Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery -NYT Opinionator

[NoOneMan]

12. The ecosystem is harmed via production

All production requires energy and resources that are extracted from the natural environment, and it all produces waste that the environment cannot evolve fast enough to utilize for biological productivity (so it creates imbalances that cause death). Simply put, sharing or hoarding the exploits of the earth still requires that the earth is exploited.

what happens to the environment if a couple billion people want a flat screen tv

No, Im asking what happens if 8 billion of them actually get them, along with a house, a fridge and a car in the garage. Well, at 400 ppm CO2 and mass disparity, its a pretty easy answer if we equalize our standard of living across the globe: planetary-wide extinction level event. Frankly, we are headed close to that already, with all our inequality.

why is the environment near such an overwhelming fucked up crisis when so few people actually own tvs

Because it took billions of years for the earth to evolve to the point where all organisms' processes and waste contribute harmoniously to a delicately balanced system, and we are very quickly, very drastically altering the landscape to the point where the system can no longer function as it has evolved to. This is happening regardless of our malevolence of benevolence; this process does not ask us what our intentions are.

PROFIT

This is magical thinking--we cannot simply produce without profit and negate the effects of production on a delicate system. Especially if GDP remains flat or increases (or do you suggest we scale back GDP). We make too much and consume too much. Hell, 5% of earth's population uses 20% of the energy....spread that level of consumption equally across the world without profit and its not going to go well