Sorry a very long time, because money and human greed would keep getting in the way.
Regardless if people finally woke up to sustainability.

A long time still as not everyone would be capable of becoming more self sustaining. Sure you could grow a little apartment balcony potted tomato plant, or a bigger backyard garden in the suburbs, maybe sneak in a couple hens depending on your zoning laws, but so much of the country/world is a major city environment. Kinda hard to raise and butcher a home grown, grass fed steer in your front yard in suburbia. There would still be a huge need for commercially produced foods and imported goods to sustain the teeming masses.

We’re on a 10 acre ranchette property and grow a big garden, have hens we collect eggs from, we do not butcher any animals here, but our neighbor raises free range, pastured, grass fed beef and we do consume some meat grown locally.. Not much, maybe a few times a month and have cherry trees, some citrus, and hope to plant an olive and pistachio orchard at some point, but, being in the middle of a major drought , which is another big issue in certain areas like CA. Water is a huge commodity and it takes a LOT of water to grow produce or raise livestock, even small livestock. Hens require a lot of water to produce eggs and larger animals even more.

While I am not a fan of factory farming I do not have a problem consuming modest amounts of home grown beef and poultry. Anyway, I digress ( haha..there’s that ramble kickin’ in ) but, as wonderful as a perfect self sustainable Utopia would be I do not think it is realistic, sadly.

You would be long dead.

To clarify: I realize our problems won’t get solved overnight.

I’d like to know how quickly there could be slight changes in the air, decreases in noise pollution – that kind of thing.

Seems to me much has already been done. If you go back a few decades air and water quality was much worse. It’s not that we just slowed the damage, we’ve reverse it.

I couldn’t get the TED talk I think you were trying to link. The link you posted takes me to Jane Goodall’s talk about the difference between us and Chimps.

@Jaxk Thanks. While the link was the right one, I’m sure it would have caused confusion without further clarification. I edited my details.

Noise pollution in the country/mountains is pretty much low on noise pollution.Coyotes howling at night, roosters crowing, horses neighing,and the occasional sound of a chainsaw.
Even the dogs out here are spaced far apart so their barking is always in the distance.
Much better than cars, cars pounding load music next to you, sirens, leaf blowers, motorcycles and 20 barking dogs packed into a square block.
Though I did enjoy loud night clubs once upon a time. haha

If people drove even 20 miles a week less that would add up to thousands and thousands of miles less and certainly help with pollution. If they payed attention to not making as much noise, honored noise curfews, didn’t drive loud vehicles like Diesel trucks and motorcycles, and didn’t allow their dogs and kids to bark and scream uncontrollably there could be a significant difference quickly. lol

Another big thing as far as pollution, and everybody loves a nice fire on a cold night, but wood burning is awful for putting bad particulate into the air.

If people really embraced sustainability it would take about 9 months to a year for sufficient crops to be grown. The real challenge is water. If we all stop taking long hot showers, water lawns and filling swimming pools there would not be a water shortage in CA. When your life is on the line it will be pretty amazing at how adaptable people become with a burial detail in tow.

@Cruiser Mmmm… here in CA. we are seeing a Sierra Snow pack the lowest in 500 years!!!
Our 4 year,epic drought has taken it’s toll. Most people lawns are dead, and we have been, as a whole, using like 40% less water per stats. Thing is the farming industry here is huge and even those of us on wells risk running dry because our lakes and rivers and reservoirs that are usually full are not.

The agricultural industry here is one of the largest anywhere, fruits, nuts, dairy, grapes/raisins, citrus, walnuts, massive strawberry crops. CA. provides an enormous amount of fruits, nuts and veggies to the rest of the country and many farmers have lost acres and acres of fruit tress and other crops due to this drought. It is not as simple as the Beverley Hills crowd not filling their pools or watering their putting greens.

@Coloma you are so right and it was so sad to read about that one CA reservoir that ran dry overnight When stuff like this happens things are not just bad…they are BAAAAAD!

We keep expanding the economy under the illusion that this can go on forever. We are beginning to experience limitations but most people are not connecting the dots. One way or another economic expansion will come to an end. It we plan for it, we can reach equilibrium amicably. I think it is more likely that we will wait until things become so bad, maybe when New York City become ankle deep in water, that drastic measures will need to be taken.

