Society can only secure its future if it replaces irresponsible economic growth with a wise conservation of wealth and resources
Introduction of the system: Science offers convincing ways to reduce certain types of environmental damage and to reduce the consumption of various resources. But Bill McKibben, a visiting scholar at Middlebury College and one of the founders of the climate action group 350.org, argues that to truly stop the destruction of our planet, human society must shake off the habit that limits it the most: growth.
In his new book "The Globe: Life on a new and demanding planet"
(Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet), McKibben claims that the human race actually lives now, because of his actions, in a new and completely different world, a world he calls "Earth". This gram of heaven can no longer support the growth economy model that has been driving society for 200 years. To prevent our own collapse, we must try to preserve wealth and resources, mainly by moving to local and more durable economies.
In the pages before you, which present excerpts from the book, McKibben lays out his claims. And in the framed boxes, which are also summaries of things from the book, he provides examples of successful local agriculture and local energy plants.
When you move to a new planet, you have to change your habits. If you get out of the airlock of your base on Mars and start breathing, you will regret it. We simply cannot live on the new earth as if it were the old earth - we have eliminated that possibility.
In the world we grew up in, the economic and political habit that was most deeply ingrained was the growth habit. In the 250 years since the days of Adam Smith, we have assumed that all that is abundant is good and that the answer to every problem is yet another boom in expansion. We acted this way because this approach worked, at least for a short period of time: the welfare and relative security that we, the people of the West, lead is a product of the steady growth of our economies for ten generations. But now we are stuck between a hammer and an anvil that will wear down to the end, so it is time to think very clearly about the future. On our new planet, growth may be the only significant habit we will eventually have to break.
It is clear to me that now is the worst time to make this claim. The temporary halt in growth, known colloquially as a "recession", in the conditions of an economy built solely for expansion, upset quite a few people. We are neck-deep in debt, both as individuals and as nations, and in an effort to extricate ourselves from the clutches of this heavy economic burden, we have bet more money that we will be able to get the wheels of growth moving again. This is the "economic stimulus": a bet that we can start the growth machine and return not only the amount we spent on the stimulus, but also the debt that caused the problem in the first place.
And worse than that, of course, is our ecological debt: the carbon that accumulates in the atmosphere and changes the face of the planet. And here, the simplest way out is another round of growth - a tremendous burst of economic activity aimed at converting our fossil fuel system into something else that will allow us to maintain our current lifestyle (or improve it!), only without carbon. We have been caught up in the idea of green growth as if it were the cure for all ills.
It should be noted that I support the green "Manhattan Project", the ecological "New Deal", and the clean technology "Apollo" mission. If I had money, I would give it to Al Gore to invest in startups. These ventures are necessary and legitimate responses of serious people to the most dangerous crisis we have ever known, and they are succeeding to a considerable extent. We really need to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2020, or generate all electricity from renewable sources within a decade, or achieve all the other goals set by good people. This is exactly how our system should respond. But this will not happen with the speed necessary to prevent the changes and save the planet where we used to live. I believe that the growth paradigm does not have the power to deal with this situation; I think the system has met a reasonable opponent.
* * *
This view does seem a bit gloomy. But we can make the new planet habitable in durable and even somewhat decent ways. First, we must know our place. We must curb our natural feeling that the future will resemble the past and the set of optimistic thoughts we have about the future, which will supposedly only get easier and more comfortable. Today's Earth is a planet that requires effort.
I think this knowledge flows in our veins. I think we felt it even before the Bush recession hit us. For the Americans, the decisive moment was perhaps at the beginning of 2008, half a year before the big banks started to falter, that moment when it still seemed that the economy was marching forward brilliantly, but the price of gas rose to four dollars a gallon.
If there is a constant element in the American vision, it is the movement. We came here from overseas, crossed the continent, built the highway, invented the GPS device that sits on the dashboard and tells us we missed the turn. Everything went according to plan. And then, all of a sudden, for the first time really, that movement started to limp. She started to slow down. Every month the Americans traveled less than the previous month. We couldn't sell our old house - but we really couldn't sell our used Ford Explorer.
