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The Forum > Article Comments > Look on the bright side > Comments

Look on the bright side : Comments

By Richard Heinberg, published 12/6/2009

Reasons to be cheerful: here are some items that should bring a smile to any environmentalist’s lips.

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Arthur C Clarke famously began a talk with the words, "Greetings, carbon-based bipeds". I'm starting to wonder if there isn't more to the name and purpose of the Post Carbon Institute than I first thought.
Posted by fungochumley, Saturday, 13 June 2009 10:58:54 PM
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Silly straw-man, Postcarbon are about life after fossil fuels not people. (Why do people waste their precious posts with such nonsense?)

On the bright side... for a TRULY inspiring real estate & town planning presentation about a development planned for outside Sydney, please watch this address at UNSW.

http://villageforum.com/

Try the main video at the top, it only goes for 15 minutes.

I've met Claude Lewenz and asked him why he didn't include how his plan would solve peak oil and climate change? They are simply not his message. All he does is present a much better way to live. It truly is one of the most inspiring talks I've seen on the net, (and I visit TED.com regularly!)

If the world were planned this way we'd:-
# Solve peak oil and climate change!
# Become economically prosperous and far more stable
# Safer, more beautiful, less isolated
# More sustainable agriculture
# Safer, more nutritious, more secure and local food supplies
# Better paid farmers
# Less boring neighbourhoods and far more vibrant local cultural life
# Happier, healthier, safer family life and kids
# More, more, more....

As it is, I'm an optimist for our grandchildren, but the next 20 years could really suck as we adjust to "peak everything".
Posted by Eclipse Now, Saturday, 13 June 2009 11:09:48 PM
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Oh! Really? Gee, thanks Eclipse Now. (This is sarcasm.)

I see earnestness has also peaked in your case, and short-circuited your grasp of irony. What a culturally vibrant world you will create
Posted by fungochumley, Sunday, 14 June 2009 12:04:37 AM
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rpg wrote: "Don't worry so much, we'll adapt, we have for thousands of years and that will go on.."

Well rpg, of course we adapt.... we adapt to ever better, ever increasing, and ever denser energy!

Mankind first discovered wood many thousands of years ago and did nicely with THAT energy source. Until trees started becoming scarce (Britain nearly stripped its entire oak forests to build ships). So when charcoal was discovered (made from wood BTW) to be even better & hotter, allowing the smeltering of metals, it was used (until tree scarcity), until we then discovered that coal was even better, and coal allowed the invention/exploitation of steam engines. Then we discovered that drilling the Earth's crust could also give us more oil, and then gas. Then we discovered fission and Uranium. And of course we all start thinking we're such clever dicks... when in fact all we've done is exploit finite non renewable natural resources.

Just because we can make solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars (which just proves that with Fossil Fuels you can do ANYTHING!) does not mean we'll be continuing on like this forever. Where are the solar panel mines? Or the Hydrogen pits? And all our clever technologies just USE energy....

Limits to Growth was predicted 35 years ago, nobody took it seriously, and now we're about to face the music.

But not to worry, we will adapt, you can have abundance with a lot less... we're doing just that without a car and just 15% of the average Australian electricity consumption.
Posted by Coorangreeny, Sunday, 14 June 2009 10:09:43 AM
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Fungo

So you believe in business as usual, that we can continue consuming all our resources and the planet will, like the magic pudding continue to provide infinitely?

Check out this interesting link, sooner or later things are gonna change. Fasten your seat-belts:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2592909.htm
Posted by Fractelle, Sunday, 14 June 2009 11:08:46 AM
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the essential mechanism at work here is a rise in the nurturing influence of women in the world and a corresponding fall in the innovative influence of men.

it's a biological mechanism eminating from the complementary qualities at play in the rise and consequent success of sexuality over asexuality.

what is happening in a global context has happened in regional contexts, the rise, stabalisation and then fall of scores of civilisations over the past few millennia.

the fall happens if women's rights are not consolidated and the system is destabalised by outside forces, climate change or male insurgence, for instance.

the civilisation is maintained if women's rights are considated with the equivalent of women's legislatures, alongside men's legislatures, as with the continuum of Aboriginal cultures in Australia.

basically, men run out of room for material innovation and the culture shifts emphasis to the consolidation of their innovation with a rise in women's influence.

the key to continuity is to balance predispositions to innovation and consolidation, best conducted in a parliamentary democracy with governance conducted by agreement between women's and men's legislatures.
Posted by whistler, Sunday, 14 June 2009 12:46:17 PM
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