Can We Stop Climate Change While Still Living Comfortably?

[Ark of the Covetor]

-snip- ...and it would be one step in dispelling this bizarre view you have of environmentalism.

I appreciate the condescension chief, but I'll be fine ta. My view of environmentalism is formed from being an advocate for it and dealing with environmentalists from many different strands of thought over many years, all but a handful were totally unrealistic, and many were so strident you could literally see members of the public switching off when they were speaking. There's no tolerance for compromise; all technology is bad, all scientists are "priests of the new secular religion, maaan", and anyone who doesn't immediately agree that the only way to solve the climate change issue by ending our present way of civilisation has been "brainwashed by the media narrative" and so can be ignored or berated.

Go ahead, try suggesting to your average environmentalist that nuclear is the best short term way to eradicate the fossil fuel emissions from power stations and cars(in combination with electric vehicles), try suggesting that GM crops(combined with rack-stack altered-spectra hydrofarming in a closed environment) and lab-grown meat would allow us to restore vast tracts of wilderness, simultaneously almost ending the killing of animals for meat products, giving us space to reforest enough of the globe to seriously reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, and further cut any remaining transport and industrial emissions by producing food where it's needed rather than trucking it all over the place. If you're lucky, you'll get away with a condescending sneer, more likely you'll have to endure a half-hour lecture on how nuclear bad, GM bad, and if only everyone wasn't so selfish and would just give up their lives to live as organic subsistence farmers who ride bicycles everywhere then everything would be fine.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I guess it's possible, but I don't know...

I've always found a system that depends on 'continued economic growth' to succeed to be a very questionable system.
Just think about it.

A fundamental point of economics is resources are limited. That is the very reason for the existence of the subject in an academic sense! No limited resources = no need to worry about economics.

So how then, given this fundamental point, can a system function where 0 growth is considered fatal? And I don't mean that a shrinking economy is bad, but a stable one that is neither growing nor shrinking is considered a disaster...

And yet it should be obvious that you cannot have indefinite growth with limited resources. Sooner or later the resources run out... So a system which requires continuous non-stop growth as a basic pre-requisite for it's continued functioning clearly has something wrong with it, and will collapse somehow sooner or later.

Of course this isn't directly about the environment, but it seems to be related. How can we save the environment without damaging the economy? Well, clearly, we cannot, because we have to stick within the confines of limited resources, and limited capacity for the environment to absorb certain kind of changes without too much trouble...
How can an economy dependent on growth possible interact without issue with an environment where there are varying limits on what can be done?

Sooner or later, you are going to run out of resources. Or push the environment to a point beyond which it can recover from. Or destroy most of what's there in a way that can't be fixed...

It doesn't matter if we've hit that point already, or won't hit it for another 10,000 years, the point is, a system that requires non-stop growth will always hit that point eventually.

The only way out of it is to move from growth to some kind of steady state situation. And whether that can maintain our present lifestyle or not depends on whether we are below the limits on resources and environment, near the limits, or well past them...

 

[Silence]

The german green party has (in parts) come to the same conclusion as the article. They are pushing forward all kinds of technological advancements.
There are so many incredible inventions, all we need is to have mass producation. For example: Emission-free houses: Just the architecture and materials make it so you need neither heater nor air-conditioning.

 

[FogHornG36]

can we really stop something that has been happening before humanity existed?

On the contrary, the global climate has been relatively stable for all of human history until recently. We effed it up.

Define recently? industrial revolution?

 

[nullgenome]

TL; DR

massive global effort in Fusion research

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It's not even enough to still live comfortably. We even need to make green technologies better (either in perception or use, but preferably both) than the old, polluting stuff.


Green movements who still adhere to the idea that the world's population should be willing to hop in a time machine and lower their living standards dramatically irritate the fuck out of me. Even though I consider myself a green as well.

Technology, progression, positive thinking and working together, that's the only way out of this mess we've made.

 

[shadowmagus]

Step 1: Pour funding back into space travel
Step 2: Break FTL barrier
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Get off this rock. (Profit!)

 

[GabeZhul]

If every country did like France did in the 70s-80s and switched their heating to electric and their electrical generation to nuclear this problem would be solved. And this isn't some theoretical plan, France actually did it! Almost 40 years ago!

