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I read Ministry for the Future lately, and minor faults aside, the book made me take climate change seriously-seriously. I’m not sure what I’d do about engaging

I read Ministry for the Future lately, and minor faults aside, the book made me take climate change seriously-seriously. I’m not sure what I’d do about engaging with that yet though with my current career path*. B/t reading that book and it reflected in news like this and related events at the COP, seems like we’re in for a rough go.

claytoneast 5y ago
I'm reading this book right now, and it doesn't make me enthused for the future. But I'm all over the place, I never know what level of doom-thinking to accept for climate change.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  Maybe this will help the calibration: the problem is a political one. We have the needed technology, and we know how and how much to apply it.
hammock 5y ago
From Wikipedia: "the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's." Is Climate Change the only threat that the body looks at, or do they look at other threats such as corporate power structures, abortion etc?
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Just wondering what's the abortion risk to?
  - yeaman1231 5y ago
    "whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's." pretty clear that the implication is right to life of a human being > right to privacy of mother edit: fetus -> being
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      i don’t think protecting the rights of people who won’t exist until later has anything to do with the rights of a fetus/person who will cease to exist.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      I don't see how "bad" moral decisions about abortion would affect future generations: people may have better judgement in the future, nothing prevents them from effectively eliminating abortion. The thing with climate change, as it is postulated, is that there might be no next generations, or that they will be severely limited in their moral choices by civilization collapse. So putting both on the same desk is really misleading.
      - Stupulous 5y ago
        I agree with your general point, but I think you're overstating it a bit. Global warming doesn't pose a human extinction or civilizational collapse level threat in the next century. Tens or hundreds of millions of deaths, untold quantities of suffering, habitat destruction, and huge economic losses are within reason, but humanity would take that on the chin and carry on. 80 million young men, many from wealthy countries, died fighting in WW2, and European infrastructure took a huge hit. You can barely notice the impact on a global gdp chart, and it's invisible on population. Abortion may also have long term consequences, though they would almost certainly be less severe. Genetics that are beneficial to humanity may also increase abortion likelihood- eg. educated women are more likely to be intelligent and to abort compared to the general population. Or the inverse, genes that act against abortion may be bad for humans at large- eg. whatever makes people fundamentalist. But these are just speculations, and it may even wind up being beneficial. I agree that the two are not on the same order of magnitude, but it's less cut and dry than comparing zero and infinity.
        thriftwy 5y ago
        I doubt that intelligent women do abortions in any large quantities in developed countries - they should be smart enough to use contracepcion. So if you are into eugenics, abortion may be the way to go.
- dogman144 5y ago
  I get what you're asking about, but this question misses the forest for the trees of what this book is about and its impact as a read.
missinfo 5y ago
To balance that out with some constructive environmentalism, try this book next; https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691 https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmi...
- sabellito 5y ago
  Not trying to start anything, but does this review have any merit? https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36RD4QCZ047P9?ASIN=0063001691 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36RD4QCZ047P9?AS...
- dogman144 5y ago
  Based on this review > ...But in this engaging and well-researched treatise, Michael Shellenberger exposes the environmental movement’s hypocrisy in painting climate change in apocalyptic terms while steadfastly working against nuclear power.... the two books are fairly similar actually. MffF doesn't have much dogmatic environmentalist alarm. It discusses how humanity and its systems could react once the point of no climate return is reached/if it's reached, which is a different focus than this book you've linked. Whitewashing MffF as environmental alarmism really misses the point. For example, assuming this is covered Shellenberger's book > He also cites that the Dutch have adapted quite well to subsidence putting much of their nation under sea level, and they have been able to survive and thrive MffF "wouldn't" disagree with that. But, it would highlight some instances where CC adaption mindsets (like your linked book) don't cover the whole picture. Some climates humans just can't adapt to. What then? MffF goes through that.
kristiandupont 5y ago
Sounds like you are in a similar place to me. I recently became a father and I feel that I need to work on this problem the best way I can. I have my little startup and I expect to keep running that for another few years but I have started a background thread in my head looking into how I can best apply my particular skillset to helping tackle climate change. I had a chat with a woman named Laurie McGinley who coaches people in that situation and she gave me a bunch of resources that I am slowly consuming. I can highly recommend talking to her if you are considering it as well. https://vialucent.com/ https://vialucent.com/
- dogman144 5y ago
  thanks for the rec!
  - marocan 5y ago
    take care not to get sucked into a cult!
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Kurzgesagt made a video about it, and they say, and I agree with them, the answer can only be political pressure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc They also mentioned the stat that if 1 person lived totally carbon neutral for 70 years, that would offset only 1 second of current global CO2 emissions, which I'm going to presume is sourced properly. I'm not very optimistic. Politicians follow the polls and go with what's popular, and if the people living in the rich nations have to pay more to fly to Asia for cheap holidays, and iPhones, etc, get more expensive because of carbon tax, the majority probably won't support the governments and will instead vote in populist idiots that will make things "great again". In the poorer countries, being told that the decades-old luxuries they've envied from richer nations will cost more because of government policies will also not be popular, never mind that the policies are meant to save the future.
- blablabla123 5y ago
  > They also mentioned the stat that if 1 person lived totally carbon neutral for 70 years, that would offset only 1 second of current global CO2 emissions, which I'm going to presume is sourced properly. That's a strawman's argument and in theory would apply to anything in the context of overall society if it was true which is clearly not the case. Because if you really lived completely carbon neutral for decades, you'd probably appear in dozens of TV shows and magazines will have exclusive interviews for you. (Not sure if it's exactly NYT, but you'll sure attract interest) So other people see that and realize: wow, it's actually possible to survive for decades in a carbon neutral way. In reality it wouldn't be that extreme but it's always a domino effect: your colleagues, friends and family see what you do and be at least lightly influenced by it. Be it just the fact that you do something that people thought would be not possible. After all, that's how democracy works and how movements grow. It's not that your vote only depends on the campaigns but also on your peers' opinion. It's not that movements in the past haven't been succeeding.
  - Ancalagon 5y ago
    I'd argue this is demonstrably false if you include modern societies and even individuals that already greatly inconvenience themselves (or deny themselves in the first place) the ability to have large carbon footprints. The Amish come to mind but otherwise very orthodox religious societies and even some organic farmers you could argue are pretty carbon neutral. If anything they are the opposite of looked up to in pop culture.

