Climate cowardice

by **worcej** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 4:10 am

orathaic wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 10, 2023 3:28 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:42 pm
My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.
It is not a "energy credit philosophy" it is a free markets philosophy.

Make everything into a market... Because vital things which humans rely on for survival are just fine to leave go through bubble and burst mechanisms...

But as fot the Salmon. Biodiversity is important.

Ecology (which sadly is seen as not including humans and economic study) teachs how everything is interconnected. Reintroduce wolves to national parks and the shapes of the rivers change (due to knock on effects, deer behaviour, trampling of long grasses, changes in other predators, and eventually beaver populations moving). And once you break them, they may be irrepairable (or more relevantly, it may take half a million years to the same level of complexity to re-emerge).

And sadly for us, humans are part of the ecosystem.

I look at it as prioritizing - what’s more important, GHG emission control, or loss of natural salmon spawns?

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 6:48 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:42 pm
My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

Strongly agree. Carbon credits are a sham, and not a real solution to anything.

by **orathaic** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 3:28 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:42 pm
My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.

It is not a "energy credit philosophy" it is a free markets philosophy.

Make everything into a market... Because vital things which humans rely on for survival are just fine to leave go through bubble and burst mechanisms...

But as fot the Salmon. Biodiversity is important.

Ecology (which sadly is seen as not including humans and economic study) teachs how everything is interconnected. Reintroduce wolves to national parks and the shapes of the rivers change (due to knock on effects, deer behaviour, trampling of long grasses, changes in other predators, and eventually beaver populations moving). And once you break them, they may be irrepairable (or more relevantly, it may take half a million years to the same level of complexity to re-emerge).

And sadly for us, humans are part of the ecosystem.

by **worcej** » Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:42 pm

My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.

by **worcej** » Mon Oct 09, 2023 11:38 pm

orathaic wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:51 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:19 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 03, 2023 7:39 pm
What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?
There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.
Not sure why you think this us problematic.

People choose to not have children all the time. The current economic system almost guarentees it (selfish consumption driven life-styles where advertising Creates unhealthy aspirations and work culture demands soo much time that raising a family is prohibitive - or done by a paid employee)

When I say “acting on it” I should have been more clear about establishing governmental policy to enforce population controls.

If you don’t want to have kids, you do you. There are plenty of fundamentalist crazies that will make up for your lack of birthing…

by **orathaic** » Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:51 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:19 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 03, 2023 7:39 pm
What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?
There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.

Not sure why you think this us problematic.

People choose to not have children all the time. The current economic system almost guarentees it (selfish consumption driven life-styles where advertising Creates unhealthy aspirations and work culture demands soo much time that raising a family is prohibitive - or done by a paid employee)

by **worcej** » Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:24 pm

This whole conversation was an interesting read of opinions. I am more aligned personally with what flash has been saying, but do respect the high levels of concern that Jamie has expressed.

To me, the key is actual economic and energy policies to promote infrastructure. Take California as an example - they have the 2030 targets for electric cars without the electric infrastructure to support it. California already has to purchase power from other states, so where is this extra power going to come from? Fossil fuels.

by **worcej** » Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:19 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 03, 2023 7:39 pm
What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.

by **orathaic** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:45 pm

Interesting video discussing the issues, and in particular whether the general public are over or under reacting.

https://youtu.be/Gs-ed1CEokc?si=BqkD8wG62F-cK6nf

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:03 am

Human citization is fucked.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:02 am

Back to the main issue:
BBC News - World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66857354

by **orathaic** » Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:07 am

Octavious wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:04 pm
<Snip>
But to not have children and to wish for the rest of society to do the same is fundamentally different. It is as far away from natural evolution as you can get. Comparable to suicidal thoughts and similar mental illness.

This is a fair and bakid point. But not as encouraging as you may think.

It sucks but taking your own life is often the best option left to a person. It sucks because that means they can only see suffering in their life and their brain can't see any other releaae from that suffering.

Now if you want to minimise suffering, then not having children is a sure way to do that. And it may be equivalent on a species wide scale to taking your own life, but people do that all the time.

So I don't see in principle why a 90 or 99% reduction in population wouldn't be managable (so that the next generation never exists to suffer). In fact there are ways in which it is more appealing rstionally to avoid that suffering than having millions of people lose hope and taking their own lives or a slow decay as economies grind to a halt. So i can see Jamies point, even if i have chosen to have children of my own.

by **orathaic** » Wed Oct 04, 2023 8:57 am

Octavious wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 03, 2023 11:42 pm
Then pushing the line that having children is immoral would be a deeply flawed way of going about it, as if you were successful you would create a future in which humanity was populated solely from families without morality and humanity will go to hell in a handcart in short order.

Besides which the human population is about to fall off a cliff soon anyway. It's a problem at least as big as climate change

You are making the rsther erroneous assumption that birth families are the only thing which influences a child's moral sense. Culture is deeper than just that.

Also, you are making the massive assumption about success, if we can assume some unrealistic level of success, then we can also assume that society would remove children from those who choose to have them and foster them out to those who have proven thry are more responcible (although we already have a school system which cares for children a significant portion of the day, maybe just banning teachers from having families of their own would be enough).

by **Octavious** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 11:42 pm

Then pushing the line that having children is immoral would be a deeply flawed way of going about it, as if you were successful you would create a future in which humanity was populated solely from families without morality and humanity will go to hell in a handcart in short order.