Then something strange started to happen. While oil prices were rising, long-distance transport seemed less and less profitable. In May 2008, shipping a container from Shanghai to the United States already cost $8,000, compared to $3,000 at the beginning of the decade. Cargo volumes began to drop - IKEA opened a factory in Virginia, not in China. "The lowest fruit on the globalization tree has been picked," as currency strategist Morgan Stanley said. Jeff Rubin, an analyst at CIBC World Markets in Toronto was more emphatic: "Globalization is reversible." Indeed, the steel producers in the US Midwest reported a surge in demand, Rubin said, precisely because "the rise in transportation costs, firstly to import the iron to China and secondly to export the finished steel overseas, has already completely eroded the advantage of the low labor wages and spent One of the steel produced in China from all competition in the American market." As oil prices rise, and so does the demand for ethanol, so does the cost of food. And some countries suddenly decided that free trade is not a necessity of reality, as they strongly claimed before.
It is possible that just as we have passed the peak of oil production, we have also passed the peak of economic growth - we may not be able to increase the system any further. Insurance costs increase, the price of oil skyrockets, the economy sinks, money for new energy investments evaporates, and when the economy begins to accelerate again, the price of oil soars. In May 2009, a study done by McKinsey & Company stated that a new oil shock is "inevitable". As in a looping algorithm: rinse, wash, repeat the operations. But there are countries that are starting to consume more coal, because of its cheap price. So it should be said wash, wash, and stand with a head full of foam because the rising temperatures have evaporated your water reservoir.
* * *
Who dreamed that growth would end? There was actually someone who dreamed. In a completely different time, when Lyndon Baines Johnson was president, in the spring when Martin Luther King was assassinated and the musical "Hair" premiered on Broadway, a small group of European industrialists and scientists gathered in a villa in the Italian capital. The group, the "Club of Rome", proposed to examine interrelated global trends and commissioned a report from a team of young systems analysts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The team finished the job and produced the report in the form of a book called "The Limits to Growth", which was published after the first Earth Day had already taken place and after Richard Nixon had already established the US Environmental Protection Agency. But the publication of this slim book is one of the most important events in the history of environmental protection. The book has been translated into 30 languages and 30 million copies have been sold. The small team of researchers reached three conclusions:
1. If the current growth trends in global population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continue as they are, we will reach the limits of the planet's growth at some point in the next hundred years.
2. It is possible to change these growth trends and establish sustainable ecological and economic stability that will last long into the future. It is possible to plan the global balance so that the material needs of each and every person in the world will be met and each person will have an equal opportunity to realize their personal and human potential.
3. If the people on Earth decide to strive for the second result indicated here and not the first, the sooner they act to achieve this goal - the greater the chance that they will succeed."
Looking back, what's amazing is that we almost took their advice. All over the world people started looking for ways to slow population growth; It turned out that education for women was the best strategy, and the average number of children per mother therefore dropped from six to more than three in a short time. We listened attentively: these were the years of the first oil crises, the first major spills from tankers, the first fuel economy standards for cars. In those years we even limited the travel speed to 90 km/h and practically slowed down our mobility in order to conserve resources. In the late 70s, more Americans were against economic growth than for it, something that seems almost impossible to us today. An opportunity really opened up then, for a moment, to change direction, to move away from the abyss.
We didn't take advantage of it of course.
The club of Rome was not wrong, it turns out. He was just ahead of his time. Environmental problems can be ignored for years, but when they catch up, they do it quickly. You grow too much, then you run out of oil and the polar ice caps melt.
I added words. I expanded my words because now all the forces operating in our company are already trained to want more and more growth. But we can't grow any more. The climb is too steep. Our planet is holding us back.
* * *
However, there is another possibility. Like a person who has lost his way in the forest, we must stop running, check if we have something useful in our pocket, and start thinking about what steps to take.
