Have you read "The Wizard and the Prophet"? It's a great book to put this into perspective and understand why those who call for real change are being labeled as "Doomers".
The book is a sort of debate between Borlaug, "Father of the Green Revolution" and Vogt, "Father of the Modern Conservation Movement". Obviously Borlaug is the "Wizard" and voice of optimism and abundance. Vogt is the "Prophet" warning of disaster and doom.
The feeling among most Elites and Intellectuals is that the "Wizards" won the debate. There wasn't mass starvation and a Soylent Green future. Human ingenuity triumphed over Nature.
They think it will again. They think Fusion, or Space Mining, or gene engineering, or nanotechnology, or AI, or some combination of all of these will pull us through to the "Techno Utopia".
Which seems to be something like Star Trek Federation World.
There’s a substack called Doomberg and it’s annoys me so much I unsubscribed lol.
What it keeps trying to skirt around in bad scientific innuendo is that ‘the climate activist are naive and young and can’t see that we NEED fossil fuels otherwise we’ll implode’. So it’s basically saying we don’t want to stop the machine so we won’t.
Young people aren’t naive, we know that stopping fossil fuels is going to lead to an end to life as we know it and that the point. This life we know is horrible as it is. Will life be slower then? Maybe but we’d rather that than this.
As a somewhat young person (23), I've got to partially disagree with you. What I see amongst those similar to my age and a few years younger in my country is an overwhelming amount of naivety. Most of them seriously believe that buying an EV instead of an ICE vehicle and sprinkling solar panels and wind turbines around the country will not only allow us to defeat the climate crisis but also maintain their lifestyles of next day deliveries and unsustainable consumption patterns. They know things will get bad, but trust that there are many Tony Starks in real life working hard to develop miracle technologies that will allow them to maintain their lifestyles.
There are some who understand our predicament (all with whom I've made sure to be friends with), but they are few and far in-between.
In my context, South Africa, it’s quite different as we are presently faced with energy and economic crises along with the highest inequality in the world.
So our imagined solutions and understanding of what’s needed is different. What you detail in your response is a pipe dream to young people in South Africa.
It's interesting that people assume we can have both an increased population (through massive public health measures, increasing lifespans etc.) AND greater consumption (through growing more food, reducing poverty, manufactured goods like EVs and solar panels, etc.) WHILE stopping the monster at all, let alone with one-and-done 'solutions'.
Additionally, perhaps the 'end of progress' in the sense of sewage / clean water / mass vaccination is the result, not of having given up, but because we've already picked all or most of the low-hanging fruit. Further progress is increasingly esoteric and subject to diminishing returns, so now it's rich men going to space. Which, when you think about it, circles back to the first paragraph up there ^^. How much more can we do in terms of saving more lives and making them more comfortable, while also dialing back the cascade of crises related to overshoot?
Some politicians are for increasing population, via removing reproductive rights or permitting more immigration (that is, allowing more people to survive bad situations in home countries by coming to the U.S., where then, hypothetically at least, they could also increase relative consumption, too.)
As far as consumption goes, I too would like to see more equitable resource sharing. However, to people accustomed to the North American lifestyle, that's going to look a whole lot like impoverishment, and no politician running on a platform of "I want to reduce our material conditions to less-developed standards (and not just for the people the voter hates)" is never going to win a position of power. However, if consumption is sufficiently reduced, that too would have an effect on population (if there's not enough shelter, food, medical care, etc. - not pretty).
Have you read "The Wizard and the Prophet"? It's a great book to put this into perspective and understand why those who call for real change are being labeled as "Doomers".
The book is a sort of debate between Borlaug, "Father of the Green Revolution" and Vogt, "Father of the Modern Conservation Movement". Obviously Borlaug is the "Wizard" and voice of optimism and abundance. Vogt is the "Prophet" warning of disaster and doom.
The feeling among most Elites and Intellectuals is that the "Wizards" won the debate. There wasn't mass starvation and a Soylent Green future. Human ingenuity triumphed over Nature.
They think it will again. They think Fusion, or Space Mining, or gene engineering, or nanotechnology, or AI, or some combination of all of these will pull us through to the "Techno Utopia".
Which seems to be something like Star Trek Federation World.
I haven't. I'll check it out, thanks!
There’s a substack called Doomberg and it’s annoys me so much I unsubscribed lol.
What it keeps trying to skirt around in bad scientific innuendo is that ‘the climate activist are naive and young and can’t see that we NEED fossil fuels otherwise we’ll implode’. So it’s basically saying we don’t want to stop the machine so we won’t.
Young people aren’t naive, we know that stopping fossil fuels is going to lead to an end to life as we know it and that the point. This life we know is horrible as it is. Will life be slower then? Maybe but we’d rather that than this.
Thank you for this stack 🌸.
As a somewhat young person (23), I've got to partially disagree with you. What I see amongst those similar to my age and a few years younger in my country is an overwhelming amount of naivety. Most of them seriously believe that buying an EV instead of an ICE vehicle and sprinkling solar panels and wind turbines around the country will not only allow us to defeat the climate crisis but also maintain their lifestyles of next day deliveries and unsustainable consumption patterns. They know things will get bad, but trust that there are many Tony Starks in real life working hard to develop miracle technologies that will allow them to maintain their lifestyles.
There are some who understand our predicament (all with whom I've made sure to be friends with), but they are few and far in-between.
In my context, South Africa, it’s quite different as we are presently faced with energy and economic crises along with the highest inequality in the world.
So our imagined solutions and understanding of what’s needed is different. What you detail in your response is a pipe dream to young people in South Africa.
It's interesting that people assume we can have both an increased population (through massive public health measures, increasing lifespans etc.) AND greater consumption (through growing more food, reducing poverty, manufactured goods like EVs and solar panels, etc.) WHILE stopping the monster at all, let alone with one-and-done 'solutions'.
Additionally, perhaps the 'end of progress' in the sense of sewage / clean water / mass vaccination is the result, not of having given up, but because we've already picked all or most of the low-hanging fruit. Further progress is increasingly esoteric and subject to diminishing returns, so now it's rich men going to space. Which, when you think about it, circles back to the first paragraph up there ^^. How much more can we do in terms of saving more lives and making them more comfortable, while also dialing back the cascade of crises related to overshoot?
It's all related.
Yes, good point. Something has to give. I vote for consumption. Our rulers are going for population
Some politicians are for increasing population, via removing reproductive rights or permitting more immigration (that is, allowing more people to survive bad situations in home countries by coming to the U.S., where then, hypothetically at least, they could also increase relative consumption, too.)
As far as consumption goes, I too would like to see more equitable resource sharing. However, to people accustomed to the North American lifestyle, that's going to look a whole lot like impoverishment, and no politician running on a platform of "I want to reduce our material conditions to less-developed standards (and not just for the people the voter hates)" is never going to win a position of power. However, if consumption is sufficiently reduced, that too would have an effect on population (if there's not enough shelter, food, medical care, etc. - not pretty).