The problem with that is the public's mostly outdated and paranoid views on nuclear power. Because of the cold war's nuclear arms race the words "nuclear power" instantly conjure images of mushroom-clouds and nuclear fallout in most people's minds. Add in the way the media loves to cater to people's fears (eg. Chernobyl is still brought up as a cautionary tale about how nuclear power plants are unsafe even though it has been thoroughly documented that it was human oversight on the level of unintentional sabotage that caused it, not to mention comparing the safety measures of Chernobyl and a modern nuclear plant is like comparing the safety measures of a T-model and the president's armored limousine), and we have the current situation where people would rather throw away our cleanest and most efficient way of producing energy (there are Gen-IV reactors that theoretically wouldn't even produce waste at all, since they can cycle their fissionables down to non-radioactive isotopes) just to alleviate the uninformed voters' irrational fears. Sad and infuriating.

 

[Metadigital]

That being said if you think about what humanity has done to this planet in the context of the history of Earth; its nothing, its like a cold, or a small indigestion.

It's closer to one of the mass extinction events, which is no small thing at all. In fact, we've had such an effect on the planet that we're starting to call our current geological era the Anthropocene [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene].

1 - In practice, such pessimistic hand-wringing becomes an excuse to do nothing. You know this to be true.

The problem is interpreting this as pessimism. Instead, it's merely stating that a plan to alter GDP by a small percentage with the goal of not discomforting human life isn't going to cut it. Focusing entirely on global warming is also only going to perpetuate climate change in general. Let's not confuse accepting the scale of the problem with pessimism.

Yes, alot of damage has been done. But its not too late to stop it from getting alot worse. And doing so isn't a hail-mary pass. Researchers and engineers have been working on solutions rather than wringing their hands in despair. Get ready to reap what they've already sowed and are still sowing.

It's already too late to stop some pretty scary stuff. I think the reason there's so much lashing out against environmental philosophers and scientists is that the general populace isn't quite aware of the scale of the issues, how much irreparable damage has already been done, and the rather dramatic effects that'll have on the daily lives of people in just another 50-100 years. They also don't realize how irrelevant one's own personal choices are for the most part, as more than 90% of all environmental damage is caused by a small handful of corporations. It's easy to fall into despair, but I don't think that's what environmentalists are aiming for. it's just how a lot of people handle problems of this scale and seriousness.

If you're lucky, you'll get away with a condescending sneer, more likely you'll have to endure a half-hour lecture on how nuclear bad, GM bad, and if only everyone wasn't so selfish and would just give up their lives to live as organic subsistence farmers who ride bicycles everywhere then everything would be fine.

Though nuclear power is a hotly debated topic, I don't know any environmentalists who oppose GM crops or support organic farms. It looks like you're just throwing hyperbolic versions of what I've said back at me and combined it with positions that only reveal that you're not familiar with environmental thought.

 

[Ark of the Covetor]

If you're lucky, you'll get away with a condescending sneer, more likely you'll have to endure a half-hour lecture on how nuclear bad, GM bad, and if only everyone wasn't so selfish and would just give up their lives to live as organic subsistence farmers who ride bicycles everywhere then everything would be fine.

Though nuclear power is a hotly debated topic, I don't know any environmentalists who oppose GM crops or support organic farms. It looks like you're just throwing hyperbolic versions of what I've said back at me and combined it with positions that only reveal that you're not familiar with environmental thought.

Physician, heal thyself:

Greens vote against new GM deal proposed by the Commission [http://europeangreens.eu/news/greens-vote-against-new-gm-deal-proposed-commission]

The European Parliament has voted to allow individual EU countries to ban the cultivation of GM crops. Green MEPs voted against the proposal, as the final compromise between the Council, Commission and Parliament was watered-down and unsatisfactory. Some member states will now go ahead with banning GMO cultivation altogether, which can be seen as a victory for the environmentalists.

...

According to Frassoni, ?Bearing in mind that the vast majority of EU citizens are opposed to GMOs, the battle for a GMO-free Europe does not end today.?'

