can any technology beyond the stone-age be truly sustainable?

[Corey]

lol agree with you there. cleo.

[isenhand]

Originally Posted by abelhas

i dont think we'll have any choice in this - in the near future there are gonna be a lot less people. just a question of what kind of mess they are left with, and how hard the people who 'own' the world now fight to retain their privilege. countries like the uk need land reform more than venezuela (which is doing it), but i dont think those whose families have owned the land since the norman conquest are gonna just give it up.

Estimates range from 8 – 9 Gppl as the maximum we could sustain. However, I don’t think we can reach that level with the way we do things and certainly not with the majority living a reasonably good life style. If carry on as we do now I think we could well see a population of about 2-3 Gppl with in the next 50 – 70 years.

Originally Posted by abelhas

i also believe that 10,000 people is a large city (if looked at realistically), communities will be smaller to work.

The evidence we have so far indicates that about 200 people form the maximum for a community. The way I was thinking was the 10 000 ppl community would have communities of 200 as its basic building block. That would give 50 communities closely linked together to form the larger block.

[Corey]

How do you propose we spread these communities out using the current infrastructure. New infrastructure and land would further deplete our resources and destroy critical habitat. We cannot just abandon what we have and move elsewhere. what would we build those new communities with? We are cutting down whats left of the trees faster than they can regenerate and often times there are no successful replacement trees planted. When I spent a summer planting trees I learned that only 2 out of 10 survive within the first 2-3 years or so from yearlings.

Those communities need to be near rivers farm-able land and such yet we may loose most of the rivers from the rising climate. keep in mind that an estimated 50% of population is not going to have access to adequate fresh water within 15 minute walk of where they live.

What you propose is going to rely heavily on trust of one another last I checked most people don't even trust there next door neighbor.

Heck if I could trust people and others trusted me I would not be here chatting I would already be joining a coop style farming community which is a lot like what you propose.

Reality is I will be among the first hardest hit here in the USA I rely on Disability SSI as a result when things get hard and the current economic structure fails my Disability SSI goes out the window because it is payed by the taxes collected today, not from a full trust fund set aside.

I am already feeling the strain. Food shelf for poor people that provided donated or surplus food is dwindling to the type of food that would seriously compromise your health from improper nutrition. If the bottling companies get there way I would have to start paying for water as a luxury instead of a human right. If this happens that would be the final nail in the coffin.

So I sit here trying to help others knowing there is a strong possibility I am sacrificing my own life. :(

So now maybe people here would understand why I may seem a bit hard core. Walking dead comes to mind.
:peace:

In the USA 100,000 is reconized as a town gone to city we just hit the 100,000 in rochester MN USA

So a community would not even be a town???

[isenhand]

Originally Posted by Corey

How do you propose we spread these communities out using the current infrastructure.

I don’t

The idea is to get people who know what they are doing to decide that. However, I can give some thoughts on the subject. I think the answer would be slowly. Something we can do rapidly, like cut back on our production but other things will take generations to do like change over the infrastructure. Not an idea solution but as you point out any rapid change is likely to do more damage so we have to work within the limits that we have and that means working with today infrastructure to start with. I think, therefore, we need to concentrate on the more important aspects first which I would see as production and transportation. I think we can cut those down rapidly.

Originally Posted by Corey

Those communities need to be near rivers farm-able land and such yet we may loose most of the rivers from the rising climate. keep in mind that an estimated 50% of population is not going to have access to adequate fresh water within 15 minute walk of where they live.

You don’t need to be near rivers but near a water supply and you can grow plants in ways not needing arable land (hydroponics for example and agro-engineering). We will need to do things like that, especially if we are to grow things organically. I don’t think there is any one solution, we will need to do many different things.

Originally Posted by Corey

What you propose is going to rely heavily on trust of one another last I checked most people don't even trust there next door neighbor.

Yes, that’s to do with culture and another reason why we can’t make changes over night. In Sweden, for example, where there is more of a cooperative culture you can find people to trust and work together with. To build up such an environment you need to gear up education so people grow up in a cooperative culture and you need to design the environment to support such a culture. If you take people who grow up in a culture that encourages selfishness and expect then to cooperate they wont. It will all fall to pieces.

I think it will take generations to sort this mess out.

Originally Posted by Corey

Heck if I could trust people and others trusted me I would not be here chatting I would already be joining a coop style farming community which is a lot like what you propose.

Something like this:

Untitled Document

Originally Posted by Corey

Reality is I will be among the first hardest hit here in the USA I rely on Disability SSI as a result when things get hard and the current economic structure fails my Disability SSI goes out the window because it is payed by the taxes collected today, not from a full trust fund set aside.

I am already feeling the strain. Food shelf for poor people that provided donated or surplus food is dwindling to the type of food that would seriously compromise your health from improper nutrition. If the bottling companies get there way I would have to start paying for water as a luxury instead of a human right. If this happens that would be the final nail in the coffin.

So I sit here trying to help others knowing there is a strong possibility I am sacrificing my own life. :(

So now maybe people here would understand why I may seem a bit hard core. Walking dead comes to mind.
:peace:

:(

Originally Posted by Corey

In the USA 100,000 is reconized as a town gone to city we just hit the 100,000 in rochester MN USA

So a community would not even be a town???

