> Eco capacity is non-human. The fewer humans living in an area, the less > the regenerative capabilities of that part of the planet are stressed. > Sure pollution migrates. But 2 people living on 200 hectares is (ceteris > paribus) far better than 200,000 (or 2 million!) people living there.
But with a given number of humans (which already exist!), it's better to have them living closer together, in order to avoid urban sprawl and unnecessarily long travel/commute distances and unsustainable traffic modes (individual cars vs. public transport). This is the main reason why the US has such a large eco-footprint. > The waste gets recycled by plants, insects, small creatures, and > bacteria. Density is a real problem as inputs must be transported in, > and waste out. Technology can't eliminate this. Technology can make a huge difference, for example: + Sewage-treatment plants, waste-incineration with maximum filtering. + Designing products in ways that enable maximum recycling of components, as opposed to having to discard the whole monolithic product or most of it. + Collecting the recycleable components in effective (i.e. concentrated) ways. This doesn't work if you spread out individuals in the sticks. > I want my genes to continue; that is nature's triumph. That's a legitimate desire. But this can be achieved in civilized and cooperative ways rather than a John Wayne / cave-men scenario. > The metrics are regenerative capacity vs energy/matter throughput, which > is partially a function of population. No model is perfect! That more people pollute more is trivial, but the challenge (and task of green engineering) is to develop ways to minimize PER CAPITA pollution, so these metrics are counter-productive. We have to keep in mind that "emissions trading" schemes (from the same folks who make up these misleading metrics) are just a new variation of stock-broker speculations / stock casino gambling by profiteers who don't give a damn about the environment or engineering, nor have any idea of it. >From them you can't expect sustainable solutions, just more mega-frauds and mega-ripoffs à la Madoff that ruin or even claim the lives of billions. They even profit from the effects of misery -- social and environmental. "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
