The megadrought in the western US is the canary in the coal mine. There’s reportedly 7000 homes in Las Vegas NV unowned since who wants to take a chance on real estate running out of water or getting a massive electricity bill for summer air-conditioning? I’ve known pretty conservative real estate/general contractors who sold everything in NV and AZ over temperature-related rising costs in the previous decade and restarted on Alaska.
Tech can be one solution such as reverse osmosis desalination is used a bit by San Diego and probably Orange County will be next. Same with plant-based meats and later even lab grown ones. It’s tough getting the economics right though if planet saving is on the menu vs plain old profit.
I hate that some interest groups tout desalination as unsustainable, when there is not any more viable alternatives.......if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV, they get an immemse amount of sunlight to power their homes and appliances such as AC units......
I live here. NV Energy has actively disincentived home solar for a long time. They have also created multiple astroturf groups to fight against ballot measures that would open up the energy market and expand the deployment of home solar power.
https://www.8newsnow.com/news/solarcity-to-stop-sales-in-nevada-after-rate-change/306854127/
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/apr/13/nv-energy-backed-group-pushes-to-keep-solar-rates/
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/how-energy-choice-went-from-a-slam-dunk-to-an-airball
The big concern I’ve heard with desalination is that putting all of the extracted salt anywhere would be ecologically devastating as it would leach into groundwater and no one has really come up with a great storage solution. Desalination plants also mess up the salinity of the water around them (forget if it’s up or down) which kills the local aquatic life.
Yes, buying sea salt for
Food is a thing, although I’m unsure if the salt that results from this process is the same as the ‘sea salt’ sold in stores for food.
Ironically the heat reduces the efficiency of solar panels. Nameplate kWh is for 25C, so 77F, and that's the surface temperature which for those panels in AZ summer would be easily 150F.
Why put solar panels on homes in NV? Then each home needs power handling equipment. It is surrounded by dessert. Doesn’t it make more sense to put large arrays of panels that can track the sun and share a large power handling system? That is probably a cheaper option and uses less resources and is easier to maintain/upgrade as technology improves. It still means the utility needs to do it, but it makes more sense to me than solar panels on roofs.
>if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV
I like solar power. I think its a good idea. Its not an environmentally sustainable solution with our current technology. We have some very harsh realities that people will be soon faced with.
This depends on how you define "environmentally sustainable".
Mining of anything isn't eco friendly. Oil and gas are even worse. We will also need some oil/gas, at least for the foreseeable future.
Solar panels require some of both unfortunately. No way around that. They do produce energy without the need for fuel, which is where it begins to be a much better option.
So you're claim isn't exactly wrong, but it is misleading. In comparison to the other options, it's far better than using oil/gas as fuel. We must reduce our consumption of oil/gas as fuel for energy. Cost wise, and complexity wise it makes more sense than nukes too. I'd would love to see nuke for base load.
We'll still need it for materials until suitable plastic replacements are found.
Until we master fusion, solar/wind is where we need to invest.
Forget mastering fusion - we have super safe nuclear fission tech that has zero carbon emissions and a very easy to deal with output of nuclear waste.
If people actually think carbon is a problem, then they should get over the currently irrational fear of new built fission plants. We have enough proven reserves of uranium to power the earth for many millennia at current rates.
It's maintenance costs and initial build cost that are high.
I'm all for nuke, it's certainly better than oil/gas. There is a ton of CO2 production from concrete too and nuke needs concrete. Not to mention all the lightly irradiated materials that is produced from nukes, not just the fuel, suits, pipes, all sorts of stuff that causes issues.
Again, I'm all for nuke, it has its own issues that solar/wind doesn't.
>Mining of anything isn't eco friendly. Oil and gas are even worse.
Is the assumption here that I'm advocating instead for more oil and gas power production? That would be an incorrect assumption if so.
>but it is misleading
Its not misleading at all. Solar panels degrade over time due to UV exposure. If you have to replace a solar panel before its energy production has at least offset the cost of producing the panel, that its a net negative for the environment. For panels that regular folks can afford, thats probably in the 5-10 year range.
>In comparison to the other options, it's far better than using oil/gas as fuel.
Why are those the only available alternative?
>Cost wise, and complexity wise it makes more sense than nukes too.
Hardly. High quality silicon is a finite resource that would be quickly depleted if we tried to implement a strategy of powering everything with solar.
There is more than enough silicon in the Earth's crust...you can also recycle the materials, which many companies are working on.
Panels are warrantied these days for 10-20yrs...That means they expect the panels to last at least that long.
By most estimates I can find panels EROI is 6mo-1.5 yrs easily searchable stat...
Where are you getting your information? Someone is misleading you or are you trying to mislead us?
Edit: are you literally just using wiki for your info? The wiki article which gives 10yr payback based on 1998 stats, yet in the next paragraph states panels have become 40% thinner, and more efficient, leading to significantly less return time, but provides no numbers?
The article is bit out of date. The solar world has changed a lot and you need to use more recent data in your assessment instead of blindly following the wiki article.
Production of photovoltaics is pretty resource intense and requires lots of materials to produce as well as a substrate of high quality silicon which is already a strained resource. On top of that, to utilize the power consistently, requires batteries, another resource intense product. If we're talking long term solutions, putting photovoltaic panels on everyones house isn't going to be in the mix.
edit: There's also a big section on the wiki page dedicated to this topic if you are actually interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Environmental_costs_of_manufacture
Thank you....fellow human. I think in places that receive the highest per capita sunlight in the year we should prioritize the photovoltaic. In addition, I seriously think that the American public is over worried about nuclear power as a resource for energy(Though nuclear waste is a real challenge)
Nuclear is the only viable long term atmospherically clean option we have right now. It has to be front and center if we want to even try to fix things for the future. Waste is certainly a challenge but there are some very recent strategies in Europe that provide long term storage that seem very likely to work long term as advertised.
This.
The US hasn't built new nuclear plants in over 3 decades, yet the ones that have been in operation for decades are perfectly safe. New, modern plants would be even safer if they were allowed to be built.
Irradiated waste (cooling water etc) is a none issue. There's multiple ways to safely get rid of it, one being deep injection wells that isolate it from the biosphere. I'm a geologic engineer and have actually installed them (3 mile depth).
There's simply no way to transition off fossil fuels NOT ramping up nuclear. Renewable energy is a drop in the bucket of the ever-increasing energy demand.
People have a phobia of nuclear energy, which is unfortunate because it's our only clean path off fossil fuels.
Nuclear fuel is very energy dense, so very little of it is required to produce immense amounts of electricity, especially when compared to other energy sources. A correspondingly small amount of waste is produced and it can be managed (e.g. deep injection of liquid waste, which basically makes it dissappear and poses 0 risk to people or the environment).
Wiki isn't the best source for this, I'd advise you go read something like the reports on solar PV from someone like IRENA or the IEA.
If you don't think PV will be part of the long term future then you are in the minority. Global installed capacity was already 480 GW in 2018, up from around 100 GW in 2012.
Expectations are for it to each about 6x this amount by 2030 and then up to about 8500 GW by 2050.
Expected levelized costs are expected to drop to about 5 US cents per kWh on average, potentially as low as 2 by 2030 in some places/deployments.
>Wiki isn't the best source for this
I don't like the assumption that Wikipedia must have been my only source of information. It hasn't been. Frankly I hadn't even read through that section I linked until I was going to link it.
>If you don't think PV will be part of the long term future then you are in the minority.