claytoneast 5y ago

I'm reading this book right now, and it doesn't make me enthused for the future. But I'm all over the place, I never know what level of doom-thinking to accept for climate change.

tuatoru 5y ago
Maybe this will help the calibration: the problem is a political one. We have the needed technology, and we know how and how much to apply it.

hammock 5y ago

From Wikipedia: "the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's." Is Climate Change the only threat that the body looks at, or do they look at other threats such as corporate power structures, abortion etc?

thriftwy 5y ago
Just wondering what's the abortion risk to?
- yeaman1231 5y ago
  "whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's." pretty clear that the implication is right to life of a human being > right to privacy of mother edit: fetus -> being
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    i don’t think protecting the rights of people who won’t exist until later has anything to do with the rights of a fetus/person who will cease to exist.
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    I don't see how "bad" moral decisions about abortion would affect future generations: people may have better judgement in the future, nothing prevents them from effectively eliminating abortion. The thing with climate change, as it is postulated, is that there might be no next generations, or that they will be severely limited in their moral choices by civilization collapse. So putting both on the same desk is really misleading.
    - Stupulous 5y ago
      I agree with your general point, but I think you're overstating it a bit. Global warming doesn't pose a human extinction or civilizational collapse level threat in the next century. Tens or hundreds of millions of deaths, untold quantities of suffering, habitat destruction, and huge economic losses are within reason, but humanity would take that on the chin and carry on. 80 million young men, many from wealthy countries, died fighting in WW2, and European infrastructure took a huge hit. You can barely notice the impact on a global gdp chart, and it's invisible on population. Abortion may also have long term consequences, though they would almost certainly be less severe. Genetics that are beneficial to humanity may also increase abortion likelihood- eg. educated women are more likely to be intelligent and to abort compared to the general population. Or the inverse, genes that act against abortion may be bad for humans at large- eg. whatever makes people fundamentalist. But these are just speculations, and it may even wind up being beneficial. I agree that the two are not on the same order of magnitude, but it's less cut and dry than comparing zero and infinity.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        I doubt that intelligent women do abortions in any large quantities in developed countries - they should be smart enough to use contracepcion. So if you are into eugenics, abortion may be the way to go.
dogman144 5y ago
I get what you're asking about, but this question misses the forest for the trees of what this book is about and its impact as a read.

