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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

#221

Post by gib444 »

pibaker wrote: post #181
greygoo222 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your problem is that you were happy as a child and unhappy as an adult. That's a personal problem, and has little to do with rural or urban living. As other commenters have pointed out, you can most likely afford to buy a farm if you really want that lifestyle. I suspect you don't, because it sucks major ass to have to do manual labor all day, to eat almost entirely the same things and see the same people for decades…

> you can most likely afford to buy a farm if you really want that lifestyle Revealed preference wins all the time. See also the massive rural to urban migration in literally every country since 18th century Britain to present day Asia.

People from the countryside were forced into cities in Britain as a result of the Enclosure acts, reduced demand for agricultural workers, population rises etc

Revealed preference could just show it was the least bad option in that period

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

#222

Post by pjmlp »

graemep wrote: post #203
pjmlp wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only when that vast majority is synonymous with the upper class driving their Ferraris into work, or heli-taxis.

Almost everywhere in the world the standard of living of the average person is far higher than it was a hundred years ago, when it was far higher than it was 500 years ago, when it was far higher than it was a thousand years ago.

Thankfully, until it got messed up with MBA folks destroying society, and the planet, with late stage capitalism to meet those quarter targets.

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

#223

Post by pjmlp »

Gagarin1917 wrote: post #154
pjmlp wrote: post #3

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

MBA’s have a goal for growth. That doesn’t mean it will happen. Lots of companies fail or shrink. Also, it’s not an MBA/capitalism thing. Every socialist leader throughout history promised more growth, they just thought it should be more equitable. Ever heard of Five Year Plans? They’re still going on in places around the world. Having a goal for growth is a global phenomenon across all economic systems. If you feel…

Indeed, and when it doesn't happen, the others pay for their failure, while they get a bonus package.

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

#224

Post by bovermyer »

thewebguyd wrote: post #158
bovermyer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leading a slower existence in harmony with nature and community has its trade-offs. There are so many things to consider. It's a fascinating topic. For example, if you give up access to restaurants in order to live simply, how does that impact your approach to food in general? How about losing access to a hospital? What changes do you make to prepare for, or respond to, health crises? The questions I ask above are fr…

> if you give up access to restaurants in order to live simply, how does that impact your approach to food in general? I think many people would develop a much healthier relationship with food. We live so disconnected from the reality of all the resources and labor it actually takes to bring food to your plate that we've lost appreciation for the interconnected nature of how we live. Oddly enough, it's the individual…

For me, this is exactly what I'm missing: the community.

If I got stuck in the snow on the farm, I knew there were at least half a dozen people I could call who would come get me out.

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

#225

Post by pas »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #187
graemep wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> reduce the impact on nature Less bad is not the same as good. For example, electricity from solar panels is less bad than electricity from fossil fuels but there's considerable disruption to the natural world to produce them, not least of which involves mining for raw materials. In the same vein, we're nowhere near reducing pollution to safe levels or even reducing our overall pollution, all we've managed so far is…

while all true the population will shrink in less than a hundred years, consumption patterns are changing as economic surplus gets used to increase efficiency (from electric cars to simply having good insulation and a FIR camera to check, and so on), and hopefully land use patterns will also change (as lab-grown meat and other alternative proteins help to transition to a less cruel way to get meat, and that will require a lot less land to grow feed for animals)

sure, no guarantee that we cannot (and won't) fuck it up, but it's not hopeless

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

#226

Post by pfdietz »

projektfu wrote: post #202
pfdietz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the entire world. Almost everywhere, the total fertility rate is well below replacement (which is around 2.1). UN estimates that say global population will peak around 2084; they assume global TFR increases back to 1.6, but there is no evidence for this assumption, so global population will likely peak sooner. Every first world country will be in population decline by 2050; some already are. There's…

So it seems there is a median projection of mild decline way in the future. There are also reasonably probable scenarios that show no decline, or more precipitous decline. However, they generally agree that there will be at least 1 billion more people in the world, most likely 2 billion, and possibly more. What is the real risk of the Earth eventually going back toward having 8 billion people after reaching 10 billio…

The real risk is the TFR never rises and population drops until complex society cannot be maintained. Or perhaps some weird minority with higher TFR takes over the world, what I call the "Amish Scenario".

