I have a take on the proposed meeting and I would like to offer it to you first. Nothing is sustainable unless the population becomes fixed at a sustainable number. I do not believe that is possible without putting something in the water. So sustainability is a misnomer. What was easily sustainable forever in 1950, and what out infrastructure was built around, became unsustainable in the 60s. So it will go. Sustainability isn't sustainable..
Alternative energy sources will not become competitive in Hawaii or anywhere else, ever. There is no money to develop them and the fossil companies will never relinquish their monopoly. The fact that corn was chosen to provide ethanol is telling - corn is the least useful ethanol crop. 'Becoming competitive' requires competition. There are not now and will never be the jobs or money for alternative energy sources, so they will not be attempted.
I believe the sort of revolution we have to look forward to is going to be tinged with more red than blue. One billionaire, or a hundred, cannot educate people who live under the umbrella of superstition. Many religions are rabidly against trying to change the climate because it might delay their rapture.
I assure you that if it comes to that I will guarantee their timely meeting with their maker.
Other than that, we cannot 'do' anything about peak oil except realize that fossil fuel will be burned as long as there is a dollar to be made. The almost utter destruction of the Gulf of Mexico is evidence of that.
Following that as a given, we cannot slow the global warming event or the mass extinction event now in progress. I don't mean to say that everything will die off. Humans certainly won't. But I expect the earth to knock us back to a couple of billion people. Humanity will actually be BETTER for it...but the transition won't be pretty.
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Oh....the point.
Minor omission. The point is that we must preserve the body of knowledge we have insofar as possible. We needn't try to teach future generations that all life is intertwined - they won't listen. and they won't have easy access to vast untapped mineral resources. Most rare earth metals are available only in China. So most current technologies must depend on China.
The best we can hope for is a peaceful transition to a smaller civilization....one which will be unable to continue the wholesale destruction of the planet and the oceans. One which will be semi-agrarian for a few hundred years...one which may be able to find sustainable alternatives to the orgy of destruction we have wreaked upon the planet since ~1800.
And one in which the races will mix naturally and value each other as humans...not as color vs color or religion vs religion.
It could happen, Pat. If a severe enough extinction event mandates it. The human race could re-boot into a huge evolutionary jump.
We need to teach people how to live self-sufficiently in enclaves - not mega-cities. We need to teach them kindness, restraint, logical thought and individual responsibility. We need them to discipline their children and make them get an education - the best one possible - and to never stop learning. We need to inculcate in people that you reap what you sow and hard work is sometimes necessary. But so is defending your group. Talk doesn't work when the Vikings land.
We need to start people on the road to a brave new world. Our world is over, Pat. Earth cannot sustain a billion more people. You and I know it. But it's not a future of gloom and doom. It's a future of hope. And it is up to us to make it succeed. We can do it.
I would like to have posted this to the list(s) but it may be a bit maudlin.
a hui hou
T
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