Bird populations declining fast across North America

Post by AussieWog93 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

moosey wrote: post #317

AussieWog93 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The whole point of a command economy is to have a central planning authority that oversees production of x tons of potatoes, y tons of steel and z T-34 tanks. They explicitly ignore abstract financial metrics like GDP and stock prices. They still ruined the environment. Unless you're arguing that the mere existence of abstract concepts somehow degrades the environment, I don't see how this proves your point.

My point is, what does it serve to build tanks? If the goal is to protect "our nation", then we are serving the abstractions. If you take a "command economy" and tell it to feed the people of the world, restore natural areas, shelter people... Then the abstractions serves real things.

If you tried to build a society that invested $0 into the military, you would be pummeled into the ground by an external aggressor.

Those tanks are serving the abstraction of survival.

Post by wizardofdos » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 9:07 AM UTC

lambdadmitry wrote: post #301

nitrogen wrote: post #84

I've noticed an even more disturbing trend of learned helplessness and misanthropic Malthusianism in these threads over the years. Not a single comment, at time of writing, has had a positive tone, and there are very few actionable suggestions. No consideration is given to the many positives in modern life, nor to realistic, productive tradeoffs. Everyone wants to wail in dismay at the perceived impending doom and do…

I agree, and chimed in with a few comments to a similar effect. What's especially frustrating is how shortsighted the Malthusian "degrowth" response is. It honestly feels like people don't realise that "the West" is just one billion people out of eight and its carbon impact is shrinking both in relative and absolute numbers. Therefore any measure that might work have to be acceptable to the developing world. In fact,…

The emissions of the top 10% richest people globally where 17.60 tCO2 while the bottom poorest 50% globally emitted 1.57 tCO2 (2015).

Or in absolute numbers, the top 10% emitted 3x the amount of the whole bottom 50%.

And that is without taking historic emmisions into consideration.

What we don't have time for is doing nothing (ie continuing the destruction of our habitat). The 1.5° C goal is already getting out of reach.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America