Olga's questions about blowing up the ̶S̶u̶n̶ Earth

DaveC426913 said:
Yes. There is no consensus, and it is a different priority for different cultures. (Imagine being a third world developing country in central Africa, just rising to developed world status, and being told by all the first world nations "Oh no. Cars and trucks are bad. So is concrete construction and deforestation. We all have to rein in our industrial exploitations.")
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Yep, a bit challenging to become a first world nation on an infrastructure of bamboo.


DaveC426913 said:
think a practical strategy is to educate the young - to shape their views - and have the Old Guard Exploiters replaced with the New Guard Conservators.
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One hopes, though millions of my boomer generation like me were much shaped by the first Earth Day in 1970 and the sixties counterculture generally, yet it didn't really catalyze the difficult changes. But maybe things have moved forward some, overall, and Gen Z will be more willing to follow role models like Greta Thunberg. They do seem to, in significant numbers, have an internalized awareness of ecosystem threats in a way my generation didn't quite manage. And they (including my millennial kids) seem to be weathering economic forces which make it far more inevitable they occupy smaller more efficient living spaces and own fewer cars - it's as if they are being forced to do what we thought was virtuous but didn't really have to do.
 
TheVat said:
They do seem to, in significant numbers, have an internalized awareness of ecosystem threats in a way my generation didn't quite manage.
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Yes. Things like starting up whole new green industries and preferring jobs in green technology.

At my college here, we have a whole school devoted to climate action - something that would have been incomprehensible in schools of the 20th century.
 
TheVat said:
Always thirty years in the future!
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I remember reading the word ‘terraforming’ for the first time, and thought that’s a clever idea.
And now, we can’t even alter our own planet’s atmosphere for the better.
It's all DaveW's fault.
 
gmilam said:
Consciousness is also part of nature. We are incapable of violating the laws of nature. We are capable of altering our environment so that we can no longer survive in it. But mother nature will keep chugging along with or without us.
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Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I kinda dig this description:

A breach in the very unity of life, a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature...
 
TheVat said:
With all its good "invisible hand" intentions, capitalism (especially the late stage) seems to have been a major engine of our abuse of the biome, eager to sell everyone all things artificial that distance us from nature. I knew we'd gone too far when gasoline powered leaf blowers became ubiquitous. A classic example of us having a mature tech (rakes) and then capitalism pushing a noxious replacement at us. If anyone questions this cavalcade of crap, they're AGAINST FREEDOM!!!!!!
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Ahhh - but now they've "gone green", and will happily sell us electric versions of all manner of doo-dads formerly powered by internal combustion engines, because "virtue signaling" is evidently good for business, too. And it's "environmentally friendly" because all the nasty, pollution-producing gouging the material needed to make the batteries that run these conveniences out of the earth is done on the other side of the world, where evidently it's not "enviro-crime" if you don't have to acknowledge that it's happening.

Funny old world !
 
Peter Zapffe. Gloomy Norwegian existentialism with an antinatalist conclusion. Norwegian weather will do that to a philosopher. He does write some fine prose, though. And quite thought provoking. I recall a thread on antinatalism, possibly at our sister website, where Zapffe's "abomination" views on ending humanity got some airing. If you're depressed, take Zapffe in small doses.
 
TheVat said:
This is the thorniest conundrum of them all. How far should one go to lighten their load on planetary ecosystems under immense pressure? I'm vegan five days a week, pesceterian two. Enough or not enough? I walk and bike and leave the car at home most days. Enough, or should I scrap the car or dip into my retirement savings for an overpriced electric? Or just meekly agree to never travel more than five miles from home? Our home is 1500 square feet (139 sq meters) - too much for two people with frequent house guests? Should I demolish the south wing, combine the kitchen and dining room, and lower it to 1100 sq ft? Turn the upstairs into unheated attic space and tell guests to go to the Motel Six? What about electronics? Toss the tv and just watch streaming on an eight inch tablet? Toss everything and only read books? And what about the scrotum-tightening Dakota winters? Move south to diminish our carbon footprint? Put in the kind of monstrously costly ground effect heat pump that would be needed here? Convert the storage shed into a Granny Flat and live there in winter?

Point is, everything is like this. We have no cultural guideposts on what's too much or not enough or our debt to the Earth. And most people haven't time or spare energy to give a shite.
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Too much money being made for ozone layer damaging fuel, especially oil. Fracking is another one.
 
davewhite04 said:
We don't get a choice in what material you use.

Another daft thing to say.

Can you not think further than your keyboard?

Plastic = more profit while the public don't get a vote. If you think it's reversible throw your PC out, would that save the planet?

