Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 113 posts

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

#101

Post by bubblewrap »

eropple wrote: post #100
bubblewrap wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Not even the link you provide supports your argument. Maybe at some times or for some time it was a motivating factor, but it is really stretching the narrative a lot to claim it is the determining factor.

Is that seriously your world view? I think then you are too eager to swallow simplistic explanations.

And even if "white flight" were the determining factor, it would be another step to claim the goal was "racial homogeneity". People might simply have wanted to move into nicer neighborhoods. (see checkerboard experiment, described in you linked Wikipedia article). White people might have been more likely to be wealthy enough to afford the "flight" (wasn't that what rich people always did throughout the centuries). Even if they were more wealthy because of racism (which would in itself be worthy of debate), it doesn't imply their flight was driven by desire for racial homogeneity.

I live in a country where such race relations are not an issue, and people moved to the countryside here, too. It was also subsidized or used to be subsidized, for various reasons. Also simply mass availability of cars might have been a factor. Remember, cars were not available to everybody for most of human history.

Cities being inexpensive - a lot of factors play into it, probably. Pollution could have made them unattractive and therefore cheap, in the early days of industrialization. One example. Housing restrictions - OK, but also more people moving there. Better job availability. And so on. Your world view is too simplistic imo.

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

#102

Post by Harvey-Specter »

bubblewrap wrote: post #92
Harvey-Specter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> Renewable energy is not really a proven concept yet.

What do you mean by this?

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

#103

Post by terragon »

bubblewrap wrote: post #96
geff82 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most households have two cars, so I don't understand what you find funny about that.

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

#104

Post by bubblewrap »

terragon wrote: post #103
bubblewrap wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most households have two cars, so I don't understand what you find funny about that.

Not really, no. Maybe in rural America. But in the rest of the world, it is not normal.

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

#105

Post by bubblewrap »

Harvey-Specter wrote: post #102
bubblewrap wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> Renewable energy is not really a proven concept yet. What do you mean by this?

That it is not proven that you could replace all energy sources with renewable energy. Also the CO2 impact of "renewables" seems to be significant as well. So it is not a given that even with renewables, you would become CO2 neutral.

Not even mentioning other side effects (destruction of nature).

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

#106

Post by iamnothere »

bubblewrap wrote: post #104
terragon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most households have two cars, so I don't understand what you find funny about that.

Not really, no. Maybe in rural America. But in the rest of the world, it is not normal.

It's normal in suburban America and much of urban America as well, outside of the largest few cities. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it is normal here.

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

#107

Post by beat »

bubblewrap wrote: post #91
beat wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Do not make assumptions. You're right, most high birth rate is in "third world countries"... but only some of them. Others see their birth rates drop dramatically over the course of a couple of generations, until they're at the same level as "developed" countries. And this maps almost directly to economic development.

So what happens? The drop in birth rates happens concurrently with an increase in lifespans, due to eliminating disease, increasing food security, etc. This leads to an overhang of a couple of generations on old-world birthrates but new-world life expectancy - hence, population growth, even while the birth rate plummets. But give those countries a couple more generations for this hump to age out, and their population growth will level off, just like it has in older developed countries that saw their birth rates drop in the first half of the 20th century. That's just math.

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

#108

Post by bubblewrap »

beat wrote: post #107
bubblewrap wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Do not make assumptions. You're right, most high birth rate is in "third world countries"... but only some of them. Others see their birth rates drop dramatically over the course of a couple of generations, until they're at the same level as "developed" countries. And this maps almost directly to economic development. So what happens? The drop in birth ra…

As I said, even without growth, there are already Billions of people hungry for a more CO2 intense lifestyle.

And for example birth rates dropping off could still mean more births than, say, 50 years ago, because overall there are more people. (I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, because as I said, there already are a lot of people).

So if it all evens out eventually - what population size will we have reached by then?

And once again - birth rates dropping off is not actually a law of nature. For how long has that effect been noticed, anyway? Industrial revolution, and good contraceptives, have not been available for very long. There may well be other phenomena emerging that counteract it.

Edit: here is a chart showing that while birth rates are falling in most places, absolute number of births has been steadily increasing in the last 65 years: https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#births-globally

Absolute number of births increased 40% since 1950, from 100 Million to 140 Million per year.

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

#109

Post by bubblewrap »

iamnothere wrote: post #106
bubblewrap wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, no. Maybe in rural America. But in the rest of the world, it is not normal.

It's normal in suburban America and much of urban America as well, outside of the largest few cities. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it is normal here.

Fine - so I am laughing from across the pond, where it is not normal. Not in the cities.

In the cities in Europe, you don't really need a car, let alone two. From that perspective, pondering going green on a second car looks a bit funny.

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

#110

Post by beat »

bubblewrap wrote: post #108
beat wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Do not make assumptions. You're right, most high birth rate is in "third world countries"... but only some of them. Others see their birth rates drop dramatically over the course of a couple of generations, until they're at the same level as "developed" countries. And this maps almost directly to economic development. So what happens? The drop in birth ra…

As I said, even without growth, there are already Billions of people hungry for a more CO2 intense lifestyle. And for example birth rates dropping off could still mean more births than, say, 50 years ago, because overall there are more people. (I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, because as I said, there already are a lot of people). So if it all evens out eventually - what population size will we have reached by th…

Population should level out around 11B, assuming no big surprises/shocks. And people aren't hungry for a more CO2 intense lifestyle - just a richer one. That's why getting off fossil fuels is so incredibly vital. Luckily, I think that moment is upon us, and we'll see fossil use die off over the next few decades. Renewables aren't just cleaner, they're cheaper now.

And I don't think your chart proves your point. While the absolute number of births has increased, it has increased far less than the population as a whole (the population has tripled since 1951 - the increase in number of births is less than half the increase in number of people). Keep scrolling down the page of your link, and you see massive, massive declines in birthrates worldwide, with an extensive list of reasons why.

So why would you think "there may be other phenomena emerging that counteract it"? Like what? Are you sure you aren't just clinging to a belief in population spiraling out of control that is at odds with observed facts? Because what you believe is what most people believe. And it's wrong.

Post reply on HN