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Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

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Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#221

Post by dane-pgp »

incrudible wrote: post #112
llsf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would law of physics kick in ? If it takes thousands of years to produce oil/gas/coal, and months to extract and consume it... then what political solution do have ? My concern is that we might hit an energy crisis (Russia/Ukraine is just the tip of the iceberg). We need oil/gas/coal for everything around us (clothes, transportation, heat, cement, iron, energy). For energy we could use nuclear for baseline, and some…

Electricity can be turned into gas. People do not need to live like US suburbanites. As fossil fuels deplete, this will happen automatically, through the price mechanism. That said, fossil fuels are nowhere near to depletion and may well last for centuries.

To give a recent estimate[0], here's what McKinsey (the big management consultancy) has to say:

> Global fossil-fuels demand is projected to peak between 2023–2025, accounting for a dwindling share of energy use, with oil production dropping by 55 percent and gas production by 70 percent in 2050

You're right that fossil fuels won't be depleted, and they will still be burnt long after their peak, but I don't imagine fossil fuels being extracted at scale next century.

[0] https://www.forestvalley.org/for-companies

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#222

Post by antifa »

bhb916 wrote: post #205
adrianN wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that _any_ action is criticized as sacrificing prosperity, even though it often just sacrifices the prosperity of a small number of people.

That doesn't seem like a problem - that seems like a feature. Maybe "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" just stuck with me, but a just society doesn't sacrifice the prosperity of a few for the "greater good".

> but a just society doesn't sacrifice the prosperity of a few for the "greater good".

We fought a war to end slavery. A small number of prosperous people were severely inconvenienced by society enacting that greater good.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#223

Post by dane-pgp »

tzs wrote: post #46
adastra22 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limits which are millions, billions, or trillions of times beyond current capacities. For the moment, thermodynamic limits don't apply.

Exponentials can get away from you a lot faster than you might expect. For instance if we sustained a 1% annual population growth for another 13000 years the total volume of all living people would be more than the total volume of all the space within 13000 light years of Earth. So unless we get faster than light travel or we greatly reduce the amount of space into which you can physically cram a living human we are…

> if we sustained a 1% annual population growth for another 13000 years

And if we sustained a 0.03% annual population reduction rate (like South Korea recently experienced) there would be less than 100 people on Earth after just 600 years.

So I agree that exponentials can get away from you a lot faster than you might expect, but I also think that trying to predict cultural norms 13 millennia from now is likely to be counter-productive.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#224

Post by Dylan16807 »

jxramos wrote: post #219
Brometheus wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in the historical process, personally I like the videos of PBS Eons a lot: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pbs+eons+coal

This was was pretty interesting with nice animations "History's Most Powerful Plants" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pLQwa6SyZc ), but it's more presenting conclusions and theories of mechanisms than how those conclusions were arrived at. I recall hearing similar things without such nice imagery or focusing on a particular plant as a kid but where's the adult explanation that has all the caveats and messy parts o…

> what about fungus

https://jgi.doe.gov/news_12_06_28/

> The comparative analyses suggested that around 290 million years ago, right at the end of the Carboniferous period, a white rot fungal ancestor with the capacity to break down lignin appeared. Prior to that ancestor, fungi did not have that ability and thus the lignin in plant matter was not degraded, allowing these lignin-rich residues to build up in soil over time.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#225

Post by dane-pgp »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #78
aeternum wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if we really value life, we should probably optimize for total lives lived. The universe will not last forever and entire galaxies are being lost to both the cosmic horizon and blackholes at an alarming rate. For some reason Earth seems to be the only planet with life, so every second we spend without making life interplanetary we are snuffing out an unfathomable number of future human and animal lives.

Something about this reminds me of the authority anti-abortion activists bestow upon themselves. It's easy to speak for the unborn because they cannot speak for themselves and will not contradict you. Surprising though, how neatly the interests of the far future unborn align with those of the wealthy and powerful today. Ah well, just a coincidence I'm sure.

Wait, you think it's the anti-abortion people who are bestowing upon themselves the right to decide what the unborn want?

If you want to be suspicious of a "coincidence", then maybe consider that mothers tend to be more wealthy and powerful than their unborn children, and see how that wealth and power plays out.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#226

Post by hcks »

lm28469 wrote: post #175
hcks wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, but I'll need a bit more than a 50 years old computer simulation of a few coupled PDEs before I give back my job and go live the peasant life.

