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Can we improve things? Sure. Should we invest in improving things? Absolutely. Neither of those permits the kind of pervasive magical thinking people have wher

Can we improve things? Sure. Should we invest in improving things? Absolutely. Neither of those permits the kind of pervasive magical thinking people have where we can somehow raise even a fraction of our 7 billion people to anything approximating a typical Western lifestyle without further accelerating environmental collapse. Or even maintaining the number of people with such a lifestyle that we currently do. Our planet fundamentally lacks the resources for sustained consumption anywhere near the scale we're operating at, no matter how green we try to make things. Even just on a purely thermodynamic level we're running out of energy budget without overheating the planet[1]. And that's completely ignoring greenhouse gases. [1]: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

shkkmo 6y ago
I think you'd be surprised as how sustainabily we could approximate the western standard of living if we had the will power to try as a whole society. There would certainly be sacrifices, but I suspect we would also gain significant quality if life improvements. What this requires is a change of mindset and I don't think attitudes like yours help. We are hundreds of years from that thermodynamic limit at our current exponential growth rate, but that growth may be slowing as population growth slows. It is also quite likely that extraplanetary energy sources could be available by then. I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument. Lack of resources are a common cause of war. Lack of resources was a problem for humanity for its entire existence and only in the last 100 years has it ceased to be a problem. I'd love it if people voluntarily decided to keep this abundance state going instead of doing the usual party everything away until it's gone behavior.
  - shkkmo 6y ago
    What lack of resources are you talking about? You comment seems completely disconnected from what you are replying to.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  >I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? The argument is that its magical thinking that the earth, which has finite resources, can support an infinite number of people, if we only, "manage the resources right". Its a question of reality, not morality, but unfortunately some have a hard time separating the two concepts. > Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument. Nobody has to be killed off, but what we should be doing is setting as a goal sustainable population levels in the future through reproduction. This isn't to suggest people should be prevented from having children, but that our policy goals should incentive having fewer children. Right now are policies are the opposite - we offer subsidies to people to have children. What if we offered subsidies to people who didn't have any children? Of course people will inevitably raise the straw man economic argument, "we need more young people to pay for our older people". The fact is that we have a glut of unskilled labor that is only growing due to automation and increased overpopulation. The unsustainability of our debt-based economy is, unfortunately, not a function of population and will have to be reckoned with on its own.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 6y ago
    This is a bizarre argument to make in a world where every 1st world nation is on the cusp of negative population growth. The biggest problem we have is we have is that not enough people have access to a western lifestyle, which has been extremely effective at reducing birthrates to or below replacement levels. Population-based sustainability arguments are a deflection from the actual hard work, which is reducing CO2 emissions and preserving ecosystems. Because they have nothing to say and no knowledge to contribute about actual sustainability, and reliably go nowhere.
  - shkkmo 6y ago
    > its magical thinking that the earth, which has finite resources, can support an infinite number of people, if we only, "manage the resources right" I have not met a single person that thinks the earth can support an infinite number of people. If that is the position you are arguing against, I believe it is a strawman and a waste of your time. > Nobody has to be killed off, but what we should be doing is setting as a goal sustainable population levels in the future through reproduction. Global population growth has been slowing for half a century. If you are concerned about reducing it further, western "baby subsidies" aren't a good place to start. The main place you would have to look is Africa since that is expected be the source for the majority of population growth over the next 50 years. If this line of thought is still making sense to you, you are veering dangerously close to ecofacism and genocide. IMHO, the only remotely ethical way to reduce population growth is to mirror the factors that lead to declining birth rates in the west (i.e. prosperity and social stability.) This means that the only ethical way to reach sustainability is to find ways to be prosperous and sustainable. To do that we must find ways to aproximate the western standards of living in sustainable ways.
- stouset 6y ago
