General / Off-Topic Recycle or Die! (the elite environmental thread)

[askavir]

This is a very strange observation and must be an American specialty. From my (German) point of view I see that the climate discussion is whooping the political establishment who is more and more losing ground - and not the other way around. There's nothing to win with the climate change discussion, for no agenda and no political camp. There's only one sensible reason for denying and that's keeping your goodlife under all circumstances. The only political aspect will be the camp which comes up with the best solutions. If it's coming from a right wing I certainly won't mind. That's most likely not going to happen cause from my impression (experience with our national politics) is that the rights start to cave in when they see their hopes dashed, not sooner.

I'm not american, I'm portuguese, a mediterranean country that, like most other mediterraneamn countries is actually extremely left-leaning, to our own demise.

Actually, yourself being german you can already observe the capitalists close to home working on solutions, namely your own country auto industry that is leading the charge (together with the japanese) in electric vehicles. Imagine that every single fossil fueled car in europe is replaced by an electric (obviously not at once, or not even in the next 10 years, but even if it takes 15/20 years, replacing the entire european automobile park by electric vehicles (*), that will do much more for the environment than 1000 sailboats filled with Gretas or 1 billion extiction rebellion protests, and that's just the work of filthy capitalists!
Other filthy capitalists are replacing plastic for alternative materials, developing more energy efficient products all the time, etc. Most recycling facilities are also operated by the private sector. The private sector is, like always, the one who is working the most to solve the issues.

Imagine if the state actually did something as well other than just creating taxes (and then wasting them) or creating obstacles, even just getting out of the way would already be an improvement.

(*) I actually think electric vehicles are a "mid-way" solution, I believe hydrogen will be the long term solution once we solve the issues with transporting it.

 

[Han_Zen]

Because 80% of the "climate activism" is actually politically motivated, and the climate changes is just a new excuse to push left ideologies forward. Why do you think "capitalism" and overall "the right" are the nominated guilty parties of the climate changes (even the Communist Party of China, the world greatest polluter, is deemed "right wing" by the lefty activists)? Because all this has little todo with actual climate changes, and much more to do with using climate changes as excuse to push left wing agendas.

That's why you can't take these people seriously, and it's a shame that pretty much all public discussion nowadays is infected with political bias, and overall in every noteworthy topic of public discussion there's far too much emotion involved and far too little reason.

You just have to ignore those politically motivated articles.
Both the left and the right are guilty of this. They both play on peoples fears of change.

It’s also not quite a left / right issue. Actuall communist parties are not keen on cuts. They are pro heavy industry and the industrial worker has an almost religious status.

 

[askavir]

85% of the energy we use globally comes from fossil sources. Burning them causes climate change.

But the energy from renewable sources is rising each year and will continue to rise. In many european coutries is already well above 50%.

30% of the energy we use globally, is used for feeding the global population. We don't have unused land or a lot of water for irrigation. Without fossil energy we either need an alternative source or we starve.

That is the bigger issue. The planet is finite, it can't support an ever-growing population forever. While We still have a lot of leeway to alleviate the issue, like changing food habits, vertical agriculture, etc, we can't keep growing forever that is a fact, or else all efforts in reducing pollution will be for nothing. If we reduce pollution to half, but increase in population to double, we end up at the same spot.

To be honest this is the only issue that really worries me in the long term, because this one can't be solved with technology or ingenuity. I believe that when the 3rd world catches up and people all around the world have better living standards, the population growth will halt and maybe even starts to decline a bit. But that will most likely still take a long time.

We need to act, and we need to act now. How we'll do that is not my concern. My concern is that we don't. Everybody think electricity is the new black, but we simply don't have enough of the needed atoms to "electrify" the planet.

Hydrogen is the new black. Electricity (electric vehicles) is, in my opinion, a transition solution. A better solution than what we have now, but still a transition solution. Also, we need to lose our fear of nuclear powerplants, and invest in researching fusion instead of fission.

 

[Becks]

I'm not american, I'm portuguese, a mediterranean country that, like most other mediterraneamn countries is actually extremely left-leaning, to our own demise.

