61–70 of 179 posts
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I agree. But we should limit crop yields by restricting human manufacture of ammonia and return to 1890 levels of population.
I think the problem comes to 'return to. Your method sounds rather violent.
Every species needs population control. If we want air conditioning, commercial jets, and bottled water, then we need to get global population under a billion people.
I think all the alarmist language is doing a massive disservice to environmental concerns for the reason the author is portraying but also a much different reason where a lot of people tend to greet hysterics with absolute doubt and discern. When environmentalists decided instead of having a real public conversation and resorting to what a lot of people perceive as the people screaming on the corner about the end tim…
I agree with this. I don't believe that guys like e.g. Just Stop Oil in the UK are genuine people. There might be some who got taken in by the movement and have good intentions, but the actual antics that go on just turn off literally everyone I know, to the extent that the entire environmental movement is now seen in a bad light.
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We won't reduce emissions unless there's a massive reduction in population. Otherwise normal people will adapt. Less people will die if the planet warms more. Extreme cold events kill more than heat waves do and that's even without including the seasonal flu and cardiac events related to the cold.
There are hard limits on how much heat a human can take. We cannot adapt beyond, except for literally never going outside again.
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News people don't like is often dismissed as 'hysterics', 'alarmism', etc, which is a well known cognitive bias. Nearly all people trying to improve the future do so sensibly, following established processes and norms and trying to be nice, but you haven't heard of these people because that's not how change is made in the face of established power that doesn't want the change. Most of that good work gets sunk. Change…
Step 1: Nobody likes hysterics or alarmism Step 2: Hey no need to point fingers here or say "I told you so", we're all dealing with this.
Are we? It looks like the vast majority of people are looking away and blaming climate change scientists and activists for not doing enough or doing it wrong or whatever else instead. Some of us are dealing with it, the rest don't realize we're all in the same sinking boat.
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Why would "convincing people to take the bus instead of a car" require coordinated action? Just stop letting them buy gas. (Where by "them" I mean individual passenger-vehicle drivers. Continue to allow commercial vehicles to buy gas, but require that they show their commercial-vehicle license at the register.) A country could do it; or it could be done city by city with municipal bylaws to act only upon the worst po…
So it's Monday morning, the UK government announces that petrol and diesel cars are no longer. They make clear that this is permanent. A ton of people now have vehicles that are basically scrap metal, they've lost tens of thousands overnight. There are physically not enough EVs, or charging infrastructure, or maybe even the grid capacity in order for people to switch. By 10am, immigration lawyers' phones around the w…
As far as normals, the warming rate is slow enough that it takes about ten years (running average) for conditions to notably change. See this 'staircase of denial' tweet.
https://twitter.com/mathiasced/status/1616348855842250754?la...
This is a hard problem for human civilization because 'taking action' today - i.e. replacing all fossil fuels with renewables on the fastest imaginable timeline (about three decades of constant heavy lifting at best) won't affect the rate of warming much for the next 100 years or so, we'll be seeing +0.1 C per decade at least for that timeframe on average (higher at the poles, lower at the equator).
I suppose 'normal' is what humans get used to, as once some phenomenon has been the same for about a decade, people start calling it normal. This is a flaw in human cognition, resulting in poor capacity for truly long-term planning.
Too bad the author is not offering any alternative. It's not good enough to just say "stop doing X". It would be nice if it's followed by "Do Y instead". Maybe I missed it, but the only thing I found in the whole article that resembles a counterproposal is a single sentence in the end - "... policy flows from conversation and debate instead of force." So we are supposed to have more conversation and debate? Sounds li…
>When it comes to the climate crisis, new normals convey a single, grim message: instead of acting, get used to it
The idea is to stop calling things "The new normal" since that implies acceptance. Fight instead. Don't go along with the idea that the world has to be like this.
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There's solarpunk, at least. Also, I think there's optimism in people talking about how living a happier, more social life can also be one that happens to be lower in carbon intensity. I currently live in a very car-dependent detached house on an island (so reliant on planes to go anywhere) and am viewing flats now in a place where I can live car-free and go places via train. And on top of all that, every time I have…
There’s stuff people can do. Eat less/no meat. Buy an EV. Etc. But then commentators will refute that with all sorts of stuff “one person can’t make any sizable impact,” “EVs are powered from the grid which isn’t carbon neutral”, “EV tires spread particulate emissions.” Etc. Thing is, denialism and stopping progress makes people looking for solutions also more extreme. So who knows. Maybe part of the answer is partia…
We have billionaires like Bill Gates telling us to eat bugs instead of meat to “save the planet” while he forcibly e-wastes billions of devices with Windows 10’s end-of-life. We have EV manufacturers pushing to mine lithium, which like most mining is incredibly ecologically damaging, while simultaneously making repair (and thus the sustainability of their cars) nearly impossible. Petroleum products produced en masse and discarded into literal trash islands in the oceans. The destruction of wildlife habitats such as the rainforests. Hell, entire cities in China are nearly uninhabitable due to mass pollution from corporations moving production there.
While we are all to blame, some are more to blame than others. And no, going “carbon neutral” doesn’t mean anything when you’re still actively dumping waste products onto the Earth.
I think all the alarmist language is doing a massive disservice to environmental concerns for the reason the author is portraying but also a much different reason where a lot of people tend to greet hysterics with absolute doubt and discern. When environmentalists decided instead of having a real public conversation and resorting to what a lot of people perceive as the people screaming on the corner about the end tim…
I feel like it's not about the form of the message, but who has the money to have it framed in his preferred way in the media.
I think all the alarmist language is doing a massive disservice to environmental concerns for the reason the author is portraying but also a much different reason where a lot of people tend to greet hysterics with absolute doubt and discern. When environmentalists decided instead of having a real public conversation and resorting to what a lot of people perceive as the people screaming on the corner about the end tim…
I'd have to imagine for any issue, I can nut pick someone (thanks social media for making this ever easier) and portray anyone who agrees with them as lunatics who are unwilling to have a real public conversation, but I wouldn't consider that honest.