4 ms·

Combine this with the current climate change model that estimate 14.5 million¹ will die as a consequence we can expect significant population reduction. Sadly

Combine this with the current climate change model that estimate 14.5 million¹ will die as a consequence we can expect significant population reduction. Sadly our western capitalist societies and probably the rest as well will collapse. Our present arrangement is based on growth. As the population declines so does growth potential. (though that requires the market to be already saturated. If you are a new company creating a new widget that people want you will naturally see growth. If you are Apple much less so). https://www.weforum.org/publications/quantifying-the-impact-of-climate-change-on-human-health/ https://www.weforum.org/publications/quantifying-the-impact-...

happymellon 2y ago
> If you are a new company creating a new widget that people want you will naturally see growth. If you are Apple much less so I personally don't see any problem with this. There has been much stagnation in many markets due to the Apple/Google/Microsoft behemoths squashing competition, even if its through generating fear of them banning you.
netsharc 2y ago
I'm quite a climate fatalist, and your comment made me realize the collapse will be long and painful. Oh did I say "will be"? More like "is". There'll be a lot more bullets and missiles shot, even if countries might not be officially at "war" with each other. I can imagine China "invading" Russia for water/fertile Siberian land, the EU killing^W letting more people die in the Mediterranean, and "civilized" countries having trade (and probably later bullet) wars for food and water. When Europe faced an energy crisis because they had to stop buying Russian gas (since the money was suddenly funding the killing of Ukranians), they bid more for LNGs, and tankers of the stuff headed for India turned around at sea. And Covid has shown that even friendly countries got protective and abandoned "friends" in times of crisis - when it spiked in Italy, the Schengen open border policy/EU freedom of movement was suspended, there were even talks of countries blocking shipment of vaccines because they needed it for themselves. And let's not forget how it was a vaccines galore for the rich countries, and "Please wait your turn" for the poor ones...
- LaurensBER 2y ago
  All of the crises (energy crisis, COVID, etc) have been solved by adapting to the new reality. That usually takes times and makes things (temporarily) worse but I'm confident we can keep on doing that. A lack of drinking water can be solved with desalination (which, today, is insanely cheap for drinking water, too expensive for agriculture though), we can improve the productivity of existing agriculture and switch from a meat based diet towards a more plant based diet, etc. This will require adjustments but I don't see China (with a shrinking population) attacking Russia to maintain the price of steak.
  - cnity 2y ago
    People really need to start thinking harder about plant based diets. I don't think most people know the numbers[0] in terms of how much habitable land is occupied by grazing and animal feed land. I mean just think about it: you're putting food that grows mainly by direct energy from the sun (which is already a lossy process) and processing it through animals before eating it (in the form of that animal's meat). This is by definition an inefficient process, and we'd recover something approaching the entirety of the American continent of land by making this switch. Obviously this is hard to accomplish given how deeply ingrained meat-eating culture is. 0: https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
    - rickydroll 2y ago
      Plant-based diets are a difficult sell for many reasons. I eat low carbs to control/reduce insulin resistance. Plant-based diets have a long-term negative effect on my health. If you don't have problems with insulin resistance, plant-based diets are a great way to maintain better health. There are a few ways to reduce the impact of growing animals for food. One path is incorporating various practices like regenerative grazing and agrivoltaics into the food supply chain. Another path is to restrict all agricultural activities that drain aquifers. I suspect that those irrigation-dependent lands easily supported herds of buffalo, and returning those lands to animal raising, especially using regenerative grazing practices, would replenish the soil stripped of nutrients by modern agricultural practices.
LaurensBER 2y ago
Japan has a terrible demographic and zero economic growth and is doing relatively fine. Sure, life in the future will be different than life in the past but that has always been the case. Perhaps it will (temporarily) be worse in some areas and perhaps it will be better in other areas. That'll be very hard to predict. I don't think an economic collapse will happen, we'll have to adapt but a collapse is not in anyone's favour. Less people does mean lower real-estate prices and potentially more nature. Perhaps we'll have to settle for less gadgets and exotic holidays but we'll have nicer homes and more nature around us. That seems like a decent trade-off.
- nf3 2y ago
  Japan seems to be leaning more and more on immigrant labor for maintaining its economy. It's pretty obvious if you visit. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/07/japan/society/japan-mass-foreign-immigration/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/07/japan/society/j...
- illiac786 2y ago
  My worry is that climate change is exponential in impact over time and has extremely high inertia. meaning, once it has been pushed far enough, the devastation continues to increase for decades despite any efforts humanity could put together. Time will tell but I really worry what the next generations will have to deal with, I cannot find it in my heart to be optimistic about this. It will be extremely painful I feel and sometimes I have the impression the only way for our earth to get better is if humanity gets significantly worse, like back to middle age.
weweweoo 2y ago
I believe most of the misery could be still avoided with massive amount of investment into green technology, AI and robotics to take care of the old and so on. But if Americans continue to elect people who hate science and have ideological love for fossil fuels, then we're probably doomed indeed.
cedws 2y ago
This is one reason my pension contribution is the minimum. I don’t believe in pensions. Later this century, the infinite growth machine is going to start sputtering and things are going to get rocky. I have zero faith in the government or any financial institution to give me what I’m owed when that happens.
MrSkelter 2y ago
The insanity of worrying about capitalism while the planet dies instead of worrying about the planet while capitalism dies. 18th century economics are not the endgame. There are many other ways to organize societies that existed before and will again. Infinite growth in a closed system isn’t a sensible objective and Adam Smiths work has been horribly misunderstood simply because doing so benefits an elite.