Actually, yourself being german you can already observe the capitalists close to home working on solutions, namely your own country auto industry that is leading the charge (together with the japanese) in electric vehicles. Imagine that every single fossil fueled car in europe is replaced by an electric (obviously not at once, or not even in the next 10 years, but even if it takes 15/20 years, replacing the entire european automobile park by electric vehicles (*), that will do much more for the environment than 1000 sailboats filled with Gretas or 1 billion extiction rebellion protests, and that's just the work of filthy capitalists!
Other filthy capitalists are replacing plastic for alternative materials, developing more energy efficient products all the time, etc. Most recycling facilities are also operated by the private sector. The private sector is, like always, the one who is working the most to solve the issues.

Imagine if the state actually did something as well other than just creating taxes (and then wasting them) or creating obstacles, even just getting out of the way would already be an improvement.

(*) I actually think electric vehicles are a "mid-way" solution, I believe hydrogen will be the long term solution once we solve the issues with transporting it.

Are you really this naive? Do you really think that the german car manufacturers did this out of goodwill and because they give a about climate change?

Public opinion forces the politicians at the moment to make concessions in regard to climate change and the car manufacturers adjust their product set accordingly. I happen to work for one of the biggest german car manufacturers and I can tell you that they look very closely on public opinion and politics in general to avoid running at full speed into new regulations.

The same goes for all those other points you race. They don't do this because they want to fight climate change, they do this because they know that they will be forced to at some point in the near future.

The private sector needs to be regulated in order to actually move forward or else it becomes just one big example of the prisoners dilemma. The pressure of the market alone is not enough to achieve enough progress to match the current pace.

Electric cars are great, but will put more workload on the power grid that needs to be matched at some point. Hydrogen is tricky from a technical perspective and will need a lot more time to be ready for production.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

But the energy from renewable sources is rising each year and will continue to rise. In many european coutries is already well above 50%.



That is the bigger issue. The planet is finite, it can't support an ever-growing population forever. While We still have a lot of leeway to alleviate the issue, like changing food habits, vertical agriculture, etc, we can't keep growing forever that is a fact, or else all efforts in reducing pollution will be for nothing. If we reduce pollution to half, but increase in population to double, we end up at the same spot.

To be honest this is the only issue that really worries me in the long term, because this one can't be solved with technology or ingenuity. I believe that when the 3rd world catches up and people all around the world have better living standards, the population growth will halt and maybe even starts to decline a bit. But that will most likely still take a long time.



Hydrogen is the new black. Electricity (electric vehicles) is, in my opinion, a transition solution. A better solution than what we have now, but still a transition solution. Also, we need to lose our fear of nuclear powerplants, and invest in researching fusion instead of fission.

It's a lot of stuff we need to change in a very short timespan. So far IPCC has existed for 31 years, and we have built wind turbines enough to cover 0.7% of the total energy demand. If we double the amount of wind turbines built (edit: each year), we can hypothetically build the amount we need in ~10 years. 2, 4, 8, 16 etc. The issue here is that the last year of production will have to be 64 times higher than today and that's in 10 years. The calculation doesn't change significantly if you say 30 years instead.

The population problem will solve itself, but it won't be pretty. I hate knowing that child mortality and malnutrition is going to rise, but when I put on my scientific glasses, I also know that I can't change it without everybody participating, and honestly, the reason why we feel so much empathy towards children (and puppies and kittens) seems to be that it gives a species with few offspring per organism an evolutionary edge, if that species cares about it's offspring. The small ones are designed by nature to look cute. If you take (almost) any child's mind and behavior and place it in a grown up's body, that grown up would be a pretty annoying being, mostly because "not cute anymore"

 

[askavir]

Are you really this naive? Do you really think that the german car manufacturers did this out of goodwill and because they give a poopoo about climate change?

Of course they don't give a poopoo about the environment. Car manufacturers (and pretty much every single privately held company) will provide what their costumers want. In capitalism, customer is king. And like car manufacturers, politicians don't give a poopoo about the environment either, they just want yout vote so they can continue extorting you money to distribute amongst their own.

The difference between manufacturers (or the private sector) and politicians (or the state), is that the private sector will actually come up with the real, tangible, "you can see it and touch it" solutions. Like it or not, it is mostly the private sector who actually makes things happen, even if their motives are not pure. They need your money, so they will do what you want them to do. Just like household applicance manufacturers have been making more energy efficient fridges, stoves, etc for the past 2 decades because people shown a demand for more energy efficient products.

