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Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
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so it's good to throw Tsampa into the air. now, anybody know a good vegetarian tandoori recipe?
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marky
climber
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nick d said it well
we don't need another bumper sticker; we do need one less bumper
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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OK Karl, you win. There is no point in conserving anything. We should just live as wastefully, in as totally self absorbed a fashion as possible. Happy?
Michael
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John Moosie
climber
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Nick d/Michael,
I don't think karl means that each of us shouldn't do our part. I think what he means is that when speaking globally, if you do everything correct and the rest of the world does everything wrong, then the world is hosed. Karmically you will be okay, but the world will be toast.
So to just focus on ourselves is to forget that we are all one and that we are our brothers keeper.
I personally think it is okay to have technology. It is okay to have automobiles. It is okay to have bicycles. It is okay to have computers. What is not okay is to abuse these gifts. We must find balance in everything we do. This mean living sustainably.
Every we starts with me.
HossJulia,
"We stand for what we stand on." B. Abzug is from Monkey Wrench Gang.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Michael, just because there are no easy answers doesn't mean you have to feel judged nor suggest that I am advocating being wasteful and self-absorbed. I'm just pointing out facts that have a bearing on our reality and situation.
Folks like to live in denial. We don't want to face reality. It's liberating to look squarely at our situation and see where the most effective points to apply leverage are.
The world will run out of oil someday and will be in deep trouble long before oil runs out. There is no assurance we will cope effectively with a transition to lesser and alternative power before that happens. We'll just have do the best we can and advocate and practice the most effective and efficient policies to help make the transition sooner than later worldwide.
We are all going to die someday as well, and most of us will feel damn old long before we're dead. We can give up climbing and recreating to make more money to save money for our retirement years but there is no assurance we'll be in any shape to benefit from that sacrifice. Better think of all the different approaches to life now and in the future to make the wisest choice.
Luck (or karma) will factor into each scenario.
Some neocons suggest war over resources will be inevitable.
Some peacemakers suggest that unless humans wake up and renounce war and work together for human survival, we're hosed.
For me, I have my own approach and I support any effort you make, even if in the end, the energy turns out to be misdirected. Intention counts for a lot in my experience. Still, we shouldn't make an ego trip out of the purity of our lifestyles, cause everything has unintended consequences.
Jevon's paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/the_dieoff_QA/message/5324
Peace
Karl
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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John, one of my original points, (now seemingly lost in the mist!) was that our ultimate goal must be to control world population. What Karl said that kind of bummed me out was he has seen plenty of people who were happy to have none of the modern world. To my way of looking at things, that is simply not true. The more people who live primitively see of the modern world, the more they want of it. Who is Karl or any one of us, with all the trappings of technology to deny them to anyone else? It is delusional to be an adventure tourist jet-setting around the world, living for its recreational possibilities, and at the same time assert somebody else can get by just fine without a refrigerator. People the world over deserve, and will insist on getting, the same high standard of living we all take for granted. The only way that is possible is a lot fewer people. I definitely think we should all live as simply as possible to minimize our impact, I point out my driving habits as my part. But...I have rock climbed since I was in grade school, I love it, as I am sure the great majority of posters here do. It requires a huge industrial infrastructure to make what all the erstwhile "dirtbags" do possible. Just think what it takes to have produced 1 nylon rope. We must all be aware of the true costs of our recreational activities and live as awarely as possible. But in the end, only a finite number of us can live in the world and leave it in a liveable condition for the next generation.
Michael Smith
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MikeL
climber
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(Impressive thoughts. There is not a single lame post here. This is what a thread can look like.)
Hooter found one nexus: what is "the good?" It seems connected to how to achieve the good in a social world that is overwhelmingly materially oriented.
Here are a few old thoughts about what The Good is.
** order, prosperity, and peace
** whatever reason and science expose
** liberty and the pursuit of property
** love, hope, charity
** self-interested rational labor to create future benefit
** reciprocity and self-interest to create social justice
** "enlightened self-interest" that is Not hostile to the common good
** enjoyment of primitive feelings: the characterisics of a "noble savage"
** faith and religious experience
** whatever art, creativity, and freedom create
** whatever one's family, culture, and nation say
** happiness in this life
** happiness and freedom from pain and suffering across all of one's lifetimes
** orientations to others than to self
EDIT: My point is that a choice of one or some means conflicts with others.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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I just watched Who Killed the Electric Car last night. According to Ed Begley "John 'Stumpy' Pepys" electric cars would meet the needs of about 90% of us. My family could certainly use 1 for our commuter car. Even with coal burning plants producing the electricity it's less impact than gas. And there's huge reserves of coal, not to mention nukes. So I'm less worried about peak oil.
Interesting segment where they talk about limited demand for the electric car, and then talk about how GM bought Hummer because they knew enough morons would want one.
I wonder about these guys who are smart enough to lead GM, the oil industry, etc. but aren't wise enough to see beyond short term profits.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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"What Karl said that kind of bummed me out was he has seen plenty of people who were happy to have none of the modern world. To my way of looking at things, that is simply not true. The more people who live primitively see of the modern world, the more they want of it. Who is Karl or any one of us, with all the trappings of technology to deny them to anyone else?"
