5 ms·

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how c

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how can we continue to enjoy our lives and the standard of living we have achieved, and continue to bring more of the world to that level, in a way that is sustainable long term. There are lots of promising routes to making this happen, and we have already seen lots of progress towards reducing environmental impact. But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living, to reduce our freedom to make our own choices, and to enforce some kind of forced mediocrity that will help ration our natural resources. I reject this (and weaker versions of it) and believe there is more to be gained by focusing on progress than on telling people what to do.

abyssin 6y ago
This is the best summary of why we're so well headed to a catastrophe. It seems that be definition, you won't accept any reduction of your standard of living. What if there's no way around it? Your standard of living relies on exploiting amounts of energy equivalent to several hundred slaves per person. That amount of energy can't be found in renewable sources only. How much of a slave master am I? https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/energy-and-us/how-much-of-a-slave-master-am-i/ https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/energy-and-us/how...
- m_mueller 6y ago
  > That amount of energy can't be found in renewable sources only. 1.) overall humanity is still very inefficient at extracting productivity & comfort from energy. e.g. there is no inherent reason why buildings should need any energy flow to stay at a comfortable temperature. GP did not argue against reducing energy needs but against trying to make people reduce their quality of life. 2.) even at the current consumption I'm not so sure that 10Bn people could not be sustained. there's a hell of a lot of energy incident by the sun, it's just a matter of storing it where we have scaling issues. a whole bunch of battery tech ideas could help with that. Overall I don't think we're that far from mass producing net energy positive houses (solar roof + industrial battery + near perfect isolation through e.g. low pressure zone in a double wall system). Inhabitants could either sell their energy on the market or use it for their transport needs.
- ampdepolymerase 6y ago
  The arrogance of software engineers to believe that a few joules saved would make a difference. Humanity can spread to the stars and we still won't make a significant dent in the overall entropy changes in the universe even after billions of years. Energy consumption is a false herring for moral superiority and control. Replace the traditional Church with environmental activists and you have your modern climate change politics. Climate change is primarily due to increased heat capture caused by emissions. We have plenty of ways to generate clean energy without harmful emissions, nor excuses for social control.
  - woleium 6y ago
    Energy consumption as it relates to the generation of latent heat at the planet surface is not a red herring though.
ihsw 6y ago
How do you reconcile the fact that the best technical solutions will not be adopted without political buy-in, let alone cultural buy-in? We have seen how COVID19 policies have been embraced by some but utterly rejected by others, and the rejection is not without merit (see: Florida and Gov DeSantis.)
user-the-name 6y ago
You know what will drastically reduce your standard of living? Climate change. Sure, it would be lovely to find a solution that would require no sacrifice from anyone. That is what everyone wants. It doesn't exist. If it did, do you think people have just been ignoring it? When it is exactly what everyone wants? No. Sacrifice is required, to avoid an even greater sacrifice in the future. And it is time for you to step up and take responsibility, and act towards that end goal.
- whitepaint 6y ago
  > It doesn't exist. ... No. Sacrifice is required ... That is a very myopic view.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    No, what is myopic is demanding that a problem be solved without you having to put any effort into it yourself. To demand that things carry on as normal in the face of oncoming catastrophy. That is myopic in the extreme.
    - iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
      Not sure who you're responding to that advocated for that. But the closest I can see is the original post suggesting the that people join a protest group. Lobbying the government to force others to behave as you want, and not proposing an actual solution, is pretty close to demanding that a problem be solved without putting any effort in yourself.
      - user-the-name 6y ago
        > But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living
- junon 6y ago
  > It doesn't exist. This has been decided? By who? When? Can you prove this?
imtringued 6y ago
> I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. I don't see it. You just deploy some existing technology that is slightly more expensive upfront but cheaper in the long run. You turn off old technology that is not compatible with the goal. You can make the technology cheaper by simply putting more money into it and deploying it more. There is literally nothing left to do other than doing it. Power generation technology like nuclear, solar, wind will get cheaper the more you deploy. You cannot just wait it out and hope that it gets cheaper on its own. It gets cheaper precisely because you keep deploying more and more and more. The same applies to electric cars. As you keep deploying them newer cars will be cheaper or have greater capabilities. One day people will wonder why we even insisted on the old way of doing things. It's purely about cooperation and thus politics. >But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living, to reduce our freedom to make our own choices, and to enforce some kind of forced mediocrity that will help ration our natural resources. I reject this (and weaker versions of it) and believe there is more to be gained by focusing on progress than on telling people what to do. Obviously, progress is the only answer if we want a solution for everyone. There are lots of people who simply are indifferent. If you give them a good enough compromise they are going to switch over to your side. If you tell them that they are bad people and should change their behavior they are going to do nothing, find reasons to tell you that you are wrong or just join the opposite side because they hate being criticized for something that they do not have influence over and now get to criticize you in return.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- culopatin 6y ago
  It’s like if your home is flooding and you ask your family/roommate to help but you decide against it because instead of just doing it for their own sake of survival, they charge you an hourly rate and it’s just too expensive, so you both die. We always talk about money but money won’t mean anything without the people to use it. I am personally willing to devote part of my time to work for free towards building a solution that is being ignored just because someone said it’s too expensive.
the_other 6y ago
I agree that we could be more creative in approaching the quality-of-life/resource-use balance (including in favour of improving quality of life). However, we could have started that conversation and research back in the 1970s when the science started to tell us we needed to. But we didn’t. This is absolutely a problem of politics and power above a technical problem.