missinfo 5y ago

To balance that out with some constructive environmentalism, try this book next; https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691 https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmi...

sabellito 5y ago
Not trying to start anything, but does this review have any merit? https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36RD4QCZ047P9?ASIN=0063001691 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36RD4QCZ047P9?AS...
dogman144 5y ago
Based on this review > ...But in this engaging and well-researched treatise, Michael Shellenberger exposes the environmental movement’s hypocrisy in painting climate change in apocalyptic terms while steadfastly working against nuclear power.... the two books are fairly similar actually. MffF doesn't have much dogmatic environmentalist alarm. It discusses how humanity and its systems could react once the point of no climate return is reached/if it's reached, which is a different focus than this book you've linked. Whitewashing MffF as environmental alarmism really misses the point. For example, assuming this is covered Shellenberger's book > He also cites that the Dutch have adapted quite well to subsidence putting much of their nation under sea level, and they have been able to survive and thrive MffF "wouldn't" disagree with that. But, it would highlight some instances where CC adaption mindsets (like your linked book) don't cover the whole picture. Some climates humans just can't adapt to. What then? MffF goes through that.

kristiandupont 5y ago

Sounds like you are in a similar place to me. I recently became a father and I feel that I need to work on this problem the best way I can. I have my little startup and I expect to keep running that for another few years but I have started a background thread in my head looking into how I can best apply my particular skillset to helping tackle climate change. I had a chat with a woman named Laurie McGinley who coaches people in that situation and she gave me a bunch of resources that I am slowly consuming. I can highly recommend talking to her if you are considering it as well. https://vialucent.com/ https://vialucent.com/

dogman144 5y ago
thanks for the rec!
- marocan 5y ago
  take care not to get sucked into a cult!

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

Kurzgesagt made a video about it, and they say, and I agree with them, the answer can only be political pressure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc They also mentioned the stat that if 1 person lived totally carbon neutral for 70 years, that would offset only 1 second of current global CO2 emissions, which I'm going to presume is sourced properly. I'm not very optimistic. Politicians follow the polls and go with what's popular, and if the people living in the rich nations have to pay more to fly to Asia for cheap holidays, and iPhones, etc, get more expensive because of carbon tax, the majority probably won't support the governments and will instead vote in populist idiots that will make things "great again". In the poorer countries, being told that the decades-old luxuries they've envied from richer nations will cost more because of government policies will also not be popular, never mind that the policies are meant to save the future.

blablabla123 5y ago
> They also mentioned the stat that if 1 person lived totally carbon neutral for 70 years, that would offset only 1 second of current global CO2 emissions, which I'm going to presume is sourced properly. That's a strawman's argument and in theory would apply to anything in the context of overall society if it was true which is clearly not the case. Because if you really lived completely carbon neutral for decades, you'd probably appear in dozens of TV shows and magazines will have exclusive interviews for you. (Not sure if it's exactly NYT, but you'll sure attract interest) So other people see that and realize: wow, it's actually possible to survive for decades in a carbon neutral way. In reality it wouldn't be that extreme but it's always a domino effect: your colleagues, friends and family see what you do and be at least lightly influenced by it. Be it just the fact that you do something that people thought would be not possible. After all, that's how democracy works and how movements grow. It's not that your vote only depends on the campaigns but also on your peers' opinion. It's not that movements in the past haven't been succeeding.
- Ancalagon 5y ago
  I'd argue this is demonstrably false if you include modern societies and even individuals that already greatly inconvenience themselves (or deny themselves in the first place) the ability to have large carbon footprints. The Amish come to mind but otherwise very orthodox religious societies and even some organic farmers you could argue are pretty carbon neutral. If anything they are the opposite of looked up to in pop culture.