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Pragmatically its more a return to old-style living in many ways but will seem radical to groups addicted to modern lifestyles.

pif 7y ago
Pragmatically, it's a non starter. Global warming is here to stay: better learn to cope with it!
- coldtea 7y ago
  A, don't worry about it. After the first hundred million corpses, tons of measures will be taken, very pragmatically...
adrianN 7y ago
No, 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 ago
  Indeed, 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 ago
    The 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 ago
      Population 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 ago
        Population 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 ago
        And 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.
        adrianN 7y ago
        Unless you plan on killing the top 90% GHG emitters over the next fifteen years or so, reducing population levels is not an option. Slowing population growth is important, but it's not a solution.
        NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        One of the problems we have is people not being able to take a long term view. Everything has always to work within 5 years... Result: nothing is done. What I wrote should have started at least 30 years ago. As the saying goes, the next best time to start is now.
        adrianN 7y ago
  - free_bread 7y ago
    No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. Top priority is getting the first world to cut down it's emissions and make green technology accessible for developing countries so they don't follow the same path Population growth is not conveniently forgotten, it's brought up constantly in any discussion. It just isn't the cause of our current situation and won't be significantly adding to it in the time frame that the west needs to adjust
    - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
      > No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. For now. Developing countries like China and India are the ones adding the most because that's what happens when a huge population is brought out of poverty. Emissions are far from being the only environmental problem. Population is obviously the main cause of the pressure we put on the environment and of our current situation. As I said top priorities are both cutting emissions and putting the brakes on population growth and aim at reducing population.
      - free_bread 7y ago
        Increasing population will be a contributor in the future if we do not change our technology, but that does not matter because even if everyone but the west (who has a stable population level) stopped emitting carbon we'd still be screwed Focusing on reducing population is literally preemptive optimization on something that may or may not be a problem depending on the trajectory of energy/production over the next 10 years. It is also just a polite way of saying eugenics
        NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        It is already a massive problem and it will only get worse. Again, emissions are only a small part of the pressure we put on the environment. Deforestation, loss of natural habitat, dwindling fish stocks, pollution at large, and indeed emissions: These are all caused by ever more people needing ever more resources. This has nothing to do with eugenics, which has a completely different meaning.
- jnurmine 7y ago
  Triggering 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.

pif 7y ago

Pragmatically, it's a non starter. Global warming is here to stay: better learn to cope with it!

coldtea 7y ago
A, don't worry about it. After the first hundred million corpses, tons of measures will be taken, very pragmatically...

adrianN 7y ago

No, 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 ago
Indeed, 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    Population 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 ago
      Population 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 ago
        And 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.
        adrianN 7y ago
        Unless you plan on killing the top 90% GHG emitters over the next fifteen years or so, reducing population levels is not an option. Slowing population growth is important, but it's not a solution.
        NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        One of the problems we have is people not being able to take a long term view. Everything has always to work within 5 years... Result: nothing is done. What I wrote should have started at least 30 years ago. As the saying goes, the next best time to start is now.
        adrianN 7y ago
- free_bread 7y ago
  No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. Top priority is getting the first world to cut down it's emissions and make green technology accessible for developing countries so they don't follow the same path Population growth is not conveniently forgotten, it's brought up constantly in any discussion. It just isn't the cause of our current situation and won't be significantly adding to it in the time frame that the west needs to adjust
  - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
    > No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. For now. Developing countries like China and India are the ones adding the most because that's what happens when a huge population is brought out of poverty. Emissions are far from being the only environmental problem. Population is obviously the main cause of the pressure we put on the environment and of our current situation. As I said top priorities are both cutting emissions and putting the brakes on population growth and aim at reducing population.
    - free_bread 7y ago
      Increasing population will be a contributor in the future if we do not change our technology, but that does not matter because even if everyone but the west (who has a stable population level) stopped emitting carbon we'd still be screwed Focusing on reducing population is literally preemptive optimization on something that may or may not be a problem depending on the trajectory of energy/production over the next 10 years. It is also just a polite way of saying eugenics
      - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        It is already a massive problem and it will only get worse. Again, emissions are only a small part of the pressure we put on the environment. Deforestation, loss of natural habitat, dwindling fish stocks, pollution at large, and indeed emissions: These are all caused by ever more people needing ever more resources. This has nothing to do with eugenics, which has a completely different meaning.
jnurmine 7y ago
Triggering 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.