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Two issues with the title. Global warming is not specific to Europe (it is "global"). And the "why" can't be meaningfully answered unless you specify how far yo

by zkmon 2mo ago

Two issues with the title. Global warming is not specific to Europe (it is "global"). And the "why" can't be meaningfully answered unless you specify how far you want to go along the cause-and-effect chain (Feynman on magnetism - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8). Let me look at cause-and-effect chain for the past 100 years. It is the unbridled industrialisation, captial markets, business push, desire to dominate other countries, vote-bank democracies, exploitation of natural resources and so on. It is not something caused by single person or policy over past few years or decades.

noduerme 2mo ago
That sounds like a lot of generic, hand-wavey hot takes about why the world is a mess that are taught in higher ed. Here's a take: The world was a mess when drought led to the collapse of the Mayan empire. It was a mess when foreign invasion (now known as mass migration) caused the end of the Roman empire. You want to funnel the causes and effects into a political or economic framework that suits your ideology, but humans were great at ruining their polities and destroying their ecosystems long before industrialization or capitalism existed. What industrialization and capitalism have done is to triple the life expectancy and quarter the infant mortality rate in most countries, as well as provide things like, idk, refrigeration and rapid transportation. Doomers are getting closer and closer to outright Luddite ideas. But the practical consequences of doing away with modern capitalism or industry, the things which have led us to environmental danger, would be the mass extermination by starvation or violence of most of humanity. If that's cool with you, if that's what it takes to save us from capitalist driven climate change, then you're not really much of a humanist. We are consigned to this road. We are the residue of many empires. We produce a lot of waste and heat and carbon. We also produce life-saving medications and air conditioning and the highest standard of living of any society in history, even in the poorest places in the world. The alternative to this system would incur mass death for most of the population on the planet. And yet so many privileged people think that would be alright if it fixes their pet political issues. Think about how anti-human that actually is.
- bluefirebrand 2mo ago
  > The alternative to this system would incur mass death for most of the population on the planet Maybe we could produce less plastic waste, like action figures and other toy junk? Children need/benefit from having toys, sure, but do we need mountains of options, many of which are destined for the landfill without ever leaving their packaging? There's a lot of areas we could cut back on excess without necessarily giving up the life saving medications, air conditioning and high standard of living. Maybe just maybe?
  - audunw 2mo ago
    We don’t need any of those things, but they’re in no way the source of our problems anyway, and eliminating them will do nothing of significance to solve the problems. So it’s pointless to discuss. We have so many plastic toys because plastic is cheap. Plastic is cheap because the feedstocks fall out, practically for free, from the refining of fuel that we absolutely need for society to function at the scale that provides us a healthy and comfortable standard of living. So the main problem we need to solve is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. The rest will follow. When the economies of scale for oil and gas extraction go away, the balance will massively tip in the favour of renewable solutions. We will still make lots of useless plastic toys though. But perhaps it’ll be bio plastics and perhaps the scale will diminish a bit as the price increases. And I think they’ll end up in trash burning facilities with district heating rather than landfills. That’s already the trend in Northern Europe, and they’ve started importing trash to burn. Yeah, recycle first. But eventually everything degrades and should be burned.
  - noduerme 2mo ago
    Obviously we can improve the world by having laws and customs that reduce wasteful consumption. I was talking about the alternative to a free market system dictated by people's wants, and the alternative to a natural progression of growth. The alternative is North Korea. It's a system that murders as many people as necessary to maintain what a few people in privileged positions would consider an equilibrium. Whether that's done in the name of self-sustaining, or in the name of ecology, or in the name of keeping bloodlines pure or in the name of preventing overpopulation, it's irrelevant. The alternative reality in which one person's idea of what's good for the world overrides millions of people's means of providing for their families is, by definition, a state of murder and ultimately a state of cannibalism. It is not the salvation state of balance that some fools think it would be.
littlexsparkee 2mo ago
GW make it much more likely but they go into the why and it is localized / specific - land abandonment (rural > urban migration, i.e. lack of pruning / plant diversity), wet / dry whiplash (leading to plant growth that is fuel for fires in droughts), reforestation (mostly monocrop). GW isn't specific to Europe but EU is warming 2x as fast. I get what you're saying but your critique - I don't think the piece was written to warrant it.

