Save the Planet? In THIS Economy? Pffft
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- čas přidán 1. 05. 2024
- We often hear industry and political leaders talk about how we need to balance the economy with the environment. The thinking goes something like this: environmental destruction is necessary to earn a living and make the things we need. But is this really true? Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant explores how we can approach the economy and the environment differently.
Based on the book by Jenny Price.
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You can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.
Yes.
lets put a finer point to that statement. One tech bro billionaires might understand;
You *only* have up to as many customers as people, market saturation must be a goal not a liability.
This isn't about reality, it's about HOPE!
Depends how we define growth
the combination of capitalism and the growing population are the two main factor in the destruction of our planets environment.
@@kk-xj5ozcan you define growth in any way that doesn't use more resources? Growth to this point has been 1:1 with materials consumption and energy requirements. Even 'digital growth' requires a foundation of physical resources (chips, copper, gold, plastics, etc...) and energy to power the machines.
I don't think there's any economic measure of growth that can be defined without a tie to resources. The question could be "how do we define success as a nation/world?" and maybe instead of economy as the thing that defines, we use happiness/fulfillment. Ask most people their top 5 life experiences and they are rarely tied to a thing measurable in GDP, which should tell us something about it as a metric.
The reason economists are obsessed with "growth" is they have no ideas about how to improve people's lives other than "line goes up."
If people volunteer in libraries and schools, it doesn't change GDP.
If people use surplus food to feed the poor, it doesn't change GDP.
Preventative medicine doesn't change GDP by itself. If you prevent a surgery in 5 years with exercise, GDP actually goes down.
GDP needs to go. Economists need to figure out how to improve our lives instead of measuring money, or they need to go too.
No,.we play by GDP. Go to Cuba
@@blazer9547Not a value-added statement.
It’s not just about GDP. It’s about the ability to do things; it’s one way of thinking about the ability of a civilization to get things done. - Dave Huntsman
"Economists need to figure out how to improve our lives"... Why would you allow anyone else to make decisions about the quality of your life, other than you? Certainly not the government ! Citizens have given away so much of our power, which is exactly what makes government get away with the damage and corruption. People aren't standing up for themselves or to the government. Sitting around waiting for them to change course in a direction you think is going to help you, is not a solution. People in numbers making the changes, forcing government into accommodating those changes - Try it.
Well stated. Modern economics is an incorrectly bounded problem. Economics does not take into consideration ecology. Ecology doesn't place humans into ecological systems. Nature over there, humans over here, but earth functions as a very complex web of interactions. Ignoring the billions of other things that inhabit the world in favor of fake value (modern currency) is to literally ignore reality. Your examples of life positive experiences which don't drive gdp or actually hurt gdp is a great example of why measuring success by gdp is misguided. Especially as gdp becomes further detached from human driven output and instead into automation.
Yes as profit is privatized and cost is socialized every profit means cost for planet
Actually I wouldn't say that cost is "socialized". You see, the "private" looters yes as said privatised profits, but externalized or exported the cost if you think about it. When was the last time that a costly war was ever fought in the imperial core mainland USA or intentionally any oligarch thrown into poverty from generational loot wealth instead of a golden parachute on the way out? Not that a civil war is needed anyway, just look at the sad state of their public infrastructure and pot holes. The cost was never "socialized" but was always externalized or exported.
@@leponpon6935 'External' are ppl - so cost is socialized. Just not in US
@@volkerengels5298 that is why we should say externalized or exported instead of "socialized". Though the way you say it has been the common way of putting it, it's fine if you like it.
I think PBS really chose the host well for this series. I studied the same thing as her and I love how she explains stuff. I know there's a whole team behind this and I think they do great work.
That's awesome to hear, honestly a big no no is when I follow someone and they start talking about a topic I have expertise on and... They fail miserably. Makes me question their whole views. I'm glad it's not the case with PBS.
I agree, she is a good host. She has a very good, clear voice. (I have hearing issues, so I usually turn off videos that are narrated by mumblers. Subtitles are all very well, but sometimes I miss bits and pieces because I'm trying to look at charts, pictures on the screen, not what it says underneath).
the environment is a so-called 'externality' to most economists
to economists everything not considered inside the (often mathematical) system is an externality. mental health is an important externality as well. All these should be internal in future economic systems.
