Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

Repeating my previous comment:

If you look at the raw numbers of how Boomers prospered in their life cycle and compare it to the trajectory of Millennials it tells a clear and jarring picture. Even more so for Gen Z which explain why they are eschewing capitalism at far greater numbers than Millennials ever did. Note: all of my comments applies to a lesser extent to GenX as well but AOC was referencing Millennials since she is one. The point is if you look at the trajectory from Gen X onwards it paints a picture of decline in most aspects of life.

You can pluck a small group from any generation and show that they are doing better. How is the cohort as a whole doing?

It appears that you are set in your ways and are not willing to actually look at how Gen Y and Gen Z are doing in reality. Every answer you have given is an excuse to lay blame on the millennials as if the majority of the generation made some critical mistake in their lives.

You are just too out of touch to reason with.

Well... one half of the country is working on such a budget. The other half is doing everything to sabotage that budget, get back control of the senate and the house and spend that $3.5 trillion on a tax bill for the super-wealthy. You know, like the last time they did that [1].

Bit even if the infrastructure got $3.5 trillion; that isn't enough to even fully repair the existing infrastructure[2]. The last time the ASCE released an infrastrucutre report, fixing the infrastructure would cost about $4.8 trillion.

That's just to fix the existing infrastructure. That money isn't going to build new nuclear reactors. By the way; how many nuclear reactors are currently being built in the US?

... Two... Two reactors with each a bit more that 1TWh. The latest one to come operational one was the Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2, which began operation in June 2016. Before that Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996. So, two new one ones in operation in 25 years. Two new ones being built.

How many more do you think we would need?

Well, we don't just have to cover the existing energy needs. Since it's getting hotter (I'm taking +1.5°C by 2050 as granted, since we're already at +1.25) we're going to need a bit more - but hey! - let's discount that. Let's say for living we don't need more energy, as generous as that is. Unfortunately you also want to grow food using electricity. And desalinate water. But let's also discount that. Let's discount all that and go with our current energy needs, for the sake of argument.

We currently have 100 reactors with each about 1TWh. That covers about 20% of US energy needs. Let's say we can get the other renewables also up to 20%. That would still leave us with about 600 new reactors to be built. By about 2060.

Do you honestly thing that this country has the political will to build 600 nuclear reactors over the span of forty years? This country cannot muster the political will to phase out coal or gas. This country cannot even muster the political will to stop subsidizing fossil fuels.

Sorry, my friend. I'm afraid that brute-forcing technology will save none of us. It might play a part in saving us, but unless we have a radical rethink about our current economic structure and incentives[3], this is just hot air.

[0] https://wusf.org/heres-whats-in-the-democrats-3-5-trillion-b...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017

[2] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/

[3] And we know that this isn't going to happen. See [1]

Let's assume good faith on both sides, otherwise this discussion will go nowhere. Agreed?

> They’re not the total biomass

No, they're not. I never claimed that. My claim was that

>> Of course fish and insects are part of the biomass.

Anyway. That out of the way, let's have a look at

> Just because a couple species types have declined by X%,

It's not a couple of species. It's whole ecosystems that are being emptied. The Zoological Society of London report [0] monitors 4392 vertebrate species. There's a consistent and dramatic reduction.

> This paper tries to measure the thing you claimed

Thanks for the research and for taking it serious enough to do some data hunting. I'll happily dig into the report. Since it's from 2011, I wonder if there's an updated version that includes more recent data.

I honestly don't have a better source that aggregates the loss globally over all species. I would be interested in more exact numbers. (Ask HN?!)

>>>> but at least might not be off by orders of magnitude.

I think we have established that the 75% is not "off by orders of magnitude". Could it be 60% reduction? Or 50%? Sure. Absent more data this could be possible, certainly. Given that it's only been a few decades, I don't think that matter too much - it's devastating in any case.

But I think we can agree that it's definitively above 7.5% or 0.75%. I honestly think that 75% is not too far off.

[0] https://www.zsl.org/sites/default/files/LPR%202020%20Full%20...

You'll say "but storage". However, storage is getting cheaper even faster than solar/wind production is, and storage is not necessary for its use in food production.