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The Forum > Article Comments > We can't go on living like this > Comments

We can't go on living like this : Comments

By Ted Trainer, published 20/4/2007

We say we want to save the environment, have peace, and eliminate poverty. And we do - but only until we see what this requires.

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Well said, Ted. I read an essay of yours on zero growth years ago and was convinced then you were right and am even more so now. I hope you can continue to speak up on these issues. More and more people will be coming to the same conclusion now that we are feeling the effects of global warming and beginning to question the lifestyle factors that have contributed to it.

I have just read "When the Rivers run Dry" by Fred Pearce and his figures on the water required to produce one litre of milk or a cotton t-shirt for example are quite staggering. All over the world we are draining our rivers. Some systems are already beyond recovery with the once productive surrounding land now a saline waste.

So much of the science on water, fisheries, forests, oil and land supports your argument. The corporate control over government and media these days though means such information probably won't filter through to the man on the street. Many of the powerbrokers in a position to effect change for the better aren't at all bothered by the fact that millions will perish as a result of rising sea levels, severe weather events, famine, and resource warfare. They'll be right. They'll buy their way out of trouble and to them that's all that matters.
Posted by Bronwyn, Friday, 20 April 2007 1:28:34 PM
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"For 50 years you have been told about all this..." Why stop at 50 years? Its been about 200 years since good ol' Tom Malthus wrote his Essay on the Principles of Population, where he claimed population growth would outstrip food production and we'd all die.

But why stop even there? All throughout history there have been people claiming that THE END IS NIGH!

To be sure, there are problems now that didn't really exist in the past; but there is a great deal more knowledge and technical skill as well. I think the world will make it through the coming crisis, and although people in the developed nations will almost certainly have to reduce their consumption, I haven't seen enough evidence yet to suggest the kind of mass-death scenarios that the more enthusiastic doomsayers are brandishing at us.

And I really don't think that some sort of utopia is the answer. I suspect it would be highly inefficient.

Cheers!
Posted by Rhys Probert, Friday, 20 April 2007 4:59:31 PM
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Who knows the answer? Biology would say that there is for any environment a carrying capacity both for food and waste disposal, but no one is ure what this number is though many point to the hectares each of us now need for our life. Supported at present and presumably for some time to come by technology. Dr Trainer sees no possibility of such allowing our continuance. I agree.
Resource wars economic or military will doubtless remove some, but experience says the number will simply rise again in a burst of sexual activity consequent on war.
Plagues may aid our endeavours to maintain lifestyle but such will probably be dismissed as doomsday for new technologies and preparedness will suffice.
Pollution CO2 -e or other may overcome any earth feed back and return to the past age of low O2 High Co2-e.
But here presumably the rich who use their advisors to protect them have surely devised community versions of habitats allowing life for a limited number. If you doubt this think of the Reagan/Thatcher round of greed. The Russian empire or even Zimbabwe or even the Afghanistan/Iraq war and Iran to come.
So which ever way it goes some will survive and the cost will be born by the poor greater in number having no recourse to doing their own thing even living sensibly for some factor enabling such will be wanted by the powerful.
I suggest enjoy making minor contribution ‘do good’ feel good and pray you will be one of the chosen for saving.
Posted by untutored mind, Friday, 20 April 2007 6:07:21 PM
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The simpler life does not have to be a mind-numbing descent into peasantry. I can imagine continued growth of 4 to 5 percent per annum in goods and services, but with the emphasis on services. Lets have more drama, painting, poetry, psychological understanding, philosophy. The idea that growth necessitates a consumerism that destroys limited resources is false. Let us pursue a rich intellectual and emotional life that is spare in its consumption of oil and water and fertile land, but profligate in its use of human services and arts. GNP does not have to consume the planet. More service industries fewer industries that consume oil, water, land, and mineral resources. Okay, we need to cater for the material needs of the billions who don't get enough to eat, etc. But we in the developed "West" don't need more stuff, we need deeper satisfactions.
Posted by Fencepost, Friday, 20 April 2007 7:24:43 PM
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Dead right we can't go living like this, as the Federal Treasurer said was quoted in the wire news today . . . . . . .

Meanwhile, Treasurer Peter Costello said there was no doubt fruit and vegetable prices would rise as a result of no water being allocated for crops.

"We saw it with Cyclone Larry in north Queensland, the price of bananas went up four or five times," Mr Costello said.

"That's what you could be seeing in relation to stone fruit, horticulture, all those things."

see http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Water-plan-doomed-without-Vic-says-govt/2007/04/20/1176697063703.html
Posted by billie, Friday, 20 April 2007 7:47:27 PM
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Don't say you have not been warned!
What a load of tosh.
"We" need to do this and "we" need to do that.
Ted Trainer is only able to pursue his peculiar lifestyle thanks to the industrialized society in which he lives and the tax revenue "we" generate.
It's still a free country, he lives the way he sees fit and I will go on the way I always have or to quote Sam Goldwyn,"Include me out".
Posted by Admiral von Schneider, Friday, 20 April 2007 8:04:29 PM
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