Quote:
Originally Posted by llama64
Materialism is another side effect of our constant push for economic growth. No one is satisfied with maintaining status quo. Profit must rise otherwise companies are seen as stagnant. The current market based trading scheme, in my opinion, could be seen as a core reason for a lot of social, environment and moral issues we face.
One day, we will not be able to meet our needs. Society will change drastically on that day.
Unless some how everyone on the planet stops thinking that growth is the only direction.
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I'm not sure I agree. I think we can go well into the negatives before pressure from the common person causes those with the real power to change anything.
I don't think we're going to get to the point where we go "oops! We don't have any more resources!" and suddenly change everything. With what are we going to bring about this change? Obviously getting to "zero resources" is a little simplistic but you get the point.
Analogy. Person X has a drinking problem. He goes to the doctor and the doctor tells him if he doesn't clean up his drinking habit his liver will fail. Is it a good idea to drink himself into oblivion and then just get a new liver? Nah, it doesn't work that way. If nothing else he has to mitigate the input of toxin so his liver can at least break even eliminating it from his system. Sure, there are plenty of people that will say "F it, I'm gettin' wasted!" but we've gotta do better than that.
It's great that there is so much more awareness of these environmental problems and the steps we can take to start fixing them than there was even two years ago. I was taking a walk with a friend of mine and we saw an ad on a bus shelter for Nestle water bottles being made with 15% less plastic. His remark was, "oh gee, that's sure gonna do a lot". I said it's better than 0% less. And not only is it better than 0% less but they actually paid money to have consumers know that they're making an effort environmentally. They wouldn't do that if they didn't think we, as a population, are starting to care about that kind of thing.
I read a whole issue of National Geographic today about sustainability and it had a quote from the DuPont CEO in a speech given to Congress a little while ago. He said, paraphrasing, that individual efforts can only do so much and that those who control such a vast part of the economic process (read: governments and corporations) must do their share to right the ship. I found that inspiring.
We're starting to really care and that's something. Some of the snide, sarcastic comments in this thread were a little disappointing but hey, you can't have everything. As for those of you claiming her facts were made up, she references her factual claims on the "Resource" button from her page. Take it up with her sources.
