
'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else dare mention - CalRobert
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention
======
caf
As someone who was actually around in the industry and saw the massive efforts
that were made to successfully fix things, it shits me to tears when people
talk about the Millenium Bug as some kind of crying-wolf moment.

I saw some of the awful bugs that were fixed first hand. I have no reason to
doubt that my experience wasn't replicated in important "legacy systems" right
across the industry. Things only passed so smoothly _because_ of that effort.

------
ppod
Here's the part that I don't get (and I would be afraid to admit to this in a
non-anonymous setting among my peer group).

I completely accept the evidence and the consensus that human action is
causing global carbon levels and therefore temperature to rise. The part I
don't get is what exactly happens to the planet, our species and other animals
given say, a 2C rise by 2200. Say that's a 2 metre sea level rise. Ecosystems
and societies are pretty robust to that level of change over 200 years. There
would be very bad effects on some low-lying coastal cities, and the areas of
the earth that are productive for different kinds of agriculture and habitats
would change.

This is bad and we should work to avoid it, but I think that we lose
credibility when we speak of the end of civilisation, or even major threats to
our normal way of life globally.

~~~
onion2k
_I think that we lose credibility when we speak of the end of civilisation._

It won't take much of a change in the climate before we see significant
conflict over access to water. India and Pakistan have a treaty they both
signed in 1960 regarding access to water from 6 rivers they share
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty)).
These are two nations that have nuclear weapons... if that treaty fails and
results in a war, that'd almost certainly end up being World War III, and
could very well result in the end of civilisation.

This isn't speculation on my part. We're _already_ at the point where nations
have civil wars over access to natural resources like water and agricultural
land. It was a key factor in civil war in Sudan. Wars around the middle east
between Israel and it's neighbours are rooted in religion but are often _also_
about access to water from the Jordan basin.

Climate change isn't simply things getting hotter and sea levels rising.
People literally go to war over resources. It _really_ matters.

~~~
roenxi
That is clearly very bad, but people also go to war because of scarce
resources. The US doesn't have a Special Relationship with Saudi Arabia
because the Saudi's are lovely people.

Climate change isn't the threat, the problem is that population growth is
exponential. We don't have a reliable mechanism to shrink population apart
from run out of resources and have a war. Claiming that climate change is
making resources scarce isn't grappling with the fact that in 100 years at 2%
population growth, resources are going to be scarce anyway.

~~~
YaxelPerez
Population growth is an S-curve, not an exponential. Fertility rates will
stabilize once developing nations catch up with the rest of the world.

~~~
dredmorbius
Sigmoid is one option. Overshoot/crash another.

And, in the short term, exponential may be a reasonable fit. Doesn't make it a
long-term guarantee.

~~~
jbond23
For the last 5 decades or so we've been stuck on linear growth. ~ +80m/yr,
12-14 years per +1b. That looks like it might be the middle straight line part
of a sigmoid curve that started exponential and transitioned to linear.

There's no real evidence yet in the stats for the next transition to a drop in
the absolute growth numbers per year.

~~~
davvolun
Just to be clear, who is "we" in that? I'm assuming it's "people living in
industrialized nations," but if it's just "humans," then that seems like it
could be misleading -- linear growth internationally with exponential
births/deaths (net effect -- linear) in undeveloped nations, combined with
scarce essential resources is _already_ a severe problem, leading to global
strife.

~~~
dredmorbius
"We" is global human population growth. Trend is no longer exponential, since
~1970, but it is still growing linearly.

UN historical & projected data:

[https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/1_Demographic%20Profiles/...](https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/1_Demographic%20Profiles/World/Line%20Charts/Total%20Population%20by%20variant.png)

[https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/](https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/)

------
hutzlibu
'We're doomed'

I kind of grew up with that phrase. It was all over in my childhood climate
nature science books etc. But the real world today looks far from it. I mean
we have many problems, sure. But doomed?

So maybe that's why I can't really take people serious who start with that
phrase.

"He believes that accepting that our civilisation is doomed could make
humanity rather like an individual who recognises he is terminally ill. Such
people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to
prolong their lives."

And I rather believe that really doomed people don't care anymore about long-
term cancer risk when they allready are full of it. Optimistic people who want
to live long and prosper care about that. I mean, we are all going to die
anyway, yes. But usually our children live on. But if I would believe the
world is doomed, how can I possible raise children with good hearts? But if I
and everyone else, stop raising children - then we are indeed doomed.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Have you read the article? It talks about what will happen in 100 years and
what, based on the data we currently have, is inevitable if we don't take
drastic changes (which is unlikely to happen until it's way too late).

