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Hardly seems like news to anyone remotely sentient. Economic 'growth' at a real physical level is straightforward entropy increase. Complex evolved systems are

Hardly seems like news to anyone remotely sentient. Economic 'growth' at a real physical level is straightforward entropy increase. Complex evolved systems are destructured to fuel & supply crude technological systems. Expect more of this until most complex living systems collapse.

QAPereo 9y ago
...And expect that collapse to be sudden (relatively speaking) and take a baffled majority by surprise. Then expect conflict, trending more and more to desperation and violence.
- crispinb 9y ago
  A harbinger: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/bangladesh-climate-refugees-john-vidal-photo-essay https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/b... There are no waves of violence washing towards developed nations from Bangladesh. But it's going to come at some stage, from some similar quarter, and will hardly be unjustified. They are paying the price for 'our' insatiable greed.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    That article, sorry, is total bullshit. The rain season flooding large areas is neither new, nor strange. The same happens in a third of India, and large parts of Africa and I'm sure you can find the same phenomenon in areas around the equator in the Americas as well. Mass flooding during the wet season, with the "Monsoon" rains is the most predictable, normal and obvious thing in the world. But western audiences mostly don't know that. Monsoon rains are so bad that without protection from the rain, people can die from just how much water there is in the athmosphere. (If it's raining, that means the water in the atmosphere is more than 100%. If it's more than 37 degrees out and it's raining, that means there's more than 100% water inside your windpipe and inside your lungs. That means it's equally raining inside your lungs, and this can cause drowning. So you can't walk around in a Monsoon. That's how bad it can be. Luckily, because that's common knowledge it's not very common) The reason for most of the phenomena in the article is simply because in Bangladesh there is a general movement of people from areas like those that flood. These areas get abandoned, because the children can make more money in the cities and vastly prefer that over what their "traditional way of living" can offer. Then these areas get abandoned by everyone out of necessity, and swallowed by nature. Flooding is something that I'm sure is the "drop that makes the bucket overflow" for many young people, but it is not the cause of what's happening. And especially, rising sea levels do not make any difference here. If anything, economic inequality in Bangladesh is to blame.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
Seems unnecessarily pessimistic. Life itself is a complex system that radically altered its environment - and here we are now, billions of years later. I'm not a climate change denier. The problem is very real, it's huge, it's definitely caused by us, and it needs to be addressed by taking a variety of vigorous measures. I just don't see it as a mandatory death sentence. There are some ways to deal with it, and we'll figure out more if needed.
- dflock 9y ago
  Hopefully. Timing is everything, though.
- crispinb 9y ago
  > Life itself is a complex system that radically altered its environment - and here we are now, billions of years later. We are replacing complex systems maintained by homeostatic dynamic stabilities with simple systems requiring continuous inputs from the very systems we're deconstructing. And we're doing so on drastically asymmetrical time scales -- we're increasing the complexity of the replacement systems orders of magnitude more slowly than we are deconstructing existing ones. > I'm not a climate change denier. The problem is very real Climate breakdown is not the problem. It's just the most exigent of literally hundreds of breakdowns caused by a malignant ideology (unending so-called economic growth). We have only 50-70 harvests left due to rapid topsoil loss. Freshwater is disappearing fast. Most ecosystems on the planet are in various stages of collapse. > There are ways to deal with it If we put all hands on deck and made it a global priority, we might avert the complete breakdown of the stable climate our agriculture depends on. Whether this would be enough to deal with other crises is questionable. It would be worth trying. But the question is irrelevant, because all hands are not on deck. They're mostly working on trivia, warfare, and further ecosystem destruction. There isn't the slightest hint that we are ready to deal with any of our global crises (indeed, on most issues, we're slowly retreating into national, mutually-hostile bunkers). > and we'll figure out more if needed. Ah. The faith-based solution.
  - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
    Climate change is the sick old man of HN. Post anything on this topic, and a bunch of strange things happen. For a forum for people who pride themselves on being rational, it sure is full of irrational, fact-averse deniers. Or, at the other extreme, you get all these fire-and-brimstone doom predictions. Weird.
nshelly 9y ago
Humans have solved many seemingly intractable problems related to economic growth on the local and national level, such as smog, acid rain and the pollution of water sources. And at least have indefinitely delayed many man-made problems on the global level, like a thermonuclear war and racially-defined empires. Will we have to adapt and possibly vacate large parts of the world? Yes. Will we have to look into hydroponics for seafood and other luxuries we have today? Possibly. But let's not give up hope. Negativity can lead to lack of action and there are millions, if not billions of lives at stake, and those of endangered species or large mammals for those who think there are already too many humans on this planet already. Canada, Alaska and land in developed countries in northern climates are well-positioned for climate change relative to other parts of the world. Maybe we could look at protecting vast swathes of open land, such as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge or parkland in the western United States. There's incremental things everyone can do that make a huge difference.
- crispinb 9y ago
  That's true, and I don't think the situation is technically hopeless. Human (& nature's) ingenuity & adaptability can go far. But right now ignorance is a much starker risk than hopelessness. The vast majority of people in wealthy countries still have increasing consumption as their top priority. And people in poorer countries are aspirants to the same. This leads to the abyss. Much of our amazing ingenuity is directed towards trivia, consumer-training, warfare etc, and far from being widely challenged, this trend seems to be accelerating. It's hard to imagine us not falling into a series of wars for diminishing spoils as the physical systems we're embedded in collapse. So as I said, I don't think the situation is technically hopeless. There's much we could do. I doubt we'll do it. But I'm absolutely certain we won't do it if most of our population maintains the dulled Panglossian-consumerist perspective.
- crispinb 9y ago
  > Will we have to adapt and possibly vacate large parts of the world? Coming from a nation that specialises in imprisoning & torturing asylum-seekers, by the way, I must comment on this point. Hundreds of millions of people (mostly poor) live in these areas that will need to be 'vacated'. Do you think they will be welcomed? Where? And when they are not, that peace will be possible? And that we can deal with these huge global challenges while simultaneously fighting the inevitable wars?

