Is global economic recession the best thing for mother earth?

[darelldd]

Originally Posted by malorn

You are wrong, the environment is one of the last things on public's mind right now and the worse this gets the lower the environment gets on the list of important issues.

Uh-oh. I agree.

This became obvious when the price of gas went up so high that even otherwise rational people were clamboring for "Drill baby drill." In desperation, they figured that drilling locally would have to do *something* good for our gas prices. All logic and reality be damned.

[abishai100]

Recession will delay the urge for long drives and shopping trips (and plastic bag waste).

Maybe we tree-huggers can take advantage:

1. distribute cheap or free cotton tote bags which (psychologically) make shoppers want to buy less (?)

2. cheap hybrid cars like the Prius which have high maintenance costs may become popular, since, afterall, we'll be driving less (?)

[tripp]

don't you mean low maintenance costs there on #2?

We'll see how inelastic the price of oil is in the coming year I suppose. Of course, the cheaper oil gets the more people will drive. I wonder what the equilibrium point is.

[burritos]

I don't know when the recession officially started, but I guess a year ago with the collapse of the financial markets would be as good a beginning as any. So with the one year anniversary of this recession and the ascendancy of the Obama administration, I see no substantive steps in curbing CO2 emissions. Efforts are piecemeal and at best maybe going in the right direction. Nonetheless the house is on fire and arguing over which diameter hose to use and how much they are going to cost us just isn't going to cut it. However, with the recession, there is less human consumption which ultimately is the source of carbon emissions.
On the one hand 15% unemployment is going to lead to human suffering, on the other hand unchecked climate change could lead to even more suffering. So is accepting the lesser of 2 evils an adequate strategy to combat climate change?

[skruse]

We are now in Peak Everything. The global recession at a minimum is getting a few people to recognize limits to water, air, money, land, investments, etc. Greed will go on, but oil and land are finite. With continuing human population growth, food, living space and possessions will only continue to get more expensive. Solution? Live within our means, think and act long-term. Emphasize conservation and efficiency.

[burritos]

Originally Posted by skruse

We are now in Peak Everything. The global recession at a minimum is getting a few people to recognize limits to water, air, money, land, investments, etc. Greed will go on, but oil and land are finite. With continuing human population growth, food, living space and possessions will only continue to get more expensive. Solution? Live within our means, think and act long-term. Emphasize conservation and efficiency.

With unchecked population growth, the only way we(human beings) can live without eviscerating the earth of all its resources is if we resorted back to living like native americans and other indigenous peoples. That's not likely to happen on voluntary basis.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by burritos

I don't know when the recession officially started, but I guess a year ago with the collapse of the financial markets would be as good a beginning as any.

It's been underway a lot longer than that. Dec. '07 is the "semi-official" date but when one looks at actual inflation (rather than the adjusted values that don't correlate with actual inflation) it goes back to '05 or so. It's not even clear that we really ever emerged from the previous recession if you factor inflation the way it was historically measured.

When we compare with previous recessions one of the major problems is the inflation fudging which has become more extreme over the past 15 years. There is really no apples-to-apples anymore since inflation is intentionally fudged lower.

There is a similar problem with unemployment accounting. To put it on the same accounting basis as the Great Depression one must use the U6 numbers...and those are scary.