~~~
hutzlibu
I skimmed it. And the main point I took is the one I cited: that people should
first all acknowledge doom in order to do something against it. Which I think
is stupid and achieve rather the opposite. Either by people starting to ignore
doomsday-people and their "climate hoax" or by giving up hope and therefore
truly making way for the stupid, careless people.

It is a difference between saying "we are doomed".

Or

"if we continue this, we are doomed".

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
The whole point of the article is that we're past the return point, i.e. even
if we stopped burning fossil fuels completely now, the temperatures will
continue to rise albeit more slowly, so the critical point would be reached
later.

~~~
hutzlibu
Bu even have in the worst case scenarios we are not doomed.

Under heavy pressure and possible temporary decline, yes, but doom means
extinction to me and this I don't believe. Especially not with all the
technology we are going to build in the next 100 years. I bet we could live
allmost sustainable on mars by then. And no matter how devastated the earth
will be a some point, it will allways be easier to live here. Even if the
whole food supply comes from sealed greenhouses. Those we can (and do) build.
As long as the sun shines, I see no problem. (And even if the sun don't shine
for some years, we could survive. Related: I will start playing Frostpunk
tonight..same topic, even though in the scenario they survive by coal, while I
would bet on nuclear)

~~~
birksherty
Humans will never go extinct from anything like that. Even if there are
nuclear wars worldwide, some of us will always survive.

Other species will not. Through climate change we have brought ill effects to
the whole ecosystem of Earth. And irreversible phase already started. That's
why doom is used often. You can always say we are not doomed because humans
are selfish and don't want to take the blame. Or take as little blame as
possible or just plain ignore.

Regarding giving up hope and being careless, I can say one thing. Saying
doomed does not make people give up. But saying it's not as bad as it looks
definitely makes people be careless. Because they now things it's ok and we
will survive anyhow, so why should I put effort and suffer. That's what I have
seen with climate change deniers.

~~~
hutzlibu
"Saying doomed does not make people give up."

No, because they don't believe it (anymore). Thats why. But I like to use
words by their intended meaning - so I don't see it positive yelling Doom! to
get the information to people, that we have a problem.

------
jbond23
The future doesn't stop at 2100. There are people being born now who will see
it. We are starting to badly need some narratives for the 22nd Century and
beyond.

As for Pinker; the techno-optimists don't seem to get that the Limits to
Growth forecasts predicted substantial exponential growth. The huge success
and progress we've seen and celebrated by them doesn't invalidate LtoG. The
lesson is not that they didn't or can't happen. It's that they can't continue
for ever and will inevitably result in over-reach, peak and crash. And that's
the part that Pinker et al won't accept. They're attempting to portray and an
unlimited rosy future without really looking at all the implications.

~~~
ThomPete
Thats a bit of a straw man. Most people even Pinker would agree that there are
limits to growth they just don't agree that we are currently at the limit.

~~~
dredmorbius
Julian Simon. Herman Kahn. John Maddox. William Nordhaus. Thomas Piketty. Paul
Krugman. Milton Friedman. Christine Lagarde. M.A. Adleman. Robert Rubin.
Robert Bryce. Stewart Brand. Ray Kurzweil. Michael Lynch. Robert L. Bradley.
Peter Huber.

Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1976, also awarded the National
Medal of Science (1988), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988), and the
John Bates Clark Medal (1951)), in "The Energy Crisis: A Humane Solution",
1977:

 _You will all recall [ "Limits to Growth"] was a report in which engineers
were saying we have finite resources -- a finite amount of coal, a finite
amount of space, and so on and so on; things grow at exponential rates, and so
long as things grow at exponential rates they are ultimately going to become
infinite; and since resources, are finite, we're going to bump into it and
therefore we are faced with a terrible future in which sooner or later we are
going to run out, of steel or coal or whatever you want to name. We're going
to run out, and we really have to adjust our sights; we can no longer take the
view that we can have growth forever; we must recognize that there are, in
their title, limits to growth and reconcile ourselves...._

 _Now this approach, whether adopted by the Club of Rome or by Mr. Schumacher
or by the CED, is completely wrong. The plain fact is that from an economic
point of view the volume of resources available to us is larger today than it
has ever been in history. We are less dependent today on natural resources
than we have ever been._

[http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary...](http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary/BP.1978.1.pdf)

(I've made a small hobby of collecting all the action figures:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&r...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&restrict_sr=on))

