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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

#141

Post by bluescrn »

ComposedPattern wrote: post #120
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…

Living in a big city is usually better for the environment than living in a rural area. City-dwellers live in smaller spaces closer together, so they consume fewer resources and emit less carbon.

It's absolutely the worst place to be in any sort of crisis though, whether it's war, pandemic, rioting, natural disaster.

So many people, potentially desparate people, concentrated in one place, utterly dependent on supplies being shipped in from elsewhere.

And we can't have everyone living ever-smaller lives in ever-more-dense cities anyway, as you need all the food production, manufacturing, energy production, and resource extraction to keep those cities alive. And for now, that still requires a lot of human labour (far too much of it overseas, given increasing geopolitical instability)

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

#142

Post by gnerd00 »

selectodude wrote: post #29
boringg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already destroyed all of their forest natural resources a long time ago. Maybe they are trying to warn north america of their own mistakes.

We stopped deforesting the US in 1920. We have more forest here than we did 100 years ago.

Actual facts on the ground do not fit neatly into a one-liner, especially stable forests; this sentence is meant as a one-liner to win bar arguments.

source: current graduate research papers in forestry

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

#143

Post by graemep »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #46
philipallstar wrote: post #2

> European Union members have signed off on a report that warns focusing on unchecked economic growth is contributing to the destruction of global biodiversity It would be good to know which members of the EU are currently experiencing unchecked economic growth.

> It would be good to know which members of the EU are currently experiencing unchecked economic growth. All of them. You can see recent stats (from 2025) on GDP growth here, all the handful of countries with negative growth are outside the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_... You may be confusing fast growth with unchecked growth. If you see sustained YoY growth of a couple of percent…

According to your link the EU's growth rate is just 0.7% so only 25% growth in 35 years, and some of that will come from things that have little or no impact on nature, or reduce the impact on nature. For example, replacing a coal power plant with solar adds to GDP but reduces pollution.

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

#144

Post by t-3 »

chocochunks wrote: post #130
casey2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only because cities outsource their carbon intensive activities. There is no "divide" here. It's one planet and focusing on the wrong categories has destroyed your ability to reason.

It's not only because cities outsource carbon intensive activities. Sure, there's some of that with farming, mining, etc. that must be done elsewhere. But there's also lots of savings from things like residents walking/biking/using public transit instead of driving, living in more efficient apartments, etc. The suburbs are pretty wasteful, they don't generate anything unique and they just waste more resources.

Suburbs are still mostly urban, it's right there in the name. Rural != suburban.

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

#145

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

jstanley wrote: post #132
ericmcer wrote: post #128

What are we trying to achieve as a species? If we can't answer that question then we can't really judge our actions effectively. If we view humanity as the most intelligent life form not just on the planet, but in the entire universe, then we are the only source of order in an infinite chaos. All of reality is just entropy and mindless cruelty except for humanity. Viewed in that lens we almost have a duty to expand b…

> What are we trying to achieve as a species? How often can a group of even 3 people come up with one thing that they're trying to achieve? You're not going to get consensus on what the goal is for humanity. > If we view humanity as the most intelligent life form not just on the planet, but in the entire universe, then we are the only source of order in an infinite chaos. That doesn't follow at all! And even if it di…

Well, any group of 3 people would easily agree on one thing: that they are all just trying to survive. Now, if only what we’re doing to nature is actually killing us…

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

#146

Post by keybored »

Geee wrote: post #134
keybored wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. So…

A lot of growth activity in businesses is zero sum, if it isn't increasing the efficiency of production. Businesses can't create demand from thin air with marketing. Total productivity of the world is number_of_people * productivity_of_human. There's growth whenever these terms grow. People want to produce at least as much as they want to consume. So, growth is caused by more people being born, or people adopting mor…

> Businesses can't create demand from thin air with marketing.

I would never suggest ex nihilo demand. There’s always some seed.[1]

Women back in the day didn’t smoke. Untapped market. A marketing campaign convinced a lot of women that smoking was something that liberated women did.

I’d say convincing people that replacing clean air with carginogenic fumes gets pretty close to a manufactured want.

[1] For cigarettes: maybe stress relief from nicotine.

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

#147

Post by graemep »

pjmlp wrote: post #3

Of course, the MBAs pushing for growth missed on physics class that it is impossible for everyone to growth expontentially.

Maybe they know about Malthus saying the same thing and being proven wrong?

We have had millennia of exponential growth. Slower in the past, and positive over the long term for a long time (since the bronze age collapse at a global level?).

Technological advance allows growth that is far higher than increases in resource usage. We often do the same thing on far lower resources than it used to take - sometimes far better.

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

#148

Post by chocochunks »

MisterTea wrote: post #125
ComposedPattern wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a big city is usually better for the environment than living in a rural area. City-dwellers live in smaller spaces closer together, so they consume fewer resources and emit less carbon.

I keep hearing this repeated but I have yet to read any proof of it. Might as well be a thoughtless meme.

Detached single family homes use more energy than apartments per resident[1]. You need more sewer pipe, more road, more wiring to service the same number of people living in detached single family homes.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2015/c&e/pd... (See site energy consumption per household member by housing type on page 2).

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

#149

Post by gzread »

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…

I think the city is cool because of the amount of stuff around, even as there's less free space. I think both options should be available.

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

#150

Post by t-3 »

ComposedPattern wrote: post #120
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…

Living in a big city is usually better for the environment than living in a rural area. City-dwellers live in smaller spaces closer together, so they consume fewer resources and emit less carbon.

That's assuming that city people do the same things as rural people, and the only difference is whether they own a car and a house. City people earn much more money which they spend more freely and use to do more things, which require orders of magnitude more resources, even if they may be slightly more efficient when traveling within city limits (just think about the multiple flights per year every urbanite I know takes, versus the one or two per decade everyone else takes).
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