Sustainability Isn't Sustainable
this is a duplicate post. However, on Earth Day, I wanted to remind everybody that it should be "Man Day"
is it a coincidence Earth Day is Lenin's birthday?
is it a coincidence Earth Day is Lenin's birthday?
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But isn't it just as incorrect to say it should mean lasting beyond the end of the universe when everything will disappear as a sea of entropy? The term (sensibly used) refers to processes within the possible timescales of human civilization.
Answer: Objectivism. Or a recycling Big Bang. Note that theory has yet to be tested.
You didn't notice?! /jk
:)
Trouble is...hot air left alone...cools off!
:)
Their STANDARD is an environment WITHOUT humans so any ideas they suggest need to be checked for CONTRADICTIONS.
YES!
But, seriously folks, the issue of sustainability is as pertinent as the puzzle that occupied Catholics for a hundred years, i:e: "How many angels can dance on t6he head of a pin." Sustainability in it's useable context works on practical situations such as: Will my new car sustain its ability to run well for twenty years or will its cost of maintenance out-weigh its practicability before that time?
total cost per month, including fuel (37 mile round-trip
commute) and oil and service and insurance::: 200
dollars per month. . whatta bargain! -- j
.
"As many as will fit."
And the Catholics couldn't figure that out over all those years? That's sad.
And, you're welcome, and Happy Birthday!
It took them around 100 years. And then, I think they gave up.
Of course in Washington, the question might be how many pin heads can dance like an angel?
So, here's to tap dancing pin heads, may they rot in hell.
Clever, since while I lived there I experienced two major ones and several little ones. In '67, me and my family were coming home from a mini vacation in Chicago. We heard there was rioting, but there was nothing like the feeling you get when you see tanks rumbling down the street near your home.
It was a hanging ornament with Chairman Mao's smiling face ion it.;
Would such a triggered memory be coincidental too?
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Now linked from my page at http://www.plusaf.com/homepagepix/__p...
Thank you!
of the blaze ... commented that we should seek to diminish
our risks on this planet which routinely tries to kill us
with storms and earthquakes and volcanoes. . it blew
Buck's mind! -- j
.
(really need emoji's here!)
.
:)
control-c copy, and then put them in a microsoft word
file which I call "new words." . then, I can copy them
back like I did above. -- j
π°β€π©ββΉβΌπ !
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does them beautifully. . nonMoochingArtist or some
such name ... great fun! -- j
.
People find new ways to meet people's wants and needs. Human ingenuity allows the amount of value to grow indefinitely without the the world growing.
The zero sum gain viewpoint is shot in the foot every time by one word...synergy. It's only found in economic models featuring heavily controlled central planning. An example of that is the 1973 gas shortage crisis and the natural substance induced dreams of Benita Pelosillyni.
I lived in NJ during the '73 gas crunch. I had a car that got about 12 mpg and I lived about 22 miles from work, so just finding enough gas to keep commuting was a challenge. Small-dollar pumping limits also hurt.
Then someone told me that if I drove about a gallon or two to the West, crossed from NJ into PA, stations there had plenty of gas.
I tried it once... fill-up with no questions asked, and the attendant asked if I needed any fluid checks under the hood. I smiled, thanked him, said no, thanks, and motored back to NJ.
The full tank with less worry was worth the cost of the voyage there and back.
THEN a rumor came out that there were flotillas of tankers moored off the NJ coast, just over the horizon, waiting for the gas prices to increase enough... Congressmonkeys were written to.
Nothing changed.
And then, one day, someone told me that, while PA had voted for the then-current President, NJ had gone the other way.
I pointed that out via snail-mail to my congressmonkey, President and local papers.
Y'know what? Within a matter of weeks after that, NJ SUDDENLY was allocated a LOT more crude to refine and the Gas Lines evaporated almost immediately after that.
Go figure.
Cheers!
Considering the NJ sea coast during the time of the 73 'gotcha' the lights from the anchored ships would be clearly visible but having worked on tankers a. where would they go and be what were the weather conditions a the time of the fuel shortage? Maybe the Great White Sharks were to blame?