~~~
ThomPete
"The plain fact is that from an economic point of view"

Thats a different discussion than the one I read the parent talking about.

~~~
dredmorbius
You're welcome to read Friedman's remarks in full to see that, as I understand
your comments, it isn't.

------
DanielBMarkham
_"...Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero
emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every
aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too..."_

That's quite breathtaking. "Reducing human population" is a phrase that can
only have so many meanings: controlling reproduction, removing access to
healthcare, or killing people. There are no other options I'm aware of.

You can go to just about any physics site and see lists of things physicists
still don't understand. Some of them are so far out in the woods that they're
even debating the role of empiricism and the scientific method. (If the math
looks good, and we could never perform an experiment, isn't that good enough?)

Yet here we have an expert in the social sciences suggesting we do something
about having too many humans.

Hillman has had a fine career. I wish him the best in his continued efforts.
Articles like this exist to praise people of note, also to poke at folks like
me who might find some of their statement a bit over-the-top. Better to
generate controversy and readership.

But we really need a more serious discussion on climate. Not pandering to the
end-of-world folks, not pandering to the "nothing to see here, folks".
Something substantive. There's a lot of religious and magical thinking in
climate science, many times by people who would consider themselves uber
rationalists. (They're the worst). The vast majority of the public has had
about enough of the extremists and self-promoters. There may be an opportunity
to start a reasoned discussion.

~~~
pjc50
Voluntary control of reproduction is one of the great success stories of the
20th century; we just need to expand it to those few places where it's not
regarded as an important right.

We should replicate the work of Bangladesh:
[http://www.futurehealthsystems.org/news/2013/11/25/understan...](http://www.futurehealthsystems.org/news/2013/11/25/understanding-
the-bangladesh-health-miracle.html)

"Bangladesh has achieved high (62%) contraceptive prevalence and a rapid fall
in fertility from 6.3 births per woman in 1971 to 2.3 in 2010—a rate
unparalleled in other countries with similar levels of development."

~~~
PeterisP
2.3 is approximately the replacement rate, it's stopping growth but not
reducing the population. With zero growth we'd still be as much a cause of
climate change as we are now; a Japan-like population decrease (if achieved
everywhere) might cause a meaningful decrease in multiple centuries, but we
don't have multiple centuries.

Voluntary control of reproduction is a nice thing, but it won't achieve
population reduction, it will only stop/limit growth.

------
spodek
The article recounts Hillman predicting many problems and suggesting
solutions, but not getting them implemented.

If we want to solve environmental problems we have to separate science and
engineering from leadership. Scientists' and engineers' training and skills
make them effective at collecting data, analyzing it, and making predictions.

They rarely have training to influence people, especially billions of people.
JFK's speech advanced us more to the moon than the work of any single
scientist or engineer.

Hillman recognizes that we all have to change our behavior. His track record
implies he is unskilled at leading others to change their behavior so he
conclude's we are doomed.

I don't think looking to scientists or engineers for leadership will help.
Data, predictions, implementation plans, yes. Leadership, no.

I believe leadership in the style of Mandela, King, Gandhi, and Havel,
suitably adjusted for today's needs, is essential to reduce environmental
problems.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
These new leaders would a hard time doing their work. Imagine having everybody
against you. Almost all industries, media, lobbyists, and most of all -
ordinary people who depend on burning fossil fuels (directly in transportation
or having someone burn them for most daily-used products). It really seems
impossible until some terrible things already start happening.

------
gnode
> While the focus of Hillman’s thinking for the last quarter-century has been
> on climate change, he is best known for his work on road safety.

It seems to me that Hillman's position on climate change follows from his
background of opposition to car usage, not the other way around.

I think that a primativist approach to solving climate change is bound to
fail. The reality is that motor vehicles offer a convenience that drivers (and
voters) are unwilling to sacrifice. If we genuinely want to solve climate
change, we should focus on changing our technology rather than our way of
life. I believe that if we're to make a genuine difference, it will be from
shedding our energy's dependence on fossil fuels, not from shedding our
dependence on energy.

------
stankypickle
Social Scientists gives doomsday proclamation on runaway climate change. Why
don't we consult Snoop Dogg on his speculations of the existence and
smoothness of solutions to Navier–Stokes? Seems logical to me.

------
patrickg_zill
Social scientist != actual scientist.

Read up on current state of the data and modeling done on oceanic thermocline,
it will cheer you up.

