4 ms·

I first realized this while walking through Yosemite national park. I don’t think you can recreate that even if you had a trillion dollars. These sights and are

I first realized this while walking through Yosemite national park. I don’t think you can recreate that even if you had a trillion dollars. These sights and areas are literally priceless. The stark fact is that economic growth as we know it today will come to an end at some point on a finite planet like ours. For those who want an extremely meticulous and data driven analysis of the same I recommend reading Vaclav Smils work. I’m just sharing what I learned. There are many websites that calculate your “earth footprint”. Ie how many earths are needed if everyone lived the same as you. My earth footprint was 4 earths ! All 8 billion of us cannot live like Americans or even Europeans. And then there is climate change. There’s no known cheap energy substitutes on the horizon. Tesla’s are for now completely coal powered. The amount hydro carbons consumed is still increasing every year. For things like making steel, fertilizer or cement we cannot even begin to design good scalable solar powered methods. Solar plants have a very low load factor. It often only generates 30 % of its installed capacity. So you need to over build by 3x of what you need. Assuming we also need solar power for cars we are talking about building 10x the capacity of all existing energy infrastructure and not to talk about storage. The existing energy grid is crumbling in many places and we are talking about trillions of dollars in spending to build new high voltage DC transmission to make solar scalable. The world population will be 10-12 billion by 2100. Its hard to imagine how everyone will have a first world lifestyle without completely trashing the planet.

ttt0 6y ago
> There are many websites that calculate your “earth footprint”. Ie how many earths are needed if everyone lived the same as you. My earth footprint was 4 earths ! What kind of metric even is that? What does it even mean, Google doesn't say anything.
- ttt0 6y ago
  Found this cutesy site ( https://www.footprintcalculator.org https://www.footprintcalculator.org ), did the test and apparently just because I eat a decent amount of meat and heat my house so I don't freeze to death, I'm using two point something Earths (whatever that means). Everything else is way below average. When I clicked on "How do you feel" about my Earth footprint, it presents me only with the choices: Shocked, Inspired, Helpless, Intrigued, Worried, Embarrassed and Confused. Nice propaganda, but I feel okay about myself. If this is in any way accurate and what I'm doing is too much for the climate to handle then I officially don't care about the climate. I'm not going to just roll over and die for the greater good, sorry. As a bonus, I throw in a recently fired MA official, saying that most emissions come from residential heating and they need to "break our will" for doing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxVGmgykA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxVGmgykA4
  - thewarrior 6y ago
    I’m not judging anyone’s choices. But I think it’s difficult to think about the kind of world we maybe leaving behind for our grandchildren. If your lifestyle needs 2 earths that point will be hit for the whole earth pretty soon. Wars are the most likely outcome. The first world will have to maintain their living standards by force and keep out the climate refugees.
    - ttt0 6y ago
      I already live a minimalist lifestyle, not because of the climate, but because I simply prefer it that way. If this is not enough, then the climate will be the least of concerns for our grandchildren. > Wars are the most likely outcome. Yes, that should go without saying. Not cooperation, but endless wars between nations over scarce resources. Or being subjegated by the world elites and basically soviet style communism. Millions starved to death, because one commissar decided that one particular country eats too much and it's bad for the climate. Assuming any of this is true, which I'm told it is.
  - shmageggy 6y ago
    Wow, that site is trash. How did I “feel” after taking the quiz? Pretty annoyed that it was trying to guilt trip me into regressing to subsistence farming levels rather than thinking in any critical way how our industries and economies might be making a reasonable lifestyle much less sustainable than it could be. I went back and adjusted the responses to get 1 earth level, and the result is ridiculous. There’s zero chance we’ll convince 7+ billion people to be zero-waste vegans who live crammed into a tiny apartment and essentially never travel anywhere. And I don’t think we need to! Even assuming their math is correct (of which I’m highly suspect), why should we accept that the solution is to roll over and die (as you nicely put it) rather than improve agricultural methods, energy generation efficiency and sustainability, transportation efficiency, policies that fail to discourage inefficiency, etc, etc, etc. It’s such a thoughtless and uninspired (and uninspiring) take. edit: ok, after poking around a bit more it seems their proposed solutions are more inline with common sense than it appeared initially. But wow what a terrible way to communicate and inspire people.
- anemoiac 6y ago
  It’s based on some estimate of sustainable consumption, i.e. the earth can sustainably support everyone if their average footprint is “1 earth.” Any higher level of consumption is unsustainable. I’ve seen multiple variations on this concept, so you’d likely have to consult their specific methodologies to figure out how they determine what is sustainable.
teruakohatu 6y ago
> The world population will be 10-12 billion by 2100. Its hard to imagine how everyone will have a first world lifestyle without completely trashing the planet. The global annual population growth rate is plummeting. Many countries are well below replacement rates for fertility. While poorer countries lag behind, the world's population is going to peak then decline. > The stark fact is that economic growth as we know it today will come to an end at some point on a finite planet like ours. Maybe, but that is a long long way off. Economic growth comes not just from resource extraction, but making greater use of resources than we did before. A raspberry pi zero costs a few dollars and is made with grams of plastic, sand and copper. Only 50 years ago a multi room sized company using tons of metal, requiring a huge amount of energy to run, would have been less powerful. This does not mean we won't damage the earth. What is means is we need to try harder not to do so.
- thewarrior 6y ago
  Information technology is an exception. Nothing in the world improves at that rate. It also doesn’t do much to satisfy our material needs for things like housing, food and basic transportation. The effects of the computer on economic output are far smaller than electricity or the industrial revolution. You can make your car more fuel efficient but there cannot be a car that doesn’t use fuel. There are physical limits to efficiency and how much work can be extracted. Efficient isn’t infinite. We need to scale current high living standards 10x from 1.5 billion to 10 billion while having no discernible impact on the biosphere. Already 70 % of ice free land is shaped by humans for crops or grazing. Inspite of all this a billion people still living in crippling poverty often going hungry. The scale of the problem is seriously under estimated.
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    > Nothing in the world improves at that rate. This is a bit of a no true scotsman argument. Everything is improving. Look at the past 100 years. Agricultural output has been skyrocketing. Transport of people are cargo has become vastly more efficient, cheaper and safer. Healthcare is barley recognisable today than it did 100 years ago. Look at solar compared to 20 years ago. And while you discount IT, it has had a huge improvement on every single industry.

