The fact that everything is poisoned. Microplastics, heavy metals, nuclear radiation. Manufactured chemicals that fuck with hormones and cause cancer and inflammatory diseases. We know how toxic our manufacturing is, but we have to keep doing it to maintain this way of life we take for granted. Its not going to stop till it all stops
I recently finished Sonic 1 for the first time and am currently stuck on Metallic Madness, Act 2 Sonic CD. I have been a sonic fan for years, with my first game being Sonic Advance 3 on the GBA (Still havenβt found all the Chao).
Thinking about the level theme progression in Sonic 1 and Sonic CD how have I not noticed the theme of environmental degradation.
(I am 25)
We've been hearing about the problem of urban sprawl here in the US for decades now, especially its affects on the environment and proposed solutions such as mass transit. This would lessen some of the worst environmental impacts of our modern urban lives, but in some ways it may actually make the problem worse. Because as you spread transit networks out to reach more people and tie outlying areas into the wider network what you are doing is creating more opportunities for what is called by some βreal estate developmentβ, either in already populated places or in less densely settled areas.
This either adulterates and debases the beauty and splendor of our natural landscapes for the benefit of a few, or increases rents and overcrowds areas that are already intensively settled. This is what leads to the strange combination of circumstances that are experienced in southern California, urban sprawl and over crowding. The simple fact is that there are too many people living in the coastal areas of southern California. It affects our environment, our health and in all honestly our sanity.
Some good meaning folks mention and some delusional politicians ramble on about various proposed solutions to these twin menaces; again mass transit but also limited driving days and low cost housing projects. All these except the first are little more than band aids that will fail to solve the problems of overcrowding, a rising cost of living and environmental degradation. While as we have discussed the former actually can in the long term make them worse. Especially because when mass transit networks are over expanded and new areas come into settlement the number of people living in these areas who actually end up using mass transit will likely be fewer than those newcomers who will continue to drive .
In the long run our problem isn't that we don't have enough mass transit, it's that we have too many people living in too close proximity to each other; whether in southern California, Houston, Philadelphia or Seattle. Our cities and even our suburbs are overdeveloped and overcrowded, not just in California but across the country,
Take for example the town of Ellicott, Maryland. Here flooding of the local river, partly due to the soil's inability to absorb massive amounts of rainfall, caused streams of destruction to roll through the town and across our television screens; with many people's almost entire lives being washed away. This was partly due to the mass concre
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...is like saying "I need to keep buying lottery tickets so I can win a bunch of money and get out of debt!"
When driving to work, we are constantly made aware of the systematic degradation to our environment. You glance out the window as youβre driving and what do you see? Perhaps smokestacks that ink the blue atmosphere or barriers erected on our highways to symbolize the potency of noise and air pollution that disorient wildlife. You get to a red light, close to work, and when taking in your surroundings. Take-out bags and cigarettes pepper the ground. So, you try to redirect your thoughts to something else. You turn on the radio and you hear about X-Press Feedersβ Sri Lanka disaster, which has poured fuel oil and nitric acid into the water. Ugh!
Most of us fume when we consider the short-term gains that reward syndicates who carelessly exploit our global, public good for a profit. Here I will argue that it is not capitalism--or any economic system--which perpetuates environmental degradation, but instead incentives. My first goal is to disentangle an economic model--capitalism--from the causal relationship with environmental degradation. I will also showcase how government sponsorship too does not have a causal relationship with environmental conservation, as they often exacerbate problems intentionally and accidentally. Lastly, I will wrap-up by pleading that we do have a moral obligation to our environment, and there the solution may lie.
The raw power of economic incentives has been widely understood thanks to Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubnerβs best seller Freakonomics. The βrogue economistsβ solve odd questions by looking through a rationalist lens of incentives. Why do school teachers cheat? Why did Roe v. Wade decrease violent crime? Incentives is the lens in which an economist tries to understand the intricate moving parts in the economy; the least common denominator of all economies are incentives--or the lack of incentives. Capitalism can be quite successful because there is an incentive to make money from answering the demand of consumers; conversely, communism fails due to the lack of incentives to work longer hours without extra reward.
The main problem with capitalism is that the choice to pursue what is expedient over what is sustainable is in the hands of people who do not have to answer to a constituency. Consequently, capitalism is a highly incentivized system where people pursue short-term gains at the expense
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How does environmental degradation contribute to disasters?