200 people have been shown as the optimal size for a community. So that would form the basic building block. The reason for then grouping communities of 200 together to form one block of 10 000 is because 200 wouldn’t be enough to support any significant industry. So, by localising 50 communities in close proximity to each other you get the benefit of a community of 200 but the close association needed to have industry.

[Corey]

“Res ipsa loquitur!”

Sad part is some of the most needed changes can't wait for generations. So how do we do with want we have now at this moment?

Although I saw a good first step and that is the UK trading cloths for cloths at a central site. where you bring cloths you own that never where to a central site and get credits at a counter on a plastic credit card. then you go through the store and pick things out that has a credit mark. easy with minimal use of resources vs making new clothing people may not want and then trying to create a demand for it through advertising.

[isenhand]

Originally Posted by Corey

Sad part is some of the most needed changes can't wait for generations.

Yes, that’s the big problem: time is against us.

Originally Posted by Corey

So how do we do with want we have now at this moment?

That’s the normal thing of reduce, reuse and recycle. That’s what we do at home. We have for example now installed energy saving light, cut down of car travel dramatically. We reuse as much as we can and what we can’t we recycle. Being in Sweden help as they have good recycling facilities.

But all, that is meaningless in a socioeconomic system that grows. No matter how much we cut back its only a matter of time before we reach the same levels again as our economy grows. So, the next thing to do is start moving over to a sustainable socioeconomic system. We here are trying to form groups and then start to build suitable communities.

[Johnny Electriglide]

There was a sustainable, somewhat high and low technology way to live sustainably. I promoted Earthship Villages, with a small manufacturing ability, well defended, and with enough people to prevent genetic erosion.
The problem is that they do require certain conditions and amounts of "good" land. The problem with the land is twofold; increasing mercury, and other deadly pollutants, invisible fallout from dirty coal plants blanketing even pristine mountain lakes, and the increasing fluctuations of climate and increase of heat that could adversely affect outdoor crops necessary for survival.
They can be as high tech as mine with solar power. LCD screen satellite TV and wireless DSL, high efficiency water use and appliances, composters, electric guitar amps and speaker stacks, this computer, and an Earthship that grows most of our vegetable needs. Our lifestyle changes with the sun somewhat--like less TV and computer time in the winter or cloudy days.
Electric cars were trashed over 10 years ago, not because they were not in demand or inefficient--but because of the car manufacturers/big oil corrupt link.
Nuclear power is coming back, which is good for those places out of the sunbelt. Still, the population is so far into overshoot, depletion and pollution so far along, that to achieve any form of sustainability would require immediately reducing population to 3 billion then gradual reduction to the sustainable level at the time. Sustainability itself has been going down with depletion and pollution. Most pure water supplies will be gone around 2040, like the Ogallala Aquifer, and the soil depletion rate puts it being mostly gone by 2070, and below many plants' threshold well before that. Without immediately going to non-CO2 emission power and transport for a 90% reduction in 10 years, the methane feedback loop will put the biosphere at a point of 1/3rd crop failure per year by 2050. Cheap oil for massive corporate agriculture and distribution will be gone long before. The Shield Project will falter and temperature rise will be dramatic and deadly.
The putting of a happy face on everything has helped prevent meaningful change, while the upper midwest US becomes an over-breeding ground for low IQ latinos and kill cult moslems allowed into enemy lands. This makes it almost impossible logistically, for the needed changes of human behavior. <rockon>

[Corey]

Johnny I am curious have you written books? regarding this topic?

What do you think of monbiots plan? or have you not heard of him? sounds like your 90% reference states you have read him.

shield project though I have looked it up but why is it that most of us don't see it going on? I am looking like crazy for it here in the Midwest USA Minnesota. Even watching at night to see the lights of planes there is no back and forth pattern or crisscrossing

All I see is the occasional one liners which maybe due to the location of the Rochester, Minnesota national airport.

Also wondering are you from a conspiracy theorist group?

[Johnny Electriglide]

Corey, I grew up in Minneapolis and attended the UofM in the beatnik to hippie transition period, then went into the Army to be a hero. I flew or drove all over the state and saw the overpopulation spread from my village hilltop in St.Anthony to as far as I could see. My thesis was "Mammal Populations in Ecological Niches, Including Humans" in 1967 even though my major was geology and the advanced biology/ecology was a minor at the time. It proved accurate as a "tube of probability" to this day. I am not in any orgs besides the United Patriots of America, the Vietnam Dustoff Assn., Grassfire and NumbersUSA (I have tried to get Roy Beck to correct his chart). Much of what I would have written has been written by Lindsey Grant, who is even older, but of late has gotten over-optimistic. I suppose we all want to die with hope and optimism for our kids, or with me kid. You can go to Moguitar's Greenhouse at http://www.24hourforums.com

[isenhand]

Originally Posted by Johnny Electriglide

There was a sustainable, somewhat high and low technology way to live sustainably. I promoted Earthship Villages, with a small manufacturing ability, well defended,

Have you looked at Mycoplex from sporeprint? It has the features of Earthships but builds upwards. The building should be completely self-sufficient with regard to food production, waste management and energy generation. The project is being developed as open source so the plans when finished can be used by anyone.

Originally Posted by Johnny Electriglide

and with enough people to prevent genetic erosion.

Why stop there? You could see this idea as a basic building block for a new society. Link them al together would give you more capabilities and opportunities.