I saw a speaker today that said we have to be honest and admit that we need zero population growth and zero economic growth if we are to survive on a finite planet. We need to have restraint and character (he is an older guy from a rural area). He also talked about the importance of perennial cropping systems. If we turned the majority of crops (corn, soy, grains etc) into perennials (and we can with smart breeding), then we would have something resembling sustainability.
Someone asked him, what about the seed companies?
Honestly, he said, they're not going to like this. Neither are the fertilizer, pesticide, mechanical, or other companies. Let's be honest. The only one who will benefit financially from this is the farmer, and the landbase. This means the end of capitalism, it can't go on.
So this seminar was quite different from the usual. No economist has the answer to the problem of a finite landbase, that I have heard (apart from New Agey--"believe in abundance, not scarcity" irresponsible crap). He said that if we are honest, we will admit that all the renewable fuels and efficiency in the world will not permit growth (this I have always believed). We would need that just to continue on.
Another thing I am hearing over and over is that biofuels are not the answer to anything, except on-farm fuel needs. As an alternative to petroleum, it is anti-human and anti-environment, and I can't believe that environmentalists have promoted it. It never quite made sense to me--just because it is extracted from something green, doesn't make it "green".
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The reason they've promoted it so heavily (even the MN Project which is down the hall from me has big signs still pushing for it) is because if you maintain the status quo of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, then it makes sense as far as pollution emitted goes. It makes NO sense when you take into account the sheer amount of food you have to destroy.
The problem is, I think, not so much one of appropriate fuel sources or "greener" cars and the like - it's simply that we've decided to live in a way that is decidedly unsustainable, and all our "fixes" are simply bandaids that maintain the status quo. People talk up hybrids and electric cars, and while I'm sure they will definitely help ameliorate some environmental problems, they will create a whole slew of new ones. At the core is our constant need to spread out, to build bigger, better things, and to never compromise on comfort, no matter what the cost.
Population size plays into this - you need more space for big families, you need big cars to shuttle them around, and you end up living in areas where you do not have walking access to stores and other people.
I don't think there's an easy solution; I think this is something that government can start to fix by helping subsidize alternatives and appropriately pricing the cost of driving through better taxation and disincentives. Will that happen? Probably not any time soon. Unless people become more educated about the issues and some people stand up and make sacrifices, it will never become an important issue.
I guess if you do what you can individually - bike or walk short distances instead of drive, purchase local and organic despite slightly higher costs, and consume a plant-based diet - hopefully you'll not only set a good example, but show that there's a demand for a set of policies that encourage that lifestyle.
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