On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
You did, you said that. You're the one who denounced R&D and investment and said that clean technologies are not the solution.
You're a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the environment. If clean technologies come about through R&D (and they have been at a seriously impressive rate for decades now) then there is no environmental reason whatsoever for anyone to reduce their consumption.
If clean technologies can't come about, then we're f***ed either way.
The only valid solution is technological. And that means the role the state has to play is in encouraging that and ensuring there is a profit motive to be clean.
I said we have no current evidence that a new technology will save us, yes. We have the current technologies to reach carbon neutrality, we just choose not to make the societal and economic changes to make that a viable world - one that would require some shrinkage and redistribution of resources. Carbon capture is the silver bullet because it lets us keep putting carbon in the atmosphere, dealing with the effects of our economic choices whilst allowing us to keep making them. We could choose to make different choices now. As someone looking at the standard of tech now - where carbon capture does not currently work - I'd rather invest in the solution we have that we know could work versus hoping for the technology we haven't been able to make work to work in time.
"Current technology" is not even close to being sufficient to get us to reach carbon neutrality. It has reduced our emissions, but its not remotely sufficient.
That's why investments in technology, R&D are required. And companies will invest if they get a reward from that investment. Which requires a profit motive. Which means people make money - something that you seem to be against.
But just because current technology isn't enough doesn't mean future technology won't be enough. It will, and billions are going annually into much-needed R&D to get us there.
We can reach net zero, over time, with investment. Something you are against, because you don't give a damn about the environment.
Your position: Just invest in R&D and a new technology will appear that can magic away the problem
My position: We don't know if that tech is possible in the time frame needed, so why not use the tech we have and reduce global consumption to get to the same place. We can always do the R&D for new stuff when we know we are safe.
Apparently my position is the zealous magical thinking position, and your position is the reasonable one.
You need to learn about Technology Readiness Level
Is it a problem? Everyone knows the government have failed and are failing on their immigration and asylum pledges. Denying that doesn't help the government.
If they can craft a convincing story as to why they've failed and how the future will be different then it's fine.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
It's possible that Anderson is limbering up to jump to Reform (and contribute to the coming Tory landslide that way) but I doubt it. He's much more likely to be doing pre-publicity for a Big Tory Move on immigration.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
You did, you said that. You're the one who denounced R&D and investment and said that clean technologies are not the solution.
You're a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the environment. If clean technologies come about through R&D (and they have been at a seriously impressive rate for decades now) then there is no environmental reason whatsoever for anyone to reduce their consumption.
If clean technologies can't come about, then we're f***ed either way.
The only valid solution is technological. And that means the role the state has to play is in encouraging that and ensuring there is a profit motive to be clean.
I said we have no current evidence that a new technology will save us, yes. We have the current technologies to reach carbon neutrality, we just choose not to make the societal and economic changes to make that a viable world - one that would require some shrinkage and redistribution of resources. Carbon capture is the silver bullet because it lets us keep putting carbon in the atmosphere, dealing with the effects of our economic choices whilst allowing us to keep making them. We could choose to make different choices now. As someone looking at the standard of tech now - where carbon capture does not currently work - I'd rather invest in the solution we have that we know could work versus hoping for the technology we haven't been able to make work to work in time.
"Current technology" is not even close to being sufficient to get us to reach carbon neutrality. It has reduced our emissions, but its not remotely sufficient.
That's why investments in technology, R&D are required. And companies will invest if they get a reward from that investment. Which requires a profit motive. Which means people make money - something that you seem to be against.
But just because current technology isn't enough doesn't mean future technology won't be enough. It will, and billions are going annually into much-needed R&D to get us there.
We can reach net zero, over time, with investment. Something you are against, because you don't give a damn about the environment.
Your position: Just invest in R&D and a new technology will appear that can magic away the problem
My position: We don't know if that tech is possible in the time frame needed, so why not use the tech we have and reduce global consumption to get to the same place. We can always do the R&D for new stuff when we know we are safe.
Apparently my position is the zealous magical thinking position, and your position is the reasonable one.
You need to learn about Technology Readiness Level
I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you - I agree. I guess I would add that the things stopping us getting to TRL 9 are political issues rather than practical ones, and political issues that get whipped up by the right. Like all this stuff about 15 minute cities and conflating the idea that it is more sustainable to design a city / town that you can walk around and get all your services in a reasonable time with being put into militarised camps that you cannot leave that are traversable in 15 minutes (a thing some people believe). The Tories are currently trying to appease people who believe more in the second notion than the first and, after the Uxbridge election, Labour seem to be moving in the same direction.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
We all know about John Prescott's reach...
Whilst it's clear that Anderson has that role, the harder question is whether he is any good at it. Or if it's another bit of uncomprehending cosplay.
He isn't meant to appeal to wets.
He is meant to appeal to the base. He does that far better than most here understand.
Creating a fuss about this issue is like the 350m. It causes wets to support the outcry, and the public to think 'hmmm actually I'm not sure I like the boats arriving either'.
If you want to cement the anti-Tory tactical vote you get Anderson all over the media as much as possible.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
This is the equivalent of hoping something will turn up. Supposing it doesn't or isn't enough or not quick enough?
We don't need to hope something will turn up.
We need to make something turn up.
Things don't just turn up. R&D happens because people put their minds, efforts and resources into ensuring it happens.
If it doesn't, we're fucked, but human ingenuity is a remarkable thing so we need to ensure that it does as its our only option.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
We all know about John Prescott's reach...
Whilst it's clear that Anderson has that role, the harder question is whether he is any good at it. Or if it's another bit of uncomprehending cosplay.
He isn't meant to appeal to wets.
He is meant to appeal to the base. He does that far better than most here understand.
Creating a fuss about this issue is like the 350m. It causes wets to support the outcry, and the public to think 'hmmm actually I'm not sure I like the boats arriving either'.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
Prescott was there for the unions, not for the country.
Breaking the terms of the Good Friday Agreement . Co-operation on security matters with the EU ends . It also puts into jeopardy the Trade and Co-Operation Agreement . The UK would be in the company of Russia and Belarus , is this really what people want especially at this time .
Because of the Article 50 case they cannot leave the ECHR without parliamentary approval . That set a precedent that rights of UK citizens can not be removed using Henry Vlll powers .
Perhaps they'll go to the people on it. Not necessarily in the full-on Edward Heath "Who governs?" sense (when Le Peuple enjoyed giving him the answer he didn't want), but as one element in their shtick. Or they might tell the judges to f*** off. Before that, some courtroom action against Gina Miller wouldn't go amiss.
This is going to be the immigration election.
Those who patiently explain that the way to win elections is to win the middle ground, and look at what happened with Jeremy Corbyn (answer: he increased the Labour vote from 30% to 40% in two years, but then the smear machine got geared up), aren't getting it at all. Giorgia Meloni gets it. Then there's Trump. The middle ground is finished.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
Let me be more specific. We need reduced consumption of fossil fuels. Likewise, reduced electricity consumption from greater efficiency is a good thing, not some threat to increased living standards.
Living standards should be higher in the future, but if we can achieve that with less consumption, as is probable, then that’s a good thing.
Absolutely agreed on less consumption of some things. Less sugar would be good for our diet, fewer fossil fuels and so on.
But overall, net, consumption will and should be higher in the future than the present.
As for electricity, efficiency is a good thing but we can and should be planning to consume more electricity in the future than we are today. Partially because electricity is an environmentally-friendly alternative to burning things so can replace oil and gas, and partially because using electricity is powerful and productive.
Doing so as efficiently as possible, but doing more with it, is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
One caveat: increases in productivity in the 20th century led to a decrease in the number of hours worked per job.
So GDP/GNI could be constant over the next 100 years but human welfare could increase. I hope to work one day a week by the time I am in my 60s.
Sunak and Jenrick know exactly what they're doing. And it's not just "f*** off". It's "f*** off BACK" to somewhere. That's a votewinner. It's why 90% of people who voted Leave voted Leave.
That was the sell, the reality is just more trade friction tbh.
But, don't forget what you no longer see.
We no longer have to worry about or be involved in any of the EU political integration initiatives, CFSP, and prospective new treaties.
Our domestic politics used to be dominated by this every 6 months at each European Council, and we regularly lost fights.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Apparently the UK is being punished for Brexit and that’s why the ECHR is being difficult .
More threats to leave the ECHR , what an absolute cesspit this government have become .
Yes, they should follow your advice and pursue a "White Britain" policy, favouring white European migrants over the duskier types from elsewhere
I never said that and I won’t take lectures from a Trump supporter.
You absolutely said that, and I'm not a Trump supporter
Otherwise, good comment
I did not and stop mis-representing me . In my post I was pointing out that remain needed a gobby politically incorrect figure like Farage to point out that immigration would still happen but instead of EU nationals you’d end up with non-EU nationals .
I’m pro immigration I don’t care where people come from as long as they’re law abiding citizens . That’s my view .
So you’re frustrated that Remain didn’t conduct an overtly racist campaign - because you think this would have won the vote. Got it
Remain played the good guys and got screwed . Given many Leavers voted to get rid of all migrants so they thought then the Remain side were too nice . I was merely pointing out that Remain didn’t have a Farage like character and could have done with someone politically incorrect . It’s not to say I’d agree with that type of campaign . You really shouldn’t lecture people about morality etc . You’re not in a strong position there .
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
One caveat: increases in productivity in the 20th century led to a decrease in the number of hours worked per job.
So GDP/GNI could be constant over the next 100 years but human welfare could increase. I hope to work one day a week by the time I am in my 60s.
Yes, but we're a developed country. There are billions living in less developed nations.
If GDP/GNI as a planet does does not increase, then there will still be billions living in what we would class as poverty.
Over the past few decades humanity, technology, development and capitalism has helped lift billions out of what was classed as absolute poverty. Though its only natural to lift our sights and lift our goals, hence why people in this country are classed as being in "poverty" even if they'd be considered extremely well off in the rest of the world.
To lift the whole world to your living standards, humanity needs to be consuming much more than it does now. To do so sustainably, means a great deal of research and development to go into clean technologies.
Breaking the terms of the Good Friday Agreement . Co-operation on security matters with the EU ends . It also puts into jeopardy the Trade and Co-Operation Agreement . The UK would be in the company of Russia and Belarus , is this really what people want especially at this time .
Because of the Article 50 case they cannot leave the ECHR without parliamentary approval . That set a precedent that rights of UK citizens can not be removed using Henry Vlll powers .
Perhaps they'll go to the people on it. Not necessarily in the full-on Edward Heath "Who governs?" sense (when Le Peuple enjoyed giving him the answer he didn't want), but as one element in their shtick. Or they might tell the judges to f*** off. Before that, some courtroom action against Gina Miller wouldn't go amiss.
This is going to be the immigration election.
