re: #111 DaddyG

It is a good reference.

Here is the dilemma that is so hard to us, as a society, to get our heads (and butts) around: We live but for a brief time, maybe 70 years. Our brains are hardwired to think about today (e.g., where is our next meal?) Yet we are affecting the lives of people near and far, both in space and time.

To arrange our lives for the sake of people who are not yet born is a monumental task. It is asking of us to do what is not natural, frankly. As animals what we want to do is eat, have sex, and sleep (not necessarily in that order.)

To ask an SUV driving, rayon-wearing, live-in-Riverside-county-but-work-in-downtown-San-Diego American to change their lives so people in, say, Bangladesh won’t die en masse in say 2070 is asking the impossible.

I’m not being snarky, I’m being serious.

The reasons the young man drives an SUV, wears stylish clothes, and commutes so far so he can get a better paying job are: (1) so he can eat better, (2) so he can increase his reproductive opportunities, and (3) so he can sleep safely. It is animal instinct.

To change that behavior is difficult. Not impossible, using the denotation of “impossible”, but it is nearly impossible.

I have a smaller carbon footprint than most Americans. Less than anybody else here, probably. But my life (semi-retired) allows that - if I were raising a family it would be different. Yet if everybody in the world had the same carbon footprint as myself we (the world) would still be raising CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to dangerous levels.

The only way out is to develop new energy sources that are not based on using the Carbon-hydrogen bonds as found in fossil fuels.