Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

I thought the Greens were about, you know, greenness - the environment. Now they are over-focused on social issues...

The UK's Green Party does focus mainly on the environment, although they also feature social justice stuff. It doesn't do for the electorate to see you as a one-issue party. One-issue parties are protest-only, not really electable. So the Greens try to demonstrate a wider view too, I think?

[Lagayascienza]

Well, I guess the only thing for it is to get your right-wing capitalist friends to get on board the magma train. They are the ones you need to convince. They are the ones destroying our atmosphere and they are the ones with the money to invest in exploration and drilling for magma energy. It's no good blaming the lack of progress on looney-left-wing-commie-tree-huggers who you think are hell bent on destroying the wonderful capitalist system of limitless growth on a finite planet. Ordinary Labor voters don't control the purse strings. If there is money to be made from magma energy , free-market capitalism, which has held sway in the post war period in the West, and still does, will ensure, according to the dogma of laissez faire capitalism, that money gets made from magma energy. On the other hand, if the hugely wealthy multinational fossil fuel companies can't see how they can make money from magma energy, then they must be right. The market is always right. Right? So what then?

In respect of demographic transition: If magma energy is the cornucopia you believe it is, a period of aging before the population structure returns to a more normal pyramidal shape, won't matter. Continued, unlimited economic growth, fueled by cheap and plentiful magma energy, will do what fossil fuels did in the West as our population pyramids went pear shaped in the 20th Century. Magma-fueled economic growth will pay for pensions. Of course, this depends on convincing the energy companies to get on board. And that will only happen if magma energy proves economically viable. The fossil fuel companies, these wonderful bastions of enlightened capitalism, are not going to do it for the good of the planet. There has to money in it. Lots of money. And that is where the tragedy of the commons comes into play. If it is cheaper and more profitable for them to make profits by continuing to trash the joint, then that is exactly what they shall do. And who could blame them? Under laissez-faire capitalism that is what they are supposed to do. And my self-funded pension depends on them doing exactly that. Let's keep burning those fossil fuels. I won't be complaining. I'll be fine. So, drill, baby, drill!!! Except that, well, I have descendants who might not be all that happy about what my post-war generation has done to the joint. I have a moral responsibility, a duty of care I owe to them.

It's interesting that the book, The Limits of Growth, was rubbished mightily by the fossil fuel and petrochemical companies and their right-wing media lackies in the 20th Century. But if you have a look at the predictions, it turns out that the Club of Rome was right. We are now facing exactly the sort of disaster that they predicted based on massive population growth and limited resources on a finite planet. The idea that this small planet can support 50, 75 or 100 billion humans, even with magma energy, is just too silly for words. Magma, too, in the long term, is a finite resource which we would deplete at our peril. Draw enough energy from it and we'd end up cooling the mantle so that plate tectonics ceased to function and then, in the long term, we really would be in deep environmental s..t. The atmosphere, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere... all these systems are an intimately linked system. Laissez-faire capitalism cannot factor all this in to it's short term profit making. It can only do what it is supposed to do, it can only focus on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible. And that is the real tragedy of the commons.

[Mercury]

Well, I guess the only thing for it is to get your right-wing capitalist friends to get on board the magma train. They are the ones you need to convince. They are the ones destroying our atmosphere and they are the ones with the money to invest in exploration and drilling for magma energy. It's no good blaming the lack of progress on looney-left-wing-commie-tree-huggers who you think are hell bent on destroying the wonderful capitalist system of limitless growth on a finite planet. Ordinary Labor voters don't control the purse strings. If there is money to be made from magma energy , free-market capitalism, which has held sway in the post war period in the West, and still does, will ensure, according to the dogma of laissez faire capitalism, that money gets made from magma energy. On the other hand, if the hugely wealthy multinational fossil fuel companies can't see how they can make money from magma energy, then they must be right. The market is always right. Right? So what then?

In respect of demographic transition: If magma energy is the cornucopia you believe it is, a period of aging before the population structure returns to a more normal pyramidal shape, won't matter. Continued, unlimited economic growth, fueled by cheap and plentiful magma energy, will do what fossil fuels did in the West as our population pyramids went pear shaped in the 20th Century. Magma-fueled economic growth will pay for pensions. Of course, this depends on convincing the energy companies to get on board. And that will only happen if magma energy proves economically viable. The fossil fuel companies, these wonderful bastions of enlightened capitalism, are not going to do it for the good of the planet. There has to money in it. Lots of money. And that is where the tragedy of the commons comes into play. If it is cheaper and more profitable for them to make profits by continuing to trash the joint, then that is exactly what they shall do. And who could blame them? Under laissez-faire capitalism that is what they are supposed to do. And my self-funded pension depends on them doing exactly that. Let's keep burning those fossil fuels. I won't be complaining. I'll be fine. So, drill, baby, drill!!! Except that, well, I have descendants who might not be all that happy about what my post-war generation has done to the joint. I have a moral responsibility, a duty of care I owe to them.

It's interesting that the book, The Limits of Growth, was rubbished mightily by the fossil fuel and petrochemical companies and their right-wing media lackies in the 20th Century. But if you have a look at the predictions, it turns out that the Club of Rome was right. We are now facing exactly the sort of disaster that they predicted based on massive population growth and limited resources on a finite planet. The idea that this small planet can support 50, 75 or 100 billion humans, even with magma energy, is just too silly for words. Magma, too, in the long term, is a finite resource which we would deplete at our peril. Draw enough energy from it and we'd end up cooling the mantle so that plate tectonics ceased to function and then, in the long term, we really would be in deep environmental s..t. The atmosphere, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere... all these systems are an intimately linked system. Laissez-faire capitalism cannot factor all this in to it's short term profit making. It can only do what it is supposed to do, it can only focus on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible. And that is the real tragedy of the commons.