The first step is: grow up. For 200 years we have been addicted to growth, and it has been good for us to some extent, and also bad, but it has mostly been planted deep in our hearts, leaving us in an age of eternal puberty. There is no politician who does not say that "the best times are still ahead of us," but they are not ahead, not according to the accepted definition of the term "best". On a finite planet, the reality is that this day will come. We just got lucky and the music stopped when we were on the dance floor. So if it turns out that 2008 is the year that growth ended, or 2011 or 2014 or 2024 - well, that's our lot. We have to see things from her perspective. There is no room for illusions, fantasies and melodramatics.
The second step: we need to decide where to cut. It is clear that in many habits, small things, like the culture of consumption for example. But it is becoming clearer what the most important item on the list is. Complexity is the hallmark of our time, but this complexity is based on the cheap mineral fuel and the stable climate that made it possible to accumulate huge stocks of food. Complexity is our glory but also our weakness. We started to feel it when oil prices soared and then came the credit crash of 2008; We have created such close connections between different factors, that small failures in one place give their signals in the entire system. If the US's foolish decision to use a small portion of its corn crop for ethanol production spurs riots in 37 countries around the world, and if a series of short-sighted bets on Nevada mortgages can close thousands of factories in China, then we have allowed our systems to become too entangled with each other. If our obscene driving habits can melt the arctic ice cap... the principle is clear.
We have turned our nice planet into a less nice Earth. We are quickly moving away from a world where we dominate nature as we please, and come to a world where nature fights back, and much stronger. But we still have to live in this world, so we should start thinking about how.
Local food solutions
In the last 25 years, although agribusiness, pesticides and genetically modified crops have become common in a short time, the amount of grain per capita has decreased. Serious people have begun to reconsider the possibility of small-scale agriculture, where a lot of food is produced on relatively small farms with as little synthetic fertilizer and chemicals as possible.
New agriculture is often most effective when new knowledge is combined with older wisdom. In Bangladesh, a new type of chicken coop produces not only eggs and meat, but also waste that is used to feed the fish in the pond, which is a source of thousands of kilograms of protein per year and a good crop of water hyacinths, which are used as food for small herds of cattle, whose dung is used to fuel a cooking system with natural gas.
In Malawi, tiny fish ponds that recycle the waste of the entire farm yield about a ton and a half of fish on average. In Madagascar, rice growers working with experts from Europe have found ways to increase yields. They plant the seedlings a week before driving, space them more apart, and do not flood the plots for most of the growing season. This method requires more weeding, but it also multiplies the yield four to six times. About 20,000 farmers have adopted the system in its entirety.
In Craftsbury, Vermont, Pete Johnson helped implement a groundbreaking idea - year-round farming. Johnson built solar greenhouses and developed a method to move them on rails. Now he can cover this field and uncover another field, and grow green plants ten months of the year without using fossil fuel, and this allows him to run the farm, which the community supports, continuously.
I am not claiming the right to local food because it is tastier or healthier. I argue that we have no choice. In a world more prone to droughts and floods, we need the flexibility provided by the ability to grow 36 different crops in one field, compared to vast oceans of only corn or soybeans. In a world where heat spreads pests well, we need the flexibility of multiple varieties and local breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need those small, multi-crop farms that provide their own fertilizer and improve their own soil.
Local energy solutions
It should be clarified that fossil fuel is a classic example of the concept of "too big to fall". In just a few years, we must switch to other energy sources. A local and decentralized solution is more effective than a centralized solution, at least in a chaotic world.
The first task, on almost everyone's list, is conservation. The consulting company McKinsey & Company estimated in 2008 that with the technologies that already exist it is possible to reduce the global energy demand by 20% by 2020. In terms of supply, it pays to generate the electricity at home. Most of the population spends 10% of their money on fuel, an amount that almost completely disappears and is swallowed up in Saudi Arabia or companies like Exxon. However, in 2008, "The Institute for Local Self-Reliance" showed that half of the states in the US can produce enough energy within their borders to meet their needs, "and the vast majority can produce a significant portion of the electricity consumed." Wind turbines and solar panels on roofs can provide 81% of the electricity consumed in New York State, for example, and about a third of Ohio's consumption.