Stop blaming yourself because the media keep on blaming the consumer, when in fact the consumer has no say. Think.
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It doesn’t mean you’re using plastic for example, out of malice or something, but ignorance is bliss - we don’t “need” nearly as much as we think we do. I love retail therapy like the next person, but there is a culpability that I definitely do have in how I treat the planet in my little corner of the world. I’m not going to single handedly save the planet, there is a lot out of our control, but I’m not going to pretend making improvements is meaningless. Simply boycotting certain brands too based on how environmentally ethical they are (not), can help. It’s not an all or nothing thing - everyone could do a little more, to help the planet.
 
Killjoy said:
Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I kinda dig this description:

A breach in the very unity of life, a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature...
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Not trying to pick a fight, in fact I agree with many of your points.

My point is that people seem to think of ourselves as separate from nature. That would make us unnatural. But that's not the case, we are a part of nature. We arose through natural processes, and natural processes can take us out. But we continue to act like we are immune to changes in the environment - because we think we are a separate special creation.
 
wegs said:
It doesn’t mean you’re using plastic for example, out of malice or something, but ignorance is bliss - we don’t “need” nearly as much as we think we do. I love retail therapy like the next person, but there is a culpability that I definitely do have in how I treat the planet in my little corner of the world. I’m not going to single handedly save the planet, there is a lot out of our control, but I’m not going to pretend making improvements is meaningless. Simply boycotting certain brands too based on how environmentally ethical they are (not), can help. It’s not an all or nothing thing - everyone could do a little more, to help the planet.
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Exactly. Recycle what you can, repair things if possible instead of chucking them and buying new, use public transport or a bike when you can, turn down the central heating a degree or two in winter and wear a sweater indoors, in summer draw the curtains on the sunny side, shut all windows when the air temp >24C and only run the AC when it is really unbearable. And cut back on eating beef and lamb. Little things mount up.

My Gen Z son and a lot of his friends from university are either veggie or semi, mostly because of climate change.
 
exchemist said:
Exactly. Recycle what you can, repair things if possible instead of chucking them and buying new, use public transport or a bike when you can, turn down the central heating a degree or two in winter and wear a sweater indoors, in summer draw the curtains on the sunny side, shut all windows when the air temp >24C and only run the AC when it is really unbearable. And cut back on eating beef and lamb. Little things mount up.

My Gen Z son and a lot of his friends from university are either veggie or semi, mostly because of climate change.
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And my personal favourite: don't be immortal.

I am not likely to change my ways in time or in quantity to make any difference. But what I can do is die. And take my ways with me, leaving the planet to a younger, more mindful generation.
 
TheVat said:
Yep, a bit challenging to become a first world nation on an infrastructure of bamboo.
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My point was more toward developing nations may need to rely - not on archaic techniques (such as bamboo) - but merely on 20th century, less-than-ultra-modern techniques (from the time before climate action) to lift themselves up: old, polluting gas trucks and cars, old, polluting building materials such as concrete and wood. They may not have the ability to take on the additional burden of the 21st century "greening" of technology. If the rest of the world decides to enact edicts that limit old 20th century technology, that might put a chokehold on their development.
 
exchemist said:
Exactly. Recycle what you can, repair things if possible instead of chucking them and buying new, use public transport or a bike when you can, turn down the central heating a degree or two in winter and wear a sweater indoors, in summer draw the curtains on the sunny side, shut all windows when the air temp >24C and only run the AC when it is really unbearable. And cut back on eating beef and lamb. Little things mount up.

My Gen Z son and a lot of his friends from university are either veggie or semi, mostly because of climate change.
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In addition mild taxes on fossil fuel use like gasoline, natural and propane gas, and electricity can be used to replace the fuel burning plants and appliances. Solar, wind, non-dam hydro, tidal and geothermal and certain storage options can be supported by these taxes, And they can be progressive for large users, and made smaller for the poorer people.
 
DaveC426913 said:
My point was more toward developing nations may need to rely - not on archaic techniques (such as bamboo) - but merely on 20th century, less-than-ultra-modern techniques (from the time before climate action) to lift themselves up: old, polluting gas trucks and cars, old, polluting building materials such as concrete and wood. They may not have the ability to take on the additional burden of the 21st century "greening" of technology. If the rest of the world decides to enact edicts that limit old 20th century technology, that might put a chokehold on their development.
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Yes, I took your point and agree - my reply was meant whimsical, what I meant was more what you are saying i.e. we can hardly expect them build industrial bases out of bamboo and windmills. For example, nations like Indonesia (IIRC) are trying to shift more residential and commercial building to bamboo (with some modern twists on that), but they're only there because they've been industrializing the old dirty way first.
 
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