3 ms·

You are not going to convince people to go back to the 1960s. But I think that is also the wrong way of looking at it, just going back in time would be stupid.

You are not going to convince people to go back to the 1960s. But I think that is also the wrong way of looking at it, just going back in time would be stupid. We have made advancements, for example houses and cars consuming less energy, it would make no sense to go back to the old technology. So you could probably have a larger house than you had in the 1960s while still having the same environmental footprint. Or did they already factor that in, you need 1950s energy consumption and with current technology that buys you 1960s stuff? One would really have to carefully analyze what you can fit into the available footprint with current technology. Maybe you only get two plane trips during your lifetime, that is one of the first things that comes to mind that people did a lot less in the past, travelling. But the would of course cause ripple effects and it could be really hard to predict the effects.

agentultra 2y ago
True. I think the practicalities of it are hard to predict but the spirit of the idea seems reasonable; it’s not that degrowth would have us sitting in squalid huts eating grass. Such an idea doesn’t seem to have much evidence. But the vast gulf of consumption between a typical upper class North American family outputs vastly more carbon than a typical family in Pakistan or Nairobi that there is probably a lot of wiggle room to plan a more even distribution of wealth. And such redistribution may not make the 0.01% much richer but doesn’t it seem possible that it could also have the effect of slowing down our carbon emissions as well as keeping up the positive trends of reducing global poverty?
- danbruc 2y ago
  Do the rich people really matter, are there enough of them to do so? A thousand billionaires with a one thousand times larger footprint are still only equivalent to a million people, i.e. not even one percent of the US population. I do not know and have a hard time guessing how much the rich really matter. Next I guess you have to assume that everyone in the world raises its living standard to the highest living standard in the world, people will not accept to permanently have a lower living standard than others. Essentially divide the available resources by the number of all humans, that is what you have to work with, people currently below that will eventually demand their fair share. And thinking about it some more, do we even have any footprint to divide up? There are, as far as I know, no fast natural carbon sinks, so we can not emit any carbon dioxide at all without raising atmospheric carbon levels.
  - agentultra 2y ago
    The science doesn't seem to suggest that there is any "more" we can emit, hence we have to not only eliminate emissions but reduce them. Radically. We all know what the solution to that has to be. What does a world without fossil fuel use look like? How do we maintain healthy economic indicators in the current modern understanding without them? The amount of economic advantage fossil-fuel consumption gives people over people who don't seems quite large. I'm not certain degrowth is the answer but I don't think it's complete non-sense either. We're not dealing with a zero-sum game here but it doesn't seem likely that our current course will achieve our goals.

agentultra 2y ago

True. I think the practicalities of it are hard to predict but the spirit of the idea seems reasonable; it’s not that degrowth would have us sitting in squalid huts eating grass. Such an idea doesn’t seem to have much evidence. But the vast gulf of consumption between a typical upper class North American family outputs vastly more carbon than a typical family in Pakistan or Nairobi that there is probably a lot of wiggle room to plan a more even distribution of wealth. And such redistribution may not make the 0.01% much richer but doesn’t it seem possible that it could also have the effect of slowing down our carbon emissions as well as keeping up the positive trends of reducing global poverty?

danbruc 2y ago
Do the rich people really matter, are there enough of them to do so? A thousand billionaires with a one thousand times larger footprint are still only equivalent to a million people, i.e. not even one percent of the US population. I do not know and have a hard time guessing how much the rich really matter. Next I guess you have to assume that everyone in the world raises its living standard to the highest living standard in the world, people will not accept to permanently have a lower living standard than others. Essentially divide the available resources by the number of all humans, that is what you have to work with, people currently below that will eventually demand their fair share. And thinking about it some more, do we even have any footprint to divide up? There are, as far as I know, no fast natural carbon sinks, so we can not emit any carbon dioxide at all without raising atmospheric carbon levels.
- agentultra 2y ago
  The science doesn't seem to suggest that there is any "more" we can emit, hence we have to not only eliminate emissions but reduce them. Radically. We all know what the solution to that has to be. What does a world without fossil fuel use look like? How do we maintain healthy economic indicators in the current modern understanding without them? The amount of economic advantage fossil-fuel consumption gives people over people who don't seems quite large. I'm not certain degrowth is the answer but I don't think it's complete non-sense either. We're not dealing with a zero-sum game here but it doesn't seem likely that our current course will achieve our goals.