Local energy is not a romantic idea. In 2009, T. Boone Pickens, who wanted to build in northwest Texas the largest wind farm in the world, closed the shelter and shelved the plans because the transmission lines were too expensive. Instead of the big station, he planned several smaller facilities to be built near major cities. On the east coast, plans to build a series of offshore wind farms were still progressing. The engineers call the method "dispersion of generators", meaning the production of energy where it is needed instead of sending it over a large distance. More and more companies are installing "micro-power plants" to supply electricity to a building or complex; These generated a third of all electricity produced in the USA in 2008.
In Rizhao, China, a nascent volume with almost three million inhabitants, in the 90s some local entrepreneurs started installing solar heaters on the roofs of houses. Today, almost all the houses in the city heat the water using sunlight.
Like the progress of the food system, progress in this area will also be faster if the government stops subsidizing the mineral fuel industry and implements a policy of feed-in tariffs, for example, which will force the electricity companies to buy it from local producers at a fair price. This is what they did in Germany, and that is why today it can boast of 1.3 million photovoltaic panels, more than any country in the world.
More on the subject
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Donella H. Meadows et al. Chelsea Green, 2004.
Economics in a Full World. Herman E. Daly in Scientific American, Vol. 293, no. 3, pages 100-107; September 2005.
Global Footprint Network data on resource consumption: www.footprintnetwork.org
About the author
Bill McKibben is a visiting scholar at Middlebury College, co-founder of the climate action group 350.org and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. He was also a journalist for the "New Yorker" and wrote several noteworthy books on environmental matters. His latest book, Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, was published in April 2010.
22 תגובות
There is a solution to capitalism and it is called a resource-based economy.
http://www.greenchange.co.il/group/ecoeconomy/forum/topics/klklh-mbosst-msbym?xg_source=activity
I don't expect politicians to change. They love chairs, and so do the sheep. We the citizens need to change, the possibilities are the organization of citizens for a group purchase of equipment that allows access to energies and it should be really worthwhile, and not make us suppliers of an electricity company at prices that are not worthwhile. To allow citizens to build wells under the house as in the past, because that way there will be water reservoirs for emergencies and in difficult situations, to help citizens to establish their own breeding farms on the roofs of houses and gardens, and all this in the right way that does not harm the environment,
I understood your opinion about me. And here's my opinion on you: idiots grow without watering. Which enables a very frugal growth in terms of resource allocation, and also mass growth in light of the availability of the breeding grounds. Unfortunately, their price in the market tends to zero because of the tiny demand compared to the huge supply.
Solomon, your outlook on life contains ideas whose roots are deeply rooted in the air.
I pity you for walking around all day with such scary virtual demons on your shoulder.
Still there is hope for you. There are excellent medicines today (unfortunately they are a result of capitalism, I hope it doesn't interfere).
A. Either you believe that life is a supreme value, or you believe that there are more important things such as the "discourse of rights" or "capitalism" or "human nature" or "Darwinism" (for the greatest irony it turns out that the survival of the fittest left the species that consumes its habitat at the top of the food chain, and as a result Thus himself and all life on the face of the globe. So in the end, if the human race does not come to its senses, it will turn out that in practice there was a survival of the fittest. Which proves that we should not trust the selections of nature?).. If we believe that life is at the top of the hierarchy of values, And in fact no other value or belief has any meaning when life expires, you have to accept what is required from this: that the economy, activity and the way of human existence on the planet must work out according to the parameters dictated by this value. ZA: Capitalism and socialism must be thrown into the dustbin of history, since these two ideologies equally advocate "growth", "employment", "increasing GDP", and other slogans that mean the continued destruction of the surface of the globe.
B. The debate surrounding "warming" is a "red herring" whose purpose is to distract attention from the main thing: the pollution. When three billion tons of liquid fuels and another huge amount of gases and coal are burned every year, and when various chemical substances are used in a foolish manner, and nuclear is also used, the result is all-consuming pollution. This is an assertion that does not need proof: the gray skies of industrial Europe, from capitalist Sheffield to the former socialist Ural Mountains, the industrialized urban centers of capitalist America and socialist China, and also the small Haifa Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the delta of the Niger, are proof of the unfolding destruction and the overcomer.
