demagogue on 2/3/2011 at 16:40
Startling fact about the world: There are always going to be complications with any physical system or organization.
The most important thing to keep in mind I think is just that products and processes don't exist only while you consume them and then disappear. There's a long process before it gets to you and a long process after your consumption, and there are effects at every step, from the rays of the sun entering the earth's atmosphere and the earth's native supply of elements, to their processing and transportation, to their use or consumption, to the atomic decomposition of them back into the earth. Just realizing that fact by itself makes a difference (in the similar way just knowing the calories of food makes a difference to what you eat).
And we live in a social-political system where consumers have some power to direct how that cycle plays out (companies have the most power of course, but have perverse incentives, so it's up to government & consumers to fill the gaps).
I still like that analogy it's like paying attention to the calories of food when you're trying to lose weight. Here's you're paying attention to the lifetime cycle of products or elements ... computer parts, paper products, food, waste water, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle. Virtually everything on earth is nothing more than an eternal churning of the same elements, but every cycle has its own nuances and complications so you have to treat each one on its own terms and respect its rules. But we're at the stage in civilization we can understand these effects and make little improvements across the entire cycle, and it'd be stupid of us to struggle so hard to understand these things and not use that knowledge. Otherwise what's science and civilization for?
