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We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

aljazeera.com

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Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#81

Post by ant6n »

agentultra wrote: post #2

Greening and green-washing are causing a lot of harm. Good on Al Jazeera publishing this article and Kolinjivadi for writing it. More Western publications need to follow suit!

This al jazeera article seems to a repost of a guardian/Zeit investigation:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed...

https://www.zeit.de/2023/04/co2-zertifikate-betrug-emissions...

I guess its true that more western publications should follow reposting this story originally published by western media. Eastern media too.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#82

Post by leetcodesucks »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #55

The article accuses greentech and carbon-credits of genocide: "While guaranteeing high returns, this deception is tantamount to the genocide of the hundreds of millions of people who will perish from the effects of climate change within the next century because things are that bad." That's pretty harsh. But, if you think "things are that bad," let's also consider the moral culpability of people trying to stop the sci…

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Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#83

Post by edgyquant »

lezojeda wrote: post #53
jeoqn wrote: post #34

I’m okay with all greening as long as it allows me to continue my lifestyle.

Unironically this is how most of the first world thinks while expecting us from the third to completely change our lifestyles and don't we even dare to try to develop the same way you guys did.

Why would you develop your economy like it was the 1800s?

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#84

Post by rootusrootus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #60
rootusrootus wrote: post #31

> the push to replace fuel-engine vehicles with electric ones As opposed to what, replacing cars with public transit? It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work in places that largely rely on cars (even in Europe, which is much denser and more friendly to public transit, there are a lot of personal cars). We will run out of oil wa…

> It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and not See the fact that most people never had a car and never will. Do you realise that poor people all over the world rely on public transport to survive? There are 190 countries in the world. United states has 6th highest car…

> Do you realise that poor people all over the world rely on public transport to survive?

I will go out on a limb here and suggest most of them actually rely on their feet. Bicycle if they can afford it. Then a motorcycle as income permits. And as soon as their lifestyle supports it, a car.

The problem with public transit as a solution is that we've had a long time to prove that out. The US had better public transit in many cities ~100 years ago than today. Why did the car dominate? I don't buy into conspiracy theories. People buy, on average, whatever best meets their needs. Make the best public transit in the world today universally available, and a huge number of people will still choose cars because they are more useful. Note that the only places in which public transit dominates are places so dense that the pain of public transit is less than the pain of making a car work. This does not describe more than perhaps three cities in the United States (and only in their downtown cores) and it never will unless we put an artificial cap on creating new cities.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#85

Post by mrleinad »

mikeyouse wrote: post #64
mrleinad wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PV panels become (on average) carbon neutral after three years of operation That depends on where you install them. Almost anywhere in Europe it doesn't make sense to use solar, and yet they're doing it.[1] [1]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fn4clWEWAAkadtu.jpg:large

"Doesn't make sense" is excessively vague. Are you implying that solar in Europe doesn't reach carbon neutrality due to its lower insolation? Because based on raw photons, a panel that is carbon neutral in 3 years in a sunny place would be carbon neutral in 6 years in a setting with 1/2 the sunlight.. These critiques and the silly book's premise that since solar/wind might not break even from an embodied carbon stand…

It's not silly if all there's to argue from the other point of view is photons per square meter. Weather also plays a role.

I don't mean to say I have the absolute truth, I want to see if they've even considered sun availability for different regions. It seems solar proponents really haven't analyzed it from that point of view, AFAIK.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#86

Post by carapace »

ravenstine wrote: post #46

The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted.

> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension.

No. At best that's a position held only by a tiny and extreme minority.

Consider "Permaculture", a school of applied ecology that's become popular all over the world since it was started by a government-employed ecologist and co. in the late 1970's. The explicit goal of this design school is to create and maintain agriculturally productive ecosystems that improve soil fertility and volume over time (the "permanent" part of "Permanent Agriculture".)

With applied ecology we could probably increase the carrying capacity of the Earth to the point of having, say, 20B people while also increasing biodiversity and climate and long-term stability and all that good stuff.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#87

Post by kerkeslager »

ravenstine wrote: post #46

The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted.

> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted.

This is mostly a straw man argument. It's always a mistake to represent diverse groups like "environmentalists" as holding a homogeneous belief. There are certainly some environmentalists who believe what you just said, but as an environmentalist, I don't believe that, and I think the environmentalists who do believe that are the minority of environmentalists.

On the contrary, for me, environmentalism isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving humans. The planet doesn't need saving: if we turn the planet into a barren wasteland it will uncaringly continue hurtling through space without us, but we'll be dead. The environment is a necessary component to human survival and thriving. I don't believe that means we should have no impact on the environment--that's not possible--but that we need to be careful about when we change our impact on the environment, because we risk breaking the fragile ecosystems that have supported our existence.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#88

Post by wing-_-nuts »

The dude has a great point about the need to verify carbon offsets.

Where he loses me is this whole idea of 'reparative justice'. That will never happen. We can't even get everyone to agree to meet targets that will keep the world at 1.5c. The idea that we'll get powerful countries and corporations to fork over trillions to right past wrongs is laughable. It's a bad faith poison pill. If I didn't know any better, I'd bet this guy is funded by fossil fuel companies to ensure nothing gets done.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#89

Post by sacrosancty »

chimprich wrote: post #78
slothtrop wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why entertain a hypothetical that isn't anywhere near reflective of what is projected?

It's a bit of an unnecessarily emotional way to frame the debate, but climate change under current projections will kill a lot of people, including children. Realistic forecasts suggest many deaths from increased natural disasters, air pollution, famine, drought, heat stress, poverty and war.

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Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#90

Post by leetcodesucks »

rootusrootus wrote: post #31

> the push to replace fuel-engine vehicles with electric ones As opposed to what, replacing cars with public transit? It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work in places that largely rely on cars (even in Europe, which is much denser and more friendly to public transit, there are a lot of personal cars). We will run out of oil wa…

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