Sustainability is destroying the Earth

[GliderGuider]

Sustainability is destroying the Earth

What is it we are trying to sustain? A living planet, or industrial civilization? Because we can’t have both.

Somewhere along the way the environmental movement – based on a desire to protect the Earth, was largely eaten by the sustainability movement – based on a desire to maintain our comfortable lifestyles. When did this happen, and why? And how is it possible that no-one noticed? This is a fundamental shift in values, to go from compassion for all living beings and the land, to a selfish wish to feel good about our inherently destructive way of life.

The sustainability movement says that our capacity to endure is the responsibility of individuals, who must make lifestyle choices within the existing structures of civilization. To achieve a truly sustainable culture by this means is impossible. Industrial infrastructure is incompatible with a living planet. If life on Earth is to survive, the global political and economic structures need to be dismantled.

Sustainability advocates tell us that reducing our impact, causing less harm to the Earth, is a good thing to do, and we should feel good about our actions. I disagree. Less harm is not good. Less harm is still a lot of harm. For as long as any harm is caused, by anyone, there can be no sustainability. Feeling good about small acts doesn’t help anyone.

IMO the analysis is spot-on. My quibble is with the last section, "So what can you do?"

Their suggestions are as vacuous and picayune as the activities they deride in the rest of the essay, and perhaps even more so. The implied suggestion to attack power stations and dams is both deeply immoral to other humans, and pointless as far as the planet is concerned.

That's why I have come down to very simple advice:

• Do whatever you feel is rightest, wherever you are;
  
• Strengthen your connections to your community;
  
• Become as conscious as possible as fast as you can.

All else is window-dressing, as far as I'm concerned.

[haikugal]

1. Practice birth control.

We're conscious...I had a 'feeling' about what was coming in '72....done what I could, still do.

[GliderGuider]

2. Birth control will keep children from dying unnecessarily

That's a good thing. But it's not helpful for people who have already had children.

[haikugal]

4. No, my heart goes out to them but at the same time I have no special knowledge or access and

I could see it. It's now written large and still there are those having many children without giving it a thought. We used to have a zero growth movement in this country and it went out with Reagan, you hear nothing about population control anymore.

I'm not pitiless and I know that if what I think happens, many, myself included, will have a hard time making it. I require medication and that may be hard to come by.

[immoderate]

3. Eventually, we will have to go off-planet for our resources.

Mining the asteroids for water and native metals seems like the easiest path.

--imm

[GliderGuider]

5. Good luck with that! nt

[immoderate]

7. Well, I'm not going myself...

But as you point out, maintaining humanity in anything resembling our current energy use is not sustainable on our limited system. So where ya gonna go?

--imm

[GliderGuider]

8. So where ya gonna go?

Extinct?
Species survival is not a given, after all.

[immoderate]

9. We may very well get extinguished. I (for instance) have no descendants.

Even if people didn't exist, the environment will still get 'used up' eventually. (Even sticking to our 'energy allowance.') To survive, it will need to be replenished. For our type of life to survive beyond earth, it must be dispersed.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Why, then, suggest a project requiring orders of magnitude more energy than our current lifestyle?

It's as if someone has said they've run out of firewood to cook their daily meal, and you've replied that they should build an ocean liner so they can travel in style.

[immoderate]

15. The OP suggests that our current lifestyle, and ordinary remedies are unsustainable.

Firewood? While it's there.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Are you saying that you don't understand what's so hard about space travel?

That if we want to, we can just wander around our solar system without effort?

If I read "Firewood? While it's there. " and a smoking smiley right, you're saying we should burn all our fossil fuels, and then just leap into space to get stuff. Yes?

[immoderate]

17. I'm suggesting we have not yet reached the epitome of technology.

Do you think the end of progress has already occurred? FTR, I don't condone any burning of fossil fuels, or anything else unsustainable, but that is not practicable, for the long term, especially for large human population.