"The economy" is really just "churn". It's just generating activity that "put people to work" by which activity owners, intermediaries and speculators can profit from. More churn = more fees and more profit.
Still, I am a little surprised by this series from PBS. Not as milquetoast in tone as PBS tend to be. Different donors?
I've been shocked by this series, because they are finally telling the truth.
PBS is still in the business of capturing viewers to prove their worth, I’m certain they use the PBS survey every year to prove towards the government and other investors that this content is demanded from the public.
Intermarrying the sciences and the humanities is integral to being a good science communicator as well. So you’ll be more hard pressed to cultivate an employee base that doesn’t account both.
Not gonna lie, "milquetoast" caught me off guard. Never heard that word before and I've come to find (with the help of google) that it's technically not really a word but the name of a timid character from the comic book The Timid Soul who was named after the American food "milk toast" (toasted bred in warm milk of which I've also never heard). And as such, the word "milquetoast" has come to refer to a timid or feeble person though I'll assume that's only within a certain generation of the populace, perhaps? Either way, I've learned something new and pretty interesting so thanks for that :) and hopefully this helps anyone else who was as taken-aback by that word as I was.
@@kyokoyumi I learned the word milquetoast from the children’s Minecraft CZcamsr Stacyplays, she had a series focused on literacy, but also in her other projects she still championed reading books and rescuing dogs.
@@kyokoyumiyeah, who tf says that? I sure as hell don't. Nor have I heard anyone else use the word.
Thank you for continuing this important work on the channel 🙏
Considering the near-infinite cost and civilizational risk of continuing to use fossil fuels until we melt the ice caps, flood every coastal city, and destroy most of our agricultural systems, the idea that it “costs too much” to switch to renewable energy is completely absurd. That’s like not going to the hospital when having a heart attack because you don’t want to pay the bill. What is more subtle but more absurd is that the economy will actually be far, far better once we electrify everything and switch to renewable energy. Energy will actually be much cheaper, and “standard of living” is more or less a measure of energy consumption. Moreover, we won’t be fighting massive wars to control the sources of sunlight and wind like we do for oil. And once we’ve mined enough materials to provide the batteries and grid we need, most of the material in the future will just be recycled rather than mined, a true circular economy.
Would the CEOs and wealthy people on the boards of these companies allow their kids to live in these neighborhoods? I don’t think so. But until they are directly affected they won’t move. We have to bring it to their offices, and homes
Remove grass replacing it with a native garden full of edible fruits vegetables and roots.
Why well it's native it will reduce water use and you get more diversity colors and wild life gets a helpful hand and since it's native you likely don't need any pesticides of any kind.
Yes! This is something anyone with a lawn can do that is hugely beneficial. It'll save money and time wasted on gas, lawn treatments, etc. It can feed you and wildlife nutritious food. Having real plants, especially trees and shrubs will make your yard cooler in the heat and the air cleaner to breathe. My yard is planted this way and when the wildfire smoke was bad, my yard was the only place I could breathe without my throat and nose burning. Plus, it's amazing for mental health. Humans are meant to be in connection with the land and our food. Being able to walk out your door and be surrounded by abundance and beauty as you harvest delicious food while listening to bird song and being surrounded by life is true wealth.
Native grasses in particular are better at sequestering CO2 and water runoff than trees are, with their deep root systems, and host lots of specialist lepidoptera! Native grasses are so underappreciated. I install bioretentions as a profession and they are wonderful little things.
Wow, you’ve been slaying so hard, Ms Tv Host. Good job on this series
When did PBS get soo based??!!!! Lovin it though 🤩
This serious is important. I hope we get to the point where people are given a clue that it is their responsibility to create change, rather than wait for the people to do so for you.
I'm in a sacrifice zone specifically mentioned in this video. Southwest Louisana is the exact kind of test bed for this kind of vulgarity.
I'm actually reading a really interesting book about this! it's called Eleven by Paul Hanley, and although it's from i think 2015, and a tad outdated, there are some very interesting perspectives, like how everything is a cycle and extending the growth phase in a system only increases it's collapse.
I don’t know that one; but depends on what one thinks The System is. For example, most of the energy and resources of the solar system are NOT on Earth. When you look at it that way, which ‘cycles’ are you talking about, for example ? - Dave Huntsman
I recommend Jason Hickel and Kate Raworth for further reading from an Econ perspective!
