179 comments on Money Talks
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
179 comments on Money Talks
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Classic posts
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Oil Drum: New York City archives
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Glenn -- I strongly agree that most "poor" people have a smaller ecological footprint, whether they know it or not, whether they care or not.
We relatively wealthy ones not only breathe and consume food and water like the poor, but our power plants and cars and the huge infrastructure we require inhales an enormous amount of oxygen and exhales a huge amount of waste.
The infrastucture that we relatively wealthy folks require for our "normal" lives soaks up resources and spews out toxins so that each one of us is a large behemoth roaming the earth with consequences we have not been much aware of until lately.
It would be interesting to show the relative environmental impact of those we consider to be "poor" with the "top" 20%, "top" 5% and then the "top" 1%.
One person living sustainably could be seen as 1 standard unit of measure. A poor person might consume/slough off more or less than this, depending. But then what about the people who are "middle class" or "upper class" or "very rich"?
It is a worthwhile point to ponder.
There's more to environmental protection than carbon emissions, though. Wholesale destruction of habitats, slaughter of various species (sometimes just for sport or boredom, like destruction of the passenger pigeon), overuse of soil - that is also a consequence of poverty).
You are still probably right, but there's more to consider. What I hope for is not a return to the past, but a future with a declining human population, but one living in better situations with more space and resources for the rest of life on this planet.
Our population needs to decline. That's the bottom line.