5 ms·

People don't understand the full impact and consequences of drought. When you draw down the water table, the ground compacts. You never get that water storage

People don't understand the full impact and consequences of drought. When you draw down the water table, the ground compacts. You never get that water storage capacity back. There's no way to uncompact hundreds of feet worth of ground across thousands of square miles of earth. There are places in California where the ground has compacted several dozen feet. When you put poison onto the ground, it usually goes into the ground, and sure, the ground may act like a kind of HPLC column and some of that poison might take years to decades to reach the water table...but then what? When you melt chunks of the arctic and antarctic, you don't just cause sea water levels to rise. You also reduce salinity, and affect global-scale air and water currents like the jetstream - causing dramatic shifts in temperatures and water content of air. Indigenous peoples have been warning us for ~10 generations that selfishness will/is destroying the planet. Nobody in power has cared, instead mocking those who do as "snowflakes" and "anti growth" and "anti progress" and so on. All to make more money. You cannot eat money. Your friends cannot eat money. Your children cannot eat money. Their children cannot eat money.

macinjosh 2y ago
[flagged]
- hsavit1 2y ago
  your indifference to potential civilizational collapse is representative of the mass amnesia on this issue
BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
[flagged]
bubbleRefuge 2y ago
All true but most people in the world are worried about putting food on the table and taking care of their kids. Fix social justice and you get on the road to fixing the costs of unfettered capitalism.
- lazide 2y ago
  Have you ever lived in any of those places? As someone who has, the western concept of social justice is a laughable pipe dream.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > but most people in the world are worried about putting food on the table and taking care of their kids People love to repeat this myth, as if most human beings won't care about others or about their own future, as if they can't understand enlightened self-interest, or can't understand climate change. Mostly, it's yet another argument for powerlessness and inaction. The public has gotten behind so many things now and historically. Right now they are the power behind movements that have nothing to offer but brazen falsehoods, corruption, and hate. And yet all the good people say, mass movements are impossible, there's nothing we can do but suffer.
  - sb8244 2y ago
    From my perspective, the feeling is people at large don't care. Likely because it's difficult, uncomfortable, expensive, or all 3. Do I wish it wasn't that way? Yes. But what if it stays that way? Is there a solution then? I'm not saying the fight shouldn't be had. I am saying that—at least in the USA—change doesn't really appear to be a priority unless the $ is there.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      You are not an observer watching from the Moon, you are an agent, a full participant right here on Earth. Your 'perspective' is the problem, not a third-party observation. In wars, enemy propaganda says the kinds of things you are saying, to create despair and powerlessness. Look up operations like Tokyo Rose, for example. It's more powerful than any other weapon - it causes the foe to unilaterally disarm. And, as propagandists intend, here you are repeating it, spreading the disease. Imagine you are working on a team, and someone keeps saying 'nobody cares', it's probably hopeless, etc. That person is the problem, spreading a communicable disease within the team. The good people outnumber the bad, by a lot. Goodness is not a new or alien concept, but fundamental to humanity and to every culture. Human rights has been overwhelmingly successful and popular across people and cultures. History shows it overwhelmingly. All that is missing is belief in themselves and a way forward. Instead of this disease, you could spread what people actually need. Hope, courage, belief in what is right.
oulipo 2y ago
[flagged]
asah 2y ago
Environmental damage is real sure, but conservation and deprivation inspire nobody and aren't politically practical. The obvious conclusion is that the solution lies in some form of geoengineering, with $trillion budget to modify the Earth to suit billions of humans enjoying comfortable lifestyles.
- bwestergard 2y ago
  Our current way of living is a deprivation. The popularity of homesteading fantasies bespeaks the desire for a very different and less self-destructive way of life.
- YawningAngel 2y ago
  Until we demonstrate the ability to actually perform meaningful feats of geoengineering and the sustained willingness to commit trillions of dollars to it, this proposal is basically science fiction
  - c22 2y ago
    The same is true for any proposal that involves half of the world reducing their living standard to match those below the median. For reference, the median per capita household income is a little under $3000/year [0]. [0]: https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      Just noting that realistic or not, this solution is probably desirable by ~4 Billion humans. I’m not sure the (not less fantaisist) geoengineering solution is even comparable in term of popularity.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - asah 2y ago
nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
Your children, however, can eat their friends, and their friends' children.
onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
> Nobody in power has cared, instead mocking those who do as "snowflakes" and "anti growth" and "anti progress" and so on. All to make more money. I'm the type of person the Trumpers call a "Soy Boy", and I'm so sick of this hyperbole. The main solution, if we listened 20 years ago, was that we should all stop using non-renewable energy (basically all energy at the time) and eat bugs. We are at a point now where if we don't do anything, there's a decent chance current trends take us to a nearly ~100% renewable future in 40 years (if you count nuclear and hydro). >90% of people on the planet will take the climate change that is most likely to come from our 20-years prior fossil fuel use and the coming 40 years, than to have gone back to living like indigenous people 20 years ago and remained there forever. There isn't really a world in which we all stopped using fossil fuels and industrial farming and arrived at all the renewable tech we have today, and the ability to produce it at the scale we do now. Climate change is real, so is progress. Most people are willing to make the trade. We are so inferior to be able to turn this planet into Venus, like most of the climate Doomers say we're going to. We likely won't even bring the Earth back to it's typical temperature range - which is MUCH hotter over the last ~450M years than it is now. If you're telling me we're going to cataclysmically destroy the planet because we might bring temperatures close to their average over the last ~450M, I'm going to be skeptical.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Do we have to eat bugs? I'm vegan