happymellon 2y ago

> If you are a new company creating a new widget that people want you will naturally see growth. If you are Apple much less so I personally don't see any problem with this. There has been much stagnation in many markets due to the Apple/Google/Microsoft behemoths squashing competition, even if its through generating fear of them banning you.

netsharc 2y ago

I'm quite a climate fatalist, and your comment made me realize the collapse will be long and painful. Oh did I say "will be"? More like "is". There'll be a lot more bullets and missiles shot, even if countries might not be officially at "war" with each other. I can imagine China "invading" Russia for water/fertile Siberian land, the EU killing^W letting more people die in the Mediterranean, and "civilized" countries having trade (and probably later bullet) wars for food and water. When Europe faced an energy crisis because they had to stop buying Russian gas (since the money was suddenly funding the killing of Ukranians), they bid more for LNGs, and tankers of the stuff headed for India turned around at sea. And Covid has shown that even friendly countries got protective and abandoned "friends" in times of crisis - when it spiked in Italy, the Schengen open border policy/EU freedom of movement was suspended, there were even talks of countries blocking shipment of vaccines because they needed it for themselves. And let's not forget how it was a vaccines galore for the rich countries, and "Please wait your turn" for the poor ones...

LaurensBER 2y ago
All of the crises (energy crisis, COVID, etc) have been solved by adapting to the new reality. That usually takes times and makes things (temporarily) worse but I'm confident we can keep on doing that. A lack of drinking water can be solved with desalination (which, today, is insanely cheap for drinking water, too expensive for agriculture though), we can improve the productivity of existing agriculture and switch from a meat based diet towards a more plant based diet, etc. This will require adjustments but I don't see China (with a shrinking population) attacking Russia to maintain the price of steak.
- cnity 2y ago
  People really need to start thinking harder about plant based diets. I don't think most people know the numbers[0] in terms of how much habitable land is occupied by grazing and animal feed land. I mean just think about it: you're putting food that grows mainly by direct energy from the sun (which is already a lossy process) and processing it through animals before eating it (in the form of that animal's meat). This is by definition an inefficient process, and we'd recover something approaching the entirety of the American continent of land by making this switch. Obviously this is hard to accomplish given how deeply ingrained meat-eating culture is. 0: https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
  - rickydroll 2y ago
    Plant-based diets are a difficult sell for many reasons. I eat low carbs to control/reduce insulin resistance. Plant-based diets have a long-term negative effect on my health. If you don't have problems with insulin resistance, plant-based diets are a great way to maintain better health. There are a few ways to reduce the impact of growing animals for food. One path is incorporating various practices like regenerative grazing and agrivoltaics into the food supply chain. Another path is to restrict all agricultural activities that drain aquifers. I suspect that those irrigation-dependent lands easily supported herds of buffalo, and returning those lands to animal raising, especially using regenerative grazing practices, would replenish the soil stripped of nutrients by modern agricultural practices.

LaurensBER 2y ago

Japan has a terrible demographic and zero economic growth and is doing relatively fine. Sure, life in the future will be different than life in the past but that has always been the case. Perhaps it will (temporarily) be worse in some areas and perhaps it will be better in other areas. That'll be very hard to predict. I don't think an economic collapse will happen, we'll have to adapt but a collapse is not in anyone's favour. Less people does mean lower real-estate prices and potentially more nature. Perhaps we'll have to settle for less gadgets and exotic holidays but we'll have nicer homes and more nature around us. That seems like a decent trade-off.

nf3 2y ago
Japan seems to be leaning more and more on immigrant labor for maintaining its economy. It's pretty obvious if you visit. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/07/japan/society/japan-mass-foreign-immigration/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/07/japan/society/j...
illiac786 2y ago
My worry is that climate change is exponential in impact over time and has extremely high inertia. meaning, once it has been pushed far enough, the devastation continues to increase for decades despite any efforts humanity could put together. Time will tell but I really worry what the next generations will have to deal with, I cannot find it in my heart to be optimistic about this. It will be extremely painful I feel and sometimes I have the impression the only way for our earth to get better is if humanity gets significantly worse, like back to middle age.

weweweoo 2y ago

I believe most of the misery could be still avoided with massive amount of investment into green technology, AI and robotics to take care of the old and so on. But if Americans continue to elect people who hate science and have ideological love for fossil fuels, then we're probably doomed indeed.

cedws 2y ago

This is one reason my pension contribution is the minimum. I don’t believe in pensions. Later this century, the infinite growth machine is going to start sputtering and things are going to get rocky. I have zero faith in the government or any financial institution to give me what I’m owed when that happens.

MrSkelter 2y ago

The insanity of worrying about capitalism while the planet dies instead of worrying about the planet while capitalism dies. 18th century economics are not the endgame. There are many other ways to organize societies that existed before and will again. Infinite growth in a closed system isn’t a sensible objective and Adam Smiths work has been horribly misunderstood simply because doing so benefits an elite.