You need the factories, and you also need logging and mining.
Lots of people who want to support the environment are reflexively anti mining and logging, even when it’s done responsibly. I think it’s often nimbyism that they don’t admit to themselves.
Great point, I also think that if we’re more responsible about what we use those technologies for it would also make a huge difference in the environmental impact. If you get rid of all the useless extravagances of the rich we can have a much leaner society resource-wise and still have everyone have a good quality of life.
100%. You need a lot less raw material when you design things to be durable, repairable, interchangeable, and recyclable.
Couple that with combating the “everyone needs to personally own everything they want to use” notion that leads to overconsumption. Loads of things can just work through formal or informal libraries, e.g., no one needs to personally own a carpet cleaner; better to share a really nice one than have dozens of crappy ones in circulation.
I would agree that shared resources are more efficient, and you make a great point about the quality aspect. On the other hand, you don’t want walmart monopolizing the carpet cleaners either, as that could bring up the fear of “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” that the tech bros are pushing.
To kinda build on my first comment, we need to get away from the megacorps and their unconstrained hierarchies and replace them with sensible democratically governed cooperatives. I would image a home improvement store run by a local co-op would be a good choice to rent your cleaner from, much better than home cheapo.
You need the factories, and you also need logging and mining.
Lots of people who want to support the environment are reflexively anti mining and logging, even when it’s done responsibly. I think it’s often nimbyism that they don’t admit to themselves.
Great point, I also think that if we’re more responsible about what we use those technologies for it would also make a huge difference in the environmental impact. If you get rid of all the useless extravagances of the rich we can have a much leaner society resource-wise and still have everyone have a good quality of life.
100%. You need a lot less raw material when you design things to be durable, repairable, interchangeable, and recyclable.
Couple that with combating the “everyone needs to personally own everything they want to use” notion that leads to overconsumption. Loads of things can just work through formal or informal libraries, e.g., no one needs to personally own a carpet cleaner; better to share a really nice one than have dozens of crappy ones in circulation.
I would agree that shared resources are more efficient, and you make a great point about the quality aspect. On the other hand, you don’t want walmart monopolizing the carpet cleaners either, as that could bring up the fear of “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” that the tech bros are pushing.
To kinda build on my first comment, we need to get away from the megacorps and their unconstrained hierarchies and replace them with sensible democratically governed cooperatives. I would image a home improvement store run by a local co-op would be a good choice to rent your cleaner from, much better than home cheapo.