Reply to: our economy is a wholly own subsidiary of the biosphere

[gingerjedi]

It will be fine.

There's bound to be other planets that we can one day mine or colonize.

I hear 'LV-426' is nice.

Or we could just rely on extra terrestrial guardians to save us again:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39929

[Doggy Styles]

It will be fine.

There's bound to be other planets that we can one day mine or colonize.

That's what zeity thought when he came here.

[sweetandsour]

I didn't hear the piece but surely he has a point. In the long term how can we continue growing our demand for resources at an exponential rate (even 1% year on year is exponential) against a background of diminishing resources?

Isn't this analogous with Brown spending money without stopping to think where it is all coming from?

It will be fine.

There's bound to be other planets that we can one day mine or colonize.

[gingerjedi]

I didn't hear the piece but surely he has a point. In the long term how can we continue growing our demand for resources at an exponential rate (even 1% year on year is exponential) against a background of diminishing resources?

Isn't this analogous with Brown spending money without stopping to think where it is all coming from?

WHS^

If China carries on at 9% it's economic activity will double in just 8 years, some bugger stole the lead of my local primary school roof in the middle of the night... I expect this sort of activity to increase as the far east turns into a sort of global resource black whole.

[Mich the Tester]

I didn't hear the piece but surely he has a point. In the long term how can we continue growing our demand for resources at an exponential rate (even 1% year on year is exponential) against a background of diminishing resources?

Isn't this analogous with Brown spending money without stopping to think where it is all coming from?

Economic growth does not necessarily involve ever increasing use of resources. It can in fact involve reducing the use of resources. Let’s say you want to buy a boiler for your central heating. If you had bought a boiler 30 years ago, it would have burnt more gas and given you less returns than a modern boiler today. The modern system uses less unrenewable resources, but is much better at heating your home. As well as that, the modern boiler is sold to you at a profit, employing people and providing returns on investment to the people who made it.

[hyperD]

Is everyones catchphrase now 'we can't go on like this'?

Because if it is, we can't go on like this...

I think the following line "with suspicious minds" has more of an element of truth to it in considering the climate change gibberish. Until we do, we'll be "caught in a trap".

hyperD in "Blue Suede Shoes" mode

[George Parr]

I didn't hear the piece but surely he has a point. In the long term how can we continue growing our demand for resources at an exponential rate (even 1% year on year is exponential) against a background of diminishing resources?

Isn't this analogous with Brown spending money without stopping to think where it is all coming from?

[Spacecadet]

On radio 4 this morning a member of a think tank explained that we would need to stop basing progress on economic expansion and wealth creation as the planet would not sustain this.

John Humphries was very non-plussed.

I was just wondering how many CUKers threw their radios out of the car on hearing this......

There seemed to be a lot of crap talked on the radio this morning, which was unfortunate as I spent most of it stuck in traffic.
I love how he used the analogy of the hamster, totally made a mockery of everything he was saying

Was this the same chap who seemed to think that people running companies shouldn't be paid millions of pounds but Cheryl Cole should?

Womans hour had a discussion about schools.. for some reason one of the commentators kept mentioning the new Apple Tablet. It had absolutely no bearing to the conversation and just left me thinking "YOU'RE AN IDIOT"

[ratewhore]

Except his opening line was, we can't go on like this due to the effect on the climate

Is everyones catchphrase now 'we can't go on like this'?

Because if it is, we can't go on like this...

[EternalOptimist]

Sounds to me like they are saying there is more to life than money...

...which I would agree with personally.

Except his opening line was, we can't go on like this due to the effect on the climate

[ratewhore]

On radio 4 this morning a member of a think tank explained that we would need to stop basing progress on economic expansion and wealth creation as the planet would not sustain this.

John Humphries was very non-plussed.

I was just wondering how many CUKers threw their radios out of the car on hearing this......

Sounds to me like they are saying there is more to life than money...

...which I would agree with personally.

[BlasterBates]

Some of the analogies and arguments the chappie used were awful. He likened economic expansion to a hamster. Because a hamster cannot double in size indefinately, we should stop expecting continous economic growth.
Then he had a go at our kids shoes. When your kids grow, their feet get bigger, so they need new shoes. But there will be a time when the economy will grow and there will be no new bio-shoes for the planet

i think he was starting to ramble at that point

One ex Green Peace activist described Green Peace as "anti-human", which I felt is an apt description.

Green activists are what I fear most, forget Al Queda, Iran, these people are dangerous because now they have the ear of Obama. The chief scientific advisor is now prescribing Geo-Engineering to change the Earth to bring down the temperature of the planet. It is just complete madness. The more I read the more frightened I get about these people.

I used to think that CO2 did drive warming. Recently I've found out that the real scientific consensus is that the solar cycle, and the solar cycle alone drives the earth's climate, and there isn't really any doubt as most of the CO2 arguments have been debunked. Serious scientists openly use terms like nonsense, and hoax. You wouldn't hear language like that in any other scientific discipline. The upper atmosphere hasn't warmed at all (in contrast to the main plank of the CO2 warming theory) and historical records show co2 lagging temperature pretty consistently over hundreds of thousands of years. Thank God (literally), the solar cycle is 60 years, and the cycle turned in 2000, so forcing these so called "scientists" to openly fiddle the figures expose the fraud and prevent a real catastrophe, i.e. Geo Engineering, chopping down equatorial forests, and thrusting developing countries into the dark ages with "carbon trading".

[Scary]

The hamster analogy was genious!

"If a hamster grew on economic premises it would be 9bn tonnes by its first birthday"

Are you sure it wasn't Chris Morris?

[BlackenedBiker]

Some of the analogies and arguments the chappie used were awful. He likened economic expansion to a hamster. Because a hamster cannot double in size indefinately, we should stop expecting continous economic growth.
Then he had a go at our kids shoes. When your kids grow, their feet get bigger, so they need new shoes. But there will be a time when the economy will grow and there will be no new bio-shoes for the planet

i think he was starting to ramble at that point

The hamster analogy was genious!

"If a hamster grew on economic premises it would be 9bn tonnes by its first birthday"

[EternalOptimist]

On radio 4 this morning a member of a think tank explained that we would need to stop basing progress on economic expansion and wealth creation as the planet would not sustain this.

John Humphries was very non-plussed.

I was just wondering how many CUKers threw their radios out of the car on hearing this......

Some of the analogies and arguments the chappie used were awful. He likened economic expansion to a hamster. Because a hamster cannot double in size indefinately, we should stop expecting continous economic growth.
Then he had a go at our kids shoes. When your kids grow, their feet get bigger, so they need new shoes. But there will be a time when the economy will grow and there will be no new bio-shoes for the planet

i think he was starting to ramble at that point