And allegedly anchored (sea-anchored) far enough 'offshore' to be over the horizon, so no running lights would be visible from any shore...
There's a meme-answer for any such argument.
But for the gas shortage in NJ to end just weeks after I wrote my letter to my congressmonkey about the Presidential Vote difference was, well, at least a Wonderful Coincidence.
If Coincidences really exist.
Oh, and NJ had odd-even days as part of the program, too. I had a personalized plate, ALAN F, and was put in one of the odd/even categories as a result. It took them a while to figure that out, too.. :)
:D
All of the creatures have new generations being born, growing, and dying. The predation of species by parasites(smaller predators) and carnivores(larger predators) stopping the hypothetical growth potential(e.g...the flawed story of microbes growing in a Petri dish). AND ignoring the food availability in any single location.
If you are referring to the ECONOMIC realm, people find more effective ways of obtaining the items that they desire and these new tools replace older ones.
Developing alternative energy sources is the only solution for humankind to carry on living a modern lifestyle.
The universe won't last forever, so technically nothing is truly sustainable. If an energy resource lasts for as long as anatomically modern humans have existed, however, I'll call that sustainable.
If you don't have enough "clean" energy sources to rapidly produce more clean equipment, you have no choice but to use the "dirty" energy sources to produce their replacements until the balance shifts toward more available renewable resources.
There is no magic pixie dust to make these resources appear effortlessly, but proponents don't seem to be willing to comprehend that there are practical difficulties that have nothing to do with attitudes. The resource problem remains even if you disregard the economics issue of renewable energy being significantly more costly.
I guess we could study then by looking at whether alternatives are adopted more when oil prices are low or high. If you're right and higher prices paradoxically prevent development of alternatives, we will be in trouble as the supply curve for oil shifts as it gets harder to extract. Ordinarily when one things gets harder to get, the market encourages suppliers to introduce alternatives. You're saying it's the opposite in the case of energy.
The problem with the model that says the simple solution is to make fossil fuels ridiculously high in order to make the demand for renewables to increase is that the resulting rise in the cost of living would crash the economy. There's no demand when life is so expensive you can barely survive.
No pixie dust, no free lunch, no path to make renewable competitive until the technology improves significantly. Either live with what you've got and shift the resources to improving the technology, or focus on improving the efficiency of energy use in general so that high energy prices have less impact on the economy. Since the latter would require massive changes throughout society, the better game is to invest in improving the performance of renewables until they can really compete.
You have been talking about renewable energy, and I have been talking about alternative energy. I consider nuclear to be alternative energy, actually the best alternative. I also think there may be ways to capture the carbon (mostly CO[2]) after burning coal. I don't think coal will be getting harder to extract for many generations, so that's a possible alternative. I suspect oil will get harder to extract in my lifetime, but will stay at similar price range because of alternatives. I reject the claims (nothing you've said) that some people make that the oil will go on forever or its running out will lead to a disaster.
As you note, nuclear energy is a credible, reliable, safe energy source that is cheaper to implement than solar, wind, or geothermal energy at this time. Thorium reactors (though none have yet been put in service) promise an almost unlimited supply of future nuclear energy, since they breed new fuel.
I anticipate the wind power community will shift from the big horizontal axis turbines they now use to large farms of vertical axis turbines, even though the verticals are less efficient on a unit basis. I can place more verticals in a given space, they can handle a wider range of wind speeds for increased availability, and the generators are a t ground level, reducing maintenance cost and improving safety.
Solar technology is improving at a mind-numbing pace, primarily with a change to less expensive materials. That will be a game-breaker, but it's not here yet.
Spot on, Dr!
For a few years I've been puzzled as to why the big fan wind turbines all seemed to put the generators in what was the worst-possible location for installation, maintenance and upgrade-ability!
I actually pictured putting the "wind turbine" in the base with a vertical shaft and putting a large 'chimney' above it, ending with a horizontal-axis "funnel" which would use pressure differentials from 'front to back' to power the turbines.
Vertical blade wind farms sound like a better idea, and the packing density is one great justification!
More power to the people working towards that, so to speak!