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Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

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Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#91

Post by trgn »

therealwhytry wrote: post #87
delegate wrote: post #84

When I was a child, I was spending my summers at my grandparents. They had a cozy house in the village. They worked the land, they had a few animals. They grew their food. They sold some wine and fruit at the market. They had a big house, land, clean air, clean water and they were healthy. They celebrated the holidays, had many friends, went to church, weddings, funerals, etc. Villagers always greeted them and stoppe…

simple, boomer brain rot subsidized for the last 50 years via currency debasement that leads our "leaders" to feel it is the only path forward. that is probably an easy path forward in their mind, as they are on death's door holding the ladder they pulled up behind them.

boomers didnt want to let go of the welfare state their parents and grandparents had introduced, at the same time they live longer, work less, not nearly had as many kids, and did not effectuate the required productivity growth to offset that.

they will go down in history as the worst generation in modern history, 100% certain of that.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#92

Post by goodroot »

abeppu wrote: post #44

I don't have any deep background in econ, but do we not need to switch from talking about GDP to talking about a version of Net Domestic Product where "net" includes: - changes to the value of natural and ecosystem resources (e.g. if I clear a forest to sell timber, we must acknowledge some lost value for the forest) - amount of economic transactions in service of mitigating problems created by externalities from oth…

Mark Carney's book "Values" pitches a system such as this.

In better times, perhaps we have the collective will to try.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#93

Post by maxerickson »

ixxie wrote: post #49
abeppu wrote: post #44

I don't have any deep background in econ, but do we not need to switch from talking about GDP to talking about a version of Net Domestic Product where "net" includes: - changes to the value of natural and ecosystem resources (e.g. if I clear a forest to sell timber, we must acknowledge some lost value for the forest) - amount of economic transactions in service of mitigating problems created by externalities from oth…

It's just very hard to measure. On the corporate scale, see the whole carbon / ESG / impact measure ent industry. Lifecycle Analysis, supply chain extrapolation, Bill of Materials analysis. You only get some relatively crude estimate and a lot of missing data points, whereas economic growth can conveniently assign a dollar value on everything. I think it only gets worse as you scale up.

As an example, a forest managed for productivity won't really lose value from a harvest.

You'd have to price the conversion of it to that management strategy.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#94

Post by keybored »

Geee wrote: post #70

Is this a joke? Growth is caused by consumer demand, and answering to it in the best way possible. It's not an 'obsession' of the capitalist businesses or countries. Capitalism is simply an algorithm which tries to allocate resources such that a growing demand can be answered, and that everyone has their needs satisfied. There are plenty of people who don't have enough food, enough housing, or other basic needs. The…

Businesses need, or at the very least strongly want, to increase profits. There’s not like there’s any end to that supposed algorithm. And it gets harder and harder as time goes on.

And as usual the cart is put before the horse. Businesses just don’t answer to consumer demand. They very strongly set the terms for it. And if consumer demands go down? That’s what the marketing industry is for. To create new demands.

Some Hank Hill person isn’t the one who designed e.g. America to be car dependent. The car lobby did. But typically Hank Hill gets blamed when he chooses to live two hours from his workplace because home prices are too high, taking the bus takes twice as long and train does not exist so he uses a car to commute, and he consumes beer in his freetime to unwind from the job he chooses to work at, and he isn’t great at recycling. (This might have deviated a little from the real-life Hank Hill.)

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#95

Post by keybored »

delegate wrote: post #84

When I was a child, I was spending my summers at my grandparents. They had a cozy house in the village. They worked the land, they had a few animals. They grew their food. They sold some wine and fruit at the market. They had a big house, land, clean air, clean water and they were healthy. They celebrated the holidays, had many friends, went to church, weddings, funerals, etc. Villagers always greeted them and stoppe…

There’s two hundreds years of social science and experience reports to answer that question.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#96

Post by fasterik »

delegate wrote: post #84

When I was a child, I was spending my summers at my grandparents. They had a cozy house in the village. They worked the land, they had a few animals. They grew their food. They sold some wine and fruit at the market. They had a big house, land, clean air, clean water and they were healthy. They celebrated the holidays, had many friends, went to church, weddings, funerals, etc. Villagers always greeted them and stoppe…

This is a completely nostalgic, one-sided view of the urban vs. rural divide. It's also ignorant of the data on the impact of cities on nature.

Cities have a lower carbon footprint per capita, lower land use per capita, people own fewer cars, use public transportation more often. If everyone lived in a city, nature would be better off.

People live in cities because they are vibrant, they have culture, the arts, intellectuals, innovation, etc. Yes there are areas with high traffic and noise, but there are also quiet neighborhoods where everyone walks everywhere, you can pop into a bar or a cafe on every corner, eat 20 different types of cuisine, go to a book store, go see a show on any night of the week.

Your picture of the friendly villagers might be true in your experience, but in reality a lot of those people are nasty when they encounter any kind of cultural diversity or difference.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#97

Post by jeffbee »

delegate wrote: post #84

When I was a child, I was spending my summers at my grandparents. They had a cozy house in the village. They worked the land, they had a few animals. They grew their food. They sold some wine and fruit at the market. They had a big house, land, clean air, clean water and they were healthy. They celebrated the holidays, had many friends, went to church, weddings, funerals, etc. Villagers always greeted them and stoppe…

Depending on how old you are, I might suggest that you were simply not aware of the details of your grandparents' lives at that time. And it just sounds like you have surrounded yourself with assholes in adulthood.

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#98

Post by [deleted] »

trgn wrote: post #91
therealwhytry wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

simple, boomer brain rot subsidized for the last 50 years via currency debasement that leads our "leaders" to feel it is the only path forward. that is probably an easy path forward in their mind, as they are on death's door holding the ladder they pulled up behind them.

boomers didnt want to let go of the welfare state their parents and grandparents had introduced, at the same time they live longer, work less, not nearly had as many kids, and did not effectuate the required productivity growth to offset that. they will go down in history as the worst generation in modern history, 100% certain of that.

[deleted]

Re: Obsession with growth is destroying nature, 150 countries warn

#100

Post by jeffbee »

fasterik wrote: post #96
delegate wrote: post #84

When I was a child, I was spending my summers at my grandparents. They had a cozy house in the village. They worked the land, they had a few animals. They grew their food. They sold some wine and fruit at the market. They had a big house, land, clean air, clean water and they were healthy. They celebrated the holidays, had many friends, went to church, weddings, funerals, etc. Villagers always greeted them and stoppe…

This is a completely nostalgic, one-sided view of the urban vs. rural divide. It's also ignorant of the data on the impact of cities on nature. Cities have a lower carbon footprint per capita, lower land use per capita, people own fewer cars, use public transportation more often. If everyone lived in a city, nature would be better off. People live in cities because they are vibrant, they have culture, the arts, intel…

Yeah, but unfortunately false nostalgia for subsistence farming is widespread and has traction in the discourse. I guess it's probably because every American who ever suffered from that lifestyle is dead, in other words the same reason that it is now increasingly popular to die from measles.

In reality, the laser-leveled, fully-automated, county-scale factory farm is the only reason anyone on this forum has ever experienced the phenomenon known as "free time".

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