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Status quo just means the world as it sits now. It has no bearing on whether it is an ideal state to be. Humanity is indubitably better off now than it was prio

Status quo just means the world as it sits now. It has no bearing on whether it is an ideal state to be. Humanity is indubitably better off now than it was prior to the Industrial Revolution, and there's 10x more of us now to enjoy it, thanks in large part to energy unlocked by fossil fuels. Do you dispute that point, or is your point rather that we should go back to the living standards and world population of the 1700s? At the same time that we've been flooding the atmosphere with carbon with nations around the world industrializing (1970-2019), climate-related deaths around the world shrank to one-third, while the human population doubled[0]. Not one-third in rate, that's one-third in absolute number. Is that the "climate catastrophe" you're talking about? The IPCC released its first report in 1990, and deaths of climate has only decreased since then, mainly due to the improving ability of developing nations to better master their environment -- again, via cheap energy enabled by fossil fuels. I'm not the one with mental gymnastics and blind spots if you cannot acknowledge the instrumental role that fossil fuels have played in getting humanity to this point, and the inability of current renewable energy technology to replace it wholesale. [0]: https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10989 https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10989

vkou 3y ago
By your definition, draining down your savings because your expenses far exceed your earnings is 'status quo'. A drug addict upping the dose they take every week, to maintain the same rush, until their heart finally gives out is 'status quo'. Continuing to push on the accelerator, as your car is on its way off a cliff is 'status quo'. You're also presenting a laughably false dichotomy for an alternative. I have an incredibly hard time imagining that you honestly believe that to be the only alternative for our current trajectory.

vkou 3y ago

By your definition, draining down your savings because your expenses far exceed your earnings is 'status quo'. A drug addict upping the dose they take every week, to maintain the same rush, until their heart finally gives out is 'status quo'. Continuing to push on the accelerator, as your car is on its way off a cliff is 'status quo'. You're also presenting a laughably false dichotomy for an alternative. I have an incredibly hard time imagining that you honestly believe that to be the only alternative for our current trajectory.