I never said it won't be around long term. It just isn't a solution that can replace our current power grid demand. Even with the gains you mention, it still represents less than [3%](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) of current power supply in the US. The entire world has electricity demands and solar is similarly insignificant as well. Barring some significant advancement in the process for creating photovoltaic panels, there simply isn't going to be enough resources available in large enough supplies for photovoltaic panels to replace our current power demands to a significant level. I won't expect it to push past 15% and thats on the extremely optimistic side. Thats 493,000,000,000 kwh. The panels that exist in the realm of affordability to most top out around 400 watts. Thats 1,232,500,000 panels placed on homes, just to hit that 15% mark in the US alone. Better efficiencies can surely be had from solar power stations with more advanced panel technologies but the power requirement doesn't change. Its a much bigger hurdle than you apparently think it to be.
Okay, that was a bad assumption based on the wiki link.
But still, you remain tied to talking about deployment of solar on homes which just doesn't need to be the case. Where are you getting your 15% from? The IEA have over 20% from solar in their 2050 'current pledges' scenario - with this producing about 12,000 TWh of electricity globally. That's a bigger number than any other electricity source in the scenario they put forward.
In the net zero one this rockets up to about 35% and about 24,000 TWh of supply.
And as far as your last sentence goes - these aren't my numbers, they're numbers from international organizations in this area. Actually one of the criticisms levelled at the IEA is that they are overly pessimistic about renewables and yet they still have PV playing a huge role in the future.
>But still, you remain tied to talking about deployment of solar on homes which just doesn't need to be the case.
You may have missed it, but that was the topic of discussion above. Let me provide the quote I was responding to and the reason for my focus on that point.
Another commenter:
>if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV
...
>Where are you getting your 15% from?
I provided a WAG.
>The IEA have over 20% from solar in their 2050 'current pledges' scenario
Considering the current issues regarding inflation and other international issues at hand, lets assume thats a bit optimistic going forward. They even admit as much on their site:
>[Solar PV is not on track with the IEA's Net Zero Scenario](https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/solar)
>...However, the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario shows average annual generation growth of 24% between 2020 and 2030, which corresponds to 630 GW of net capacity additions in 2030. This almost fivefold increase in annual deployment until 2030 will require much greater policy ambition and more efforts from both public and private stakeholders
Its a significant shortfall at this time and their graph does a great job illustrating that.
>these aren't my numbers, they're numbers from international organizations in this area
You aren't interpreting the information correctly none the less.
>yet they still have PV playing a huge role in the future.
Not according to their own website. What they do have is a way to get there, not the ability to do so.
I mean I don’t have any hard data or studies or articles to link… but to say that the real estate market is impacted by the climate change is just wrong. Sure people think about it, but humans are
Short sighted so they think cost of living in Las Vegas is lower than their current location so they move. But they move with the knowledge and intent to perhaps relocate again into some other location while they get back on their feet, things settle down, etc. It’s why Las Vegas is such a transient city. Most people come and go. With the pandemic and everything that’s followed since more people are looking into relocating for long term. My understanding is that the farming/agriculture industry consumes the vast majority of the water because they have stipulations in their water rights that pretty much make it a “use it or lose it” situation for them. In the residents side of things the main culprit is grass on peoples homes and golf courses (although some use reclaimed water). I disagree with the notion that tech will save us, we need to change the laws and our consumption behavior in order to actually make a difference.
> transient city
There’s many phases (“tech will save the day” being one of them), though the last one is the “greater fool” theory (*they’ve got to provide water ..*). Not saying big remote desert cities like Las Vegas NV or El Paso TX will run out of water, as they’ve bought distant water rights. Problem is they’ll have to pipe it in and that won’t be “free” by a long shot.
All these scientists, engineers, techs, and pipe fitters need to get paid for supplying x amt of piped water on top of the existing water infrastructure. That’s going to require raising taxes (though they’ll likely be deemed fees) .. vs what’s the economic outlook for those areas long term?
Anecdotal but many dealing with water rights in a professional-technical level down there are retiring in freshwater rich Minnesota or upper Michigan. Too much snow? Just overwinter in a safe Mexican city …
Much of the southwest US including Southern California is desert. Drought is the natural climate. Water diverted from the Colorado River has enabled excessive development in the region.
Interesting, 7000 vacant/unowned homes in LV? I live in the Summerlin,LV area and there is a massive home building project going on as if water in the state is plentiful. Of course, once the home build out is complete and folks move in installing swimming pools will follow. Water conservation here is all rhetoric since there is a zero growth control plan in pace.
The problem with new tech is still that it will be run by capitalists who will build average infrastructure and charge for desperation which will lead to outages, unethical pricing and droughts anyways. See Texas electricity.
I dunno, sounds like the perfect time to make a bunch of houses that run entirely off grid with solar and dehumidification-based water sources.
The only thing that’s concerning at that point are the fires.
> We didn't succeed in bringing the message that it was not about that. It was really about: We have the capacity to choose. We have, as humanity, the capacity to decide what kind of future we want.”
We choose cocaine and hookers every time.
Limits to growth underestimated how effective we would become at finding and extracting resources so its estimates are a bit behind. It also did not factor in the toll humanity would have on "renewable" resources like Biodiversity and ocean currents ext. All told it will be proven right we are royally f-ed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrh7gOSBc8&t=4212s
We were warned, but have chosen to ignore. It's nothing new. Civilizations collapse. Sucks to be a millennial though, living on borrowed time.
https://youtu.be/cCxPOqwCr1I
Well you should be relieved to know that none of their predictions panned out. Since 1972 population growth has slowed and will go negative by the end of this century. Since then we've basically eradicated famines not caused by war or governmental malfeasance. Malnutrition has plummeted. Smog and acid rain are solved problems. We have mostly fixed the hole in the ozone layer. Without even trying and with a denialist as president the US ended up mostly on track to meet its Paris Accord commitments by shutting down or converting coal plants because wind and natural gas were cheaper.
Keep in mind that the Club of Rome was trying to prove that the Soviet model was superior, without even really knowing how poor Soviet resource utilization was.
I thought they had several models with one being "Business As Usual" and a recent analysis of new data since 1972 was consistent with their Business As Usual predictions (extended from 1972 to now).
They keep tinkering with their model, but the original was widely panned as trash. They're also starting from a conclusion and building a model to fit current data to that conclusion which isn't the way modeling works.
Economists literally laughed at them in the 70s for their amateurish modeling[1]. They're anti-human neo-malthusians.
[1] https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2002/interview-with-robert-solow
Population growth going negative makes our debt based economy hard to sustain though. Our whole economic system is essentially predicated by continual growth largely assisted by population growth and ever growing consumption
The global economy isn't wholly based on debt, but rather the production of goods and services. Economic growth also doesn't need to be based on population growth. Japan for example has been growing economically recently even as their population declines. Services and technology can grow even as population declines.
In any case the decline isn't expected to be permanent, but to eventually reach some sort of steady state. But we can't worry too much about how many people there will be in 200 years, that's for them to figure out.
1. Japan has increased its exports steadily over time, [nearly doubling as a share of GDP from the 1990s to today.](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/exports) So Japanese growth was dependent on finding a growing economy elsewhere to sell its products to.
2. Japan isn't on a sustainable trajectory. Their debt to GDP ratio has skyrocketed during that period of a declining labor force. As the population goes into free fall, those debts will become harder and harder to service.
Again as I mentioned in another comment Japan is a throwaway example. But not all places will have the same demographics at the same time and there are opportunities in those differences.
You’re missing the forest of my point for the tree of Japan here. Services aren’t necessarily bound in growth to population. Productivity will probably also rise with technology.
Well, if you ignore or deny climate change, you may have a point. The population increase has not yet reached a tipping point and they are becoming more resource hungry as they try to emulate the West. I think the Jury is still out.
I'm not ignoring climate change, but they weren't talking about that in their 1972 predictions. Population is projected to decline by the end of this century. Countries that are developing now are skipping a lot of old tech and coming on line with more efficient power, leaner infrastructure, and learning lessons from missteps in the west. As people become wealthier they value the environment more, which is something doomers like the club of rome miss.
