1. adjust the rules regulating the market (e.g. price greenhouse gas emissions correctly)
2. introduce a tax on advertising to discourage unnecessary consumption
3. ensure the price of products and services includes full life cycle costs of disposal and pollution
4. replace the whole "economic growth" philosophy with something else that is consistent and reconcilable with planetary ecological limits
5. encourage non-coercive measures to discourage population growth (e.g. access to contraception, family planning, give women increased options for education and employment), particularly in the more affluent countries which have very high per-capita environmental footprints
6. discourage population growth as above, and provide increased economic opportunities, for people living in less affluent countries, since people are able to move between countries to seek better opportunities for themselves. Or instead invest in the rather less ethical "Fortress $(countryname)" approach to keep out the people unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong part of the globe.
Tangentially, you may be interested in Donella Meadows' "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System" [1].
As an aside from the discussion of capitalism versus other economic systems, Cuba provides a historical case study of a society that didn't collapse after experiencing severe shortages of fossil fuels. See e.g. [1].
1. Adjusting the rules regulating markets sounds a lot like governments picking winners, which they are notoriously bad at. Also, What is the correct price for greenhouse gases?
2. See 1 above
3. Seems like a sound idea, probably very difficult to determine the correct price of pollution per above.
4. What are the planetary ecological limits? "Replace the whole [whatever] philosophy" is a good example of expecting everyone to agree, which is probably impossible.
5. The more affluent countries tend to have lower birth rates already (a few bordering on being below replacement rate, Japan for example IIRC) probably because they have better access to things like education and contraception etc. So it seems lower birthrates tend to correlate with higher per capita environmental footprints, probably because the same things that cause lower birthrates also cause higher standards of living. Maybe the solution is to simply increase the birthrate, thereby decreasing per capita consumption. Maybe that's the wrong metric to focus on. What a mess.
6. As above.
Sometimes I think it would be better if solutions were as simple as enumerating a list. But what's the fun in that. Heaven forbid problems could be solved so simply, then what would we do.
One thing we can be certain of, probably, is that whatever changes we implement will have unintended consequences. So maybe the solution is to do nothing in an effort to avoid the unintended consequences, thereby leaving us to deal with the obvious consequences of business as usual, whatever they might be. What I'm implying is: maybe the GOP have got it right. Wouldn't that be ironic.
This comment was heavily inspired by P.J. O'rourke, I highly recommend his books. Politics hey, what a circus.
NB: I don't necessarily agree with anything I write, so don't hold me to it.
Here are some ideas:
1. adjust the rules regulating the market (e.g. price greenhouse gas emissions correctly)
2. introduce a tax on advertising to discourage unnecessary consumption
3. ensure the price of products and services includes full life cycle costs of disposal and pollution
4. replace the whole "economic growth" philosophy with something else that is consistent and reconcilable with planetary ecological limits
5. encourage non-coercive measures to discourage population growth (e.g. access to contraception, family planning, give women increased options for education and employment), particularly in the more affluent countries which have very high per-capita environmental footprints
6. discourage population growth as above, and provide increased economic opportunities, for people living in less affluent countries, since people are able to move between countries to seek better opportunities for themselves. Or instead invest in the rather less ethical "Fortress $(countryname)" approach to keep out the people unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong part of the globe.
Tangentially, you may be interested in Donella Meadows' "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System" [1].
[1] -- http://www.donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-place...