QAPereo 9y ago

...And expect that collapse to be sudden (relatively speaking) and take a baffled majority by surprise. Then expect conflict, trending more and more to desperation and violence.

crispinb 9y ago
A harbinger: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/bangladesh-climate-refugees-john-vidal-photo-essay https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/b... There are no waves of violence washing towards developed nations from Bangladesh. But it's going to come at some stage, from some similar quarter, and will hardly be unjustified. They are paying the price for 'our' insatiable greed.
- candiodari 9y ago
  That article, sorry, is total bullshit. The rain season flooding large areas is neither new, nor strange. The same happens in a third of India, and large parts of Africa and I'm sure you can find the same phenomenon in areas around the equator in the Americas as well. Mass flooding during the wet season, with the "Monsoon" rains is the most predictable, normal and obvious thing in the world. But western audiences mostly don't know that. Monsoon rains are so bad that without protection from the rain, people can die from just how much water there is in the athmosphere. (If it's raining, that means the water in the atmosphere is more than 100%. If it's more than 37 degrees out and it's raining, that means there's more than 100% water inside your windpipe and inside your lungs. That means it's equally raining inside your lungs, and this can cause drowning. So you can't walk around in a Monsoon. That's how bad it can be. Luckily, because that's common knowledge it's not very common) The reason for most of the phenomena in the article is simply because in Bangladesh there is a general movement of people from areas like those that flood. These areas get abandoned, because the children can make more money in the cities and vastly prefer that over what their "traditional way of living" can offer. Then these areas get abandoned by everyone out of necessity, and swallowed by nature. Flooding is something that I'm sure is the "drop that makes the bucket overflow" for many young people, but it is not the cause of what's happening. And especially, rising sea levels do not make any difference here. If anything, economic inequality in Bangladesh is to blame.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