If people show a demand for electric cars (or any other thing), car manufacturers will quickly research, develop, create, optimize and refine electric cars. And meanwhile they are already researching and developing improved versions and alternative solutions in the background. Politicians, the best they can do is just move out of the way and try not to obstruct too much.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Here's an article I found right at the top of the Google search:

Zimbabwe's worst drought for 100 years slows Victoria Falls to a trickle

For decades Victoria Falls, where southern Africa's Zambezi river cascade down 100 metres into a gash in the earth, have drawn millions of holidaymakers to Zimbabwe and Zambia for their stunning views.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Please note that in the article it never really cites the drought that was worse a 100 years before, despite the headline. In fact, it actually does make very brief note of one that was more severe in 1995, but only grudgingly. Got to have them nearly hysterical headlines, though, right? I mean, fake news is actually good if it serves the correct purpose...right?

But the problems of global warming because of human activities predate 1995.

Already in the 70s, the scientists began to warn of the dangers of our civilization for the planet.

 

[Becks]

Of course they don't give a poopoo about the environment. Car manufacturers (and pretty much every single privately held company) will provide what their costumers want. In capitalism, customer is king. And like car manufacturers, politicians don't give a poopoo about the environment either, they just want yout vote so they can continue extorting you money to distribute amongst their own.

The customer is most certainly not king. Adopting outdated slogans from the service industry doesn't reinforce your case. The only case where that is the case is a monopsony and there are extremely few of those. The car market most certainly isn't one.

The market for cars is a very tight oligopoly due to the circumstances and the excruciating entry costs. The customer will buy whatever product the companies offer in their respective price ranges. That was the situation on the car market for the last seventy years and without changes in the overall policy of the country it wouldn't change at all. Oligopolies tend to inhibit themselves (and each other) when it comes to making fundamental changes to their business model, as they're hyperaware and thus hypercautious of what their opponents in the market are doing. I mean, if I had billions of Euros to lose I'd be hypercautious, too. But that also makes those companies less open to developments in new directions. It's not tested and hasn't been part of our business model until now? Either declined or tested in small numbers, what obviously fails to generate sufficient attention to actually lift off. That's how every attempt at introducing hybrids or electrical cars went until now, ongoing attempts excluded. Customers aren't hyper-intelligent, hyper-aware Homo Oeconomicus, they're bog standard people, most of whom didn't think twice about whether there's an electrical alternative before buying a car until now.

The next problem with your "The state and all politicians are evil, hurr hurr." jabbering, is that all of this, doesn't work without an infrastructure. Upgrading and maintaining infrastructure is one of the most important tasks of the state and handing them over to private hands usually doesn't improve things. So even if all the car manufacturers would throw out entire series of electrical cars, they'd be useless without the necessary infrastructure.

Nobody wants a market out of control, and "the invisible hand of the market will fix it" doesn't work. As I've said earlier, capitalism isn't immune against the prisoners dilemma.

The difference between manufacturers (or the private sector) and politicians (or the state), is that the private sector will actually come up with the real, tangible, "you can see it and touch it" solutions. Like it or not, it is mostly the private sector who actually makes things happen, even if their motives are not pure. They need your money, so they will do what you want them to do. Just like household applicance manufacturers have been making more energy efficient fridges, stoves, etc for the past 2 decades because people shown a demand for more energy efficient products.

"They will do what the customer wants them to do, because they need their money." lol, good one. Try telling a software dev that.

Household applications were made more energy efficient because international regulation was introduced that required them to be more efficient. The EU actually does something for it's money.

If people show a demand for electric cars (or any other thing), car manufacturers will quickly research, develop, create, optimize and refine electric cars. And meanwhile they are already researching and developing improved versions and alternative solutions in the background. Politicians, the best they can do is just move out of the way and try not to obstruct too much.

Nothing in this business happens quickly. You're seriously overestimating car manufacturers here. Research and Development isn't something you can simply throw money at and then products get designed faster, that's not how it works. That's like saying, if we throw enough money at science they will make discoveries ten times as fast.

