My point is not that the predictions are inaccurate. The reason they don't come true is that the realities force us to change.
I hear you SNG, but the rate at which we adapt shouldn't be thought of as a natural process that will balance out in the end.
I really don't think you can use past experiences of adaption to changing conditions to that which we're presented with today. The way environmental degredation issues have gradually compounded won't allow us to do that.
The question is will we adapt quickly enough. Western societies in general have allowed themselves to be lulled into a false sense of comfort. Especially so when the full costs of environmental indulgences aren't factured into their resale values. The global economic system is viewed as inevitable by most, and as such isn't challenged when it should be.
You mention that humans in the developed world aren't prepared to forego the lifestyles they've become so comfortable in. Joking comments made on this thread re-inforce that fact. The point is that without major lifestyle changes, and changes to the way the global economic system is structured, life as we know it into the forseeable future cannot be sustained.
Viewing technological fixes as the answer, and not balancing that out with a need for mass social change will inevitably lead to irreversable damage that will cause us to eat well into our future. Numerous technologies we need to live sustainably have been developed and yet there are too many binds for their thorough implementation. How can we as a species adapt quickly enough to our natural environment when we outright acknowledge that we know so very little about it, and the extent of the impacts we're having on it? I think perhaps that you have greater faith in human intelligence than I do to predict and respond creatively to forces we have little knowledge of, and no real control over.
As a species we will always be forced to adapt to survive, but I don't believe that we can be so optimistic that this change will occur as part of a natural process, at a rate that is consistant with averting mass human misery.
We have only one pie. The way it gets sliced is changing.
I get your angle re the flaws of eco-footprint calcs, but I think perhaps for the purpose of this exercise it didn't require overanalysing. Those calcs are put together to prod people's environmental conscience in a light-hearted way.
The developing world is developing. The global economy is lifting nations out of poverty.
I'm sorry but I had to laugh at this comment. The north/south divide is firmly entrenched and the chasm growing, cause the global economic system is set-up to keep it that way, for now anyway. While I believe in egalitarian values gernerally, the idea of the developing world being excused to replicate the mistakes of western industrialisation is just plain stupid. It may be driving the push to renewables because of increased demand on fuels, but isn't it just plain sad that it always has to come down to a narrow view of cost effectiveness. The artificial economic system has become so firmly embedded with our concept of survival, thereby limiting our response to positive change.
Anyways, I don't think we're really disagreeing in general here:) frog x