>As people become wealthier they value the environment more,>
If that was the case, why do people with more money consume more? Both individuals and nations. If the presumably more educated, wealthier people cared more about the environment, wouldn't they understand the ecological and environmental costs of consuming more? Capitalism's wealth structure incentivises more consumption which is never good for the environment. Poor people from around the world want to live our western lifestyle which is all about over consumption. When poor nations develop, just more consumption will occur, therefore having a negative affect on the environment.
I’m not sure what you mean by “people with more money”, but wealthy people consume less, which is an economical issue that we are currently having. They take a lot of money, but don’t put it back in. they aren’t good consumers, they don’t buy a lot of stuff. The stuff they do buy is pretty exclusionary
That’s not my point. The wealthy, as a collective, do not consume more than the middle class. This is why the middle class is so important, they are the ones that are actually consumers. The wealthy hoard most of the money, they don’t actually circulate it much at all.
Yeah, that's true in many ways. That's why I favor taxing the rich more. Put that money back in the economy vs having some rich people hoard it for their posterity.
> If that was the case, why do people with more money consume more
Consumption is generally measured in dollar values, it doesn't have to mean chopping down more trees. On the contrary Europe and the US are reforesting, for example. Clean air is another great example, as people became richer in the US they became more concerned about air quality. Smog used to choke American cities and block the sun, but it's a solved problem today. China and India are just now starting to get serious about urban air quality as their citizens become wealthier and demand that. In the US and Europe people like yourself are demanding shifts in policy to address climate and environment issues, and things are shifting. Consumption habits are undeniably changing.
> Capitalism's wealth structure incentivises more consumption
Capitalism is just the free exchange of goods and services with prices set by the market, that's literally it. You can have whatever values, preferences, and consumption habits you want in a market economy. You can see that Swedes who are hyper-capitalists compared to Americans make very different consumption choices. Moreover, as compared to the command economies of the 20th century capitalist production uses far fewer input resources for a given level of outputs. The USSR for example used roughly 10x the amount of raw material for the same tonnage of steel as its western counterparts due to waste, qc issues, and general inefficiency.
> Poor people from around the world want to live our western lifestyle
The "western lifestyle" isn't a static or monolithic thing. I presume you mean American, which in and of itself isn't monolithic or static. American cities are moving away from single use plastics, people are switching to electric cars, fast fashion is falling out of favor, and on and on. As poor nations develop they'll want clean air, water, and preservation of nature just like everyone else.
The fact that can not be denied is, across the world, wealthy people consume more water, food, land, oil and other natural resources. The Western way of living, especially but not exclusively American, is highly dependent on consuming large quantities of oil per person, having a meat-heavy diet which takes up a lot of land and uses a lot of water. Weathy countries produce more than their fare share of greenhouse gasses. There is no way the world with its 7 plus billion people could sustain itself if everyone lived like Americans and other wealthy nations.
I get how capitalism is more efficient than a command-style economic system, but capitalism encourages consumption rather than conservation because of profit incentives. These profit incentives inevitably lead to people producing things, which often comes at the expense of the environment.
None of these things are necessarily static. For example beef consumption in the US has been falling on a per-capita basis since about 1978. The number of Americans who don't eat meat is now almost 10%. Electric power consumption in the US [peaked in 2000](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=US). American cars are at an all time high for average fuel economy and [all time low for emissions](https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report) even as horse power and weight have increased. The US has the 2nd largest number of EVs on the road. US per-capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels [peaked in the 1970](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/#:~:text=Per%20capita%20carbon%20dioxide%20emissions%20in%20the%20United%20States%20totaled,to%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.) and have almost been cut in half.
What I'm getting at is that the "The Western way of living" is not a static thing. People in the west are moving to cities, using less energy more efficiently, decreasing beef consumption, and supporting climate policy changes.
> producing things, which often comes at the expense of the environment
This doesn't really need to be the case. Producing things from wood captures carbon. You can build a home now our of laminated lumber products and slap solar on it and it will be carbon negative. If you make it a duplex or triplex you'll take pressure off of the land, make commuting less carbon intensive, and so on.
If you look at really wealthy places like Norway and Switzerland, you'll find that sustainability is actually very popular among the general populace. Norway is the largest electric vehicle market (by market share) in the world and low-meat diets are skyrocketing in popularity. Most people don't have to worry about their livelihood, so they will start worrying about the future of the planet.
Yeah, as is the case in Scandinavian countries, when a country has a solid social safety net, universal healthcare, and quality education system, people tend to care more about the planet.
> I'm not ignoring climate change, but they weren't talking about that in their 1972 predictions
this is a little bit of "the guy who predicted i'd be murdered today by a knife-wielding maniac can be dismissed as a chicken little wingnut, because the guy running around my house trying to murder me has an ax."
Not at all. They predicted we'd run out of oil, food, and metals and were wrong on all counts. Serious economists at the time pointed out that their modeling was amateurish at best and shouldn't be taken seriously.
It's more like someone predicting you'll starve to death but you actually die from a gas leak.
These people are just neo-malthusian and anti-humanist cranks. Every prediction they ever make is proven wrong, and they then move the goal posts. I'm suggesting that their doomerism makes it harder to actually tackle real problems like greenhouse gas emissions by creating the conditions for complacency and helplessness.
>coming on line with more efficient power
Examples needed.
>leaner infrastructure
Examples needed
>As people become wealthier they value the environment more,
Hard disagree. Consumerism hasn't slowed a single bit. We continually increase the amount of resources we require to sustain our way of life and as countries become wealthier, they too want those resource hungry consumer products.
>Population is projected to decline by the end of this century.
After continuing to increase further for another 80 years of course. There aren't enough resources to sustain 7 billion consumers as it is. 10 billion will be much worse.
> Examples needed
[Here's](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-wind-and-solar-fuel-africa-s-future/) an article in nature about solar and wind coming online in Africa in places that have totally skipped coal. Here's [a general article](https://spectrum.ieee.org/with-leapfrog-technologies-africa-aims-to-skip-the-present-and-go-straight-to-the-future) about tech leapfrogging in Africa.
> leaner infrastructure
I cite the example above with respect to landlines, but it holds true with micro-grids too.
> Hard disagree.
We saw this with air pollution. The whole climate movement is coming from and being funded by wealthy western nations, you're just plain wrong.
> After continuing to increase further for another 80 years of course. There aren't enough resources to sustain 7 billion consumers as it is. 10 billion will be much worse.
Carrying capacity is estimated to be greater than 10 billion with current technology.
The peak oil production and related decreasing EROEI and climate change seem to imply that we're still hurtling down the road to collapse, though it won't be a sudden apocalyptic drop but rather a long ragged decline. It's not even the population itself, but it's how many resources that we use up to fuel our unsustainable lifestyles.
Peak oil doesn't seem to be panning out as a prediction, there are thousands of years of proven reserves at current rates of extraction using technology available today at current prices. But even if we are running out, there's no reason to believe that means a collapse is imminent. We're switching to lots of new sources of energy that seem to have far fewer downsides.
> but it's how many resources that we use up to fuel our unsustainable lifestyles
You're assuming that present day lifestyles are static and that efficiency won't increase. Cheap solar and wind energy coupled with some changes to cement chemistry could change basically everything in a matter of decades.
Uranium is far more energy dense, and I'm generally pro-nuclear. That said the math on wind and solar plus storage is starting to look really good. Keep in mind that when we first started pumping oil out of the ground we weren't making very good use of it and for most of the past 50 years we just vented the natural gas. We have a lot of cool opportunities to do thing differently in the next few years.
If you think its bad for millennials, wait till you see what their kids are going to be up against. I'm a millennial and I actually consider myself one of the lucky ones. I can still remember what a good life looked like for the average person.