  - boothby 2y ago
    You eat bugs. Be they flour mites, dust mites, eyelash mites, fruit fly eggs, parasitic wasps... your home, body, and food all have a nonzero chance of hosting bugs small enough to escape your attention. They inevitably end up going down the hatch from time to time.
    - barbazoo 2y ago
      Obviously not what people mean by that.
bitwize 2y ago
The three P's: powerdown, permaculture, population control. If we do not achieve them, they will be done for us, far less pleasantly.
- jondwillis 2y ago
  Why powerdown? How do you propose humane population control? I get permaculture though ;)
  - einpoklum 2y ago
    > How do you propose humane population control? Actually, in many (most?) countries this is already happening, for better or for worse. It's just a limited subset of areas/countries that have quick population growth. This has different causes and the possible solutions are politically, socially, religiously and economically complex. Or rather, getting to a situation where a solution is applied is complex more than the actual solution.
    - einpoklum 2y ago
      For actual information rather than super-vague observation, have a look at the: -=[UN World Population Prospects Report 2024]=- https://population.un.org/wpp/ https://population.un.org/wpp/ there are bunch of online charts and a large PDF etc.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    Education, birth control and abortion access, and increased income levels. Each of these is associated with a lower fertility rate. There is little pushback against the increase of these measures. It would be very interesting though if a fertility rate increase was warranted and folks were arguing against them in order to raise it.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    I assume by "powerdown", the OP means reducing energy usage, especially of polluting energy sources, mainly fossil fuels. This doesn't really require a lower population, it just means people need to stop expecting to live in huge McMansions with A/C blasting all the time and driving around in 3-ton SUVs. Living in dense, walkable/bikable city environments in energy-efficient dwellings, people could live quite well with a tiny fraction of the polluting energy usage.
ipython 2y ago
Agreed. That’s why I’m glad the new administration is prioritizing establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, for when the shit really hits the fan. (/s if you couldn’t tell)
etaioinshrdlu 2y ago
You can desalinate water with money though.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  only if "with money" means "with immunity from cost-effectiveness considerations," which is to say: no you can't. Not until we have way, way more abundant energy. Meanwhile the EROI of petrochemicals continues to fall.
rendang 2y ago
> Indigenous peoples have been warning us The ones who are descended from the people who wiped out the New World megafauna? Noble savage myths are not going to help you get your point across.
- hirsin 2y ago
  Pointing out that they maybe have experience with this (however you want to phrase it) does sort of lend the guidance some credence no?
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Parent is strawmaning. Discrediting someone base on what their ancestors did 70000 years ago is crazy.
- 20after4 2y ago
  The Hopi people were/are not "noble savages." They felt compelled to warn world leaders of impending disaster. They brought their message to the U.N. in 1992. The warnings have been almost entirely unheeded, to everyone's detriment.
sidewndr46 2y ago
melting the arctic cannot raise sea levels
ETH_start 2y ago
Of course, the environment matters enormously and money is not everything, but to dismiss money like this is an oversimplification of the situation. It's characterizing money in a way that really misleads people. When people talk about, let's say, income or economic opportunity or something like that, they're not just talking about dollar bills in people's hands, they're talking about real economic resources that reduces poverty and empowers people to contend with a wide range of challenges, not just environmental degradation, but the plethora of life-threatening dangers that people are exposed to every single day. Right now we are experiencing the lowest number of deaths from extreme weather in a century, and that's because despite all of the global climate change and other environmental challenges humanity faces, the rise in productivity, which you're dismissing here as merely dollar bills in people's hands, is making people more adaptable and resilient. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65673961 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65673961
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  Not only does this ignore what he wrote, it is exactly the cliché he describes. Parent: > mocking those who do as "snowflakes" and "anti growth" and "anti progress" You: > the rise in productivity, which you're dismissing What makes people adaptable and resilient is creativity and hard work. Today you can buy that with money but the money itself isn’t doing anything. If all farmers stop farming tomorrow, you die no matter how much money you have. How money is linked to increase of productivity is still to prove, as well as parent dismissal of the rise of productivity.
  - ETH_start 2y ago
    You completely missed my point. Money itself, of course, doesn't matter. It's just a unit of account we use to quantify the value of economic resources we have. It is the economic resources themselves that matter, and when we find ways to run businesses more profitably or provide products at a lower cost, that results in the long run in more economic resources being generated. That's how it works in a market economy, and a market economy is orders of magnitude more effective at the process of developing capital and raising our productivity than any other way of organizing society.