Correct! More than that, we need world governments and energy industries to agree to develop these technologies. Magma Co Ltd doesn't cut it. The development needs to be funded, and the ultimate transition needs to be managed to avoid market instability and political issues. This is a COP, WEF, UN level solution.
However, I think you're wrong to discount the significance of Limits to Growth environmentalism, at the academic level, as political protest, and at the level of common assumption. Imagine Meadows 1974 Limits to Growth had been refuted by Nasa/Sandia Labs, 1982 Magma Energy research - as rightly, it should have been. The argument would not be between fossil fuels, and siting in the dark eating bugs. The argument would be between fossil fuels and a far more massive form of clean energy - as a basis to internalise the externalities of capitalism i.e. carbon emissions, waste, water and land use, etc. That's the argument environmentalists should have made, and they'd be pushing at an open door. Instead I'm battling to break through misconceptions they have created, horrific prospects you seem oddly unwilling to forego.

The market acts like it believes Limits to Growth on some level, but doesn't care. And that makes them more careless in other regards. If you believe resources are finite, they're going to run out sooner or later, so why not sooner? I don't believe that. I believe that resources are a function of the energy available to create them. And the earth is a big ball of molten rock. Half the earth's energy is primordial - left over from the formation of the earth. The other half is radiogenic - from the decay of radioactive elements. Earth has been radiating energy into space for around 4.5bn years, and will do so for 5bn more, until the sun explodes. We can capture a tiny percentage of that energy, and meet world energy demand ten times over, carbon free forever. Or until the sun explodes! Given this source of energy, there is no resource bottleneck anytime in the foreseeable future. It's only because we use fossil fuels that are scarce, dirty and expensive - we cannot produce the resources necessary to sustain projected growth.

Your left wing anti-capitalist pseudo environmental mantra 'infinite growth on a finite planet' is the same false logic Malthus fell for. He was wrong. People invented trains, tractors, fertilisers and refrigeration, and multiplied food resources far ahead of population growth. Applying Magma Energy/ electrical power/hydrogen fuel technologies is the equivalent of inventing tractors, trains etc. We can transcend the Limits to Growth bottleneck through the application of technology. Given such a truly monolithic source of clean energy to spend, we can power desalination and irrigation - producing fresh water and arable land from vast tracts of arid wasteland scrub, currently worthless. We can give that land productive value. We can recycle all waste, farm fish, protect the forests, mine the ocean floor, grow food in vertical hydroponic farms, etc, etc. Where's the Limits to Growth?

So that's my three paragraphs. I don't want to go on too long. You won't read it!

[Lagayascienza]

Oh, I read your pots. I just don't agree with some of what you say. The simple fact is that no amount of energy is going to make our planet any bigger. Soils suitable for agriculture are very limited. Much of the world is desert, mountains, polar tundra, savanna and a small amount of undisturbed forest. All of these different environments work together to keep earth-systems functioning so that we have a liveable planet. Disrupt one and the whole system changes, just as we are seeing with the atmosphere and climate. And each of these environments with their different ecosystems contribute to the the living planet's genetic diversity. And each is beautiful and valuable in it's own way. I like the earth with its deserts, mountains and rainforests. I don't want every inch of the planet covered in cities and vertical farms. Even if earth-systems could sustain 100 billion people, which they cannot, it would be a completely different planet.

The planet is now on the brink of disaster because of unconstrained human population growth, resource depletion and the pollution of our atmosphere, rivers and seas. This is where unconstrained laissez-faire capitalism has brought us, just as was forecast in The Limits to Growth. And things are going to get much worse very quickly. The current trajectory is simply unsustainable on our finite planet. If we don't rein in our destructive activities the planet is going to do it for us. So, what is wrong with stabilizing our population? Why not limit population growth to about replacement levels? Aren't 8 billion people enough already? What is wrong with keeping the planet liveable for all 8 billion who currently exist? Why do we need to keep piling on more billions? Why do we need to keep trashing the joint? Economic growth can still happen if we stabilize our population. The dogma of limitless growth and a wonderful life for everyone through unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism is a false dogma. It never was true and never will be.

[Mercury]

Oh, I read your pots. I just don't agree with some of what you say. The simple fact is that no amount of energy is going to make our planet any bigger. Soils suitable for agriculture are very limited. Much of the world is desert, mountains, polar tundra, savanna and a small amount of undisturbed forest. All of these different environments work together to keep earth-systems functioning so that we have a liveable planet. Disrupt one and the whole system changes, just as we are seeing with the atmosphere and climate. And each of these environments with their different ecosystems contribute to the the living planet's genetic diversity. And each is beautiful and valuable in it's own way. I like the earth with its deserts, mountains and rainforests. I don't want every inch of the planet covered in cities and vertical farms. Even if earth-systems could sustain 100 billion people, which they cannot, it would be a completely different planet.

The planet is now on the brink of disaster because of unconstrained human population growth, resource depletion and the pollution of our atmosphere, rivers and seas. This is where unconstrained laissez-faire capitalism has brought us, just as was forecast in The Limits to Growth. And things are going to get much worse very quickly. The current trajectory is simply unsustainable on our finite planet. If we don't rein in our destructive activities the planet is going to do it for us. So, what is wrong with stabilizing our population? Why not limit population growth to about replacement levels? Aren't 8 billion people enough already? What is wrong with keeping the planet liveable for all 8 billion who currently exist? Why do we need to keep piling on more billions? Why do we need to keep trashing the joint? Economic growth can still happen if we stabilize our population. The dogma of limitless growth and a wonderful life for everyone through unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism is a false dogma. It never was true and never will be.

I thought I explained why, I really did. Because population demographics are weird. It's not just less or more people, it's the age of the population. Another factor is the male female balance. Look at China. They had a one child policy to address over-population, everyone wanted male children, and now Chinese men can't find a wife. They have a word for it - Shengnan - leftover men. You talk about changes to the environment, and yet want to enact anti-human policies to achieve some long distant environmental goal, blithely unaware of what the consequences will be. I only want to harness clean energy from magma, desalinate to increase the fresh water supply, irrigate to create arable land, recycle our waste and eliminate carbon emissions. And you think my plan is radical? Magma Energy is hugely ambitious, I'll give you that - but it's a tightly focused measure, the single most effective thing we could do to address the whole situation.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the prospect of 100bn people. Global population is projected to level off around 12bn by the end of the century. There's all sorts of underlying variables and assumptions, but even if population continued to grow - it wouldn't reach 100bn for centuries. It's not your problem. It's not our problem. Our problem is surviving this century; that's the problem we are faced with and it's the one I'm trying to solve. I think it important to do so in the way that requires the least disruption.

