Cop/Out
rifters.com
rifters.com
It's not how societies collapse though. Collapse takes a long time and it's a slow process. We might already be in it in much of the developed world. Working age population sizes are already beginning to come down and I don't know of a historical example of a society that continued to grow while working age population shrunk.
I guess the anger that a lot of people have around climate change is normal, but what do you expect to happen? You can't keep fitting more and more people on a planet the size of Earth and expect to increase energy consumption forever. Even with the most optimistic forecasts about energy storage a world that reduces CO2 emissions to minimize global warming is a world where people are using a lot less energy. That means less vacations, less stuff, less high end services.
Do you know of any historical examples of a society that continued to increase total production with less people working less hours? Because that's where we're at, today.
To some extent the productivity numbers for developed countries need to be discounted too because a lot of low value add work (mining, basic manufacturing, etc.) that is labor intensive takes place in poor countries where labor is cheap.
If you're talking about the roman empire, sure. But i'm guessing (disclaimer: not an anthropologist) that some civilizations have collapsed much faster due to resource exhaustion or otherwise destroying their local environment.
> You can't keep fitting more and more people on a planet the size of Earth and expect to increase energy consumption forever.
The second part of the sentence is the important part, and the one it's easier to do something about. There are so many ways to reduce energy consumption globally, but they require a shift in governance to do away entirely with industrial capitalism. I believe most people would be pretty happy about it (do you really prefer having sushi once a week over having 6/7 days free time?!), except for the bourgeoisie whose entire existence and way of life is threatened.
> That means less vacations, less stuff, less high end services.
I agree reducing consumption is the principle idea, but i don't think "less stuff" from an end-user perspective is what really makes a difference. I believe useless stuff deployed on a wide scale (eg. CCTV, cop uniforms, office buildings, car-oriented cities and other concrete/electronics-based nonsense) is what could make a difference via policy shifts. If as a society you start only producing highly-reliable (and repairable!) goods and do away with useless junk that only serves to reinforce existing power structure, chances are we can have a pretty modern way of life without destroying our entire environment. A few days back, i posted some ideas on another threads about how to realistically start doing that from one day to the next (on a regulatory level): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29241109
Yes, global warming is very, very bad and it will cause death and destruction, and vastly more so if insufficiently much is done about it. But some of the predictions here are out of line with the science, particularly as far as timelines are concerned, and the whole undercurrent of nihilistic fatalism is not helping.
Who needs realism when we need a sense of drama and urgency to take action? Literal decades of friendly scientists and smiling politicians going on TV to "explain" changed nothing.
Second, there is a huge difference between drama and urgency and nihilistic fatalism. Watts indulges in more of the latter than I am comfortable with at times, and when he isn't, his musings about hurting the children of politicians to get his way is not only not productive (such a measure would absolutely backfire) but also frankly disturbing.
Third, the timeline actually does make a difference. Saying society will collapse in, say, twenty years when the scientific evidence points to something longer than that is a recipe for people dismissing scientists in twenty years when nothing happens and being much more likely to not take action needed to avoid later collapse.
I don't blame scientists for climate change. I blame the scientific community at large for having trust in broken institutions which other scientists (sociologists/anthropologists) have known to be broken (and against the interests of the people) for decades, and for encouraging people to fuel this trust by asking nicely of politicians to do something about climate change.
Fortunately, some scientists aren't so dull and actively take part or encourage sabotage operations and guerilla warfare against exploitative industries.
> Watts indulges in more of the latter than I am comfortable with at times
I'm personally really uncomfortable with nihilism or fatalism, and i certainly read neither of those in the linked blog post. I read a lot of urgency and anger, but no "nothing matter" or "nothing to do about it" vibes (which are my approximate definitions of nihilism and fatalism, respectively).
I personally find it very disturbing to threaten the families of the people responsible for this massacre, too. I would personally advocate for assassinating/kidnapping industry shareholders/CEOs (the people directly responsible, not their loved ones) and sabotaging installations. However when i rationalize it and realize all of them (and all of the rest of us!) are about to die due to these fuckers destroying our entire planet, it sounds way less crazy than on the first read and kidnapping children starts to sound like a gentle act compared to what these people are doing to humanity and other species. [0]
> is a recipe for people dismissing scientists in twenty years when nothing happens
I agree with you in principle, but it's been over 50 years of polite and informed warnings from the scientific community, and hell is already running loose. It's already happening. It's not gonna be a binary "is civilization up or dead?" but an evermore hell-ish situation. Just look at how many hurricanes/droughts and other extreme weather conditions we're facing: the first waves of climate refugees are here, today, and the people in power are still dismissing the issue. So what are governments doing about it? They're securing borders and ramping up their military is what they're doing. These people are insane and need to be removed by any means necessary.
[0] Also it's important to note that kidnapping for political motivations doesn't have to be a violent and traumatizing experience. The historic "stockholm syndrome" for instance is famously not a psychological condition but a case of people held hostage sympathizing with the actual motivations of their holders (who did nothing to hurt them).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytton,_British_Columbia, ie reach casual 120F+ and possibly are burned out.