Blog detailing Green Party of England and Wales candidate's support for vandalising publicly-funded GM crop research. [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100160423/dont-vote-green-until-they-drop-the-anti-science-zealotry/]

And here is the leader of the party;

"Natalie Bennett on GM: My first degree is agricultural science. I think that GM crops and the release of GM crops into the environment is the wrong way to go. The fact is that GM crops, as currently instituted, represent another stage of industrial agriculture, enormous-scale corporate agriculture that's completely the wrong direction to be going in in terms of the farming that we need? huge industrial-scale agriculture that's simply ploughing across huge fields, that relies on a few very small handful of seed companies and don't allow farmers to save their own seeds, it's completely the wrong model of agriculture. And there are safety concerns in releasing these new organisms without really knowing what you're doing.

[Asked whether she would align herself with Take the Flour Back(the vandals mentioned above):] Yes."

As for organic farming, the E&W Greens policies on school meals:

"Fresh fruit will be provided every day. Vegetarian, vegan, religious and other dietary requirements will be catered for. Meals will use fresh, organic and local produce wherever possible. Schools will be required to provide enough time and space for children to eat their meals in a relaxed and healthy way."

farm subsidies:

"The Green Party will encourage community supported agriculture, including farm and community box schemes, local farmers' markets and other direct links between growers and local consumers. We will assist locally owned and controlled organic marketing cooperatives."

and sustainability:

"A range of agricultural systems and practices meet or aim to meet the above criteria for sustainability, including organic, stockfree organic, permaculture, agroecology, agroforestry and forest gardening.

Organic farming and growing are well-established in the UK, with reputable and recognised organisations, certification schemes and retail markets. Organic production aims for long-term sustainability and has a central role to play in the transformation towards sustainable agriculture and food security."

...all emphasise organic farming. They're not alone in this, switching to organic farming is the policy of Green political parties and organisations all around the globe, check the Green Party of California's website, for example. [http://www.cagreens.org/platform/organic-farming]

Here's an article from the Green European Journal [http://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/organic-farming-and-agricultural-movements-in-spain/] that managed to both advocate organic AND have a crack at GM;

"Another obstacle for (organic) agriculture and farming in Spain is the policy of the Spanish authorities in favour of GMOs. Whereas across Europe an increasing number of countries are limiting or prohibiting genetically modified production, the Spanish authorities are welcoming experimental and/or commercial projects including genetically modified crops which in other EU countries would not be allowed. Yet slowly but steadily, municipalities and regions all over Spain begin to understand the threat to their local agriculture ? still a very important sector in rural Spain ? and declare themselves GMO-free zones."

Until very recently, this was the Greens' position on nuclear;

"The Green Party is fundamentally opposed to nuclear energy, which we consider to be expensive and dangerous. The technology is not carbon neutral, and being reliant on uranium it is not renewable. We consider its use, moreover, to be elitist and undemocratic. There is so far no safe way of disposing of nuclear waste. To a degree unequalled by even the worst of other dangerous industries, the costs and dangers of nuclear energy and its waste will be passed on to future generations long after any benefits have been exhausted."

It was changed to this:

"We will cancel construction of new nuclear stations and nuclear power will not be eligible for government subsidy; the Green Party opposes all nuclear power generation and is particularly opposed to the construction of new nuclear power stations, electricity from which is likely to be significantly more expensive per unit supplied than other low-carbon energy sources, and too slow to deploy to meet our pressing energy needs. Cancellation will avoid the costs and dangers of nuclear energy and waste being passed on to future generations long after any benefits have been exhausted."

Which is slightly more neutrally-worded but amounts to the same thing.

I can keep doing this all day; I've worked as a Green Party activist, I'm involved in the anti-fracking movement, christ my Mum spent three of the months she was pregnant with me at the Scottish CND camp outside the Faslane Trident base. I've been actively involved in the environmental movement since I was 14, and I'm telling you, they are going to fail unless they drag their policy agenda out of the fucking 70's and into the modern day.

 

[the7ofswords]

First of all, this concept of an ever-growing economy is unsustainable. We measure economic growth in stupid, abstract ways that don't necessarily mean much for the day-to-day lives of the vast majority of people on this planet.