You want to undermine the only system of political economy that works worth a damn; and somehow reduce population. You still haven't said how. Choice, you say? But counter intuitively, poorer people choose to have larger families. So you may not set out with the intent, but you are going to end up murdering people. It's the natural consequence of a government whose legitimacy is based in environmental protection, in the context of Limits to Growth assumptions. For you, the human is the problem, and that's the wrong end of the telescope. The right end of the telescope is providing for human needs and wants without trashing the planet.

[Lagayascienza]

Again, the Earth is finite. No amount of energy can make the planet bigger. A clean form of cheap energy would help us reduce GHG emissions and, hopefully, stabilize the climate before it is too late. We have a very short time to fix our environmental problems or the planet will fix them for us and it won't be pretty or fun for us. Whether energy from magma on the scale you envisage will be technically and economically feasible in the short term, remains unclear. I hope it will, but I see no sign of it happening. Could that be because the big energy companies don't see it as technically and/or economically viable? I imagine the huge cost and the massive amount of infrastructure required to tap and distribute enough magma energy to power the world will mean that it is a very long way off, if it proves possible at all. If that is the case, we are going to have to rely on other renewable, non-polluting forms of energy such as solar, wind, tidal, etcetera. Either that, or we keep doing what we have been doing with fossil fuels, in which case, disaster is assured on a scale perhaps even beyond that predicted in The Limits to Growth, predictions which have proved correct.

[Mercury]

Again, the Earth is finite. No amount of energy can make the planet bigger. A clean form of cheap energy would help us reduce GHG emissions and, hopefully, stabilize the climate before it is too late. We have a very short time to fix our environmental problems or the planet will fix them for us and it won't be pretty or fun for us. Whether energy from magma on the scale you envisage will be technically and economically feasible in the short term, remains unclear. I hope it will, but I see no sign of it happening. Could that be because the big energy companies don't see it as technically and/or economically viable? I imagine the huge cost and the massive amount of infrastructure required to tap and distribute enough magma energy to power the world will mean that it is a very long way off, if it proves possible at all. If that is the case, we are going to have to rely on other renewable, non-polluting forms of energy such as solar, wind, tidal, etcetera. Either that, or we keep doing what we have been doing with fossil fuels, in which case, disaster is assured on a scale perhaps even beyond that predicted in The Limits to Growth, predictions which have proved correct.

Magma Energy is not happening, in no small part in my view, because of a Limits to Growth perspective, advocated for by left wing green academia, politics and protest since the 1970's. All those middle class anti-western Westerners, who signal their virtue by appearing guilt ridden by relative success - whose hearts bleed until asked to put their money where their mouth is, and are suddenly struck deaf. I'm doing what little I can to set out the alternate view, that quite clearly isn't part of the conversation - the argument for a prosperous and sustainable future, powered by the monolithic quantities of clean energy, NASA/Sandia say is available from Magma. That's a YOU problem. Not you personally - at least you have engaged with these ideas, and despite your pathological unreason, your engagement has been very helpful. It's a THEY problem.

Thomas Malthus' dire predictions on population would have proven correct but for the invention of tractors, trains, fertilisers and refrigeration, among other things that in the event multiplied food resources far ahead of population growth. More people are better fed today than ever before in history. More people does not necessarily mean less to go around. We are inventive; resources are only finite within a given frame of reference; for absurd instance, we didn't remain living in caves and collecting firewood for energy. Had we done so, reliance on estover rights would frame the limits to growth, and we'd be up against the limits within days. We developed fossil fuel technologies when there were only 1-2 billion people on the planet. Now there are 8 billion people dependent on fossil fuels, it is a problem. Just Stop Oil recognise this problem, but stop the world I wanna get off... on how morally righteous I am, is not an answer. They should be chanting Just Go Magma.

Otherwise, referring back to our previous post, you have to stamp on people - on poor people, both globally and domestically, price and tax them out of the market for goods and services to reduce demand, and that's the actual plan. That's the trick up their green sleeves. Not increase supply - but suppress demand through market forces, while barely mitigating fossil fuel use with energy technologies that are LESS powerful and LESS reliable. The only remaining question I have yet to fathom, is whether it's genocidal or suicidal? But it's wrong.

[Lagayascienza]

A prosperous and sustainable future is what environmentalists have been calling for. It is precisely that which motivated The Limits to Growth whose warnings were ignored but which have been proved correct. Your demonization of the left is just wrong. It is laissez-faire capitalism (not capitalism per se) that has caused our current environmental problems. The most immediate of which is the climate crisis we are facing NOW. This problem is has been caused by the use of fossils fuels. Not by leftist greenies who, along with climate scientists, have been warning for decades that this would happen. One of the major reasons we are still using fossils fuels is disinformation about climate change, disinformation promoted and paid for by big oil, gas and coal and by their right wing political lackeys. The problem has been climate-change-denial. Nothing to do with the environmental left. The environmental left, (and I) would welcome an unlimited supply of clean energy. The big multi-national fuel corporations, those bastions of laissez-faire capitalism, want us to keep using their fossil fuels. They are the problem. Not the environmental left. It is your mates on the right that you need to convince about energy from magma. IF it were feasible, the left would love it.

Again, environmentalists and climate scientists have been warning about our current crises for decades. Shooting the messenger is not going to help. You ought to be outside the headquarters of the big fossil fuel companies with a placard exhorting them to get with magma energy rather than shooting the messenger and using a leftist boogey-straw-man to explain our current crisis. We are committing environmental and economic suicide on our current path. We will see the death and displacement of large swathes of the human population. This is where laissez-faire capitalism, not environmentalists and climate science, has brought us. So, if you really want change, get your placard and start protesting about that and exhorting the Big Oil to change over to magma energy.

