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> While I actually agree with you personally that not everything should have to grow forever nothing should have to grow forever. especially not amounts of na
by 4ggr0 3y ago
> While I actually agree with you personally that not everything should have to grow forever
nothing should have to grow forever.
especially not amounts of natural resources, or basic necessities like food and beverages.
- FredPret 3y agoWe've barely scratched the surface of the planet, literally. The deepest mines are 4km deep; mineral deposits are likely to get richer as you go deeper. With desalination, nuclear + solar + geothermal, we can feed an essentially unlimited number of people. There are always second-order effects to everything, including growth. But I find it interesting that we have such a huge runway ahead of us, without even considering resources and energy elsewhere in the solar system.
- 4ggr0 3y agowell, you know. climate change is a tiny example of what can happen after you start treating resources like they're limitless. we can use the solar system, of course, but just discarding earth because other planets are available, seems a bit wasteful.
- FredPret 3y agoMore intensive resource use is also the answer to climate change. The problem is CO2 & friends, not growth itself. A knee-jerk response against growth is hardly going to fix the situation. We can drastically reduce our footprint while growing the economy even faster by building more nuclear + solar power, and digging deeper, improving our water treatment ability, etc.
- 4ggr0 3y agowhat about lowering our usage? or more efficiently use what we have, even if it means less growth for the economy.
- FredPret 3y agoI don't think it's practical to lower or keep it at the same level. - what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now? - even if we did say that, perish the thought, nobody's going to accept that. Africa, India, China, the rest of Asia, and South America have tons of poor people who want their turn. Why shouldn't they also get to be as rich as us? That implies a huge and growing demand for more and more energy and resources, regardless of what the US and Europe think of growth/degrowth/the environment. Therefore I think it's much better to instead accelerate, and do it using clean technologies. By building clean tech in rich countries, we can make it better and cheaper until it's the default option for rapidly growing poor nations. By demonstrating a commitment to growth, we also show them that our way is something to emulate, because growth is what they want and need. Degrowth is going to win you exactly zero friends in the poor world. Nations like Russia and China can easily go to Africa and make the West look like self-centered rich fools who should be ignored. If that happens, there goes your environmental ambitions.
- 4ggr0 3y ago> what do we say to poor people? Sorry your life sucks, but the economy is big enough now? we talk to rich people and tell them, "Sorry, but we've f*cked poor people long enough now, time to adjust downwards and meet in the middle."
- FredPret 3y agoNah mate, you’ve got to be realistic. No human will ever accept a downward adjustment. Plus, meeting in the middle is even less sustainable than the current situation. The options are: - Dramatically less (like prehistoric levels) - Dramatically more (star trek)
- 4ggr0 3y agoWhat about Solarpunk[0]? That could almost be the middle between Pre-Historic and Star Trek. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk