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Gnuneo's avatar

Someone needs to calculate from a FUNCTIONING low-energy community - permaculture food production; cycle lanes; no BULLSHIT JOBS; little exploitation and lots of community-time; well insulated and designed homes; a small scale industry fx - and see what the minimum energy use of such an advanced and pleasant community would be, without all the wasteful.... waste.

I suspect it would be a great deal lower than what "Westerners" are used to. No sitting in traffic jams to buy a starbucks coffee before driving 200 miles to create online advertising that everyone hates.

We can survive, and thrive even, on a great deal less.

Somehow, I expect Greenlanders living in frigid wastes but with well designed and harmonious communities use considerably less energy per person than your average 'affluent' Californian community living in supposed climate paradise.

Once we have such calculated numbers, we could start - if we were an intelligent species, rather than one just convinced of its intelligence by the ego - to calculate a base-rate of semi-industrial survival, and also how long those increasingly scarcer materials and energy sources will last at such a rate.

As long as such communities are not infested by Xianity, or other "Go out and multiply" monotheistic religions, hopefully human numbers will continue to fall in 'developed' areas.

By far the most likely outcome will be humans choosing some 'strong' leader with no braincells, who will start a cataclysmic war - almost certainly over some tiny perceived slight, because that is simply how monkeys work.

Rationalising, not rational.

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Emma Hunter's avatar

Some tough love here. The sooner we curtail overconsumption, we can begin adapting to less, and sustain the planet longer.

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