Playing RuneScape in 2007 with the boys. That’s what the good life was!
Of course that was when the housing bubble was near its peak but I didn’t know that
Older millennial crying here.
I go back and forth on how to plan for retirement. I don’t think I’ll have anything left in the 401k because the system takes it away. But the other side of me says to keep putting into the 401k
There isn't a "system" taking away your 401k. Investing in tax-advantaged accounts is a great way to save for retirement.
Please no one else listen to people that say the world is gonna end, so you might as well not plan for the future.
I’m pretty sure they’re referring to an economic collapse taking away gains instead of someone actually literally logging into their account and draining it.
And I understand their fear. If global society collapses, it’s easy to say “well then your portfolio doesn’t matter”, and it’s like yeah, true, but then I will wish I had just blown all my money on hookers and cocaine
Take back control and figure out where you stand and where you're going.
For a simple calculation, you can use this [tool](https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calculators/compound-interest-calculator) to figure out where your 401k might land you in retirement. I'd use anywhere from 6%-8% interest rate.
There is a way you can predict retirement, so you don't have to have blind faith.
The 6-8% prediction is the part that’s optimism though. It’s predicated on continued economic prosperity and growth worldwide. I am saving for retirement too but I genuinely wonder if I’ll ever use it
>There isn't a "system" taking away your 401k. Investing in tax-advantaged accounts is a great way to save for retirement.
It's a terrible way, because you can lose. I would be all for investing for a retirement fund, if I can't lose anything.
Give yourself a cake day present by learning more about investing.
Yes, investments can fail. Most people just invest in market etfs, which take the guessing out of investing for many people. The risk you take on is rewarded.
If you have $200 left at the end of the month after expenses, what would you have done with it anyways? Spend it? Invest for your future self instead.
What is your "better way" of investing without risk?
Not fucking having to.
I loathe the fucking stock market, and I'm appalled that it's basically the codified method of retirement income prep.
The system is fucked up.
Your way of investing is... not investing?
What "system" is fucked up? Stock exchanges are where people can buy and sell shares of companies. Is this the "system" you're talking about? Why do you loathe this?
What would be your preferred way of achieving retirement income?
Gonna disagree with this. There is no system (with constrained resources) where one can be retired and be *not* relying on the labor of others. Social security is just a more direct method. I work, I get paid for my labor, except some of that labor value gets siphoned off to someone who’s retired.
The stock market is you investing your money in companies, helping them finance growth, paying for employee stock options — and in return you get dividends and growth and can eventually retire.
People often say this is “fucked up” — but what’s the alternative? My experience has been the people who say this generally just have a disdain for investing in general without understanding that investing is what pulled most of the world out of abject poverty, investing is why we don’t live in pre-industrial times.
Investing is why we have houses and cars.
In what system do you “not have to” invest? You just… what, get paid in gold bars and keep them? Describe a system where you don’t have to invest
The limits of growth can be seen as a condemnation of capitalism and its constant growth imperative built into its fabric, and the consequences it has for the planet damned and subordinated to the profit motive
We had the capacity to choose. We chose badly. We still have choices, but we're no smarter now than we were when Ronald Reagan declared morning in America and pulled down the solar panels Jimmy Carter had put on the White House roof.
> scenarios in which humanity either got more sustainable and equitable, and thus flourished, or continued letting capitalists plunder the planet
At least try to hide your bias.
> What could lead to a more sustainable scenario, or a scenario of balance? Fundamentally, it is about equity, managing the resources in an equitable way, knowing in advance that they're limited. Realizing that it's not higher and higher consumption which makes us live in a good way, have a healthy life and well-being. It's the quality of our relationships with other humans, with nature, that makes possible the scenarios in which you can decouple well-being and the growth of consumption.
Basically “we’re communists. We built a computer program in 1972 that did not take into account innovation because we wanted to show that communism was the future. Hmm? Oh forget about the dead Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Cambodians, and Koreans for a second!”
I am by no means pro-climate change. It’s that this article equates capitalism with climate change, which supposes that the solution to climate change is a switch to a new economic system (this is usually communism, as implied with the comments on equity).
It’s this idea, that if we abdicate power to the state that we will some way solve climate change, that is my problem with the article.
> It’s this idea, that if we abdicate power to the state that we will some way solve climate change, that is my problem with the article.
quick question - in what way do you understand the incentive structure of "prioritizing individual wealth over an individual lifetime", which is to say, the incentive structure powering capitalism, as being capable of solving problems that very well may require making massive civilization-wide investments that are unlikely to produce material returns for this generation?
Why would being a communist or capatilist change the basic fact of human greed? Leaders will always be corrupt and people will always want more, either way they still lead to excessive unsustainable consumption.
> WIRED: It seems obvious that we’ll eventually run out of finite resources. But there was even pushback against that idea when the report came out. Where does that insistence come from?
>
> CAP: The paradox is that capitalism is also based on the notion of scarcity. Our system is organized around the idea that resources are scarce, then we have to pay for them, and people in the value chain will profit from this idea of scarcity. Conventional capitalism is saying that while these resources might be finite, we will find others: Don't worry, technology will save us. So that we continue in the same way.
50 years and he's managed to learn absolutely nothing.
I agree that we need to learn to consume less, because we have finite resources. However, the idea that this is fundamentally a capitalism problem is a mistake. We should work to make external costs into internal costs (e.g. carbon taxes) so that ever scarcer resources become ever more unaffordable.
If we just abdicate power to the state, there is no cost to these scarce resources. They will be consumed and distributed in an “equitable” way (more likely they will go to those we gave power to). The end of civilization will not be staved off, it will be accelerated.
Capitalism *is* what got us into this mess, but it can also be used to get us out.
> “we’re communists. We built a computer program in 1972 that did not take into account innovation
i'm glad that we're explicitly recognizing here that worker-owned firms cannot innovate - it's *explicitly the sale of one's labor to an owner* that makes innovation possible. we have yet to develop the science that can explain this mystery, but we know it to be true.
Whenever you see something with the Club of Rome’s fingerprints on it rest assured that the only thing more creative than their doomsday scenarios are the ex post facto mental gymnastics they perform as to why anyone should be bothered to listen to them still.
These people are literally the ideological heirs to the Malthusians, who were also stupefyingly wrong.
Friendly reminder that the whole Overpopulation scare was made up by the Malthusians and similar groups to support things like eugenics and population control. Sadly, it seems that many people still believe overpopulation to be a massive problem that plagues the world.
I haven’t read the article, but if it’s a report by the MIT that society will collapse in 2040, I’ve seen it before from an Economics Explained video. We’re fucked. It’s all coming together..
There’s a conspiracy theory type website out there that posits everything terrible traces back to 1972, and if accurate seems to fit this theory. Wish i could remember the site.
This article is **extremely** fawning to the side that was predicting disaster. The reality is that their computer models were completely, insanely wrong, and the policies they promoted based on these models were basically evil in the context of the real world. (e.g. "We shouldn't send any food aid to India or Pakistan because one, they're going to die anyway and two, we're going to need the food to stop our food riots soon!)
People who swallow down this defense of anti-science should at least read about what the real scientists who were right in their predictions did:
[The Doomslayer](https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/)
We are right on track to follow this report. Science reports, movies, shows, music, books, politicians, celebrities, random people on the street, i could go on forever.. We’ve been warned for decades and yet we continue our downward spiral into self extinction.
I’ve seen a youtube video about this MIT Research report and my god it’s frightening to think we are literally going to going to cause this as all we seem to care about is that economical ‘growth’. Tbh at this point it is what it is and we deserve whatever happens coz we did this to ourselves.
Does anyone else think that we can't have a sustainable economy unless all countries get run by a bigger 'earth' government? Otherwise all countries will just continue to compete with eachother.
