Tadasuke wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:40 pm
wjfox wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:00 pm
Maybe stick to your CPU and GPU posts (which are excellent, btw) instead of peddling disinformation from fossil fuel industry-funded websites.
I find climate change alarmism and misinformation detrimental to the well-being of humans and causing no good, because the cost-curves are going to be the same no matter how many scary headlines and comments are going to be written. In fact, I think climate change alarmism is a net-negative to the whole humanity. I saw hundreds of articles at Human Progress and I haven't seen any 'fossil fuel propaganda'. People will do something positive and substantial when it's economical, not when they are scared. In fact, people tend to do bad things when they are scared. I think they are presenting very good proof that they are right and correct. I find it a horrible, horrible thing to do to tell people that by leaving subsistence-level of living and scarcity behind, they are "destroying the planet". And people like Greta Thunberg aren't doing anything that actually helps solve any problems.
Absolutely no ecologist acting in good faith has suggested that developing nations be kept in the living conditions they face. Malthusianism is a false dichotomy, there are enough resources for us all to live comfortable middle class lives. Some inefficiencies like private car ownership in non-rural settings have to be replaced with mass electrification and proliferation of trains and other public transit. But there is no ecologically sound future where the majority of the world is kept poor. That said, development should not be conflated with the spread of consumerism and the “right” to an endless deluge of plastic.
The malthusian position is also pushed by the fossil fuel industry deliberately because if they can convince people that solving the ecological crises requires preventing improving living conditions than of course most people will oppose solutions. The bar just keeps moving every decade or so and eventually they will run out of lies to peddle as reality waits for no one. First it was, “climate change isn’t real,” then “there’s no proof humans caused climate change,” then “climate change is beneficial actually,” and finally, “fixing climate change will make you poor!” All lies!!!
The one aspect of truth here that is completely distorted and misrepresented by bad faith actors. Is that we in the developed nations will have to give up some things because we have genuinely created excess at the cost of everyone else, but even here a degrowth of some production sectors won’t effect most people. Things like owning more than one car, owning a megayacht, owning more than a small cabin and a single modest home (less than 2,000sft per household of 4 or less,) will have to be outlawed. The suburbs in America and Canada will have to be slowly abolished as they are the most wasteful form of urban planning ever “designed.”
There are large changes that must be made but none of them threaten the lives or wellbeing of the majority of the population. In contrast they will improve our lives. The eventual abolition of most private car ownership will instantly reduce stress levels and make air clean to breath, it will reduce emissions immensely. Eventually factory farming will have to be banned, but the meat we will consume will be lab grown and made more perfectly than ever. Monoculture lawn ownership must be banned but we will save countless labor hours and most will opt to tend private gardens of some kind instead, which are far more useful, beautiful and ecologically valuable.
As for the predictions on that website, no! Arctic sea ice at the current rate of decline will be gone in September sometime in the 2030-2060 timeframe, no one knows the exact year for sure but there is a solid scientifically verifiable time range. The consequences of a blue water arctic in the summer (and eventually all year) will destabilize the entire northern hemispheres climate even more dramatically than we have experienced in recent years.
There’s nothing “alarmist” about the truth! There’s nothing “alarmist” about screaming at a person to get out of the way of an oncoming train as they wander down the tracks. We need more truthful climate science in media that will force action. Fatalism is a consumer response encouraged by our dominant culture and media, not everyone responds that way, to the opposite effect many people facing climate despair find that taking action is the only thing that alleviates the feeling.