Future Cave man?

We do have many advantages over past civilizations, the main one being that we are aware of past failures, however it does not look to me like we are putting out knowledge to good use, it is a pretty ugly truth and it is easier to ignore it than to do anything about it। After all our life style depends on progress. Look at your computer, ten years ago this would have been an amazing piece of technology, now it is an every day thing. In the past things of value were passed down through the generations, now we chuck them out after a few years, no because they no longer work, but because we want better ones. I guarantee you will not be using this computer in 40 years. Without progress the economy would collapse and take our civilization, as we know it with it.

There has to be some way out, but it would have to be a radical change, not just burning less oil, cutting down fewer trees, being nice to animals or cleaning up a pond some where. It would have to be a massive shift toward sustainability. The planet produces a finite amount of resources every year, Everything we use comes from the planet. Energy is a slightly different matter, Most of our power actually comes from the Sun, whether it be ancient solar power stored in oil, hydroelectric power from water lifted by weather, or solar power, but there is a finite amount of that available for practical use and the bulk of what we are using is non-renewable fossil fuels.

One answer would be some sort of global resource audit. We look at resources we, as a global civilization use, and look at what is available to us on an annual basis from the Earth, then our consumption of materials and energy would have to be limited to what ever the planet can provide us with in a year. This is basically the ecological foot print idea I guess. This idea suggests that there is about 2 hectares of useful planet for each of us humans, this 2 ha must be able to provide us with all our requirements for food, shelter, energy and waste disposal. of course these 2 ha are not distributed amongst us evenly, in the western world we use shockingly more than someone in a third world country.

Well that is it for today - bed time for me. Check out the ecological foot print page, post a comment here let us know your foot print।

---The link to the Ecological footprint caluclator has been updated as the orriginal one got poached or something.---