Originally Posted by
KraneXL
Not only do they grow, but they grow exponentially. Imagine the cars we have on the road today doubled.
We need our politicians to stop living for today and think about our future. This "let the future people" deal with repercussions mentality needs to stop. Imagine if they had developed nuclear energy 1000 year ago. How much toxic waste would be floating around in our air and water?
Remember, before the EPA they just dumped toxins into the river. We can't grow anymore roads unless people want to travel on 100 ft highways.
I think you have the correct way of thinking. You imagine yourself as far ahead in the future as you can and then think about what it will be like to look back and decisions that were made by people in our time now.
Originally Posted by
Mobile 155
1000 years ago? I wonder how many Armies would have used Nukes rather than Bows and swords to expand their kingdoms back then? What did we know now that they didn't care about then?
We have more access to more information across a broader timeline. We have more time and skill with reading, thinking, and synthesizing large amounts of information so that we can see broader patterns with greater clarity.
I have been to Wyoming and Texas and I am pretty sure we can build roads and even cities for the next 100 years without driving on top of each other.
100 years is an irresponsible time-frame to consider. Even planning for 1000 years without thinking about many more millennia coming after the end of those 1000 years is irresponsible.
We should be striving for permanent sustainability wherever possible. We have to distinguish between needs and wants to do that.
As far as politicians trying to stop living for today? They cannot get elected telling people that we must suffer for today for the people in the future? Not if our suffering has to start while China, India and Africa is allowed to build a nation that looks like ours for the next 30 years. I wouldn't start holding my breath just yet. Lets see how suffering for the greater good works in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba in the next five years.
You're right, but as long as people use the inaction of others to justify their own inaction, liberty fails as a basis for responsible self-governance.
Lets be real here, the modern western lifestyle represents possibly less than 33 percent of the worlds population. Almost 2/3 of the population living a car free life are trying to migrate to the west to get away from the simple totalitarian life. At this point it is very unlikely the west will back down their lifestyle and it seems as if there is no chance the third world will not claw its way to a western type of life. So we have at least till our society crashes and burns before politicians will wake up and do anything.
It's already crashing and burning in many ways. What exactly would you expect it to take before everyone, not just politicians, starts taking the responsibility to make prosperity sustainable seriously?
The bigger question is who wants to be first to give up their lifestyle for people in the future? Here in our state it seems as if 77 billion is more than the public is willing to support for the future. I could not see spending money on a train ride that is half as fast as a plane ride. And I don't care what the people in other countries think. I don't have to answer to them.
The question is how long can everyone avoid action by waiting for someone to go before them without some lunatic randomly punishing people for inaction?
It is doubtful that US governments (federal and/or local) can succeed at producing functional rail systems. It is far more likely that rail projects will keep starting up, creating jobs and contracts, and then failing so that people keep spending the money on driving. If that is the case, then there won't be any political-economic escape from driving or even any political-economic failure of driving as an economically-unsustainable form of transportation. Even so, people aren't stupid and awareness of unsustainability is growing and intensifying.
So at what point will the sustaining of unsustainability give way to random assaults more so than is already going on in the news practically every day? I don't think there's a way out. I think we may have painted ourselves into a corner and now we just have to suffer there until who knows when.