Sure laws can be changed, but it needs to be clear what must change. Environment-harming externalities must be internalized, in other words, the cost of correcting all harms for the lifetime of the product must be included in the sale price, and paid to a government reclamation program. The manufacturer can do the recycling and environmental remediation themselves, otherwise someone else will be paid to do it.
@@michaelenquist3728 definitely both are significant strategies, and not mutually exclusive. In most industries, any externalization of costs which is legal is industry-wide standard practice.
trying to mitigate problems inherent to late stage capitalism within capitalist political frameworks is doomed to fail
@@Jonas-Seiler People have been predicting the imminent failure of capitalism for how long? And it has been those who were predicting it who's alternatives to capitalism failed. Capitalism is imperfect, and requires regulation, because people are imperfect, and require regulation. There are no pure economic systems, those which work do so because they combine elements of different economic philosophies.
Externalities are the primary weakness of capitalism, but it is not impossible to regulate. Obviously capitalists don't wish to be regulated, which is why we need strong democracies to force it on them in the public interest. If you wish to exit capitalism, you are free to do so. Communes are not illegal. Probably you will need money to buy the land, and will need to sell or barter some of your products to purchase those things you can't produce yourself.
@@crawkn tired argument, good luck with your "strong democracies" in capitalism
@@Jonas-Seiler Show me a strong democracy in a communist country. Or a strong economy. China is not a communist country, kids don't even go to grade school for free. Some "tired arguments" are still kicking because they are still true.
What about regulating the externalities so industries can't just dump their waste and pollute? Sure there will be a desire to import instead, but that could also be regulated saying something like the sourced materials must be generated with the same regulations local industries must follow.
that assumes governments actually can even actually act in the interest of their people. most laws are written by companies and passed as is (if the pay is right of course). this is how capitalism works.
Yes. Industrialization is not natural and is inherently destructive, not only to the planet but to our mental and emotional well-being.
A lot of the issues described here owe to regulatory capture and what Economists refer to as Negative Externalities. If carbon-based fuels were priced to factor in the negative health effects, soil and water pollution, and Global Warming it would become clear that decarbonizing is more than a luxury, it's critical.
The dropping birth rate in many countries scares economists who worship the bankrupt unlimited growth model. In fact, a dropping birth rate is good news for the planet. We need a new economic model based on the reality of a finite growth model.
Yes, in my country (UK), the current government keeps trying to encourage women to have more babies to 'stimulate the economy.'
Given that an increasing number of older and disabled people are now finding themselves homeless together with many younger people who never had a hope of getting affordable housing, it makes me wonder 'how' our government can keep bleating out this message.
I only had one child, 28 years ago. He was all we could afford.
Several of my friends never had children, and my son and others I know of his generation all say - no kids.
The reasons are the same - can't even afford to leave our parent's home, so how can we afford to marry and have a family?
And, what future do we have to look forward to?
Nothing is being done to reverse or even slow down climate change.
My own part of the UK has already proved itself the first climatic Pontius Pilate, and washed its hands of it's Net Zero Targets - before it even reached the date it set for that target!
To have a child in this environment is, in my opinion, paramount to child abuse. Better for us humans to voluntarily phase ourselves out in the hope that some simpler forms of life survive, thrive and make this planet inhabitable for more complex forms later on.
Humans are Nature's failed experiment, marvellous in so many diverse ways, but fundamentally still too stupid to act upon the obvious and basic facts.
Go PBS!!! Im here for it!
Kropotkin wrote that the species that are best able to cooperate with their environment are most likely to thrive. We humans are doing the opposite. We are literally consuming our life support system !! Is there intelligent life on earth??
The more I read history the more I realize that most humans, when given the choice, do live nicely with the environment. To the extent that we are keystone species in areas we have inhabited for a long time, the environment adapting to us, and us to it, to mutual benefit. Unfortunately I also have learned that people have been culturally forced to transition away from this by the edge of a sword/barrel of a gun by the current dominant military regime. It both gives me faith in most humans and lost some faith since the problem sems difficult to solve :/
@@ac4941 I agree with you, that people are inclined to nurture rather than destroy the environment. As you say, it's to our mutual benefit. That reminds me, Kropotkin's book is called Mutual Aid. I see that the dominant economic system is mainly at fault. It's profits over a healthy environment. As you probably know, Exxon knew 40 years ago, the damage being done. It's the ultimate in cynicism. We do have intelligent folks among us but they don't hold the reins of power.
he's one of the few anarchists to have said some right things, but still an anarchist
It's not in an environment. It's been towed beyond the environment!
