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The world has probably passed peak pollution

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#51

Post by perrygeo »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #31

The good news is you’ve taken your foot off the gas. The bad news is the car is going 100mph and there is a cliff edge in 10 feet.

Nailed it. We're confusing the second derivative (how much are we "accelerating" pollution) with the real scalar value of interest (distance from the pollution "cliff"). Taking your foot off the gas does nothing. Putting your foot hard on the brakes may not even do anything! Momentum do what it do.

If humanity can't work through these fundamental math and science comprehension problems, we're doomed.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#52

Post by skissane »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #46
skissane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially I agree with your overall point, and about the Amish and Orthodox Jews (especially the ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic/Haredi). However, for Mormons, I'm not sure that is true. Mormons, in the US at least, have plummeting fertility rates, and also a lot of problems with retaining…

Every Mennonite I know has 0 kids. Of course I only know those who have left the community, but I think it is an illustrative anecdote.

When I say "Amish" I mean "Old Order Amish". Mennonites have both lower fertility and lower retention, so their demographic future is less bright overall.

That said, there is a subgroup of the Mennonites, the Old Order Mennonites, who have fertility and retention much closer to that of the Old Order Amish. The Wenger Mennonites, in particular, are rather similar in those measures. But only around a third of Old Order Mennonites are Wenger, and only around 15% of Mennonites in the US are Old Order.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#53

Post by dheera »

randomdata wrote: post #38
developerDan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is to say children today will have children of their own tomorrow? People who are choosing not to have kids “leaving the gene pool” (you say it as if they are some filth to be done away with) doesn’t change anything.

The people of typical child rearing age today grew up in the "16 and pregnant" era, where having children was demonized. They were told that to have children was a failing, and that they should focus on their career instead – that was the key to a successful, happy life. Social pressure is a hell of a drug. Is that fashion going to remain, though? Everything goes out of style eventually. I think we are already seeing…

> They were told that to have children was a failing

Were they? High-achiever families routinely demonize having relationships at 16 but then turn it around VERY QUICKLY after getting that college degree and want their children to get married and have kids before 30.

(That said many high achievers themselves don't actually want to have kids, despite family pressure to have kids at 30.)

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#54

Post by Brian_K_White »

cpill wrote: post #34
defrost wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peak Coal - Probably, very likely, more or less about right now. Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Can't say for sure until another few years have passed, nonetheless every country in the world has coal on hold or in decline save for India and China. China is the largest producer of renewable technology and energy (?), India is building out the…

[flagged]

What of it?

China + India = 2.864bn

Not China or India = 5.244bn

I think the characterization that a turning point has occurred is perfectly supportable.

The article never even tried to say anything other than that it only just barely happened 11 minutes ago and a few metrics metrics don't show a clear past peak yet.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#55

Post by bryanlarsen »

hackerlight wrote: post #50
bryanlarsen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

No they won't. Only the first derivative of greenhouse gases ('emissions') will peak. Greenhouse gases itself will only peak after the world achieves net-zero.

Since you're being pedantic, greenhouse gases don't have an infinite lifetime in the atmosphere so they will start going down slightly before we hit net-zero.

I hope most understood that I meant to say peak greenhouse gas emissions.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#56

Post by randomdata »

silverquiet wrote: post #49
randomdata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of typical child rearing age today grew up in the "16 and pregnant" era, where having children was demonized. They were told that to have children was a failing, and that they should focus on their career instead – that was the key to a successful, happy life. Social pressure is a hell of a drug. Is that fashion going to remain, though? Everything goes out of style eventually. I think we are already seeing…

I think the economics trump the social factors mostly. It seems to take ever more education in order to grasp at an ever more ephemeral stability, and children need a decade or two of stability when growing up. I can’t imagine anyone will be encouraging their 16 year old daughters to have children any time soon.

It is true that once you are rich enough you no longer need children to help support the family unit as was an imperative historically (and still in the poor parts of the world), so we cannot discount the economics. That is no doubt why it became the fashion. It was a demonstration of how rich we've become. A display of human progress and achievement.

But I see some change in sentiment around questioning what good is being rich if you can't enjoy it with your children. It is not happening overnight by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the tides are slowly starting to turn.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#57

Post by casercaramel144 »

Lammy wrote: post #42
grecy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?

Luckily I'm one of the Chosen Few who would always have been allowed to exist.

I mean yeah. Not existing has a utility value of 0. You can make the same argument for people who don't exist yet. Is it infinite utility to go around as a government and force people to pump out 100 babies a year? Since not existing is so bad?

TBH if I never existed by definition I would be fine with it, you know, since I don't exist and was never born. I don't think its coherent to measure things from aggregate utilitarian POV, since the optimal solution seems relentless expansionism like a virus.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#58

Post by vouaobrasil »

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…

Every single person? Not exactly. What about farmers forced off their land for corporate interests? What about people working in the garbage dumps of Tijuana in Mexico [1]? I've actually lived in the "first world" (born there) and now have lived over a year in a developing country where most people (including myself) don't have "aircon", and whether technology has improved things is not as clearcut as you might think.

Yes, we have better health care and more products, but we also have more pollution, more meaningless jobs, weaker local communities (especially in the most developed parts of the world), and beautiful species are going extinct.

Actually, I think the standard of living, at least in the long-term and for the many future climate refugees, is not actually that much improved.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-25-mn-4650-s...

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#59

Post by Lammy »

casercaramel144 wrote: post #57
Lammy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily I'm one of the Chosen Few who would always have been allowed to exist.

I mean yeah. Not existing has a utility value of 0. You can make the same argument for people who don't exist yet. Is it infinite utility to go around as a government and force people to pump out 100 babies a year? Since not existing is so bad? TBH if I never existed by definition I would be fine with it, you know, since I don't exist and was never born. I don't think its coherent to measure things from aggregate uti…

> I don't think its coherent to measure things from aggregate utilitarian POV

I do, because second-person collectively-singular Humanity is a living thing all its own, and the more humans there are the more alive We are. Your argument is the anthropological equivalent of “640K ought to be enough for anybody”.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#60

Post by andsoitis »

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,…

> mainstream Americans

What is a mainstream American?

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