Those who patiently explain that the way to win elections is to win the middle ground, and look at what happened with Jeremy Corbyn (answer: he increased the Labour vote from 30% to 40% in two years, but then the smear machine got geared up), aren't getting it at all. Giorgia Meloni gets it. Then there's Trump. The middle ground is finished.
As Norman Tebbit used to say, "it's the common ground not the centre ground"
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
The global population is rising and most people are dirt poor.
Even as the global population has risen, so has their wealth. There have never been fewer people in poverty. Actual poverty, as opposed to inequality. https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty
And we should aim for even more to come out of it, which along with other contributors means consumption is going to rise a lot for quite some time (I think estimates are global population may peak in 75-100 years, based on current trends?).
We can certainly reduce consumption in a lot of areas, but overall it seems likely to and good that it will increase for humanity as a whole.
The UN predicts a peak in 2086, so a bit sooner than you said.
We can of course change that. There are populations in the world who would love the sort of access to effective family planning that we take for granted in the UK. Let’s provide it. We should be providing it anyway as a central part of helping development.
Again, much like countries pledges to reduce emissions being thrown aside for political expediency, a shift in family planning has started. The new talking point of "declining [white] populations" (where white is usually left out) is behind the anti abortion movement in the US and the nativist policies in Hungary. We're even getting an echo of that here in the UK; many people at the NatCon conference talked about the need for more [white] babies.
This is in part a reaction for cultural reasons, but is also a reaction from capital. The labour market is tightening now, and already unions are showing their muscles. Capital is seeing population stagnation or even reduction in some areas and is aware that would start to put more power in the hands of workers. So you get the nativists and capitalists hand in hand on policy once again.
I'm feeling quite dystopian about population trends, though I've lost count of how many days I've been sick, so that might be colouring my outlook.
Global population is going to peak much earlier than the official predictions, and thereafter will shrink quite rapidly. Previously I've been quite optimistic about this - clearly we can't have an infinite population on the planet, and the end to population growth is occurring without any of the authoritarian measures the misanthropes of various pressure groups proposed. Great.
But then what happens?
After a couple of generations of a shrinking population, how do you encourage people to have more children to stabilise the population? And if you don't, what sort of future is that where the population is simply slowly declining to eventual extinction?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
You did, you said that. You're the one who denounced R&D and investment and said that clean technologies are not the solution.
You're a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the environment. If clean technologies come about through R&D (and they have been at a seriously impressive rate for decades now) then there is no environmental reason whatsoever for anyone to reduce their consumption.
If clean technologies can't come about, then we're f***ed either way.
The only valid solution is technological. And that means the role the state has to play is in encouraging that and ensuring there is a profit motive to be clean.
I said we have no current evidence that a new technology will save us, yes. We have the current technologies to reach carbon neutrality, we just choose not to make the societal and economic changes to make that a viable world - one that would require some shrinkage and redistribution of resources. Carbon capture is the silver bullet because it lets us keep putting carbon in the atmosphere, dealing with the effects of our economic choices whilst allowing us to keep making them. We could choose to make different choices now. As someone looking at the standard of tech now - where carbon capture does not currently work - I'd rather invest in the solution we have that we know could work versus hoping for the technology we haven't been able to make work to work in time.
"Current technology" is not even close to being sufficient to get us to reach carbon neutrality. It has reduced our emissions, but its not remotely sufficient.
That's why investments in technology, R&D are required. And companies will invest if they get a reward from that investment. Which requires a profit motive. Which means people make money - something that you seem to be against.
But just because current technology isn't enough doesn't mean future technology won't be enough. It will, and billions are going annually into much-needed R&D to get us there.
We can reach net zero, over time, with investment. Something you are against, because you don't give a damn about the environment.
Your position: Just invest in R&D and a new technology will appear that can magic away the problem
My position: We don't know if that tech is possible in the time frame needed, so why not use the tech we have and reduce global consumption to get to the same place. We can always do the R&D for new stuff when we know we are safe.
Apparently my position is the zealous magical thinking position, and your position is the reasonable one.
You need to learn about Technology Readiness Level
I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you - I agree. I guess I would add that the things stopping us getting to TRL 9 are political issues rather than practical ones, and political issues that get whipped up by the right. Like all this stuff about 15 minute cities and conflating the idea that it is more sustainable to design a city / town that you can walk around and get all your services in a reasonable time with being put into militarised camps that you cannot leave that are traversable in 15 minutes (a thing some people believe). The Tories are currently trying to appease people who believe more in the second notion than the first and, after the Uxbridge election, Labour seem to be moving in the same direction.
No.
Getting to TRL-9 requires actual work. The belief that it doesn't is that is an actual problem
So activists kept wondering Who Killed the Electric Car. Instead of realising that trying to sell TRL-7 or so to the masses wasn't going to work. Lots of boring stuff happened to get mass market electric cars to TRL-9.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
The global population is rising and most people are dirt poor.
Even as the global population has risen, so has their wealth. There have never been fewer people in poverty. Actual poverty, as opposed to inequality. https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty
And we should aim for even more to come out of it, which along with other contributors means consumption is going to rise a lot for quite some time (I think estimates are global population may peak in 75-100 years, based on current trends?).
We can certainly reduce consumption in a lot of areas, but overall it seems likely to and good that it will increase for humanity as a whole.
The UN predicts a peak in 2086, so a bit sooner than you said.
We can of course change that. There are populations in the world who would love the sort of access to effective family planning that we take for granted in the UK. Let’s provide it. We should be providing it anyway as a central part of helping development.
Again, much like countries pledges to reduce emissions being thrown aside for political expediency, a shift in family planning has started. The new talking point of "declining [white] populations" (where white is usually left out) is behind the anti abortion movement in the US and the nativist policies in Hungary. We're even getting an echo of that here in the UK; many people at the NatCon conference talked about the need for more [white] babies.
This is in part a reaction for cultural reasons, but is also a reaction from capital. The labour market is tightening now, and already unions are showing their muscles. Capital is seeing population stagnation or even reduction in some areas and is aware that would start to put more power in the hands of workers. So you get the nativists and capitalists hand in hand on policy once again.
I'm feeling quite dystopian about population trends, though I've lost count of how many days I've been sick, so that might be colouring my outlook.
Global population is going to peak much earlier than the official predictions, and thereafter will shrink quite rapidly. Previously I've been quite optimistic about this - clearly we can't have an infinite population on the planet, and the end to population growth is occurring without any of the authoritarian measures the misanthropes of various pressure groups proposed. Great.
But then what happens?
After a couple of generations of a shrinking population, how do you encourage people to have more children to stabilise the population? And if you don't, what sort of future is that where the population is simply slowly declining to eventual extinction?
It's a good question.
Global population has been increasing since the 1750s (agricultural/industrial revolution) so I'm not sure what happens to economic growth if that stalls/is thrown into reverse.
I imagine gross GDP will shrink (how can it not?) but the trick will be to maintain GDP per capita, probably by a mix of people working longer and AI innovations.
Once you've got past basic contraception people generally have children (or not) for economic reasons. So if the quantum/calculation for that changes, so will reproductive choices.
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
My feeling is the membership are usually 9 months ahead of the MPs on this.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
I am actually quite concerned as to where you're getting these rather twisted ideas from.
Apparently the UK is being punished for Brexit and that’s why the ECHR is being difficult .
More threats to leave the ECHR , what an absolute cesspit this government have become .
Yes, they should follow your advice and pursue a "White Britain" policy, favouring white European migrants over the duskier types from elsewhere
I never said that and I won’t take lectures from a Trump supporter.
Odd that people automatically assume that European migrants would be white, particularly as eg France and Germany take many more ‘dusky’ asylum seekers etc than the UK. Of course they also have existing populations whose origins are North Africa and Turkish. Not sure if they count as dusky on the bigots’ colour chart.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
It's possible that Anderson is limbering up to jump to Reform (and contribute to the coming Tory landslide that way) but I doubt it. He's much more likely to be doing pre-publicity for a Big Tory Move on immigration.
£100,000 a year. Always nice to have something to fall back on if you lose your main job.
Wasn't Alex Jones's defense that "Alex Jones" was a made-up media personality and distinct from the real-life Alex Jones, just like Avid Merrion and Leigh Francis, or Paul Kaye and Dennis Pennis, were different people.
I shall create an alternate personality in a convincing disguise (presumably a hat) and get a camera and a microphone. I will spend all day spouting off right-wing shite on YouTube/Twitter and get outrage from the usual suspects. People will throw money at me and praise me for my wisdom and fetching hat.
Because if Fat Bloke can get £100K for spouting shite, I think I should have some of that.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
Getting all your calories from protein is not a good idea ... for one thing, there is an absolute minimum requirement for glucose (admittedly small, and digestible from various sugars or carbohydrates). Ditto fats and lipids.
A friend of mine who doesn't live in the UK told me this morning that he thought asylum seekers should be dumped on a beach in northern France and told to f-off.
Every right-minded and decent person on here should lament this toxic war, almost exclusively being generated by the hard right (in the past the far left have been FAR from blameless).
It will take years and years to repair the damage and we may never do so. Look at the awful state of the US right now, largely courtesy of Trump and co.
It behoves us all to dial down the hatred and rhetoric.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
The global population is rising and most people are dirt poor.
Even as the global population has risen, so has their wealth. There have never been fewer people in poverty. Actual poverty, as opposed to inequality. https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty
And we should aim for even more to come out of it, which along with other contributors means consumption is going to rise a lot for quite some time (I think estimates are global population may peak in 75-100 years, based on current trends?).
We can certainly reduce consumption in a lot of areas, but overall it seems likely to and good that it will increase for humanity as a whole.
The UN predicts a peak in 2086, so a bit sooner than you said.
We can of course change that. There are populations in the world who would love the sort of access to effective family planning that we take for granted in the UK. Let’s provide it. We should be providing it anyway as a central part of helping development.
Again, much like countries pledges to reduce emissions being thrown aside for political expediency, a shift in family planning has started. The new talking point of "declining [white] populations" (where white is usually left out) is behind the anti abortion movement in the US and the nativist policies in Hungary. We're even getting an echo of that here in the UK; many people at the NatCon conference talked about the need for more [white] babies.
This is in part a reaction for cultural reasons, but is also a reaction from capital. The labour market is tightening now, and already unions are showing their muscles. Capital is seeing population stagnation or even reduction in some areas and is aware that would start to put more power in the hands of workers. So you get the nativists and capitalists hand in hand on policy once again.
I'm feeling quite dystopian about population trends, though I've lost count of how many days I've been sick, so that might be colouring my outlook.
Global population is going to peak much earlier than the official predictions, and thereafter will shrink quite rapidly. Previously I've been quite optimistic about this - clearly we can't have an infinite population on the planet, and the end to population growth is occurring without any of the authoritarian measures the misanthropes of various pressure groups proposed. Great.
But then what happens?
