Jeremy Rifkin: "We are all to blame"

Excellent editorial by the author of "The Hydrogen Economy"

His main points... Bush speaks of America's resolove to rebuild after storms while he should be speaking of our resolve to get off our oil addiction which is causing the storms. This article could also go in the "Peak Oil" forum because it discusses our supply/demand situation.

Rifkin: "...meanwhile, our biosphere is convulsing from the build-up of CO2, and there is nowhere to hide or escape."



www.guardian.co.uk...

"Sorry, Mr President, homilies won't stop the hurricanes"
We Americans need to get out of our SUVs and learn the harsh lesson of Katrina and Rita: we are all to blame

Jeremy Rifkin
Friday September 23, 2005
The Guardian

Have fun... it is dated tomorrow,

Sri Oracle

When beavers over populate a river, the water sagnates and many insects, bacteria, and plants build up all which cause harm and disease in the beaver... this causes some beaver to die off thus restoring the river to its original state.

Gia theory, the self healing Earth.

Humans over populate and raise the CO2 levels causing global warming and serious climate change. Unable to cope with the effect human populations drop due to disasters, energy shortages, or disease.

I remember when Gia theory was huge, but now the buzz word is "Run-away Global Warming" in which as soon as things get kinda bad, they are guarenteed to get REAL bad.

Man is an animal as much as the beaver. We will adapt or not. Things will change and life will adjust to it be it the extinction of man or rise of algea.

Nature.

Rats were introduced to Austrailia by early settlers. These rats over ran the continent and cause serious ecological devistation. To fix the problem men imported Large lizard to eat the rats. Lizard however sleep and night and rat durring the day, thus they had no effect...except of course they started eating all the chickens! So, toads were intorduced to provide food for the lizards. Except it turns out the toads, cane toads, are poisonous! So then then everyone's pet cat ate teh toads and all died. The lesson? Sometimes trying to fix the problem is worse than just accepting the change and waiting to see what happens.

People are part of nature even if we have a huge effect on everything around us. The earth is a complex system with only one rule...things WILL change and its up to everything to adapt or die.

So, what the alternative to oil? Solar? Because sunlight not falling on mountain tops, deserts, or grasslands wouldn't change them? Nuclear? Because pulling uranium out of the ground and converting it to waste wouldn't effect anything? Wind? Because sucking the energy out of wind/weather patterns wouldn't effect everything else?

There is no way to not effect this world, and I see little difference between using up all the oil and adapting (or not) to the change it causes or anything else we do. If the world used half as much energy, and it came from wind power, it would still wreck havoc on the weather.

Everyone is filled with fear of change... who has a real solution though?

Originally posted by Quest
The lesson? Sometimes trying to fix the problem is worse than just accepting the change and waiting to see what happens.

Agreed... The wise say do nothing yet leave nothing undone.

Quest... for the most part I agree with most of your commentary... especially the self healing earth/gaia concept... however I do not support your claim here:

There is no way to not effect this world, and I see little difference between using up all the oil and adapting (or not) to the change it causes or anything else we do.

I think we complicate things (amplify our effect) when we mess with the time-space continuum during our resource procurement. What I mean by this is that when humans mine for things that are buried deep in the earth by billions of years of geologic time we are disturbing the balance here on the surface... be it for diamonds, gold, or oil. I believe firmly that there would be less consequences to adapt to if we stayed within our own time and space. Keeping a balance on the surface should be the grounds of global environmental policy. For example, burning wood produces CO2 just as burning oil does. However the CO2 produced by the burning wood is balanced out by the CO2 it consumed through its life. In the case of oil, the CO2 produced when burning it has no complimentary consumer. The excess energy at the surface ultimately must be disapated... this is when we deal with the Wrath of God, if you will. The earth is ever desiring to restore balance, and its wrath comes when that desire is temporarily withheld.

So, what the alternative to oil? Solar? Because sunlight not falling on mountain tops, deserts, or grasslands wouldn't change them? Nuclear? Because pulling uranium out of the ground and converting it to waste wouldn't effect anything? Wind? Because sucking the energy out of wind/weather patterns wouldn't effect everything else?

I say the alternative is to lessen personal desire and keep the desires of our earth paramount. Not expecting life to be easy and not looking for the easy way out. Finding ways to do without all this energy we've become so accustomed to. Struggling. Surviving. Facing nature. Turning off the A/C. Taking cold showers. Getting a job you can walk to. Using hand tools. Cooking on a wood stove. Those that make these choices will be the beavers that live through the stagnation.


Sri Oracle

Hemp..... so has anyone heard about hemp being a source of oil for us? it's natural and less harmful to the earth. why doesn't the govt. use that? probably money or what? it highly annoys me that there are solutions but they don't seem to grasp the concept . fudge them!