5 ms·

Degrowth is not a solution. Geo-engineering is our only way out of this mess.

by boc 3y ago

data_maan 3y ago
Geo engineering is jumping from a cliff and hoping there is water down so you don't hit concrete. Degrowth is the only sustainable solution, geo-engineering will create more problems than it solves.
- prottog 3y ago
  Degrowth is a great solution for those who didn't get degrowth'd.
  - connorgutman 3y ago
    Must our entire species (and countless others) all die together because degrowth is unfair? Those are the only two scientific options at hand.
  - data_maan 3y ago
    I think those people that contribute the most to global warming (e.g. the richest 10%) still have the longest to go until the max out to degrowing
connorgutman 3y ago
This is an emotional response and not a scientific one. The Haber–Bosch process was the biological equivalent of a deferred-interest loan. It gave us enough food to scale from 2 billion to 8, but now the planet is coming to collect its dues. We never had the natural resources to support humanity's current numbers, and by inflating our Nitrogen supply and stripping the Earth of everything else we need, we've utterly fucked it all up. Degrowth would be the worst tragedy in human history, but it would at least give future generations a chance. Geo-engineering is like paying off one credit card with another. It's a recipe for further disaster and doesn't solve the underlying issue. Humanity has to default.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  Hasn’t all of technological progress been paying one credit card off with another?
  - connorgutman 3y ago
    Yes, but more specifically, all technological progress since the industrialized revolution. Prior to that, we at least had a reasonable credit limit in the form of a fixed Nitrogen cycle. Advancements in pre-industrial technology primarily made life easier, not more abundant.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    That's an interesting question, and one I've looked at answering in part by looking at technology in terms of its mechanisms. As I see it, it's possible to frame all technologies as being fundamentally based on one of the following mechanisms, interactions, or focus points: - Materials: stuff, its properties, abundance, and sourcing and disposal issues. Wood, stone, ceramics, metals, fluids, chemicals, nuclear materials. - Fuels: energy potential stored in material arrangements. Biomass, fossil fuels, nuclear fuels. This excludes energy flows such as solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal. Subject to limits in stores and creation rates. Result in waste products and phenomena. - Power transmission and transformation: from simple machines to complex mechanisms and grid distribution. Levers, screws, pulleys, electromagnetism, beamed energy. This would include energy flows described above. - Process knowledge: "technology" writ large. As J.S. Mill put it, the study of means, how to achieve some goal through some process or technique. - Causal knowledge: "science" writ large. As J.S. Mill put it, the study of causes, or why the world is and acts as it does, based on empirical study. - Networks: nodes and links. These may be physical or logical. Transportation, distribution, social, economic, commercial, political, and conceptual collections of loci and the connections and interactions between them. Famously give rise to network effects, also subject to hygiene factors (below). - Systems: management of process with feedback and models. From basic polity to vast technological, economic, and ecological systems. "The Art of ship handling involves the effective use of forces under control to overcome the effect of forces not under control" -- Charles H. Cotter. - Information: input, processing, storage, and output. From basic anatomical senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to language, maths, logic, abstract representation, manipulation, detection, transmission, reception, and retention. Capable of immense scaling itself, but often with profound limits on direct application. - Hygiene: management of unintended and/or unanticipated consequences. All technologies achieve both desired and undesired effects, those may be manifest or latent, and may occur immediately or lagged. We tend to best cope with immediate and manifest effects, it is the lagged and latent ones that tend to cause the greatest trouble. The technologies which seem to best fit your "credit card" model are those involving fossil fuels especially, materials resources formed very slowly or at singular points in time in Earth's history, and of hygiene impacts whose immediate and long-term consequences diverge strongly. Steve Keen (amongst others) shows that economic productivity scales near-linearly with energy consumption, yet we are using fossil fuels at rates millions of times greater than they accumulated. Virtually any mining activity represents extraction at rates greater than accumulation (the reverse is "farming", though even that can be problematic). Current industry has a strong reliance on a large number of elements and minerals, many of which are scarce or sparse. An example of the latter being "rare earths", which are not actually rare so much as they do not form ore bodies, and must be separated with high energy and waste-material costs from exceedingly low concentrations in the Earth's crust. Similarly, various emissions are often presumed or advertised as being low-consequence ... until they are not. Heavy metals, inert compounds (most notably hydrofluourocarbons), synthetic materials (e.g., plastics with bioactive and endocrinologic effects), and carbon dioxide resulting from combustion are all now major environmental concerns, initially dismissed, overlooked, or actively obscured by those with a short-term benefit from their use. It seems that there are possibilities within process and causal knowledge, power transmission and transformation, networks, systems, and hygiene mechanisms for technologies which are far less prone to risk or debt-shifting. Though critics such as Tainter would suggest that complexity is its own inherent risk, with substantial justificiation.
kersplody 3y ago
It is the only practical solution. The only way to get humanity's energy equation to balance is to dramatically reduce the population or dramatically reduce energy use per capita or invent and deploy a mythical free energy source within the next 30 years. And this just covers replacing black energy with green energy -- even more energy will be needed to address the climate problem.
- alehlopeh 3y ago
  And that’s practical how?
forgetfreeman 3y ago
Degrowth not only is a solution, it's a guaranteed outcome if other initiatives don't materialize to successfully address the problem.
- imtringued 3y ago
  You underestimate the threat of eco-fascism. By that I don't mean green party politicians, no, I mean literal facists who blame climate change on overpopulation and who believe that the population has to be cut drastically. In the most basic form this would mean closing our borders and making sure nobody can cross illegally by using lethal force, if necessary.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    I'm not certain I do. I feel like we may be arguing the same side here? What I'm hinting at is that unless concrete results don't begin to materialize and that right soon the resulting climate driven geopolitical upheaval, and knock-on effects to global logistics, is quite likely to result in a significant downsizing of both global GDP and the world population. Perversely both of these obviously bad outcomes will very likely improve global carbon emissions. Here's a really shitty joke for you: How do you reduce your carbon footprint by 100% overnight? Shoot yourself in the head. How do you reduce your carbon footprint by 900% overnight? Go shoot your neighbors in the head. :/
  - connorgutman 3y ago
    Climate change is a result of overpopulation and overconsumption, though. It's right there in the name. The climate is changing as a result of anthropogenic activity. I fail to see how eco-fascism affects the outcome here, if we do not cut our population and consumption the planet will do it for us.