The earth will 'burn out' from use over time without some infusion of "order" from an external source. If harvesting energy from extraterrestrial sources is not economical, then we will die.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. A moment ago you wanted to expend energy in bringing water and raw materials from off earth

despite the literal oceans of water, and continents of raw materials, sitting around here already. Now you're talking about harvesting energy - ie the opposite.

We do, of course, get a lot of energy from an extraterrestrial source - the sun. But your posts seem so contradictory that I can't work out what you're saying about it.

[immoderate]

21. If you think natural resources can't be exhausted, you're covered.

I would disagree. At some point we will have to reverse the contamination, which means paying back the energy we have received, and then reversing the after effects. There may not be a way.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. No, you're making even less sense as you go along, not more

'Paying back the energy we have received'? Are you saying you want to send energy to the sun? What would that have to do with fetching water and minerals from asteroids?

I really can't figure out where to start asking the questions to get you to explain your thoughts.

[immoderate]

25. So let's start simple.

We oxidize carbon for energy. How would you reverse this CO2 proliferation? The energy that was released when the carbon was burned, has to be returned to the system to release it. Where will it come from? Restoring energy balances may require manipulating resources in new ways.

How do we deal with water contaminated by fracking? What about the continent sized island of plastic in the ocean? The solutions to these problems are energy intensive, and must be applied without disturbing the balances. The answers are in technologies not yet developed, and in materials that may be scarce on earth.

Realize that asteroids, because of their orbits, are loaded with energy relative to earth. The materials from asteroids may not ever reach the biosphere. But it can be nudged into orbit nearby.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. You can't just take energy from something in a different orbit

There aren't any physical forces you can just conjure into existence to do so. You'd have to move the asteroid here, and that needs even more energy. In any form of reaction rocket, nearly all the energy ends up in the propellant, not the object. That energy, whether it comes from solar power or nuclear, would be better used directly on earth.

The energy asteroids have might be handy if you want to go beyond them, and you can use some material from them in whatever mission you're planning. If there is some material out there that is unobtainable on Earth - then, if it's amazingly useful, it might be worth the immense effort to bring it back. But there's no reason to believe there's a magic solution to pollution sitting out there.

[immoderate]

29. The sun has gravity. The asteroids are "above" the earth.

When asteroids "fall" toward the sun they pass our orbit. With a little calculus we can "aim" them into earth orbit. If you interrupt their orbital trajectory in the right way, they will come here, voluntarily.

If you try to visualize this with current technology, you will get a headache.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. No, mechanics doesn't work like that

It doesn't take 'calculus', it takes a massive impulse to get them into earth orbit. Which, in the vacuum of space, means an equal change of momentum from a rocket exhaust. Assuming you use part of the asteroid as propellant (otherwise you have to carry your own to it), this still means you need something as an energy source to accelerate the propellant. And you're better off using that energy source to give you the energy you wanted directly.

Even once you've got something orbiting the earth, it's still not a very useful form of energy for general use on the ground.

You're right about one thing - this has nothing to do with current technology. So it's really a red herring, when we're talking about what we could do to combat or reverse global warming.

[immoderate]

32. This is not about climate change.

This is if we can make it through that with "sustainability." (Which our friend, GG points out is an illusion.)

You can also think past chemical rockets as standard transport in space. However, asteroids may very well provide their own reactive mass for propulsion. If an asteroid's angular momentum is interrupted, it will "fall" toward the sun. With some proper timing it can intersect the earth's orbit and get captured. (Calculus! ) The asteroid may provide a rich source of native metals and rare earths that are unavailable terrestrially.

You see, even if we can use our intelligence to save the climate, we can also envision our own end. The earth is subject to entropy and will run down. What shall we do then?

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. I've already assumed the rocket is solar or nuclear powered

and said they'd need to use the reaction mass from the asteroid. But you still need massive amounts of energy to accelerate the reaction mass.

