5 ms·
It's polite data analyst speak for, "We need immediate and globally-coordinated _radical_ action" (action being the key term) Edit: We're not fucked yet. Apothe
by mikelyons 7y ago
It's polite data analyst speak for, "We need immediate and globally-coordinated _radical_ action" (action being the key term) Edit: We're not fucked yet. Apotheosis of hope.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI'd say at this point, "radical" is the key term here.
- mikelyons 7y agoPragmatically its more a return to old-style living in many ways but will seem radical to groups addicted to modern lifestyles.
- pif 7y agoPragmatically, it's a non starter. Global warming is here to stay: better learn to cope with it!
- coldtea 7y agoA, don't worry about it. After the first hundred million corpses, tons of measures will be taken, very pragmatically...
- adrianN 7y agoNo, return to old style living won't save us, because the planet can't sustain our current population levels with old-style living. Unless you want to trigger civil unrest and kill many people, the solution has to be technological. Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency can do it, it just needs a few trillion dollars of investment.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoIndeed, the major issue that is always conveniently forgotten is population growth. Stopping it should at the top of our priorities along with renewable energies.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThe parent didn't say population growth, they said population. There's way more people currently alive on Earth than the planet's carrying capacity under 1600-level tech, to which we'd had to backtrack globally if we wanted to fix the climate crisis through reducing consumption alone. This is unacceptable for pretty much every reason. We either find technological solutions to this problem - both on the emission end and on the sequestration end - or climate change starts killing people (and making more people kill even more people). It's that simple.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoPopulation is the result of population growth. The best solution for the planet and our quality of life is to make population growth stop, and ideally see population decrease.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoPopulation growth is slowing itself. So we have that covered. And now what? Turns out, it's not enough, not even before considering that 2/3 of this population is still in developing countries, which are going to increase their emission levels in the pursuit of decent quality of life.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoAnd thus population control is critical... QED. We don't have that covered at all at the moment: We are already 7 billions and will possibly be 11+ billions by the end of the century. That's insane. Let's not forget that emissions are only a tiny part of the pressure we put on the environment.
- jnurmine 7y agoTriggering civil unrest and such is not really required to reduce population sizes: as we seem to be tracking ca. +3.5 C increase in average temperatures by 2100, the reduction in population levels will happen automatically by extinctions of animals, disease, extreme weather, flooding of coastal areas, loss in crop productivity, droughts, melting ice cover, societal unrest, and so on. Renewable energy will have a hard time winning globally unless cheap dirty stuff like coal and oil is made much more expensive through taxes or other means. There is also active resistance from the fossil fuel industry too.