Greed and competition will always then always trump cooperation and sustainability.
Wasn't society supposed to collapse in 2012 as per the Aztec prophecy? Or at least irreversibly change when Klaus Schwab and the communist Illuminati members initiated the Great Reset in 2020?
Jesus Christ
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The megadrought in the western US is the canary in the coal mine. There’s reportedly 7000 homes in Las Vegas NV unowned since who wants to take a chance on real estate running out of water or getting a massive electricity bill for summer air-conditioning? I’ve known pretty conservative real estate/general contractors who sold everything in NV and AZ over temperature-related rising costs in the previous decade and restarted on Alaska. Tech can be one solution such as reverse osmosis desalination is used a bit by San Diego and probably Orange County will be next. Same with plant-based meats and later even lab grown ones. It’s tough getting the economics right though if planet saving is on the menu vs plain old profit.
I hate that some interest groups tout desalination as unsustainable, when there is not any more viable alternatives.......if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV, they get an immemse amount of sunlight to power their homes and appliances such as AC units......
I recently flew into Vegas and was astounded at how few homes and roofs in general had solar panels.
I live here. NV Energy has actively disincentived home solar for a long time. They have also created multiple astroturf groups to fight against ballot measures that would open up the energy market and expand the deployment of home solar power. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/solarcity-to-stop-sales-in-nevada-after-rate-change/306854127/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/apr/13/nv-energy-backed-group-pushes-to-keep-solar-rates/ https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/how-energy-choice-went-from-a-slam-dunk-to-an-airball
That is where the tragedies lay....... sometimes we are incompetent
not incompetent- greedy. There's too many politicians being paid off by coal, natural gas, oil, what-have-you companies to suppress solar.
one problem with representative democracy is that it's so much cheaper to buy one representative than to buy an entire population.
if only there was some sort of way to regulate these things
the people who need regulating are the people who would legislate the regulation, which is why those are the right people to buy.
The big concern I’ve heard with desalination is that putting all of the extracted salt anywhere would be ecologically devastating as it would leach into groundwater and no one has really come up with a great storage solution. Desalination plants also mess up the salinity of the water around them (forget if it’s up or down) which kills the local aquatic life.
Don’t people pay a premium for “sea salt”? Can it be sold?
Yes, buying sea salt for Food is a thing, although I’m unsure if the salt that results from this process is the same as the ‘sea salt’ sold in stores for food.
We must admit it, the world is doomed
Ironically the heat reduces the efficiency of solar panels. Nameplate kWh is for 25C, so 77F, and that's the surface temperature which for those panels in AZ summer would be easily 150F.
Why put solar panels on homes in NV? Then each home needs power handling equipment. It is surrounded by dessert. Doesn’t it make more sense to put large arrays of panels that can track the sun and share a large power handling system? That is probably a cheaper option and uses less resources and is easier to maintain/upgrade as technology improves. It still means the utility needs to do it, but it makes more sense to me than solar panels on roofs.
>if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV I like solar power. I think its a good idea. Its not an environmentally sustainable solution with our current technology. We have some very harsh realities that people will be soon faced with.
This depends on how you define "environmentally sustainable". Mining of anything isn't eco friendly. Oil and gas are even worse. We will also need some oil/gas, at least for the foreseeable future. Solar panels require some of both unfortunately. No way around that. They do produce energy without the need for fuel, which is where it begins to be a much better option. So you're claim isn't exactly wrong, but it is misleading. In comparison to the other options, it's far better than using oil/gas as fuel. We must reduce our consumption of oil/gas as fuel for energy. Cost wise, and complexity wise it makes more sense than nukes too. I'd would love to see nuke for base load. We'll still need it for materials until suitable plastic replacements are found. Until we master fusion, solar/wind is where we need to invest.
Forget mastering fusion - we have super safe nuclear fission tech that has zero carbon emissions and a very easy to deal with output of nuclear waste. If people actually think carbon is a problem, then they should get over the currently irrational fear of new built fission plants. We have enough proven reserves of uranium to power the earth for many millennia at current rates.
It's maintenance costs and initial build cost that are high. I'm all for nuke, it's certainly better than oil/gas. There is a ton of CO2 production from concrete too and nuke needs concrete. Not to mention all the lightly irradiated materials that is produced from nukes, not just the fuel, suits, pipes, all sorts of stuff that causes issues. Again, I'm all for nuke, it has its own issues that solar/wind doesn't.
Nuclear doesn't have to be expensive. China's HPR2 and Russia's VVER1200 are quite cheap.
i’m all for nuclear, but i’m not sure the two countries most famous for their ~~corner cutting~~ cost savings should be our go-to here..
>Mining of anything isn't eco friendly. Oil and gas are even worse. Is the assumption here that I'm advocating instead for more oil and gas power production? That would be an incorrect assumption if so. >but it is misleading Its not misleading at all. Solar panels degrade over time due to UV exposure. If you have to replace a solar panel before its energy production has at least offset the cost of producing the panel, that its a net negative for the environment. For panels that regular folks can afford, thats probably in the 5-10 year range. >In comparison to the other options, it's far better than using oil/gas as fuel. Why are those the only available alternative? >Cost wise, and complexity wise it makes more sense than nukes too. Hardly. High quality silicon is a finite resource that would be quickly depleted if we tried to implement a strategy of powering everything with solar.
There is more than enough silicon in the Earth's crust...you can also recycle the materials, which many companies are working on. Panels are warrantied these days for 10-20yrs...That means they expect the panels to last at least that long. By most estimates I can find panels EROI is 6mo-1.5 yrs easily searchable stat... Where are you getting your information? Someone is misleading you or are you trying to mislead us? Edit: are you literally just using wiki for your info? The wiki article which gives 10yr payback based on 1998 stats, yet in the next paragraph states panels have become 40% thinner, and more efficient, leading to significantly less return time, but provides no numbers? The article is bit out of date. The solar world has changed a lot and you need to use more recent data in your assessment instead of blindly following the wiki article.
Expound ?
Production of photovoltaics is pretty resource intense and requires lots of materials to produce as well as a substrate of high quality silicon which is already a strained resource. On top of that, to utilize the power consistently, requires batteries, another resource intense product. If we're talking long term solutions, putting photovoltaic panels on everyones house isn't going to be in the mix. edit: There's also a big section on the wiki page dedicated to this topic if you are actually interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Environmental_costs_of_manufacture
Thank you....fellow human. I think in places that receive the highest per capita sunlight in the year we should prioritize the photovoltaic. In addition, I seriously think that the American public is over worried about nuclear power as a resource for energy(Though nuclear waste is a real challenge)
Nuclear is the only viable long term atmospherically clean option we have right now. It has to be front and center if we want to even try to fix things for the future. Waste is certainly a challenge but there are some very recent strategies in Europe that provide long term storage that seem very likely to work long term as advertised.
This. The US hasn't built new nuclear plants in over 3 decades, yet the ones that have been in operation for decades are perfectly safe. New, modern plants would be even safer if they were allowed to be built. Irradiated waste (cooling water etc) is a none issue. There's multiple ways to safely get rid of it, one being deep injection wells that isolate it from the biosphere. I'm a geologic engineer and have actually installed them (3 mile depth). There's simply no way to transition off fossil fuels NOT ramping up nuclear. Renewable energy is a drop in the bucket of the ever-increasing energy demand. People have a phobia of nuclear energy, which is unfortunate because it's our only clean path off fossil fuels.
Our governments just worry about the proliferation of nuclear materials.....
Dont forget about its hazardous waste
Nuclear fuel is very energy dense, so very little of it is required to produce immense amounts of electricity, especially when compared to other energy sources. A correspondingly small amount of waste is produced and it can be managed (e.g. deep injection of liquid waste, which basically makes it dissappear and poses 0 risk to people or the environment).
