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I wish more people were aware of this. It's helpful to recognize that we're not the first organism to risk undermining the conditions that made us successful b
by __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I wish more people were aware of this.
It's helpful to recognize that we're not the first organism to risk undermining the conditions that made us successful by altering the gas mixture in the atmosphere, and that 400 million years of ice is the sort of consequence that we're playing with.
- silverquiet 3y agoI used to be optimistic that we had a bit more agency than bacteria, but so far we do not seem any more able to constrain ourselves.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y agoCoordination is hard :/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LoganDark 3y agoCoordination is even harder when a decent fraction of the population cares so little that they actively shut out any attempt to point them in a better direction
- antihipocrat 3y agoIt would only take a very small fraction of the population to care and change everything. The small fraction that profits from the polluting industries and uses those profits to maintain the status quo.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoRight, our incentive system (money) is non-binding if you have enough money to spend on avoiding consequences. We need something different (or perhaps something additional) which can motivate those people to pull their heads out of the sand and quit chasing profit for profit sake and change the status quo.
- falserum 3y agoLets start with best country of the world that is made of 300 million consumers and 1000 factory owners (also known as polluters) each of which has identical share of the market. To reduce pollution, factory owners would need to use less polluting means (i.e. less profit) and produce less (again less profit). What happens if 999 factory owners do adhere to pollution-reduction, while 1 of them is polluting a bit more than others? (Answer: The polluter increases his share of the market, as more profits can be reinvested; and with more market share the profit will grow even more) The point: consumers incentivize factory owners to polute, if consumers buy stuff despite polution. This exercise ignores legislation, but law will not change until enough of consumers/voters start to care of the topic and will be ready to pay more for less and demand for it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- antihipocrat 3y agoWhy are owners of capital deemed to be innocent when subject to the invisible hand and not the consumer? Answer is probably due to media influence paid for by the profits I alluded to earlier
- falserum 3y agoI would like to label guilt/innocence as irrelevant. The scenario above, describes the dynamics of how incentives work. As long as consumers expect stuff to be cheap, somebody will step up to provide that (reaping profits). Only highly conscious society or totally authoritarian one can make these changes (though probability of dictator caring about environmental effects is low, and probably not sustainable). Edit: guilt/innocence are irrelevant in the sense that they do not change the outcome. If human gets into a tigers cage and gets eaten (or seriously injured), outcome was predictable without the need to know who is at fault (tiger or human).
- antihipocrat 3y agoWe could somehow account for the cost of these negative externalities in financial reporting, or tax them. A part of the general public is only whipped into a frenzy against these measures by vested interests.
- mudlus 3y agoYeah, it's really a shame that geo-engineering projects keep getting shut down. We either control the climate, or it kills people. It's that simple. Without controlling the climate you don't get to pick and choose who lives and who dies because of "nature". It's not even a coordination problem. It's a regulation problem. People don't all need to agree before progress can happen and errors can be corrected. We just need any organization to show some backbone and stop kowtowing to the suicidal environmentalists. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/3/20/harvard-geoengineering-project-abandoned/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/3/20/harvard-geoengi...
- mrtesthah 3y ago"Suicidal environmentalists"? What kind of preposterous position is that? There is no known CO2 removal or capture technology currently capable of reducing levels faster and with less energy inputs than simply shutting down the current emitters. Geo-engineering is essential, but stopping emissions is even more so.
- angiosperm 3y agoMore to the point, geo-engineering is guaranteed to fail if emissions are unchecked. Whatever gains the former can offer, the latter may easily overwhelm. Our only hope is for emitting processes to become much more expensive than non-emitting alternatives. Fortunately we are on that path, although entrenched interests force emitting processes to continue well beyond economic rationality. E.g., new coal burning infrastructure being built even now.
- generic92034 3y agoI wish, but I am not so sure we are really on the path, when I read articles like this one: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/28/oil-and-gas-fossil-fuels-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/28/oil-and-... Quote: "World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds."
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoI wouldn't call it a decent fraction.
- 48864w6ui 3y agoBy population, bacteria are fitter than we are
- JohnMakin 3y ago[flagged]
- deepsun 3y agoBut we're not going to get another 400m years, because the Sun grows hotter. In 500m years all the oceans will boil.
- pixl97 3y agoI mean, if we actually last another 400m years, or even 1 million it's completely possibly that we could slowly shade the Earth with solar shades orbiting the planet. It does not take 'much' energy to reduce the energy input to the planet when you can move things on very long timescales.
- angiosperm 3y agoWith any luck, it will happen in just a few centuries as waste heat from industrial processes grows without bound, unless industrial expansion moves off-world before then.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]