Problems of scale are pinned to eternal "growth" economic doctrine. Immature technologies, poorly thought out material/supply chains are simply upscaled before the ramifications can be understood or planned around. And by the time they are realized they are seen as "economic necessessities" and their progenitors have their talons deep into policy and governance.
Yes! Collectively organize the imagination that powers have been trying to annihilate and create a more equitable, balanced, accountable, and harmonious future in defiance of their corporate greed.
It's not a matter of one over the other - it's about when. For example, if we turned off all coal plants tonight and never turned them on again, well over two hundred million people would not have power, and > 80% of manufacturing businesses would be unable to operate. Within a couple weeks people would be starving to death, and within a year tens of millions of people would be dead.
That's why changing things like energy production, food logistics, cold chain, and transportation take time and can hurt the economy in the short term - new capital development in these areas mean those funds are not available for other areas. It can be done, but it will take time, and yes it will hurt the economy in the short term - the solutions to these sorts of problems require long term thinking.
Photovoltaics and windmills are made of cement and steel which are made of coal and transported with oil. We're in a predicament, not a problem, so there is no solution. Unlucky of us.
I love this series. You're doing awesome work.
Great content, great presentation!
Excellent, PBS. Thank you for helping us think more imaginatively about the challenges we face ❤
It's nice to hear PBS finally realise that environmentalism within capitalism is just gardening
PBS is the best!
Beautiful work PBS, as always. What's next though? Can you do a deep dive into social and solidarity economies? Circular economy? Zones of industrial exclusion?
I would like to have hope you have in this video. Not saying it will be possible, but we have to believe in something.
Thank you
When Money (Economy) Becomes Irrelevant ~ The Venus Project!
The title suggests there'll be a discussion of growth economy versus alternatives, IMHO the root of the problem. Instead, we got ways to mitigate the worst practices of the growth economy. C'mon, PBS Terra, be a bit bolder. Steady-state economy, what would that look like.
Also, a side-grump. The transitions that look like old-time staticky TV channel-changing are annoying. I'd prefer just about anything else.
We make so many things we don't need, and we are paying a price our kids are going to have to cash.
Never forget: in the U.S., Congress passes laws that expressly direct the executive branch to create regulations. Most statutes are designed as general rules that rely on federal agencies to flesh out the actual details. When Congress complains about "too much" regulation, they have the power to rein in agency authority--and they almost never do.
Great video keep up with great work 😊❤
Economy is now out of control, our constant will to infinite gow is unsustanable ... And the worst is WE don't have the power to change that hyper capitalist way of thinking... Because the power are in the hand of thoses big // giants buisness in fact
We may have reached the peak of many materials used in our economy as per 'More From Less' by Andrew McAfee.
Even if we use materials more efficiently, at any given level of efficiency, more economic growth means more. ecological destruction than does less growth, no growth, or shrinking the economy. To bring our ecological footprint back within the limits of Earth's sustainable carrying capacity, we would need to shrink the global economy by ~50%, and people in wealthy nations would need to shrink their individual impacts by 60-99+% (with the 99+% meaning superrich people).
This is a good video
It will all come crashing down, and everyone knows it!
Laws define the rules of the game. We should price in pollution. Both local air and water quality and toxicity and contribution to global carbon emissions.
As happened already this will make it lucrative to start businesses that focus on solving these issues. It's important that nobody gets a free pass though. If prices increase the government may choose to change taxation.
In a nutshell, we cannot continue to live the way we do without disastrous consequences, but our societies are not willing to make the necessary changes. Technological innovations alone will not do.
I wonder what the weather is like on planet PBS Terra?
I swear this channel could do an episode on the svalbard seed bank and and how it negatively impacts minorities
Comes to show that nuclear energy can strike the right balance between a clean and healthy environment while helping to improve the economy and a better standard of living 😉👍💯
Im from germany, in france they already use a lot of green nuclear energy as kid around 13-14 I got asked what I think the future energy will come from. When I said nuclear I seriously got asked if I was also a trump supporter. Was never more insulted for my opinion
@@GreenPoint_onenuclear is unfortunately tied up with nuclear weapons for many people. The few incidents have also had a disproportionate impact on people's perspectives...
I agree though, nuclear is currently the best solution for our current energy system. At least until we manage fusion, but I'm still not holding my breath on that...
Maintain them under ALL circumstances -> e.g. Civilization is broken. Kiss
Yes, yes, excellent video choice.
Planned Obsolescence increases GDP but economists do not talk about NDP.
You cannot have a Gross without having a Net.
However:
Our brilliant economists have a problem with algebra. They subtract the Depreciation of Capital Goods while ignoring the Depreciation of Durable Consumer Goods.
How many automobiles have American consumers trashed since Sputnik? Didn't they get added to GDP?
Yes
And we need to promote and protect and inform accurately about nuclear. There's still a lot of crippling misinformation about this technology which is going to get us out of our current petro-hell.
Yes.
As long as we place profit and the economy above the lifes of people and a healthy environment, every attempt to create a better world is doomed from the start
essential video
The biggest fear of the rich???-Leveling the field.
The biggest field of big oil?-people finding out big oil can be replaced by cheap alternatives.
Photovoltaics and windmills are made of cement and steel which are made of coal and transported with oil. Unlucky of us.
Yes. Next?
No. Civilization will collapse soon. Billions will die.
Nothing is getting fixed. Also solar and wind is kinda crap for the environment. Really should just go straight to nuclear and hydroelectric. As for equity, not a chance.
It has been like that for a long time and it will continue to. Economy is for the people who only thinking about them self look at Amazon making so many money with employees living in there cars
It's not the economy that isn't compatible with nature, it's Capitalism. Capitalism isn't the economy, like we keep being told, it's just a model of wealth transfer. More specifically, a model based on a large poor of cheap laborers providing a maximum of production value for the wealthy ruling class. This model only works with endless growth, endless productivity increases and endless energy and resource demands growths. It's why the wealthy have been able to grow increasingly powerful as the working class keeps getting poorer... this despite productivity being at an all-time high in all of US history! It's why politicians and their media are FREAKING OUT about declining birth rates... because if populations decline ''too much'' in key countries? The power dynamics between classes start to shift.
The economy grew, and was strong, despite Capitalism... not because of it! All Capitalism has been doing this entire time was rigging the game, corrupting politicians and eroding worker rights and Unions. Once the economy stops growing? There is nothing left for this parasitic model to hide behind, and society starts to visibly crumble from the endless erosions and a working class that can no longer sustain the Status Quo of Billionaires.
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Businesses exploit resources to gain...that's all. Any groundbreaking environmental tech that benefits man will be exploited for gains despite the fact that the problem was created by businesses. That's the problem with businesses...their most exploited resource is people.
It's wealth accumulation that's the problem. We need to find a way to cap wealth of individuals and cap market share and size of corporations. We need to find a way to transfer ownership and control of medium and large businesses to their workers.
"It's wealth accumulation that's the problem." That IS a problem on the society side of the coin, but the larger problem is that we are overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by about 75% per year, but growing the private sector economy larger just destroys the ecosystems that we depend on even faster.
7:25 AND it will mean taking on the billionaire donor class.
The politicians will only listen to the vote. It doesn’t matter the political party. The key question is how do we get people to vote on this topic?
Discovering new greener ways to manufacture, a product made up greener materials...
... are ways that extend the transition
Greedy people will destroy this world.They will not be saved.
yes- we need to de-grow! via taxing all forms of pollution and the rich who got wealthy on the publics natural resources!
With the current climate of fascism, I am very concerned about humanity making it through the 21st century. We should be acting on climate change now, instead we are engaged in conspiracy theories and undermining Democracy.
It requires an influential PAC. PACs are only hard cash and smart marketing. (:
Industry is using 1.5 years of the world's resources every year. Soon, many of these resources will run out, and depending on which one's run out first depends how bad it will be for civilization and humanity!
Great! Let's change direction. Now what?
