Norway Begins Four Year Test Of Thorium Nuclear Reactor

[GliderGuider]

14. There are seven billion different ways of finding value in existence.

Yes, I think there are going to be some people around for a long time. And I think there will be many, many fewer than there are today.

You ask, "What can we do now to prolong that date, even by a few decades?" I think the pertinent question is what are we prolonging by our actions? It's not our own personal lives, and not the end-point of our species. To my mind we are prolonging one thing only: the physical and psychological comfort of whoever is around just before the slide begins

But what is the cost of their prolonged comfort? Is it the deeper immiseration of those who come after, as we have used up more of the resources we might have left behind for them? Is it a few hundred other species that might not have gone extinct due to our continued activity? If so, I think that is too high a price to pay for a few more decades of automobiles, subdivisions, central heating and industrial food.

I find the ideas of permaculture, faster computers and wisdom development attractive because they are activities that add value to human lives without diminishing the opportunities of other species. You see, I am actually hopeful about things like that. I'm just not hopeful about stopping the slide or returning the atmosphere to some safe, comfortable level of CO2. I'm not hopeful about convincing 7 billion other people to stop burning carbon to make themselves feel better. But I am deeply hopeful about the power of the human spirit, and its ability to do the right thing - once it has tried everything else.