Economy and politics are too interwoven for politicians to "stand out of the way and try not to obstruct too much", especially in Germany where the car manufacturers already hold tremendous political power. Everytime Germany introduces new regulations concerning cars you can make sure that the car manufacturers knew the exact contents before it was passed to make sure that it doesn't get in their way too much. These are not some middle class businesses, these are concerns with millions of employees, with entire regions depending on them. The last thing they get by german politicians is obstructed. Hell, even the goddamn green party is very car friendly, at least in the south.

 

[jasonbarron]

Of course they don't give a poopoo about the environment. Car manufacturers (and pretty much every single privately held company) will provide what their costumers want. In capitalism, customer is king. And like car manufacturers, politicians don't give a poopoo about the environment either, they just want yout vote so they can continue extorting you money to distribute amongst their own.

The difference between manufacturers (or the private sector) and politicians (or the state), is that the private sector will actually come up with the real, tangible, "you can see it and touch it" solutions. Like it or not, it is mostly the private sector who actually makes things happen, even if their motives are not pure. They need your money, so they will do what you want them to do. Just like household applicance manufacturers have been making more energy efficient fridges, stoves, etc for the past 2 decades because people shown a demand for more energy efficient products.

If people show a demand for electric cars (or any other thing), car manufacturers will quickly research, develop, create, optimize and refine electric cars. And meanwhile they are already researching and developing improved versions and alternative solutions in the background. Politicians, the best they can do is just move out of the way and try not to obstruct too much.

Yep, that's how it works; the private sector gets things done, the government figures out a way to fasten on like a blood sucking parasite. Other then a limited role being responsible for infrastructure, critical services and defense, the government should just back off and let the people who know how to get things done do it.

I like your point(s) about good, practical solutions already being implemented, despite the fact that you'll never hear about it in the news.

 

[askavir]

The customer is most certainly not king. Adopting outdated slogans from the service industry doesn't reinforce your case. The only case where that is the case is a monopsony and there are extremely few of those. The car market most certainly isn't one.

The market for cars is a very tight oligopoly due to the circumstances and the excruciating entry costs. The customer will buy whatever product the companies offer in their respective price ranges.

You couldn't have chosen a worse example for a "tight oligopoly"... I just opened a online used car website to count the number of different car brands for sale, it was over 80... If we remove the more niche brands, we still end up with well over 20 "mainstream" brands spanning 3 continents.

It seems to me that the customer still has some choice in the matter, and can entrust (or not) his hard owned cash to whatever manufacturer he chooses.

 

[askavir]

"They will do what the customer wants them to do, because they need their money." lol, good one. Try telling a software dev that.

I am one of those, and yes I do have to deliver what the customer wanted if I expect to get paid.

Household applications were made more energy efficient because international regulation was introduced that required them to be more efficient. The EU actually does something for it's money.

No, they became more energy efficient because customers want to spend less on their electricity bill. When I buy a new fridge I go for max energy efficiency want to save money on my bills, not because I give a toss about what the government wants.

Nothing in this business happens quickly. You're seriously overestimating car manufacturers here. Research and Development isn't something you can simply throw money at and then products get designed faster, that's not how it works. That's like saying, if we throw enough money at science they will make discoveries ten times as fast.

Indeed R&D is not directly tied to money, but like everything else it is far more efficient in the private sector. You see the push to strive for efficiency comes a lot quicker when you got your own finite money on the line to achieve goals (private sector), as opposed to having an infinite stream of someone else's money (state). Even NASA, probably one the the best state owned institutions in the whole world, with some of the best minds on the planet working there, was beaten by SpaceX, a much, much younger private company at coming up with a way to make space launches magnitudes cheaper.

If you expect any kind of effective solution to climate issues (or any serious issues) to be put forward from the governments of any country, you might as well make your peace right now with the alleged end of the world.

 

[jasonbarron]

@Becks, out of curiosity, you don't happen to be a bureaucrat (work in the government) do you?

 

[askavir]

If you read the latest words from the doomsday prophet Greta Thunberg (well, the words of her handlers anyway), and manage to plow through the all the self-inflicted victimhood, you reach this interesting paragraph:

"That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fuelled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities."

So tell me again that all the doomsday fear-mongering is all about science and facts and saving the environment, and has nothing to do with pushing ideology agendas...