  > We are hundreds of years from that thermodynamic limit at our current exponential growth rate …assuming Earth is a perfect blackbody, which it is not. > It is also quite likely that extraplanetary energy sources could be available by then. This is irrelevant. As long as that power is delivered to Earth, it doesn’t matter how or where we generate or collect it. I mean, just take a step back a second. In the best case scenario, where we completely strip the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and any other greenhouse gases, we have maybe five generations before we have to completely halt our energy growth or we’ll literally bake the Earth and everyone and everything on it. We can’t even get people to believe in a global pandemic, much less take it seriously enough to wear masks and vaccinate. What do you think are the odds we’ll convince everyone to rein in energy production globally to avoid catastrophe here? Especially when that means either a) telling the world’s impoverished that we simply can’t let them continue improving their lifestyle, or b) telling the world’s rich that they’re going to have to cut back dramatically. Do either of those sound like platforms we’ll readily elect politicians on around the globe? And this is just one axis: energy. Humanity faces dozens of these problems simultaneously, all as a simple outcome of the mind-blowing scale we operate at. The oceans are being fished empty. Aquifers for farmland are quickly being depleted of water across the globe. I mean, we’re even running out of sand! It’s true and I hope it’s uncontroversial that we can’t continue exponentially growing into a finite space. My fear, which appears to be founded by all the evidence I can find, is that we’ve already passed the point where we can even continue things as-is no matter how much we move to solar and wind, aquaponic farms, and electric cars. All of those things require resources too, and even if it’s less it’s likely still too much. > I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? My point is that our current situation of resource usage cannot last much longer. This is unavoidable fact. We can opt to find ways to dramatically cut back—far past current feel-good greening measures—or it will happen automatically for us. As I said this is an uncomfortable reality. Your need to assume that I’m proposing nefarious, evil, and fascist solutions when I’m merely pointing out the unavoidable truth of our predicament should only highlight that more. I have proposed no solutions because I personally don’t believe any achievable ones exist at this point. We as a species will continue to consume all available resources until the moment we can’t and then… incredibly bad things will follow. I don’t know how to stop it any more than you do. But it doesn’t bring me comfort to believe that vague promises of human ingenuity will somehow overcome these very real problems.
adrianN 6y ago
At least for energy there is no problem at all, except for investment costs. A reasonably sized chunk of the Sahara, covered with solar panels, could provide all the energy we need. Nuclear is also an option.
- stouset 6y ago
  This is plainly false, if you would actually read what I linked. We simply cannot grow at a 2-3% rate of energy consumption, period, without shortly running into thermodynamic limits of how quickly Earth can radiate excess heat into space. As I said before, this is while completely ignoring greenhouse gases and assuming Earth is a perfect thermodynamic blackbody. And the real Earth is not a perfect blackbody, so reality is inevitably worse than the theoretical limits. This is entirely independent of the method of energy generation. It’s true of nuclear, solar, and even magical faerie dust. And there’s no getting around it, at least not unless our most basic understanding of thermodynamics is completely off base. Some future where we have “unlimited” energy is a complete fantasy.
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    How shortly is shortly? The linked paper suggests several hundred years or more. So we certainly don’t have to worry about this as there will be unimaginable technology changes by then.
    - stouset 6y ago
      “Unimaginable technology” does not free us from thermodynamic reality. The Earth can radiate heat into space, but convection and conduction are unavailable. We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. I don’t know about you but “some amount less than 250 years” to get the entire globe to agree to permanently cap energy production is almost comically implausible. No politician will ever get elected on a platform centered around this, much less an entire planet of such governments. And as with all tragedies of the commons, every individual will have a multitude of reasons to personally use more while hoping that everyone else makes the necessary noble sacrifice. Has anything about this last year of a global pandemic given you reason to believe that humans as a whole will accept an indefinite future of permanent restriction for the sake of everyone? We can barely get half the American population to obey stay at home orders for a few weeks at a time, and that’s to say nothing of countries like Brazil whose leaders refuse to even acknowledge a problem. Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. I’m honestly just glad I won’t live to see this play out.