Degrowth is not a solution. Geo-engineering is our only way out of this mess.

by boc 3y ago

Degrowth is not a solution. Geo-engineering is our only way out of this mess.

Geo engineering is jumping from a cliff and hoping there is water down so you don't hit concrete. Degrowth is the only sustainable solution, geo-engineering will create more problems than it solves.

prottog 3y ago
Degrowth is a great solution for those who didn't get degrowth'd.
- connorgutman 3y ago
  Must our entire species (and countless others) all die together because degrowth is unfair? Those are the only two scientific options at hand.
- data_maan 3y ago
  I think those people that contribute the most to global warming (e.g. the richest 10%) still have the longest to go until the max out to degrowing

connorgutman 3y ago

This is an emotional response and not a scientific one. The Haber–Bosch process was the biological equivalent of a deferred-interest loan. It gave us enough food to scale from 2 billion to 8, but now the planet is coming to collect its dues. We never had the natural resources to support humanity's current numbers, and by inflating our Nitrogen supply and stripping the Earth of everything else we need, we've utterly fucked it all up. Degrowth would be the worst tragedy in human history, but it would at least give future generations a chance. Geo-engineering is like paying off one credit card with another. It's a recipe for further disaster and doesn't solve the underlying issue. Humanity has to default.

selimthegrim 3y ago
Hasn’t all of technological progress been paying one credit card off with another?
- connorgutman 3y ago
  Yes, but more specifically, all technological progress since the industrialized revolution. Prior to that, we at least had a reasonable credit limit in the form of a fixed Nitrogen cycle. Advancements in pre-industrial technology primarily made life easier, not more abundant.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  That's an interesting question, and one I've looked at answering in part by looking at technology in terms of its mechanisms. As I see it, it's possible to frame all technologies as being fundamentally based on one of the following mechanisms, interactions, or focus points: - Materials: stuff, its properties, abundance, and sourcing and disposal issues. Wood, stone, ceramics, metals, fluids, chemicals, nuclear materials. - Fuels: energy potential stored in material arrangements. Biomass, fossil fuels, nuclear fuels. This excludes energy flows such as solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal. Subject to limits in stores and creation rates. Result in waste products and phenomena. - Power transmission and transformation: from simple machines to complex mechanisms and grid distribution. Levers, screws, pulleys, electromagnetism, beamed energy. This would include energy flows described above. - Process knowledge: "technology" writ large. As J.S. Mill put it, the study of means, how to achieve some goal through some process or technique. - Causal knowledge: "science" writ large. As J.S. Mill put it, the study of causes, or why the world is and acts as it does, based on empirical study. - Networks: nodes and links. These may be physical or logical. Transportation, distribution, social, economic, commercial, political, and conceptual collections of loci and the connections and interactions between them. Famously give rise to network effects, also subject to hygiene factors (below). - Systems: management of process with feedback and models. From basic polity to vast technological, economic, and ecological systems. "The Art of ship handling involves the effective use of forces under control to overcome the effect of forces not under control" -- Charles H. Cotter. - Information: input, processing, storage, and output. From basic anatomical senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to language, maths, logic, abstract representation, manipulation, detection, transmission, reception, and retention. Capable of immense scaling itself, but often with profound limits on direct application. - Hygiene: management