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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#191

Post by tech_ken »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #29
bamboozled wrote: post #3

Positive on the one hand, stupid it took us this long on the other.

Posted from a huge house with air conditioning while using multiple petroleum products (iPhone/computer, chair, desk, fleece, etc). The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago. It’s easy to be in Seattle or New York and say we gotta stop burning oil and coal but there are trade offs that were worth making. If you live in a developing country with…

> The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago.

I think it's important to note that you are making this statement with virtually no evidence about the long term sustainability of this standard of living. It's great to be sitting on all this bounty, sure, but from the perspective of history we're not even out of the prototyping phase. If climate change models are even remotely accurate, for example, then the standard of living we are currently enjoying will not be shared by future generations in any nation. I definitely take your point that it's unreflective for a citizen of a rich nation to say "pollution for me, but not for thee", however if in the long term we experience severe ecological collapse as a result then is it really worth it for 2-4 generations to have iPhones and air conditioning? Only time can ultimately tell, but I think it's critical to consider how radically unique the last ~200 years of human history have been, and as a result how poorly equipped we are to extrapolate its lessons into the future.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#192

Post by ncruces »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #169
lotsofpulp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is increasing taxation of the young, productive population to sustain the old, non productive population causing political turmoil and decreasing national competitiveness on the global scale.

Good point, young people just out of college who have lived off of their parents and the government for a quarter of a century might get upset about having to support non-productive people.

People will finally figure out that they're only productive for about a half their lives, and that it's not just the last quarter that they need help with, it's also the first.

The real problem is the transition period where there are more unproductive people than not, because the stock of existing people is still here. That's why a crashing population is bad.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#193

Post by orthecreedence »

bamboozled wrote: post #153
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posted from a huge house with air conditioning while using multiple petroleum products (iPhone/computer, chair, desk, fleece, etc). The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago. It’s easy to be in Seattle or New York and say we gotta stop burning oil and coal but there are trade offs that were worth making. If you live in a developing country with…

We could've had all of that without the C02 we've emitted, please don't talk silly talk. We screwed up this hard because we burned fossil fuels as they were highly profitable for a handful of our species.

> We could've had all of that without the C02 we've emitted, please don't talk silly talk.

Wait, what? How could we have possible done all this without fossil fuels? Our modern life takes immense amounts of energy and fossil fuels are basically free energy we can suck out of the ground.

And I'm the first one here to critique the profit motive, but fossil fuels are profitable because they are a really easy to use, dense, transportable energy source.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#194

Post by tech_ken »

benatkin wrote: post #89

Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 > Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable. > While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is. >…

Kind of repeating myself from another comment, but the person making this comment is basically standing atop one of the most singular vantage points in all of human history. To say this advice is non-generalizable is an understatement, IM personal O. Setting aside that this was the entry point of the ZIRP years (unique even among US history), the United States from 1920-2020 was basically unprecedented in terms of global hegemony, access to material resources, and scientific knowledge. Even a cursory examination of the global situation indicates that these factors are not going to hold forever, probably not even for the next 50 years. I think a prudent person has to ask themselves "do I really want to turn off the news and focus my entire being on creating a startup? Or do I want to have some Plans B-Z in case the Roman Empire falls?" It's true you can't fix everything yourself, and many people waste their lives trying, but tbh that seems less foolish than taking serious advice from an '08 UC Berkley graduation speech.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#196

Post by orthecreedence »

benatkin wrote: post #89

Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 > Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable. > While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is. >…

It's possible to build a life that attempts to solve the world's problems. Then you have personal accomplishments and meaningful social contribution. But your comment reads like "who cares about the planet we live on, just do whatever you want" which isn't really great advice or a particularly sustainable mindset. I'm getting strong Ayn Rand vibes.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#197

Post by faeriechangling »

skissane wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So,…

>the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population, which could then result in a national baby boom.

Only if their reproductive habits do not change in that time. Hard to project out 3 centuries with a good deal of accuracy.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#199

Post by doug_durham »

rustcleaner wrote: post #181
skissane wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So,…

Just a friendly reminder to modern Progressives that (on average) you will not be in the future described by parent because you were tricked into an anti-natalist posture and will fail to reproduce adequately. It's a problem which kills itself in time so long as the problem doesn't ideologically metastasize into competiting populations.

Ahh, so conspiracies now. Interesting approach. "They" tricked us with the ever menacing "they".
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