macinjosh 2y ago

[flagged]

hsavit1 2y ago
your indifference to potential civilizational collapse is representative of the mass amnesia on this issue

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

[flagged]

bubbleRefuge 2y ago

All true but most people in the world are worried about putting food on the table and taking care of their kids. Fix social justice and you get on the road to fixing the costs of unfettered capitalism.

lazide 2y ago
Have you ever lived in any of those places? As someone who has, the western concept of social justice is a laughable pipe dream.
mmooss 2y ago
> but most people in the world are worried about putting food on the table and taking care of their kids People love to repeat this myth, as if most human beings won't care about others or about their own future, as if they can't understand enlightened self-interest, or can't understand climate change. Mostly, it's yet another argument for powerlessness and inaction. The public has gotten behind so many things now and historically. Right now they are the power behind movements that have nothing to offer but brazen falsehoods, corruption, and hate. And yet all the good people say, mass movements are impossible, there's nothing we can do but suffer.
- sb8244 2y ago
  From my perspective, the feeling is people at large don't care. Likely because it's difficult, uncomfortable, expensive, or all 3. Do I wish it wasn't that way? Yes. But what if it stays that way? Is there a solution then? I'm not saying the fight shouldn't be had. I am saying that—at least in the USA—change doesn't really appear to be a priority unless the $ is there.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    You are not an observer watching from the Moon, you are an agent, a full participant right here on Earth. Your 'perspective' is the problem, not a third-party observation. In wars, enemy propaganda says the kinds of things you are saying, to create despair and powerlessness. Look up operations like Tokyo Rose, for example. It's more powerful than any other weapon - it causes the foe to unilaterally disarm. And, as propagandists intend, here you are repeating it, spreading the disease. Imagine you are working on a team, and someone keeps saying 'nobody cares', it's probably hopeless, etc. That person is the problem, spreading a communicable disease within the team. The good people outnumber the bad, by a lot. Goodness is not a new or alien concept, but fundamental to humanity and to every culture. Human rights has been overwhelmingly successful and popular across people and cultures. History shows it overwhelmingly. All that is missing is belief in themselves and a way forward. Instead of this disease, you could spread what people actually need. Hope, courage, belief in what is right.

oulipo 2y ago

[flagged]

asah 2y ago

Environmental damage is real sure, but conservation and deprivation inspire nobody and aren't politically practical. The obvious conclusion is that the solution lies in some form of geoengineering, with $trillion budget to modify the Earth to suit billions of humans enjoying comfortable lifestyles.

bwestergard 2y ago
Our current way of living is a deprivation. The popularity of homesteading fantasies bespeaks the desire for a very different and less self-destructive way of life.
YawningAngel 2y ago
Until we demonstrate the ability to actually perform meaningful feats of geoengineering and the sustained willingness to commit trillions of dollars to it, this proposal is basically science fiction
- c22 2y ago
  The same is true for any proposal that involves half of the world reducing their living standard to match those below the median. For reference, the median per capita household income is a little under $3000/year [0]. [0]: https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Just noting that realistic or not, this solution is probably desirable by ~4 Billion humans. I’m not sure the (not less fantaisist) geoengineering solution is even comparable in term of popularity.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- asah 2y ago

nyc_data_geek1 2y ago

Your children, however, can eat their friends, and their friends' children.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

> Nobody in power has cared, instead mocking those who do as "snowflakes" and "anti growth" and "anti progress" and so on. All to make more money. I'm the type of person the Trumpers call a "Soy Boy", and I'm so sick of this hyperbole. The main solution, if we listened 20 years ago, was that we should all stop using non-renewable energy (basically all energy at the time) and eat bugs. We are at a point now where if we don't do anything, there's a decent chance current trends take us to a nearly ~100% renewable future in 40 years (if you count nuclear and hydro). >90% of people on the planet will take the climate change that is most likely to come from our 20-years prior fossil fuel use and the coming 40 years, than to have gone back to living like indigenous people 20 years ago and remained there forever. There isn't really a world in which we all stopped using fossil fuels and industrial farming and arrived at all the renewable tech we have today, and the ability to produce it at the scale we do now. Climate change is real, so is progress. Most people are willing to make the trade. We are so inferior to be able to turn this planet into Venus, like most of the climate Doomers say we're going to. We likely won't even bring the Earth back to it's typical temperature range - which is MUCH hotter over the last ~450M years than it is now. If you're telling me we're going to cataclysmically destroy the planet because we might bring temperatures close to their average over the last ~450M, I'm going to be skeptical.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Do we have to eat bugs? I'm vegan
- boothby 2y ago
  You eat bugs. Be they flour mites, dust mites, eyelash mites, fruit fly eggs, parasitic wasps... your home, body, and food all have a nonzero chance of hosting bugs small enough to escape your attention. They inevitably end up going down the hatch from time to time.
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    Obviously not what people mean by that.

