tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3471471289744825428.post7147843727412901588..comments2024-03-11T00:31:41.186-07:00Comments on The Oregon Economics Blog: Are People the Problem or the Solution?Patrick Emersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242234148546323374noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3471471289744825428.post-83627539208244348012013-10-02T10:35:45.977-07:002013-10-02T10:35:45.977-07:00Interesting to see your position on the infamous E...Interesting to see your position on the infamous Earle Ellis column, Patrick. <br /><br />History suggests that human population figures are cyclical, and evolutionary ecologists would insist that humans may be niche creators in a certain esoteric sense but are ultimately inhabiting a niche. The fact is that all civilizations rise and fall according to the amount of energy throughput and, indeed, fundamentally, by every scientific metric, they are growth-based operating systems, and rise they must.. or fall. The so-called Green Revolution was merely the agricultural coming-out party, if you will, of a newly-matured industrial civilization. The Green Revolution is nothing more than the throughput of fossil fuels in our food supply, the substituting, for example, of naturally-occurring soil nutrients produced by bacteria with a synthetic version (Ammonium Nitrate) that is completely dependent on natural gas, a finite resource of which fracking is the Great Hope, but currently subject to quickly diminishing returns if you look at the incredibly short life-cycles of the fracking wells that are now essential to maintaining overall global production levels of transportation fuels that facilitate the Green Revolution.<br /><br />Moreover, Patrick, by virtue of the Information Age, to pattern the decline, of civilization, and to prepare for it, is not pessimistic in and of itself; apply systems theory to the data and the smoke clears. Life during civilizational decline is a life no less to be lived, for beauty is in the eye of the beholder and, to be sure, the grassroots communities around the world that are organizing themselves around de-industrial resiliency are healthy, strong, self-reliant, and optimistic communities.<br /><br />If you would like to revisit your position, or merely acquire a truly representative perspective of contemporary Sustainability Theory, now itself in its mature, professional phase, then I cordially invite you, and your friends and family, to attend either of a pair of KBOO-sponsored talks by Nicole Foss, currently on a world tour. She will be in Corvallis at 7PM on Wednesday, October 9th, 2103, talking in the First Congregational Church's Meeting Hall, and she will be talking in SE Portland at 7PM on Thursday, October 10th in the Tabor Space Dining Room. There will be a Q@A following the talks. You will not be disappointed, she is nothing short of brilliant. You can find her credentials at this link:<br /><br />http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/nicole-m-foss<br /><br />I will revisit this comments section in the event you'd like to respond.<br /><br />Best regards,<br /><br />Ben benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07338619620804720116noreply@blogger.com