~~~
vosper
The first part of this comment is a blanket statement and it's needlessly
dismissive and unfair.

But for the second part, can you link any of the research you're talking about
or explain why it should make me feel better?

------
dredmorbius
The key element of this piece is its recognition of the social, political,
institutional, model-and-frame, and epistemic roadblocks to addressing the
hyman predicament.

People, writ large, don't want to hear this. Happy stories are far more
compelling. Complex stories with unhappy endings, not so much. And all systems
stories are complex. (They don't all have to have bad endings, though many
do.)

Politics, particularly large-scale democratic systems, hew away from intellect
and sophistication. Aristphanes wrote of this in ancient Greece, _The Frogs_.
One of the most accessible and concise developments I've seen is H.L.
Mencken's 1926 essay, "Brayard vs. Lionheart", on the Coolidge-Cox U.S.
presidential race. Highly recommended.

[https://amomai.blogspot.com/2008/10/hl-mencken-bayard-vs-
lio...](https://amomai.blogspot.com/2008/10/hl-mencken-bayard-vs-
lionheart.html)

Our institutions, cultural, governmental, commercial, and otherwise, can
address the situation at best poorly, and often directly contribute to the
problem. I don't have a handy argument as to why, though I'm thinking much on
that. The "P Literature" \-- Parkinson's Law, the Peter Principle, Putt's Law,
and Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship seem to form part of a core. I'd add the
Jevons paradox, Gresham's Law, and John Gall's _Systemantics_ as well

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt%27s_Law_and_the_Successfu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt%27s_Law_and_the_Successful_Technocrat)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics)

Broken models and frames -- theory and ideology -- contribute hugely. I've
been focusing particularly on economics and its general failures to properly
address both costs and value. (The realisation that "cost", "price", and
"value" are three distinct, and frequently only tenuously-related concepts, is
a breakthrough in understanding.)

And failures of understanding, communication, and processing of information --
our epistemic system -- are another wrench thrown in the works. Not trivially
addressed, and perhaps best considered a fundamental system constraint rather
than a bug.

~~~
CalRobert
Thanks for that. I submitted this because, although environmental issues come
up here relatively often (the collapse of civilisation will, of course, affect
tech), I have seen very little with regards to the long-term consequences of
our anemic approach to the situation (even the Paris accord is like a band-aid
on a shotgun wound). It was nice, for the most depressing value of "nice", to
see someone who has shown prescience to just come out and say that there is
not much reason to think that we'll get out of this one with an intact
civilisation, and to address that Teslas and reusable grocery bags aren't
going to fix this. I also thought the mention of focusing on music and love
and the things that used to mark a well-lived life as opposed to greater
economic extraction might be the best approach.

We've been taking out loans from the atmosphere for a couple centuries without
too much trouble, but nature is eventually consistent.

~~~
ealhad
> the collapse of civilisation will, of course, affect tech

I've been wondering about that for a few months. I am fully aware that the
current organisation of the world will come to an end in like, ten to fifteen
years; is it wise for me to continue working with computers, which I love,
hoping they will still be of some use _after_ the collapse of civilisation?

~~~
dredmorbius
As far as vantage sites to observe what's occuring, it's not a bad one. Some
skills are transferrable, if you consider them well.

Timing societal collapse is even more fraught than timing the market.

------
gaius
Really? No one else dare mention? No one dares _not_ mention more like...

------
lmm
The Guardian loves to blame everything on "capitalism", but the reason there
are a lot of e.g. flights isn't so much capitalism as people liking to go
places. Indeed capitalism provides the most practical mechanism for resolving
things like carbon emissions: if we agreed a cap-and-trade system (like we
previously did for sulphur dioxide emissions) then carbon impacts could be
priced into the costs of things like flights. As the article says, individual
and even national action is as good as futile - we need to act on an
international scale, and markets are the only coordination mechanism that can
work at that level.

Of course even zero emissions may not be enough, and it's good to see that
getting acknowledgement - if we have a consensus that we're past the point
where we could stop global warming by reducing emissions, then we can start
looking at active measures to counteract it (i.e. geoengineering). It won't be
easy, or cheap, or safe, but there are no safe options any more.

------
tim333
Sounds like "the climate reality no one else will dare mention" is unmentioned
because it's nonsense.

Solar / wind are dropping Moores law fashion, governments could crank up
action if doom looked likely, the earth has had far higher co2 in the past.
100 million years ago it was about 5x what it is now but life wasn't wiped
out.