> give back my job and go live the peasant life There are a whole lot of scenarios between amazon same day toilet paper delivery, lidar enabled autonomous vacuum cleaner, 3 tonnes tesla doing 0-60, bluetooth enabled fridges and the peasant life

Sorry for not being clear, but the current level of argumentation of degrowthers is insufficient for giving up the tiniest amount of technology-enabled comfort.

So thanks but I'll have my lidar enabled autonomous toilet paper, it doesn't go against my religion.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#227

Post by jxramos »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #224
jxramos wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was was pretty interesting with nice animations "History's Most Powerful Plants" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pLQwa6SyZc ), but it's more presenting conclusions and theories of mechanisms than how those conclusions were arrived at. I recall hearing similar things without such nice imagery or focusing on a particular plant as a kid but where's the adult explanation that has all the caveats and messy parts o…

> what about fungus https://jgi.doe.gov/news_12_06_28/ > The comparative analyses suggested that around 290 million years ago, right at the end of the Carboniferous period, a white rot fungal ancestor with the capacity to break down lignin appeared. Prior to that ancestor, fungi did not have that ability and thus the lignin in plant matter was not degraded, allowing these lignin-rich residues to build up in soil over…

That's fascinating, the evolution of enzymes to shift the measure of what is stable over a given period of time.

> Once you have white rot you can break down lignin, the major precursor of coal.

I'm curious there how is it know that lignin is the precursor to coal.

What is coal anyways, is there a molecular structure to it. Ha, what a cool hit for that search, a rock, who'd have thought. I never heard of a maceral before.

> Coal is a sedimentary rock that is composed principally of two basic classes of materials: inorganic crystalline minerals and organic carbonaceous macerals. The macerals form the combustible part of the coal and are, in turn, divided into three maceral groups—vitrinite, exinite, and inertinite. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012150...

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#228

Post by dane-pgp »

hikingsimulator wrote: post #129
PeterisP wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strengthens the effect, but no, the growth is decoupled even if you take into account the energy and pollution cost of the outsourced manufacturing. The same goods (and better goods) take less energy and pollution to produce than in 2000, and a lot of physical goods have been effectively replaced with features in digital devices; and the main part of GDP growth for developed countries does not involve any growth…

Do you have a current source on the decoupling claim accounting for outsourcing? That's a good trend if true.

It was true in the UK ten years ago (although this Guardian article[0] tried to downplay the success):

> The amount of greenhouse gases linked to goods and services consumed by UK households, including emissions from the foreign manufacture of imported products, rose by 3% between 2012 and 2013, the most recent data shows. But the figures are almost a fifth (19%) below the peak seen in 2007, when UK consumers were responsible for nearly 1.3bn tonnes of greenhouse gases.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/02/uks-carb...

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#229

Post by dane-pgp »

Animats wrote: post #66
mberning wrote: post #16

I got to the plan section and was mighty disappointed. This is simply a treatise on how bad humans and civilization are in the eyes of the new age Gaia religion. All problems and very few “pro human” solutions.

That's a problem with this article, and too many like it. OK, we're going to run out of various natural resources over the next 100-200 years, let alone the next 1000-2000. We will have a mostly sustainable society, like it or not. But it need not be a low-tech one. Energy probably won't be a problem. We have so many low-cost renewable sources now that the fossil fuel industry has trouble getting capital. The energy…

> the taste of blood people want in a burger.

To be clear, (most) burgers do not have noticeable blood in. The red juice that comes out of them that makes them "bleed" is in fact myoglobin, a protein found in animals’ muscle tissue.

https://sage-answers.com/why-is-my-meat-bleeding/#Should_a_b...

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#230

Post by adriand »

spullara wrote: post #95
adriand wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I find the prospect disturbing, I think at some point (assuming we manage this dangerous transition) we will produce children in a technological way that is decoupled from human mothers. I could also see a social movement developing that campaigned for this on the grounds of equity for women. It could be presented as both essential for the species and empowering for all genders…and that might be true.

Not an entirely unbelievable end game. Will it be done by families or the government?

Good question. Probably both, depending on the country you live in.
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