After a couple of generations of a shrinking population, how do you encourage people to have more children to stabilise the population? And if you don't, what sort of future is that where the population is simply slowly declining to eventual extinction?
I read Children of Men recently - it was not a lot like the film and very strange.
Population size is very much related to the economic situation - yes higher educated people are not having as many kids, but the decoupling of productivity and pay could easily explain that; if you're like me and in your early 30s and just about getting by, plus you have had sex ed and available contraception, you're less likely to have kids. So population growth are highest amongst those who don't have access to contraception or didn't have very good sex ed. And then the eugenicists come out of the woodwork and start complaining about the poors or the brown people having too many kids.
My family was relatively poor people who got married and had kids young. My great nan had 6 kids starting at 18 years old (1 died in infancy) most of her kids had at least 2 and started in their teens or early twenties, and lots of their kids had multiple children before they were 25. My nan has 7 grandchildren from 2 daughters; 5 of us above 20, one with kids, and none of the over 30s with kids.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
We all know about John Prescott's reach...
Whilst it's clear that Anderson has that role, the harder question is whether he is any good at it. Or if it's another bit of uncomprehending cosplay.
He isn't meant to appeal to wets.
He is meant to appeal to the base. He does that far better than most here understand.
Creating a fuss about this issue is like the 350m. It causes wets to support the outcry, and the public to think 'hmmm actually I'm not sure I like the boats arriving either'.
As with Prescott, there is a balance here.
I am sure Anderson chimes with quite a few red wall voters, so I get it in that respect. But he's a liability in Surrey, I suspect, and the Conservatives also have to worry about different types of seat.
With Prescott, Blair was very careful to make clear that, whilst Prescott was within his big tent, Blair remained the ringmaster. He also made sure Prescott, for all his bluff and bluster, was actually pretty moderate and malleable. He didn't try the same trick with Red Ken, or Derek Hatton, or Jeremy Corbyn, who were impossible to tame.
The risk for the Tories with people like Anderson is, firstly, that he isn't very moderate and malleable - he's a zealot. Secondly, with Sunak being quite a passive figure (as you identify), there is a danger Anderson is seen as being in charge, which some may like but is a real problem in more traditional Tory seats.
Too many people get their calories from crappy processed carbs that are bad for you.
I have a relative whom I always knew as a vegetarian, who got Type 2 diabetes as a result of their diet a few years ago. For the sake of their health they had to cut out the processed carbs and switched to cleaner foods instead, like proteins instead of carbs.
Its funny now whenever we go out for a meal at a pub, they always order a Mixed Grill and say no to the potatoes. A former vegetarian, now eating a slab of various meats, because that is what their body requires and keeps their blood sugar levels healthy in order to manage their Type 2 diabetes.
We need to get more people off processed carbs and onto meats and other better for them foods, but it is a more expensive diet to consume healthier foods like beef instead of unhealthy foods like sugar.
A healthy diet, and avoiding or managing Type 2 diabetes, should not only be the preserve of the well off. We need more meat and other good foods like that available, enough for everyone on the planet to sustainably consume to keep healthy.
Apparently the UK is being punished for Brexit and that’s why the ECHR is being difficult .
More threats to leave the ECHR , what an absolute cesspit this government have become .
Yes, they should follow your advice and pursue a "White Britain" policy, favouring white European migrants over the duskier types from elsewhere
I never said that and I won’t take lectures from a Trump supporter.
Odd that people automatically assume that European migrants would be white, particularly as eg France and Germany take many more ‘dusky’ asylum seekers etc than the UK. Of course they also have existing populations whose origins are North Africa and Turkish. Not sure if they count as dusky on the bigots’ colour chart.
Why don’t you ask @nico679 - he’s the one that wanted a blatantly racist Remain campaign
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
It's possible that Anderson is limbering up to jump to Reform (and contribute to the coming Tory landslide that way) but I doubt it. He's much more likely to be doing pre-publicity for a Big Tory Move on immigration.
£100,000 a year. Always nice to have something to fall back on if you lose your main job.
Wasn't Alex Jones's defense that "Alex Jones" was a made-up media personality and distinct from the real-life Alex Jones, just like Avid Merrion and Leigh Francis, or Paul Kaye and Dennis Pennis, were different people.
I shall create an alternate personality in a convincing disguise (presumably a hat) and get a camera and a microphone. I will spend all day spouting off right-wing shite on YouTube/Twitter and get outrage from the usual suspects. People will throw money at me and praise me for my wisdom and fetching hat.
Because if Fat Bloke can get £100K for spouting shite, I think I should have some of that.
That was what was used by Alex Jones in his divorce case, as his ex-wife’s lawyers were bringing up clips from his show as evidence that he was totally unhinged and unsuitable to be left alone with his own children.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
It's possible that Anderson is limbering up to jump to Reform (and contribute to the coming Tory landslide that way) but I doubt it. He's much more likely to be doing pre-publicity for a Big Tory Move on immigration.
£100,000 a year. Always nice to have something to fall back on if you lose your main job.
Wasn't Alex Jones's defense that "Alex Jones" was a made-up media personality and distinct from the real-life Alex Jones, just like Avid Merrion and Leigh Francis, or Paul Kaye and Dennis Pennis, were different people.
I shall create an alternate personality in a convincing disguise (presumably a hat) and get a camera and a microphone. I will spend all day spouting off right-wing shite on YouTube/Twitter and get outrage from the usual suspects. People will throw money at me and praise me for my wisdom and fetching hat.
Because if Fat Bloke can get £100K for spouting shite, I think I should have some of that.
That was what was used by Alex Jones in his divorce case, as his ex-wife’s lawyers were bringing up clips from his show as evidence that he was totally unhinged and unsuitable to be left alone with his own children.
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
We all know about John Prescott's reach...
Whilst it's clear that Anderson has that role, the harder question is whether he is any good at it. Or if it's another bit of uncomprehending cosplay.
He isn't meant to appeal to wets.
He is meant to appeal to the base. He does that far better than most here understand.
Creating a fuss about this issue is like the 350m. It causes wets to support the outcry, and the public to think 'hmmm actually I'm not sure I like the boats arriving either'.
As with Prescott, there is a balance here.
I am sure Anderson chimes with quite a few red wall voters, so I get it in that respect. But he's a liability in Surrey, I suspect, and the Conservatives also have to worry about different types of seat.
With Prescott, Blair was very careful to make clear that, whilst Prescott was within his big tent, Blair remained the ringmaster. He also made sure Prescott, for all his bluff and bluster, was actually pretty moderate and malleable. He didn't try the same trick with Red Ken, or Derek Hatton, or Jeremy Corbyn, who were impossible to tame.
The risk for the Tories with people like Anderson is, firstly, that he isn't very moderate and malleable - he's a zealot. Secondly, with Sunak being quite a passive figure (as you identify), there is a danger Anderson is seen as being in charge, which some may like but is a real problem in more traditional Tory seats.
Tory voters in Surrey as just as likely to agree more with Anderson than the lib-labs; this is something that people who don't knock on doors day in day out find so difficult to understand.
Apparently the UK is being punished for Brexit and that’s why the ECHR is being difficult .
More threats to leave the ECHR , what an absolute cesspit this government have become .
Yes, they should follow your advice and pursue a "White Britain" policy, favouring white European migrants over the duskier types from elsewhere
I never said that and I won’t take lectures from a Trump supporter.
Odd that people automatically assume that European migrants would be white, particularly as eg France and Germany take many more ‘dusky’ asylum seekers etc than the UK. Of course they also have existing populations whose origins are North Africa and Turkish. Not sure if they count as dusky on the bigots’ colour chart.
North Africa and Turkey probably count as Caucasian in its broadest sense.
The social challenges it throws up are probably more religious as opposed to racial ones tbh, although the two end up getting conflated.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
Getting all your calories from protein is not a good idea ... for one thing, there is an absolute minimum requirement for glucose (admittedly small, and digestible from various sugars or carbohydrates). Ditto fats and lipids.
I don't know anyone who gets all their calories from protein, nor did I advise you should.
I said too much coming from processed carbs is the problem, and it is.
Its concerning still that "healthy" foods in the supermarket are still typically those advertised as "fat free" when we know now that it isn't fats that make you fat, that some fat is good for you, and almost all of those "fat free" products contain much higher sugar levels.
And people who struggle with their weight wonder why they continue to struggle when they're eating fat free foods and drinking diet soft drinks.
A balanced diet is needed, and that includes a good amount of protein. Which is expensive, and not everyone can afford. We need to develop more as a planet to change that so everyone can afford as much healthy proteins as they want, rather than relying upon cheaper, crappy, processed carbs and sugars instead.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
Rocketry makes up tiny portion of world emissions. SpaceX has killed the fashion for solid rocket boosters - which emit lots of nasties. They are a large part of the pivot to methane/LOX, which is clean burning.
Methane can then be produced by the Sabatier process - which is part of the plan for Mars (for a number of organisations, not just SpaceX).
Yes, initially the methane on Earth is from natural gas, but an off shoot of creating automated plants to make it on Mars will be that the technology goes though the scaling/mass production process and becomes much cheaper.
My example was not to say this is the biggest issue, rather that it was indicative of how economic choices get made. One rich bloke wants to do space capitalism and leverages huge resources to do that and test flies a rocket that causes emissions. That could all instead do something else for the common good and the issues that we face right now. Yes, I want space travel to be a thing, but not so rich people can run away from Earth as it crumbles behind them.
And my point was that incremental improvement are happening.
Look at some FCC and FAA filings for Kuiper and Starlink.
Having cheaper access to space does also, of course, make earth monitiring a great deal easier. Which is not an insignificant benefit fir climatologists - and in due course perhaps this who will modify climate. The recent discoveries regarding SO2 plumes from shipping, and the likely effects of removing them, is a case in point.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
I am actually quite concerned as to where you're getting these rather twisted ideas from.
It would be useful for me for you to suggest which of the things I've said above you consider twisted and why so I can either explain or have my mind changed.
We have the resources to give everyone a decent standard of living - those resources are just lopsidedly allocated (both in individual countries and globally) with the richest having more and the poorest having less. I think it is reasonable to reallocate those resources more equitably. Humanity could choose to do that - we choose not to.
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
My feeling is the membership are usually 9 months ahead of the MPs on this.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
Quite a few Tory MPs are standing down, quite a few won't in fact lose their seats (in the 1997 massacre only just over half did), and quite a few who are in serious danger will conclude that defenestration with weeks to go makes their prospects worse not better.
Quite apart from that, is who will take on the job in that situation. All the best candidates will sit on their hands until after the election, leaving a choice between maniacs and incredibly pompous, unappealing Sir Bufton Tufton types answering the nation's call at time of crisis.
I see your frustration, but I don't see how it realistically resolves in the way you describe.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
You did, you said that. You're the one who denounced R&D and investment and said that clean technologies are not the solution.
