8 ms·

Or we can produce and consume less ?

HaukeHi 7y ago
The problem of population growth and higher overall populations in emerging economies adopting more energy intensive lifestyles remains. These economies and their citizens are likely to use an enormous amount of cheap energy to grow their economies: Global energy demand is forecasted to rise by 30% as of 2040[119] because energy demand and thus per capita carbon footprints increase in proportion to income[120], mainly due to increases in China and India. Policy-makers should reorient their focus to develop policies that contribute to the global public good through cheap, clean energy technology.[123] With access to cheaper clean energy and more energy efficient technology (e.g. smart grids), countries can grow their economies without emitting as much carbon and also help us decarbonize our economies. citations here: https://lets-fund.org/clean-energy/ https://lets-fund.org/clean-energy/
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  It can be argued that people really want things like happiness or security. If they can get this more directly, they can leapfrog some of the materialism. Of course for the ultra poor things like medicine are rational materialism. But there is diminishing rational value for example in dwelling size. For example there is nothing inherent in status symbols that they need to be environmentally harmful. We can change our values.
Kiro 7y ago
Yeah, let's go back to the stone age. Problem solved.
- vkou 7y ago
  After all, there is no middle ground between living in caves and dying of getting gored by a mammoth at the age of 14, and having say, billions of people drive 20 miles a day, as they commute to work, in an opposite direction of other commuters, alone in their three-tonne vehicles powered by dead dinosaurs. No middle ground whatsoever.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    There is a middle ground, you just can't get there by asking nicely. Humans aren't capable of this level of coordination. You can reach this middle ground by e.g. building more nuclear plants, introducing emission taxes, subsidizing electric cars to speed up their adoption and other top-down measures that realign the markets with desired social goals.
    - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
      There is actually. The US today has a CO2 emission per capita that's twice the CO2 emission per capita of Germany (not really a good example too). You'd also note that electric cars are also probably not a great solution because their total footprint is still around 15 to 30% of the footprint of a gasoline car (https://www.theicct.org/publications/EV-battery-manufacturing-emissions https://www.theicct.org/publications/EV-battery-manufacturin...) and we can't really afford that.
      - imtringued 7y ago
        I don't understand what we can't afford. Electric vehicles already have to be charged with carbon neutral electricity to reduce their emissions so it is not exactly a huge leap to expect that the electricity used to manufacture them is also carbon neutral.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Pretty much. Life for the average person before the industrial revolution was terrible. It only became decent after the industrial revolution and even that took time. It was built on fossil fuels and consumption. The only way you can reduce consumption is by increasing efficiency. Limiting people in the long term is not going to work unless you create an authoritarian government.
    - mrob 7y ago
      >The only way you can reduce consumption is by increasing efficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
iamnothere 7y ago
Only if we stop producing so many people. (Good luck with that.)
- saagarjha 7y ago
  We can also try to get the people we do produce to consume less…
  - iamnothere 7y ago
    Yes, it's not either-or, but both-and. On its own, consuming and producing less probably isn't enough.
- usaar333 7y ago
  That's been happening almost everywhere for the last half century. Plenty of places are below replacement population growth.
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    And yet we get another billion people every 15 years.
    - drilldrive 7y ago
      That is mostly Africa nowadays. The average age there is 19.3.
    - devdas 7y ago
      Not all people are equal in the carbon equation. Per capita consumption mattes.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
This is near-impossible without killing a lot of people. Humans generally don't just give up their comforts en masse for some distant benefits. This is a fixed property of humans, and the source of most world problems.
- asymmetric 7y ago
  Seems to me like humans do lots of things for distant benefits: they die for ideals, work their whole lives to give their children a better future, save for retirement, produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future, etc
  - est31 7y ago
    And still, a politician who says that airplane ticket and meat prices should rise to levels unaffordable by the bottom 95% won't get elected. It's too unpopular. Despite quite many people in non-western countries not flying in airplanes and only eating meat on rare occasions.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    None of those are distant benefits. The person who dies for “ideals” are mostly driven by false claims[0] about the nature of the afterlife. Improving your child’s outcomes is a biologically preset desire. Saving for retirement is still ultimately in one’s immediate self interest. Producing theoretical research has the immediate benefit of recognition in their fields and the possibility of a “lottery win” outcome. Saving for retirement is
    - sjwright 7y ago
      Oops, don't know how I managed to submit that without finishing it. Oh well, I'll throw in my footnote anyway: [0] More precisely, claims they can't know to be true. (And are also almost certainly false.)
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > they die for ideals Sometimes. This is not something generally expected of people, and newsworthy when it happens. Not all ideals are also selfless - some, like loyalty to one's God in expectation of an afterlife, is directly selfish. > work their whole lives to give their children a better future A combination of biological imperative and social pressure older than civilization; also pretty selfish. > save for retirement Most people can't really do that, especially not when living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's why retirement funds tend to be done in opt-out and usually socialized fashion. > produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future Even ignoring the status seekers, pure intellectual curiosity gives short-term emotional rewards. I doubt most researchers would be able to sustain their efforts if they didn't feel at least some immediate intellectual reward that outweighed their lowered (or sometimes non-existent) salaries. My point isn't that individuals aren't capable of putting long-term benefits in front of their short-term interests. My point is that they aren't capable of doing it at scale, in a coordinated fashion. A lot of this boils down to coordination problems - when personal sacrifice has low marginal utility (i.e. you need to get a lot of people on-board to materialize the benefits) and high immediate cost, few people will choose the sacrifice, and even if a small group coordinates on this, the first person to defect will destroy it all.