Besides which the human population is about to fall off a cliff soon anyway. It's a problem at least as big as climate change

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 7:39 pm

What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

by **Octavious** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:04 pm

It is a tangent of your own creation, so it would have been a tad unusual for you to refuse to engage... But anyway...

I can understand why an individual might decide having children is not for them, from both an individualistic point of view and evolutionary point of view. Society doesn't need everyone to be parents to thrive, and a subset of society who can operate without their own family competing with society at large as chief priority has obvious benefits. I have often wondered why we tend to choose leaders with families, as they will always be more vulnerable to conflict of interests... As Biden is demonstrating rather brilliantly in the USA.

But to not have children and to wish for the rest of society to do the same is fundamentally different. It is as far away from natural evolution as you can get. Comparable to suicidal thoughts and similar mental illness.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 11:57 am

Octavious wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 02, 2023 6:24 pm
A more interesting question would be how you've apparently managed to lose this instinct.

Actually, and I know this is sending the thread off on a tangent, but I will actually engage with this as it is interesting.

I don't have the instinct to reproduce. I have never had it.

I like having sex, but that's because it feels nice and I enjoy the intimacy.

I don't want to make a baby, produce offspring, father young - nor have I ever wanted to do that. The idea of a human being running around because I created it and helped to bring it into existence is not something I have any appetite for whatsoever.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Mon Oct 02, 2023 7:32 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 02, 2023 6:24 pm
It is a fundamental truth driven by the most basic human instinct (the most basic instinct of all life, in fact). Without continuation there is nothing.

A more interesting question would be how you've apparently managed to lose this instinct.

I am questioning your assumption, that is all.

by **orathaic** » Mon Oct 02, 2023 7:05 pm

flash2015 wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 02, 2023 2:38 pm

orathaic wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 02, 2023 10:51 am
'become productive members of society' assumes so much, like how is our society going to manage the current ai revolution (it has been a hell of a 11 months, never mind what your kids will face in the nect 2 decades).
You are thinking with a scarcity mindset. As we become more productive, new jobs emerge. This has always been the way. For example I have worked in tech for the past three decades. What you could do with 60 engineers in the 90s you can now do with 6...yet there are more jobs in tech than ever before. The "AI revolution" will be no different.

How will our society define productivity when the climate regularly floods or droughts every year? When thousands of migrants are willing to work for peanuts? And when food production becomes even more capital intensive (vertical farms, led grown food, water recycling etc.)
This is one of the biggest things I hate about the news currently. They are making people think that at one point we never had natural disasters. This is just propaganda. We have ALWAYS had droughts, floods, forest fires (some plants even need fire to germinate), hurricanes etc.

Perhaps climate change may cause some of these things to increase...but the way the media claim now that every natural disaster is due to climate change is f*** nuts. We can see these disasters more on the news largely because everyone has a camera phone/drone now...and the 24 hour news cycle is insatiable for "disaster porn" content.

I wouldn't be that worried about the migrant situation becoming worse. With the birth rate dropping so rapidly, many countries in the next decade or two are going to experience big shortages of labour. We can't afford social safety nets if we don't have the workers to support them.

I don't agree, moving away from a scarcity mindset would he great, if our economy moves away from using artificial scarcity. But my suspicion is not that we will redefine what it means to he productive, rather that as a combination of low birth rates and high levels of automation combined we will see the driver of economic growth change dramatically.

You can see the tip of the iceberg most clearly in the writers strike (because Large Language Models are - fairly obviously - good at language based tasks) but the past has shown us the we can replace human physical labour with machines, those machines still needed operators, maintenance, and skilled human who knew what the point of the activity was... there were more jobs with cognitive roles, as computer controlled systems take over cognitive roles the same does not apply.

Sure the data centre will need maintenance. The programmers will need to be employed. And you might be able to do the job of 10 software engineers with 1 plus AI code writing tools in 5 more years... but we can also look at the histroy and see not all work which was replaced resulted in more jobs. Horses used to do a lot of sork in cities (transporting people and goods) but the automobile lead to a lot fewer jobs for horses, and as a result their population dropped significantly. There was no boom of new jobs for horses.

Likewise, there is not definite solution where new jobs for humans is guarenteed (i would suggest communication related jobs (like teachers), trust-dependent jobs (like politicians), and caring related roles (emotional and physical labour) might be safe for the moment - but they are a fairly small percentage of the total workforce).

Climate change, as we are currently experiencing, increases the average amount of energy in the weather system, which allows that system to explore more extreme edges of the phase space. That means the scale and frequency of events get magnified with each degree of warming.

I don't think anyone is saying there were zero disasters in the past. What we are saying is that a hundred year storm is now happening every ten years and a thousand year storm every hundred*, which is very bad (for insurance companies first, and then for people who can't get insurance and lose a life's worth of investment). And if everyone is spendig all their time struggling to rebuild what they have just lost, they will have far less time to spend on anything else.

*Making up these number to illustrate the point, i don't know the actual frequencies at the moment.

by **Octavious** » Mon Oct 02, 2023 6:24 pm

It is a fundamental truth driven by the most basic human instinct (the most basic instinct of all life, in fact). Without continuation there is nothing.

A more interesting question would be how you've apparently managed to lose this instinct

Climate cowardice

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