But Ludwig, nobody is 'doing nothing' as such. You're upset because we are 'doing nothing' specifically about your pet paranoia, but many of us don't believe your pet paranoia exists, and most of us realise that we simply have no idea at the moment how to establish whether it does exist, how to establish whether it is dangerous, and how to deal with it if it is.

You are in the position of someone who has just witnessed the first commercial car built in Germany around 1902, rushing about and warning everyone that eventually we will all be asphyxiated tomorrow by the fumes they release. You fail or refuse to understand that there is a great deal of time and a great deal of human ingenuity available to deal with problems when they can be shown to be problems.

To return to the point I started from, projections of 'unsustainability' are based on the assumption that human scientific and technical progress will suddenly stop, right now: but what possible justification do you have for that claim? Has it ever happened in the past? Do we see any slowing-down in scientific progress now? On the contrary, it's not only getting faster, but doing so at an accelerating rate.

I'm certainly not 'doing nothing': I'm earning money, accumulating capital, educating my children, paying off and improving my house, participating in discussions, writing blog posts and generally working to make the world smarter and richer and better-prepared for ANY disaster that comes along, especially those parts of it that I know about and have some control over. If you think that's not enough, then you need to provide some genuine scientific proof as to why YOUR global crisis is any more real than the dozens of 'global crises' the media have flung at us all in the past: SARS, AIDS, Y2K, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, bird flu, nuclear winter, etc, etc. Oh, and global cooling, of course....

...Be honest. If you'd been around in 1974, would you would have been smart enough to see through the global cooling hysteria? Did you remain calm and collected in the face of the Y2K 'catastrophes' that never happened? Or is this AGW catastrophism just the latest in a long series of knee-jerk reactions to the media's love for a good apocalypse?

<< But Ludwig, nobody is 'doing nothing' as such. You're upset because we are 'doing nothing' specifically about your pet paranoia… >>

Which pet paranoia are you referring to? I’ve got lots of them!

Er…um… I mean; very real and valid concerns! ( :>)

<< …and most of us realise that we simply have no idea at the moment how to establish whether it does exist, how to establish whether it is dangerous, and how to deal with it if it is. >>

With reference to climate change, or peak oil or sustainability, I reckon we’ve got a pretty reasonable notion of what might happen and what we can do about it.

And as I keep saying, if we don’t really know, we should be erring on the side of caution.

It is just crackers to argue, as many do on OLO, that we shouldn’t do anything until we have proof of these things!

Hey, even if none of this is real – if you think that there are no signs of us reaching some pretty profound limits to the way we live and the scale at which we are doing it, it is still surely a damn good idea to strive to err on the side of caution so that we can be assured that the supply capability of all our essential resources doesn’t fall way behind the demand and we can retain a half-decent environment. This is surely just eminent basic common sense.

<< …projections of 'unsustainability' are based on the assumption that human scientific and technical progress will suddenly stop… >>

Really??

This’s the first time I’ve heard this argument!

continued

<< Do we see any slowing-down in scientific progress now? On the contrary, it's not only getting faster, but doing so at an accelerating rate. >>

No we don’t see any slowing. But I’m not sure it is accelerating. Big problem: a great deal of our scientific / technological energies are going directly into assisting us in becoming MORE out of whack with sustainability!

For example, more advanced fishing techniques are working directly towards depleting already badly overexploited fisheries.

And more advanced methods of extracting oil (eg: Athabasca Tar Sands) are doing nothing to help bring supply and demand into balance. They are just promulgating ever-greater demand, in the face of obviously stressed energy resources…. and the environment is getting less and less consideration as we become more desperate.

Now, if we were to suddenly see the light and redirect the vast majority of our scientific and technological skills into reaching this essential balance, we’d have it made.

So Jon, not only is science or human ingenuity not our saviour, but it is greatly assisting us to move in the WRONG direction.

Which means that we can’t really call it ingenuity and we can’t really think of ourselves as being all that smart, can we?

What is unsustainable, is basically bankrupt cities investing in anything, let alone sustainably!
Many of America's cities are basically bankrupt, with no prospects in sight of rescue? Just the almost inevitable Depression and further wind down, that will be theirs? If they follow their investments in the Emperor's new clothes or thin air, with the election of tea party types, or the reborn recalcitrant republicans, who will give tax breaks to the best off, increase the farm bill, all while further imposing even greater economy contracting austerity!?
Just when the trillions already spent, seem to be slowly revving up parts of the American economy?
If we and or they could just invest in energy systems that effectively reduce costs, allow more of fixed incomes to return to discretionary spending, we/they could continue to restore the economy, create jobs, investment opportunities, increased tax revenue and so on!
Then many of the problems we currently confront, would all but solve themselves?
Or put another way, we simply cannot put the cart before the horse and try to introduce sustainable outcomes, without first addressing/resuscitating the very economic outcomes we need to to affordablly introduce change, unless sustainability is part and parcel of that recovery!
As would be the case, if we simply redirected some of our current stimulation spending, at installing waste to energy facilities in selected high rise or govt buildings?
Like hospitals, schools, prisons, army camps etc, where sanitary biological waste disposal/food wastage and energy bills must now be almost crippling/unreliable, and or, endlessly extending the waiting time for ultra critical surgical outcomes; or, affordable/unmet personal/hardware/equipment requirements etc!
Rhrosty.