The problem of population growth and higher overall populations in emerging economies adopting more energy intensive lifestyles remains. These economies and their citizens are likely to use an enormous amount of cheap energy to grow their economies: Global energy demand is forecasted to rise by 30% as of 2040[119] because energy demand and thus per capita carbon footprints increase in proportion to income[120], mainly due to increases in China and India. Policy-makers should reorient their focus to develop policies that contribute to the global public good through cheap, clean energy technology.[123] With access to cheaper clean energy and more energy efficient technology (e.g. smart grids), countries can grow their economies without emitting as much carbon and also help us decarbonize our economies. citations here: https://lets-fund.org/clean-energy/ https://lets-fund.org/clean-energy/

Gravityloss 7y ago
It can be argued that people really want things like happiness or security. If they can get this more directly, they can leapfrog some of the materialism. Of course for the ultra poor things like medicine are rational materialism. But there is diminishing rational value for example in dwelling size. For example there is nothing inherent in status symbols that they need to be environmentally harmful. We can change our values.

Kiro 7y ago

Yeah, let's go back to the stone age. Problem solved.

vkou 7y ago
After all, there is no middle ground between living in caves and dying of getting gored by a mammoth at the age of 14, and having say, billions of people drive 20 miles a day, as they commute to work, in an opposite direction of other commuters, alone in their three-tonne vehicles powered by dead dinosaurs. No middle ground whatsoever.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  There is a middle ground, you just can't get there by asking nicely. Humans aren't capable of this level of coordination. You can reach this middle ground by e.g. building more nuclear plants, introducing emission taxes, subsidizing electric cars to speed up their adoption and other top-down measures that realign the markets with desired social goals.
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    There is actually. The US today has a CO2 emission per capita that's twice the CO2 emission per capita of Germany (not really a good example too). You'd also note that electric cars are also probably not a great solution because their total footprint is still around 15 to 30% of the footprint of a gasoline car (https://www.theicct.org/publications/EV-battery-manufacturing-emissions https://www.theicct.org/publications/EV-battery-manufacturin...) and we can't really afford that.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      I don't understand what we can't afford. Electric vehicles already have to be charged with carbon neutral electricity to reduce their emissions so it is not exactly a huge leap to expect that the electricity used to manufacture them is also carbon neutral.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Pretty much. Life for the average person before the industrial revolution was terrible. It only became decent after the industrial revolution and even that took time. It was built on fossil fuels and consumption. The only way you can reduce consumption is by increasing efficiency. Limiting people in the long term is not going to work unless you create an authoritarian government.
  - mrob 7y ago
    >The only way you can reduce consumption is by increasing efficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

iamnothere 7y ago

Only if we stop producing so many people. (Good luck with that.)

saagarjha 7y ago
We can also try to get the people we do produce to consume less…
- iamnothere 7y ago
  Yes, it's not either-or, but both-and. On its own, consuming and producing less probably isn't enough.
usaar333 7y ago
That's been happening almost everywhere for the last half century. Plenty of places are below replacement population growth.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  And yet we get another billion people every 15 years.
  - drilldrive 7y ago
    That is mostly Africa nowadays. The average age there is 19.3.
  - devdas 7y ago
    Not all people are equal in the carbon equation. Per capita consumption mattes.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

This is near-impossible without killing a lot of people. Humans generally don't just give up their comforts en masse for some distant benefits. This is a fixed property of humans, and the source of most world problems.

asymmetric 7y ago
Seems to me like humans do lots of things for distant benefits: they die for ideals, work their whole lives to give their children a better future, save for retirement, produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future, etc
- est31 7y ago
  And still, a politician who says that airplane ticket and meat prices should rise to levels unaffordable by the bottom 95% won't get elected. It's too unpopular. Despite quite many people in non-western countries not flying in airplanes and only eating meat on rare occasions.
- sjwright 7y ago
  None of those are distant benefits. The person who dies for “ideals” are mostly driven by false claims[0] about the nature of the afterlife. Improving your child’s outcomes is a biologically preset desire. Saving for retirement is still ultimately in one’s immediate self interest. Producing theoretical research has the immediate benefit of recognition in their fields and the possibility of a “lottery win” outcome. Saving for retirement is
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Oops, don't know how I managed to submit that without finishing it. Oh well, I'll throw in my footnote anyway: [0] More precisely, claims they can't know to be true. (And are also almost certainly false.)
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > they die for ideals Sometimes. This is not something generally expected of people, and newsworthy when it happens. Not all ideals are also selfless - some, like loyalty to one's God in expectation of an afterlife, is directly selfish. > work their whole lives to give their children a better future A combination of biological imperative and social pressure older than civilization; also pretty selfish. > save for retirement Most people can't really do that, especially not when living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's why retirement funds tend to be done in opt-out and usually socialized fashion. > produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future Even ignoring the status seekers, pure intellectual curiosity gives short-term emotional rewards. I doubt most researchers would be able to sustain their efforts if they didn't feel at least some immediate intellectual reward that outweighed their lowered (or sometimes non-existent) salaries. My point isn't that individuals aren't capable of putting long-term benefits in front of their short-term interests. My point is that they aren't capable of doing it at scale, in a coordinated fashion. A lot of this boils down to coordination problems - when personal sacrifice has low marginal utility (i.e. you need to get a lot of people on-board to materialize the benefits) and high immediate cost, few people will choose the sacrifice, and even if a small group coordinates on this, the first person to defect will destroy it all.