's safe and harmless, the waste stored in solid glass containers which won't degrade.

Discuss.

Personally, I think we'd be better off without modern day conveniences, such as electricity and combustion engines. But civilized nations have gone too far and are now dependant on these. We have good science and technology compared to the 1800's and medical technology has advanced beyond Greek philosophy finally, but I think it would be better if we were less wasteful of resources.

All energy comes directly or indirectly from the sun. If we are using more wattage than the sun gives, than all we're doing is using up stored energy and that wont last very long. Maybe a couple hundred years more, but if we haven't slowed down by then people will be in for a very rapid transition when the reserves run out. Not just gasoline, but coal, uranium, wood, all stored energy sources. We are just so wasteful and inefficient.

For thousands of years man has lived a life closer to nature and far more efficient in its use of energy. When the resources run out mankind will be forced to return to this and the one who are dependant on their wastefulness will die.

Perhaps medical facilities should have solar power and batteries, but with how efficient solar panels are you'd need to cover the planet with them for everyone to be able to waste energy like they do now. People should learn to be self-sufficient, live off the land, and work with animals again. Keep science and math, but technology should be less wasteful in its use of energy.

The real problem isn't this OR that, one versus the other, etc. The problem is all factors of all sides of a problem should be included in a decision, or as close as we can get. Before computers, people had to pre-edit the decision process by dropping points they thought were relatively unimportant. Turns out some of those point were more important than people thought. With computers, a decision matrix of several thousand variables can be built and guided to the optimal solution. If more variables are discovered, add them and rerun the software.

Now, if only people were willing to do the inconvenient efforts. If only politicians weren't afraid of losing their jobs over the correct, but unpopular, decision.

Two words can describe the whole situation - Greed and Laziness. Greed, because politicians, some environmentalists and rich companies are only in it to make as much money as they can, and they don't really care about how they get it; and Laziness, because people, politicians in general, can't or won't make the hard decisions when it comes to trying to make a difference. As you said, no-one wants to do things like nuclear power, desalination, alternate fuel sources because they either think it's too hard or they can't be bothered putting in the cost and effort to get them up and running.

I think we'd be happier if we all read books, drank tea, went to operas, and rode around on horses and carriages.

I would lean more towards industry with protection of the environment being as occasionally necessary. Personally, I think that any radical idea of removing industry is a bad idea as I see it as undervaluing our economic successes.

I would lean more towards environment because we are monkeys and we aren't going to be happy living in the concrete jungle.

I think if we just planted more freakin' trees it would help the CO2 problem. As long as we have the foliage to absorb it and turn it into oxygen for us, we're good .

It's a false dichotomy. While you can choose the environment at the expense of industry, you can't really choose industry at the expense of the environment. In a free market the environment gets protected through social pressure: wealthier = healthier.

Plus, the modern environmentalist movement is clearly trying to reduce industrialiation regardless of what it does to the environment, because they're unwilling to discuss large-scale industrial solutions to supposed environmental problems (like a solar shiled to cool the earth, or massive carbon dioxide scrubbers to remove CO2 from the atmosphere - even assuming global warming science is right, which is by no means certain).

Abandoning modern conveniences would involve dramatically reducing world population and lifespan. Plus, it would be unenforceable; someone else would just invent new modernity.

The solution is to give people the power to make decisions regarding the environment in a way that allows them to act selfishly when they do it. All people are going to act selfishly all the time anyway, so by adding the appropriate incentives that selfish behaviour can benefit everyone.

And this all ignores the question of what the environment is and whether it even needs protecting. It's still the environment if we change it, and we're pretty god at adapting to change.

The market is not free and unlikely to become so before we all die. Also wealthier=healthier only if you think healthier=wealthier. Judging by the mental state of most monkeys on the planet, we have a major problem.

Yaye ! !

I heard the planet can support 2 Billion, let' say that it's 4 Billion (why not !) ... we still need to lose weight. It's a bit of a bugger but hey .... that's life.

Hey I am pretty good at adapting to change like when Tesco's runs out of Ben&Jerry's I can always go to the Co-op.

And with the planet it's exactly the same thing ! !

That depends on what one calls free, the current system is not entirely free of course, but Sylvius would probably call for making it much freer. Also, health does correlate with wealth as medicine and other things do reduce the damage of illness. The mental state is a greater issue in all honesty, I wouldn't call past people to necessarily be sane either but too many cultural factors are present in sanity judgments.


Well, technically, the matter here is one of assumptions. The planet is supporting more than those numbers, and the question is sustainability which relies on some assumptions that could be unrealistic. The fact of the matter is that we could theoretically expand until we are the only consumers and eat plants grown in massive farms, the environment as we know it would die in that kind of world and it might be somewhat unrealistic, but that is probably the real limitation.

No, actually, I think he was thinking that if your Ben&Jerry's becomes too expensive due to changes in available resources then you can switch to Bluebell, and that humanity will adapt along the lines of self-preservation and desire.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 28 Aug 2007, 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, that depends on individual preferences and desires. Some people love the city. Part of the issue is one of the optimal amount of parks and other natural reserves.

AG : well I suppose we could all live matrix style in vats and have nutrient chemicals pumped in intravenously. Would you be happy with this ?

I wouldn't, I think we need to live as naturally as possible. Adaptation - is BS, it's only 100 years since the industrial revolution and we are not adapting, we are just suffering. Yeah we would still be alive in the matrix vats but I wouldn't call it living.

Hmm.... I think it would have some flawed aspects to it.... it is hard to say really. I mean, is there anything technically wrong with the matrix vat? Probably not, I might simply be untrusting of the power structures involved.

You mean we were overly joyful before the industrial revolution? I don't think that we are suffering, I think the real matter is the human condition rather than physical structures. I think that there is no utopia because anything that can be utopic would require losses we would not want to bear. Why not call it living? We would be physically alive, we would interact with people, we would learn, we could love, we might even be in the vats already and not know about it.

Of course not ! How could anyone be happy before the PS2 came out.

Which is ... what ? Do you mean something that we can't change ? I am only interested in talking about things we can change. Many of your posts point towards some kind of hopeless nihilism ... what is the point of them ?

The Vats ? You seem to be 50/50 on them ! Go ahead then become a heroin junkie, goodbye.

Easily, they could be happy afterwards as well.
The human condition? Yes, I mean something that we cannot change and knowing the limits of what is tangible and what our problems are is an important part of thinking about that which we can. Why not nihilism? What is the point of yours, or anyone else's post? To take up space? To tell some people in the world that we still exist? To spout out our sputtering thoughts before they shrivel and die within us? I suppose I don't know.

Yes, I am somewhat 50/50. A heroin junkie? Why? Heroin costs money.