While Capitalism has been the driving force of progress for millennia, a rapidly increasing population and decreasing resources is rendering it relatively impotent. It still provides great wealth for a few, but it is at the expense of the many. Sustainability might be within reach if it was profitable, but current means of generating wealth would decrease, something that the powerful would resist.

I wish I had Jane Goodall’s optimism. However, as the ability to provide for family becomes more difficult, concern for the environment will be less relevant. Human history shows how unlikely is the potential to eschew greed for the betterment of all.

I doubt it would happen at all.
Most, if not all, druggies know that drugs are bad for them. Yet they continue taking them.
Just as druggies are addicted to drugs, humans are addicted to greed.

I find it interesting that some would be worried about drought, while others are concerned about floods. Some complain about technology advances that consume precious resources while technology is likely to be the answer. We complain about limited resource while we are awed by the limitless galaxies sounding us. How can the universe be infinite but the resource contained therein be finite? I don’t mean to say we don’t need to worry about conservation but I am saying that we don’t need to go back to living in caves.

So it is the greed thing that wouldn’t make it possible,that about it, Jaxk???

I’m not sure what you mean but I’ll take a stab. I don’t look at greed the same way most of you do. I see fame and fortune as a strong motivator. Science has been looking for a cure for cancer for a long time. The person that finds it will gain fame and fortune. Every time someone comes up with promising technology, money pours into that research. Yes the money is from people that want to capitalize on that and make themselves a fortune but is that really bad? Even the gasoline engine that everybody hates so much has brought us all a much higher standard of living and made it possible to feed the teeming masses and share technology across the globe. As well as creating massive wealth for those involved. It is the desire for a better life that drives innovation and innovation is not a bad thing.

@Jaxk , What climate scientists predicted, and which has come to pass, is extreme weather, droughts in some places and floods in others and superstorms like Katrina and Sandy.

There may be a whole lot of resources in the galaxy, but we are pretty much limited to our own Solar System and for the foreseeable future only Earth. It does not look like regular travel between solar systems in our galaxy or any other galaxy is ever going to be feasible. We are running out of resources and we better prepare ourselves.

One of my favorite quotes from Sam Clemens AKA Mark Twain

” Progress was once a fine thing but it has gone on far too long.”

This was his sentiment even prior to the invention of the automobile, wonder what he’d think of all our progress now. haha

The problem with both Katrina and Sandy was more an issues of where they made landfall. Neither were record setting. Katrina was a category 4 and Sandy barely made hurricane status. When you build a city below sea level, in a hurricane area, you have to expect problems.

I’m not sure what resources you worried about using up but we already have solutions for the drought. We just need to use them. A few desalination plants would solve most of it. We have plenty of water, we just need to get it to where it’s needed. A focus on solving the problems rather than assigning blame would go a long ways towards sustainability.

@Jaxk Desalination plants carry a lot of potential pit falls and other hazards. They are not the magic bullet for our water problems and may, infact, do more harm than good.

www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/seawater-desalination-solution-or-problem/

@Coloma – There’s never a magic bullet. Everything comes with pluses and minuses. If you look at you link it suggests that the water requirements of California could be handled for 30 years with those other methods. 30 years is not what I would call sustainable. To make it worse the article was written in 2008 before the drought so it’s not likely that those methods would not even get us that.

The truth is that southern California and the Central Valley are arid at best and desert at at worst. There is not enough water to sustain them even on good years which is why the California Aqueduct was built (not a cheap endeavor). Most desalination plants are proposed with a nuclear power plant which allows them to supply both power and water to the local communities as well as supplying the power for desalination. It’s not a perfect solution but it is a solution and one that we already have in hand.

@Jaxk Yes, that article is rather dated but certain points remain true.
No easy answers, but, as a 25 year resident of the Sierra foot hills here this is the worst I have ever seen things. Southern CA. aside there is usually plenty of water share with the central valley when we have adequate rain and snow pack.
My sentiments are that Southern CA. is SOL and they need to find their own water supply and stop taking ours. State of Jefferson all the way for this girl.

@Coloma – I would agree with you except that even in the good years So. Cal is sucking enough water out of the delta to cause us problems. They have no where to get any more. They are already sucking 20% more water from the Colorado River than they are entitled to. Hell they’re sucking it dry. Ocean water is the only place they can get it.

BTW, State of Jefferson is a great idea but California will never let it go. More’s the pity.

@Jaxk Agree, agree, agree. :-)