[Mercury]

A prosperous and sustainable future is what environmentalists have been calling for. It is precisely that which motivated The Limits to Growth whose warnings were ignored but which have been proved correct. Your demonization of the left is just wrong. It is laissez-faire capitalism (not capitalism per se) that has caused our current environmental problems. The most immediate of which is the climate crisis we are facing NOW. This problem is has been caused by the use of fossils fuels. Not by leftist greenies who, along with climate scientists, have been warning for decades that this would happen. One of the major reasons we are still using fossils fuels is disinformation about climate change, disinformation promoted and paid for by big oil, gas and coal and by their right wing political lackeys. The problem has been climate-change-denial. Nothing to do with the environmental left. The environmental left, (and I) would welcome an unlimited supply of clean energy. The big multi-national fuel corporations, those bastions of laissez-faire capitalism, want us to keep using their fossil fuels. They are the problem. Not the environmental left. It is your mates on the right that you need to convince about energy from magma. IF it were feasible, the left would love it.

Again, environmentalists and climate scientists have been warning about our current crises for decades. Shooting the messenger is not going to help. You ought to be outside the headquarters of the big fossil fuel companies with a placard exhorting them to get with magma energy rather than shooting the messenger and using a leftist boogey-straw-man to explain our current crisis. We are committing environmental and economic suicide on our current path. We will see the death and displacement of large swathes of the human population. This is where laissez-faire capitalism, not environmentalists and climate science, has brought us. So, if you really want change, get your placard and start protesting about that and exhorting the Big Oil to change over to magma energy.

Is that right? I've just been watching degrowth eco-socialist philosopher Kohei Saito on youtube. Extinction Rebellion advocate for degrowth. George Monbiot wants to shut down agriculture and feed people on vat grown bacteria. etcetera, etcetera! Which of these is sustainable prosperity?
They're all basing their ideas on Meadows 1974 Limits to Growth thesis, but LTG should have been refuted by Nasa/Sandia Labs 1982, Magma Energy project research. 50,000 quads of clean energy from magma changes the equation!

I'm not demonising anyone; I'm stating facts. Left wing environmentalism since 1974, or more relevantly since 1982, has not factored a virtually limitless source of clean energy into their arguments, because if they had, they wouldn't make those arguments. If, as a consequence of stating facts these people are demonised, that's on them. What am I to do? Let them shut down capitalism, and drive humankind to genocide to save them the embarrassment of their lie of omission? Or more relevantly, let them continue creating an impasse by setting sustainability in diametric opposition to the economic system upon which billions of people depend for their lives and livelihoods?

Capitalism is not the problem; it's the solution. As I explained earlier, fossil fuels are not free market capitalism. They're effectively a cartel; an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition. Free market capitalism would have exploited magma energy. But cartels don't play by the logic of capitalism; they may act as capitalist enterprises, but by their conduct, subvert market forces. You see this all the time, when OPEC cuts production, and the price of a gallon of gas goes through the roof.

There's a danger here, I'm coming across as some free market fundamentalist, but that's not so. I'm an advocate of the mixed economy. That said, governments have gone along with the cartel like behaviours of fossil fuel industries, for many reasons - like employment, tax revenues, geopolitical stability, and what I can only describe as a WWII era 'coal and steel' national defence strategy mentality. They want native energy sources as a matter of national security. So we have fossil fuel/government cartels, that haven't developed magma energy despite that fact earth is a big ball of molten rock, and nasa/sandia labs say it's technologically viable to exploit that energy. That's disappointing, but we can understand the conflicts of legitimate interests.

What's incomprehensible to me, is the fact supposed environmentalists have not campaigned for magma energy over the past 40 years. I suspect that's because the left demonise capitalism; blithely unaware of the relation between capitalism and democracy. Saito is anti-capitalist, but says he's a democratic eco-socialist. He goes on to say he imagines a 'conscious ecological plan' - wherein, one must suppose, economic decision making would not be democratised to front-line individuals with their own money at stake, as in capitalism, but centralised to some green-commie party apparatchik in a little office somewhere, who's supposed to make all the decisions about what is produced by whom, when and how!
How can be that be democratic? What if I disagree? Can I ignore the plan? No, because it's not just intended to feed and clothe people, but to achieve sustainability. No-one can have a different opinion, so it cannot be a democracy. And this is what you think is right, and intended, or likely to achieve sustainable prosperity?

You need to hear the story of Mao's sparrows. One day the supreme leader saw the rice harvest laid out in the sun to dry, and noticed sparrows swooping in and stealing grains of rice. He returned to the center of power and issued a decree; the four pests campaign began, the people set about exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The next spring there was a plague of locusts, usually kept in check by sparrows, that decimated the crops, and 30 million people starved to death. That is central ecological planning.

Anyway, I've banged on long enough. Again, if there's anything specific I failed to address please don't hesitate to point it out.

[Lagayascienza]

A prosperous and sustainable future is what environmentalists have been calling for. It is precisely that which motivated The Limits to Growth whose warnings were ignored but which have been proved correct. Your demonization of the left is just wrong. It is laissez-faire capitalism (not capitalism per se) that has caused our current environmental problems. The most immediate of which is the climate crisis we are facing NOW. This problem is has been caused by the use of fossils fuels. Not by leftist greenies who, along with climate scientists, have been warning for decades that this would happen. One of the major reasons we are still using fossils fuels is disinformation about climate change, disinformation promoted and paid for by big oil, gas and coal and by their right wing political lackeys. The problem has been climate-change-denial. Nothing to do with the environmental left. The environmental left, (and I) would welcome an unlimited supply of clean energy. The big multi-national fuel corporations, those bastions of laissez-faire capitalism, want us to keep using their fossil fuels. They are the problem. Not the environmental left. It is your mates on the right that you need to convince about energy from magma. IF it were feasible, the left would love it.

Again, environmentalists and climate scientists have been warning about our current crises for decades. Shooting the messenger is not going to help. You ought to be outside the headquarters of the big fossil fuel companies with a placard exhorting them to get with magma energy rather than shooting the messenger and using a leftist boogey-straw-man to explain our current crisis. We are committing environmental and economic suicide on our current path. We will see the death and displacement of large swathes of the human population. This is where laissez-faire capitalism, not environmentalists and climate science, has brought us. So, if you really want change, get your placard and start protesting about that and exhorting the Big Oil to change over to magma energy.

