We can't get there from here.

[GliderGuider]

Humanity has concentrated the planet's resources in both space and time to serve human ends.

We have concentrated them in space by appropriating the resources other species need for their survival and using them for ourselves.

We have concentrated the planet's resources in time two ways: by taking resources created in the distant past such as fossil fuels and using them in the present; and by damaging the natural carrying capacity of the planet so much that the survival of the biosphere in the future is imperiled - essentially using resources needed for the future, today.

This four-dimensional concentration of resources is what has underwritten the enormous growth of human numbers and activity levels, especially since the end of WWII.

How enormous has our growth been?

If we wanted to reduce human impact on the planet to a truly sustainable level, it would have to drop to less than 1/15,000th of its current level. In other words, there are about 1,000 times too many people, each causing over 15x too much per-capita ecological damage, as measured through the proxy of our primary energy consumption.

There is no mechanism through which humanity can accomplish that degree of planned reduction to either our numbers our our activities. There is no "solution" to the problem of human impact to the biosphere. At best we can make a few nibbles around the edges that will have no effect at all on the outcome.

We are committed to riding the train until it goes off the cliff. Let's at least try and do that with a modicum of dignity and grace.

Those outrageous numbers above come from my multi-approach sustainability analysis from three years ago:
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Sustainability.html

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick.....

[The2ndWheel]

2. Consumed by numbers

We think there's a perfect equation out there somewhere. A number that if we can just find a way to get to it, at least by a certain year, and always balance on it perfectly, we can do anything. Just harness those numbers, and we're pretty sure we can control the outcome.

[MisterP]

7. Elon Musk says we can just nuke Mars and then have a new planet ready for the taking

people were already writing constitutions and designing currency once they heard

[Binkie The Clown]

3. K&R. Nothing more needs to be said on the subject. n/t

[mopinko]

4. education for women and girls is proven

to reduce reproduction.

also, we dont need birth control so much as death control. high childhood mortality is a major reason for big families in many parts of the world. better child and maternal healthcare has also been proven to lower reproduction.

[GliderGuider]

5. That's the "nibbling around the edges" I was talking about.

It solves nothing. As I describe it, the problem is 15,000 times bigger than that.

We can do it, we should do it. I am all in favour of educating women. But let's not kid ourselves that educating more women is going to fix the problem of human activity that is already well along in destroying the biosphere. Educating women isn't going to reduce the world population by 99.9% within the next hundred years, the next thousand years, or ever.

[mopinko]

6. neither is anything else

short of state imposed 1 child policies.
dont think many people like that idea.

[GliderGuider]

8. That's correct.

Neither is mandating a 90% drop in everyone's standard of living.

The point I'm making is that we are absolutely fucked, and there is sweet nothing we can do about it. The hole we have dug ourselves into is a mile deep, and the ladder we have to get out is only 10 feet tall.

Civilization as we know could bo over within the next two to three decades, as climate change starts to trigger widespread food and water shortages, with those leading to political turmoil and economic breakdown.

The point is that we are looking at a global catastrophe that is unfolding now and will inevitably get worse over the coming decades. It's time to decide how we want to confront that, as individuals and as communities.

Here's today's bad news:

Sea Level Rise Will Be Worse and Come Sooner

Sea levels could rise by much more than originally anticipated, and much faster, according to new data being collected by scientists studying the melting West Antarctic ice sheet – a massive sheet the size of Mexico.

That revelation was made by an official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday at the annual RIMS conference for risk management and insurance professionals in San Diego, Calif. The conference is being attended by more than 10,000 people, according to organizers. It was day No. 3 of the conference, which ends Wednesday.

Margaret Davidson, NOAA’s senior advisor for coastal inundation and resilience science and services, and Michael Angelina, executive director of the Academy of Risk Management and Insurance, offered their take on climate change data in a conference session titled “Environmental Intelligence: Quantifying the Risks of Climate Change.”

Davidson said recent data that has been collected but has yet to be made official indicates sea levels could rise by roughly 3 meters or 9 feet by 2050-2060, far higher and quicker than current projections. Until now most projections have warned of seal level rise of up to 4 feet by 2100.

We're so far past fucked you can't even see fucked from here any more.

[mopinko]

9. hard to argue w your take.