"Civilization as we know it will have disappeared in 40 years. In any case, if the temperature increase continues according to the forecasts. There is still hope – but then we have to start now.” - Read more in The flame.
I believe the solution does not lie in an ascetic lifestyle and self-sustaining, but in creating an environmentally friendly energy source. The environmental energy company Climeon has a revolutionary invention in progress, which you can read about in issue 29-2012 of the magazine Filter. The invention is about enabling the evaporation of water already at very low temperatures. This revolutionizes how useful this energy creator can make solar power. Read more at Climeons website.
This is of course not the only invention. All states must spend huge sums of their GDP on researching a new source of energy. Then I think we need more solidarity as part of the solution to the climate threat. If there was an international social allowance, the citizens of poor countries would not have to have ten or twenty children as pension insurance.
Light (SOLAR), biogas, hydrogen, wind and water!
What do you mean?
Totally agree with you about alternative energy sources.
Just want to add that reproductive rights and women's right to education are also important parts. Of course, it is largely true that people in poor countries deliberately have many children as a kind of pension insurance. But the fact that extremely large litters of children are common in some places, especially where illiteracy is rampant, also has to do with both lack of knowledge about and lack of access to contraceptives.
Hinke Berggren often said that during the early 1900th century (when it was a fairly common strategy to have many children as pension insurance in Sweden as well) he repeatedly heard poor people ask "How do the rich avoid having so many children" ?
Lou: Agreed.
What do you say about the idea that technology is not enough? That we (in the rich countries) have to rethink our lifestyle?
Then there will be problems. Then we have to go back to a more archaic social system where the work was heavier. Then more violent social structures will be required to get people to go to work. In addition, such an old-fashioned system does not produce nearly as much food, so the food will not be enough for everyone.
I think it would be enough if we turned back the tape, say ten years, to overcome the overuse of the earth's resources. If you count on an average GDP of 3%, growth has increased by 35% in ten years. Is it reasonable? As I recall, we weren't living in caves with rammed earth floors in 2003? As far as I remember, we could also eat our fill.
Jokes aside, it's time for the left to get off the growth race. Otherwise, you are just playing along in the prevailing system error. Or what do you say?
If that was enough, that would be great. Agree with you: growth is a miserable misery.