Oil: Will We Ever Learn?

  • Cleaning the environment from oil-spills and plastics (engineered microorganisms)

  • Replacing oil entirely with other energy sources
Pretty much we are obliged to achieve these in the 21st century, or else. But yeah, the situation right now is horrible, and exponentially getting worse. It should be pretty clear that the accidents are going to become even more frequent, as drilling has to be attempted at very difficult places.
 
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Razare said:
My vision of the future of Earth is total industrialization of the planet. Nature will exist only in climate controlled, artificial ecosystems because that is the only way it will be viable to maintain. Our living quarters will likely be isolated from the outside atmosphere as well.

Fundamentally, the problem that leads me to this conclusion is population growth. Medical technology continuously improves, and the world economies inch their way upward so more people have access to good medical care. Population growth will slow at one point, but it'll still increase without a unified world governing body that has direct military control to impose population limits, which is very unlikely.

A human being consumes so much space in order to live. Yes, we can build up, but it is far cheaper to build out. If you drive around Northern Michigan where I live, there are miles and miles of countryside. Most of that countryside is private land. Two hundred years from now, that countryside will likely not exist and Northern Michigan will be a web of interconnected metropolitan areas.

As population growth continues past the stage of sprawling metropolis, state and national parks will be receive strong political pressure to be privatized. Even if they are not privatized, pollution and a change in our climate will ultimately dwindle what natural wonder you will find there.

Believing this to be the ultimate future of Earth brings me to a conclusion that the environmentalism movement for the sake of nature will ultimately fail. The movement I would respect is a new breed of environmentalism focused on improving human efficiency and survivability. We shouldn't pollute, because 200 years from now that'll mean just more toxins in the air and water for us to have to filter out in order to survive. Nature will hardly be around some time in the far distant future, but I like to think we will be, so we should plan accordingly.
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The thought of that scares the beejebus out of me. Why would we have the right, or even the desire, to destroy the natural world like that? To me, this looks like an idea that treats human-kind as the end of existence; like billions of years have led up to us.

There's a set of laws living things must abide by to continue on surviving, the most important being not to destroy your competitors to ensure global diversity. Global diversity gives life on Earth a chance to survive and maintain even in the face of a global catastrophe. Out of hundreds of millions it's much more likely for some to survive than out of thousands, which if we try and play god we will likely wipe out countless species. It's my belief that should we destroy nature and try and control the entire world in such a way, we may destroy all life on the planet. Should we face
a catastrophe that destroys human life, life on the entire planet may be doomed.

We're making nature our enemy, and forget that we came from nature, we are just another living thing. We're wagging war against nature, and it's completely unnecessary...unless we want to continue living in such a way as we currently are.
 
Interestingly, many civilisations around the globe have faced similar troubles to each other and faced similar rises and dramatic falls throughout history. Yeah, I don't think we're going to 'learn' any time soon.
 
mf said:
The thought of that scares the beejebus out of me. Why would we have the right, or even the desire, to destroy the natural world like that? To me, this looks like an idea that treats human-kind as the end of existence; like billions of years have led up to us.

There's a set of laws living things must abide by to continue on surviving, the most important being not to destroy your competitors to ensure global diversity. Global diversity gives life on Earth a chance to survive and maintain even in the face of a global catastrophe. Out of hundreds of millions it's much more likely for some to survive than out of thousands, which if we try and play god we will likely wipe out countless species. It's my belief that should we destroy nature and try and control the entire world in such a way, we may destroy all life on the planet. Should we face
a catastrophe that destroys human life, life on the entire planet may be doomed.

We're making nature our enemy, and forget that we came from nature, we are just another living thing. We're wagging war against nature, and it's completely unnecessary...unless we want to continue living in such a way as we currently are.
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Hey, I agree, just our governmental structures will have to change to save the environment. Democracies run on money now-days. Originally, ours did not. Capitalism corrupts, definitely, but communism wasn't the answer to that as history proved. Also, socialism is unsustainable without a robust capitalist system to maintain tax revenue into governments. I think socialism will prove to make things worse in the long run. We fund our current socialism on debt, once that system breaks down say within the next 100 years, we will be totally screwed as a nation.

Governments no longer act in the interest of their constituencies, and furthermore, no longer act for the benefit of the world. Genocide occurs and the world turns a blind eye; but threaten our capitalist establishments and lookout, it's war!

Without revolution, whether peaceful or violent, I believe we're headed for a future where corporations run governments. Maybe we're already there and I'm just too naive to see it. The thing is, I do believe revolutions will occur at some juncture. Perhaps merely a political revolution that cleanses congress for a few years to get some beneficial laws enacted. The problem with that is, "how long will it last?" With capitalism around, a democracy will always revert to the ways of money. This will happen faster than nature's ability to reassert itself.

The problem with a democratic system is that it is reactionary, instead of proactive. It will change how things are done, but it will change far too late and too little. Even after it changes, politicians will back-peddle while no one is looking. It wont seek to protect nature until nature is so far gone, there isn't much to protect. This way the cost of protecting what is left is very low too, since it will be a few sanctuaries.

It's all about money and cost, and how many political points a politician has to ramrod something through. Never is any thought given to an overall plan, where priorities are outlined and carried out over the long term.

I like to believe in galactic diversity rather than global diversity of species. I do have a faith that humans will survive for quite some time, though.
 
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