You're a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the environment. If clean technologies come about through R&D (and they have been at a seriously impressive rate for decades now) then there is no environmental reason whatsoever for anyone to reduce their consumption.
If clean technologies can't come about, then we're f***ed either way.
The only valid solution is technological. And that means the role the state has to play is in encouraging that and ensuring there is a profit motive to be clean.
I said we have no current evidence that a new technology will save us, yes. We have the current technologies to reach carbon neutrality, we just choose not to make the societal and economic changes to make that a viable world - one that would require some shrinkage and redistribution of resources. Carbon capture is the silver bullet because it lets us keep putting carbon in the atmosphere, dealing with the effects of our economic choices whilst allowing us to keep making them. We could choose to make different choices now. As someone looking at the standard of tech now - where carbon capture does not currently work - I'd rather invest in the solution we have that we know could work versus hoping for the technology we haven't been able to make work to work in time.
"Current technology" is not even close to being sufficient to get us to reach carbon neutrality. It has reduced our emissions, but its not remotely sufficient.
That's why investments in technology, R&D are required. And companies will invest if they get a reward from that investment. Which requires a profit motive. Which means people make money - something that you seem to be against.
But just because current technology isn't enough doesn't mean future technology won't be enough. It will, and billions are going annually into much-needed R&D to get us there.
We can reach net zero, over time, with investment. Something you are against, because you don't give a damn about the environment.
Your position: Just invest in R&D and a new technology will appear that can magic away the problem
My position: We don't know if that tech is possible in the time frame needed, so why not use the tech we have and reduce global consumption to get to the same place. We can always do the R&D for new stuff when we know we are safe.
Apparently my position is the zealous magical thinking position, and your position is the reasonable one.
You need to learn about Technology Readiness Level
I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you - I agree. I guess I would add that the things stopping us getting to TRL 9 are political issues rather than practical ones, and political issues that get whipped up by the right. Like all this stuff about 15 minute cities and conflating the idea that it is more sustainable to design a city / town that you can walk around and get all your services in a reasonable time with being put into militarised camps that you cannot leave that are traversable in 15 minutes (a thing some people believe). The Tories are currently trying to appease people who believe more in the second notion than the first and, after the Uxbridge election, Labour seem to be moving in the same direction.
No.
Getting to TRL-9 requires actual work. The belief that it doesn't is that is an actual problem
So activists kept wondering Who Killed the Electric Car. Instead of realising that trying to sell TRL-7 or so to the masses wasn't going to work. Lots of boring stuff happened to get mass market electric cars to TRL-9.
Exactly!
This is precisely the kind of R&D I am saying is needed.
The technology is close, but isn't there yet. Until we get to TRL-9 the technology is still in development, not ready yet.
And to get to TRL-9 requires a lot of hard work, effort and incentives. Which is why we have many billions being spent globally across the planet and a lot of very smart [and some less smart] people working on these issues looking to make it work, and make it marketable.
This is what will save the planet, not hairshirt bullshit.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
The global population is rising and most people are dirt poor.
Even as the global population has risen, so has their wealth. There have never been fewer people in poverty. Actual poverty, as opposed to inequality. https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty
And we should aim for even more to come out of it, which along with other contributors means consumption is going to rise a lot for quite some time (I think estimates are global population may peak in 75-100 years, based on current trends?).
We can certainly reduce consumption in a lot of areas, but overall it seems likely to and good that it will increase for humanity as a whole.
The UN predicts a peak in 2086, so a bit sooner than you said.
We can of course change that. There are populations in the world who would love the sort of access to effective family planning that we take for granted in the UK. Let’s provide it. We should be providing it anyway as a central part of helping development.
Again, much like countries pledges to reduce emissions being thrown aside for political expediency, a shift in family planning has started. The new talking point of "declining [white] populations" (where white is usually left out) is behind the anti abortion movement in the US and the nativist policies in Hungary. We're even getting an echo of that here in the UK; many people at the NatCon conference talked about the need for more [white] babies.
This is in part a reaction for cultural reasons, but is also a reaction from capital. The labour market is tightening now, and already unions are showing their muscles. Capital is seeing population stagnation or even reduction in some areas and is aware that would start to put more power in the hands of workers. So you get the nativists and capitalists hand in hand on policy once again.
I'm feeling quite dystopian about population trends, though I've lost count of how many days I've been sick, so that might be colouring my outlook.
Global population is going to peak much earlier than the official predictions, and thereafter will shrink quite rapidly. Previously I've been quite optimistic about this - clearly we can't have an infinite population on the planet, and the end to population growth is occurring without any of the authoritarian measures the misanthropes of various pressure groups proposed. Great.
But then what happens?
After a couple of generations of a shrinking population, how do you encourage people to have more children to stabilise the population? And if you don't, what sort of future is that where the population is simply slowly declining to eventual extinction?
It appears to be essential to worry about demography; and on the whole it seems to be entirely random as to whether it is about having too many or too few people.
Some people are so clever they can worry about both at the same time.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
Dunno, I'm enjoying life on my Scottish estate, having visited centre court at Wimbledon for the Men's final and will be heading out when the weather turns to my house in Florida where I'll be margin trading on my phone in my private pool.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
I am actually quite concerned as to where you're getting these rather twisted ideas from.
It would be useful for me for you to suggest which of the things I've said above you consider twisted and why so I can either explain or have my mind changed.
We have the resources to give everyone a decent standard of living - those resources are just lopsidedly allocated (both in individual countries and globally) with the richest having more and the poorest having less. I think it is reasonable to reallocate those resources more equitably. Humanity could choose to do that - we choose not to.
Oh really?
We have enough resources to give everyone on the planet a healthy balanced diet rich in healthy proteins like beef or chicken, rather than processed carbs?
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
My feeling is the membership are usually 9 months ahead of the MPs on this.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
Quite a few Tory MPs are standing down, quite a few won't in fact lose their seats (in the 1997 massacre only just over half did), and quite a few who are in serious danger will conclude that defenestration with weeks to go makes their prospects worse not better.
Quite apart from that, is who will take on the job in that situation. All the best candidates will sit on their hands until after the election, leaving a choice between maniacs and incredibly pompous, unappealing Sir Bufton Tufton types answering the nation's call at time of crisis.
I see your frustration, but I don't see how it realistically resolves in the way you describe.
Politics happens very slowly, then all at once.
Local donors will start drying up (this is how Tory MP's election campaign funds are secured), numbers of leaflet deliverers will dry up, councillors will be down.
Plus, come October, the 1 year moratorium on VONC within the PCP expires. It could be there are already a good number in; and every by election lost makes the threshold easier to reach.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
I have sufficient food and entertainment and temperature control because I'm in the UK. So, when we're talking about UK policy, rather than global policy, would it be OK if we talked about reducing consumption, about increasing efficiency?
No.10: The man who made a name for himself for a 'plain speaking' style is being bluntly honest about a failure? Who could have seen that coming?
If you know absolutely nothing about the country you govern you put someone like Lee Anderson in a position to speak to it on your behalf.
Anderson is there to do the Prescott role John Prescott fulfilled in the Blair years. Reach parts of the electorate and supporter base the leadership cannot.
We all know about John Prescott's reach...
Whilst it's clear that Anderson has that role, the harder question is whether he is any good at it. Or if it's another bit of uncomprehending cosplay.
He isn't meant to appeal to wets.
He is meant to appeal to the base. He does that far better than most here understand.
Creating a fuss about this issue is like the 350m. It causes wets to support the outcry, and the public to think 'hmmm actually I'm not sure I like the boats arriving either'.
As with Prescott, there is a balance here.
I am sure Anderson chimes with quite a few red wall voters, so I get it in that respect. But he's a liability in Surrey, I suspect, and the Conservatives also have to worry about different types of seat.
With Prescott, Blair was very careful to make clear that, whilst Prescott was within his big tent, Blair remained the ringmaster. He also made sure Prescott, for all his bluff and bluster, was actually pretty moderate and malleable. He didn't try the same trick with Red Ken, or Derek Hatton, or Jeremy Corbyn, who were impossible to tame.
The risk for the Tories with people like Anderson is, firstly, that he isn't very moderate and malleable - he's a zealot. Secondly, with Sunak being quite a passive figure (as you identify), there is a danger Anderson is seen as being in charge, which some may like but is a real problem in more traditional Tory seats.
Tory voters in Surrey as just as likely to agree more with Anderson than the lib-labs; this is something that people who don't knock on doors day in day out find so difficult to understand.
I appreciate some Tory voters in Surrey agree with Anderson, but they will be voting Tory come what may.
The people the Tories need to worry about are the flaky ones who might or might not vote for them. In the red wall, I appreciate that is slightly more Anderson types - people who have traditionally voted for Labour and against the traditional image of the snobbish, home counties Tory, but who reassessed the Tories at the time of Corbyn and Brexit. But in the blue wall, the flaky Tories *are* those snobbish home counties Tories.
It's the Hyacinth Buckets you want to worry about in those seats and, bluntly, they don't like yobs like Anderson effing and jeffing.
Dunno, I'm enjoying life on my Scottish estate, having visited centre court at Wimbledon for the Men's final and will be heading out when the weather turns to my house in Florida where I'll be margin trading on my phone in my private pool.
There's another guy who's forever flogging commoditising your knowledge and developing your own online courses that will make you rich too.
There are no easy paths to riches. If there were, everyone would be doing it.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I just heard on LBC Honest Bob Jenrick is planning to take us out of the ECHR because he hates boat people so much. He is a far harder barsteward than "I'm hard me", 30p Lee.
Once out of the ECHR, strafing the boats has to come next, surely?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
I have sufficient food and entertainment and temperature control because I'm in the UK. So, when we're talking about UK policy, rather than global policy, would it be OK if we talked about reducing consumption, about increasing efficiency?
No.
Because consumption goes beyond essentials. What about luxuries? Many things that are considered essentials today, were luxuries (or none existent) in the past. Many people make sacrifices, go without entertainment, and yes many people in the UK sit in hot or cold rooms as they can't afford or don't have air conditioning (I don't have it) or heating.
We should want our standard of living to improve, not stagnate or go backwards. We should aspire to have everyone in the country to be able to afford what you can take for granted, not just some.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
You did, you said that. You're the one who denounced R&D and investment and said that clean technologies are not the solution.
You're a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the environment. If clean technologies come about through R&D (and they have been at a seriously impressive rate for decades now) then there is no environmental reason whatsoever for anyone to reduce their consumption.
If clean technologies can't come about, then we're f***ed either way.
The only valid solution is technological. And that means the role the state has to play is in encouraging that and ensuring there is a profit motive to be clean.
