A century ago the industrialist Henry Ford, hardly a paragon of left-wing politics, understood the problem the unfortunate fellow above is living when he spoke about how weak demand kills an economy. . Henry made this point in response to his fellow industrialists disparaging comments about his doubling and re-doubling of the wages he paid his workers at Ford Motors whereas i quote it as a confirmation of my paradigm which says only through conservation can the capitalist juggernaut devouring the globe can we ever hope to live in balance with the bio-sphere we're immersed in.
The issue of the dramatic increases in fossil fuel use and transport, for instance are driven. By growing human populations and increasing industrialization that drive up the worldwide demand for fossil fuels, and as oil, gas and coal companies rush to extract, sell and burn as much as possible, we see around us the ever-increasing entropy we call environmental degradation.
Yes, this is the same drumbeat The Mud Report marches to often. For instance early in 2013 the article 'Demand Driven Consumer Capitalism is Also the Driver of the "Environmental Pollution" Matrix' included the Jorge Majfud quote, "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combating drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction."
It's important to notice that Majfud referred to the broader issue of "environmental pollution" not just to climate change. That article concluded with a list of some of the tragedies being caused by our over-consumption of needless crap and a few details about each. Please check it out if you haven't already.
As Adam Brandt, an energy expert at Stanford University, pointed out recently, "So long as the demand is there, energy producers are going to search for new supplies of fossil fuel — many of them using unconventional means like tar sands extraction. “With growing global demand, the economic pressure to develop unconventional resources is enormous and not going away,” he said. “Can environmental groups expect to win a series of fights for decades to come, when the economic forces are aligned very strongly against them in each round?” The answer is obvious: no. The emphasis should be on demand, not supply."
To conclude, folks need to stop driving to the mall, stop consuming needless crap and just slow down.