Is that right? I've just been watching degrowth eco-socialist philosopher Kohei Saito on youtube. Extinction Rebellion advocate for degrowth. George Monbiot wants to shut down agriculture and feed people on vat grown bacteria. etcetera, etcetera! Which of these is sustainable prosperity?
They're all basing their ideas on Meadows 1974 Limits to Growth thesis, but LTG should have been refuted by Nasa/Sandia Labs 1982, Magma Energy project research. 50,000 quads of clean energy from magma changes the equation!

NASA/Sandia did not promise sustainable prosperity and neither did the study you refer to refute The Limits to Growth. The predictions in TLG have proved correct. As far as I can tell, that study you rely on looked at theoretical and technological prospects for energy extraction from deep magma. Its goal was to determine the engineering feasibility of locating, accessing, and utilizing magma in the upper ten kms of the earth’s crust as a viable energy resource. Nothing has come of this study. Today, on their website, I cannot find a single word about energy from magma. The study is over 40 years old and no one in government or the energy industry has followed through with any further research, much less tried to actually power the world with magma energy. The study seems to have been buried 10kms beneath the earth’s crust where no one would find it. I certainly didn’t know about it. One has to wonder why it was buried. Far from being acted on, for the last 40 years, while environmental scientists have been warning of the danger to the climate of fossil fuels and trying to promote clean renewables, the fossil fuel industry has been under-regulated, mightily subsidised, allowed to externalize the environmental and social costs of their damaging practices, lied about global warming, become incredibly wealthy and has succeeded in bringing on our current climate crisis. Not bad work if you can get it!

I'm not demonising anyone; I'm stating facts. Left wing environmentalism since 1974, or more relevantly since 1982, has not factored a virtually limitless source of clean energy into their arguments, because if they had, they wouldn't make those arguments. If, as a consequence of stating facts these people are demonised, that's on them. What am I to do? Let them shut down capitalism, and drive humankind to genocide to save them the embarrassment of their lie of omission? Or more relevantly, let them continue creating an impasse by setting sustainability in diametric opposition to the economic system upon which billions of people depend for their lives and livelihoods?

You unjustifiably demonize the left and the environmental movement who advocate quitting fossil fuels. They do not advocate the curtailment of economic growth or of capitalism. They are not stupid. Most people who vote left are not communists, they do not like dictators, like me, they are generally middle-of-the-road voters and supporters of democracy who would like to see better regulation of the destructive fossil fuel industry, the eventual phasing out of fossil fuels and the uptake of renewables in order to prevent an even worse climate crisis than we are seeing now.

Capitalism is not the problem; it's the solution. As I explained earlier, fossil fuels are not free market capitalism. They're effectively a cartel; an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition. Free market capitalism would have exploited magma energy.

No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism. That is just another straw man. Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. The fossil fuel multi-nationals will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels.

But cartels don't play by the logic of capitalism; they may act as capitalist enterprises, but by their conduct, subvert market forces. You see this all the time, when OPEC cuts production, and the price of a gallon of gas goes through the roof.

Correct. And if capitalists are allowed by governments to form cartels, then why wouldn’t they? Their sole aim is to make money. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are not going to regulate themselves. The Koch brothers will be fine. It’s ordinary people who are going to have to pay the bill and to suffer as the climate goes increasingly pear-shaped.

There's a danger here, I'm coming across as some free market fundamentalist, but that's not so. I'm an advocate of the mixed economy. That said, governments have gone along with the cartel like behaviours of fossil fuel industries, for many reasons - like employment, tax revenues, geopolitical stability, and what I can only describe as a WWII era 'coal and steel' national defence strategy mentality. They want native energy sources as a matter of national security. So we have fossil fuel/government cartels, that haven't developed magma energy despite that fact earth is a big ball of molten rock, and nasa/sandia labs say it's technologically viable to exploit that energy. That's disappointing, but we can understand the conflicts of legitimate interests.

See above and below.

What's incomprehensible to me, is the fact supposed environmentalists have not campaigned for magma energy over the past 40 years.

And why haven’t you and your right-wing mates advocated for it before now? Part of the reason is, I suspect, because the fossil fuel industry helped bury the study. Like me, most people concerned about the climate crisis have probably never heard of this study. That is not their fault. It’s the fault of those who had the study buried.

I suspect that's because the left demonise capitalism; blithely unaware of the relation between capitalism and democracy. Saito is anti-capitalist, but says he's a democratic eco-socialist. He goes on to say he imagines a 'conscious ecological plan' - wherein, one must suppose, economic decision making would not be democratised to front-line individuals with their own money at stake, as in capitalism, but centralised to some green-commie party apparatchik in a little office somewhere, who's supposed to make all the decisions about what is produced by whom, when and how!

You can keep bashing environmentalists and left-of-center democratic voters all you like. It changes nothing. The fact is that it is your right-wing political mates who buried this study and subsidized the unregulated fossil fuel multi-nationals on their environmentally destructive path. They and the fossil fuel multi-nationals should be made to foot the bill to remedy the problems they have caused.

How can be that be democratic? What if I disagree? Can I ignore the plan? No, because it's not just intended to feed and clothe people, but to achieve sustainability. No-one can have a different opinion, so it cannot be a democracy. And this is what you think is right, and intended, or likely to achieve sustainable prosperity?

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. I have never advocated anything like that. I say we can have economic growth and sustainable development using clean energy. But your mates on the political right and the fossil fuel industry don’t want that. That is why the magma energy study was buried. Environmental scientists and Labor voters had nothing to do with it. They want change to forestall an even worse crisis than is now unfolding. The fossil fuel multi-nationals want business as usual.

You need to hear the story of Mao's sparrows. One day the supreme leader saw the rice harvest laid out in the sun to dry, and noticed sparrows swooping in and stealing grains of rice. He returned to the center of power and issued a decree; the four pests campaign began, the people set about exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The next spring there was a plague of locusts, usually kept in check by sparrows, that decimated the crops, and 30 million people starved to death. That is central ecological planning.
Anyway, I've banged on long enough. Again, if there's anything specific I failed to address please don't hesitate to point it out.

