Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton: Arctic Drilling 'Not Worth the Risk' [View all]The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)We don't like limits. Well we don't like limits that we don't agree with at least.
We have 4 options:
1) more people doing more
2) more people doing less
3) fewer people doing more
4) fewer people doing less
Since we still physically have more people on the planet each year, that limits the options. The developed world has a declining birth rate only because more people have gotten access to more resources. So we really only have 3 options, as #4 most likely isn't going to be what we would call a functioning mass society. The one common denominator in the first three options is more.
We're not good at making difficult decisions, because we can't agree on who gets to play God, so our solution is to grow the pie. That leads to things like half of the world's non-human animals disappearing since 1970. We don't, or possibly can't, accept that we can't have everything we want. If it is a finite planet, and if we do want more for ourselves, then other forms of life have to go. Not only do we want more, but we've come to have an expectation of more.
So we want everything. We want to power a global civilization where every human being has all they could ever need to realize their full potential, and save the polar bears. We might be able to keep a few in a zoo, but that's about it.