We have easy solutions to hand, but lack the socio-politico-economic will to implement any of them. But here, I think, are the steps that would fix the issue:

1) Cut off ALL subsidies to fossil-fuel-related industries and start subsidizing wind and solar at least as much as we've done for oil, gas and coal for the last 50-100 years.

2) Start switching everything we can to electric (cars, trains, factories?everything) and start phasing out fossil-fuel production of electricity.

3) We've already started making things more and more energy-efficient. Keep on that track.

4) Here's the hard one ... we need to reduce the number of humans on this planet. I'm not saying start killing people off, or anything like that, but we really need to reduce the rate of reproduction to the point that global population begins to decrease. My idea is to give every person credit for half a child. Any two people can marry or arrange in whatever fashion to have a single child. People who want no children or can't have children can sell their half-child credit on the market. In this way, people who want three kids can go buy credits from those who want none. The problem, of course, comes in how to enforce such a thing.

But there you go. If we could do all of those thing, I doubt our lifestyle would have to change too terribly much.

 

[the7ofswords]

Step 1: Pour funding back into space travel
Step 2: Break FTL barrier
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Get off this rock. (Profit!)

Amen to that!

Let's go back to putting the kind of effort and energy into solving these problems (both green energy and space travel) that we once put into the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo programs, or fighting the Second World War.

 

[Metadigital]

I can keep doing this all day; I've worked as a Green Party activist, I'm involved in the anti-fracking movement, christ my Mum spent three of the months she was pregnant with me at the Scottish CND camp outside the Faslane Trident base. I've been actively involved in the environmental movement since I was 14, and I'm telling you, they are going to fail unless they drag their policy agenda out of the fucking 70's and into the modern day.

I'm talking about environmental philosophers and scientists. You're talking about the Green Party. We couldn't be talking about two more different things than that. The Green Party really has nothing to do with environmentalism and has done more harm to the environmental movement than anything else.

 

[EiMitch]

The first world using this is not going to cut it, everyone needs to be on board. The so called first world only represents about a third of the population at most, once China and India fully joins us and the rest follow, it won't matter if we are eating raw granola in a frozen shack in the woods if they are doing things the way we were 20 years ago. Every climate summit I have seen is showing India and China basically saying "my turn." We want what you have and no rules to stop us. Politics is going to kill us, just as it always does. We have maybe 25 years before the oceans completely collapse and once that happens we are really gonna see some shit go down. I have seen no solution for this, it's pretty much inevitable I'm afraid.

4) Here's the hard one ... we need to reduce the number of humans on this planet. I'm not saying start killing people off, or anything like that, but we really need to reduce the rate of reproduction to the point that global population begins to decrease. My idea is to give every person credit for half a child. Any two people can marry or arrange in whatever fashion to have a single child. People who want no children or can't have children can sell their half-child credit on the market. In this way, people who want three kids can go buy credits from those who want none. The problem, of course, comes in how to enforce such a thing.

One crucial piece of context you both seem to miss is that developed countries have stable populations, without any kind of extreme population control program like China's. **Fry-squints at 7swords** People in poor countries tend to have alot of kids because of high child mortality rates. If someone doesn't want their legacy to die with them, they have to spam offspring to beat the odds. And they have to perpetrate child labor in order to feed them, which means scant education. The solution should be obvious enough.

1 - End the high rate of child mortality. Sane people don't want big families if given a choice.

2 - Improve wages. Seriously, does anyone earning a living wage anywhere put their kids to work and neglect their education? Speaking of which...

3 - Provide better access to reproductive education, health care, and contraceptives. When faced with the less "romantic" realities of parenthood in advance, nobody is in a hurry to have kids. Even the notorious "reality" show Teen Mom is credited with discouraging many kids from having kids of their own. So imagine the difference a real education can make.

If these basic humanitarian needs are met, the population problem will sort itself out. We're seeing population booms in developing countries because things have improved enough to reduce mortality rates, but not enough to change impoverished lifestyles.

 

[EiMitch]

Define recently? industrial revolution?

Do you seriously need to ask? No, really. I honestly can't tell if this is intended as a rhetorical question. It feels like it is since you apparently know the answer already. Yet, you don't go anywhere with it.

