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Nobody proposed growth at all costs, but I don't think we have the same understanding of what growth means. To wit: how does your standard of living "reach a ce

Nobody proposed growth at all costs, but I don't think we have the same understanding of what growth means. To wit: how does your standard of living "reach a certain point" without growth? How does your SoL get higher without growing your manufacturing capabilities; without growing your power generation capacity? We're neither a virus nor a cancer. We're the only thing that matters. The earth doesn't care if it dies. It doesn't have feelings. The last [insert endangered species here] doesn't know that it is the last of its kind, it doesn't care either. The only reason these things matter is because people care. The solution is therefore never going to be "make people's lives worse".

pmiller2 6y ago
Very easily. Share the wealth now, and population growth will slow. When there are fewer humans on the planet, standards of living will rise. If humanity can't accept the temporary reduction of some people's standard of living to save civilization, then there is no hope. Therefore, I choose to believe you are wrong here. Incidentally, the people who have made everyone's life worse aren't those who are going to fix the situation. They're those who kept borrowing from future generations to make their lives better.
- fastball 6y ago
  Ah, I see the problem. You think when I say "growth" I mean population growth. I do not. Well I do, but that's the minority of what I'm talking about when I say "growth". > If humanity can't accept the temporary reduction of some people's standard of living to save civilization, then there is no hope Citation very much needed. You asserting that we need to reduce certain people's SoL is not the same as demonstrating such, and neither you nor anyone else has done so. Don't know who you're referring to with your last statement, but OK.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    No, I mean growth in consumption. People borrowed from the future by consuming too much. It was, and is unsustainable. Reduction in population is the way to achieve reduction in consumption. Show me you're willing to be convinced, and I'll give you every citation you need.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Consumption of what? We know how to generate power with minimal CO2 emissions. We know how to recycle many (most) of the materials we use and are inventing new ones every day that don't need to have a negative environmental impact. We know how to capture carbon. We're getting better at these things every day. That rate of innovation slows the moment we decide to decrease SoL / attempt to cap populations / etc.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        No matter how you slice it, it all eventually comes down to energy. We know how to generate power with minimal CO2 emissions, but we don't do it at the necessary scale. We know how to recycle, but we don't actually do that, either, and it takes energy. And, capturing carbon... well, if you want to put the carbon genie back in the bottle, you have to either expend energy to do it, or violate the laws of thermodynamics. One cuts into the amount of energy you can consume, while the other is an impossibility. All this is just making the argument that we need to share the technology to do these things as broadly as possible, including throughout the global south. Do you or do you not believe there's a finite amount of energy we can expend and still remain sustainable? Essentially, we're limited to biomass (which puts carbon back in the air that was taken out of the air previously), nuclear, gravity (hydroelectric, more or less), and solar (solar panels, wind). To go past that, we need to get into fossil fuels, and be very, very careful we don't exceed the ability of the Earth to absorb the CO2 we put in the air. Unfortunately, we're coming close to exceeding the capacity of the Earth to absorb any nontrivial amount of CO2 and still remain broadly habitable, which is why we're having significant warming over the past several decades. As you said, humans are very pro-growth, which means we're really bad at respecting these sorts of limits. So, we need to remove the temptation to do so ASAP if we are to succeed. As for innovation, you just told me we have all the technology necessary to go net zero carbon, so, who cares about innovation in the short term? Do you want to watch the collapse of global civilization on your iPhone 15, or something? Honestly, as long as you're going to sit there and tell me we can capitalism our way out of a problem that was caused by capitalism, you're not convincing me that you can be convinced otherwise. You're literally espousing a position that capitalists refer to as "capitalist realism," which is essentially "we can't conceive of any alternative to capitalism, so, there is no alternative!" You know the definition of insanity, right? Tell me again why it makes sense that we're going to capitalism our way out of this?

pmiller2 6y ago

Very easily. Share the wealth now, and population growth will slow. When there are fewer humans on the planet, standards of living will rise. If humanity can't accept the temporary reduction of some people's standard of living to save civilization, then there is no hope. Therefore, I choose to believe you are wrong here. Incidentally, the people who have made everyone's life worse aren't those who are going to fix the situation. They're those who kept borrowing from future generations to make their lives better.

fastball 6y ago
Ah, I see the problem. You think when I say "growth" I mean population growth. I do not. Well I do, but that's the minority of what I'm talking about when I say "growth". > If humanity can't accept the temporary reduction of some people's standard of living to save civilization, then there is no hope Citation very much needed. You asserting that we need to reduce certain people's SoL is not the same as demonstrating such, and neither you nor anyone else has done so. Don't know who you're referring to with your last statement, but OK.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  No, I mean growth in consumption. People borrowed from the future by consuming too much. It was, and is unsustainable. Reduction in population is the way to achieve reduction in consumption. Show me you're willing to be convinced, and I'll give you every citation you need.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Consumption of what? We know how to generate power with minimal CO2 emissions. We know how to recycle many (most) of the materials we use and are inventing new ones every day that don't need to have a negative environmental impact. We know how to capture carbon. We're getting better at these things every day. That rate of innovation slows the moment we decide to decrease SoL / attempt to cap populations / etc.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      No matter how you slice it, it all eventually comes down to energy. We know how to generate power with minimal CO2 emissions, but we don't do it at the necessary scale. We know how to recycle, but we don't actually do that, either, and it takes energy. And, capturing carbon... well, if you want to put the carbon genie back in the bottle, you have to either expend energy to do it, or violate the laws of thermodynamics. One cuts into the amount of energy you can consume, while the other is an impossibility. All this is just making the argument that we need to share the technology to do these things as broadly as possible, including throughout the global south. Do you or do you not believe there's a finite amount of energy we can expend and still remain sustainable? Essentially, we're limited to biomass (which puts carbon back in the air that was taken out of the air previously), nuclear, gravity (hydroelectric, more or less), and solar (solar panels, wind). To go past that, we need to get into fossil fuels, and be very, very careful we don't exceed the ability of the Earth to absorb the CO2 we put in the air. Unfortunately, we're coming close to exceeding the capacity of the Earth to absorb any nontrivial amount of CO2 and still remain broadly habitable, which is why we're having significant warming over the past several decades. As you said, humans are very pro-growth, which means we're really bad at respecting these sorts of limits. So, we need to remove the temptation to do so ASAP if we are to succeed. As for innovation, you just told me we have all the technology necessary to go net zero carbon, so, who cares about innovation in the short term? Do you want to watch the collapse of global civilization on your iPhone 15, or something? Honestly, as long as you're going to sit there and tell me we can capitalism our way out of a problem that was caused by capitalism, you're not convincing me that you can be convinced otherwise. You're literally espousing a position that capitalists refer to as "capitalist realism," which is essentially "we can't conceive of any alternative to capitalism, so, there is no alternative!" You know the definition of insanity, right? Tell me again why it makes sense that we're going to capitalism our way out of this?