If it's not about climate change, why were you talking about carbon dioxide? You were talking about pollution. There's no reason to believe that "native metals and rare earths that are unavailable terrestrially" produce a solution to pollution or excess carbon dioxide. But energy does. And the surface area of the earth is so large that you're far more likely to to whatever elements you was here than on small asteroids - and the earth is far easier to prospect on.

Entropy is not a problem on earth; the increase in the sun's temperature is. There'll be plenty of energy, and, eventually, too much of it. But that is millions of years in the future, and is not a matter of sustainability for anything but science fiction. The problems of carbon dioxide, global warming and pollution are current.

[immoderate]

37. Well, asteroids, if nothing else, have "mass to burn."

And if we use that to propel part of the asteroid away from the earth than an opposite force will impart a nudge to the rest of the mass, which is relatively high in the gravitational gradient of the sun. IOW, with a little push, it will fall toward earth.

If at sometime in the future, we wish to restore the atmospheric constituents of pre-industrial earth, that will require considerable energy. Similar efforts to will be required desalinize sea water and purify fracking water.

Wish I could dismiss entropy as easily as you do. It's always there. The asteroids may allow access to materials that are too diffuse to be economically recovered on earth, if at all. And without the habitat destruction of terrestrial mining.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. And the point is you have to expend energy to bring asteroids to earth

They are not a way to obtain the energy to desalinate seawater, or clean up pollution.

Once anything is 'falling toward Earth', ie on an elliptical orbit that intersects with Earth's, it will have a velocity relative to Earth. You then have to change that velocity to get it to be captured by Earth's gravitational field - which takes more energy. And once you've got something in an orbit around Earth, you still don't get energy from it. You've expended a lot of energy to get it there.

It's not a solution to sustainability - it's just expanding the volume you are permanently altering. Perhaps there will one day be something we need to get this way, but it will require energy, and is not a solution to man-made environmental change on Earth.

[immoderate]

40. You have to aim it 'just right.'

I think if you try hard enough, you can "nudge" an asteroid so it will park in an earth orbit, with perhaps some slight correction. But that's the "easy way."

My emphasis is not on obtaining energy, which is fairly easy. It's in controlling energy.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. It's a reversible process. If you think of what you'd have to do to leave an earth orbit

and put it into an orbit that would intersect with the asteroid's original orbit, then it's the same change of velocity required, going each way. 'Nudge' is a verb that implies little effort.

You repeatedly put forward the retrieval of asteroids as a way to obtain energy. But there's no 'control' of energy that you get from a lump of rock in orbit around Earth.

[immoderate]

42. Yes, relatively little effort...

So, it works like this: Miners gain orbit by elevator or rail gun. Maybe combination. These kinds of devices are feasible, with known technologies.

Asteroids are observed by drone prospectors, with magnetometers, spectrometers. They search out, and report location and trajectory of type M (or your favorite) asteroids.

When found, the specimen asteroids could receive a projector or magnetic cannon, which can accelerate relatively small pieces of the asteroid to high velocity, providing a source of propulsion.

Same type of thing will slow it down, if necessary. However, with a system like earth-moon as a target, the opportunity exists to use a version of the sling shot orbital mechanics that fling our deep space probes. As you note, it's reversible. We can park a good size asteroid at an L5 point, or some such.

A small asteroid of this type, (1 km) can contain trillions of dollars in metals. Cost-effective? Maybe not for all, but there appears to be a lot of platinum -- very rare -- and worth its weight in gold.

As to the role in energy. It's not some space fuel. It's rather to provide sources for materials the are rare on earth, and could be useful in alternate, non-carbon energy technologies. And then in the future, if there is a future, as we move out in space, it will be better to use materials from outside the gravity well that is earth.

There is some activity going on in asteroid mining even now. Really. Kind of preliminary, but it's coming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining



--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. OK, I think you've finally conceded that mining asteroids is an energy sink

not an energy source. Your magnetic cannon accelerating pieces to high velocity needs huge amounts of energy, since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, while momentum is directly proportional to velocity. So it's the discarded pieces that get nearly all the energy, not the part of the asteroid you're going to use.

