9. Buying rooftop solar systems, generators, e-vehicles might be great for the economy and provide tax breaks for individual households. They also perpetuate overshoot.
Recognizing limits to growth
Recently, a friend explained to me that our society deems only profitable "solutions" worthwhile.
Still, I wonder: to decrease overall energy use, extractions, water and waste, could we shift from individually-owned cars to public transportation; biodegradable products; more walkable communities and re-localizing economies?
Could we build networks that strengthen local, regenerative agriculture and food storage, locally-made biodegradable and repairable tools? Could we decrease dependence on international supply chains (including for energy? Could we delay children's use of electronics until they master reading, writing and math on paper...and can compost kitchen scraps?
Today, I'm admiring the work of farmers who build and modify their own tools, biodegradable stretch denim, and solar powered water pumps for small farm irrigation.
I'm also appreciating cool wash cloths and plenty of CCF (cumin, coriander, fennel) tea.
UPDATES
On seabed mining: The UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority missed a deadline on July 9 to enact regulations to allow the mining of deep-sea ecosystems for metals used in e-vehicle batteries. The Authority must therefore accept license applications from mining companies even while it has no environmental safeguards for mining manganese, nickel, copper, cobalt, molybdenum, iron, gold, zinc, lead, barium, silver, sulphides, etc. from the deep sea. Deep sea ecosystems are essentially unrestorable. Nodules take tens of millions of years to form. Over half of the species living in the Pacific abyssal plains depend on nodules. Seabed mining is unlikely to reduce terrestrial mining-related deforestation significantly. Will financial institutions support a moratorium on deep sea mining?
Lithium Nevada Corporation's mine at Thacker Pass: The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals denied the latest bid by conservationists and tribal leaders to block construction of a huge lithium mine already clear-cutting thousands of acres of public land. The Thacker Pass mine's reserves could provide lithium for more than 1.5 million e-vehicles per year for 40 years. Read Max Wilbert on Thacker Pass.
Cell towers have a breadth of individual and cumulative environmental impacts. The FCC's environmental review process "fails to vigorously enforce its rules, so that industry noncompliance is rampant." See former FCC official Erica Rosenberg's "Environmental Procedures at the FCC: A Case Study in Corporate Capture."
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