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> You do not need to fight climate change, we need to stop it. The correct answer is neither; we need advanced technologies and material wealth that will allow
by prottog 3y ago
> You do not need to fight climate change, we need to stop it.
The correct answer is neither; we need advanced technologies and material wealth that will allow us to master the environment more robustly. Consider that in the past 50 years of climate change, the human population more than doubled yet the number of deaths from climate-related causes dropped to one-third[0], mainly due to the growing wealth of developing countries that allowed them to better shield themselves against extreme weather conditions.
The state of man in nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Anyone who has spent any time outdoors in remote places or tried to build even a rudimentary shelter knows how true that is. There has never been a time when the climate was conducive to human flourishing except when humans made it that way by ever-increasing per capita energy expenditures; hence today, despite everything, we are the most insulated from the effects of climate on ourselves.
To "stop" climate change is like telling Glurg the caveman no, you cannot light that stick on fire to keep yourself warm, because think of the CO2 emissions!
[0]: https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10989 https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10989
- rhaway84773 3y agoWe already have the technology.
- ethanbond 3y agoWe also extincted broad swaths of our ecosystem while keeping the rich westerners well air-conditioned. So… you know. No free lunch. Hope we, as biological creatures borne of a billion-year old evolutionary process, don’t actually need the system that birthed us (for some reason).
- prottog 3y agoMy sincere hope is that the poor non-Westerners will also be well air-conditioned. And yes, you are quite right that there is no free lunch. In my analysis, the opportunity cost of going all-in on degrowth and solar/wind is precisely that the global poor will remain poor. I'm by no means advocating that we destroy nature for the fun of it! But if the alternative is between us destroying nature or nature destroying us, I know which side I'm going to pick.
- actionfromafar 3y agoNature will win in both of these scenarios.
- user982 3y agoA clarion call for humanity to wage open war on nature.
- prottog 3y agoThat is all of human history, from the moment we wrapped animal hide around us and picked up a sharp rock. Humanity didn't get to be the dominant life-form on the planet by asking nature nicely to please not bother us.