Requiem for Detroit

[omegajim]

well, not entirely.

Anything plant like, think ocean - seaweed and whatnot, that undergoes photosynthesis will absorb carbon dioxide.

Hell, even the food we grow (remember food?) absorbs carbon dioxide, but it does not create the "carbon sink" or whatever they call it and locks up the carbon dioxide for a little while.

Trees, hell, they can lock up the carbon for decades or even centuries.

With some luck and skill, and more than a fair share of determination, a proper balance of lifestyle and perpetuation can be achieved.

btw, read a book "Collapse: the fall of civilizations" it has a good chapter on Easter Island, but skip the first bit. The author goes on and on and on about how great Montana is.

and also, it seems China is determined to keep the "one kid per couple" concept going a bit longer.

[Motorcycle Forum]

[AfterDarker]

Collapse by Jared Diamond is a great book but you have to plough through some of it. So many societies have collapsed by over exploitation. As he writes re Easter island - "what were they thinking when they cut down the last tree"?

[QZephyr]

That must be where Dr. Suess got the story for the Lorax.

[AfterDarker]

What is a lorax?

[QZephyr]

He's a little guy with a Teddy Roosevelt mustache who was warning a Once-ler (a being that may appear to be like a grinch but you only see his arms) about cutting down all the Truffula Trees. Oddly enough they've currently made a CGI movie about the book/animated feature.

[omegajim]

used to listen to books on cd, caught 4 - 5 books that way, so very little plowing involved.

Only problem was "collapsed" was on 5 cds, so you found yourself changing cds pretty often.

Caught Major Winters book "Major Winters; my time with easy company" or something like that by the recently passed Richard Winters. Helluva a book, gives some pretty good backstory on Easy Company and it works well to listen to on cd as the book flows quite simply, but detailed enough and you don't have to worry about getting caught up in too many details.

the icing on the cake is that the book was narrated by some lt. col - which is ironic, since Major Winters by all rights earned to have at least one star on his shoulders from everything he went through.

But as far as Detroit goes (the thread title, I Know, just such a killjoy I am) there were a number of factors that were slow in coming and they hit hard in short succession. Even worse, the people and the gov't there have taken on this "learned helplessness" psyche were they don't believe they can nor will they try to improve what they have - it's a kind of "kick the can down the road" mentality which has gotten the city and the once world famous manufacturing industry into the morose caraciture of what is once was and could be still.

Instead, foreign companies move here, and steer clear of any old industrial city (Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh) because they know the state and the municipality will give them much better tax incentives to provide jobs.

If I'm sounding a smidge bitter, our local airline (Midwest Express - which built itself up from just about nothing over 30 some years) gets bought out by Frontier airlines only for Frontier to layoff a whole bunch of employees from the airline they just bought.

It's something like me buying your house, then evicting you, because you aren't paying enough rent, after I told you how great the future renting from me would be.

[AfterDarker]

It's capitalism. Budget airline Air Australia folded yesterday, leaving 4000 passengers stranded and 400 employees without a job. But the passengers will book with other airlines and the employees will likely go to other airlines as well.

[omegajim]

yeah, it happens, still doesn't make me feel any better that the "market is working".

The free market concept is wonderful until it bites you in the butt by buying up a local company and "streamlines" it by laying off half of everybody before restructuring everything which lays off the other half.

I like to call it the "enron effect" where some whiz kids/professionals play off some kind of ponzi scheme as "the future" and all the wonderful things it is supposed to bring....