Amen, JS.

We have to start the change in American culture, and culture around the world, to waste less. Sustainable economy, sustainable agriculture and efficiency are the lifeblood of civilization. We’re either going to fall right on our faces, or we can rise to do what is in our species’ interest to do.

When Bloomberg talks, then we better listen; for, after all, he speaks backed by his big money. As a big capitalist, he knows what threatens his long-term wealth most and I happen to partially agree.

But then I might add that no terrorism, no global warming, no economic recession can be as evil and destructive as eight years of Bush’s and gang rule. We have not seen as yet the devastating effects of their evil legacy.

Global warming is cyclical like global cooling.  Cutting harmful emissions makes sense especially when it gets worse by the day as the world gets more “industrialized”.  Trust a politician to come up with a new tax.

We can’t go through life worring that a boogyman terrorist is lurking around the next corner.

I think TPTB have worn out the word “terrorist”, criminal is better.

When Al Gore accepted the Nobel Prize, he used the metaphor of a fever to describe global warming.  Let’s take that metaphor to its logical conclusion.  A fever is a symptom.  The patient may in fact die if the fever is not reduced, but it is also possible to reduce the fever without curing the disease/infection that caused the fever.  In this case, the patient may still die…just not from the fever.

Global Warming is a symptom, it is not the disease. 

The disease is waste, which stems from inefficiency.  We currently gauge efficiency almost completely in terms of economics.  That is, an industry/concern is efficient if it produces something at a much smaller cost than it can sell that something for.

If, however, we measure out industry in terms of resource inputs and waste outputs, it is generally no more than 20% efficient.  This is our real problem, and it begets our problem with global warming.

Now, i am not saying that we should ignore global warming or that it doesn’t exist.  I’m suggesting that we should treat the disease, not the symptom.

One way to do this would be to tax resources and waste rather than profit.  It would also help if industry were not allowed to externalize so many costs in order to remain profitable.  We might also require (as the Europeans do) full life cycle analysis for products. 

Currently, European cars must be 85% recyclable, and the manufacturer is responsible for the recycling.  This leads to better design, which is an excellent way to attack the problem of waste.  It would also help to design so that the waste output of one process forms the resource input of another process.

In other words, if we want to solve this problem, our best bet is to model our industrial activity on Nature…there is no such thing as waste in Nature.

*The other important factor is decentralization of everything from our food production to our energy generating to as much industry as we can.