I said we have no current evidence that a new technology will save us, yes. We have the current technologies to reach carbon neutrality, we just choose not to make the societal and economic changes to make that a viable world - one that would require some shrinkage and redistribution of resources. Carbon capture is the silver bullet because it lets us keep putting carbon in the atmosphere, dealing with the effects of our economic choices whilst allowing us to keep making them. We could choose to make different choices now. As someone looking at the standard of tech now - where carbon capture does not currently work - I'd rather invest in the solution we have that we know could work versus hoping for the technology we haven't been able to make work to work in time.
"Current technology" is not even close to being sufficient to get us to reach carbon neutrality. It has reduced our emissions, but its not remotely sufficient.
That's why investments in technology, R&D are required. And companies will invest if they get a reward from that investment. Which requires a profit motive. Which means people make money - something that you seem to be against.
But just because current technology isn't enough doesn't mean future technology won't be enough. It will, and billions are going annually into much-needed R&D to get us there.
We can reach net zero, over time, with investment. Something you are against, because you don't give a damn about the environment.
Your position: Just invest in R&D and a new technology will appear that can magic away the problem
My position: We don't know if that tech is possible in the time frame needed, so why not use the tech we have and reduce global consumption to get to the same place. We can always do the R&D for new stuff when we know we are safe.
Apparently my position is the zealous magical thinking position, and your position is the reasonable one.
You need to learn about Technology Readiness Level
I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you - I agree. I guess I would add that the things stopping us getting to TRL 9 are political issues rather than practical ones, and political issues that get whipped up by the right. Like all this stuff about 15 minute cities and conflating the idea that it is more sustainable to design a city / town that you can walk around and get all your services in a reasonable time with being put into militarised camps that you cannot leave that are traversable in 15 minutes (a thing some people believe). The Tories are currently trying to appease people who believe more in the second notion than the first and, after the Uxbridge election, Labour seem to be moving in the same direction.
No.
Getting to TRL-9 requires actual work. The belief that it doesn't is that is an actual problem
So activists kept wondering Who Killed the Electric Car. Instead of realising that trying to sell TRL-7 or so to the masses wasn't going to work. Lots of boring stuff happened to get mass market electric cars to TRL-9.
Exactly!
This is precisely the kind of R&D I am saying is needed.
The technology is close, but isn't there yet. Until we get to TRL-9 the technology is still in development, not ready yet.
And to get to TRL-9 requires a lot of hard work, effort and incentives. Which is why we have many billions being spent globally across the planet and a lot of very smart [and some less smart] people working on these issues looking to make it work, and make it marketable.
This is what will save the planet, not hairshirt bullshit.
Certainly not de-growth, which seems to be something that is gaining in popularity in some circles.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
Rocketry makes up tiny portion of world emissions. SpaceX has killed the fashion for solid rocket boosters - which emit lots of nasties. They are a large part of the pivot to methane/LOX, which is clean burning.
Methane can then be produced by the Sabatier process - which is part of the plan for Mars (for a number of organisations, not just SpaceX).
Yes, initially the methane on Earth is from natural gas, but an off shoot of creating automated plants to make it on Mars will be that the technology goes though the scaling/mass production process and becomes much cheaper.
My example was not to say this is the biggest issue, rather that it was indicative of how economic choices get made. One rich bloke wants to do space capitalism and leverages huge resources to do that and test flies a rocket that causes emissions. That could all instead do something else for the common good and the issues that we face right now. Yes, I want space travel to be a thing, but not so rich people can run away from Earth as it crumbles behind them.
And my point was that incremental improvement are happening.
Look at some FCC and FAA filings for Kuiper and Starlink.
Having cheaper access to space does also, of course, make earth monitiring a great deal easier. Which is not an insignificant benefit fir climatologists - and in due course perhaps this who will modify climate. The recent discoveries regarding SO2 plumes from shipping, and the likely effects of removing them, is a case in point.
A major chunk of climate science came from egg heads trying to figure out Venus and Mars.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
So your solution is to rely even more on processed carbs and even less on proteins? Give even more people Type 2 Diabetes.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
So your solution is to rely even more on processed carbs and even less on proteins? Give even more people Type 2 Diabetes.
What a terrible idea.
Thankfully people won't suffer that bullshit.
Recently stayed with some vegans; we had loads of very tasty food, but god I was hungry after we left. 24 hours without meat or fish or cheese!
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve climate emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to climate change and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
When did I say I wanted to shrink the pie and keep dirty technologies? This is the strawman argument made about any environmental position - either we want everyone to go back to the stone age, or we're Malthusians who want to cull the population of the planet.
Elon and his rocketry work - which he is specifically doing because he doesn't want to stop extractivist economics on Earth and wishes to have a dystopian style escape to the stars for rich people only - emits a ridiculous amount of CO2. I'm not against space exploration, far from it, but we could do with sorting out our terrestrial issues first and then doing space travel, not doing space travel so we don't have to sort out our problems here.
We will never know the full impacts of billionaires - not all of their investments are public; but even looking at the not particularly useful global footprint metric - the global average is 4.7ish tonnes of CO2; Bill Gates is closer to 7500 tonnes. And the impact of his investment in "offsetting" is unprovable, because it is waiting for future technology to arrive and then invest in - offsetting doesn't work
Rocketry makes up tiny portion of world emissions. SpaceX has killed the fashion for solid rocket boosters - which emit lots of nasties. They are a large part of the pivot to methane/LOX, which is clean burning.
Methane can then be produced by the Sabatier process - which is part of the plan for Mars (for a number of organisations, not just SpaceX).
Yes, initially the methane on Earth is from natural gas, but an off shoot of creating automated plants to make it on Mars will be that the technology goes though the scaling/mass production process and becomes much cheaper.
My example was not to say this is the biggest issue, rather that it was indicative of how economic choices get made. One rich bloke wants to do space capitalism and leverages huge resources to do that and test flies a rocket that causes emissions. That could all instead do something else for the common good and the issues that we face right now. Yes, I want space travel to be a thing, but not so rich people can run away from Earth as it crumbles behind them.
And my point was that incremental improvement are happening.
Look at some FCC and FAA filings for Kuiper and Starlink.
Having cheaper access to space does also, of course, make earth monitiring a great deal easier. Which is not an insignificant benefit fir climatologists - and in due course perhaps this who will modify climate. The recent discoveries regarding SO2 plumes from shipping, and the likely effects of removing them, is a case in point.
A major chunk of climate science came from egg heads trying to figure out Venus and Mars.
Obviously it's not going to happen (Extrapolation, technology, the fact we'd all be dead long before then and so on and so forth) but at the current rate of CO2 increase we get to Venus in under half a million years - which is a gnat's fart in terms of earth's lifespan.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
So your solution is to rely even more on processed carbs and even less on proteins? Give even more people Type 2 Diabetes.
What a terrible idea.
Thankfully people won't suffer that bullshit.
Recently stayed with some vegans; we had loads of very tasty food, but god I was hungry after we left. 24 hours without meat or fish or cheese!
Its a terrible, unhealthy diet. Vegan food, especially vegan meat alternatives, is all processed carbs.
Total crap that is bad for your body. It is instils a religious belief in those who follow it.
My relative who was a vegetarian for decades now greatly regrets following a diet that gave him diabetes. He gets quite upset about it.
I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Lets alone consider it a "solution" to anything.
A balanced diet should include a mix of food, including good proteins like meats. We need to sustainably be able to generate enough, and have it cheap enough, that everyone can afford it and not rely on processed carb crap instead.
A friend of mine who doesn't live in the UK told me this morning that he thought asylum seekers should be dumped on a beach in northern France and told to f-off.
Every right-minded and decent person on here should lament this toxic war, almost exclusively being generated by the hard right (in the past the far left have been FAR from blameless).
It will take years and years to repair the damage and we may never do so. Look at the awful state of the US right now, largely courtesy of Trump and co.
It behoves us all to dial down the hatred and rhetoric.
xx
Agreed. I think that relatively few people are now much offended by "fuck" (as a casual read on PB comments illustrates). They are still sympathetic to the more obviously vulnerable refugees, and I'd think that a PPB could reasonably use imagery from children fleeing from conflict zones interposed by "Tories say 'luck off' to them - is that what you want to hear from our Government?". But it's probably best to simply ignore him, in the same way as you'd ignore a drunk in a bus station.
More on Lee Anderson: don't forget that he wasn't just saying that asylum seekers should f*** off back where they came from - he was saying that if they don't like how they're treated in Britain they should f*** off back where they came from. And when he says THAT, he doesn't mean if they don't like warm beer, changeable weather, and the caste system. He means if they don't like being corralled onto a stalag barge and kept like sardines. He means if they've got a problem with ANYTHING that's done to them here.
Not difficult to see the kind of thing that's going to happen next, when already the plan is to put ~500 people onto a barge originally designed to accommodate ~200.
This is brutal and elemental.
It would be helpful if a lawyer in the house could explain the legal position. I understand a port state has inspection rights, but the general principle is that it's the law of the flag state - in this case, Barbados - that applies on board a vessel that's in port, the same as it does on the high seas. So has there been an agreement according to which this small subpiece of the piece of the world covered by Barbadian law will be administered extraterritorially, i.e. extraterritorially from a Barbadian pov? Or has all that gone out of the window?
PS Reportedly the inmates are being made to go through airport-style security not just when boarding the vessel but when leaving it too. These people are being ritually humiliated.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
If you multiply the recommended amount by 8 billion, is it higher or lower than current global production?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
The problem though is that the processed carb crap is less resource intensive than clean foods like meat. A bad food like sugar is a much easier cash crop to generate than a healthy food like beef. So to switch to a healthier diet needs more resources, not less.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
There is, however, a fair difference between ensuring "everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins [as] they want" and ensuring "everyone on the planet can have as much beef [as] they want". Do you accept that maybe the solution to the former doesn't necessarily involve more beef?
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
I have sufficient food and entertainment and temperature control because I'm in the UK. So, when we're talking about UK policy, rather than global policy, would it be OK if we talked about reducing consumption, about increasing efficiency?
No.
Because consumption goes beyond essentials. What about luxuries? Many things that are considered essentials today, were luxuries (or none existent) in the past. Many people make sacrifices, go without entertainment, and yes many people in the UK sit in hot or cold rooms as they can't afford or don't have air conditioning (I don't have it) or heating.
We should want our standard of living to improve, not stagnate or go backwards. We should aspire to have everyone in the country to be able to afford what you can take for granted, not just some.
I want standard of living to improve. I contest that that is not the same as consumption always going up.
Energy bills are a major problem for many people. One thing that will help is ensuring people have energy efficient devices, better home insulation etc. I would be concerned that your more-consumption rhetoric seems to have no time for such approaches as part of what we should be doing.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
The problem though is that the processed carb crap is less resource intensive than clean foods like meat. A bad food like sugar is a much easier cash crop to generate than a healthy food like beef. So to switch to a healthier diet needs more resources, not less.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
No. That's 204.54 million tonnes of meat. Current global production is 350 million tonnes.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
So your solution is to rely even more on processed carbs and even less on proteins? Give even more people Type 2 Diabetes.