Why we strike again

Facing grim science and growing activism, world leaders are increasingly recognising the urgency of the climate crisis. Yet nothing has been done.

www.socialeurope.eu

And, again, stating "nothing has been done" is just a blatant populist lie to influence the weak-minded.

 

[jasonbarron]

@askavir, I'd use my hammer smashing the nail picture again, but I think you get the idea. Interesting how quick Frillop dried up and blew away as soon as I pointed that out to him earlier.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

If you read the latest words from the doomsday prophet Greta Thunberg (well, the words of her handlers anyway), and manage to plow through the all the self-inflicted victimhood, you reach this interesting paragraph:

"That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fuelled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities."

So tell me again that all the doomsday fear-mongering is all about science and facts and saving the environment, and has nothing to do with pushing ideology agendas...

>>....

Good post.

The philosophy behind the age of Enlightenment and the rise of Democracy are tied to the fall of Religion/Monarchy. It may not be possible to separate human social forces that are pro-Religious/Authoritarian/Racist and essentially anti-scientific, from a pro-Reason, pro-Democracy component that relies on science as a philosophy.
This is beyond the scope of a forum, I think?

I would point out that Al Gore wrote the Assault on Reason as far back as 2007, and there is a substantial degree of worldwide polarization since - both for and against rationality in public affairs. Saving our ecosystem is one component of saving our integrity of thinking, and our societal form in general.

 

[MaxG10]

The re-emergence of extremists binge drinking from fascist goblets of ideas and language was enabled after the biggest global heist in history, undertaken 2008 and still ongoing. Another aspect is the absence of a true humanist education, one that would, naturally, prohibit the development of racist ideologies, or bible thumpers and their disciples.

"Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?" ​

Macbeth, 1.3​

The rhetoric used is always the same, whether in Europe or the US. More leaders emerged as autocrats or pseudo-democrats, enabling right wing terror, and feeding the public with fear and their relentless poison of hatred. They constantly attempt to normalize their appearance in society, camouflage themselves as critical thinking.

The way they react to the righteous actions of a 16 years old girl is testimony of their own socialisation and ethic.

I remember what my Grandmother, who survived the fascists, told me about them.

Translation would be down the lines of:

"They would strap you in a chair, hammer nails in your head, smile at you and ask if you feel better now. It is useless to reason with them, they are convinced that they have eaten from the flesh of wisdom, are the Enlightened, chosen to rule the world for the betterment of humanity. They will point their sticky fingers at you, proclaiming you to be what they are themselves, brainless thugs."

This still holds true today!

 

[askavir]

The re-emergence of extremists binge drinking from fascist goblets of ideas and language was enabled after the biggest global heist in history, undertaken 2008 and still ongoing. Another aspect is the absence of a true humanist education, one that would, naturally, prohibit the development of racist ideologies, or bible thumpers and their disciples.

"Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?" ​

Macbeth, 1.3​

The rhetoric used is always the same, whether in Europe or the US. More leaders emerged as autocrats or pseudo-democrats, enabling right wing terror, and feeding the public with fear and their relentless poison of hatred. They constantly attempt to normalize their appearance in society, camouflage themselves as critical thinking.

The way they react to the righteous actions of a 16 years old girl is testimony of their own socialisation and ethic.

I remember what my Grandmother, who survived the fascists, told me about them.

Translation would be down the lines of:

"They would strap you in a chair, hammer nails in your head, smile at you and ask if you feel better now. It is useless to reason with them, they are convinced that they have eaten from the flesh of wisdom, are the Enlightened, chosen to rule the world for the betterment of humanity. They will point their sticky fingers at you, proclaiming you to be what they are themselves, brainless thugs."

This still holds true today!

Speaking of fascism, you do know that fascism requires a totalitarian state with absolute power, which is the exact opposite of what most right wing inclined people want, which is less state, with less power, and more individual freedoms. On the other hand, ironically the people always ready to pull the "you're a fascist" card are precisely the most prone to desire an authoritarian state to enforce their ideas.

 

[Becks]

You couldn't have chosen a worse example for a "tight oligopoly"... I just opened a online used car website to count the number of different car brands for sale, it was over 80... If we remove the more niche brands, we still end up with well over 20 "mainstream" brands spanning 3 continents.

