4 ms·

How is the Global South paying for our houses?

cagenut 8y ago
short answer, climate change driven desertification -> drought -> famine -> conflict -> collapse -> refugees. if you want the long answer this is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/
- esotericn 8y ago
  Yeah, no. The fact that cars currently produce large amounts of CO2 is a contributor to that. As soon as we get clean energy that disappears. If we don't get clean energy we're fucked anyway.
  - cagenut 8y ago
    Yeah yes. We cannot decarbonize the energy supply fast enough to prevent a total humanitarian nightmare. We must also reduce energy consumption through both efficiency gains and fundamental shifts in cultural values, such as the entitlement people feel to not having to share space with their fellow man. I am a TSLA shareholder, I am very glad that EVs and solar power and batteries are going to play an important role in the overall solution, but it is simply bad math to think its a solution. The land use, infrastructure costs, and energy demands of sprawling detached housing are not currently priced into the market. They are externalized onto the people who are already suffering in a 0.75C world, and we're on a screaming path to a 4C world. Believing magic technology will save us is simply the naive liberal version of denialism.
    - esotericn 8y ago
      We had houses before we even discovered oil. It's farcical to suggest that in order to stop burning fossil fuels everyone has to move on top of each other.
      - cagenut 8y ago
        your first sentence is an extremely disingenuous and bad faith argument. we did not have anything remotely like two car family quarter acre lot suburban sprawl. we also had nearly a full order of magnitude fewer people. I also never said "everyone". this is very common response from people who feel personally attacked, they respond defensively with an extreme re-formulation of what was said. you're posting on HN so i'm hoping I can appeal to whatever piece of your brain is capable of reasoning in the abstract. look at both lines of your response. think about them.

short answer, climate change driven desertification -> drought -> famine -> conflict -> collapse -> refugees. if you want the long answer this is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/

esotericn 8y ago
Yeah, no. The fact that cars currently produce large amounts of CO2 is a contributor to that. As soon as we get clean energy that disappears. If we don't get clean energy we're fucked anyway.
- cagenut 8y ago
  Yeah yes. We cannot decarbonize the energy supply fast enough to prevent a total humanitarian nightmare. We must also reduce energy consumption through both efficiency gains and fundamental shifts in cultural values, such as the entitlement people feel to not having to share space with their fellow man. I am a TSLA shareholder, I am very glad that EVs and solar power and batteries are going to play an important role in the overall solution, but it is simply bad math to think its a solution. The land use, infrastructure costs, and energy demands of sprawling detached housing are not currently priced into the market. They are externalized onto the people who are already suffering in a 0.75C world, and we're on a screaming path to a 4C world. Believing magic technology will save us is simply the naive liberal version of denialism.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    We had houses before we even discovered oil. It's farcical to suggest that in order to stop burning fossil fuels everyone has to move on top of each other.
    - cagenut 8y ago
      your first sentence is an extremely disingenuous and bad faith argument. we did not have anything remotely like two car family quarter acre lot suburban sprawl. we also had nearly a full order of magnitude fewer people. I also never said "everyone". this is very common response from people who feel personally attacked, they respond defensively with an extreme re-formulation of what was said. you're posting on HN so i'm hoping I can appeal to whatever piece of your brain is capable of reasoning in the abstract. look at both lines of your response. think about them.