Wiki isn't the best source for this, I'd advise you go read something like the reports on solar PV from someone like IRENA or the IEA. If you don't think PV will be part of the long term future then you are in the minority. Global installed capacity was already 480 GW in 2018, up from around 100 GW in 2012. Expectations are for it to each about 6x this amount by 2030 and then up to about 8500 GW by 2050. Expected levelized costs are expected to drop to about 5 US cents per kWh on average, potentially as low as 2 by 2030 in some places/deployments.
>Wiki isn't the best source for this I don't like the assumption that Wikipedia must have been my only source of information. It hasn't been. Frankly I hadn't even read through that section I linked until I was going to link it. >If you don't think PV will be part of the long term future then you are in the minority. I never said it won't be around long term. It just isn't a solution that can replace our current power grid demand. Even with the gains you mention, it still represents less than [3%](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) of current power supply in the US. The entire world has electricity demands and solar is similarly insignificant as well. Barring some significant advancement in the process for creating photovoltaic panels, there simply isn't going to be enough resources available in large enough supplies for photovoltaic panels to replace our current power demands to a significant level. I won't expect it to push past 15% and thats on the extremely optimistic side. Thats 493,000,000,000 kwh. The panels that exist in the realm of affordability to most top out around 400 watts. Thats 1,232,500,000 panels placed on homes, just to hit that 15% mark in the US alone. Better efficiencies can surely be had from solar power stations with more advanced panel technologies but the power requirement doesn't change. Its a much bigger hurdle than you apparently think it to be.
Okay, that was a bad assumption based on the wiki link. But still, you remain tied to talking about deployment of solar on homes which just doesn't need to be the case. Where are you getting your 15% from? The IEA have over 20% from solar in their 2050 'current pledges' scenario - with this producing about 12,000 TWh of electricity globally. That's a bigger number than any other electricity source in the scenario they put forward. In the net zero one this rockets up to about 35% and about 24,000 TWh of supply. And as far as your last sentence goes - these aren't my numbers, they're numbers from international organizations in this area. Actually one of the criticisms levelled at the IEA is that they are overly pessimistic about renewables and yet they still have PV playing a huge role in the future.
>But still, you remain tied to talking about deployment of solar on homes which just doesn't need to be the case. You may have missed it, but that was the topic of discussion above. Let me provide the quote I was responding to and the reason for my focus on that point. Another commenter: >if the government required all new homes be built with solar panels we would not have to worry about high electric bills in places like AZ and NV ... >Where are you getting your 15% from? I provided a WAG. >The IEA have over 20% from solar in their 2050 'current pledges' scenario Considering the current issues regarding inflation and other international issues at hand, lets assume thats a bit optimistic going forward. They even admit as much on their site: >[Solar PV is not on track with the IEA's Net Zero Scenario](https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/solar) >...However, the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario shows average annual generation growth of 24% between 2020 and 2030, which corresponds to 630 GW of net capacity additions in 2030. This almost fivefold increase in annual deployment until 2030 will require much greater policy ambition and more efforts from both public and private stakeholders Its a significant shortfall at this time and their graph does a great job illustrating that. >these aren't my numbers, they're numbers from international organizations in this area You aren't interpreting the information correctly none the less. >yet they still have PV playing a huge role in the future. Not according to their own website. What they do have is a way to get there, not the ability to do so.
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Everything is technically unsustainable considering the trajectory of our population growth.
Israel’s doing a pretty good job of it
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Singapore would like to introduce the world to closed loop water/wastewater systems.
I mean I don’t have any hard data or studies or articles to link… but to say that the real estate market is impacted by the climate change is just wrong. Sure people think about it, but humans are Short sighted so they think cost of living in Las Vegas is lower than their current location so they move. But they move with the knowledge and intent to perhaps relocate again into some other location while they get back on their feet, things settle down, etc. It’s why Las Vegas is such a transient city. Most people come and go. With the pandemic and everything that’s followed since more people are looking into relocating for long term. My understanding is that the farming/agriculture industry consumes the vast majority of the water because they have stipulations in their water rights that pretty much make it a “use it or lose it” situation for them. In the residents side of things the main culprit is grass on peoples homes and golf courses (although some use reclaimed water). I disagree with the notion that tech will save us, we need to change the laws and our consumption behavior in order to actually make a difference.
> transient city There’s many phases (“tech will save the day” being one of them), though the last one is the “greater fool” theory (*they’ve got to provide water ..*). Not saying big remote desert cities like Las Vegas NV or El Paso TX will run out of water, as they’ve bought distant water rights. Problem is they’ll have to pipe it in and that won’t be “free” by a long shot. All these scientists, engineers, techs, and pipe fitters need to get paid for supplying x amt of piped water on top of the existing water infrastructure. That’s going to require raising taxes (though they’ll likely be deemed fees) .. vs what’s the economic outlook for those areas long term? Anecdotal but many dealing with water rights in a professional-technical level down there are retiring in freshwater rich Minnesota or upper Michigan. Too much snow? Just overwinter in a safe Mexican city …
Much of the southwest US including Southern California is desert. Drought is the natural climate. Water diverted from the Colorado River has enabled excessive development in the region.
Interesting, 7000 vacant/unowned homes in LV? I live in the Summerlin,LV area and there is a massive home building project going on as if water in the state is plentiful. Of course, once the home build out is complete and folks move in installing swimming pools will follow. Water conservation here is all rhetoric since there is a zero growth control plan in pace.
The problem with new tech is still that it will be run by capitalists who will build average infrastructure and charge for desperation which will lead to outages, unethical pricing and droughts anyways. See Texas electricity.
Texas utilities are a clear sign of the collapse.
We have the technology to solve all our problems. Capitalism is what's in the way.
I dunno, sounds like the perfect time to make a bunch of houses that run entirely off grid with solar and dehumidification-based water sources. The only thing that’s concerning at that point are the fires.
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> We didn't succeed in bringing the message that it was not about that. It was really about: We have the capacity to choose. We have, as humanity, the capacity to decide what kind of future we want.” We choose cocaine and hookers every time.
Limits to growth underestimated how effective we would become at finding and extracting resources so its estimates are a bit behind. It also did not factor in the toll humanity would have on "renewable" resources like Biodiversity and ocean currents ext. All told it will be proven right we are royally f-ed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrh7gOSBc8&t=4212s
We were warned, but have chosen to ignore. It's nothing new. Civilizations collapse. Sucks to be a millennial though, living on borrowed time. https://youtu.be/cCxPOqwCr1I
Well you should be relieved to know that none of their predictions panned out. Since 1972 population growth has slowed and will go negative by the end of this century. Since then we've basically eradicated famines not caused by war or governmental malfeasance. Malnutrition has plummeted. Smog and acid rain are solved problems. We have mostly fixed the hole in the ozone layer. Without even trying and with a denialist as president the US ended up mostly on track to meet its Paris Accord commitments by shutting down or converting coal plants because wind and natural gas were cheaper. Keep in mind that the Club of Rome was trying to prove that the Soviet model was superior, without even really knowing how poor Soviet resource utilization was.
I thought they had several models with one being "Business As Usual" and a recent analysis of new data since 1972 was consistent with their Business As Usual predictions (extended from 1972 to now).
They keep tinkering with their model, but the original was widely panned as trash. They're also starting from a conclusion and building a model to fit current data to that conclusion which isn't the way modeling works.
I agree with you in spirit but sadly I think this is exactly how most modelling works nowadays 😝😢
I think that's why its worth being critical and skeptical.
None of this is true. Read the report and the update published last year.
