Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

Didn't watch the video, but my personal feeling is that it is never too late--but people won't like the solution. We either do a voluntary contraction, the most humane way being to simply stop reproducing (not entirely, but drastically), and for those that remain, to live simply, with fewer things, traveling far less. Essentially, we would move toward an agrarian economy (plus internet). No more suburbs. Cities would change drastically in the US (perhaps not so much in Europe).

Another option is an involuntary contraction caused by the effects of climate change, as fresh water supplies dwindle, soil erodes, and ecological collapse causes famine, war, and death. We are, say, 5% along this path.

In the worst case, technology can surely sustain at least a small human population indefinitely, even on a decimated planet Earth - dome living, and so forth. You know, the kinds of things we once imagined for settling distant planets. With any luck they will be scientists and engineers, working diligently to find a path back to our historical equilibrium that supported so much diverse life for so long. But that seems desperate, and hopeless, since achieving breakthroughs seems to require a certain population density and technology level.

What is striking to me is how reckless Americans are in consumption. Having lived in Germany a few years, I'm struck by how much more efficient and frugal life is there. Public transportation is easy and ubiquitous, healthcare is rational, simple, cheap, yet of high quality. "Stuff" is certainly more expensive, and you have fewer readily available options. People repair rather than replace. Many don't own a car. America could at least aim for something like that as part of a "voluntary contraction"! But I think we will continue to live recklessly, stuffing our bodies and homes and minds with junk until we die, bloated in every possible way, wondering why the world hates us for being free.

or... we can just introduce a $100/tonne carbon tax, which would not even cause more than short dip in economic growth.

Consumption isn't bad, carbon is bad. All the modern conveniences can be produced by low-carbon technology or offset by direct air capture, and for relatively low cost. An anti-growth mindset is religious thinking.

Energy moves atoms around, at all levels of scale, and a lot of our energy comes from unwinding the chemical springs in fossil fuels that leave those flacid springs in the air. Making and shipping stuff requires a lot of atoms to move, at each phase of the supply chain, and all of that motion requires a lot of energy. This is in addition to the energy required to run and maintain the machinery in a modern American household!

So yeah, I think consumption is bad because it drives a great deal of carbon release, both at production and during operation.

As for growth, I guess I'm in favor of quality over quantity, of both stuff and people. It seems to me that Earth would be better off with, like, 1B people gardening and sustainable farming, reading and writing books on paper, with perhaps one or two high-tech cities where people work on things like particle physics experiments, do space missions (especially planetary defense and exploration).

I wish it weren't so. Part of me wishes I lived in the 19th century, when so much of the world was still new, and to be explored, and the forests seemed endless and forbidding. And, unlike earlier times, there was technology available to exploit all those endless resources. People were blessedly ignorant of the externalities of their actions, and TBH the tech was relatively inefficient, so truly massive harm wasn't even possible. But I would say that to have a "pro-growth" mindset is itself a religious view, one that stands in opposition to the simple truth that we live in the very thin, very precious skin that is the entirely unique and valuable biosphere of Earth.

So what if we could profitably do carbon recapture for $100/ton which was funded by a $100/ton carbon tax and start an entire industry that reverses carbon in the atmosphere, would you still be against consumption then?

> Didn't watch the video, but my personal feeling is that it is never too late

This is borderline hijacking a post.

The whole point of the video is to point out that its getting dire but its not too late, by breaking down climate change to a basic factors.

This is simply not going to happen - there's a preponderance of historical evidence indicating that's not how the human race behaves. Either we're going to rise to the challenge and save ourselves with our technology and ingenuity or we're going to flame-out. As we've gone global the stakes have risen higher - instead of a single civilization flaming-out as has happened in the past now we're facing the prospect of the entirety of civilization flaming-out.

Note too that "the end of civilization" is not "the end of humanity." As you point out even in the worst-case scenario there will still be humans, but life will bear little semblance to what life is like today.

I think our COVID-19 response offers a glimpse as to how climate change is going to affect us. There's denial that a problem even exists, people start dying by the hundreds of thousands, there's still a denial that a problem exists, we develop treatment therapies and vaccines (we hope!) significantly reducing the risk and life goes on. You can see global climate change has been on the same trajectory and getting the same response - largely denial with a few people rolling up their sleeves and figuring out what we can do about it. Sadly, tens of millions of people will probably die - and there will still be people denying there's a problem - and we'll (hopefully) hit on a solution. I really don't see things progressing any other way.

The USA has a similar level of taxation (when not higher) than European countries, so I would argue America's freedom is basically free speech and right to own weapons. You're slaves like the rest of us here in Europe and the government allows you to keep some of the profits you make.

Everything you mentioned is the result of badly spent public money: - Ridiculous spending on politics causing society polarization - Army overspending and warmongering - Poor education leading to people making poor choices (and live the wasteful lives you described) - Inflated cost of health care because of insurance companies lobbying the government - Terrible public transport

You're not free but 200 years ago you were the closest thing to free we had in the world.

It's sad to see that the minarchist experiment of the USA failed over time: the USA is the largest employer in the world and spends 13bln per day.

Hopefully the next experiment won't make the same mistake.

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