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Seriously. I personally feel like we need a bit more ambition as a species. Saying that nothing can be done about global warming except to reduce consumption an

Seriously. I personally feel like we need a bit more ambition as a species. Saying that nothing can be done about global warming except to reduce consumption and degrowth is—honestly— a losing message. If more people tried to solve global warming instead of grandstanding over it, I think we’d be a lot closer to solutions. We’ve already accidentally geoengineered the whole planet. I gotta say, I find articles like this to be brilliant. Not easy to write. But this one was emotionally spot on.

RGamma 3y ago
The stubborn refusal to slightly inconvenience ourselves by foregoing inessential consumption is much more telling of our lack of ambition. Fucking up the planet and the non-human life on it is simply too convenient.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  Making it an emotional issue is much too convenient. Many people are trying to actively ban science on geoengineering, that’s the context. https://www.uu.nl/en/news/call-for-non-use-agreement-solar-geoengineering https://www.uu.nl/en/news/call-for-non-use-agreement-solar-g...
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  "The stubborn refusal to slightly inconvenience ourselves by foregoing inessential consumption" is the force behind of all scientific, technological and social progress. Without it, we'd be just another animal species frolicking in the forests and dying horrific deaths at the hands of other predators or pathogens.
  - RGamma 3y ago
    I used "inessential" as a shorthand for "expendable when judged by some sensible measure of ecosystem and QoL impact", not in an absolute sense. I.e. antibiotics, home heating or some forms of transport wouldn't be inessential under that definition, but giant hoards of factory farmed meat, large private yacht fleets or the insanity that is the status quo of daily work commute would be.
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Now we're just another animal species frolicking in urban jungles dying at our own hands. Progress!
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Progress indeed, because even ignoring anything else, we at least live much happier lives, and die much less brutally, than we did in the state of nature.
      - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
        For now!
SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
I do think that energy can be shifted much more rapidly to low-carbon forms such as solar and wind. That can be done. And I don't view it as "degrowth" to stop wasting so much energy on pointless endeavours such as e.g. oversized single-occupant petrol-engine vehicles for a daily urban commute to an office. But even if we achieve that tomorrow, that just one of the needed wins, e.g. the seas would still be full of plastic debris and fertiliser run-off. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 We’ve already accidentally geoengineered the whole planet. We might as well understand what we're doing and steer it better. As well as, not instead of.

RGamma 3y ago

The stubborn refusal to slightly inconvenience ourselves by foregoing inessential consumption is much more telling of our lack of ambition. Fucking up the planet and the non-human life on it is simply too convenient.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
Making it an emotional issue is much too convenient. Many people are trying to actively ban science on geoengineering, that’s the context. https://www.uu.nl/en/news/call-for-non-use-agreement-solar-geoengineering https://www.uu.nl/en/news/call-for-non-use-agreement-solar-g...
TeMPOraL 3y ago
"The stubborn refusal to slightly inconvenience ourselves by foregoing inessential consumption" is the force behind of all scientific, technological and social progress. Without it, we'd be just another animal species frolicking in the forests and dying horrific deaths at the hands of other predators or pathogens.
- RGamma 3y ago
  I used "inessential" as a shorthand for "expendable when judged by some sensible measure of ecosystem and QoL impact", not in an absolute sense. I.e. antibiotics, home heating or some forms of transport wouldn't be inessential under that definition, but giant hoards of factory farmed meat, large private yacht fleets or the insanity that is the status quo of daily work commute would be.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Now we're just another animal species frolicking in urban jungles dying at our own hands. Progress!
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Progress indeed, because even ignoring anything else, we at least live much happier lives, and die much less brutally, than we did in the state of nature.
    - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
      For now!

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago

I do think that energy can be shifted much more rapidly to low-carbon forms such as solar and wind. That can be done. And I don't view it as "degrowth" to stop wasting so much energy on pointless endeavours such as e.g. oversized single-occupant petrol-engine vehicles for a daily urban commute to an office. But even if we achieve that tomorrow, that just one of the needed wins, e.g. the seas would still be full of plastic debris and fertiliser run-off. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 We’ve already accidentally geoengineered the whole planet. We might as well understand what we're doing and steer it better. As well as, not instead of.