Is the "Cowboy Economy" about to become a product of a bygone era?

Question

Is the day when industries metaphorically left their campfire ashes behind and moved on to a new frontier an era better left behind? Will the efforts of "industrial ecologists," become the norm? Society working toward a "spaceman economy" where everything is recycled and carried along on the spaceship?

http://www.rps.psu.edu/0205/economics.html

Answer 1

The current state of art for industry is more like caveman than cowboy. The basic processes used by industry are as crude as anything the people of the stone age did. We still dump whatever we no longer want in landfill. We still have burning processes the are far more poluting than the caveman fire. And worst of all we are so superior as were the Romans a few centuries ago. What is being done in industry is just as stupid as anything done in the past-waste management is so poorly engineered a caveman could do it.

Answer 2

Not yet we are still in the Batman Economy

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That is the one where there are all these save the day people running around in these Hollywood suits

Saying they know what made it happen and have the way to fix it

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When the Cowboy Economy kicks in that is cause all the gasoline stations price tag is like buying a new car every time a fill up is made

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And every body is using the easiest and cheapest way to get from point "A" to point "B"

The horse is the only way it's --- "The Cowboy Way"

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The bicycle takes muscles and

no body in their right mind wants to use them for anything other than shopping and chewing food

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Answer 3

Clearly this is the view of someone who doesn't get out into today's modern industry.  The article is written on what the author believes.

In the example that wallboard gypsum couldn't be recycled from waste, modern US industry has taken that a step further by making wallboard without the need for paper backing, saving millions of trees, or recyclable material for other uses.

US Industry is committed to computerized automation that saves energy for the purpose of increasing profits.  Other industries recycle to save costs on raw products and to maximize profits.

http://www.nucor.com/enviroindex.aspx?en...

The great thing about being a capitalist society is that profits do motivate industry to do the same job using fewer resources.  And this can be proven by looking at how the Russians, or East Germans used their natural resources during the time when production was state controlled.

Clearly we are doing a better job.

Answer 4

Our entire economy (99% percent of it) is based on the premise that resources are unlimited and the biosphere can function as an endless sink for our waste.

It's self evident that this is not possible.

We operate now with one big open loop.  We need those "loop closing opportunities" to change over to many small closed loops.

We have much work to do, and quickly, as we are already in a serious situation of overshoot.