I'm not talking about denying anyone anything. I'm just stating the fact that people are just as happy with less. Guess what, rich people still want more. These third world folks, some of them, may see western movies and want more, but it's an illusion that they'll be happier. I've hung, in their caves and shanty's and mansions, with both ends of the socio-economic spectrum and the rich ain't happier. The same goes for the guys who used to live in vans between Josh and Yosemite back in the day. Are you happier now because you live richer or is it just the wisdom of age?
Anyway, it's not that these guys are going to be denied progress, its that your grandkids are going to be living more like the poor. Population growth control worldwide might delay or prevent this but who has a realistic idea of how to implement that? Speak up, don't just say we should without a plan cause everybody knows it. The devil is in the details of controlling the familie of cultures that value, even need, kids. How will you deny them their kids Michael?
Fet, you are not correct about the supply of nukes and coal, even a generation or two out. (We'll make it I suppose) Read the first two pages of
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Which is well documented with link and tell me what we're going to do. Really, if you ever read any link i post, it's this one. Not perfect but you should be able to think critically but not unrealistically about it and see what the issues really are.
Peace
Karl
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Interesting stuff, peak oil. I've read a few viewpoints on where we are heading and no one really knows. We will run out of oil at some point, but I remember my brother telling me in about 1980 that we'd run out and I wouldn't be able to drive a car when I got my liscense in 1984.
One thing is for sure, if we had spent the Iraq war money on alternative energy instead we'd be setting ourselves up for a soft catch, instead we just delay the inevitable. But I wouldn't expect anything better from Bushco.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Just a nudge so the thread doesn't run out of gas
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Sorry for the tardy post Karl. I've got the working mans blues during the day. How would I deny people their kids? Personally, my choice would be economic disincentive. Tax you for the kids you have, and reward those who don't have any. Yes, it would have to be a world-wide effort. And the money produced would have to directly benefit those taxed. People who lived in the desert could be delivered fresh water through desalinization, for instance. I am not talking about the Americization of other cultures, but instead giving them better quality of life. When you say people can be happy with less, I have to answer that with this: Why aren't you? As you sit surrounded by toys that are the result of mining, chemical plants, drilling , deforestation, etc...it seems to me that if you think all that stuff is the inevitable end of the world, why not give it up? I already know the answer, because all those toys are just too much fun! You cited guys living in their vans outside the valley as proof that we can be happy with less, but the truth is guys like that don't actually have less. Even the most hardened dirtbag climber types I've known over the years had a pretty good arsenal of toys. Just take 1 climbing rope as an example. First, oil had to be found by exploration and then extracted from the ground. Then transported by pipeline, truck or railroad to a refinery. I grew up in oilfield country so I know what they are like, (very bad!), and refineries dont exist in a vacuum. They must be supported by a whole host of other chemical plants. Finally we have all the raw materials to make the plastic we need. The knowledge of how to do so has been gleaned from chemists all over the world, each having an impact on it. Now we can weave it into a useable final product with giant machines, themselves the final product of mining and refining, etc... and put that into the distribution network. Once again into a truck or a railcar or an airplane to finally wind up in our hot little hands. Those guys living in the van might not have had the fanciest spread, but they were taking full advantage of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, all run by industrialists that hammered the earth as hard as they could to make a profit. So...before you try to hammer me as self righteous, see me accurately first. I am very clear on the impact I have by living and consuming and recreating. I am also crystal clear on the idea that it would be beyond disingenuous of me to deny any others the same pleasures I have found climbing, bike riding, walking the woods, even driving my auto and using my computer. When those who don't have the same toys see em, they want em. That is a fact. The only way to keep our world livable and the majority of it's citizens happy is to have a much smaller population. You asked me how I could deny people their children, I ask you how you can deny all the worlds children the fruits of our labors?
Michael
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Hi Michael
Be sure not to take this discussion personally, I admire your intentions and actions and am not slamming you. Still, we get wiser by bringing everything into question. Do apparent good deeds go bad? I've seen a lot of it.
"When you say people can be happy with less, I have to answer that with this: Why aren't you?" I certainly am. I got nearly straight As at Berkeley and am capable practically as well. Instead of going for wealth and prosperity, I live in Yosemite. It's wrong to say the ones living in vans aren't giving up society's luxuries compared with the wealthy.
A yogi living in a 10x7 foot hut in the Himalayas told me the story of Alexander the Great visiting a nobable saint when he was in India. He paid the saint the respect of staying the night in his humble hut while the massive army camped away.
The saint welcomed Alexander and said, "Whatever you need, let me know, I'll take care of it." Alexander laughed and said "I'm king of the world and have everything, what could a poor man like you supply me with?" The saint replied "I said "Whatever you need" We have this roof over our heads, there is food on the stove and water in the corner. What more can you need?"
I like your solution and would support it but you are missing a step. Who convinces the countries with high populations to implement this plan? Our western world already has a low population growth rate outside of immigration so we're not giving up much. How do we get this country to pressure other countries for radical change when we won't even go along with the whole world on the minor change of the Kyoto protocols?
