3 ms·
Look past the literal. This is a metaphor for what we're all doing to this planet. An action which appears noble when one person does it becomes problematic w
by ken 7y ago
Look past the literal. This is a metaphor for what we're all doing to this planet. An action which appears noble when one person does it becomes problematic when a billion people do it.
You can opt out of climbing Everest (and most of us do), but almost nobody is opting out of buying electronics, burning fossil fuels, using plastics, etc. Half the people in the USA don't even vote, and a sizable majority of eligible blood donors don't donate -- and those are both free, and make life better in the community in which you live.
When we say "Earth is crowded", this is what we mean. We're living in an unscalable and unsustainable manner. We pretend that being just one individual of billions means the bad things we do, or the good things we don't do, aren't really our own fault.
- GuiA 7y agoEverybody wants to live a lifestyle that presently requires burning fossil fuel, buying electronics, using plastics, etc. Two possibilities: - technological advancement lets everyone indulge in this lifestyle without those externalities, or ones that are worse - people voluntarily dial down their consumption (of food that has flown from across the world because it’s not in season, of electronics made with rare earth metals, etc), travels, and so on. Both seem extremely unlikely and it’s hard to keep hope.
- jdietrich 7y agoThere's a grotesque disparity in per-capita CO2 emissions, even between highly developed nations. America produces 16.5 tonnes per capita, Britain produces 6.5 tonnes, Switzerland produces 4.3 and Latvia produces 3.5. Turning the dial down on our consumption is eminently possible without meaningfully compromising our standard of living, we just need to give a damn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- sneak 7y agoPeople, en masse, seem to mostly only care what their mass media channels tell them to care about. That’s not being done in the US for consumption side-effects.
- titzer 7y agoLatvia does not have the same standard of living as the others in the list. And still, 3.5 tonnes per capita is still 25 billion tonnes globally, and at that level, this planet is still super fucked. There are literally 300 million people in India who do not yet have electricity. Flip that over; if those 300 million people develop to European living standards in say, 100 years, we are well and truly screwed. You can just forget about it when you think about China, Indonesia, Bagladesh, and Africa. The western way of life with global capitalism just will not work, the same way that growing watermelons inside of lightbulbs is just not going to work.
- gingabriska 7y agoBut what if you've no money? You can't buy those cool electronics anymore, you are forced to spend on what is more important for a minimalistic life. Wouldn't it be better if we all had less money?
- wilde 7y agoElectronics and plastics aren’t the drivers. It’s Transportation and electricity. We have the tech but not the willpower for electricity. We need to densify to get cars off the road. In many ways the single family home is the biggest driver of global warming.
- usrusr 7y ago> a sizable majority of eligible blood donors don't donate You'd have to donate an awful lot of blood to make earth less crowded.
- dTal 7y ago5-6 pints all at once should do it.