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Don’t have biological kids. Don’t eat meat. Don’t fly in planes. Don’t drive. Live in the smallest home you can in a dense city. Take action politically. This

Don’t have biological kids. Don’t eat meat. Don’t fly in planes. Don’t drive. Live in the smallest home you can in a dense city. Take action politically. This is how you should live your life if you are worried/care about climate change.

randomopining 5y ago
All of those were needed to get us to the point we are at now, where we can "solve" climate change but don't have the collective political will yet to do it. What if we were stuck in an 1800's london type environment, just reproducing and burning stuff. Environment would be completely rekt.
- paulcole 5y ago
  > All of those were needed to get us to the point we are at now Yes and look where it's got us. Time to stop doing those things. The solution to climate change is going to be nothing like what people expect it to be. Nuclear or some magic solution isn't going to present itself. The solution is going to be a monumental shift in how people live and several decades of misery for people who aren't used to being miserable. > What if we were stuck in an 1800's london type environment, just reproducing and burning stuff This would be preferable. London would have been ruined but we wouldn't have been able to scale this to ruin the entire world the way we have now. > Environment would be completely rekt. Environment is completely rekt today.
BillBillerson 5y ago
“Don’t have kids” A little cliche but isn’t this how we get Idiocracy? Assuming we’re not already there.
gameman144 5y ago
I'm curious your take about serious climate interventions, i.e. geoengeering. I hear some people with the viewpoint of "we don't need to do anything, the future will be fine" and others, similar to you, who hold more of a "we need to do as much as we can to prevent/correct climate change". I'm curious how these are balanced in your mind. For instance, if we could solve global warming by activating a load of fusion reactors to sequester atmospheric carbon and pollutants, would you then be okay with rural living, meat-eating, and lots of kids? What about greening the sea to absorb more CO2, or similar ecosystem modifications? Curious whether this viewpoint is more ideological or practical in its roots.
- paulcole 5y ago
  It's a bit more ideological than practical. But there's just not really going to be a pleasant way out of climate change. If people won't stop eating burgers, they're really not going to like what comes next. Although they'll be dead and their kids will probably be dead before the bill comes fully due, so it really doesn't matter anyway. Honestly, I believe that the effects of climate change are going to be way worse than anyone alive today can begin to imagine. The way climate change will "fix" itself is through a massive population reduction and adaptation to an (as of today) unimaginable way of life over the course of a few centuries. People alive today (and at pretty much any time in history) will do whatever they want and rationalize whatever actions they take in whatever way lets them sleep at night. If there was some magic way to fix climate change that allowed us to keep living the way we are, sure go ahead and do that. It's not like we're going to change anyway.
xibalba 5y ago
pass

randomopining 5y ago

All of those were needed to get us to the point we are at now, where we can "solve" climate change but don't have the collective political will yet to do it. What if we were stuck in an 1800's london type environment, just reproducing and burning stuff. Environment would be completely rekt.

paulcole 5y ago
> All of those were needed to get us to the point we are at now Yes and look where it's got us. Time to stop doing those things. The solution to climate change is going to be nothing like what people expect it to be. Nuclear or some magic solution isn't going to present itself. The solution is going to be a monumental shift in how people live and several decades of misery for people who aren't used to being miserable. > What if we were stuck in an 1800's london type environment, just reproducing and burning stuff This would be preferable. London would have been ruined but we wouldn't have been able to scale this to ruin the entire world the way we have now. > Environment would be completely rekt. Environment is completely rekt today.

BillBillerson 5y ago

“Don’t have kids” A little cliche but isn’t this how we get Idiocracy? Assuming we’re not already there.

gameman144 5y ago

I'm curious your take about serious climate interventions, i.e. geoengeering. I hear some people with the viewpoint of "we don't need to do anything, the future will be fine" and others, similar to you, who hold more of a "we need to do as much as we can to prevent/correct climate change". I'm curious how these are balanced in your mind. For instance, if we could solve global warming by activating a load of fusion reactors to sequester atmospheric carbon and pollutants, would you then be okay with rural living, meat-eating, and lots of kids? What about greening the sea to absorb more CO2, or similar ecosystem modifications? Curious whether this viewpoint is more ideological or practical in its roots.

paulcole 5y ago
It's a bit more ideological than practical. But there's just not really going to be a pleasant way out of climate change. If people won't stop eating burgers, they're really not going to like what comes next. Although they'll be dead and their kids will probably be dead before the bill comes fully due, so it really doesn't matter anyway. Honestly, I believe that the effects of climate change are going to be way worse than anyone alive today can begin to imagine. The way climate change will "fix" itself is through a massive population reduction and adaptation to an (as of today) unimaginable way of life over the course of a few centuries. People alive today (and at pretty much any time in history) will do whatever they want and rationalize whatever actions they take in whatever way lets them sleep at night. If there was some magic way to fix climate change that allowed us to keep living the way we are, sure go ahead and do that. It's not like we're going to change anyway.

xibalba 5y ago

pass