Tell you what, I'll just bite. Yes, the industrial revolution. Your turn.

 

[EiMitch]

1 - In practice, such pessimistic hand-wringing becomes an excuse to do nothing. You know this to be true.

The problem is interpreting this as pessimism. Instead, it's merely stating that a plan to alter GDP by a small percentage with the goal of not discomforting human life isn't going to cut it. Focusing entirely on global warming is also only going to perpetuate climate change in general. Let's not confuse accepting the scale of the problem with pessimism.

Yes, alot of damage has been done. But its not too late to stop it from getting alot worse. And doing so isn't a hail-mary pass. Researchers and engineers have been working on solutions rather than wringing their hands in despair. Get ready to reap what they've already sowed and are still sowing.

It's already too late to stop some pretty scary stuff. I think the reason there's so much lashing out against environmental philosophers and scientists is that the general populace isn't quite aware of the scale of the issues, how much irreparable damage has already been done, and the rather dramatic effects that'll have on the daily lives of people in just another 50-100 years. They also don't realize how irrelevant one's own personal choices are for the most part, as more than 90% of all environmental damage is caused by a small handful of corporations. It's easy to fall into despair, but I don't think that's what environmentalists are aiming for. it's just how a lot of people handle problems of this scale and seriousness.

First of all, did you just attribute something I said to someone else? Don't address multiple people at once if you can't pay enough attention.

If you don't think a solution I or anyone else here advocates is going to work, fine. Suggest something better. Smash our ideas down and build up something in its place. Don't just say "nothing will work. Trying to fix the problem will make it worse. We're boned, so just admit it. Btw, I'm not a pessimist," in so many words and leave it at that.

Edit: I kinda rushed into posting this. I fixed a few trivial mistakes that were annoying me. And yes, I'm aware of the irony.

 

[Ark of the Covetor]

I can keep doing this all day; I've worked as a Green Party activist, I'm involved in the anti-fracking movement, christ my Mum spent three of the months she was pregnant with me at the Scottish CND camp outside the Faslane Trident base. I've been actively involved in the environmental movement since I was 14, and I'm telling you, they are going to fail unless they drag their policy agenda out of the fucking 70's and into the modern day.

Yep, Bennett was an utter shambles on the politics show. The wealth tax revenue predictions make Alex Salmond's oil revenue predictions look rational. It's so annoying because I am all for environmentalism but I am not all for a Trotskite forced redistribution of wealth.

Quick aside because I think Alex gets far too much stick over the oil stuff; the projections being used by the SNP weren't pulled out of their arse you know, they largely came from the UK government's Department of Energy and Climate Change and the oil industry itself. As it turns out of course all the predictions were wrong at least in the short term, but the perception that Alex Salmond was pushing a "land of milk & honey" vision based on ludicrously unrealistic oil predictions was essentially created out of nothing by the BBC and the OBR(you remember them, the guys who're essentially a government-sanctioned Tory thinktank ), the latter of whom's record on predicting things is...well, lets be charitable and say "not awesome".

As for the Greens and Bennett; she's better than most recent Green leaders, but sadly that's not saying a lot(I still rate Patrick Harvey of the Scottish Greens above her, but he's not devoid of drawbacks either). I'm not against redistribution of wealth in principle, but then I'm not an ideological capitalist; I do however think that there are solutions out there which are sadly being ignored because people are far too entrenched in the tribal divides - left-right, environment-industry etc etc. A prime example is redistribution via taxation; despite the fact that a policy like Land Value Rating should please both the left AND the right - by extracting a rent on ownership of land based on its unimproved value as a substitute for taxing income, you can generate enough revenue to support substantial social services, perhaps even more substantial than at present, which should please the left, and at the same time all earned wealth remains in the hands of those who generate it, and meaningful development of land is encouraged over speculation or hoarding, both of which would drive economic activity and so should please the right - but both the left and the right whinge about the policy for different reasons which are also the same reason; it's not the policy they currently advocate, and advocating the policy that fits the respective sides' narratives have become more important to them than actually achieving the end results those policies are supposed to be enabling.

