MrBill wrote:I can start putting seawater in my gas tank. That should curb greenhouse emissions? Simple, but effective! ; - ))
Wait a second, how is that effective? Wouldn't that render your car non-operable? How is that effective?
I get your point that good simple solutions are hard to come by, but there are probably some good ideas out there.
How about this: instead of seawater, how about putting less CONVENTIONAL gas in your gas tank as a result of driving less?
Everything that reduces consumption is going to reduce economic growth, and I assume that's really the idea--i.e., to live reasonably well at a lower level of consumption, right?
Just a regular old orderly and planned economic contraction. Wait a second, though, isn't our debt based monetary system premised upon sustained growth? Wouldn't a planned contraction be devastating?
Isn't the whole premise behind debt the idea that advances can be taken on future consumption and future consumption will not be too severely compromised because the economic growth fueled by today's consumption will cause the economic pie of the future to be large enough that the advance taken in the form of debt won't compromise the ability to live well in the future as well?
It seems like if we knew for certain that there would be a sustained plateau of economic activity in the future, or a steady gradual decline of economic activity, it would be pure foolishness to borrow money today. How would there be any hope of ever paying it back? There wouldn't.
But wouldn't that trigger some kind of self-reinforcing economic death spiral?
BigTex needs answers.