I can read you posts cause I'm really focusing but you'll find folks read better if you make line breaks for your paragraphs.
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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Yep yep Karl
That's it, the yogi said everything you need is right here.
In this age of Kali Yuga these rascals will have to eat nuts and bolts due to their so called advanced technological puffed up superiority.
Actually they are already there in their advanced tasteless lifeless crap of food from their so called modern agriculture.
All sh'it ........
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WBraun
climber
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Hahahaha LOL Crowley
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Sorry for the run-on paragraphs Karl!
You may be living with less than if you lived in the Awahnee, but my point is that you aren't really living without the trillions of dollars of infrastructure I described, Neither am I, nor is any one of us. If you were doing so, suffice to say you would not be communicating with me via the internet. Same for Werner. You didn't grow the rubber on those climbing shoes yourself, did you?
Countries with huge populations, India and China are the most obvious examples. Well, China already sees the light don't they? They see it because they are a country with a social system geared to central planning. I'm not saying they are going about it the right way, but they have clearly seen the consequences of unlimited growth.
India wants things from the rest of the world. Bushco just gave them a free ride on nuclear technology, no non-proliferation agreement, no controls. Its opportunities like that the rest of the world has to leverage. We had what they wanted and if we had any leadership at all that could have resulted in policy gains. Hopefully things will be different when the US returns to a legitimately elected government. I know, that is just wishful thinking. But the central premise of my argument is that people the world over wish for better.
Michael
ps I know that WVB is secretly in love with....SPAM!
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WBraun
climber
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Yes nick you are correct. people the world over are searching for the "better".
The modern leaders unfortunately are giving them the worst due to poor fund of knowledge of the whole.
Yes, and you are correct. When I first came to Yosemite in 1970 I ate spam.
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Werner,
10-4 on how bad our world leaders are. Also, just teasing, for I know you are now a "vegetable"!
I think that people everwhere are by and large good, it is the few bad apples that are, unfortunately, in charge. I hope for change.
Michael
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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It's true that China is one place that actually had the will to impose population control and it's seems they did so in as benign a way as possible in order to get the scale of result that they got. The consequences were certainly mixed as the culture scrambled to ditch their female babies (a lot of western folks got adopt chinese girls but there is going to be a serious shortage of females for Chinese guys soon)
India also offered radios to guys to get vascetomies and even kidnapped guys to snip em at one point.
I was just in India, they have better Cell Coverage than where I live and lots of folks who are really poor by our standards are on the internet regularly.
I hear Russia is actually promoting having kids at this point.
but again, the point isn't about denying the developing world anything. What they will be denied will come naturally as resources and the world economy struggle with the consequences of unsustainable growth being halted by oil depletion.
If the world can wake up and scale back on it's population benignly and in a timely fashion that would be fantastic. I don't see a mechanism for reaching that consensus which is short of response to deep crisis and that's what leads me to remind us that we can be happy with less...
.... because many of us, probably decades from now WILL have to make due with less. (but it happen sooner or later than we think).
It's not so easy to predict what a post-carbon world would look like. I imagine we would still have lots of broadband net and communications and that that would help compensate for increased cost and limited access to transportation. Air travel will be more rare, heating and cooling more expensive but information will still flourish, medical advances with DNA will march right along. We'll have more local level networks for cooperation and peer networks like supertopo online but the big picture is impossible to predict.
The era of the McMansion will be over.
The question will be if increasing masses of the poor and homeless will allow billionaires to keep all their money while so many are destitute. The fear of popular democratic power will motivate the real elite to build fascism into our system so nobody can vote a tranfer of wealth back to the masses. Don't be fooled into thinking wealth isn't already voted up the socio-economic scale as dividends are taxed less, tax cuts have favored the wealthy by a large margin and yet it is those with the big money who profit most from the trillions in infrastructure that uphold the system. Money is transfered by government policy one way or another, pure and simple. A lot of fortune 500 companies have avoided income tax competely. The rich getting richer, and the shrinking of the middle class is statistically obvious and undeniable. We are becoming Mexico.
And that knowledge of future vulnerability, which is obvious to those with knowledge but is being withheld from the people, is what's really behind the administration power grab we've noticed. They are tightening the reigns of power in anticipation of popular unrest when the party's suddenly over and folks get mad.
All these factors will have a vast influence on what happens to the environment.
Peace
Karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Awhile back I posted
"Read the first two pages of
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Which is well documented with link and tell me what we're going to do. Really, if you ever read any link i post, it's this one. Not perfect but you should be able to think critically but not unrealistically about it and see what the issues really are."
Anybody check that out and seriously consider it? It's tough to swallow. It makes you mad at the messenger.
but the future of our environment is going to hinge on this issue and our lives too, and most certainly our childrens.
Most folks can't digest it all at once. They like to nurse some denial because it's not rosy. I think we can still live and climb in the face of it. The initial phases are just going to mean cutting back and advocating wisdom.
But make sure you've seen it
Karl
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