If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home? • Hacker News Board

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#91

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 6:40 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #72

bubblewrap wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are poor arguments about overpopulation? Clearly overpopulation is part of the problem.

Is it? When countries modernize their economies, the birth rate plummets to near-replacement rates over the course of about two generations. Take Iran, for example. In 1980, their birthrate was around 6. Today, it's lower than Europe. What population growth we're seeing today is mostly due to increased lifespan, not high birth rates.

First, I think most population growth is in "3rd world countries", so your theory of increased lifespan being the culprit doesn't really hold.

The theory that growth slows with economic improvements is nice, but it is not a law of nature. Besides even with no more growth, we still have billions of people who want to raise their lifestyle to Western levels, increasing their CO2 footprint by orders of magnitude.

And another way to look at it: if there were only 10000 humans on earth, they would probably have a difficult time trying to move CO2 levels by a significant amount, or producing significant amounts of plastic, and so on. So clearly population size is a part of the problem.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#92

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 6:42 AM UTC

Harvey-Specter wrote: post #21

bubblewrap wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollution with toxins to prevent mold? And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose?

Really - you can't think of any solutions for heating and cooling houses without burning fossil fuels? Electric baseboard heaters have been a thing forever, just power those with solar or wind or nuclear and we're done. My air conditioner is already electric. Drive an electric car, and buy renewable electricity.

Renewable energy is not really a proven concept yet.

If it were so easy, people would already be doing it.

It's fine to work towards using more renewables, but you can't simply say "just use renewables, problems solved".

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#93

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 6:43 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #15

bubblewrap wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollution with toxins to prevent mold? And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose?

> And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose? Walk. Bicycle. Use public transit. In extremity, buy an electric car (but that has issues, too). If your question is "what should people who live, heavily subsidized, in suburbs and exurbs, do?", then the answer teases itself out pretty elegantly.

Building housing produces a lot of CO2, too.

So if you suggest all people living in the countryside should move into cities, you are also taking about a huge economic undertaking that would also produce huge amounts of CO2.

Presumably some people are also needed in the countryside, to do the farming, and support the farmers.

Subsidizing suburbs is of course stupid. But simply rolling everything back is not really feasible.

Even in the past when people moved to the suburbs, presumably they did so because living in the city would have been prohibitively expensive.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#94

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 9:39 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #37

bubblewrap wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollution with toxins to prevent mold? And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose?

"Passivhaus" designs significantly reduce this energy need without running into mould problems.

Don't they still require insulation? What do they use?

It doesn't seem feasible to convert all housing to passive houses in a short time span, either.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#95

Post by nextweek2 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

Dkastro92 wrote: post #35

The only way to fight climate change is to tax carbon at a global scale, and that is nearly imposible considering the current world politics

You are absolutely right, a current example of that is the Yellow Vest Movement in France:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement

When I first heard about it, I thought it was a movement which is not caring about the environment. That 1 million French are vocally opposed to the environment. It's more complex than that but taxing carbon would lead to protests of the masses.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#96

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 12:14 PM UTC

geff82 wrote: post #53

estebank wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I see though is that "drive an electric car" is interpreted all too often as "buy an electric car, and now that you're 'green', do not worry yourself about the fact that you change cars every two years and the footprint of your gas consumption is dwarfed by the footprint of actually making the cars pat self in back ".

Indeed, buying a new electric cars like our grandfathers bought their Fords would be totally counterproductive. But I do not think we have to stop using cars to be quite sustainable - we just have to stop thinking there are only Teslas with their big battery and that everyone needs 500km of nonstop range. Speaking for my family: we currently still feel we need a 7-seat family car with a lot of range, but our second c…

"our second car"

Sorry, but I had to lol about that. Yeah alright, go green on your second car.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#97

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 12:16 PM UTC

distant_hat wrote: post #78

bubblewrap wrote: post #10

"But actually this summer, we’re going to Greece" He does all the calculations, is more informed than the average person, and still decides to just go for it. This is why the battle against global warming is pointless. Human population explosion (triggered by the invention of agriculture) will simply run its course, and we'll just have to live with whatever world we'll be left with in the end. Yes, he is buying "offs…

You think a TV is carbon neutral? Have you considered going into a medically induced coma and just staying there, even less environmental damage.

I think a TV uses WAY less carbon than flying to Greece, yes. I didn't say you have to be carbon neutral (although make no mistakes, many people do think that). But there is a difference between going carbon neutral and not wasting several tons of carbon on replaceable activities.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#98

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

inertiatic wrote: post #20

bubblewrap wrote: post #10

"But actually this summer, we’re going to Greece" He does all the calculations, is more informed than the average person, and still decides to just go for it. This is why the battle against global warming is pointless. Human population explosion (triggered by the invention of agriculture) will simply run its course, and we'll just have to live with whatever world we'll be left with in the end. Yes, he is buying "offs…

Oh wow. This could be satire and I wouldn't be able to tell. What's so important about experiencing anything? Just watch TV.

Why exactly do you need to go to Greece?

I didn't say you should just watch TV. Instead of swimming in the Mediterranean sea in Greece, you can go swimming in the nearest lake or ocean. That is what I mean. The food, also you can experience in a local Greek restaurant.

But for seeing the Acropolis, yes, I'll claim that watching it on TV will be sufficient. Let's face it, you'll probably watch it through your camera lens while you are there, anyway, and then watch it on TV at home.

If you want the grand feeling of being on a hill, go hiking in the nearest mountains.

Again: why exactly do you need to go to Greece?

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#99

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

antisemiotic wrote: post #74

buboard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hyperbole, but its partly true. I live in greece and see those tourists. We live in a tourist bubble, fueled by social media, airbnb and pretty instagram pictures. Tourists are overreporting the value of their experience, as in most cases i know they are getting a prepackaged experience, which is same for everyone, in a beautiful environment but really not always meaningful. Local cultures are diluted everywhere…

Could it be that, because you're living there, you're used to the sight? And, conversely, people traveling halfway across Europe to visit Greece are just bored of their own neighbourhood? (sure, most likely many people are missing places they could go that are much closer but less advertised). >Local cultures are diluted everywhere, and when they are preserved in touristy places it's artificial. There are plenty of t…

"all entertainment is escapism"

Yes - but not all entertainment produces the same amount of carbon dioxide. That's the point.

If you say you need to travel to Greece for entertainment, it seems even less justifiable.

At most you could say it is educational and opens your mind about different cultures and so on. But even for that, I'd say the costs are not warranted, and there are many other ways to learn.

Re: If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

#100

Post by eropple » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

bubblewrap wrote: post #93

eropple wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose? Walk. Bicycle. Use public transit. In extremity, buy an electric car (but that has issues, too). If your question is "what should people who live, heavily subsidized, in suburbs and exurbs, do?", then the answer teases itself out pretty elegantly.

Building housing produces a lot of CO2, too. So if you suggest all people living in the countryside should move into cities, you are also taking about a huge economic undertaking that would also produce huge amounts of CO2. Presumably some people are also needed in the countryside, to do the farming, and support the farmers. Subsidizing suburbs is of course stupid. But simply rolling everything back is not really fea…

That presumption doesn't hold. It's pretty well understood, sociologically, that the creators of suburbs moved to the suburbs in no small part to attain racial homogeneity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Cities used to be inexpensive. Not cheap, but not crushing. (We made them less so by letting up on the development of housing.)