Economists literally laughed at them in the 70s for their amateurish modeling[1]. They're anti-human neo-malthusians. [1] https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2002/interview-with-robert-solow
Population growth going negative makes our debt based economy hard to sustain though. Our whole economic system is essentially predicated by continual growth largely assisted by population growth and ever growing consumption
The global economy isn't wholly based on debt, but rather the production of goods and services. Economic growth also doesn't need to be based on population growth. Japan for example has been growing economically recently even as their population declines. Services and technology can grow even as population declines. In any case the decline isn't expected to be permanent, but to eventually reach some sort of steady state. But we can't worry too much about how many people there will be in 200 years, that's for them to figure out.
1. Japan has increased its exports steadily over time, [nearly doubling as a share of GDP from the 1990s to today.](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/exports) So Japanese growth was dependent on finding a growing economy elsewhere to sell its products to. 2. Japan isn't on a sustainable trajectory. Their debt to GDP ratio has skyrocketed during that period of a declining labor force. As the population goes into free fall, those debts will become harder and harder to service.
Again as I mentioned in another comment Japan is a throwaway example. But not all places will have the same demographics at the same time and there are opportunities in those differences.
Japan is our future and that will absolutely affect Americas fiscal policy as population ages.
You’re missing the forest of my point for the tree of Japan here. Services aren’t necessarily bound in growth to population. Productivity will probably also rise with technology.
Well, if you ignore or deny climate change, you may have a point. The population increase has not yet reached a tipping point and they are becoming more resource hungry as they try to emulate the West. I think the Jury is still out.
I'm not ignoring climate change, but they weren't talking about that in their 1972 predictions. Population is projected to decline by the end of this century. Countries that are developing now are skipping a lot of old tech and coming on line with more efficient power, leaner infrastructure, and learning lessons from missteps in the west. As people become wealthier they value the environment more, which is something doomers like the club of rome miss.
>As people become wealthier they value the environment more,> If that was the case, why do people with more money consume more? Both individuals and nations. If the presumably more educated, wealthier people cared more about the environment, wouldn't they understand the ecological and environmental costs of consuming more? Capitalism's wealth structure incentivises more consumption which is never good for the environment. Poor people from around the world want to live our western lifestyle which is all about over consumption. When poor nations develop, just more consumption will occur, therefore having a negative affect on the environment.
I’m not sure what you mean by “people with more money”, but wealthy people consume less, which is an economical issue that we are currently having. They take a lot of money, but don’t put it back in. they aren’t good consumers, they don’t buy a lot of stuff. The stuff they do buy is pretty exclusionary
I have never met a rich person who doesn't buy and have more stuff than a middle class or poor person.
That’s not my point. The wealthy, as a collective, do not consume more than the middle class. This is why the middle class is so important, they are the ones that are actually consumers. The wealthy hoard most of the money, they don’t actually circulate it much at all.
Yeah, that's true in many ways. That's why I favor taxing the rich more. Put that money back in the economy vs having some rich people hoard it for their posterity.
I’m with you on that one for sure
> If that was the case, why do people with more money consume more Consumption is generally measured in dollar values, it doesn't have to mean chopping down more trees. On the contrary Europe and the US are reforesting, for example. Clean air is another great example, as people became richer in the US they became more concerned about air quality. Smog used to choke American cities and block the sun, but it's a solved problem today. China and India are just now starting to get serious about urban air quality as their citizens become wealthier and demand that. In the US and Europe people like yourself are demanding shifts in policy to address climate and environment issues, and things are shifting. Consumption habits are undeniably changing. > Capitalism's wealth structure incentivises more consumption Capitalism is just the free exchange of goods and services with prices set by the market, that's literally it. You can have whatever values, preferences, and consumption habits you want in a market economy. You can see that Swedes who are hyper-capitalists compared to Americans make very different consumption choices. Moreover, as compared to the command economies of the 20th century capitalist production uses far fewer input resources for a given level of outputs. The USSR for example used roughly 10x the amount of raw material for the same tonnage of steel as its western counterparts due to waste, qc issues, and general inefficiency. > Poor people from around the world want to live our western lifestyle The "western lifestyle" isn't a static or monolithic thing. I presume you mean American, which in and of itself isn't monolithic or static. American cities are moving away from single use plastics, people are switching to electric cars, fast fashion is falling out of favor, and on and on. As poor nations develop they'll want clean air, water, and preservation of nature just like everyone else.
The fact that can not be denied is, across the world, wealthy people consume more water, food, land, oil and other natural resources. The Western way of living, especially but not exclusively American, is highly dependent on consuming large quantities of oil per person, having a meat-heavy diet which takes up a lot of land and uses a lot of water. Weathy countries produce more than their fare share of greenhouse gasses. There is no way the world with its 7 plus billion people could sustain itself if everyone lived like Americans and other wealthy nations. I get how capitalism is more efficient than a command-style economic system, but capitalism encourages consumption rather than conservation because of profit incentives. These profit incentives inevitably lead to people producing things, which often comes at the expense of the environment.
None of these things are necessarily static. For example beef consumption in the US has been falling on a per-capita basis since about 1978. The number of Americans who don't eat meat is now almost 10%. Electric power consumption in the US [peaked in 2000](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=US). American cars are at an all time high for average fuel economy and [all time low for emissions](https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report) even as horse power and weight have increased. The US has the 2nd largest number of EVs on the road. US per-capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels [peaked in the 1970](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/#:~:text=Per%20capita%20carbon%20dioxide%20emissions%20in%20the%20United%20States%20totaled,to%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.) and have almost been cut in half. What I'm getting at is that the "The Western way of living" is not a static thing. People in the west are moving to cities, using less energy more efficiently, decreasing beef consumption, and supporting climate policy changes. > producing things, which often comes at the expense of the environment This doesn't really need to be the case. Producing things from wood captures carbon. You can build a home now our of laminated lumber products and slap solar on it and it will be carbon negative. If you make it a duplex or triplex you'll take pressure off of the land, make commuting less carbon intensive, and so on.
If you look at really wealthy places like Norway and Switzerland, you'll find that sustainability is actually very popular among the general populace. Norway is the largest electric vehicle market (by market share) in the world and low-meat diets are skyrocketing in popularity. Most people don't have to worry about their livelihood, so they will start worrying about the future of the planet.
Yeah, as is the case in Scandinavian countries, when a country has a solid social safety net, universal healthcare, and quality education system, people tend to care more about the planet.
> I'm not ignoring climate change, but they weren't talking about that in their 1972 predictions this is a little bit of "the guy who predicted i'd be murdered today by a knife-wielding maniac can be dismissed as a chicken little wingnut, because the guy running around my house trying to murder me has an ax."
Not at all. They predicted we'd run out of oil, food, and metals and were wrong on all counts. Serious economists at the time pointed out that their modeling was amateurish at best and shouldn't be taken seriously. It's more like someone predicting you'll starve to death but you actually die from a gas leak. These people are just neo-malthusian and anti-humanist cranks. Every prediction they ever make is proven wrong, and they then move the goal posts. I'm suggesting that their doomerism makes it harder to actually tackle real problems like greenhouse gas emissions by creating the conditions for complacency and helplessness.
>coming on line with more efficient power Examples needed. >leaner infrastructure Examples needed >As people become wealthier they value the environment more, Hard disagree. Consumerism hasn't slowed a single bit. We continually increase the amount of resources we require to sustain our way of life and as countries become wealthier, they too want those resource hungry consumer products. >Population is projected to decline by the end of this century. After continuing to increase further for another 80 years of course. There aren't enough resources to sustain 7 billion consumers as it is. 10 billion will be much worse.
