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I think so too... but the political fallout from the job loses is too great. It reminds me of the oil industry in America. It's clearly harmful, it and clearly

I think so too... but the political fallout from the job loses is too great. It reminds me of the oil industry in America. It's clearly harmful, it and clearly needs to be reduced going forward, but no one wants to be the one to do it, so the can just gets kicked further down the road.

xyzzyz 6y ago
No one wants to do it, because our entire society is dependent on oil industry. It’s not about job losses: society at large won’t care about job loss of some relatively small part of population. It hasn’t cared for loss of coal miner jobs, and it won’t care about oil either. What they do care about is their ability to get places, to heat their homes, to buy inexpensive food and consumer products etc. When they are able to do that in a way that doesn’t depend on oil, they won’t shed a single tear after the death of oil industry. However, as of now, killing oil industry would be exceedingly stupid, because the alternatives to it are not yet available to fully replace oil use cases. We are slowly getting there, though.
- de_keyboard 6y ago
  I don't think we can eliminate fossil fuels usage entirely, but we can dramatically reduce our usage. Consider that the carbon output per person in the USA is roughly double that in Europe. Europeans live pretty comfortable lives imo. And besides, something has to give eventually. It is much better to manage the change than have it forced upon you.
throw0101a 6y ago
> I think so too... but the political fallout from the job loses is too great. Folks should look at Canada and cod collapse: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north... At some point, you may not have a choice. Better to dial things down over years to prepare people.
krisgee 6y ago
It should literally remind you of the east coast cod fishery in Canada which was once the most productive fishery in the world and is now basically nothing. It got wrecked by giant all in one factory trawlers out competing local boats, causing a feedback effect where to complete you needed trawlers as well helped along by a corrupt government that was willfully ignorant of the situation until (almost literally) one day there just weren't any fish left. That destroyed an entire region's economy (a region I happen to be from), and has led to generational depression, joblessness and frankly hopelessness.
- Retric 6y ago
  That’s not quite what happened, Canada banned foreign fishing well before the collapse. Unfortunately, they simply set the allowed catch vastly to large, ignoring internal recommendations to half it, and caused a near total collapse almost a decade later.

xyzzyz 6y ago

No one wants to do it, because our entire society is dependent on oil industry. It’s not about job losses: society at large won’t care about job loss of some relatively small part of population. It hasn’t cared for loss of coal miner jobs, and it won’t care about oil either. What they do care about is their ability to get places, to heat their homes, to buy inexpensive food and consumer products etc. When they are able to do that in a way that doesn’t depend on oil, they won’t shed a single tear after the death of oil industry. However, as of now, killing oil industry would be exceedingly stupid, because the alternatives to it are not yet available to fully replace oil use cases. We are slowly getting there, though.

de_keyboard 6y ago
I don't think we can eliminate fossil fuels usage entirely, but we can dramatically reduce our usage. Consider that the carbon output per person in the USA is roughly double that in Europe. Europeans live pretty comfortable lives imo. And besides, something has to give eventually. It is much better to manage the change than have it forced upon you.

throw0101a 6y ago

> I think so too... but the political fallout from the job loses is too great. Folks should look at Canada and cod collapse: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north... At some point, you may not have a choice. Better to dial things down over years to prepare people.

krisgee 6y ago

It should literally remind you of the east coast cod fishery in Canada which was once the most productive fishery in the world and is now basically nothing. It got wrecked by giant all in one factory trawlers out competing local boats, causing a feedback effect where to complete you needed trawlers as well helped along by a corrupt government that was willfully ignorant of the situation until (almost literally) one day there just weren't any fish left. That destroyed an entire region's economy (a region I happen to be from), and has led to generational depression, joblessness and frankly hopelessness.

Retric 6y ago
That’s not quite what happened, Canada banned foreign fishing well before the collapse. Unfortunately, they simply set the allowed catch vastly to large, ignoring internal recommendations to half it, and caused a near total collapse almost a decade later.