So what you're talking about isn't about sustainability, or carbon dioxide, or pollution; it's about expanding the economy so that you have even more platinum, or other materials, to do something-to-be-specified-at-a-later-date with. This is the real utopian, technology can fix everything, mindset - "if only we had more stuff, we'd be bound to think of a way out of the way all our stuff has caused problems!".

[immoderate]

44. Thanks for including me in your pigeon hole.

Newton said equal and opposite. Solar energy in space is plentiful and non polluting. Why would you resent a solar rail gun on an asteroid?

When resources on earth are depleted, where will you go?

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. 'equal and opposite' refers to forces, not energy

You started this by talking about energy.

Yes, solar energy in space is plentiful and non polluting. You could use it for Earth, with microwave links, rather than using it for moving asteroids around. I don't 'resent' what you're talking about; I've just been pointing out it's not a solution for sustainability, it's just a way of getting more materials in the hope that there's ll be some use for them. I regard is as a distraction to our problems, and to this thread.

You assume that we'll need to fetch more material to Earth. Perhaps we will, but we may always find it easier to use what we've got here, and recycle it.

[immoderate]

46. Microwave projectors in space? A bit "third way," doncha think?

Last edited Thu May 5, 2016, 02:14 PM - Edit history (1)

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. I think I heard them suggested on a TV documentary about 35 years ago

whatever you mean by 'third way'.

[immoderate]

48. IMO, it was a scheme for corporations to retain control over solar energy.

Can't detect any advantage, except for industry.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. Whereas your scheme for towing and mining asteroids would be done by a cooperative

or a mom-and-pop operation?

It's odd you seem to be worrying about industry getting an 'advantage', after all your advocacy for megaprojects to get materials worth their weight in gold.

[immoderate]

50. Don't confuse corporatism with entrepreneurism.

So -- you have found a flaw in my statement that there are no consumer benefits to microwave projecting solar collectors in space? Let me have it. I can take it. Where am I wrong?

I'm getting the impression that you think resources cannot be depleted.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

51. There are consumer benefits in energy.

There's your flaw - you seem to have forgotten that consumers like to buy energy.

Bizarrely, you seem to have an idea that there's a ready consumer market for platinum, but not energy.

How much platinum have you bought last year? How much energy?

Are you claiming that mining in space would be 'entrepreneurial', while collecting useful energy would be 'corporatist'?

If so, I think you should start a thread in the Economics group about your fascinating new definitions of these words, and the philosophy behind your definitions. It's not really about sustainability is it? Or energy. Or pollution. Or carbon dioxide.

[immoderate]

52. What is the benefit to consumers of paying for transmission from space?

We haven't even gotten to the benefits of distributed generation.

What I find bizarre, are the presumptions you make.

And if you can stand some education:

Platinum-group elements (PGEs) include platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, and ruthenium. PGEs are highly valued for their uses in industrial machinery, catalytic converters, and fuel cells ("What are strategic," 2011). Strategic fission elements are primarily uranium and thorium, as well as plutonium, which occurs as a byproduct of fission reactions ("Fact sheet on," 2011). Fission elements are most commonly used in the fuel and energy industries. Rare earth elements (REEs) consist of the lanthanide series of the periodic table, as well as scandium and yttrium. Although vital for the manufacture of electronics, chemical catalysts, lasers, and many other high-demand products, these minerals are often difficult to locate, mine, and purify ("Rare earth elements," 2011). The final strategic element, phosphorus, is very unique in that it is biologically essential. It is ubiquitous in fertilizers and necessary for all life.
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/

The metals mentioned here are used in technology. They are rare and essential. (BTW, "weight in gold" was a joke, that you apparently missed.) Our need for most of these minerals could be satisfied for centuries by one minor M type asteroid.

Corporatist means collecting ROI. That's it.

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. The benefit is that it's a way to get the energy we need

You use it for heating, cooking, light, transport, powering electronics ... You can also use it to clean up the environment. Or get fresh water from sea water. You remember, the things you were saying we needed to do?