What a terrible idea.
Thankfully people won't suffer that bullshit.
Do you always have conversations this way? Can you only have conversations against straw people you create rather than actually engage with the words I have written?
At what point did I say give people more processed carbs? I've mentioned more land for fruit and vegetables but you will note I didn't say "also a great opportunity for more corn to make high fructose corn syrup, and sugar cane" or "a great opportunity to purposefully give everyone type 2 diabetes".
You could try to point out the causal relationship between my suggestion and your outcome, but I would again clearly state that more focus on land for fruit and vegetables, (legumes, nuts and pulses being very good for protein, brassicas like broccoli being very good for calcium etc), can give people the nutrients they need without us resorting to farming more meat - which is highly inefficient, highly damaging to the environment, both from land usage and emissions - or falling back on sugar to meet the calorific deficit.
@BartholomewRoberts You need to decide whether you're talking about beef or meat in your arguments - the relevant facts are different for beef and meat (Any animal protein) more generally. Also consumption is obviously more than food consumption.
More on Lee Anderson: don't forget that he wasn't just saying that asylum seekers should f*** off back where they came from - he was saying that if they don't like how they're treated in Britain they should f*** off back where they came from. And when he says THAT, he doesn't mean if they don't like warm beer, changeable weather, and the caste system. He means if they don't like being corralled onto a stalag barge and kept like sardines. He means if they've got a problem with ANYTHING that's done to them here.
Not difficult to see the kind of thing that's going to happen next, when already the plan is to put ~500 people onto a barge originally designed to accommodate ~200.
This is brutal and elemental.
It would be helpful if a lawyer in the house could explain the legal position. I understand a port state has inspection rights, but the general principle is that it's the law of the flag state - in this case, Barbados - that applies on board a vessel that's in port, the same as it does on the high seas. So has there been an agreement according to which this small subpiece of the piece of the world covered by Barbadian law will be administered extraterritorially, i.e. extraterritorially from a Barbadian pov? Or has all that gone out of the window?
PS Reportedly the inmates are being made to go through airport-style security not just when boarding the vessel but when leaving it too. These people are being ritually humiliated.
If it's the law of the Lone Star bringing you a glass of Minuty to your beachside table then I'm all for it.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
If you multiply the recommended amount by 8 billion, is it higher or lower than current global production?
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
My feeling is the membership are usually 9 months ahead of the MPs on this.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
Quite a few Tory MPs are standing down, quite a few won't in fact lose their seats (in the 1997 massacre only just over half did), and quite a few who are in serious danger will conclude that defenestration with weeks to go makes their prospects worse not better.
Quite apart from that, is who will take on the job in that situation. All the best candidates will sit on their hands until after the election, leaving a choice between maniacs and incredibly pompous, unappealing Sir Bufton Tufton types answering the nation's call at time of crisis.
I see your frustration, but I don't see how it realistically resolves in the way you describe.
Politics happens very slowly, then all at once.
Local donors will start drying up (this is how Tory MP's election campaign funds are secured), numbers of leaflet deliverers will dry up, councillors will be down.
Plus, come October, the 1 year moratorium on VONC within the PCP expires. It could be there are already a good number in; and every by election lost makes the threshold easier to reach.
Firstly, this assumes Sunak will push a General Election it beyond next May (and a further loss of councillors). I know that's a fairly widespread assumption, but I'm not sure. It's not a great round of elections for the Tories and, particularly if he does feel under any pressure, I think he'll chance it.
Secondly, I think enough Tory activists and donors either quite like Sunak or will stick with it come what may. As with the Lib Dems in 2015, on the ground and in local parties of threatened MPs, there is some rallying round. It may well not save seats - it didn't for the Lib Dems in 2015 - but actually in a backs-to-the-wall situation, quite a lot of people fight rather than take flight. Even being very cynical, if you're an ambitious Tory in the seat of an under-threat MP, you help them man the barricades and come out with a lot of credit as well as a vacancy.
Thirdly, there isn't a great deal of evidence of letters being planned or going in. Maybe there are behind the scenes, and maybe people are bring quiet, but there does need to be some noise to get momentum.
Finally, and crucially, a VONC needs to pass by a majority. I know Johnson went having survived a VONC, but that was through a further scandal and mass resignations. That's just not happening with Sunak - he's not likely to be embroiled in a scandal and his cabinet have either bought into his project or decided to wait until after the election as being disloyal isn't a winning formula.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
The problem though is that the processed carb crap is less resource intensive than clean foods like meat. A bad food like sugar is a much easier cash crop to generate than a healthy food like beef. So to switch to a healthier diet needs more resources, not less.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
No. That's 204.54 million tonnes of meat. Current global production is 350 million tonnes.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
The problem though is that the processed carb crap is less resource intensive than clean foods like meat. A bad food like sugar is a much easier cash crop to generate than a healthy food like beef. So to switch to a healthier diet needs more resources, not less.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
No. That's 204.54 million tonnes of meat. Current global production is 350 million tonnes.
OK, fair point. Though note that the 70g was just for some types of meat, whereas that 350m is for all types.
However 350m tonnes is not enough to give everyone enough. Especially considering the 70g suggestion is ridiculously low.
A minimum of 1.2 to 2.0g of protein per kg of body weight per day is the recommendation that I follow, which considering I'm not 35kgs means I don't aim for only 70g of protein. Of course not all protein is meat, but meat is an excellent source of high-protein, low-carb healthy food.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We currently have more than enough food to feed everyone in the world - it is just that some parts of the world eat much more than they need (calorifically) and foods that are much more resource intensive (like rare beefs) and others starve. I'm not arguing for a world where people are only allowed the scientifically necessary amount of food - just one where no one is starving. If we just up food production and consumption that still leaves a highly damaging and inefficient food economy. The same can be said for healthcare and education - resources pointed at the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
Yes, too many people get their calories from unhealthy means like sugar, rather than healthier proteins like beef.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
I certainly do enjoy a good joint of beef on a sunday as much as the next man, but I don't see how beef cow expansion is possible (globaly) without one or several of
i. Losing wildlife diversity ii. Increased methane output iii. Lower animal welfare standards iv. Deforestation.
Indeed, its a problem. One thankfully people are working on.
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
I haven't eaten beef in a decade and plan not to do so for the rest of my life - most people don't have access to beef. Beef is highly resource intensive - it involves lots of water and lots of land because you have to grow the food for the beef as well as land for the cattle.
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
So your solution is to rely even more on processed carbs and even less on proteins? Give even more people Type 2 Diabetes.
What a terrible idea.
Thankfully people won't suffer that bullshit.
Recently stayed with some vegans; we had loads of very tasty food, but god I was hungry after we left. 24 hours without meat or fish or cheese!
I had a cauliflower steak once (which, let's face it, is a chargrilled slice of cauliflower and nothing more) and woke up at 2am absolutely starving.
Had to go downstairs and help myself to a large bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes to kill the hunger pangs.
Meat tastes too good to be “bad for you” (it may be bad for the planet but that’s a different issue)
I can recall when margarine was sold as the “healthy” alternative to butter. Now we all realise margarine is hideous processed crap and butter is wholesome and fine (in moderation)
But I always knew this because butter tastes good and margarine tastes like weirdly liquidised cockroach
A row has erupted among senior Conservatives as a cabinet minister rebuked the party’s deputy chairman for claiming the government had failed to tackle illegal immigration.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said Lee Anderson was wrong after he said there was “no doubt” the Conservatives had failed.
Jenrick also said he disagreed with Anderson’s choice of language after he said migrants refusing to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge, in Portland, Dorset, should “f*** off back to France”, although he said he agreed with the point he was making.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
And that is because you are a religious zealot who doesn't give a damn about the environment.
Shrinking the pie, but keeping dirty technologies, does not help the environment, does not solve CO2 and other emissions, does not address climate change. It does nothing positive.
Having economic growth, with clean technologies, is better for the planet, better for the environment, and raises living standards.
They are not perfect individuals, far from it, but Elon Musk with the assistance he has given to push the switch to electric vehicles and Bill Gates with his Foundation have done more for the planet than anyone in Greenpeace or Just Stop Oil or any other hairshirt zealot ever has.
Elon Musk today is driving down CO2 production by encouraging people to switch off Twitter, so well done that man!
Of course, this argument over reduced consumption vs technological innovation as solutions to climate change is silly. We need both and both are happening.
No, the only thing we need is technological innovation.
Consumption is higher than its ever been, and ought to be higher still in the future. That is a good thing.
And apparently environmentalists are the zealots...
Why must consumption be ever rising?
Because consumption is a good thing. It is a positive for human health and happiness.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
I could consume more now. I could go and eat some ice cream (homemade raspberry), but I'm full after lunch and that wouldn't be good for my health. I could turn the speakers up and consume more electricity, but my background music is as loud as I want it. Maybe I'll turn on my portable radiator and my portable air con unit at the same time! More consumption is not necessarily a good thing for everyone in every situation.
I didn't say it was a good thing for everyone in every situation.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
So you accept that overconsumption is possible?
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
And your position is bullshit.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
By leveraging the resources dedicated to processed carbs - the subsidies, the labour, the land, the marketing - to healthier food options. And redistributing what we currently have.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
The problem though is that the processed carb crap is less resource intensive than clean foods like meat. A bad food like sugar is a much easier cash crop to generate than a healthy food like beef. So to switch to a healthier diet needs more resources, not less.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
No. That's 204.54 million tonnes of meat. Current global production is 350 million tonnes.
@148grss is mixing up a recommened value for red meat with meat in general.
It says red or processed meat - as someone who has not eaten meat for a very long time that sounds like most meat to me? The consumption map works on the basis of "expected EU average by 2030" which is 165g of meat.
Meat tastes too good to be “bad for you” (it may be bad for the planet but that’s a different issue)
I can recall when margarine was sold as the “healthy” alternative to butter. Now we all realise margarine is hideous processed crap and butter is wholesome and fine (in moderation)
But I always knew this because butter tastes good and margarine tastes like weirdly liquidised cockroach
I always liked margarine as its easy to spread and butter isn't.
But I now by spreadable butter, that comes in a tub like marge does. I believe its just butter with extra oils added to make it easy to spread, I don't completely understand it but its much nicer than margarine and easier to spread than solid butter so I'm fine with it.
Meat tastes too good to be “bad for you” (it may be bad for the planet but that’s a different issue)
I can recall when margarine was sold as the “healthy” alternative to butter. Now we all realise margarine is hideous processed crap and butter is wholesome and fine (in moderation)
But I always knew this because butter tastes good and margarine tastes like weirdly liquidised cockroach
I always liked margarine as its easy to spread and butter isn't.
