When you consider stored carbon—oil, coal, natural gas—is a bank account that has been filled by the sun and the Earth for millions of years, I think it is important to be honest that we have simply been raiding the bank for the past several hundred years.
A small part of what’s left of Kennecott Copper after the profits were taken—a grim reminder of the cost of “doing business.”
Meanwhile, every day the planet is washed with sunlight, wind and tides, the same energy that is stored in the “bank”, the same energy that has fueled this amazingly beautiful and intricate world. This energy is far in excess of what we could ever imagine harvesting, but we must scale our uses of energy to match what is accessible—to live within our means—and solve the fairly simple problems of sharing this immense wealth equitably—”cash flow”—and in ways that preserve this miraculous planet for our grandchildren’s grandchildren and the Earth itself, our long-term investments.
If President-elect Trump is the businessman he says he is, why does he continue to fill his administration with bank robbers and fail to see that even the 1% will be doomed when whales, glaciers and elephants are gone?
My friend Cindy hugs a 10,000 year old Baobab tree in Botswana. Where will President-elect Trump be in 10,000 years?
I’m learning a lot from your blog. I’ve tried sending you an email about an art show at Westview Meadows, but don’t have a good email address for you.
Alban 223-6560 richey.alban@gmail.com
Economists are used to treat the resources as something that is outside the system and pretend they are unlimited. So we get the idea of economic growth. We pretend as if the economic system is growing when in fact it is shrinking. If you view the resources as part of the system, you see that there is no growth and that the system is destructive. Unlimited growth is, of course, physically impossible. Economists pretend that the economy is not a zero-sum-game, that everybody can gain when the system is growing. It appears to be a win-win system if you leave the resources out of the equation. However, it is the generations of the future who will be paying the bill, by inheriting a destroyed planet. One can say that today’s people exploit the future generations. In its current form our economy and hence our civilization is unsustainable, so it will not be sustained in this form. Either we manage to turn it into something sustainable or it is going to collapse.
Wonderful post!
Wonderful post; thank you!
Yes, beautiful post, John. Glad to join your following, and thanks for a great lunch together.
So much to cherish, love and value in this world, making it so tragic that power, control, money, hate, and violence dominate.