Yes, you've told that story before. Everyone knows about dastardly things Mao and Stalin and Hitler did. But what has that got to do with the current climate crisis. They were all crazy and evil. Environmentalists and Labor voters had nothing to do with anything they did. Again, if you cared about this problem, you would be outside Big Oil headquarters with a placard exhorting them to switch to magma energy. Advocating here for laissez-fire capitalism, straw-manning, and left-bashing won’t help one iota to fix the problem.

[Lagayascienza]

A prosperous and sustainable future is what environmentalists have been calling for. It is precisely that which motivated The Limits to Growth whose warnings were ignored but which have been proved correct. Your demonization of the left is just wrong. It is laissez-faire capitalism (not capitalism per se) that has caused our current environmental problems. The most immediate of which is the climate crisis we are facing NOW. This problem is has been caused by the use of fossils fuels. Not by leftist greenies who, along with climate scientists, have been warning for decades that this would happen. One of the major reasons we are still using fossils fuels is disinformation about climate change, disinformation promoted and paid for by big oil, gas and coal and by their right wing political lackeys. The problem has been climate-change-denial. Nothing to do with the environmental left. The environmental left, (and I) would welcome an unlimited supply of clean energy. The big multi-national fuel corporations, those bastions of laissez-faire capitalism, want us to keep using their fossil fuels. They are the problem. Not the environmental left. It is your mates on the right that you need to convince about energy from magma. IF it were feasible, the left would love it.

Again, environmentalists and climate scientists have been warning about our current crises for decades. Shooting the messenger is not going to help. You ought to be outside the headquarters of the big fossil fuel companies with a placard exhorting them to get with magma energy rather than shooting the messenger and using a leftist boogey-straw-man to explain our current crisis. We are committing environmental and economic suicide on our current path. We will see the death and displacement of large swathes of the human population. This is where laissez-faire capitalism, not environmentalists and climate science, has brought us. So, if you really want change, get your placard and start protesting about that and exhorting the Big Oil to change over to magma energy.

Is that right? I've just been watching degrowth eco-socialist philosopher Kohei Saito on youtube. Extinction Rebellion advocate for degrowth. George Monbiot wants to shut down agriculture and feed people on vat grown bacteria. etcetera, etcetera! Which of these is sustainable prosperity?
They're all basing their ideas on Meadows 1974 Limits to Growth thesis, but LTG should have been refuted by Nasa/Sandia Labs 1982, Magma Energy project research. 50,000 quads of clean energy from magma changes the equation!

NASA/Sandia do not promise sustainable prosperity and neither did the study you refer to refute The Limits to Growth. The predictions in TLG have proved correct. As far as I can tell, that study you rely on looked at theoretical and technological prospects for energy extraction from deep magma. Its goal was to determine the engineering feasibility of locating, accessing, and utilizing magma in the upper ten kms of the earth’s crust as a viable energy resource. Nothing has come of this study. Today, on their website, I cannot find a single word about energy from magma. The study is over 40 years old and no one in government or the energy industry has followed through with any further research, much less tried to actually power the world with magma energy. The study seems to have been buried 10kms beneath the earth’s crust where no one would find it. I certainly didn’t know about it. One has to wonder why it was buried. Far from being acted on, for the last 40 years, while environmental scientists have been warning of the danger to the climate of fossil fuels and trying promote clean, renewables, the fossil fuel industry has been under-regulated, mightily subsidised, allowed to externalize the environmental and social costs of their damaging practices, become incredibly wealthy and has succeeded in bringing on our current climate crisis. Not bad work if you can get it!

I'm not demonising anyone; I'm stating facts. Left wing environmentalism since 1974, or more relevantly since 1982, has not factored a virtually limitless source of clean energy into their arguments, because if they had, they wouldn't make those arguments. If, as a consequence of stating facts these people are demonised, that's on them. What am I to do? Let them shut down capitalism, and drive humankind to genocide to save them the embarrassment of their lie of omission? Or more relevantly, let them continue creating an impasse by setting sustainability in diametric opposition to the economic system upon which billions of people depend for their lives and livelihoods?

You unjustifiably demonize the left and the environmental movement who advocate quitting fossil fuels. They do not advocate the curtailment of economic growth or of capitalism. They are not stupid. Most people who vote left are not communists, they do not like dictators, like me, they are generally middle-of-the-road voters and supporters of democracy who would like to see better regulation of the destructive fossil fuel industry, the eventual phasing out of fossil fuels and the uptake of renewables in order to prevent an even worse climate crisis than we are seeing now.

Capitalism is not the problem; it's the solution. As I explained earlier, fossil fuels are not free market capitalism. They're effectively a cartel; an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition. Free market capitalism would have exploited magma energy.

No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism. That is just another straw man. Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. It will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels.

But cartels don't play by the logic of capitalism; they may act as capitalist enterprises, but by their conduct, subvert market forces. You see this all the time, when OPEC cuts production, and the price of a gallon of gas goes through the roof.

Correct. And if capitalists are allowed by governments to form cartels, then why wouldn’t they? Their sole aim is to make money. They are doing what they are supposed to do. They are not going to regulate themselves. The Koch brothers will be fine. It’s ordinary people who re going to suffer as the climate goes increasingly pear-shaped.

There's a danger here, I'm coming across as some free market fundamentalist, but that's not so. I'm an advocate of the mixed economy. That said, governments have gone along with the cartel like behaviours of fossil fuel industries, for many reasons - like employment, tax revenues, geopolitical stability, and what I can only describe as a WWII era 'coal and steel' national defence strategy mentality. They want native energy sources as a matter of national security. So we have fossil fuel/government cartels, that haven't developed magma energy despite that fact earth is a big ball of molten rock, and nasa/sandia labs say it's technologically viable to exploit that energy. That's disappointing, but we can understand the conflicts of legitimate interests.

See above and below.

What's incomprehensible to me, is the fact supposed environmentalists have not campaigned for magma energy over the past 40 years.

And why haven’t you and your right-wing mates advocated for it before now? Part of the reason is, I suspect, because the fossil fuel industry helped bury the study. Like me, most people concerned about the climate crisis have probably never heard of this study. That is not their fault. It’s the fault of those who had the study buried.