But I now by spreadable butter, that comes in a tub like marge does. I believe its just butter with extra oils added to make it easy to spread, I don't completely understand it but its much nicer than margarine and easier to spread than solid butter so I'm fine with it.
And to think, you could have saved yourself years of margarine simply by investing in a butter dish.
Sunak has bigger problems than Anderson, personnel wise. Shapps and Cleverly are both far more personable and charismatic.
When he is flailing in the polls and another 1000 Tory councillors have lost, who then will support him?
Who will support him? Shapps and Cleverly for a start.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
My feeling is the membership are usually 9 months ahead of the MPs on this.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
Quite a few Tory MPs are standing down, quite a few won't in fact lose their seats (in the 1997 massacre only just over half did), and quite a few who are in serious danger will conclude that defenestration with weeks to go makes their prospects worse not better.
Quite apart from that, is who will take on the job in that situation. All the best candidates will sit on their hands until after the election, leaving a choice between maniacs and incredibly pompous, unappealing Sir Bufton Tufton types answering the nation's call at time of crisis.
I see your frustration, but I don't see how it realistically resolves in the way you describe.
Politics happens very slowly, then all at once.
Local donors will start drying up (this is how Tory MP's election campaign funds are secured), numbers of leaflet deliverers will dry up, councillors will be down.
Plus, come October, the 1 year moratorium on VONC within the PCP expires. It could be there are already a good number in; and every by election lost makes the threshold easier to reach.
Firstly, this assumes Sunak will push a General Election it beyond next May (and a further loss of councillors). I know that's a fairly widespread assumption, but I'm not sure. It's not a great round of elections for the Tories and, particularly if he does feel under any pressure, I think he'll chance it.
Secondly, I think enough Tory activists and donors either quite like Sunak or will stick with it come what may. As with the Lib Dems in 2015, on the ground and in local parties of threatened MPs, there is some rallying round. It may well not save seats - it didn't for the Lib Dems in 2015 - but actually in a backs-to-the-wall situation, quite a lot of people fight rather than take flight. Even being very cynical, if you're an ambitious Tory in the seat of an under-threat MP, you help them man the barricades and come out with a lot of credit as well as a vacancy.
Thirdly, there isn't a great deal of evidence of letters being planned or going in. Maybe there are behind the scenes, and maybe people are bring quiet, but there does need to be some noise to get momentum.
Finally, and crucially, a VONC needs to pass by a majority. I know Johnson went having survived a VONC, but that was through a further scandal and mass resignations. That's just not happening with Sunak - he's not likely to be embroiled in a scandal and his cabinet have either bought into his project or decided to wait until after the election as being disloyal isn't a winning formula.
Every Tory leader since Major who has survived a VONC hasn't survived the year....
Meat tastes too good to be “bad for you” (it may be bad for the planet but that’s a different issue)
I can recall when margarine was sold as the “healthy” alternative to butter. Now we all realise margarine is hideous processed crap and butter is wholesome and fine (in moderation)
But I always knew this because butter tastes good and margarine tastes like weirdly liquidised cockroach
I'm not entirely sure the "tastes good = good for you" equation holds up.
A row has erupted among senior Conservatives as a cabinet minister rebuked the party’s deputy chairman for claiming the government had failed to tackle illegal immigration....
"Look Lee, you're not supposed to say it out loud!!"
Comments
If they can craft a convincing story as to why they've failed and how the future will be different then it's fine.
So long as it can be sustainably generated from renewable resources, then what could you possibly want to consume less of? Healthcare? Education? Food for those in need?
The world doesn't consume enough, that is why there are people in poverty.
To eliminate hunger, we need more food consumed - and more and better healthier foods to replace calorie-intensive sugars.
To lift everyone to healthy standards of living, we need to be consuming far more than we are now as a species. To do that needs development in sustainable, clean, renewable technologies. Not hairshirts, or leaving people in poverty.
We need to make something turn up.
Things don't just turn up. R&D happens because people put their minds, efforts and resources into ensuring it happens.
If it doesn't, we're fucked, but human ingenuity is a remarkable thing so we need to ensure that it does as its our only option.
This is going to be the immigration election.
Those who patiently explain that the way to win elections is to win the middle ground, and look at what happened with Jeremy Corbyn (answer: he increased the Labour vote from 30% to 40% in two years, but then the smear machine got geared up), aren't getting it at all. Giorgia Meloni gets it. Then there's Trump. The middle ground is finished.
But overall, net, consumption will and should be higher in the future than the present.
As for electricity, efficiency is a good thing but we can and should be planning to consume more electricity in the future than we are today. Partially because electricity is an environmentally-friendly alternative to burning things so can replace oil and gas, and partially because using electricity is powerful and productive.
Doing so as efficiently as possible, but doing more with it, is a good thing, not a bad thing.
You have a theory based on concern from the Tory membership/councillor base that Sunak hasn't got what it takes to turn this around.
I get that, but where you run into problems is that enough of the MPs have decided that the Sunak/Hunt approach of trying to avoid further market chaos whilst throwing out a bit of red meat on immigration, ULEZ etc is the only prospect of limiting losses. They've lashed themselves to the mast, the world king across the water is now an ex-MP, and anyone vaguely credible is resigned to sit it out, survive the election, and stand for leader of the opposition (a much better position than taking the poison chalice with weeks left in the term).
So I just don't see the realistic mechanism for you to get what you want this side of an election.
So GDP/GNI could be constant over the next 100 years but human welfare could increase. I hope to work one day a week by the time I am in my 60s.
We no longer have to worry about or be involved in any of the EU political integration initiatives, CFSP, and prospective new treaties.
Our domestic politics used to be dominated by this every 6 months at each European Council, and we regularly lost fights.
If your contention is we should just produce more stuff so more people can have the stuff, I completely disagree, because to produce that much more stuff than we already have under the systems we currently have means increasing the damage to the environment. Whereas, with the systems we already have, we could choose to give poor people more of the existing stuff at the loss of the people who hoard the levers of control over that stuff at the same time as making changes to reduce the negative impact on the environment of stuff accumulation. (I said stuff too many times there).
We have the means to currently do these things - it is the dedication to allowing certain special people to live like gods that creates the circumstances where others live in squalor.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXWOQLFNKYmw7olWeiU7Iw
If GDP/GNI as a planet does does not increase, then there will still be billions living in what we would class as poverty.
Over the past few decades humanity, technology, development and capitalism has helped lift billions out of what was classed as absolute poverty. Though its only natural to lift our sights and lift our goals, hence why people in this country are classed as being in "poverty" even if they'd be considered extremely well off in the rest of the world.
To lift the whole world to your living standards, humanity needs to be consuming much more than it does now.
To do so sustainably, means a great deal of research and development to go into clean technologies.
Global population is going to peak much earlier than the official predictions, and thereafter will shrink quite rapidly. Previously I've been quite optimistic about this - clearly we can't have an infinite population on the planet, and the end to population growth is occurring without any of the authoritarian measures the misanthropes of various pressure groups proposed. Great.
But then what happens?
After a couple of generations of a shrinking population, how do you encourage people to have more children to stabilise the population? And if you don't, what sort of future is that where the population is simply slowly declining to eventual extinction?
Getting to TRL-9 requires actual work. The belief that it doesn't is that is an actual problem
So activists kept wondering Who Killed the Electric Car. Instead of realising that trying to sell TRL-7 or so to the masses wasn't going to work. Lots of boring stuff happened to get mass market electric cars to TRL-9.
We need to be in a position where everyone in the planet can consume as much beef and other healthy proteins as they want, without harming the planet and without anyone starving.
To do that, means a much higher level of production than exists today.
Global population has been increasing since the 1750s (agricultural/industrial revolution) so I'm not sure what happens to economic growth if that stalls/is thrown into reverse.
I imagine gross GDP will shrink (how can it not?) but the trick will be to maintain GDP per capita, probably by a mix of people working longer and AI innovations.
Once you've got past basic contraception people generally have children (or not) for economic reasons. So if the quantum/calculation for that changes, so will reproductive choices.
Selling FOREX courses !!!!
Why not just trade FOREX.
MPs panic close to an election when polls are low. They'll push the button when they realise they're going to lose their seats otherwise.
I shall create an alternate personality in a convincing disguise (presumably a hat) and get a camera and a microphone. I will spend all day spouting off right-wing shite on YouTube/Twitter and get outrage from the usual suspects. People will throw money at me and praise me for my wisdom and fetching hat.
Because if Fat Bloke can get £100K for spouting shite, I think I should have some of that.
A friend of mine who doesn't live in the UK told me this morning that he thought asylum seekers should be dumped on a beach in northern France and told to f-off.
Every right-minded and decent person on here should lament this toxic war, almost exclusively being generated by the hard right (in the past the far left have been FAR from blameless).
It will take years and years to repair the damage and we may never do so. Look at the awful state of the US right now, largely courtesy of Trump and co.
It behoves us all to dial down the hatred and rhetoric.
xx
Population size is very much related to the economic situation - yes higher educated people are not having as many kids, but the decoupling of productivity and pay could easily explain that; if you're like me and in your early 30s and just about getting by, plus you have had sex ed and available contraception, you're less likely to have kids. So population growth are highest amongst those who don't have access to contraception or didn't have very good sex ed. And then the eugenicists come out of the woodwork and start complaining about the poors or the brown people having too many kids.
My family was relatively poor people who got married and had kids young. My great nan had 6 kids starting at 18 years old (1 died in infancy) most of her kids had at least 2 and started in their teens or early twenties, and lots of their kids had multiple children before they were 25. My nan has 7 grandchildren from 2 daughters; 5 of us above 20, one with kids, and none of the over 30s with kids.
"Look, Christopher, *that* is how you do a nuke scene...
I am sure Anderson chimes with quite a few red wall voters, so I get it in that respect. But he's a liability in Surrey, I suspect, and the Conservatives also have to worry about different types of seat.
With Prescott, Blair was very careful to make clear that, whilst Prescott was within his big tent, Blair remained the ringmaster. He also made sure Prescott, for all his bluff and bluster, was actually pretty moderate and malleable. He didn't try the same trick with Red Ken, or Derek Hatton, or Jeremy Corbyn, who were impossible to tame.
The risk for the Tories with people like Anderson is, firstly, that he isn't very moderate and malleable - he's a zealot. Secondly, with Sunak being quite a passive figure (as you identify), there is a danger Anderson is seen as being in charge, which some may like but is a real problem in more traditional Tory seats.
I have a relative whom I always knew as a vegetarian, who got Type 2 diabetes as a result of their diet a few years ago. For the sake of their health they had to cut out the processed carbs and switched to cleaner foods instead, like proteins instead of carbs.
Its funny now whenever we go out for a meal at a pub, they always order a Mixed Grill and say no to the potatoes. A former vegetarian, now eating a slab of various meats, because that is what their body requires and keeps their blood sugar levels healthy in order to manage their Type 2 diabetes.