We have water, we have land, we have solar and wind and small hydro for better energy and we van insulate our homes and sustain our forest to provide heating in certain areas. We are lucky that we live on a continent away from war and we should stop investing in war abroad to use money like China has by improving the lives of our citizens and eliminating poverty. Give all public state and federal lands to Tribes and everyone should help produce some food even if its just weeding an hour for a community garden or anything small we should all have a hand in our food production. We can be sustainable, we jusy need to invest in sustainable infrastructure and future generations.
I don’t think I agree that these are inherently linked. They become linked because there is a massive inequality in the US economy. Environmentalism alone will not solve this, only social policies will. The basics of environmental economics are that environmental policies will indeed increase the marginal private costs, slowing economic growth. It will however, lower the marginal social costs which will benefit long term economics. In practise: if you limit pollution by policy or taxation, an enterprise will produce less, but also cause less externalities (social- economic damage). This will in the short run slow the economy down, but in the long run improve its sustainability. This is likely what is meant with “balancing economy with environment” and is not everywhere linked with social inequality. In the Netherlands we are more equally fucked by the free market equilibrium.
of course it's possible, at least once you use the general definition instead of meaning the perpetuation of capitalism and with that maximal profit extraction mainly for the benefit of the very few ultra rich
*There is no justice on a dead planet, only the equality of the grave.*
No profit either.
PAY PEOPLE (all of them, no exceptions!!!) decently to do the hard or dangerous or just boring by- hand work that it will take to use resources sustainably while we are busy getting the new economy going - less shrinkwrap and more service could work, and TAX THE EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES!
Hence nuclear fusion power is needed😊
Totally depends on how we grow the economy.
"Totally depends on how we grow the economy." Virtually all economic activity causes more destruction to ecosystems and other species than does less private sector economic activity. That's because almost all private sector economic activity uses energy and materials, both of which harm the Earth.
central planing? who's going to be in charge.
The Democratic Party Politburo, who else? It's a joke, "central planning" cannot transition mankind away from industrial society. Unlucky of us.
Equality & efficiency will never reach high levels in a monetary-market economy. Growth beyond need is part of competition. Until we develop a NLRBE, & forget competition; the majority of humans will have less than necessary, & be treated as less than those that have what they need.
The day you are born us the day your carbon footprint starts. The diapers put on you, it was delivered in a box. If the walls of the box came room fiber of a tree, then you participated in deforestation. The diaper was transported by truck. The co2 emissions from that truck goes into the atnophere.tge co2 stays in the atmophere fir 300 to 1200 years.
PBS gonna get their funding pulled...
Not if it comes from clean energy companies.
If only Nuclear power didn't get the worst PR team in existence as well as some of the worst safety practices in history... if treated with care it could have provided us an enormous amount of truly clean energy.
How do you force capitalists to behave?
Environmentally sustainable economic growth is the very definition of an oxymoron.
You can't buy your way out of overconsumption.
There's an argument to be had about ensuring poor people get a fair share of production. But overall degrowth should be way to go.
You get a Thumbs Down; all you’re thinking about is how to divvy up what currently exists. You totally ignore very real things that can change everything, like, social innovations, technological innovations that can power from sunlight or oceans or wind instead of cutting down all the trees and burning them or digging up coal and blackening the skies…..That’s why ‘de growth’ is something that automatically turns intelligent people off and loses your audience. - Dave Huntsman
@@dphuntsman ALL human technologies and almost all human activity causes further destruction of the ecosystems we depend on. We are currently overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by about 75% per year, and the only way to prevent worsening ecological and societal breakdown is to shrink the global economy by about 50% and return to much simpler lifestyles with more manual labor, almost no air travel, much less meat/beef in our diets, more localized economies, far less man-made chemicals, plastics, and products, and much more use of natural materials.
@@dphuntsman Put more succinctly, industrialized civilization is an inherently unsustainable and self-terminating system.
second
If you have some idea that you find a way to bring to fruition and it makes you rich, cool. Capitalism works that way sometimes. However, if your idea is to dig up multi-hundred-million year old natural resources and refine them, then those profits should belong to all of us as the destruction and the pollution they cause and the unfairness they cause belongs to all of us. There are some things that should be considered public utilities and treated like they belong to the public. Remove the profit from the equation, and you eliminate these problems. And, you'll still get innovation and industries that can be profitable by providing equipment to the public for use to extract these resources. We also need to recognize that we are part of the environment. We learned to engineer and so we separated ourselves from the roots we came from but they are still there. We just put a skin on top of it. We're just a few steps away from where we were even though we don't perceive that on a daily basis. We better be careful or we're going to wind up with billions of people in a catastrophe that creates a world that can't support billions of people.