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

#227

Post by tim333 »

abeppu wrote: post #44

I don't have any deep background in econ, but do we not need to switch from talking about GDP to talking about a version of Net Domestic Product where "net" includes: - changes to the value of natural and ecosystem resources (e.g. if I clear a forest to sell timber, we must acknowledge some lost value for the forest) - amount of economic transactions in service of mitigating problems created by externalities from oth…

It's kind of an accounting problem. What you really want is human happiness and abundant nature but doing some gardening and playing with the kids may produce happiness but no GDP whereas enlarging a chemicals plant to make even larger SUVs gives much GDP.

Trouble is it's hard to account for that kind of stuff but maybe we could make a flawed but functional accounting thing with AI?

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

#228

Post by Tade0 »

tim333 wrote: post #227
abeppu wrote: post #44

I don't have any deep background in econ, but do we not need to switch from talking about GDP to talking about a version of Net Domestic Product where "net" includes: - changes to the value of natural and ecosystem resources (e.g. if I clear a forest to sell timber, we must acknowledge some lost value for the forest) - amount of economic transactions in service of mitigating problems created by externalities from oth…

It's kind of an accounting problem. What you really want is human happiness and abundant nature but doing some gardening and playing with the kids may produce happiness but no GDP whereas enlarging a chemicals plant to make even larger SUVs gives much GDP. Trouble is it's hard to account for that kind of stuff but maybe we could make a flawed but functional accounting thing with AI?

A huge part of such stuff is deliberately hidden to avoid getting the government too involved in day to day lives.

Case in point: for a while we had an arrangement with our neighbour that we'll pick up their child from preschool and stay with her until her parents get home and in exchange they would prepare dinner for us.

No money exchanged hands, so no GDP generated, yet everyone's quality of life improved.

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

#229

Post by jeffbee »

api wrote: post #214
jeffbee wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but unfortunately false nostalgia for subsistence farming is widespread and has traction in the discourse. I guess it's probably because every American who ever suffered from that lifestyle is dead, in other words the same reason that it is now increasingly popular to die from measles. In reality, the laser-leveled, fully-automated, county-scale factory farm is the only reason anyone on this forum has ever expe…

It’s an extremely privileged kind of nostalgia. Only the wealthy can romanticize poverty. The solution to nostalgia for farming is for people to try it. I used to live in Asheville NC years ago. There were a lot of hippie back to the land types that came there to find themselves. It’s that kind of place. Sometimes they’d decide to become farmers. This usually lasted at best one year. Sometimes it lasted weeks.

There's a book about being the child of back-to-the-land hippies called "Against the Country" that I enjoyed and recommend to all who might be tempted.

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

#230

Post by tim333 »

Tade0 wrote: post #228
tim333 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of an accounting problem. What you really want is human happiness and abundant nature but doing some gardening and playing with the kids may produce happiness but no GDP whereas enlarging a chemicals plant to make even larger SUVs gives much GDP. Trouble is it's hard to account for that kind of stuff but maybe we could make a flawed but functional accounting thing with AI?

A huge part of such stuff is deliberately hidden to avoid getting the government too involved in day to day lives. Case in point: for a while we had an arrangement with our neighbour that we'll pick up their child from preschool and stay with her until her parents get home and in exchange they would prepare dinner for us. No money exchanged hands, so no GDP generated, yet everyone's quality of life improved.

I guess a lot of the 'free market' stuff is also about avoiding too much government involvement. It tends to be a pain the neck when you have to fill tax returns and apply for permits.
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