I apologize, Narz, but a couple of unidentified commentators at the beginning of a theatrical trailer saying do not convince me that the suburbs aren't sustainable. Yes, we'll eventually have to switch to other kinds of fuel. How does that show that the suburbs are "unsustainable"?
Yeah, they could have put it together a bit better (the trailer, for awhile they had a 55 minute condensced version of the movie available on YouTube but there's been a crackdown of that type of thing lately, I wonder if it has anything to do with Google buying it).
Anyway, the suburbs are unsustainable because they cost too much to maintain. Also because (IMO) they are not satisfying to llive in. I haven't taken a poll (maybe I will) but I'd say most people would rather live either in the country (with natural abundence) or the city (with social abundence) than in a strip-mall suburb.
So does any human habitation.
Not necessarily true and not to the extent of the suburbs. Humans may not be able to aviod crushing a few ants or felling a few trees but they don't have to totally bulldoze the landscape and kill all life thereon to build a suburban complex and a mini-mall. Natural wildlife can be maintained, natural biodiversity doesn't have to be crushed by a roll-out "carpet" of lawn grass.
So right now, the United States is an ecovillage?
Well another aspect of ecovillages is that (IMO) their ideal size is about 100-300 people. The communities would be tight-knit and the people would work together. Kind of diametrically opposed to many suburban apartment complexs (like a few I've lived in) where neighbors don't know each other and drive off in a hundred different directions every morning to work at their jobs (with friends and family often lived many miles away). Beyond being as self-sufficinet as possible materially and economically they would also be somewhat self-sufficient socailly (not to say visitors and even tourists wouldn't be welcomed but that people ideally wouldn't suffer the chronic loneliness so previlant in Western culture).
Nobody will listen if you ask them not to reproduce irresponsibly.
Possibly true, they might get confused by the double negative. Instead I'd probably ask them to reproduce responsibly (and give economic incentives for doing so), assuming I was the king of the world and all. Laypeople don't usually take life advice from other laypeople. Maybe I should run for office... or stage a political coo (however the heck you spell it).
Theoretically, that's possible. But why should I care what the "average standard of life" is? It would be nice to raise it, but it's not my place to say "you can't have children because they'll lower the average per capita income of the world!"
Sadly many people don't seem to care about their effect on the entire world. And they (in a way, rightly) imagine that their life choices won't have a large enough impact to effect things on a global scale. Or they might even feel so rightious that they consider it their responsibility to have lots of kids, to counteract the masses of other folks doing things wrong.
I'm unable to dictate a good policy for how others should live. I suppose I shouldn't have begun to. Honestly, you're probably right (the limiting of people's reproductive rights is not the correct solution).
I'm no more interested in having a discussion with dieoff.org than with exitmundi.nl.
There are some interesting articles on that site.
No, but forcing people to have one child each is a horrendous policy.
It's working for China. I imagine many Indians in the future will wish their nation had adopted such a policy.
Developed countries have much lower birth-rates than undeveloped countries. Isn't it more productive to help countries like these develop some sort of industry than to try and control their birthrates?
Probably. Sustainable industry of course. If everyone lived like the US we'd be screwed. Of course that's not possible. If everyone lived like the US gasoline would probably cost $50 a gallon and the next day no one would be living like the US. Sadly, 3rd world countries, hoping that someday they can be as consumeristic and wasteful as the US will be sorely dissapointed. Because in the future, even the US won't be living like it is now.
I would think that part of the problem in Africa and Asia is that there is very little being produced.
Are you kidding? The parts of the computer you're typing on were most likely produced somewhere in Asia, probably many of the clothes in your closet too. At this moment in time producing stuff doesn't pay very well (whereas selling, managing trade and overseeing labor does) but at some point it will again.
Yes, plenty of non-oil sources of energy exist that meet those requirements. Like every other well-known source of power. The gradual decline of oil does not herald an end to energy itself. We can and will have a continual cornicopia of energy, unless we really screw up badly tech-wise.
What other fuel source has the versitility of oil? I have yet to see any reasonable proof that the industrial world will be able to make a smooth and seamless switch to... no one can even agree on what the supposed new miracle fuel is... The burden of proof is on the ones making the claim "That XYZ fuel will save the day". No one has yet proven (to me) up to that task and rests on non-commital brush-off answers such as "Meh, it's all good, there are plenty of cool alternative sources of energy out there, when oil gets too pricy "the market" will solve everything".
Warning, danger Will Robinson! Proceed with extreme caution!
