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Isn't environmentalists' argument that we should reduce our power consumption, rather than destroying the environment to keep providing so much power? That's no
by chrisseaton 5y ago
Isn't environmentalists' argument that we should reduce our power consumption, rather than destroying the environment to keep providing so much power? That's not as crazy a position as you make it out to be is it?
- Teknoman117 5y agoIt's an absolutely crazy proposition because there are very few people who would choose to reduce their quality of life. It's far easier to switch to net-zero energy sources than it is to completely redefine society.
- chrisseaton 5y agoSome people think it's worth redefining society to protect the environment. I wouldn't agree with that absolutely either, but it's a logical and defensible position. It's not incoherent.
- pyronik19 5y agoThe problem is there position is completely irrational when you take the amount of damage down to standards of living to the negligible environmental damage done from PV panels. It's almost like the goal is to maximize human misery not minimize environmental damage.
- stickfigure 5y agoWholly impractical solutions are not defensible.
- roenxi 5y ago"The position is coherent" is a devastatingly low bar for the table stakes or redefining society that radically.
- ch4s3 5y agoIt doesn't seem particularly coherent to me for a few reasons. To draw a hard line between human activity/habitat and nature seems artificial. A human settlement is not so different from a beaver dam of ant colony in many ways. The idea especially in the US that there is some pre-colonial unspoiled nature that we could preserve or return to seems historically ignorant. Native Americans were managing the land with fire in much of North America for at least 15k years and the whole place was a giant game park with archipelagos of agriculture and settlements. Early settlers remarked that upon arrival they could ride a horse through New England forests at a full gallop, which wouldn't be possible in a primeval/unmanaged forest. So redefining society away form managing nature would be a radical departure and it unclear what the end goal would even be. There is nothing to roll the clock back to really anywhere in the world, and even if you "re-wild" a lot of the continent it's not clear what you would get, it certainly wouldn't resemble the Americas of 1491 ecologically. Mostly these folks seem like neo-malthusians who just hate people and civilization. I'm all for increasing bio-diversity, pulling carbon out of the air, and cleaning up waste but I don't think any of that requires us to use drastically less energy. If anything we should aim to make energy so clean and cheap that those other things become cheap and easy.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> The idea especially in the US that there is some pre-colonial unspoiled nature that we could preserve or return to seems historically ignorant. Who are you replying to here? Who's argued this?
- ch4s3 5y agoThe point I'm making is that there's a certain type of activist who believes these kinds o things, and they're arguing for things like reduction of per-capita energy use to reduce society's impact on the land based on the idea that there was ever really land here that wasn't actively managed by people. (At least since the glaciers receded) I'm making the case that these neo-malthusians want to protect an imagined environment of the past that didn't exist. There are certainly things we're doing that are environmentally negative form the perspective of biodiversity, CO2, local water tables, etc but I don't think fixing those things necessarily means using less energy, or having a lower standard of living.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- isomel 5y agoYeah, humans have lived fine before fossil fuels so we can do it again, right? Just kill half of them. And let 90% of the remaining population work in the fields like slaves. Easy /s
- chrisseaton 5y agoWildest strawman I’ve ever seen on this site. I’ve never even remotely seen anyone argue for what you’re mocking. And it’s not even anything to do with fossil fuels - it’s about renewables.
- tyjaksn 5y agoWhile I agree that modern society requires significant energy inputs, there is a middle ground. For instance, if cities or the suburbs were more pedestrian friendly, walking, cycling, etc. would be a viable option meaning less use of fossil fuels by driving.
- Manuel_D 5y agoStandards of living are highly connected to energy consumption. Reducing power consumption without also reducing living standards is difficult to do. Furthermore, power consumption is going to increase as transportation and industrial processes become electrified.
- adrianN 5y agoElectricity consumption is going to rise with electrification. Power consumption is going down. A heat pump is about three times as efficient as heating with oil. An electric engine is about twice as efficient as an ICE, and so on.
- goodpoint 5y agoThe overton window of HN is skewed so far into techno-optimism that you get downvoted into oblivion for mentioning reducing energy usage. Edit: surprise, I'm also getting silent downvotes, as if I needed further proof.
- chrisseaton 5y agoPeople will advocate permanently destroying a habitat before they consider taking a bus instead of driving.