I suspect that's because the left demonise capitalism; blithely unaware of the relation between capitalism and democracy. Saito is anti-capitalist, but says he's a democratic eco-socialist. He goes on to say he imagines a 'conscious ecological plan' - wherein, one must suppose, economic decision making would not be democratised to front-line individuals with their own money at stake, as in capitalism, but centralised to some green-commie party apparatchik in a little office somewhere, who's supposed to make all the decisions about what is produced by whom, when and how!

You can keep bashing environmentalists and left-of-center democratic voters all you like. It changes nothing. The fact is that it is your right-wing political mates who buried this study and subsidized the unregulated fossil fuel multi-nationals on their environmentally destructive path. They and the fossil fuel multi-nationals should be made to foot the bill to remedy the problems they have caused.

How can be that be democratic? What if I disagree? Can I ignore the plan? No, because it's not just intended to feed and clothe people, but to achieve sustainability. No-one can have a different opinion, so it cannot be a democracy. And this is what you think is right, and intended, or likely to achieve sustainable prosperity?

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. I have never advocated anything like that. I say we can have economic growth and sustainable development using clean energy. But your mates on the political right and the fossil fuel industry don’t want that. That is why the magma energy study was buried. Environmental scientists and Labor voters had nothing to do with it. They want change to forestall an even worse crisis than is now unfolding. The fossil fuel multi-nationals want business as usual.

You need to hear the story of Mao's sparrows. One day the supreme leader saw the rice harvest laid out in the sun to dry, and noticed sparrows swooping in and stealing grains of rice. He returned to the center of power and issued a decree; the four pests campaign began, the people set about exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The next spring there was a plague of locusts, usually kept in check by sparrows, that decimated the crops, and 30 million people starved to death. That is central ecological planning.
Anyway, I've banged on long enough. Again, if there's anything specific I failed to address please don't hesitate to point it out.

Yes, you've told that story before. Everyone knows about dastardly things Mao and Stalin and Hitler did. But what has that got to do with the current climate crisis. They were all crazy and evil. Environmentalists and Labor voters had nothing to do with anything they did. Again, if you cared about this problem, you would be outside Big Oil headquarters with a placard exhorting them to switch to magma energy. Advocacy of laissez-fire capitalism, straw-manning and left-bashing won’t help one iota to fix the problem.

[Mercury]

You can keep bashing environmentalists and left-of-center democratic voters all you like. It changes nothing. The fact is that it is your right-wing political mates who buried this study and subsidized the unregulated fossil fuel multi-nationals on their environmentally destructive path. They and the fossil fuel multi-nationals should be made to foot the bill to remedy the problems they have caused.

I'm not bashing left of center democratic voters. I'd consider myself center left; a Blairite "third way" capitalist with a social conscience. I'm not bashing anyone. Unlike radical left wing greens who clothe themselves in false virtue, offer no solutions, while pouring relentless scorn on Western civilisation, and conferring guilt and existential terror on individuals, not excluding children. And you say they campaign for sustainable prosperity? No they do not.

NASA/Sandia do not promise sustainable prosperity and neither did the study you refer to refute The Limits to Growth.

I apologise if my writing is so poor that you have failed to comprehend my intended meaning.
Nasa/Sandia Labs 1982 report was a report on scientific research into Magma Energy. You're right that Nasa/Sandia Labs' report does not speak directly to environmental issues. It's about Magma Energy. However, there was at the time, a wider academic and political environmental movement - for which this report should have had significant implications. But they failed to acknowledge the implications of a virtually limitless source of clean energy - ignoring the report, and continuing instead to promote a Limits to Growth approach.

Today, on their [NASA's?] website, I cannot find a single word about energy from magma. The study is over 40 years old and no one in government or the energy industry has followed through with any further research, much less tried to actually power the world with magma energy.

You can find the article on Harvard University website, and the US Department of Energy website. I cannot post links here. But it hasn't been kept secret. The information is out there. Radical left wing greens simply haven't looked because their purpose is not to sustain capitalist prosperity. Their purpose in all things is a lust for power. Not even money. This is why they're post modernist critical theorists, politically correct neo-Marxist identitarians; who dismiss ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress, to construe everything as a power struggle. They're not trying to achieve goals like sustainability - they're using the climate and ecological crisis as a critique of capitalism in order to gain power. Bleeding heart, center left Democrats entertain and facilitate this nonsense, but unknowingly, and from the best of motives. For example:

No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism. That is just another straw man. Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. It will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels.

Half my previous post was about an eco-socialist philosopher who is saying exactly that; he wants to shut down capitalism. George Monbiot is saying that. Extinction Rebellion are saying that. Just Stop Oil are saying that. AOC is far more moderate. She merely wants to strangle capitalism slowly with increasingly onerous environmental regulation. Have you read her Green New Deal? I have. Moving in further toward the center, by the time we get to President Biden, I agree: " No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism." But you, and/or President Biden is not who I'm talking about when 'bashing the left.'

Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. It will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels. ... And if capitalists are allowed by governments to form cartels, then why wouldn’t they? Their sole aim is to make money. They are doing what they are supposed to do. They are not going to regulate themselves. The Koch brothers will be fine. It’s ordinary people who re going to suffer as the climate goes increasingly pear-shaped.

You do not seem to understand that 'lassiez faire capitalism' and 'cartel' are contradictory terms. Lassiez faire capitalism allows new entrants to the market. Cartels seek to restrict market access to competition. It's an irony that it often requires government regulation to break up monopolies, to prevent them from acting as cartels. This occurs fairly regularly in other businesses, but energy is a special case due to the aforementioned political interests in: "employment, tax revenues, geopolitical stability, and what I can only describe as a WWII era 'coal and steel' national defence strategy mentality. They want native energy sources as a matter of national security."

And why haven’t you and your right-wing mates advocated for it before now? Part of the reason is, I suspect, because the fossil fuel industry helped bury the study. Like me, most people concerned about the climate crisis have probably never heard of this study. That is not their fault. It’s the fault of those who had the study buried.

I'm 'reaching across the aisle' to the right. I'm pitching my woo at those in a position to do something about it. But like I said previously, I'm center left - capitalist with a social and environmental conscience. I'm saying to the right that the climate and ecological crisis can be addressed profitably - we can solve this problem, and come out of this massively better off than we are, by developing and applying Magma Energy technology. I'm also saying wind and solar will not address this problem; and that if the problem is not addressed then all value created by fossil fuels will be lost - when capitalism collapses, starting with insurance, real estate, pensions, banking - and then everything else.