It is clear that changing this obvious trend requires a change in lifestyle and way of thinking. He who believes that "human nature" requires his punishment through stupid methods like capitalism or socialism, is only testifying to himself, and you should be very careful of him, as he has an uncontrollable destructive instinct.
third. The enormous number of the human race also has a positive meaning: a lot of human labor, which, with the addition of the power of invention and imagination, and clean energies, can replace, even easily, the great fire, and allow humanity a comfortable and even pleasant life, certainly more than what the ruling methods today invite for the majority of humanity. This is on the condition that we get rid of the idiotic system in which people travel many kilometers or tens of kilometers in vehicles with a combustion engine for work or recreation and vacation, that we throw away the "use and throw away" product method and above all that we get rid of the concept according to which the success of people, companies or countries is measured by senseless accumulation and futile, harmful and destructive, of mountains of material means, assets and money.
In short: whoever believes in the golden calf, has no hope.
d. And finally: the high priest of the Church of Science, Stephen Hawking, has long been devoting a considerable part of his influence and persuasiveness to enlighten his believers about the seriousness of the problem. He went so far as to befriend some millionaire who is planning spaceships to get the remnants of humanity out of here. Hawking, with all his physical limitations, even bothered himself with a desperate demonstration of levitation in a vacuum to demonstrate with his own body the seriousness and, moreover, the urgency of solving the problem. It is a great pity that those who are so confident in the correctness of Hawking's assertions regarding the beginning of the universe ("the big bang") do not take with due seriousness the concerns of this scientist about the end that scientific progress and technological developments, together with false ideologies, bring to our unfortunate globe.
Avi,
If we switch at the moment in an uneconomic way (which is actually being done on a small scale) to the production of "renewable" energy, the price of energy will go up a lot, which will definitely cause a deep economic recession, because energy is at the base of the economy, and you know who is affected by the recession. Hint, not the rich. I really don't care about the oil companies, only the public. As I have already explained, capitalism is the best possible for the public but still bad (among other things because it is great for the rich, only that it is a sick evil that cannot be cured).
Much more should be invested in research that will enable a reasonable transition to renewable energies (meaning it will only be a little more expensive, not much more than it is now). That is, to subsidize research, not to subsidize the implementation of economic failures that the public is stuck with for years.
The IPCC has been exposed in many different testimonies, starting with the way the studies are conducted there, continuing with the hiding of the information, and ending with the way that conclusions are forced on the scientists. This body exists as long as man is guilty of warming. There is no way they will come to any other conclusions. Most of the honest scientists withdrew from it, an almost suicidal act, even if there are other scientists who don't want to cooperate, they have to be very very altruistic to make the move, which obviously most of them won't do.
In any case, several facts that have been discovered fundamentally contradict the theory. The theory failed. And that doesn't mean there aren't more problems to address, let's put our finger on the right problems.
D.A. Direct evidence from thermometers shows that it was warmer decades ago while there was no apparent warming, not even cooling. So the current heat is not something that didn't exist and is therefore not different from the norm. And if you go to the proxies to discover older temps, you see that it was much warmer for a much longer time.
You don't need to cry werewolf every time you see a cat.
In my opinion (my conclusion, I currently have no way to prove it, but at the moment it fits best with what is known), after many years of interest in the subject, KA returns to its normal temperature, which was normal before the Little Ice Age that started 300-400 years ago . That means another two or three degrees beyond what it is now.
And what exactly motivates you to resist? Do you have shares in any oil company? After all, the ones who are directly affected by the actions to prevent emissions are the oil and coal companies. All the rest of humanity just benefits. It is a fact that for years they bribed the car companies not to produce hybrid cars and bought every possible patent to bury it. Now they are trying to influence through politicians and publicists. Unfortunately, there are people like you who have been convinced by these arguments that there is no truth in them - the IPCC is a body that includes thousands of scientists, it cannot be that they are all corrupt or collaborating with corruption. There are enough separate sets of data that all lead to the conclusion of warming.
And one more thing, did you go out today?