It seems to me that the customer still has some choice in the matter, and can entrust (or not) his hard owned cash to whatever manufacturer he chooses.

The car market and the used car market are not the same. They do overlap occasionaly, but differ greatly when it comes to regulation, sellers, etc. A single product can be traded on more than one market. Apart from that, the used car market makes absolutely zero sense in the context of our discussion since it does zero R&D. It just resells existing products.

The car market is the prime example of a tight oligopoly. There are even more attributes, but I don't want to go to deep into macroeconomics.

I am one of those, and yes I do have to deliver what the customer wanted if I expect to get paid.

Interesting, if I'd do what the customer wants I'd probably do double the work for half the price. Scopecreep is a ...

No, they became more energy efficient because customers want to spend less on their electricity bill. When I buy a new fridge I go for max energy efficiency want to save money on my bills, not because I give a toss about what the government wants.

Cool, and the max energy efficiency would still be bad, if it weren't regulated. Whether you give a toss about what the government wants or not is completely irrelevant, you're not that important. The producer of said household appliances on the opposite do very much give a toss about what the government wants, or else they go out of business fast or need to sell their stock abroad.

Indeed R&D is not directly tied to money, but like everything else it is far more efficient in the private sector. You see the push to strive for efficiency comes a lot quicker when you got your own finite money on the line to achieve goals (private sector), as opposed to having an infinite stream of someone else's money (state). Even NASA, probably one the the best state owned institutions in the whole world, with some of the best minds on the planet working there, was beaten by SpaceX, a much, much younger private company at coming up with a way to make space launches magnitudes cheaper.

You're half right and half wrong here.

Private companies can definitely amass the funds and necessary minds to make significant progress, IF there's a realistic prospect of profiting from that progress in the short or medium term. Most companies can simply not afford to do basic research and most of those who do, do so in cooperation with institutions of the respective nation(s) they're operating in.

Don't get me wrong, what SpaceX did is awesome, but what led to it's sucess is mainly Elon Musks financial power, patience and seventy years of prior experience in space travel thanks to the NASA. To say, that NASA was 'beaten' by SpaceX is like saying that Tesla or Edison were beaten by Zuse. It's debatable about whether SpaceX gets subsidized by the US government for strategic reasons like Boeing (and respectively Airbus by the EU). Dividing politics and economy is not that easy. Both need each other.

Take for example fusion, because you mentioned it in a previous post. There's a reason why the ITER, the Wendelstein 7X and all the other test reactors aren't in private hand. No company in the world has the necessary funds to undertake research projects of such a scale. The invisible hand of the market doesn't think in terms that long, rather it doesn't think at all.

If you expect any kind of effective solution to climate issues (or any serious issues) to be put forward from the governments of any country, you might as well make your peace right now with the alleged end of the world.

Pressure from the public will sooner or later lead to the government accepting and implementing pragmatic solutions. Activism is a big part of that. I don't like Greta Thunberg either, because her whole demeanor feels just unsympathetic and too much focused on generating outrage. But climate change is an existential threat to our societies, even if we don't die out or revert back to the stone ages and it's undoubtly Thunbergs right to promote her views. A large part of the reason why we have this problem in the first place are certain companies of the private sector like Exxon which held back scientific studies and results in order to protect their business interests.

Look, if I'd see the cost of destroying our environment reflected in prices, I would without a doubt believe you that the private sector scrambles to find a solution to climate change and the sustainability problem. But that's not the case and the only entities powerful enough to counteract that are the nationstates. The companies will hardly limit themselves and I'm not believing that we'll make some magic major breakthrough in fusion in the next 10 years, that'll solve all our energy problems.

@Becks, out of curiosity, you don't happen to be a bureaucrat (work in the government) do you?

Nope.

 

[lysan]

If you want to support the climate, buy locally produced products, push your congress rep. To support laws that allow people to grow food in their gardens, and collect water without being punished, push to clean up rivers, the amount of garbage floating in most rivers is astonishing grotesque. If we could get that through it would be a great start.

 

[Patrick_68000]

For a teenager missing a few months of school, I find that it's a great success.

The 16-year-old Swede becomes the youngest laureate of this distinction, awarded since 1927 by the American magazine.