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There is a general hope that science will save the world from the mess it is in. I think this have been part of the problem all the way trough the last century
by quijoteuniv 6y ago
There is a general hope that science will save the world from the mess it is in. I think this have been part of the problem all the way trough the last century.
- nsoonhui 6y agoWhy?
- pm90 6y agoScience and engineering have actually helped us address ecological challenges in a way we could not have imagined. It’s science that allowed us to extract coal and stop depleting forests at incredible rates. Science that allowed us to extract oil and gas powering the economic growth and prosperity unprecedented at any other time in human history. Science gave us Renewables too... today, it’s mostly a question of whether we have the political will to commit to mobilize on a large scale to convert to clean energy and end the inevitable climate catastrophe. If we survive intact, science will give us even better tools to deal with the problems we face. There is so much we don’t know about our universe. We have barely scratched the surface of the earth, barely discovered what lies outside our immediate planetary neighborhood, barely understood the biochemistry of us even....
- barry-cotter 6y agoSince 1950 lifespan and healthspan have increased on every continent. In every continent bar Africa wealth per person has increased as has education level. Seems to be working well enough so far.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoDestruction of the earth has increased and even accelerated too. Forests, corals, and vertebrate populations have been decimated.
- collyw 6y agoOverpopulation seems to be a root of a lot of the problems.
- yipbub 6y agoThis is disputed.
- collyw 6y agoIn terms of resources being used by by the planets ability to regenerate them it seems to be true. Too many people consuming too much. And that's with billions living very modest lifestyles.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y agoWhich people consume what? Many consume very little and a few consume far too much. You can't say the average/sum is the problem when a minority is ruining everything.
- eeZah7Ux 6y agoSpot on! It's obvious that a 10x smaller human population would have a 10x smaller environmental impact (assuming the same behaviors and lifestyle) However, what is killing us is overproduction, overconsumption and a whole economic model devoid of sustainability goals. "Overpopulation" is used by some people as a diversion tactic.
- cool_dude85 6y agoAsk them how to solve the "overpopulation" problem, and you'll find that for many of the people who bring it up, it's a lot worse than a diversion tactic.
- anonymou2 6y agoNot if you accept that the earth is a sphere (and hence finite).
- bclemens 6y ago> In every continent bar Africa wealth per person has increased https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
- barry-cotter 6y agoGDP per capita is a measure of consumption. Consumption has increased on every continent bar Africa since WW2. People are a lot less poor. If you want an illustration of this look at this graph of the cost of 66 technologies dropping over the 1951-2013 period. That’s people getting richer. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/costs-of-66-different-technologies-over-time https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/costs-of-66-different-tec... This is increases in broad based prosperity, the same kind of thing we think about when we consider how antibiotics went from cutting edge technology to ho hum, or how air conditioning made large parts of the world amenable to industrial civilization. You know the kind that reduces poverty.
- andbberger 6y agoLife expectancy is decreasing in the states
- quijoteuniv 6y agoThat is a good point. Lifespan/health has improved and that is great. I refer however to the matter that many people would just sit back and read a half cooked news about a mushroom that eat plastic, «with the hope science wil fix it» instead of taking a real possible action within their reach to improve conditions on earth.
- eru 6y agoIt hasn't increase in Africa?
- barry-cotter 6y agoI’m not confident it has. It hadn’t as of 2000. Population growth in Africa has been break neck for decades. It’s looking like there might finally be some major success stories there this century, like Ethiopia and Nigeria.
- eru 6y agoMakes sense. I remember reading that Africa had some decent economic growth more recently. But yeah, the time before 2000 was rather bleak.
- TMWNN 6y agoAs barry-cotter said, no. From 1961 to 2015 (http://www.worldeconomics.com/papers/Global%20Growth%20Monitor_7c66ffca-ff86-4e4c-979d-7c5d7a22ef21.paper http://www.worldeconomics.com/papers/Global%20Growth%20Monit...), real GDP per capita in Africa grew by 1.1% annually (!), compared to 3.9% for Asia, 1.7% for the Americas, and 2.2% for Europe. Growth from 2001 to 2010 of 2.9% is included in that figure; it was the first decade in that period in which Africa outgrew any other continent. GDP per capita in US 1990 dollars (http://www.worldeconomics.com/Data/MadisonHistoricalGDP/Madison%20Historical%20GDP%20Data.efp http://www.worldeconomics.com/Data/MadisonHistoricalGDP/Madi...) for several African countries: Country | 1980 | 2008 -------------|------|------ Algeria | 3152 | 3520 Botswana | 1765 | 4769 Cameroon | 1192 | 1212 Gabon | 6777 | 3811 Ivory Coast | 2041 | 1095 Kenya | 1051 | 1098 Liberia | 1162 | 802 Madagacar | 1054 | 730 Malawi | 630 | 744 Mauritius | 4367 | 14529 Niger | 810 | 514 Nigeria | 1305 | 1524 Seychelles | 4444 | 6109 South Africa | 4390 | 4793 Zimbabwe | 1295 | 779 For every Mauritius, Botswana, and Seychelles there is a Zimbabwe, Niger, and Ivory Coast.
- eru 6y agoThanks for getting so numbers. But why do you agree with the comment saying real GDP per capita in Africa hasn't increased in the same sentence that you say it has increased (by 1.1% annually)? (Though a slight wrinkle is that your sentence talks about GDP and the original comment was about wealth.) And I know that 1.1% isn't great. But it's bigger than zero. And compared to humanities historical average before the industrial revolution of basically 0%, 1.1% is enormous. The much vaunted industrial revolution had Britain at not more than 1.25%. Boring by today's standards, but absolutely game changing compared to what came before.
- parksy 6y agoScience can point the direction, but it takes the will of large populations of individuals to put in the effort to achieve any kind of positive outcome. That will has been continually undermined and attacked by anti-science rhetoric driven by economic and political interests, culminating in our modern "alternative facts" anti-reality bubbles so many people seem lost inside of. People need to move beyond hope into action, populations need to value education, learning, and the discipline to undertake massive endeavours if the knowledge gained through careful science is to have any value at all to humanity. "Sure but what's in it for me."