We need to get more people off processed carbs and onto meats and other better for them foods, but it is a more expensive diet to consume healthier foods like beef instead of unhealthy foods like sugar.
A healthy diet, and avoiding or managing Type 2 diabetes, should not only be the preserve of the well off. We need more meat and other good foods like that available, enough for everyone on the planet to sustainably consume to keep healthy.
i. Losing wildlife diversity
ii. Increased methane output
iii. Lower animal welfare standards
iv. Deforestation.
The social challenges it throws up are probably more religious as opposed to racial ones tbh, although the two end up getting conflated.
I said too much coming from processed carbs is the problem, and it is.
Its concerning still that "healthy" foods in the supermarket are still typically those advertised as "fat free" when we know now that it isn't fats that make you fat, that some fat is good for you, and almost all of those "fat free" products contain much higher sugar levels.
And people who struggle with their weight wonder why they continue to struggle when they're eating fat free foods and drinking diet soft drinks.
A balanced diet is needed, and that includes a good amount of protein. Which is expensive, and not everyone can afford. We need to develop more as a planet to change that so everyone can afford as much healthy proteins as they want, rather than relying upon cheaper, crappy, processed carbs and sugars instead.
Which is not an insignificant benefit fir climatologists - and in due course perhaps this who will modify climate.
The recent discoveries regarding SO2 plumes from shipping, and the likely effects of removing them, is a case in point.
We have the resources to give everyone a decent standard of living - those resources are just lopsidedly allocated (both in individual countries and globally) with the richest having more and the poorest having less. I think it is reasonable to reallocate those resources more equitably. Humanity could choose to do that - we choose not to.
Quite apart from that, is who will take on the job in that situation. All the best candidates will sit on their hands until after the election, leaving a choice between maniacs and incredibly pompous, unappealing Sir Bufton Tufton types answering the nation's call at time of crisis.
I see your frustration, but I don't see how it realistically resolves in the way you describe.
This is precisely the kind of R&D I am saying is needed.
The technology is close, but isn't there yet. Until we get to TRL-9 the technology is still in development, not ready yet.
And to get to TRL-9 requires a lot of hard work, effort and incentives. Which is why we have many billions being spent globally across the planet and a lot of very smart [and some less smart] people working on these issues looking to make it work, and make it marketable.
This is what will save the planet, not hairshirt bullshit.
Some people are so clever they can worry about both at the same time.
It is a good thing, in aggregate, for our species though.
You may be full after lunch, but others across the planet are hungry.
You may have music, others can't afford entertainment.
You may have your room at a nice temperature, others are too hot or too cold.
To get everyone on the planet to be able to eat as well as you can, have a heated/air conditioned room as well as you can, the entertainment you take for granted etc will require much more consumption globally than we have as a species today.
So either we want people to remain in poverty (I don't), living standards to fall (I don't), or we need more consumption globally (I do).
So the question is how as a species we can both increase consumption and responsibly look after the planet. To which the answer is technology as it has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. But it needs to be clean technologies.
We have enough resources to give everyone on the planet a healthy balanced diet rich in healthy proteins like beef or chicken, rather than processed carbs?
How?
Local donors will start drying up (this is how Tory MP's election campaign funds are secured), numbers of leaflet deliverers will dry up, councillors will be down.
Plus, come October, the 1 year moratorium on VONC within the PCP expires. It could be there are already a good number in; and every by election lost makes the threshold easier to reach.
The people the Tories need to worry about are the flaky ones who might or might not vote for them. In the red wall, I appreciate that is slightly more Anderson types - people who have traditionally voted for Labour and against the traditional image of the snobbish, home counties Tory, but who reassessed the Tories at the time of Corbyn and Brexit. But in the blue wall, the flaky Tories *are* those snobbish home counties Tories.
It's the Hyacinth Buckets you want to worry about in those seats and, bluntly, they don't like yobs like Anderson effing and jeffing.
There are no easy paths to riches. If there were, everyone would be doing it.
My position is essentially that current occasions of overconsumption is greater than the shortfall needed to make up the under consumption to bring poor people up to a decent standard of living.
I would therefore prefer to look for a solution that equal out this equation using what is already there rather than adding more stuff to the under consumption side to equal it out; redistribution.
Why is that necessarily bad, and why would piling more side onto the under consumption side necessarily be better?
There has been a lot of research into how to reduce methane from cattle production. Giving cattle a better diet themselves, including some interesting things like seaweed apparently, can dramatically reduce the amount of methane they emit.
We need to work on how to sustainably ensure everyone on the planet can have as much beef or other healthy proteins they want, rather than relying on shitty processed carbs as an alternative. R&D and development is going into this, which is a good thing.
Some people seem to want to make others suffer with just processed carbs though, instead of healthy diets.
Once out of the ECHR, strafing the boats has to come next, surely?
Because consumption goes beyond essentials. What about luxuries? Many things that are considered essentials today, were luxuries (or none existent) in the past. Many people make sacrifices, go without entertainment, and yes many people in the UK sit in hot or cold rooms as they can't afford or don't have air conditioning (I don't have it) or heating.
We should want our standard of living to improve, not stagnate or go backwards. We should aspire to have everyone in the country to be able to afford what you can take for granted, not just some.
People are only overconsuming calories because of the abundance of processed crap like sugars, not because of an overconsumption of healthy foods.
How do we ensure everyone on the planet can get abundant supply of healthy beef and other healthy food that we take for granted, without a reliance upon processed carbs?
Humans could live very healthy lives only eating meat or any animal products every other day. And it would do less damage to the environment, give more land over for natural ecosystems to return and generally be more efficient as we could take some land to grow more fruit and vegetables. It would not be making people suffer to work towards a system where that is more possible.
What a terrible idea.
Thankfully people won't suffer that bullshit.
Just on the issue of meat:
Current guidance is more than 90g of red or processed meat a day is probably bad, and that it should be closer to 70g.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrition/
These are the the amounts consumed per capita:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-meat-consumption-per-person
Note that the UK averages more than twice the recommended amount, and the US averages more than three times the recommended amount. And we also know that richer people have more access to meat if they want it.
Total crap that is bad for your body. It is instils a religious belief in those who follow it.
My relative who was a vegetarian for decades now greatly regrets following a diet that gave him diabetes. He gets quite upset about it.
I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Lets alone consider it a "solution" to anything.
A balanced diet should include a mix of food, including good proteins like meats. We need to sustainably be able to generate enough, and have it cheap enough, that everyone can afford it and not rely on processed carb crap instead.
She eats tons of meat. Almost nothing but. Ethically sourced - but meat (fish to beef)
Haven’t seen her in 2 years and saw her the other day and she looks amazing. Healthy, glowing, clear skin, the works
I’ve no idea what this implies. True story, however
Not difficult to see the kind of thing that's going to happen next, when already the plan is to put ~500 people onto a barge originally designed to accommodate ~200.
This is brutal and elemental.
It would be helpful if a lawyer in the house could explain the legal position. I understand a port state has inspection rights, but the general principle is that it's the law of the flag state - in this case, Barbados - that applies on board a vessel that's in port, the same as it does on the high seas. So has there been an agreement according to which this small subpiece of the piece of the world covered by Barbadian law will be administered extraterritorially, i.e. extraterritorially from a Barbadian pov? Or has all that gone out of the window?
PS Reportedly the inmates are being made to go through airport-style security not just when boarding the vessel but when leaving it too. These people are being ritually humiliated.
The current guidance is out of date and badly flawed. Anyone who follows that guidance is eating too much carbs and not enough protein in my and many other people's eyes. Which is what leads to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
To be able to get 8 billion to be able to consume enough meat is not something we currently generate. We need to be able to generate far more meat and far less carbs.
But either way 8 billion x 70g x 365.25 is more than current global production, is it not?
Energy bills are a major problem for many people. One thing that will help is ensuring people have energy efficient devices, better home insulation etc. I would be concerned that your more-consumption rhetoric seems to have no time for such approaches as part of what we should be doing.
https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
At what point did I say give people more processed carbs? I've mentioned more land for fruit and vegetables but you will note I didn't say "also a great opportunity for more corn to make high fructose corn syrup, and sugar cane" or "a great opportunity to purposefully give everyone type 2 diabetes".
You could try to point out the causal relationship between my suggestion and your outcome, but I would again clearly state that more focus on land for fruit and vegetables, (legumes, nuts and pulses being very good for protein, brassicas like broccoli being very good for calcium etc), can give people the nutrients they need without us resorting to farming more meat - which is highly inefficient, highly damaging to the environment, both from land usage and emissions - or falling back on sugar to meet the calorific deficit.
Also consumption is obviously more than food consumption.
Secondly, I think enough Tory activists and donors either quite like Sunak or will stick with it come what may. As with the Lib Dems in 2015, on the ground and in local parties of threatened MPs, there is some rallying round. It may well not save seats - it didn't for the Lib Dems in 2015 - but actually in a backs-to-the-wall situation, quite a lot of people fight rather than take flight. Even being very cynical, if you're an ambitious Tory in the seat of an under-threat MP, you help them man the barricades and come out with a lot of credit as well as a vacancy.
Thirdly, there isn't a great deal of evidence of letters being planned or going in. Maybe there are behind the scenes, and maybe people are bring quiet, but there does need to be some noise to get momentum.
Finally, and crucially, a VONC needs to pass by a majority. I know Johnson went having survived a VONC, but that was through a further scandal and mass resignations. That's just not happening with Sunak - he's not likely to be embroiled in a scandal and his cabinet have either bought into his project or decided to wait until after the election as being disloyal isn't a winning formula.
However 350m tonnes is not enough to give everyone enough. Especially considering the 70g suggestion is ridiculously low.
A minimum of 1.2 to 2.0g of protein per kg of body weight per day is the recommendation that I follow, which considering I'm not 35kgs means I don't aim for only 70g of protein. Of course not all protein is meat, but meat is an excellent source of high-protein, low-carb healthy food.
Had to go downstairs and help myself to a large bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes to kill the hunger pangs.
I can recall when margarine was sold as the “healthy” alternative to butter. Now we all realise margarine is hideous processed crap and butter is wholesome and fine (in moderation)
But I always knew this because butter tastes good and margarine tastes like weirdly liquidised cockroach
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said Lee Anderson was wrong after he said there was “no doubt” the Conservatives had failed.
Jenrick also said he disagreed with Anderson’s choice of language after he said migrants refusing to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge, in Portland, Dorset, should “f*** off back to France”, although he said he agreed with the point he was making.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/row-erupts-in-tory-party-over-small-boats-failure-nzchdx86j
But I now by spreadable butter, that comes in a tub like marge does. I believe its just butter with extra oils added to make it easy to spread, I don't completely understand it but its much nicer than margarine and easier to spread than solid butter so I'm fine with it.
I.e. Coca Cola.