abyssin 6y ago

This is the best summary of why we're so well headed to a catastrophe. It seems that be definition, you won't accept any reduction of your standard of living. What if there's no way around it? Your standard of living relies on exploiting amounts of energy equivalent to several hundred slaves per person. That amount of energy can't be found in renewable sources only. How much of a slave master am I? https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/energy-and-us/how-much-of-a-slave-master-am-i/ https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/energy-and-us/how...

m_mueller 6y ago
> That amount of energy can't be found in renewable sources only. 1.) overall humanity is still very inefficient at extracting productivity & comfort from energy. e.g. there is no inherent reason why buildings should need any energy flow to stay at a comfortable temperature. GP did not argue against reducing energy needs but against trying to make people reduce their quality of life. 2.) even at the current consumption I'm not so sure that 10Bn people could not be sustained. there's a hell of a lot of energy incident by the sun, it's just a matter of storing it where we have scaling issues. a whole bunch of battery tech ideas could help with that. Overall I don't think we're that far from mass producing net energy positive houses (solar roof + industrial battery + near perfect isolation through e.g. low pressure zone in a double wall system). Inhabitants could either sell their energy on the market or use it for their transport needs.
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
The arrogance of software engineers to believe that a few joules saved would make a difference. Humanity can spread to the stars and we still won't make a significant dent in the overall entropy changes in the universe even after billions of years. Energy consumption is a false herring for moral superiority and control. Replace the traditional Church with environmental activists and you have your modern climate change politics. Climate change is primarily due to increased heat capture caused by emissions. We have plenty of ways to generate clean energy without harmful emissions, nor excuses for social control.
- woleium 6y ago
  Energy consumption as it relates to the generation of latent heat at the planet surface is not a red herring though.

ihsw 6y ago

How do you reconcile the fact that the best technical solutions will not be adopted without political buy-in, let alone cultural buy-in? We have seen how COVID19 policies have been embraced by some but utterly rejected by others, and the rejection is not without merit (see: Florida and Gov DeSantis.)

user-the-name 6y ago

You know what will drastically reduce your standard of living? Climate change. Sure, it would be lovely to find a solution that would require no sacrifice from anyone. That is what everyone wants. It doesn't exist. If it did, do you think people have just been ignoring it? When it is exactly what everyone wants? No. Sacrifice is required, to avoid an even greater sacrifice in the future. And it is time for you to step up and take responsibility, and act towards that end goal.

whitepaint 6y ago
> It doesn't exist. ... No. Sacrifice is required ... That is a very myopic view.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  No, what is myopic is demanding that a problem be solved without you having to put any effort into it yourself. To demand that things carry on as normal in the face of oncoming catastrophy. That is myopic in the extreme.
  - iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
    Not sure who you're responding to that advocated for that. But the closest I can see is the original post suggesting the that people join a protest group. Lobbying the government to force others to behave as you want, and not proposing an actual solution, is pretty close to demanding that a problem be solved without putting any effort in yourself.
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      > But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living
junon 6y ago
> It doesn't exist. This has been decided? By who? When? Can you prove this?

imtringued 6y ago

> I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. I don't see it. You just deploy some existing technology that is slightly more expensive upfront but cheaper in the long run. You turn off old technology that is not compatible with the goal. You can make the technology cheaper by simply putting more money into it and deploying it more. There is literally nothing left to do other than doing it. Power generation technology like nuclear, solar, wind will get cheaper the more you deploy. You cannot just wait it out and hope that it gets cheaper on its own. It gets cheaper precisely because you keep deploying more and more and more. The same applies to electric cars. As you keep deploying them newer cars will be cheaper or have greater capabilities. One day people will wonder why we even insisted on the old way of doing things. It's purely about cooperation and thus politics. >But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living, to reduce our freedom to make our own choices, and to enforce some kind of forced mediocrity that will help ration our natural resources. I reject this (and weaker versions of it) and believe there is more to be gained by focusing on progress than on telling people what to do. Obviously, progress is the only answer if we want a solution for everyone. There are lots of people who simply are indifferent. If you give them a good enough compromise they are going to switch over to your side. If you tell them that they are bad people and should change their behavior they are going to do nothing, find reasons to tell you that you are wrong or just join the opposite side because they hate being criticized for something that they do not have influence over and now get to criticize you in return.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
culopatin 6y ago
It’s like if your home is flooding and you ask your family/roommate to help but you decide against it because instead of just doing it for their own sake of survival, they charge you an hourly rate and it’s just too expensive, so you both die. We always talk about money but money won’t mean anything without the people to use it. I am personally willing to devote part of my time to work for free towards building a solution that is being ignored just because someone said it’s too expensive.

the_other 6y ago

I agree that we could be more creative in approaching the quality-of-life/resource-use balance (including in favour of improving quality of life). However, we could have started that conversation and research back in the 1970s when the science started to tell us we needed to. But we didn’t. This is absolutely a problem of politics and power above a technical problem.