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> we can't both secure the continued prosperity of humanity and at the same time not have an impact on the environment we live. I'm not sure I believe that. T
by admax88q 8y ago
> we can't both secure the continued prosperity of humanity and at the same time not have an impact on the environment we live.
I'm not sure I believe that. There are many aspects of modern life that are way more energy wasteful than they need to be.
Ever walk down a street in Vegas? The amount of excess demonstrated there is staggering. Giant fountains in a desert.
I'm not convinced we need to live to that level of excess in order to be prosperous.
> The way out of our problems is not to stop up but to continue improving technology and energy utilization.
I'm not sure any environmentalist would argue that we should stop improving technology. I certainly wouldn't.
I think we need to invest heavily in research and technology to find better cleaner sources of energy. But I also think we need some level of regulation like a Carbon Tax/Rebate, pollution taxes, etc, in order to actually incentivize the market to be take those externalities into account.
- ThomPete 8y agoThey wouldn't argue we should stop improving technology. It's my claim that the consequence of their politics would be to stop growth. Environmentalist are against humans making an impact on nature and consider nature sacred. That excess you see in Vegas is also paying the bills it's part of the growth. That's the point. You can't isolate them and have non-impact on nature and then at the same time growing the economy. Should we also regulate the internet? How much of our use is excess? Is this discussion excess? Are 99% of discussion on the internet excess is posting images excess? Once you start digging into it you realize that these things can't be isolated. This is why it's better to let the market play it out as it will optimize local needs. It's far from perfect to the extent that it's useless but it beats all the other ways we have at least to my understanding and I haven't heard of any other and better solution than let growth play out and produce surplus and then use some of that to be better and better.
- polotics 8y agoYou wrote: "This is why it's better to let the market play it out as it will optimize local needs" Do you know about the concept of externalities?
- ThomPete 8y agoYup one of the areas where it's most underrepresented is when it comes to exponential growth of technology. In other words, climate discussion also has externalities that it doesn't consider.
- polotics 8y agoGreat, please send me the link to those studies. Right now as far as I know it is very clear cut where the ignored externalities lie: island nations going under (Kiribati, check out Anote's Ark), civil strife with a climate component spilling over (check out Syria last ten years), hurricanes and floods frequencies way above historical records (soon in an abandonned mall nearby)