bitwize 2y ago

The three P's: powerdown, permaculture, population control. If we do not achieve them, they will be done for us, far less pleasantly.

jondwillis 2y ago
Why powerdown? How do you propose humane population control? I get permaculture though ;)
- einpoklum 2y ago
  > How do you propose humane population control? Actually, in many (most?) countries this is already happening, for better or for worse. It's just a limited subset of areas/countries that have quick population growth. This has different causes and the possible solutions are politically, socially, religiously and economically complex. Or rather, getting to a situation where a solution is applied is complex more than the actual solution.
  - einpoklum 2y ago
    For actual information rather than super-vague observation, have a look at the: -=[UN World Population Prospects Report 2024]=- https://population.un.org/wpp/ https://population.un.org/wpp/ there are bunch of online charts and a large PDF etc.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  Education, birth control and abortion access, and increased income levels. Each of these is associated with a lower fertility rate. There is little pushback against the increase of these measures. It would be very interesting though if a fertility rate increase was warranted and folks were arguing against them in order to raise it.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  I assume by "powerdown", the OP means reducing energy usage, especially of polluting energy sources, mainly fossil fuels. This doesn't really require a lower population, it just means people need to stop expecting to live in huge McMansions with A/C blasting all the time and driving around in 3-ton SUVs. Living in dense, walkable/bikable city environments in energy-efficient dwellings, people could live quite well with a tiny fraction of the polluting energy usage.

ipython 2y ago

Agreed. That’s why I’m glad the new administration is prioritizing establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, for when the shit really hits the fan. (/s if you couldn’t tell)

etaioinshrdlu 2y ago

You can desalinate water with money though.

llamaimperative 2y ago
only if "with money" means "with immunity from cost-effectiveness considerations," which is to say: no you can't. Not until we have way, way more abundant energy. Meanwhile the EROI of petrochemicals continues to fall.

rendang 2y ago

> Indigenous peoples have been warning us The ones who are descended from the people who wiped out the New World megafauna? Noble savage myths are not going to help you get your point across.

hirsin 2y ago
Pointing out that they maybe have experience with this (however you want to phrase it) does sort of lend the guidance some credence no?
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  Parent is strawmaning. Discrediting someone base on what their ancestors did 70000 years ago is crazy.
20after4 2y ago
The Hopi people were/are not "noble savages." They felt compelled to warn world leaders of impending disaster. They brought their message to the U.N. in 1992. The warnings have been almost entirely unheeded, to everyone's detriment.

sidewndr46 2y ago

melting the arctic cannot raise sea levels

ETH_start 2y ago

Of course, the environment matters enormously and money is not everything, but to dismiss money like this is an oversimplification of the situation. It's characterizing money in a way that really misleads people. When people talk about, let's say, income or economic opportunity or something like that, they're not just talking about dollar bills in people's hands, they're talking about real economic resources that reduces poverty and empowers people to contend with a wide range of challenges, not just environmental degradation, but the plethora of life-threatening dangers that people are exposed to every single day. Right now we are experiencing the lowest number of deaths from extreme weather in a century, and that's because despite all of the global climate change and other environmental challenges humanity faces, the rise in productivity, which you're dismissing here as merely dollar bills in people's hands, is making people more adaptable and resilient. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65673961 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65673961

aziaziazi 2y ago
Not only does this ignore what he wrote, it is exactly the cliché he describes. Parent: > mocking those who do as "snowflakes" and "anti growth" and "anti progress" You: > the rise in productivity, which you're dismissing What makes people adaptable and resilient is creativity and hard work. Today you can buy that with money but the money itself isn’t doing anything. If all farmers stop farming tomorrow, you die no matter how much money you have. How money is linked to increase of productivity is still to prove, as well as parent dismissal of the rise of productivity.
- ETH_start 2y ago
  You completely missed my point. Money itself, of course, doesn't matter. It's just a unit of account we use to quantify the value of economic resources we have. It is the economic resources themselves that matter, and when we find ways to run businesses more profitably or provide products at a lower cost, that results in the long run in more economic resources being generated. That's how it works in a market economy, and a market economy is orders of magnitude more effective at the process of developing capital and raising our productivity than any other way of organizing society.