Extraction of Raw Materials to Rise by 60%: “Decarbonisation without decoupling economic growth and wellbeing from resource use and environmental impacts is not a convincing answer….” – Janez Potočnik, former European Commissioner for Environment #GlobalCarbonFeeAndDividendPetition
by Keith_McNeill65
2 comments
I’ve argued this point for awhile now, it’s a logical conclusion if you just think about it.
“Going Green” accomplishes nothing if we double down on environmental destruction to achieve it. Replacing all the cars, adding new solar panels and wind turbines along with new infrastructure, building huge new “walkable’ cities (even if that just involves rebuilding existing spaces), even the building the mythical CCS facilities all takes huge amounts of resources. And all those resources are going to be extracted from an already decimated planet. It’s simply not a net benefit to stop CO2 emissions at the expense of the planet, we’re trading one crisis for another.
People need to understand that we cannot “tech” our way out of a problem that “tech” created. The hard and simple answer here is that we have to stop everything and try to get by with as little as possible. On a planet with finite resources, the math is cruel. There is a finite amount of people who can live here without collapsing the ecosystem. If there is billion pounds of lumber available per year sustainably, then dividing it by 8 billion results in a lot less per person than if there is only 4 billion people. It’s not ecofacism, its division. We need to all learn how to deal with *substantially* less resources per person until the population falls back to a more sustainable level. The process has begun, most advanced economies are below replacement level birthrates, but it will take generations for it to fall. We don’t have generations of time anymore, so we have to accept that everyone’s lifestyle is going to get real bad for a longtime while we shrink back to a more reasonable population.
I understand why no one wants to admit to this, the worst among us will advocate for a forced reduction in numbers to save their lifestyle. No one wants to be responsible for such an atrocity. But the conversation must be had, otherwise there is no hope of a future for humanity on this planet. We have to admit that there is a finite number of people who can exist on this planet while living in a way that doesn’t deplete our resources or destroy the planet.
It’s math.
Don’t worry. Technology will save us… duuurrrrrrrr.