Pretty much. yeah. Frankly, us environmental hopefuls are trying to stop a tank rolling towards them. We wont and we will be crushed. There is just no Hope -

Pretty much. yeah. Frankly, us environmental hopefuls are trying to stop a tank rolling towards them. We wont and we will be crushed. There is just no Hope - Most of the world lives in absolutely mind boggling scenarios. And they all hope to eventually have first world standards of living. Our models, growth projections and debt depends on the world being able to achieve that growth. Humanity has made a bet that the future will be better for all - more consumption, more growth, more resources. Except its just that our industries take advantage of unprotected commons. Amazon deforestation, sea pollution, over fishing, air pollution are the obvious big ticket examples. Heck, many smaller economies go up the ladder because "regulations are far more flexible" - which is great for business, jobs and income. Want to dredge that river for sand? Simply: The world economy does not correctly price the cost of damage to the environment in its transactions. If it did so, costs would spike and a large number of transactions would cease to be viable. ----- The illustrative example is plastic. I bet that 99% of the people reading this have plastic touching them right now. 85% of you will have more than 2 pieces of plastic on your person. Plastic use is only going to increase; worldwide plastic use is VERY far from its eventual peak - most of India and China have yet to reach first world levels of consumption. Now realize that plastic is hundreds of times cheaper than alternatives. It may also be LESS damaging than many alternatives like paper (chemical and water use). Plastic is immortal, and is never going to break down, and we arent anywhere near how much plastic we will have to make before humanity leaves this planet. If we stopped plastic tomorrow, our economy would crater. We would be back to tinning food. That will mean costs and would go up only on packaging costs, forget about cleaning and losses due to spoilage - thats just food. Forget medicines. ---- We arent going to get out of this by doing the right thing. We are going to get out of this because someone will start a plan to pull carbon out of the air and shove it into the core. And then people will keep polluting. ----- Sorry its been frustrating.