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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

#191

Post by scoofy »

slibhb wrote: post #185

Degrowthism is one of the dominant ideologies of our time. I think it's wrong: economic growth is good, it has made our lives much better, and we should continue to prioritize it. One important detail about % growth is that it compounds. So small differences in growth today can make a huge difference 50 years from now. The world I want to live in is one that prioritizes protecting the environment but also aggressivel…

Economic growth just means "providing food, homes, and jobs to people who are alive."

The degrowthers also presume that growth requires some sort of nasty fuel source. Almost some sort of religiosity that believes that anything good must also create some effectively equal amount of bad. Anyone who cares about solar knows that a solar-battery future is effectively 99% recyclable.

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

#192

Post by lm28469 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #102
lm28469 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, we're holding it wrong I guess. It starts to sound a lot like the very strong "we never really actually tried real communism" argument.

Not at all. I'm arguing that the deployment of new processes and technology is uneven and takes time to permeate the global economy. You can see the progress in a lot of places, it's just not everywhere yet. Many countries are still operating the mid 20th century tech stack, or in many cases earlier iterations. There's a lot of work that could be done on clear land registries for example that would alleviate a lot of…

I earn less than my grandparents adjusted for inflation (they quit school at 18, I have a master's degree in computer science), my peers can't afford housing anymore, people don't have kids because it's too expensive, I'm expected to retire 10+ years later than them too, and that's in western Europe where we got plenty of this "innovation" and "technology", weekly working hours are expected to go up, public services are decreasing in quality.

So what gives? Where is all the good stuff? Is it this new macbook I can buy for 599?

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

#193

Post by ch4s3 »

lm28469 wrote: post #192
ch4s3 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. I'm arguing that the deployment of new processes and technology is uneven and takes time to permeate the global economy. You can see the progress in a lot of places, it's just not everywhere yet. Many countries are still operating the mid 20th century tech stack, or in many cases earlier iterations. There's a lot of work that could be done on clear land registries for example that would alleviate a lot of…

I earn less than my grandparents adjusted for inflation (they quit school at 18, I have a master's degree in computer science), my peers can't afford housing anymore, people don't have kids because it's too expensive, I'm expected to retire 10+ years later than them too, and that's in western Europe where we got plenty of this "innovation" and "technology", weekly working hours are expected to go up, public services…

Yeah European welfare states fucked up by pinning retirement payouts to an assumption of a growing labor force, and doubly fucked up by shackling their energy needs to Russian gas. What you have in Europe are sclerotic states with declining capacity. Vote better.

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

#194

Post by tyzerdako »

lich_king wrote: post #140
fasterik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

[dead]

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

epolanski wrote: post #167
fasterik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

+1, I think you're spot on. Albeit I feel like OP was right on something else: his grandparents weren't heavy consumers, but that transcends city vs rural debates. I see us modern people, except very old folks being extremely heavy consumers. Sometime I pay attention to my friends and relatives and how much do they consume. E.g. I spent 5 days with my mother in December at my grandmas and I've noticed that she just b…

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by ponector »

keybored wrote: post #116
enoch_r wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For millenia, about 50% of children died before reaching adulthood. https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past We work less than our counterparts 150 years ago: https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever Air pollution has decreased over the past few decades (probably much further, just don't have data). https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/emissions-of-air-pollutan... We're obviously richer, too. You…

1870 is not a great span of time when OP is comparing to some idyllic village life unencumbered by urbanism. Late 19th century had many people in a “rat race” in the city, like work twelve hour days six or seven days a week in a factory type of dead-end race. But there was something that happened later: > For those countries with long-run data in this chart, we can see three distinct periods: From 1870 to 1913 there…

While there was a rat race in the city, typical farmlife was more brutal: work from early childhood and then from dawn to dusk. City dwellers had at least one day off per week, while working with animals is a job without holidays.

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

#197

Post by M95D »

scoofy wrote: post #191
slibhb wrote: post #185

Degrowthism is one of the dominant ideologies of our time. I think it's wrong: economic growth is good, it has made our lives much better, and we should continue to prioritize it. One important detail about % growth is that it compounds. So small differences in growth today can make a huge difference 50 years from now. The world I want to live in is one that prioritizes protecting the environment but also aggressivel…

Economic growth just means "providing food, homes, and jobs to people who are alive." The degrowthers also presume that growth requires some sort of nasty fuel source. Almost some sort of religiosity that believes that anything good must also create some effectively equal amount of bad. Anyone who cares about solar knows that a solar-battery future is effectively 99% recyclable.

Earth is limited. Resources are limited. You can't recycle to infinity. Each time you recycle something, the material recovered is worse than before. Steel is weaker, plastic has impurities and is not clear/transparent, paper isn't white and it contaminates the printers with dust, etc. To keep maintaining quality, fresh material must always be added to the recycled one. Everything we dig out of the Earth is non-renewable. (not in the next million years or so...)

The logical conclusion is that at some point we run out of resources. No more oil, no more uranium, no more iron, no more copper, no more lithium. If we don't degrow voluntarily, then we degrow involuntarily and that's usually sudden and it's called a crash. With no resources, what comes next is dark ages, very dark and loooong dark ages this time. Without steel it we'll go back stone age most probably. I won't live to see it, our children won't live to see it, but unless we all nuke each other over some oil fields or something, someone will live to see it.

Degrowth will extend our present good times. Growth will shorten it.

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

#198

Post by keybored »

ponector wrote: post #196
keybored wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1870 is not a great span of time when OP is comparing to some idyllic village life unencumbered by urbanism. Late 19th century had many people in a “rat race” in the city, like work twelve hour days six or seven days a week in a factory type of dead-end race. But there was something that happened later: > For those countries with long-run data in this chart, we can see three distinct periods: From 1870 to 1913 there…

While there was a rat race in the city, typical farmlife was more brutal: work from early childhood and then from dawn to dusk. City dwellers had at least one day off per week, while working with animals is a job without holidays.

That was not what ourworldindata chose (or had the data for) to showcase.

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

#199

Post by ishouldstayaway »

lich_king wrote: post #140
fasterik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

> Do we forcibly sterilize people? Lock them up if they have children?

Oh give me a break. Developed countries have had below-replacement fertility rates for decades.

If your goal is to reduce birth rates, we do the things that we already know do that naturally: comprehensive, fact-based sex ed; cheap and easy access to contraceptives; social safety nets and support; etc etc etc.

It's not a mystery and it's not even difficult. You don't need to jump to straight to abhorrent crimes against humanity.

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

#200

Post by boringg »

pfdietz wrote: post #45
boringg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to argue that Europe hasn't decimated their forests?

Europe's tree cover is increasing. https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

Tree cover != forests. That is movement in the right direction though!
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