how can the world Sustain its growth

freezer502

The worlds reserves of every mineral will be exhausted in hundred of years time.Does anyone ever look around and wonder what resources are being used up every day.Even by just walking into shops-all the plastic that is used as wrapping is a prime example.Does anyone think whats ahead for future generations.Im not a green campaigner but i think that there should be a subject in schools teaching our children about what liess ahead of future generations if we dont change our attitude towards our natural resources.

has anyone else thought about how the world can sustain its growth and use of resources because it loks bleak if trends continue.

AngryHippie

It can't. Thats what all the fuss and fighting is about.:D

SeanW

We can, we just have to change how its done.

Firstly, we have to get away from using fossil fuels. I have a number of ideas on how we do that, cheif among them being a strategy of using nuclear, renewables, a small about of biofuels and reasonable conservation measures in an all-out, no punches pulled, nonfossil strategy.

If for example, the price of natural gas became too high, or the political cost of reliance on Russia were too high, we could use a crazy amount of windfarms and hydrolysis to make hydrogen. We could use massive hydrogen tanks to store surplus renewable power as hydrogen and distribute it over pipelines to use it in the same way as Natural gas. (E.g. to hydrogen power plants power plants when needed, commercial and residential space heating applications etc). Although I remain to a certain degree skeptical of many weather based renewables, I think that with the right infrastructural investments they could be used to feed a reliable, baseline load energy supply.

By converting existing engines to use biofuel (there's logical reason why Ireland isn't using a lot more biodiesel).

As for packaging, we should be using a lot less plastic and a lot more paper and cardboard (such as from sustainable Scandinavian forests) for packaging, or indeed no packaging at all.

Recycling is something we're also going to need to do a lot more of - old packaging, consumer goods, vehicles should be recycled into new stuff rather than using new resources.

dewsbury

A standard answer to the original question is "re-cycling".

I always feel that recycling is given too much credit.

It should be a last resort rather than a first...

I.e. First "reduce"....failing then "re-use" and as a last resort "recycle".

For the consumer society "recycling" is a conscience clearer.
Unfortunately buying tons of stuff and putting the waste into your green bin is not great from an environmental point of view. It may clear a few consiences tho'.

AngryHippie

SeanW wrote: »

We can, we just have to change how its done.

Firstly, we have to get away from using fossil fuels......

By converting existing engines to use biofuel.....

As for packaging.....

Recycling is something.....

Good start, But how are you going to recycle all the copper, steel, plastic, aluminium and various other FINITE resources that have already been buried as waste in toxic pits around the world ?????

There is not enough to sustain our rate of population growth, while providing our "current standard of living". Recycling will buy some time, and is still a worthy pursuit, but it will not be enough to sustain the status quo.

We should be aiming to provide an acceptable standard of living (health,education,employment,accomadation, water & power) to as many people as possible instead of having the entire western society trying to gain a lead in a self extinguishing rat race to have a car and a big house and a plasma screen tv etc. etc.

Húrin

It can't. The perception of the need for perpetual economic growth is a fraud. Too much stuff is produced. No matter how much recycling you do, the world cannot sustain ten billion people (population c. 2075) with a western lifestyle.

Renewables and nuclear cannot sustain such a society either. We need oil to live this way. But fortunately it is not the only way to live.

ednwireland

AngryHippie wrote: »

Good start, But how are you going to recycle all the copper, steel, plastic, aluminium and various other FINITE resources that have already been buried as waste in toxic pits around the world ?????

i can see dump mining becoming a huge industry in the future

blackbox

freezer502 wrote: »

has anyone else thought about how the world can sustain its growth and use of resources because it loks bleak if trends continue.

Answer - Population Control will enable us to sustain growth per person.

AngryHippie

blackbox wrote: »

Answer - Population Control will enable us to sustain growth per person.

on that one, In Iran they had a scheme to curb population growth through welfare management that seems to have worked very well.
Basically you get child benefits for your first two kids, and after that you pay for them yourself.
It would eradicate the teenage baby-making culture that seems to proliferate in the suburbs.....
It might also make also make people think a little more carefully about how they are gonna provide for the future instead of depending on the state for their means.


Or do you mean population control by more biological, chemical or other means ? cos that might be a Human rights issue......

simu

freezer502 wrote: »

The worlds reserves of every mineral will be exhausted in hundred of years time.Does anyone ever look around and wonder what resources are being used up every day.

There are some cool visual representations of resource-gobbling here: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=

SeanW

Yes, we can maintain a certain Western style lifestyle, we just have to do some serious tweaking.

