Slashdot Mirror
Living On a Carbon Budget: The End of Recreation As We Know It?
Lasrick writes Dawn Stover looks at unrealistic expectations and the distribution of limited energy resources: 'This is a question that should move from the fringes of the energy debate to its very heart. Economists and energy experts shy away from issues of equity and morality, but climate change and environmental justice are inseparable: It's impossible to talk intelligently about climate without discussing how to distribute limited energy resources. It's highly unlikely that the world can safely produce almost five times as much electricity by 2035 as it does now—which is what it would take to provide everyone with a circa-2010 American standard of living, according to a calculation by University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr. The sooner policy makers accept this reality, the sooner they can get to work on a global solution that meets everyone's needs. First, though, they need to understand the difference between needs and wants.' Not something most people even think about.
Capitalism already handles this automatically, at least in the long run—no central planning required.
I think the idea that by 2035, we should expect every country in the world to have a comparable standard of living to America today is nothing short of laughable. So that blows a big hole right through the main premise.
Furthermore, aren't there figures that show that we could supply enough energy to power the entire world with a solar farm of a few (few dozen, few hundred, whatever) square miles in the Sahara, or something like that? Obviously that in itself isn't necessarily a practical solution, but it should demonstrate that the idea that we can't provide enough power to the entire world to match America's level of consumption right now is, at best, a shaky one.
It sounds to me like they picked an arbitrary date when we were somehow supposed to get everyone's standard of living up to America's, without considering what would actually be required to do that (hint: it includes stopping an awful lot of violence that's not likely to stop any time soon). If you are going to assume that we can raise everyone's standard of living like that in the first place, why would you not also assume that we can build out solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources to match?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
You are ignoring the fact that people are a resource by itself.
The median salaries have been stagnant because corporations only pay as little to their employees as they can afford to and with both people in the house working and easy access to credit that's what you get.
The simple matter is all capital gains are being funneled at the top and worse of all instead of being used to fund new technology investments, raising their workers living standards, or whatever they merely sit on top of it.
Heard about the new Korean Prime Minister wanting to tax corporations sitting on piles of cash? It may start happening elsewhere too.
imho, it goes to false equivalence...the idea that to be fair you have to give each side "equal time" by having 3 'liberal' and 3 'conservative' leaning major contributors...that's a guess but it appears that way when reading slashdot
That might be true if the "liberal" editors actually posted liberal stories to the front page with anywhere near as much of the frequency that we see the conservative editors posting conservative FUD to the front page.
rarely is it this blatant..
Look through what samzenpus posts to the front page, he does this kind of shit all the time he posted complete and utter conservative FUD a few weeks ago that was on this level of blatant FUD-ness, but he sneaks in little partisan barbs on a high frequency in general. If he is on staff to bring out conservative eyeballs, he is doing a good job. If he is on staff to actually be an intelligent editor and reviewer or news, he is a total failure.
but i still think slashdot is good and relevant even though sometimes we see stuff like this story
This shit should happen a lot less often, or even better not at all.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Actually, unless you have a 128 core rack server with 32 dual fan GPUs and a really really big screen, your car has more carbon cost to build than your computer.
If you do have such a gaming rig, run it on DC current instead of AC and it will use a lot less energy. And since the grid can drop, have it run off solar batteries.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
> China and India are going to build out nuclear power and produce en
Both are building wind and solar much faster than nuclear.
MUCH faster.