of unintended and/or unanticipated consequences. All technologies achieve both desired and undesired effects, those may be manifest or latent, and may occur immediately or lagged. We tend to best cope with immediate and manifest effects, it is the lagged and latent ones that tend to cause the greatest trouble. The technologies which seem to best fit your "credit card" model are those involving fossil fuels especially, materials resources formed very slowly or at singular points in time in Earth's history, and of hygiene impacts whose immediate and long-term consequences diverge strongly. Steve Keen (amongst others) shows that economic productivity scales near-linearly with energy consumption, yet we are using fossil fuels at rates millions of times greater than they accumulated. Virtually any mining activity represents extraction at rates greater than accumulation (the reverse is "farming", though even that can be problematic). Current industry has a strong reliance on a large number of elements and minerals, many of which are scarce or sparse. An example of the latter being "rare earths", which are not actually rare so much as they do not form ore bodies, and must be separated with high energy and waste-material costs from exceedingly low concentrations in the Earth's crust. Similarly, various emissions are often presumed or advertised as being low-consequence ... until they are not. Heavy metals, inert compounds (most notably hydrofluourocarbons), synthetic materials (e.g., plastics with bioactive and endocrinologic effects), and carbon dioxide resulting from combustion are all now major environmental concerns, initially dismissed, overlooked, or actively obscured by those with a short-term benefit from their use. It seems that there are possibilities within process and causal knowledge, power transmission and transformation, networks, systems, and hygiene mechanisms for technologies which are far less prone to risk or debt-shifting. Though critics such as Tainter would suggest that complexity is its own inherent risk, with substantial justificiation.

kersplody 3y ago

It is the only practical solution. The only way to get humanity's energy equation to balance is to dramatically reduce the population or dramatically reduce energy use per capita or invent and deploy a mythical free energy source within the next 30 years. And this just covers replacing black energy with green energy -- even more energy will be needed to address the climate problem.

alehlopeh 3y ago
And that’s practical how?

forgetfreeman 3y ago

Degrowth not only is a solution, it's a guaranteed outcome if other initiatives don't materialize to successfully address the problem.

imtringued 3y ago
You underestimate the threat of eco-fascism. By that I don't mean green party politicians, no, I mean literal facists who blame climate change on overpopulation and who believe that the population has to be cut drastically. In the most basic form this would mean closing our borders and making sure nobody can cross illegally by using lethal force, if necessary.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  I'm not certain I do. I feel like we may be arguing the same side here? What I'm hinting at is that unless concrete results don't begin to materialize and that right soon the resulting climate driven geopolitical upheaval, and knock-on effects to global logistics, is quite likely to result in a significant downsizing of both global GDP and the world population. Perversely both of these obviously bad outcomes will very likely improve global carbon emissions. Here's a really shitty joke for you: How do you reduce your carbon footprint by 100% overnight? Shoot yourself in the head. How do you reduce your carbon footprint by 900% overnight? Go shoot your neighbors in the head. :/
- connorgutman 3y ago
  Climate change is a result of overpopulation and overconsumption, though. It's right there in the name. The climate is changing as a result of anthropogenic activity. I fail to see how eco-fascism affects the outcome here, if we do not cut our population and consumption the planet will do it for us.