~~~
titzer
Did you actually read the article? You are being downvoted because you repeat
canard with no real data, and nothing is topical in your comment.

~~~
tim333
I skimmed it and edited a little. I guess I'm more optimistic about tech fixes
that the author. Does anyone sensible think we're actually doomed?

~~~
Antimachides
Ah yes, tech fixes.

~~~
lozenge
The excess CO2 in the atmosphere, with a volume of 400,000 Empire State
Buildings, is ripe for disruption!

Source:
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648)

------
nickik
Typical example of Anti-Humanism. The same idiotic believes people have been
peeling for 200s of years. From Malthus to the Nazis to modern
Environmentalist moment all the same idiotic believes.

First of all, while climate change can be disruptive, it will absolutely not
wipe out humans or anything even close to that. The changes are gradual enough
that continues adoption will resolve the waste majority of problems without
much issues.

Fossil fuels cause climate change, but the also cause that people went from 30
to 70 years of avg live. Far more people live in China because they have
energy from coal. Denying people cheap energy because of climate change will
be MORE harmful to them then climate change.

The poorest people on the world who die the earliest are those that don't have
access to energy.

Starving our-self of energy is not in efforts to consume less, is a futile
effort and will never solve anything.

We should be concerned and adopt solutions and think about the future, but
this sort of pessimism is totally unwarranted.

> Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no
> evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried.

The cycle for carbon is understood and we could put carbon into lime stone and
put them into the ocean again. Its just an energy problem.

~~~
sametmax
First, calling anything idiotic is not going make you gain much credibility
here. It's not facebook, we expect you to come up with argument, not name
calling.

Secondly, you make a lot of assumptions on which you base you reasoning. What
if the changes are not that progressive ? What is there is a tipping point ?

Then you also assume thzt we couldn't have done overwise, that our lifestyle
and how we achieved it was not only inevitable but the only way it is worth
it.

Your part about self starving is espacially revealling of a narrow view deeply
rooted, not only in materialism, but also in rejection of the idea anything
else would be good for the human specie.

Now i do appreciate the confort of our modern life, but ignoring the price of
it, denying the usefulness or even the possibilities of alternatives and
promoting the statu quo is very limiting.

~~~
nickik
> What if the changes are not that progressive ? What is there is a tipping
> point ?

Maybe there is maybe there is not. His point is that there is no hope, and
that is false.

> Then you also assume thzt we couldn't have done overwise

Please tell me all the cases in human history where large amounts of people
voluntary restricted their energy use?

Carbon growth comes from the developing world, and we can do nothing to
restrict that.

> Your part about self starving is espacially revealling of a narrow view
> deeply rooted, not only in materialism, but also in rejection of the idea
> anything else would be good for the human specie.

If you want to voluntarily starve yourself of energy, go ahead have fun.
However suggesting it as a solution for a global problem is a non-starter.
Even a western person starving himself of energy will still use many X more
then most Indians. An most Indians would like to use as much energy as
westerners.

> Now i do appreciate the confort of our modern life, but ignoring the price
> of it, denying the usefulness or even the possibilities of alternatives and
> promoting the statu quo is very limiting.

I have never denieded the usefulness of alternatives. All I have said about
the status quo is that it is actually saving millions of peoples lives and
giving them a higher standard of living. That is often ignored and it should
not be, because it misses literally the biggest improvement in human welfare
in world history.

~~~
sametmax
> Maybe there is maybe there is not. His point is that there is no hope, and
> that is false.

The man spent his life in metrics indicating that trend, which made him
pessimistic. It's fair. If you see somebody drinking, smoking, and eating
burger all life, your wouldn't have much hope either, but to somebody who have
just heard about it, not watching it, it seems a "severe" judgment.

> Please tell me all the cases in human history where large amounts of people
> voluntary restricted their energy use?

> Carbon growth comes from the developing world, and we can do nothing to
> restrict that.

You could have used the same argument about slavery not so long ago.

"Humanity always've done it. All our achievements used slaves. Our lifestyle
is based on slaves. Please tell me all the cases in human history where large
amounts of people voluntary restricted their use of slaves ?"

Then we did it this one time.

