Cartoon from Reason Magazine
From The Guardian :
We hear lots of concerned chatter these days – not least, here on this site – about peak oil, peak water, deforestation, resource depletion and the like, but a popular riposte offered by those doubting such concerns is something commonly referred to as the “Environmentalist’s Paradox”.
The argument goes thus: “Why, despite resource depletion and the degradation of ecosystems, is average human well-being improving globally?”
People such as Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, argue that environmentalists are needlessly downbeat about humanity’s prospects. After all, we are a resourceful, adaptable, highly intelligent species more than capable of riding out any current concerns (if only we would de-shackle ourselves from free-market constraints).
Ah yes, the environmental movement, a fine refuge for the “expert”, the person who knows everything about the way things used to be, and can’t see the infinite possibilities that still await us. Which is why mankind could be blind sided by some smart ass physics grad student in a decade (or five), who will ignore his faculty advisor and all the experts, and discover how to tap so-called dark energy and, with his invention, unleash an era of cheap, limitless energy, with societal changes that dwarf all those experienced in the 20th century.
You are a born optimist probably.
Can you imagine limitless energy for the masses without elitist control? I can’t, brr…, what a heresy!
Do you want to put the world upside-down?
Regards
A decade or five Mr B? Make that a year or two. ( http://focusfusion.org )
Paradoxically, their “paradox” isn’t one.
More stoopid.
Haiti has all the greens are looking for – they should be ecstatic, and of course Haiti is eden on earth! Right?