Tamir, Avi, in my humble opinion, the debate between you is drifting into places that are not relevant to the article. The article claims three things - one is that the conduct of individuals and economies is based on the concept of "growth" or in another word "more!" Second thing - growth cannot continue indefinitely, the third thing is that the consumption of resources can be optimized. The "more" is more resources, more energy, more people who will consume the "more". The second thing is logical, but not caught because our experience for 200 years teaches otherwise. The third claim can be an inhibitor of the expected collapse (at least according to the "Club of Rome"), but not prevent it. If I continue the idea - growth must be replaced with a different concept. Now that we've gone from idea to implementation, I'd love suggestions on how to run capitalist economies. If we take the stock markets as an example - why would investors buy stocks without growth. Again, I think the existing economic system should be continued with adjustments, simply because revolutions take too long and cost too much.
The problem is that you fail to grasp the point. CO2 does not affect warming. That's the point!
There are many things that are not known about the climate. What we already know for sure is that CO2 does not warm (more precisely it does warm but by hundreds of meters less than what the corrupt IPCC attributes to it or in short a null effect). And what is most important, even if today we stop the plates to zero, there will be no measurable impact on the climate. So why? Why? What really motivates you??
Do you want to deal with excessive logging without worrying about renewing them? Okay, I'm with you, do you want to take care of overfishing? I'm with you here too. Address the destruction of habitats? Of course I agree! There are many such problems that must be addressed today! must now What is lost in these matters will not be regained. Treating a non-existent problem is extremely dangerous for our child and us and even more dangerous for the correct goals of protecting the environment.
Tamir, those who are putting our children and grandchildren in danger are those who try to avoid action against global warming and certainly its ecological collapse due to human activity, with the help of people like you. The welfare you are talking about is not the welfare of the public but a handful of tycoons.
Father, there is no contradiction. I explained that capitalization is the best method but it is absolutely bad, and indeed it is bad because of those capitalists who do not use the means. I would be happy to replace it. But what to do? There is nothing better. There is also something much worse. Take it as a challenge. Come up with something better, the whole world will thank you.
Regarding the "studies". It seems to me that everyone agrees that a study that does not have the possibility to receive its data and the possibility to return and reach the same conclusions is actually a study that does not exist. By cold fusion.
The fact that members and "examination committees" exclude the "entitled" "researchers" with the excuse that the people will not understand, and therefore did not pass on the data to anyone who asked for it, is an unequivocal admission that the research is incorrect and that the committees are idiots. After all, the results of a study have to withstand any attack on their correctness (isn't that the truth, isn't it?). Here there is an intention and action (which are not even denied - but externalized!?!) to hide all the data that will allow to check the results of the research. It just shows what's going on with the sad joke called "peer review". An answer to the data request "I am not ready to send you the data because you are falsifying the results of my research" is an explicit admission of a lie.
You know that any action on such an important issue that has a decisive effect on the economy and the well-being of the human race cannot be based on incomplete data, half-truths, demagogic and charismatic books and actual fiction. After all, the truth will be revealed in the end, and these errors will lead us to sacrifice our existence and our child who are not guilty of anything to terrible disasters, only then it will be too late.
Tamir, there is a contradiction in your words, on the one hand you say that capitalism is the best method to manage people's economy, and on the other hand you don't like capitalists. Capital gods are not an exception to the system, they are a product of the system.
And apart from that, I also have no objection to capitalism, except for the fact that it leaves the control of all aspects of life in the hands of the capitalists, and what to do, not everyone is competent and understands the economics of the environment. They continue to convince first of all themselves and then us through experts that money can buy, that the saying from the beginning of the industrial revolution in England "smoke in the chimney means food in the house" is still true today. And when it doesn't go their way, they pull out a Climate Gate-type face, all the experts who read the emails said that they only testify that the scientists don't trust people who understand statistics and research methods, and are at best guilty of arrogant behavior, but there is absolutely nothing in the claim that there was a worldwide conspiracy to invent the warming. I was in the USA about a month ago and I walked the Washington Monuments from eight to ten at night and I was sweating as if I was in Tel Aviv at noon.