ttt0 6y ago

> There are many websites that calculate your “earth footprint”. Ie how many earths are needed if everyone lived the same as you. My earth footprint was 4 earths ! What kind of metric even is that? What does it even mean, Google doesn't say anything.

ttt0 6y ago
Found this cutesy site ( https://www.footprintcalculator.org https://www.footprintcalculator.org ), did the test and apparently just because I eat a decent amount of meat and heat my house so I don't freeze to death, I'm using two point something Earths (whatever that means). Everything else is way below average. When I clicked on "How do you feel" about my Earth footprint, it presents me only with the choices: Shocked, Inspired, Helpless, Intrigued, Worried, Embarrassed and Confused. Nice propaganda, but I feel okay about myself. If this is in any way accurate and what I'm doing is too much for the climate to handle then I officially don't care about the climate. I'm not going to just roll over and die for the greater good, sorry. As a bonus, I throw in a recently fired MA official, saying that most emissions come from residential heating and they need to "break our will" for doing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxVGmgykA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxVGmgykA4
- thewarrior 6y ago
  I’m not judging anyone’s choices. But I think it’s difficult to think about the kind of world we maybe leaving behind for our grandchildren. If your lifestyle needs 2 earths that point will be hit for the whole earth pretty soon. Wars are the most likely outcome. The first world will have to maintain their living standards by force and keep out the climate refugees.
  - ttt0 6y ago
    I already live a minimalist lifestyle, not because of the climate, but because I simply prefer it that way. If this is not enough, then the climate will be the least of concerns for our grandchildren. > Wars are the most likely outcome. Yes, that should go without saying. Not cooperation, but endless wars between nations over scarce resources. Or being subjegated by the world elites and basically soviet style communism. Millions starved to death, because one commissar decided that one particular country eats too much and it's bad for the climate. Assuming any of this is true, which I'm told it is.
- shmageggy 6y ago
  Wow, that site is trash. How did I “feel” after taking the quiz? Pretty annoyed that it was trying to guilt trip me into regressing to subsistence farming levels rather than thinking in any critical way how our industries and economies might be making a reasonable lifestyle much less sustainable than it could be. I went back and adjusted the responses to get 1 earth level, and the result is ridiculous. There’s zero chance we’ll convince 7+ billion people to be zero-waste vegans who live crammed into a tiny apartment and essentially never travel anywhere. And I don’t think we need to! Even assuming their math is correct (of which I’m highly suspect), why should we accept that the solution is to roll over and die (as you nicely put it) rather than improve agricultural methods, energy generation efficiency and sustainability, transportation efficiency, policies that fail to discourage inefficiency, etc, etc, etc. It’s such a thoughtless and uninspired (and uninspiring) take. edit: ok, after poking around a bit more it seems their proposed solutions are more inline with common sense than it appeared initially. But wow what a terrible way to communicate and inspire people.
anemoiac 6y ago
It’s based on some estimate of sustainable consumption, i.e. the earth can sustainably support everyone if their average footprint is “1 earth.” Any higher level of consumption is unsustainable. I’ve seen multiple variations on this concept, so you’d likely have to consult their specific methodologies to figure out how they determine what is sustainable.

teruakohatu 6y ago

> The world population will be 10-12 billion by 2100. Its hard to imagine how everyone will have a first world lifestyle without completely trashing the planet. The global annual population growth rate is plummeting. Many countries are well below replacement rates for fertility. While poorer countries lag behind, the world's population is going to peak then decline. > The stark fact is that economic growth as we know it today will come to an end at some point on a finite planet like ours. Maybe, but that is a long long way off. Economic growth comes not just from resource extraction, but making greater use of resources than we did before. A raspberry pi zero costs a few dollars and is made with grams of plastic, sand and copper. Only 50 years ago a multi room sized company using tons of metal, requiring a huge amount of energy to run, would have been less powerful. This does not mean we won't damage the earth. What is means is we need to try harder not to do so.

thewarrior 6y ago
Information technology is an exception. Nothing in the world improves at that rate. It also doesn’t do much to satisfy our material needs for things like housing, food and basic transportation. The effects of the computer on economic output are far smaller than electricity or the industrial revolution. You can make your car more fuel efficient but there cannot be a car that doesn’t use fuel. There are physical limits to efficiency and how much work can be extracted. Efficient isn’t infinite. We need to scale current high living standards 10x from 1.5 billion to 10 billion while having no discernible impact on the biosphere. Already 70 % of ice free land is shaped by humans for crops or grazing. Inspite of all this a billion people still living in crippling poverty often going hungry. The scale of the problem is seriously under estimated.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  > Nothing in the world improves at that rate. This is a bit of a no true scotsman argument. Everything is improving. Look at the past 100 years. Agricultural output has been skyrocketing. Transport of people are cargo has become vastly more efficient, cheaper and safer. Healthcare is barley recognisable today than it did 100 years ago. Look at solar compared to 20 years ago. And while you discount IT, it has had a huge improvement on every single industry.