That's the same issue the Greens have been struggling with; GM crops and nuclear power, properly used, would make it actually practical to achieve their supposed objectives, but because they don't feel right to environmentalists used to seeing scientists and industry as the enemy, they'd rather just shove their fingers in their ears and shout "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF HOW ORGANIC I AM LALALA". It's fucking maddening - so many people in politics, or even just among the voting public, would rather achieve nothing in the "right" way than actually obtain their goals in the "wrong" way.

I can keep doing this all day; I've worked as a Green Party activist, I'm involved in the anti-fracking movement, christ my Mum spent three of the months she was pregnant with me at the Scottish CND camp outside the Faslane Trident base. I've been actively involved in the environmental movement since I was 14, and I'm telling you, they are going to fail unless they drag their policy agenda out of the fucking 70's and into the modern day.

I'm talking about environmental philosophers and scientists. You're talking about the Green Party. We couldn't be talking about two more different things than that. The Green Party really has nothing to do with environmentalism and has done more harm to the environmental movement than anything else.

Oh please, I haven't seen such a naked No True Scotsman in a long time, and I'm a fucking Scotsman. Where the hell do you think the various Green parties are getting their policies from, the fucking Ether? Who do you think are creating or inspiring groups like Take the Flour Back in the first place if not the academics and philosophers who generate and advance the various strands of environmentalist thought? We're done here, you're evidently not interested in actually engaging in the discussion.

 

[jklinders]

The first world using this is not going to cut it, everyone needs to be on board. The so called first world only represents about a third of the population at most, once China and India fully joins us and the rest follow, it won't matter if we are eating raw granola in a frozen shack in the woods if they are doing things the way we were 20 years ago. Every climate summit I have seen is showing India and China basically saying "my turn." We want what you have and no rules to stop us. Politics is going to kill us, just as it always does. We have maybe 25 years before the oceans completely collapse and once that happens we are really gonna see some shit go down. I have seen no solution for this, it's pretty much inevitable I'm afraid.

4) Here's the hard one ... we need to reduce the number of humans on this planet. I'm not saying start killing people off, or anything like that, but we really need to reduce the rate of reproduction to the point that global population begins to decrease. My idea is to give every person credit for half a child. Any two people can marry or arrange in whatever fashion to have a single child. People who want no children or can't have children can sell their half-child credit on the market. In this way, people who want three kids can go buy credits from those who want none. The problem, of course, comes in how to enforce such a thing.

One crucial piece of context you both seem to miss is that developed countries have stable populations, without any kind of extreme population control program like China's. **Fry-squints at 7swords** People in poor countries tend to have alot of kids because of high child mortality rates. If someone doesn't want their legacy to die with them, they have to spam offspring to beat the odds. And they have to perpetrate child labor in order to feed them, which means scant education. The solution should be obvious enough.

1 - End the high rate of child mortality. Sane people don't want big families if given a choice.

2 - Improve wages. Seriously, does anyone earning a living wage anywhere put their kids to work and neglect their education? Speaking of which...

3 - Provide better access to reproductive education, health care, and contraceptives. When faced with the less "romantic" realities of parenthood in advance, nobody is in a hurry to have kids. Even the notorious "reality" show Teen Mom is credited with discouraging many kids from having kids of their own. So imagine the difference a real education can make.

If these basic humanitarian needs are met, the population problem will sort itself out. We're seeing population booms in developing countries because things have improved enough to reduce mortality rates, but not enough to change impoverished lifestyles.

I fail to see how any context was missed here. The statement I made in part was about the massive amount of energy these very high populous nations will be seeing an increased need of as they further industrialize and prosper (which in part would help alleviate the very things you mentioned) causing an increase in the amount of man made climate change. The point i made is that as quality of life improves in these places they will will need and consume more energy, food and everything else that is driving climate change. Now the big families will get smaller as quality of life improves (maybe, the one child rule was not exactly effective in China, we also cannot fully account for cultural differences in the context of a couple of forum posts) but that will be a period of time down the road and in the meantime the slice real estate i am sitting in at this moment will slip under water. A new coal fired power plant is going up every 2 weeks in China and it's not one of the modern human friendly ones either. these things are old style, dirty things that blacken lungs for many miles around them in addition to adding massive carbon in the air. The solution is not condoms and prosperity. we are way past that.