Capitalism is the best method there is to manage people's economy.
Absolutely, this is a really bad method with huge drawbacks. And yet there is no better method than it. The fact that makes it the best method of course lies in human nature 🙂 and this is something that cannot be changed, maybe in dreams.
In any case, I would define myself as an anarchist (in the sense of anti-institutional and governmental) and anti-religious (in the past this was enough to vote Meretz), I deliberately do not say atheist, that is not strong enough. 😉
Capitalist is really not me. There are several sectors that bring me the kebs, a religious establishment, tycoons, and liars in the name of science.
In any case, in my opinion there is nothing more important than the truth, the truth is a supreme value, the closer the human race gets to it, the less the number of problems we will have to deal with and the simpler the solutions to the remaining problems.
What did a capitalist like you do in Meretz, regardless of the green agenda?
Abi, it is nice to discover that your analysis is so accurate 🙂
As you know, I have always voted for Meretz (and before that for Retz) in the last elections I did not vote because of Meretz's "green" agenda which took a central place in their platform (I am talking about ideas that are based on lies of course).
I am a big supporter of proper environmental management. And I am even more supportive of doing it according to the facts and not according to false academic puffery. This is propaganda based on intimidation and lies. There are quite a few dark regimes that used this strategy to change the global balance of power, here it is a very similar case, luckily the public and governments have not yet surrendered to this nonsense (for now there seems to be a positive trend, probably the truth will win in the end).
I do not succeed and how in all these subjects your private views blind your training. - not to invent. establish. Do not release information that is in doubt, and if there is, highlight it. Every time there is an exaggeration, a lie or a fantastic prediction, you harm science and turn it into another religion that competes for public trust. The general public has for many years treated science as a religion, and you strengthen this attitude every time you come out with this farce.
Tamir, the article was published in a respected journal, I am sorry that he does not agree with your extreme right-wing views that concern for the environment is a nuisance and that entrepreneurs should be allowed to solve it through the free market. The fact that they haven't done it today and are trying to bribe governments to avoid taking action.
We no longer have that luxury. This time we are betting on our very existence, so there is probably no time to wait for market forces. The environment is the most obvious area where there is a market failure. There are many other market failures described in the article. Apparently you and your friends at the black blog think that all consideration for the environment is unnecessary, to the extent that you are willing to sacrifice your very existence and certainly your children and grandchildren who are not guilty of anything.
my father
Indeed demagoguery for its own sake. An article full of errors and half-truths.
The main problem here is the misanthropes taking over the academic discourse.
Which energy is more efficient, solar energy or wind energy?
An important article, but the ones who can make the change are the politicians, and the public does not elect its politicians according to an energy agenda, at least not in Israel. The political sphere is seen as more important than energy independence, just because we take for granted that we have electricity and fuel.
To 2
You don't want to, but soon you just won't have a choice.
About half of the US public believes in global warming and that humans are to blame for it. Add to the matter the subprime crisis of 2008, and the deficits of Western governments and the next inevitable crisis - and you have a large group of concerned citizens, but do not understand where it comes from.
The plight of the ignorant is a business opportunity for charlatan gurus like Mr. McKibben.
The wealth of the West originates from three cultural traits: the division of labor, free market and technological innovation. These three qualities are interdependent, and cannot exist separately over time. Our standard of living depends on this Holy Trinity. It should be understood that our standard of living is based on efficiency and high productivity. We simply produce a lot of products and services. That's why we can enjoy them. In small communities that provide for themselves, the efficiency is very low. Low efficiency leads to poverty and a hard and short life.
A skilled demagogue can paint fairy tales about farmers in Africa with utopian pink. We don't want to be farmers in Africa, we don't want to chop wood for a fire and recycle our own fertilizer. We don't want to go back two hundred years and live in small and poor communities that meet the needs of their own minimum.
Distributed and local energy production that uses clean energy sources such as solar energy and wind certainly sounds logical, ingenious and promising. In that case, the problem of transportation pollution will also be solved by electric cars that will be charged with electricity that comes from clean energy.