On that note I'll close, if just to highlight the paragraph above.

[Lagayascienza]

Apologies for the double post. I have trouble getting posts to load, especially long complex ones, and then when they do load I sometimes get a double post. I hope Sy Bord, Bellindi or one of the other mods can delete one for us.

[Mercury]

You can keep bashing environmentalists and left-of-center democratic voters all you like. It changes nothing. The fact is that it is your right-wing political mates who buried this study and subsidized the unregulated fossil fuel multi-nationals on their environmentally destructive path. They and the fossil fuel multi-nationals should be made to foot the bill to remedy the problems they have caused.

I'm not bashing left of center democratic voters. I'd consider myself center left; a Blairite "third way" capitalist with a social conscience. I'm not bashing anyone. Unlike radical left wing greens who clothe themselves in false virtue, offer no solutions, while pouring relentless scorn on Western civilisation, and conferring guilt and existential terror on individuals, not excluding children. And you say they campaign for sustainable prosperity? No they do not.

NASA/Sandia do not promise sustainable prosperity and neither did the study you refer to refute The Limits to Growth.

I apologise if my writing is so poor that you have failed to comprehend my intended meaning.
Nasa/Sandia Labs 1982 report was a report on scientific research into Magma Energy. You're right that Nasa/Sandia Labs' report does not speak directly to environmental issues. It's about Magma Energy. However, there was at the time, a wider academic and political environmental movement - for which this report should have had significant implications. But they failed to acknowledge the implications of a virtually limitless source of clean energy - ignoring the report, and continuing instead to promote a Limits to Growth approach.

Today, on their [NASA's?] website, I cannot find a single word about energy from magma. The study is over 40 years old and no one in government or the energy industry has followed through with any further research, much less tried to actually power the world with magma energy.

You can find the article on Harvard University website, and the US Department of Energy website. I cannot post links here. But it hasn't been kept secret. The information is out there. Radical left wing greens simply haven't looked because their purpose is not to sustain capitalist prosperity. Their purpose in all things is a lust for power. Not even money. This is why they're post modernist critical theorists, politically correct neo-Marxist identitarians; who dismiss ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress, to construe everything as a power struggle. They're not trying to achieve goals like sustainability - they're using the climate and ecological crisis as a critique of capitalism in order to gain power. Bleeding heart, center left Democrats entertain and facilitate this nonsense, but unknowingly, and from the best of motives. For example:

No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism. That is just another straw man. Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. It will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels.

Half my previous post was about an eco-socialist philosopher who is saying exactly that; he wants to shut down capitalism. George Monbiot is saying that. Extinction Rebellion are saying that. Just Stop Oil are saying that. AOC is far more moderate. She merely wants to strangle capitalism slowly with increasingly onerous environmental regulation. Have you read her Green New Deal? I have. Moving in further toward the center, by the time we get to President Biden, I agree: " No one, least of all me, is suggesting closing down capitalism." But you, and/or President Biden is not who I'm talking about when 'bashing the left.'

Laissez-faire capitalism has indeed been THE problem but, if its track record is anything to go by, I doubt it will be the solution. It will expect ordinary tax-payers to pick up the bill whilst suffering the worst effects of global heating caused by fossil fuels. ... And if capitalists are allowed by governments to form cartels, then why wouldn’t they? Their sole aim is to make money. They are doing what they are supposed to do. They are not going to regulate themselves. The Koch brothers will be fine. It’s ordinary people who re going to suffer as the climate goes increasingly pear-shaped.

You do not seem to understand that 'lassiez faire capitalism' and 'cartel' are contradictory terms. Lassiez faire capitalism allows new entrants to the market. Cartels seek to restrict market access to competition. It's an irony that it often requires government regulation to break up monopolies, to prevent them from acting as cartels. This occurs fairly regularly in other businesses, but energy is a special case due to the aforementioned political interests in: "employment, tax revenues, geopolitical stability, and what I can only describe as a WWII era 'coal and steel' national defence strategy mentality. They want native energy sources as a matter of national security."

And why haven’t you and your right-wing mates advocated for it before now? Part of the reason is, I suspect, because the fossil fuel industry helped bury the study. Like me, most people concerned about the climate crisis have probably never heard of this study. That is not their fault. It’s the fault of those who had the study buried.

I'm 'reaching across the aisle' to the right. I'm pitching my woo at those in a position to do something about it. But like I said previously, I'm center left - capitalist with a social and environmental conscience. I'm saying to the right that the climate and ecological crisis can be addressed profitably - we can solve this problem, and come out of this massively better off than we are, by developing and applying Magma Energy technology. I'm also saying wind and solar will not address this problem; and that if the problem is not addressed then all value created by fossil fuels will be lost - when capitalism collapses, starting with insurance, real estate, pensions, banking - and then everything else.

On that note I'll close, if just to highlight the paragraph above.

[Lagayascienza]

I'm not going (again) spend time responding in detail to the above. You don't want the truth. I'll just again point out the following:

1. I read the study report a couple of weeks ago when you started on about magma energy. That's how I know what's in it. Magma energy, IF it is viable on a worldwide scale will take massive investment and many decades to get going. We don't have decades. Magma is no panacea. We urgently need to use readily available renewables such as wind and solar and probably go nuclear if we are to avoid the worst.

2. I know very well what sensible capitalism looks like and it is not laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is necessary but it needs to be regulated because it cannot regulate itself. I didn't read political economy at university for nothing.

3. You pick a couple of philosophers who may have somewhat fanciful ideas on what needs to be done and then you use them as a straw man with which to demonize the whole environmental movement and those with leftist but still democratic views. Environmentalists and climate scientists and middle of the road voters did not cause this crisis. Your mates on the right who are still climate change deniers and laissez-faire capitalism caused it. And they are the ones who want business as usual.

4. This study was not buried by the left or environmentalists but by your mates on the right who have destroyed our climate.

5. The predictions of The limits to Growth have proved correct. That is an inconvenient truth for you but that it's the truth nonetheless.