I’d say we’re to **** late, try convincing several billion people from working towards getting out of utter poverty or a vaguely modern lifestyle and the shit is going to hit the fan with massive social unrest.

What can you do politically other than massively clamping down on human rights? Even China could not keep a grip on their population and that is much easier than trying get a consensus and keep a grip on worldwide consumption. You could end up with a situation whereby we’ve totalled a lot of the environment and managed to usher in a new wave of disgusting political regimes to control population and socio-economic issues. I’d rather just go with one than both.

The best solution is forwards, technical progress to solve our problems and hopefully by the time we can we won’t have wiped out too many major species. We should be conserving all endangered species through DNA data banks etc ready for when we do enter a new era.

hey Bwaarp..

Remember that cute hippy chick from FoE..?
Of course you do.. you thought she was the love of your life didn’t you..?

and when she dumped you she was so kind and so practical.. but there was no way you could stay together.. not after the way that you were always so jealous and possessive at the love-ins (and boy did she love those love-ins)
but you were too uptight and controlling and you held her back and stunted her spiritual growth..

she reaally hurt you didn’t she..?

Thre are other ways of looking at this – its not unrelenting “progress” or back to the dark ages – there are other ways to manage the economy and other measures of happiness other than ownership of material goods

There is an inequality problem, and protesting about it is OK.

But feelings run high at large protests and agitators (attracted by the mob) can set off a riot. The police have to pre-empt this even if they cannot maintain complete order. The mistake we make is assuming the police are robots; in fact they are as agitated as the protesters. I’m not defending the specific actions of the police in this, or other, protests. I’m saying that blaming the police trivialises the problem.

Only in the context of human survival, scientific understanding and decent levels of happiness, that is it.

So you are comfortable with damage to habitats and extinction of species as long as humans can thrive?

I struggle with long sentences but all the contact I’ve had with the Occupy lot in London has tended to show me the worst in them, and I have absolutely no respect for the way they attempt to get their message across or how they behave. They are a bunch of hypocritical whining idiots. There may well be a valid point at the origin of the movement but when it has become the name under which serial squatting troublemaking vandals can cause millions of pounds worth of damage to our capital alongside middle class fantasists filming their anti capitalist messages on top end cameras and streaming them from iMac computers with Bamboo graphics tablets it has long been lost. They are definately the problem not the solution.

I’m part of the solution. I really like supermarkets and think GM crops are a terrific idea.

Whats the problem again? I wasn’t listening

In the excitement of shouting at each other, I don’t think anyone’s really bothered to actually define it.

I generally like to be part of the problem and part of the solution.

That way they both cancel each other out and I’m not causing or solving anything.

Whats the problem again?

well.. the problem for me was constructing a catchy enough thread title to draw the right crowd into the debate.. the topic was deliberately ambiguous..

I feel that I may have aimed a little low.. although there has already been some interesting discussion and it’s still early days..

I detect a current of social and environmental responsibility floating around here and there. Pretty ephemeral at times, but still there. I think there are just enough people with just enough desire to do the right thing to keep it going.

– Environmental legislation gets passed, often without anyone noticing apart from in the industries
– Eco messages are all around us
– Companies are trying to clean up their act – sure, it’s for publicity reasons, but the end result is still positive
– People are working on the science and technology

Slow progress, but I think we are going in the right direction.

The big question for me is whether or not we’ll get there in time.