This comes from the ideals that nature and animals are for our consumption, which comes from many underlying religious values. Its where we are today. Animal and biodiversity is so important but our greed has taken over.
Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
101–110 of 130 posts
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, yes. No other animal species pontificates about living in harmony with nature, or preserving the balance, or anything of the sort. They're all fighting tooth and nail to survive and, if successful, outcompete. We're only exceptional in that we're so successful, and that we sometimes contemplate deliberately limiting our growth.
My impression is that other animal species generally are in harmony with nature: Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources. They seem to have no interest in this, even where it would give them a monopolistic economic advantage over their competitors. You don't see animals hunting for sport. On the other hand, bacteria and viruses will exhaust the resources given to them,…
Cats commonly hunt for sport and have caused the extinction of a few species. Gorillas will go to war with other groups. Plenty of human traits have analogues in other species.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes! A lot of people don't even have access to electricity, even more don't use as much because of the price. We would need to be using way more fossil fuels / nuclear to have more equality. This idea to reduce our impact in nature forgets the most vulnerable, which could use some impact in nature in order to have more prosperity. Well, this is all way easier said than done.
What makes them vulnerable? What are they vulnerable to? Are there not indigenous peoples that live in harmony with nature? Are they prosperous?
> Are there not indigenous peoples that live in harmony with nature?
Probably there are some somewhere. But most rely on completely unsustainable practices.
> Are they prosperous?
You've received some answers, but keep in mind that "poor" is a word we usually apply to people in much wealthier situations.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#104I mean, one of the interesting changes that's soon happening is the transition from ICE to electric cars. I think the core issue is the concept of cars themselves . Storing them all over the road (they are everywhere!), people using them for very short journeys, their accessibility/cheapness to practically anyone and how much our society relies on them each and every day, even at the cost of the beloved hedgehogs whi…
Did you really just advocate for mass murder? Humans are not chickens.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, yes. No other animal species pontificates about living in harmony with nature, or preserving the balance, or anything of the sort. They're all fighting tooth and nail to survive and, if successful, outcompete. We're only exceptional in that we're so successful, and that we sometimes contemplate deliberately limiting our growth.
My impression is that other animal species generally are in harmony with nature: Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources. They seem to have no interest in this, even where it would give them a monopolistic economic advantage over their competitors. You don't see animals hunting for sport. On the other hand, bacteria and viruses will exhaust the resources given to them,…
> Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources.
They certainly do, if given the chance. Boom-bust cycles caused by resource overextraction are common throughout the animal kingdom. The only reason that it isn't apparent to you is because you don't pay a lot of attention to animal resource supplies, and because over a long enough timeframe new equilibriums are sometimes formed until some other external impact comes into play.
Re:hunting for sport, cats are the most famous example as mentioned by the sibling commenter, but you also see it with other predators. Play is very common in the animal kingdom and its often violent. I've seen coyotes and foxes kill smaller animals and leave them uneaten many times.
Humans are simply better at resource extraction than other animals. The underlying behavior is not notable.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prosperity is about having an abundance of the things in life that really matter. That only requires economic growth when there aren't enough of those things to go around. Right now, there are enough of those things to go around, and way more, if all the people doing stupid useless shit like working in advertising became farmers and makers. Our society is being held hostage by plutocrats.
This is a fantasy that sounds good in practice, but sucks in reality. You’re dying of incurable cancer. Do you have enough or do you want more economic growth so we can try and cure it? If you're willing to die from stepping on a nail, then ok. I'm not.
You have the example of the United States which has economic growth but has recently seen its average life expectancy fall.
Many other countries have less GPD per capita but higher average life expectancy.
What do you think of this?
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#107I mean, one of the interesting changes that's soon happening is the transition from ICE to electric cars. I think the core issue is the concept of cars themselves . Storing them all over the road (they are everywhere!), people using them for very short journeys, their accessibility/cheapness to practically anyone and how much our society relies on them each and every day, even at the cost of the beloved hedgehogs whi…
I don't believe this. The answer is actually much simpler. We invest into technological progress, solve our problems and that's the end of the story. That's how we have done things the last 500 years. The insistence that we have to give anything meaningful up is what is causing this avoidance of progress. We don't. A lot of the things that we will have to get rid of are actually not as valuable as we think and the things that we will gain will more than make up for the loss.
You overestimate how much environmental harm is actually necessary for humans to continue to exist. It's mostly a matter of incentives and tragedy of the commons.
Overpopulation is not a problem in societies with educated women. Those women can decide for themselves how many children they want and when they want them. That's what is causing the demographic shift to an aging population.
There is no risk of runaway population growth if everyone is making informed decisions about having children. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with having exactly 2 children.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#108All technological revolutions require more energy and consumption. Remember that the infinite source of societal wealth is technological progress. If you limit technological progress then economics becomes zero sum. This cannot happen, it is a precursor to endless world wars and our inevitable doom by our own hands. Prosperity vs nature is not a question. There is no path backwards, there is only forward. The only ho…
This reads like religious dogma to me.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the actual attitude of most people, rather than their word, I believe you do represent a majority of humans.
Yes, that's the result of decades of shaming by the mass media. They make people feel guilty about not caring, so they won't say it out loud, but they still don't care, so they won't change their choices.
I don't even know if shaming works. Ok, it is bad to do thing X but I still can't do anything about it. I can now hate myself for committing a "sin", I can deny it entirely and hate you for shaming me or I can do something superficial that makes me look and feel good.
This is not a recipe for incremental change. Lots of people quit smoking through vaping because they can easily control their nicotine dosage and thus incrementally change their addiction problem. If you quit cold turkey you will just fall back to old habits.
Re: Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature
#110There's no two ways about it: economic growth means more ecological damage. Technology will not save us. IMO the only way to mitigate the onslaught of climate change is to do a controlled contraction of the world economy. If we do not do this willingly, nature will force it upon us.
I disagree. Framing the problem this way has denied us the low hanging fruit that technology has given us and we collectively refuse to pick them. The idea that we have to choose between one thing and the other when in reality we can easily have both. That's what's truly holding us back.