> If you want to voluntarily starve yourself of energy, go ahead have fun.
> However suggesting it as a solution for a global problem is a non-starter.
> Even a western person starving himself of energy will still use many X more
> then most Indians. An most Indians would like to use as much energy as
> westerners.

"If you want to voluntarily starve yourself" are such strong worlds. There is
a lot of margin between eating meat every day + running all oil engines +
changing phones each years + everybody having children... and living in a
cave.

Beside, if you have 10 men in a cabin in Artic, and everybody must either poop
on the floor or get terrible cold and poop outside, people may poop on the
floor for a while. But it's not sustainable. Sooner or later somebody will
have to say that they should all go outside. Or find an alternative. And your
argument is pretty much "you go first".

> All I have said about the status quo is that it is actually saving millions
> of peoples lives and giving them a higher standard of living. That is often
> ignored and it should not be, because it misses literally the biggest
> improvement in human welfare in world history.

Yes. And now that we've done it this way, we know the price of it. We have the
feedback and the scientific knowledge to understand the system we live in, the
consequences of exponential growth in a finite system and what our needs are
as a specie.

Some very intelligent yet with nothing to gain from it are saying that we are
doing very badly. They said it clearly, loudly, respectfully, repeatedly, with
strong arguments.

There is nothing more they can do.

It's now our job to act on that.

~~~
nickik
> The man spent his life in metrics indicating that trend, which made him
> pessimistic.

Well then he was looking at the wrong metrics. Because during that time we
observed the largest expansion of human prosperity.

It seems that he deliberately wants to pick these metrics to fit his Anti-
Humanist agenda.

> You could have used the same argument about slavery not so long ago.

There are many ways this is a different case. But I don't want to get into a
side argument.

> Yes. And now that we've done it this way, we know the price of it. We have
> the feedback and the scientific knowledge to understand the system we live
> in, the consequences of exponential growth in a finite system and what our
> needs are as a specie.

Yes, and what we have learned is that people who don't have energy are very
unhappy and die young. So when we think about the future of the species we
should not simply think of some abstract species that we need to save
globally, rather we should realize the real world constraints such as the
benefits of the current system provides for all humans.

So if your solution means depriving lots of people of energy, then first of
all that's just cruel. Second it is politically infeasible. Third, reducing
human population is a terrible way of making the future better.

I think there are lots solutions out there but HIS point is that he does not
believe in these solution because he believes the ONLY way we can solve the
problem is by restricting consumption. That is the same 'finite resources'
zero sum thinking that has plagued the world for such a long time.

------
throwaway84742
Horseshit. Given the exponential nature of technological progress I’m almost
certain we will see a technological solution to global warming in my lifetime.
Fusion powered carbon capture or reflective stuff in the upper atmosphere etc.
Who knows what form it will take. But nobody will just sit idle and watch
billions of people die. The major flaw of the current suggestions is that they
either aren’t affordable, or lower the standard of living, or both. Outside
the 1% bubble it’s been less than 100 years since people had a decent standard
of living to begin with, so quite understandably they prefer to drive huge
trucks, buy large houses, and fly to Hawaii every year. Shit if it’s ok for Al
Gore and Leo DiCaprio to fly private to climate change summits, surely the hoi
polloi can partake as well.

~~~
tallanvor
And yet we sit by while at least 9 million people die from hunger every year (
[https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/quick-facts-what-you-
nee...](https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-
about-global-hunger) ), and some groups estimate the number is much higher.

People can, unfortunately, easily ignore problems that aren't right at their
door, and most of the people who are affected the most aren't in North America
or Europe.

~~~
throwaway84742
Bzzzt, wrong answer. A lot fewer people die from hunger now than even a decade
ago. And the number is much less than that overall.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition)

~~~
tallanvor
First, please be polite.

Second, the Wikipedia article you link to doesn't provide clear information.
The number my source cited was from 2016, which is still quite recent. If
we're down from 36 million in 2006, that's good news, but it still means that
millions still die every year due to starvation and malnutrition.

~~~
throwaway84742
Where was I not polite? The figures you quote are cooked. While it is true
that malnutrition is the _indirect_ cause of the majority of those deaths,
most people counted do not really die from malnutrition per se, but from a
combination of malnutrition and infectious disease. Both malnutrition and lack
of vaccination are being addressed, and the rate of death is dropping like a
rock as a result. Maybe not as quickly as one would like, but it’s just
disingenuous to say that nothing is being done or people are “ignoring”
anything about this.