by zkmon 2mo ago

noduerme 2mo ago

That sounds like a lot of generic, hand-wavey hot takes about why the world is a mess that are taught in higher ed. Here's a take: The world was a mess when drought led to the collapse of the Mayan empire. It was a mess when foreign invasion (now known as mass migration) caused the end of the Roman empire. You want to funnel the causes and effects into a political or economic framework that suits your ideology, but humans were great at ruining their polities and destroying their ecosystems long before industrialization or capitalism existed. What industrialization and capitalism have done is to triple the life expectancy and quarter the infant mortality rate in most countries, as well as provide things like, idk, refrigeration and rapid transportation. Doomers are getting closer and closer to outright Luddite ideas. But the practical consequences of doing away with modern capitalism or industry, the things which have led us to environmental danger, would be the mass extermination by starvation or violence of most of humanity. If that's cool with you, if that's what it takes to save us from capitalist driven climate change, then you're not really much of a humanist. We are consigned to this road. We are the residue of many empires. We produce a lot of waste and heat and carbon. We also produce life-saving medications and air conditioning and the highest standard of living of any society in history, even in the poorest places in the world. The alternative to this system would incur mass death for most of the population on the planet. And yet so many privileged people think that would be alright if it fixes their pet political issues. Think about how anti-human that actually is.

bluefirebrand 2mo ago
> The alternative to this system would incur mass death for most of the population on the planet Maybe we could produce less plastic waste, like action figures and other toy junk? Children need/benefit from having toys, sure, but do we need mountains of options, many of which are destined for the landfill without ever leaving their packaging? There's a lot of areas we could cut back on excess without necessarily giving up the life saving medications, air conditioning and high standard of living. Maybe just maybe?
- audunw 2mo ago
  We don’t need any of those things, but they’re in no way the source of our problems anyway, and eliminating them will do nothing of significance to solve the problems. So it’s pointless to discuss. We have so many plastic toys because plastic is cheap. Plastic is cheap because the feedstocks fall out, practically for free, from the refining of fuel that we absolutely need for society to function at the scale that provides us a healthy and comfortable standard of living. So the main problem we need to solve is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. The rest will follow. When the economies of scale for oil and gas extraction go away, the balance will massively tip in the favour of renewable solutions. We will still make lots of useless plastic toys though. But perhaps it’ll be bio plastics and perhaps the scale will diminish a bit as the price increases. And I think they’ll end up in trash burning facilities with district heating rather than landfills. That’s already the trend in Northern Europe, and they’ve started importing trash to burn. Yeah, recycle first. But eventually everything degrades and should be burned.
- noduerme 2mo ago
  Obviously we can improve the world by having laws and customs that reduce wasteful consumption. I was talking about the alternative to a free market system dictated by people's wants, and the alternative to a natural progression of growth. The alternative is North Korea. It's a system that murders as many people as necessary to maintain what a few people in privileged positions would consider an equilibrium. Whether that's done in the name of self-sustaining, or in the name of ecology, or in the name of keeping bloodlines pure or in the name of preventing overpopulation, it's irrelevant. The alternative reality in which one person's idea of what's good for the world overrides millions of people's means of providing for their families is, by definition, a state of murder and ultimately a state of cannibalism. It is not the salvation state of balance that some fools think it would be.

littlexsparkee 2mo ago

GW make it much more likely but they go into the why and it is localized / specific - land abandonment (rural > urban migration, i.e. lack of pruning / plant diversity), wet / dry whiplash (leading to plant growth that is fuel for fires in droughts), reforestation (mostly monocrop). GW isn't specific to Europe but EU is warming 2x as fast. I get what you're saying but your critique - I don't think the piece was written to warrant it.