shkkmo 6y ago

I think you'd be surprised as how sustainabily we could approximate the western standard of living if we had the will power to try as a whole society. There would certainly be sacrifices, but I suspect we would also gain significant quality if life improvements. What this requires is a change of mindset and I don't think attitudes like yours help. We are hundreds of years from that thermodynamic limit at our current exponential growth rate, but that growth may be slowing as population growth slows. It is also quite likely that extraplanetary energy sources could be available by then. I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument.

imtringued 6y ago
>I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument. Lack of resources are a common cause of war. Lack of resources was a problem for humanity for its entire existence and only in the last 100 years has it ceased to be a problem. I'd love it if people voluntarily decided to keep this abundance state going instead of doing the usual party everything away until it's gone behavior.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  What lack of resources are you talking about? You comment seems completely disconnected from what you are replying to.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? The argument is that its magical thinking that the earth, which has finite resources, can support an infinite number of people, if we only, "manage the resources right". Its a question of reality, not morality, but unfortunately some have a hard time separating the two concepts. > Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? Neither of those seem reasonable stances so I am left wondering what you see as the path forward and what value you see in advancing your argument. Nobody has to be killed off, but what we should be doing is setting as a goal sustainable population levels in the future through reproduction. This isn't to suggest people should be prevented from having children, but that our policy goals should incentive having fewer children. Right now are policies are the opposite - we offer subsidies to people to have children. What if we offered subsidies to people who didn't have any children? Of course people will inevitably raise the straw man economic argument, "we need more young people to pay for our older people". The fact is that we have a glut of unskilled labor that is only growing due to automation and increased overpopulation. The unsustainability of our debt-based economy is, unfortunately, not a function of population and will have to be reckoned with on its own.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 6y ago
  This is a bizarre argument to make in a world where every 1st world nation is on the cusp of negative population growth. The biggest problem we have is we have is that not enough people have access to a western lifestyle, which has been extremely effective at reducing birthrates to or below replacement levels. Population-based sustainability arguments are a deflection from the actual hard work, which is reducing CO2 emissions and preserving ecosystems. Because they have nothing to say and no knowledge to contribute about actual sustainability, and reliably go nowhere.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  > its magical thinking that the earth, which has finite resources, can support an infinite number of people, if we only, "manage the resources right" I have not met a single person that thinks the earth can support an infinite number of people. If that is the position you are arguing against, I believe it is a strawman and a waste of your time. > Nobody has to be killed off, but what we should be doing is setting as a goal sustainable population levels in the future through reproduction. Global population growth has been slowing for half a century. If you are concerned about reducing it further, western "baby subsidies" aren't a good place to start. The main place you would have to look is Africa since that is expected be the source for the majority of population growth over the next 50 years. If this line of thought is still making sense to you, you are veering dangerously close to ecofacism and genocide. IMHO, the only remotely ethical way to reduce population growth is to mirror the factors that lead to declining birth rates in the west (i.e. prosperity and social stability.) This means that the only ethical way to reach sustainability is to find ways to be prosperous and sustainable. To do that we must find ways to aproximate the western standards of living in sustainable ways.
stouset 6y ago
> We are hundreds of years from that thermodynamic limit at our current exponential growth rate …assuming Earth is a perfect blackbody, which it is not. > It is also quite likely that extraplanetary energy sources could be available by then. This is irrelevant. As long as that power is delivered to Earth, it doesn’t matter how or where we generate or collect it. I mean, just take a step back a second. In the best case scenario, where we completely strip the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and any other greenhouse gases, we have maybe five generations before we have to completely halt our energy growth or we’ll literally bake the Earth and everyone and everything on it. We can’t even get people to believe in a global pandemic, much less take it seriously enough to wear masks and vaccinate. What do you think are the odds we’ll convince everyone to rein in energy production globally to avoid catastrophe here? Especially when that means either a) telling the world’s impoverished that we simply can’t let them continue improving their lifestyle, or b) telling the world’s rich that they’re going to have to cut back dramatically. Do either of those sound like platforms we’ll readily elect politicians on around the globe? And this is just one axis: energy. Humanity faces dozens of these problems simultaneously, all as a simple outcome of the mind-blowing scale we operate at. The oceans are being fished empty. Aquifers for farmland are quickly being depleted of water across the globe. I mean, we’re even running out of sand! It’s true and I hope it’s uncontroversial that we can’t continue exponentially growing into a finite space. My fear, which appears to be founded by all the evidence I can find, is that we’ve already passed the point where we can even continue things as-is no matter how much we move to solar and wind, aquaponic farms, and electric cars. All of those things require resources too, and even if it’s less it’s likely still too much. > I'm sort of unclear where you are goin with your argument? Are you arguing we need to kill of people or economically retard developing countries energy use? My point is that our current situation of resource usage cannot last much longer. This is unavoidable fact. We can opt to find ways to dramatically cut back—far past current feel-good greening measures—or it will happen automatically for us. As I said this is an uncomfortable reality. Your need to assume that I’m proposing nefarious, evil, and fascist solutions when I’m merely pointing out the unavoidable truth of our predicament should only highlight that more. I have proposed no solutions because I personally don’t believe any achievable ones exist at this point. We as a species will continue to consume all available resources until the moment we can’t and then… incredibly bad things will follow. I don’t know how to stop it any more than you do. But it doesn’t bring me comfort to believe that vague promises of human ingenuity will somehow overcome these very real problems.

adrianN 6y ago

At least for energy there is no problem at all, except for investment costs. A reasonably sized chunk of the Sahara, covered with solar panels, could provide all the energy we need. Nuclear is also an option.

stouset 6y ago
This is plainly false, if you would actually read what I linked. We simply cannot grow at a 2-3% rate of energy consumption, period, without shortly running into thermodynamic limits of how quickly Earth can radiate excess heat into space. As I said before, this is while completely ignoring greenhouse gases and assuming Earth is a perfect thermodynamic blackbody. And the real Earth is not a perfect blackbody, so reality is inevitably worse than the theoretical limits. This is entirely independent of the method of energy generation. It’s true of nuclear, solar, and even magical faerie dust. And there’s no getting around it, at least not unless our most basic understanding of thermodynamics is completely off base. Some future where we have “unlimited” energy is a complete fantasy.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  How shortly is shortly? The linked paper suggests several hundred years or more. So we certainly don’t have to worry about this as there will be unimaginable technology changes by then.
  - stouset 6y ago
    “Unimaginable technology” does not free us from thermodynamic reality. The Earth can radiate heat into space, but convection and conduction are unavailable. We have two hundred and fifty years, assuming we completely rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, and all other greenhouse gases. Hopefully you can see that this means it will be less than that amount of time. I don’t know about you but “some amount less than 250 years” to get the entire globe to agree to permanently cap energy production is almost comically implausible. No politician will ever get elected on a platform centered around this, much less an entire planet of such governments. And as with all tragedies of the commons, every individual will have a multitude of reasons to personally use more while hoping that everyone else makes the necessary noble sacrifice. Has anything about this last year of a global pandemic given you reason to believe that humans as a whole will accept an indefinite future of permanent restriction for the sake of everyone? We can barely get half the American population to obey stay at home orders for a few weeks at a time, and that’s to say nothing of countries like Brazil whose leaders refuse to even acknowledge a problem. Hell, we’re fifty years into scientists sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and we’ve only managed to accelerate our production of them in the time since. I’m honestly just glad I won’t live to see this play out.