How to feel happy about the future!

[martin]

Mine too, and the chooks are increasing lay........

[tz0c0s]

We are doomed. Doomed I tell you.....

Time to buy corned beef & guns !!  

[biff]

64 years ago yesterday,
             i was born into 10ft of snow, the roads in donegal had disappeared.people were starving and coal was 3 pounds sterling a bag (blackmarket.),my old man had a canadian 6wheel drive dodge which was one of the few things still moving ,after a week he ran out of fuel and had to stay in the town for 6 weeks,
     when the snow cleared people were found dead in their homes,snow which fell on their homes blocked the chimnneys and they died in their sleep.,there were massive casualties in livestock also.people then said it was the end of the world and the old biddies would not get off their knees for praying.it never did me a bit harm and i still love the snow.

[wesnet]

We are doomed. Doomed I tell you.....

Time to buy corned beef & guns !!  

Didn't you see the news corned beef is bad for you. Along with nearly everthing else I like to eat  and as for guns well!!!!! so I am going to have to try and bore the squirrels and rabbits to death. 

John

[tz0c0s]

Didn't you see the news corned beef is bad for you. Along with nearly everthing else I like to eat   and as for guns well!!!!! so I am going to have to try and bore the squirrels and rabbits to death. 

John

Touché. I can't eat what I want either.

On a more serious note, I read if you marinade meat in wine or beer before grilling, the carcinogens are greatly reduced. pssst, aaahhh.

Andy

[wookey]

Wookey have you read the book? I don't remember reading ".........there are no limits to exponential growth, or that the carrying capacity of the planet is infinite"

Have I read which book?

I've read 2/3rds of 'Limits to growth' and none of 'The Rational Optimist' (as I'd never heard of it before yesterday). If TRO agrees that there are limits (and that we are probably past some of them already), but goes on to argue that we can deal with the problems by rapid change, then that's fine and dandy. I got the perhaps erroneous impression that it was saying we don't need to worry and that there is no risk of collapse because 'technology will save us'.

I'm not attempting to critisise a book that I haven't read - I was just presenting another good book for consideration, which uses actual modelling rather than the plausible, but specious, argument that people have been wrong in the past so they are probably wrong now too.

And this Matt Ridley fellow publishes a book every 3-4 years  - his early ones ('genome' and 'the red queen' are acknowledged as quite good). I'm impressed that he really is the same bloke that ran Northern Rock for a while - wot a busy man.

Monbiot isn't impressed:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jun/18/matt-ridley-rational-optimist-errors

[martin]

Just read Monbiot's comments - if his assertion that one of the pillars of Ridley's "wisdom" is to allow big business to "do it's own thing", which will be a good thing is correct, then I really can't see any point in making an already criminally rich man any more wealthy by buying a book that is obviously so deeply flawed - as Monbiot and several other commenters have noted, he's telling the rich what they want to hear........
If there's a single cause of our imminent eco-armaggedon, it's multinational companies, and their pursuit of profit at any cost - shame about orang-utans, but several companies are making a profit from garden furniture.......