That catastrophe you speak of is already well on its way and unavoidable, since humans, on average are a destructive combination of overflowing ignorance and overflowing greed and glutony.
The policy maker must find creative ways to take balance approaches for economy activities and environment protection.
Here we are passing 1.5oC global warming with regular region-wide disasters, and channels like PBS Terra are still using phrases like "A big FIRST step in the right direction." The political class conspiring with their big donors continue to con most of us that they're doing something, when they haven't really made any fundamental changes. Career politicians and the influence of the business community have to go.
We must consider environmental destruction in terms of real valued economic cost and write environmental policy accordingly. The Earth has value, and those who are damaging it need to pay to compensate for that damage. Carbon taxes, land value tax, taxes on depletion of water resources. It's only logical that we should charge anyone for reducing the value of our planet.
Did you read about Tyson dumping all the toxic sludge into the water system??? Out of control.
So you're saying we need to do away with the profit system. Great, what are we waiting for?
Rather than coordinate their malleable practices with the needs of society and our planet's ecosystem, recklessly irresponsible industries fight regulation continuing to cause unnecessary environmental destruction, permanent loss of ages-old species, and harming health. All this willfully bad practice "with most profits going to a few."
they're gonna defund you guys for these omg
we must tax ALL forms of pollution- an since cowboy capitalism makes it easier to make more when you have money we must tax the rich to a higher level. that is the key to sustainability!
It is called ecological overshoot, the human enterprise is exceeding the carrying capacity of the planetary carrying capacity. Calamity is coming because we have no way to voluntarily slow the consumption of resources while externalizing waste that cannot be absorbed.
All we need is the political will to reign in the global gangster capitalists. We only think it's impossible because they have indoctrinated us to believe that they are the only way forward.
I’m going to give a Thumbs Down because you’re thinking too narrowly. We’re hardly out of solutions. Things aren’t ’fixed’ like you imply. Not only are many nations incredibly wasteful- mine, here in the US, especially so-and THAT can be ameliorated….but there are ways to use e.g., space to do things that change the rules; e.g., space-based solar power satellites can beam solar energy to Earth in another way to replace fossil fuels. (Another way to look at it: Most of the energy and resources of the solar system, are not even on Earth. Just a fact). - Dave Huntsman
@@dphuntsman Ah yes, the gangsters who run the tech industries have indoctrinated you well. They'll continue to amass unimaginable wealth, power and influence, while pretending to solve every problem with some gigantic new profit-seeking and massively destructive enterprise.
@@dphuntsman We live in the solar system, for sure, on a moist planet that is enclosed by a thin layer of chemical constituents that we evolved in as one of it's creatures codependently. We abstracted the use of one of the geological compounds for energy and expanded too quickly. All creatures will do this given the opportunity under a concept called the maximum power principle, e.g., locust are grasshoppers hyper-expanded by abundance. We have been in plague stage expansion since we discovered hydrocarbons (millions of years of stored solar energy held in atomic covalent compression) we are causing an imbalance in all the flora and fauna that provide the basis for our evolved biological animal bodies.
I understand your belief that we could learn to cooperate and rise above the simple primate instincts with surplus energy, but, as you may have noticed, we make war to consume even more every time we can especially when more is available. We have hubris calling ourselves sapiens (wise) in the taxonomy we've developed to understand life. Knowledge is not wisdom, but knowledge is pointing to a biophysical bottleneck. The scenario you mentioned would be wisdom and has so many changes to the way we make decisions I simply don't see that happening until the situation gets very unstable probably species ending if we start cooking each other with atomic weapons to keep our monkey status.
Please know that I am just some joker on the Internet reading, writing and watching. Nothing important, simply one of over eight billion people wishing we could all get along without fighting so much and take care of the resources we were evolved from.
@@dphuntsmanthe solutions that you offer aren't solutions.
Not to mention that environmental disasters will be terrible for the environment
Tax the rich!
In this economy?
@andra9694 especially, the rich are making more money, record amounts and you want to green light them to accumulate more wealth? The rich are the enemy of the lower classes. Sad