i'd like to see some top 3 lists of changes that would 'save the world.' my list is: 1. widespread hemp cropping for fuel, food, and fiber 2. end of commercial beef industry sorry, McPeople... 3. increased power to public civil engineering to eventually have efficient, urban-village-type cities, minimizing commuter traffic and saving agricultural and unharnessed land those are all pretty tangiblie changes...does anyone think abstract changes like non-growth-based ratings of economic success would help more?
I'll give it a shot... Well, dude, everything keeps getting more and more expensive. I realize it's because of all the shit that's happening, but still... The gov't has to keep raising minimum wage because people can't keep up with the financial pace of the now. How big of a dent would mass harvesting hemp make, anyways? Anyways, here's my list. 1. Burn down the gas companies. 2. Cut down the powerlines. 3. Wipe out the entire human race. That should do it...
Save the environment yes - saving humanity from itself no. Nothing short of a heart transplant for everyone on earth before anything can change. Whats hilarious is that we actually believe some new ideology, inventions or social planning will stop people from taking advantage of others. It wont. If the 'good people' were to start whole-sale elimination of the worst people -we might have a shot. But then again.. the 'good people' would just become users like them anyway. Ugh.. what a world!
--- you do not appear to be familiar with cultures other then your own, immagining it, erroniously to be some sort of natural order of things which it is not. sure everyone isn't going to wake up one day and decide to become altruistic saints. even if doing so were the only way the could survive. many would rather and will go to their graves when the oil runs out, then make let alone see the connection. -- but individuals don't have to any more then we can be universaly expected to. that is what cultural values and ways of life are all about. and there are no good or bad people anyway, only good and bad, i.e. bennificail vs harmful policies and things that people do. -- you're absolute right that any sort of mechanical innovation nor substituting one ideology (or belief fro that matter) for another is going to somehow magicly save us from ourselves. but neither is the picture entirely as dismal as that might seem to paint it. sustainable cultures have existed, and everything you are familiar with is just as ephemeral as everything that came before. and that includes the notion that we are collectively fated to destroy our selves and our world, within our own individual lifetimes, or that the destructiveness of aggressive thoughtlessness is somehow our inheirent nature
1. Colonize other planets, moons, or asteroids- over population of the earth is a pretty serious problem. We need more room and fast. the only 3 choices are wipre out massive amounts of humans, destroy the earth to make more room, or get up and go else where. 2. find an oil alternative- this would require a major breakthrough, maybe power cars with old garbage like in 'back to the future' 3. go back to the middle ages- everything would be so clean and fresh, plus it would be wicked badass to weild a sword.
And I want to be saved from a dragon!! I really think hemp could save the world, it's just totally stigmatized by the gov......my mom thinks I'm a huge druggie pothead person just because I use hemp paper and fabrics and other stuff ....I only smoke like once a month!
1. Investment in alternative energy sources 2. Massive decrease in materialistic consumption (BAD WALMART BAD!) 3. A shift toward more frugal, natural, ORGANIC food. (less consumption of crappy, over processed chemical laced packaged food)
1-lowering human firtility accross the board would certainly be number one, as every other challange is multiplied by human population being somewhere arround 20 times optimal. lowering fertility will be more SUSTAINABLY effective then more draconic measures, even if the effects won't be immedieate, the point is they can be permenant. - 2-stop worshiping the automobile as primarly means of transportation. we don't need to throw our comfort zone out with the bath water and mobility will actualy be improved for those not currently allowed to drive, (by replacing the automobile with more sustainable forms of mechanical transportation infrastructure) and many who drive now who shouldn't be won't have to. - 3-drasticly reduce consumption of forrest products, particularly the use of lumber in construction. (habitat loss due to deforsestation, clear cutting and road building is the primary cause of the loss of sustainablity preserving species diversity) -- 4-stop using combustion as a premary source of generating electrical energy. (in combination with automobile worship this is the most likely source of drastic unnatural climitological effects) 5-respecting and recognizing the sacredness of our nonhuman neighbors and the land itself can and will likely contribute positively to all of the above and to bringing them about. -- -large families, automobiles, and wooden houses are and represent the three largest culprits, the underlying perspectives and priorities are of course the source of their being so. once upon a time, when there were a lot fewer of us, we could perhapse have afforded all three, but that is not the current situation. the circular logic of little green pieces of paper is also a large part of the problem as it does nothing to encourage the exercize of good sense while at the same time making it that much easier to deceive ourselves about failing to. and yes we also need to stop romantacizing and rewarding at least the more gratuitous forms of aggressiveness, such as that of thoughtlessness
