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Originally Posted by Catwoman
This is nothing to do with the 'good old days' nor is it romanticized - just common sense. IF current methods were ecologically sound, that would be the right thing to do. I could reel off a list of websites with pollution statistics, ozone destruction, oil and natural resource depletion and so on. The fact is we do not know the true impact of our relentless Dyson-powered suction of all this planet has to offer. We use more than we need; that is not contestable. There is bound to be a payoff at some point.
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People think in very similar ways - makes you think it is all interconnected somehow.
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I agree with this last sentiment, and I believe that the connections are psychobiological.
Jacquelita has a dog who is quite different from my dogs. I was scritching behind his ears the other day. I found that if I scritched in the same way I sometimes scritch one of my dogs, he had the EXACT same reaction, first making happy sounds that seem like he's enjoying it, and then at some point giving a little tiny yelp as if he didn't like it any more.
I was surprised that this new dog's behavior was 100% identical to my one dog in every way. Even though this dog is otherwise quite different from my dogs and has lived an extremely different life.
Are the dogs connected. They HAVE met! But no, their response is "built in" genetically. Humans have similar reactions, but our response is filtered through consciousness and so we don't recognize where our reactions are coming from. More of our behaviors are instinctual than we like to let on.
Inherent in the human condition is predicting the End Times; and along with it is usually some form of blame. It's the notion that if we don't change our behavior, Something is going to get us all.
The Something changes, but it appears to be common through recorded history. Of course we see the Apocalypse story in almost all religions. But when religion doesn't serve any longer, we need new Apocalypses to focus on. In the last two generations it was nuclear holocaust, which was then extended to nuclear "winter", the notion that even if mutually assured destruction (how apocalyptic is that!) was not successful, the resulting climate change could cool the environment and freeze us all.
Maybe it's hopefully instructional to see the competing versions of Apocalypse. They should get together; if global warming is bad, just set off a few bombs and start nuclear winter, eh?
So is the new Apocalypse environmental dysfunction?
One of the advantages of being on this big blue marble for a few decades is that the patterns start to become recognizable. I recognize this general type of alarm. I remember sitting home from school sick, watching daytime TV in 1975. A group of very serious wonks came on to talk about dwindling resources and how it was certain that if we didn't change how we operated and become conservationists we would be out of oil in 30 years.
Well we didn't change how we operated. We still use more oil than ever. And it's 30 years later right now, and gasoline is still cheaper than 1975 prices after adjusting for inflation. (Price is the universal signal of shortage, an extremely strong market force.)
There are still a few people saying that the Saudis are low on oil -- but the number of wonks on daytime TV claiming the Apocalypse will be running out of resources, is significantly lower. The number of wonks has not changed, the prediction of Apocalypse is still there, but its source is different. The proof remains mysterious and pseudo-scientific, and the idea requires a lot of evangelism to remain in the public mind.