Quote (InsaneBobb @ Sep 22 2020 08:10pm)
Okay, you brought up one great point that I'd like to hammer down on, if you have the patience, because I really am interested in your viewpoint. Again, to note first that I'm going to address it from a very Americanized point of view, I believe the bolded point is very important. First I have several questions regarding your flat statement:
1. What lifestyle demands a lot more resources at the expense of other nations? In my average day, I eat food that was grown in the US, drink and take care of hygiene tasks in water that was purified in the US using local sources, power my internet and fuel my vehicle with power produced in the US. Indeed, the US provides a massive amount of power resources, food, and fresh clean drinking water to many areas in Africa and the middle east. Who is the drain on what resources? I will need more information for that to make sense, simply because while I think I know what you're driving at, I'd rather not put words in your mouth.
2. What portion of living is unsustainable? We've already made it clear that at least in the western world, the majority of the basics such as food, shelter, and clean water, we can manage perfectly well in a completely sustainable way. Power requirements are great on current systems for 90 years minimum, extending out to 500+ years if coal comes back into favor or nuclear comes back into favor. Ideally, neither would be relied on, which is why we invest billions per year into alternative power sources. But for now, they're perfectly fine. So which part are you pointing at?
3. Again, with the (mostly useless) "what if" scenario, what if the western world stopped having children entirely. Who's going to take over the medical care, food, water, and other responsibilities we have largely taken on to make the third world's very lives sustainable?
I don't know that I disagree with the premise that there are some things that are very wrong. I'm merely not certain that pointing a finger in the direction of western society is going to fix anything, or whether it'll intensify the issues.
Well in summary of your point as I understand it western world (US) has it pretty good so far what would my suggestions improve/help/solve.
A lot of the products come from oversees usually due to cheap labor. Not to mention under the table sub living wages for illegals which provide comfortable lifestyle to many. While US is large enough to have most of its needs met on home soil, what about huge number of smaller nations which require Ore, fuel, timber to be mined, extracted from elsewhere and usually not in a sustainable way?
So in your assessment the US is not as bad its other countries which need to change is a bit simplistic. US dollar drives the economy, western culture paves the way for the rest of the world.
I mentioned earlier that you vote with your dollar, well demand for organics has increased. All kinds of shops popped up over the last 20 years, Now most major supermarkets around the world have and organics isle/section which was almost unheard of.
I also mentioned having less kids or none. I didn't mean this as an ultimatum from now to the rest of eternity. While this advice would probably benefit most to places like india/china it would give slow down or give buffer for our sustainabilty practices to catchup across the world. At some later point when we reach 20million or maybe 30 or whatever the number this world will be pushed to its full capacity. The planet will physically would not cope. At some point we have to say lets colonize another planet or reduce/maintain an equilibrium. The boomer generation where they agreed to multiply, maybe we can have a generation lets slow down and make do until we are ready to have more.