Re: An interesting question for IP?

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

From: Synthesis:Law and Technology Law and Technology
[mailto:synthesis.law.and.technology () gmail com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 9:14 PM
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] An interesting question for IP?

 

Dave,

 

I think a good rationale for not going down the 'why arent we colonizing
everything?' road is the short-term very high impact it would have on our
environment.  Building and sending rockets into space is not at a very
fuel-efficient stage in the life cycle.  As for why bother doing anything?
Well my take is we all need to breathe air and drink water so cleaning up
emissions and pollution is good for us short-term.  Why depend on a theory
of global warming to take action about somethign that may or may not happen
(like sea levels rising 7m) when emphysema will kill us more easily? 

 

On 1/8/08, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote: 


________________________________________
From: John Kemp [john () jkemp net  <mailto:john () jkemp net> ]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 2:01 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: An interesting question for IP?

Hi Dave,

While I was with my family last month, my mum and I had an interesting
discussion. It went (roughly) like this: 

Her: "Why bother doing anything to prevent global warming?"
Me: "Because if we all do something, then we'll slow down that trend"
Her: "But so what? Global warming has happened already. What are we 
doing to address the things that actually have real implications for the
human race?"
Me: "Like what?"
Her: "Human beings are likely killing the planet. Or, if you prefer not
to accept that theory, then you can just say the planet is clearly 
becoming less hospitable to humans in terms of resource shortages and
environmental damage. So what are we doing about that? What happened to
the space race, and colonizing other planets for example?"

So if we accept that global warming is happening, regardless of whether
humans have caused it or not, and that it is a potentially very real
danger to all of us, what are we (as the entire human race) doing to
address the actual concerns? 

Slowing down global warming is not the answer is it? Eventually is it
not possible that the human population simply overwhelms our earthly
environment?

Why are we not trying harder to colonize the rest of the universe? Or 
are we trying hard enough, and if so, what exactly are we doing?

Cheers,

- John

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