You started in this thread by claiming you were going to obtain energy from your asteroids, thanks to the orbits they're in. You seem to be trying forget that you didn't have a clue on the mechanics and actual use of energy involved.

You've now pivoted to saying that energy is easy to get, and you don't care about using loads of it, as long as it's used to get your hands on those sweet minerals you desire. Do that, and it's entrepreneurship, but actually use the energy on Earth and it's eevull corporatism. The distinction you are trying to make between the two uses is non-existent, from an economic or philosophical point of view. You just seem to hero-worship a corporation that wants to grab an asteroid for itself so it can sell stuff, as being better than one that sells energy.

Your web page points out mining is difficult. It's nowhere as difficult as doing it in space where you have to transport all your machinery, and get it to work perfectly remotely or establish a way of keeping large teams of people alive up there for long periods. The ISS has cost about $100 billion, just for a few people at a time in low earth orbit. That's after you've worked out how to move hundreds of tonnes of asteroid around the solar system when our space probes weigh a thousandth of that. The minerals still exist on earth; and we can recycle them as we use them (indeed, it would be much better to do so, rather than bringing in more of it from outside and having larger waste heaps as a result). But it's a lot easier to get those minerals in an environment we humans can actually live in, and where they're at our level, and stationary relative to us, rather than whizzing past at a few kilometres per second.

[immoderate]

55. Why should I pay a utility company to beam down microwaves to maintain EMF on a grid,

when I could collect it directly with a solar panel for free?

--imm

[muriel_volestrangler]

56. If someone gives you a solar panel for free, then go for it

Why should you buy your food when you can grow it?

It's a bit rich for you get all anti-commerce when you're advocating that corporations take possession of entire asteroids.

[GliderGuider]

31. Ordinary remedies are unsustainable, and extraordinary remedies are unachievable.

You are foundering upon the rocks of extreme scale.

You're talking about humanity becoming a Kardashev Type 1 civilization. The power required to operate at that level could be 10,000 times the power we currently generate on Earth - call it 200,000 terawatts.

We may have between 10 and 50 (median estimate perhaps 30) years left to accomplish whatever we want to do, before the system fails under its own weight and the human hive begins to lose its energy-producing technological capability.

Making it even close to a Kardashev Type 1 in that time is the very definition of "unachievable". It's a dream, formulated to ease the existential terror brought on by the idea of annihilation.

[immoderate]

34. OK. So the world will collapse in 30 years, then the population will double in 80?

I concede it's 'extreme scale' to try to project anything past say, 50 years, much less species extinction time. I like to think that there is still some path that will afford our species some longevity, if we can suspend immediate total destruction of land, sea, and air by more conservative methods of production. Sure it's optimistic, but "how ya gonna go?"

If humanity can 'focus its efforts,' we might make it through to the point where we could consider mining the asteroids, which you might agree is on the way (necessary?) to becoming a Type I. Maybe a Type .v?

(BTW, I always admire your posts, and I do like to ease the existential terror, as it were. )

--imm

[NickB79]

35. Who has claimed here the population will double in 80 years?

The only ones making claims of 10-12 billion humans by 2100 are UN organizations that don't even consider the impact of climate change on global society.

80 years from now, it would take a miracle if the population was still at current levels, and if it is, it will be falling fast.

On edit: forget it, I just hadn't read further down-thread, my bad

[GliderGuider]

36. Population increase depends on a functional civilization.

In my mental model, population begins to decline shortly after a crash in economic activity, as we saw during the breakup of the USSR.

If I had to sketch a prediction I'd say the "real" economic crash could happen 10 years from now. I like the analogy to seismic activity. Like a major seismic event, the big crash will probably be preceded by several smaller but still substantial "foreshocks", of which the 2008 Great Recession was the first. IMO we could get the second one late this year or early next. Another could follow about five years after that, one more 2 years later, followed by the "big one" around 2025. The sequence will probably be sprinkled with smaller regional rumbles and shakes. Climate-driven crop failures in various regions will likely play a key role in these events.