First of all, the most plentiful (but not environmentally friendly) option is coal. There are several hundred years worth of it left and it can be liquified, gasified etc into other substances. I got a serious bollocking from the anti-nukes on this forum for pointing out that Germany is embarking on a new Coal Age, going to screw up the climate even more while spewing more arsenic, mercury and heavy metals into the air while adding to Scandinavia's already crazy Acid Rain clean up bill.

Coal is a seriously cheap default option but I remain convinced that we could live well with an all-out, multi-pronged non-fossil strategy. But even if we exclude nuclear, there is a lot of energy out there, from the Sun etc and we just need to find easy (i.e. competitive against coal) ways to harness it. But we would be doing a hell of a lot more damage to the environment by excluding the N-option in the medium term. So that needs to be examined but there are other things too.

Like why despite our rush to become the 51st state, why one of America's best inventions, the drinking drinking fountain a.k.a the Bubbler, has been largely left there while we sell bottled water (From France, Italy, and ... even Fiji?) by the truckload.

Reducing food-miles too, giving our own (politically powerful) farmers something to do while removing the need for export subsidies, will also help.

Why we use plastic unnecessarily in packaging. Surely a lot of things that we buy in plastic today, like crisp packets and whatnot, could easily use paper or cardboard instead. Why give out plastic cutlery in take aways instead of going back to the old(er) way of having permanent knives and forks for use by people eating in?

If the ability to make plastic becomes limited due to a lack of raw materials, the price will rise to the point that where there is an alternative to using plastic, it will be done. The market economy works this way - if something becomes scare, people start either doing less with it, using what they do more efficiently, and there is a scramble for alternatives. Look to the U.S. where biofuels are becoming big business as the price of oil skyrockets against a collapsing dollar.

Aluminum is the most plentiful component in the Earth's crust and Iron isn't far behind but if, as has been suggested, certain raw commodities become scarce, dump diving will probably become an industry.

The bottom line AFAIK is that we can continute to enjoy a comfortable way of life for generations to come - but we need to seriously examine how we do this with a view to using less unsustainable resources and rooting out the various inefficiencies that are unfortunately too pervasive.

blackbox

AngryHippie wrote: »

Or do you mean population control by more biological, chemical or other means ? cos that might be a Human rights issue......

Individuals and cultures need to change behaviours - I would ever advocate human rights abuse.

Húrin

blackbox wrote: »

Answer - Population Control will enable us to sustain growth per person.

Not only control of population, but even more, control of economic growth. The western governments should aim as close as possible to zero growth rates.

blackbox

Húrin wrote: »

Not only control of population, but even more, control of economic growth. The western governments should aim as close as possible to zero growth rates.

...so they shouldn't try to reduce unemployment or improve the average standard of living????

AngryHippie

Húrin wrote: »

Not only control of population, but even more, control of economic growth. The western governments should aim as close as possible to zero growth rates.

The inflation elephant has entered the room.
Growth has got to keep pace with inflation, otherwise, You've got a recession, and the financial wheels come off, thereby ending the democratic experiment.

John Maynard Keynes said that back in the days of the New Deal,

Nothing less than the democratic experiment in self governance was endangered by the threat of global financial market forces

The only reason it was averted, was the new deal, But it created a bit of a monster by creating a cycle of debt, which has been abused by a number of international financial institutions, to leave us where we are today, dependent on corporate intervention to keep our economies fueled, to avoid the crash.

It is also part of the reason why nowadays we buy so much ****e, It's been ingrained through exposure to intensive branding and marketing by the very corporations who provide jobs and economic growth, and round and round we go......

Húrin

AngryHippie wrote: »

The inflation elephant has entered the room.
Growth has got to keep pace with inflation, otherwise, You've got a recession, and the financial wheels come off, thereby ending the democratic experiment.

John Maynard Keynes said that back in the days of the New Deal,


The only reason it was averted, was the new deal, But it created a bit of a monster by creating a cycle of debt, which has been abused by a number of international financial institutions, to leave us where we are today, dependent on corporate intervention to keep our economies fueled, to avoid the crash.

It is also part of the reason why nowadays we buy so much ****e, It's been ingrained through exposure to intensive branding and marketing by the very corporations who provide jobs and economic growth, and round and round we go......

I know, economics would have to be completely rebuilt. Which is why I think we'll be forced by circumstances rather than adapting in an orderly fashion. It's for people greater than I to re-imagine economics.

