@futurebird The amount of waste in land use alone is staggering

@futurebird

I honestly believe that much of the pain in the world derives from people despairing of this.

A lot of progressives & scientists behave as though they are failing to communicate the problems.

But I think the truth is that we fail to communicate the solutions.

There is a scarcity strain of human behavior, associated mostly with the political right, but overwhelmingly to people who lack production skills themselves, to interpret such messages as immutable facts of scarcity, which they are primed to believe in.

Then their framing becomes: "Who must die so that I might live?" To them, it's a question of who to throw out of the lifeboat. And they typically have ideas about that.

@futurebird

I mean, if you have the skill, what you think is "We need to build more lifeboats."

But if that kind of pathway is cut off from your mind, then you don't automatically think that. Someone has to prove to you that more lifeboats are possible.

@TerryHancock

Yes build more lifeboats. Obviously. And with entertainment centers and comfy seats too.

Not just "enough" but "pretty nice"

@futurebird It depends. https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/

@AvonVilla

I think the purpose of this kind of info-graphic is supposed to wake people up to the reality of climate change but I worry for many people it just makes them think they need to pull up the ladder faster.

We're going to need to adapt to a changing climate as we mitigate it. It can be done.

@Lyle

I know that it's not something that causes harm directly, but ever since a friend who grew up out west said "here in NYC ya'll wash the sidewalks with drinking water" I have NOT been able to to stop thinking about it.

It's true. We also put out fires with drinking water, and water trees. These could all be done mostly with rain water except in droughts.

(We also had a drought, and no one noticed except for my husband who is obsessed with water supply. )

@Lyle

The other tangental thing that sticks in my mind is when I was telling another friend about the "we wash the sidewalks with drinking water" thing and they said "sidewalks need to be washed??"

Yes. Yes they do if people are going to live in a high rise and own dogs.

Maybe we should just build more dog parks?

@futurebird @Lyle we flush our SHIT with drinking water!

i have a story:
The aliens come and visit and go bananas.
-oh my god guys you have so much of this wonderful water stuff! what do you do with it all?
- oh, we flush our shit with it.

-oh. hey what is this??? petroleum out of trhe ground?? we have some we make wonderful stuff out of it. what do you guys do with it?

-oh, that stuff? we burn it.

-oh. ok, bye!
-Xblorg, let's take this planet from those idiots!

@futurebird @TerryHancock yeah? where do you PARK your lifeboat?

@futurebird @Lyle
NY rainfall seems to be well over 1000mm per year. You do have plenty of fresh water.

Our average is over 2000mm per year, and we've still had years where the water supply is insufficient. But that's not because of supply - our main problem is getting rid of it all - but reservoir capacity, which hasn't kept up.

Using grey water for toilets and so on is a good idea and some places do that already. But it doesn't seem critical for you.