Seems unnecessarily pessimistic. Life itself is a complex system that radically altered its environment - and here we are now, billions of years later. I'm not a climate change denier. The problem is very real, it's huge, it's definitely caused by us, and it needs to be addressed by taking a variety of vigorous measures. I just don't see it as a mandatory death sentence. There are some ways to deal with it, and we'll figure out more if needed.

dflock 9y ago
Hopefully. Timing is everything, though.
crispinb 9y ago
> Life itself is a complex system that radically altered its environment - and here we are now, billions of years later. We are replacing complex systems maintained by homeostatic dynamic stabilities with simple systems requiring continuous inputs from the very systems we're deconstructing. And we're doing so on drastically asymmetrical time scales -- we're increasing the complexity of the replacement systems orders of magnitude more slowly than we are deconstructing existing ones. > I'm not a climate change denier. The problem is very real Climate breakdown is not the problem. It's just the most exigent of literally hundreds of breakdowns caused by a malignant ideology (unending so-called economic growth). We have only 50-70 harvests left due to rapid topsoil loss. Freshwater is disappearing fast. Most ecosystems on the planet are in various stages of collapse. > There are ways to deal with it If we put all hands on deck and made it a global priority, we might avert the complete breakdown of the stable climate our agriculture depends on. Whether this would be enough to deal with other crises is questionable. It would be worth trying. But the question is irrelevant, because all hands are not on deck. They're mostly working on trivia, warfare, and further ecosystem destruction. There isn't the slightest hint that we are ready to deal with any of our global crises (indeed, on most issues, we're slowly retreating into national, mutually-hostile bunkers). > and we'll figure out more if needed. Ah. The faith-based solution.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  Climate change is the sick old man of HN. Post anything on this topic, and a bunch of strange things happen. For a forum for people who pride themselves on being rational, it sure is full of irrational, fact-averse deniers. Or, at the other extreme, you get all these fire-and-brimstone doom predictions. Weird.

nshelly 9y ago

Humans have solved many seemingly intractable problems related to economic growth on the local and national level, such as smog, acid rain and the pollution of water sources. And at least have indefinitely delayed many man-made problems on the global level, like a thermonuclear war and racially-defined empires. Will we have to adapt and possibly vacate large parts of the world? Yes. Will we have to look into hydroponics for seafood and other luxuries we have today? Possibly. But let's not give up hope. Negativity can lead to lack of action and there are millions, if not billions of lives at stake, and those of endangered species or large mammals for those who think there are already too many humans on this planet already. Canada, Alaska and land in developed countries in northern climates are well-positioned for climate change relative to other parts of the world. Maybe we could look at protecting vast swathes of open land, such as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge or parkland in the western United States. There's incremental things everyone can do that make a huge difference.

crispinb 9y ago
That's true, and I don't think the situation is technically hopeless. Human (& nature's) ingenuity & adaptability can go far. But right now ignorance is a much starker risk than hopelessness. The vast majority of people in wealthy countries still have increasing consumption as their top priority. And people in poorer countries are aspirants to the same. This leads to the abyss. Much of our amazing ingenuity is directed towards trivia, consumer-training, warfare etc, and far from being widely challenged, this trend seems to be accelerating. It's hard to imagine us not falling into a series of wars for diminishing spoils as the physical systems we're embedded in collapse. So as I said, I don't think the situation is technically hopeless. There's much we could do. I doubt we'll do it. But I'm absolutely certain we won't do it if most of our population maintains the dulled Panglossian-consumerist perspective.
crispinb 9y ago
> Will we have to adapt and possibly vacate large parts of the world? Coming from a nation that specialises in imprisoning & torturing asylum-seekers, by the way, I must comment on this point. Hundreds of millions of people (mostly poor) live in these areas that will need to be 'vacated'. Do you think they will be welcomed? Where? And when they are not, that peace will be possible? And that we can deal with these huge global challenges while simultaneously fighting the inevitable wars?