The root cause

[ebacon]

Overpopulation. What a joke. Of course humans will point at others with indignation and proclaim that they are the problem.

The problem could never be, gasp, a banking system that creates money out of thin air and loans it to anyone who claims they can pay back with interest. It would be interesting to look at the population growth chart and time align it with changes in monetary policy.

IIRC scientists claim that the construction of clean municipal water supplies and sewers were the biggest drivers in population growth.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

I'm copyrighting my posts. Quote them at your peril.



He's the top ten enviromental problems according to some people:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0418075752.htm

All the result of overpopulation.

Pete

Take a look at the other 9 and the GOP is dead set against doing anything on any one of them:

Rounding out the top 10 issues on the ESF list are overconsumption, the need for more sustainable practices worldwide, the growing need for energy conservation, the need for humans to see themselves as part of the global ecosystem, overall carbon dioxide emissions, the need to develop ways to produce consumer products from renewable resources, and dwindling fresh water resources.

[piece-itpete]

I'm curious - how exactly do we fix those wonderful things?

A successful society will always overconsume, my take. Our power plants are pretty clean, but there's a great deal of opposition to nuke power (largely the left, 'no nukes')...

Then of course there's the rest of the world.

Pete

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

I'm curious - how exactly do we fix those wonderful things?

A successful society will always overconsume, my take. Our power plants are pretty clean, but there's a great deal of opposition to nuke power (largely the left, 'no nukes')...

Then of course there's the rest of the world.

Pete

Simple issues such as reusable beverage containers for beer, soft drinks and bottled water have been solved and have been fully accepted/implemented in Europe for decades, but are a complete non-starter here, mostly due to the political influence of the throwaway beverage container industry.

[ebacon]

It can't be fixed. We are addicted to machines. We will continue down this path until the earthball shakes us off like fleas.

Just last week our news said that the US is positioned for an "energy bonanza". WTF is that? Are we going to create jobs via Made in USA lawn fountains with fireballs?

Crazy.

[ebacon]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Simple issues such as reusable beverage containers for beer, soft drinks and bottled water have been solved and have been fully accepted/implemented in Europe for decades, but are a complete non-starter here, mostly due to the political influence of the throwaway beverage container industry.

Europeans also have community collection points that are withing walking distances of residences.

On the other hand Americans try to make recycleing convenient by giving each customer a recycling tub and then driving a seperate recycleing truck to each house to collect the tub contents. Then the industry says wah, it's too inefficient.

Everything in the US is a scam, I swear to God. I should even write about this stuff. I'll just blow a gasket about Uhmuricah's exceptionalism actually being near the bottom of the civilized world. Uhmuricans need to get out more.

[piece-itpete]

It's one thing to have a neighborhood collection point that you can walk to, but then you'd need neighborhoods where anything is in walking distance.

The little town in England I'm familiar with is like that. But even they are starting to spread out (over their teeny country ). Like there is now a supermarket on the outskirts of town, etc.

We're much much too exceptional to live in those smallish damp houses with freezing bathrooms

Pete

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

We're much much too exceptional to live in those smallish damp houses with freezing bathrooms ....

Pete

... and Cornish pasties to eat. Yuck.

[ebacon]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

It's one thing to have a neighborhood collection point that you can walk to, but then you'd need neighborhoods where anything is in walking distance.

The little town in England I'm familiar with is like that. But even they are starting to spread out (over their teeny country ). Like there is now a supermarket on the outskirts of town, etc.

We're much much too exceptional to live in those smallish damp houses with freezing bathrooms

Pete

The old damp joints can be remodeled. My cousin redid the old German farm house he inherited from his parents. He said when he first moved in the drafts were so bad that he had to shovel snow out of the attic and his bath water only stayed warm for about five minutes.

Now his place is gorgeous but of course he has a lot of sweat equity in it.

Germany is also becoming more like America and it sucks balls. My uncle's apartment building got egged on Halloween and it made the newspaper. It was the first time such a thing had happened in town memory. My uncle is in charge of building maintenace and said something sad as he pointed out the egg stains to me. He said, "Die Amis hab uns nichts schiedts gegeben", meaning "The American's didn't give us anything nice." He was referring to American soldiers that were pulling out of Germany a few years ago and how they introduced Halloween to the Bavarian culture.

[piece-itpete]

I thought Bavarians were rough? Do I have the wrong part of Germany?

In England it seems there's rules. For instance, all beds must have damp lumpy mattressess, high up, with a hump in the middle so you roll off, splitting your cold head.

Pete