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Stopping manmade biosphere destruction is easy, it only requires fundamental political, economic and cultural changes in every single country all at once. Our
by Voultapher 3y ago
Stopping manmade biosphere destruction is easy, it only requires fundamental political, economic and cultural changes in every single country all at once.
Our political, economic and cultural systems are all rooted in growth. We define wealth as owning and using more than before. Our economies and pensions etc. are built on the expectation of continuous growth. Our cultures revolve in large parts around wealth.
I think the question is no longer what can we do to prevent billions from dying, rather our decisions today will decide how many billions.
Side-note: The perspective above is human centric or supremacist depending on who you ask. We share this world with so many other lifeforms, as of now they don't have a seat at the table. What if we manage to save humans and smartphones from extinction but only us? Is that a world worth living in?
To quote Tom Murphy:
> Energy transition aspirations are similar. The goal is powering modernity, not addressing the sixth mass extinction. Sure, it could mitigate the CO2 threat (to modernity), but why does the fox care when its decline ultimately traces primarily to things like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, agricultural runoff, pollution, pesticides, mining, manufacturing, or in short: modernity. Pursuit of a giant energy infrastructure replacement requires tremendous material extraction—directly driving many of these ills—only to then provide the energetic means to keep doing all these same things that abundant evidence warns is a prescription for termination of the community of life.
From https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/03/lets-make-a-deal/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/03/lets-make-a-deal/
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago> What if we manage to save humans and smartphones from extinction but only us? Is that a world worth living in? Yes it is. I can’t believe that is even a question. It would be no worse than living on a colony on Mars or the moon.
- Voultapher 3y agoWhat makes you special? Let's build a world only for white people, we didn't deliberately murder all non-whites, but eh, it was unavoidable. You might now think, hey that's not the same thing. That line is arbitrary, it's called white supremacy. And what you are suggesting is human supremacy. A world by humans for humans and no one else!
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoEquating the difference between humans and non-human animals with racial differences is horribly racist and is recycling a very old racist trope.
- Voultapher 3y agoPlease explain why committing a genocide against orangutans and countless other species is fine, but doing the same to humans based on their skin color is wrong. In my viewpoint both are wrong, I fail to see why only one of them would be wrong.
- RGamma 3y agoThrowing away the incredible beauty of life for consumerist banality... Maybe take a last look at what we're destroying and you may reconsider. God doesn't exist; else he would stop us.
- lazide 3y ago‘easy’ Remember, you can’t stop the engine while it’s running or everyone starves to death, and not figuring out useful alternatives (and getting them setup and working and all the major kinks ironed out) will stop the engine.
- Voultapher 3y agoThe train is currently plowing through countless other animals with complex emotions https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/ecological-cliff-edge/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/ecological-cliff-edge/
- lazide 3y agoAs it always has. Doesn’t change anything I said though. Though we have gotten better at doing it at scale, eh? ‘The wheel’ turns. It’s what it does. Trying to stop it just results in being crushed under it. Trying to break it, or change it, just results losing any ability to steer we might have had, and uncontrollable direction with more resulting damage. Realizing that, working to understand it and perhaps help steer it instead of stopping it, can sometimes produce better outcomes and less pain. No guarantees though. In the end, existence is what happens, not what we wished had happened. Delusion has a very, very strong draw though. In many cases, it’s the foundation that society is built on. Trying to control existence causes pain. Trying to deny it, causes pain. Life always includes some pain - it has to. Pain is reality trying to teach us something. It rarely goes away if we refuse. If we like that or not, does not matter to it, and never has.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Our economies and pensions etc. are built on the expectation of continuous growth In countries with growing populations, yes. Look at the Japanese pensions’ expectations. They literally don’t need real growth as long as the population shrinks. The economies of scale of marginal growth aren’t worth it if you can’t consume all its fruits. On the other hand, economies of scale mean getting more with less: they are why the amount of materials and energy we require to generate one unit of GDP has broadly been falling over the years.
- Voultapher 3y agoAnd yet, they still require economic growth, a continuously falling GDP would wreak havoc in their pensions. Everywhere we look a growth in wealth as measured by GDP goes hand in hand with a growth in resource usage.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> they still require economic growth, a continuously falling GDP would wreak havoc in their pensions I literally gave an example where this is not true. Falling GDP per capita would create problems. But falling GDP per se is fine. Their required real return is zero. It’s nice to earn more, but the math balances at zero.