Population growth would flatten out over the next decade, due to falling birth rates as people stop having kids due to the economic chaos. See Virginia Abernethy's Fertility Opportunity Hypothesis for some thoughts on why this happens. After the big one, world population should begin to decline as the death rate climbs. This sequence follows the Russian model:

[immoderate]

39. I had surmised that the earth would not tolerate that number of humans.

All things being equal, the population, it's animals, it's projects, and waste products.

Think of the oceans. Also the finite limits on arable land.

This of course, does not contradict any economic projections. Yours are plausible.

--imm

[Binkie The Clown]

10. That can't possibly work

Human population doubles roughly every 70 to 80 years. That means that we would fill up another Earth-like planet 80 years after discovering it. 80 years after that we would fill 4 Earth-like planets. Another 80 years and we will need 8 Earth-like planets. That means colonizing an Earth-like planet every 10 years on average. 80 years later we are filling a new planet every 5 years.

Where are we supposed to find literally thousands of Earth-like planets, and how are we going to move a significant mass of people to planet that might take 200 years to reach in our fastest spacecraft? And don't forget that the population on board that spacecraft will also be doubling every 80 years, so before we even get to this imaginary planet we will need to replace that spacecraft with between 4 and 8 more just like it.

[immoderate]

11. Dyson Sphere? Ring World? Lots of ways.

Your thinking is circumscribed.

--imm

[Binkie The Clown]

12. Lots of ways in fantasy land!

Circumscribed? Well at least my thinking is in the realm of technological and economic possibility.

We're talking about the same contractors and engineers who can spend $400 billion on an airplane that can't fly.

Five of six Air Force F-35 fighter jets were unable to take off during a recent exercise due to software bugs that continue to hamstring the world’s most sophisticated—and most expensive—warplane.

During a mock deployment at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, just one of the $100 million Lockheed Martin LMT 0.63% F-35s was able to boot its software successfully and get itself airborne during an exercise designed to test the readiness of the F-35, FlightGlobal reports. Nonetheless, the Air Force plans to declare its F-35s combat-ready later this year.

link

So who's going to build this Dyson sphere? Lockheed? Boeing? Surely you jest! Your thinking is clearly not limited by reality, which is great for a science fiction author, but useless in the real world.

[immoderate]

14. So will the population double in 80 years?

Or are you uncircumscribed? ( I am not responsible for the F-35.)

The alternative to the things I am suggesting is extinction for humans and their offspring, and ultimately, a dead planet. Is that what you see happening?

--imm

[GliderGuider]

19. That's certainly what I see happening.

Extinction is far more probable than a Dyson sphere. There's nothing shameful about extinction, every species goes through it.

[immoderate]

20. Oh, a Dyson sphere doesn't preclude extinction.

So you're safe there.

--imm

[Binkie The Clown]

24. In a word: "Yes" that is exactly what I expect will happen. n/t

[immoderate]

27. I think it will level off.

But I won't be around to see it.

--imm

[pscot]

23. Malthus where is thy sting?

[The2ndWheel]

6. I'm not sure how the word harm is defined

Life is balanced by death. A lion needs to eat a zebra every now and then. A zebra has to get away from a lion every now and then. Either one considered to be harmful? I guess it depends on whether you ask the lion or zebra. If one or the other happens too often, then a lot more lions will die from not eating any zebras, and then too many zebras will mean not enough food for the zebras.

We humans have gone so far to the life end, because we're scared of death. Not in a fight or flight way, but the concept of it. Probably rightfully scared of it though. It's an end. Nobody wants to die. Although for those people that do want to die, we try everything we can so that they don't. In terms of 7+ billion people, if a few want to kill themselves, who cares? But then we worry about friends and family, and the what if potential of the dead person, so nobody can or should die ever.

There really is no good answer. Plenty of questions and answers floating around in the human brain, and people will pick whichever ones they want.

[AuntPatsy]

54. Excellent post....