There is no over-population problem, but there is a problem with the 'way' we are taking up space. massive sprawling areas like British Comlumbia's Lower Mainland are a perfect (notorious) example of how cities built in the 'car' generations are ruining nature and hogging space. Brittain is an excellent example of space conservation. If you are going to have a city.. then put ALL your city business IN that space - then leave rural to be ONLY rural. dont sprawl a gas station.. then a bunch of parking lots... then some nature .. then slap more sprawling truck stops ..etc. Same goes for the 'Way' we feed ourselves and use up agricultural land. we could make do it a lot better. Feeding ourselves with more vegetables and less meat would conserve a lot of space. We could easily sustain twice the population of Earth and eat better while actually having MORE 'free natural lands' if only we put effort and thought into the planning. Instead.. billions of dollars and thousands of our most brilliant scientists and minds are spent shooting 6 people into space to 'study wheat'. Oh. Thmnax... Im familiar with other cultures both here and historically - and that is exactly the reason I think the problem is peoples hearts and minds - NOT a social system or material means. 'On Paper' Communism should have worked perfectly. 'On Paper' Capitalist Democracy should work 'perfect'. Its people that screw it up.. every single time.
i like the middle ages idea...def. yeah, perhaps inventions and tangible developments won't make the world perfect, but they might give us a little more time before the hole is too deep to crawl out of, so to speak...
1. Tell George Bush and the Senate to implement some kind of polution reducing strategy like the rest of the western world. 2. Give more money to research scientists period. 3. A drastic overhaul of poverty verses wealth, redistribution of wealth. All completely obtainable goals that could be implemented tomorow if the powers that be were willing. 1. Worldwide polution reduction strategies would include reduction in emissions, research of cleaners fuels and reduction in non-biodegradable products and the subsequent waste associated with such products - leads onto number 2. America currently has no such strategy (as far as I am aware) yet produces around 24% of the worlds greenhouse gases. 2. More money for research into food production, cleaner fuel and power, better/cheaper healthcare, production on every level using environmentaly friendly and sustainable materials. 3. In western countries - reduction in the wage gap, re-introduction or introduction (where non-existant or lacking) of state healthcare and welfare for all, major overhaul of salaries and how employment roles are graded. In developing countries - abolishment of third world debt, more western money budgeted towards long term development of poorer countries including education, healthcare, infrastructure, food production, buisiness investment, utilities. 1 and 2 might happen, 3 never will
1) total rehabilitation to nature which leads to decrease in population boom, finally allowing a plateau and equilibrium of the human population 2) to allow this, a total destablishment of current ideals, religion and exchange of ideas accomplished through the destruction of modern banking 3) the first two are hard enough, three is an end, not a means. Cheers.
We'd have to take it slowly. I believe in this area, everything links up eg. if we decriminalised cannabis globally, industrial hemp (and the spicier stuff ) could be grown in developing countries (places with desertification spreading, cannabis counters it through being quite hardy) so poorer people benefit from having the most varied resource on the planet growing around them, helping to make their ecology and their economy better. This would help in the fight against global warming by; having more plants processing the air (simple), and through the clean and cheap fuel that can be created through hemp fibres, let alone all the other uses that hemp can be substituted for, instead of mass-manufactured - which often means pollutantly-manufactured-and-inferior-quality-makes-big$$$-for-bigbusiness. So um...my point being....it has to be done with a LARGE amount of people in the world realising the shit we're in, and actually wanting to do something about it. pritamNAMASTE The Three i see is:::: (1) Love (2) Unity (3) and a new out look for the enviroment I'd have to agree with this one more than any others.