Grizzly 45

Intresting points.But it is a myth to belive that we will run out of raw materials like iron ore,bauxite,lead etc within a 100 years.
the coal one is the most intresting.Everyone thinks coal will destroy the enviroment further.Maybe if we went back to using steam locomotives of the 19 centuary.There has been a100 odd years of technological advancement in how to burn coal more efficently and reduce the toxicity of it's fumes.Oil is now the pollutant thru inefficency in transport and combustion where steam driven coal fired trains were in the end of the 1800s.
Dumps will become the big news energy projects [1] for methane gas for heating[2] for producing methanol a dillutant or alternative to petrol which has now been done commerically in the US.[3] for scrap metals of specific kinds,cadminium,mercury, etc.
Yeah,packaging could go back to paper.BUT then as we are so health fetish concious about germs and bacteria.Would you want to go back to buying your butter from a big slab on the shop counter,and it being wrapped up in grease proof paper.Not minding the odd fly or two crawling over it??Or your cooked ham being lopped off on the ol bacon slicer that hasnt been cleaned in a month??Or your biscuts from a big old box on the counter that some kid with snotty fingers was groping awhile ago??
Yes folks,I remember shops like that in the good ol days.It didnt kill me,but I can say it wasnt hygenic either.So we have a choice here.recycleable biodegradeable stuff and hygene going abit by the wayside. or total hygeine and non degradeable packaging.?

djpbarry

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Oil is now the pollutant thru inefficiency in transport and combustion where steam driven coal fired trains were in the end of the 1800s.

I'm not entirely sure what you are suggesting here; are you suggesting that the burning of oil is less efficient (or as equally inefficient) as the burning of coal?

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

So we have a choice here.recycleable biodegradeable stuff and hygene going abit by the wayside. or total hygeine and non degradeable packaging.?

It's quite possible to pick a point somewhere between the two.

Grizzly 45

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Yeah,packaging could go back to paper.BUT then as we are so health fetish concious about germs and bacteria.Would you want to go back to buying your butter from a big slab on the shop counter,and it being wrapped up in grease proof paper.Not minding the odd fly or two crawling over it??Or your cooked ham being lopped off on the ol bacon slicer that hasnt been cleaned in a month??Or your biscuts from a big old box on the counter that some kid with snotty fingers was groping awhile ago??
Yes folks,I remember shops like that in the good ol days.It didnt kill me,but I can say it wasnt hygenic either.So we have a choice here.recycleable biodegradeable stuff and hygene going abit by the wayside. or total hygeine and non degradeable packaging.?

This brings up an interesting issue; if the environment (food hygene) becomes too clean, there is a risk that future generations may be unable to fend off simple infections because the immune system has become weakened through lack of "exercise". May also cause an increase in allergies to common substances.

Grizzly 45

djpbarry wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure what you are suggesting here; are you suggesting that the burning of oil is less efficient (or as equally inefficient) as the burning of coal?

What I am saying is that coal fired,stem engines,power plants and most heating and whatnot at the end of the Victorian age was coal fired or powerd.It was the major pollutant of it's time.When the first internal combustion engines powerd by petroluem spirt[nowadays known as pertol] showed up they were derided,and every major transport and coal mining magnate who was around did everythin in their power to crush this infernal device,before it got too pouplar and put them out of busisness .
Jump forward 100 years the internal combustion engine is to be found on every corner of the planet.Busily polluting away like the coalfired stuff of 100 years previously did. However in the mean 100 years coal powerd technology,while deadfas a main form of transport or power source,has never actually died,but has been developed onwardsand becoming more efficent.Even in the last days of ww2 the German Luftwaffe managed to launch a coal fired jet fighter!!! If one was built ,you would have a hard job knowing the difference between a modern coal fired train and a conventional diesel/electric train. Ditto for a modern steam powerd car engine.After all the ICE wws developed off a stem engine,so it is reverse engineered.But alot more efficent.Forget big boilers and smoke&steam. Think crushed coal being burned in high temp using the gasses to power an engine running thru a catalitic converter.Only reason it isnt done is the reluctance to retool to multi million Dollar auto engine plants ,etc to using this technology.
Make sense??

djpbarry

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Think crushed coal being burned in high temp using the gasses to power an engine running thru a catalitic converter.Only reason it isnt done is the reluctance to retool to multi million Dollar auto engine plants ,etc to using this technology.

Really? That's the ONLY reason you can think of? What about the fact that coal is a solid fuel? Or the fact the coal contains far less energy per unit weight than petrol or diesel do?

johnathan woss

Good thread.

I used to always be bewildered by people who drove when they could walk, who threw out perfectly good appliances and bought new ones, etc.

But since reading more about peak oil I almost feel like I've come out of the matrix.
Wanton waste is everywhere. And we are running out of time to stop it.