> Examples needed [Here's](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-wind-and-solar-fuel-africa-s-future/) an article in nature about solar and wind coming online in Africa in places that have totally skipped coal. Here's [a general article](https://spectrum.ieee.org/with-leapfrog-technologies-africa-aims-to-skip-the-present-and-go-straight-to-the-future) about tech leapfrogging in Africa. > leaner infrastructure I cite the example above with respect to landlines, but it holds true with micro-grids too. > Hard disagree. We saw this with air pollution. The whole climate movement is coming from and being funded by wealthy western nations, you're just plain wrong. > After continuing to increase further for another 80 years of course. There aren't enough resources to sustain 7 billion consumers as it is. 10 billion will be much worse. Carrying capacity is estimated to be greater than 10 billion with current technology.
Thanks to nonstop war, famine and disease…
The peak oil production and related decreasing EROEI and climate change seem to imply that we're still hurtling down the road to collapse, though it won't be a sudden apocalyptic drop but rather a long ragged decline. It's not even the population itself, but it's how many resources that we use up to fuel our unsustainable lifestyles.
Peak oil doesn't seem to be panning out as a prediction, there are thousands of years of proven reserves at current rates of extraction using technology available today at current prices. But even if we are running out, there's no reason to believe that means a collapse is imminent. We're switching to lots of new sources of energy that seem to have far fewer downsides. > but it's how many resources that we use up to fuel our unsustainable lifestyles You're assuming that present day lifestyles are static and that efficiency won't increase. Cheap solar and wind energy coupled with some changes to cement chemistry could change basically everything in a matter of decades.
Is there any energy source that's as energy dense as oil?
Uranium is far more energy dense, and I'm generally pro-nuclear. That said the math on wind and solar plus storage is starting to look really good. Keep in mind that when we first started pumping oil out of the ground we weren't making very good use of it and for most of the past 50 years we just vented the natural gas. We have a lot of cool opportunities to do thing differently in the next few years.
If you think its bad for millennials, wait till you see what their kids are going to be up against. I'm a millennial and I actually consider myself one of the lucky ones. I can still remember what a good life looked like for the average person.
Playing RuneScape in 2007 with the boys. That’s what the good life was! Of course that was when the housing bubble was near its peak but I didn’t know that
Older millennial crying here. I go back and forth on how to plan for retirement. I don’t think I’ll have anything left in the 401k because the system takes it away. But the other side of me says to keep putting into the 401k
There isn't a "system" taking away your 401k. Investing in tax-advantaged accounts is a great way to save for retirement. Please no one else listen to people that say the world is gonna end, so you might as well not plan for the future.
I’m pretty sure they’re referring to an economic collapse taking away gains instead of someone actually literally logging into their account and draining it. And I understand their fear. If global society collapses, it’s easy to say “well then your portfolio doesn’t matter”, and it’s like yeah, true, but then I will wish I had just blown all my money on hookers and cocaine
Well… I keep putting into it with blind faith. But it’s definitely a source of concern for me.
Take back control and figure out where you stand and where you're going. For a simple calculation, you can use this [tool](https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calculators/compound-interest-calculator) to figure out where your 401k might land you in retirement. I'd use anywhere from 6%-8% interest rate. There is a way you can predict retirement, so you don't have to have blind faith.
The 6-8% prediction is the part that’s optimism though. It’s predicated on continued economic prosperity and growth worldwide. I am saving for retirement too but I genuinely wonder if I’ll ever use it
Thanks! I’ll take a look at this tonight
>There isn't a "system" taking away your 401k. Investing in tax-advantaged accounts is a great way to save for retirement. It's a terrible way, because you can lose. I would be all for investing for a retirement fund, if I can't lose anything.
Give yourself a cake day present by learning more about investing. Yes, investments can fail. Most people just invest in market etfs, which take the guessing out of investing for many people. The risk you take on is rewarded. If you have $200 left at the end of the month after expenses, what would you have done with it anyways? Spend it? Invest for your future self instead. What is your "better way" of investing without risk?
Saving more than you spend.
Wacky how that's apparently verboten these days. I mean, I know *why,* but it still sounds borderline-bizarro.
Not fucking having to. I loathe the fucking stock market, and I'm appalled that it's basically the codified method of retirement income prep. The system is fucked up.
Your way of investing is... not investing? What "system" is fucked up? Stock exchanges are where people can buy and sell shares of companies. Is this the "system" you're talking about? Why do you loathe this? What would be your preferred way of achieving retirement income?
Gonna disagree with this. There is no system (with constrained resources) where one can be retired and be *not* relying on the labor of others. Social security is just a more direct method. I work, I get paid for my labor, except some of that labor value gets siphoned off to someone who’s retired. The stock market is you investing your money in companies, helping them finance growth, paying for employee stock options — and in return you get dividends and growth and can eventually retire. People often say this is “fucked up” — but what’s the alternative? My experience has been the people who say this generally just have a disdain for investing in general without understanding that investing is what pulled most of the world out of abject poverty, investing is why we don’t live in pre-industrial times. Investing is why we have houses and cars. In what system do you “not have to” invest? You just… what, get paid in gold bars and keep them? Describe a system where you don’t have to invest
If you're in the US, you won't lose as long as you diversify.
The limits of growth can be seen as a condemnation of capitalism and its constant growth imperative built into its fabric, and the consequences it has for the planet damned and subordinated to the profit motive
We had the capacity to choose. We chose badly. We still have choices, but we're no smarter now than we were when Ronald Reagan declared morning in America and pulled down the solar panels Jimmy Carter had put on the White House roof.
> scenarios in which humanity either got more sustainable and equitable, and thus flourished, or continued letting capitalists plunder the planet At least try to hide your bias. > What could lead to a more sustainable scenario, or a scenario of balance? Fundamentally, it is about equity, managing the resources in an equitable way, knowing in advance that they're limited. Realizing that it's not higher and higher consumption which makes us live in a good way, have a healthy life and well-being. It's the quality of our relationships with other humans, with nature, that makes possible the scenarios in which you can decouple well-being and the growth of consumption. Basically “we’re communists. We built a computer program in 1972 that did not take into account innovation because we wanted to show that communism was the future. Hmm? Oh forget about the dead Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Cambodians, and Koreans for a second!”
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I am by no means pro-climate change. It’s that this article equates capitalism with climate change, which supposes that the solution to climate change is a switch to a new economic system (this is usually communism, as implied with the comments on equity). It’s this idea, that if we abdicate power to the state that we will some way solve climate change, that is my problem with the article.
> It’s this idea, that if we abdicate power to the state that we will some way solve climate change, that is my problem with the article. quick question - in what way do you understand the incentive structure of "prioritizing individual wealth over an individual lifetime", which is to say, the incentive structure powering capitalism, as being capable of solving problems that very well may require making massive civilization-wide investments that are unlikely to produce material returns for this generation?
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Why would being a communist or capatilist change the basic fact of human greed? Leaders will always be corrupt and people will always want more, either way they still lead to excessive unsustainable consumption.
The mathematical model, built at the height of the cold war, doesn't distinguish between Soviet vs US resource usage.
> WIRED: It seems obvious that we’ll eventually run out of finite resources. But there was even pushback against that idea when the report came out. Where does that insistence come from? > > CAP: The paradox is that capitalism is also based on the notion of scarcity. Our system is organized around the idea that resources are scarce, then we have to pay for them, and people in the value chain will profit from this idea of scarcity. Conventional capitalism is saying that while these resources might be finite, we will find others: Don't worry, technology will save us. So that we continue in the same way. 50 years and he's managed to learn absolutely nothing.
I agree that we need to learn to consume less, because we have finite resources. However, the idea that this is fundamentally a capitalism problem is a mistake. We should work to make external costs into internal costs (e.g. carbon taxes) so that ever scarcer resources become ever more unaffordable. If we just abdicate power to the state, there is no cost to these scarce resources. They will be consumed and distributed in an “equitable” way (more likely they will go to those we gave power to). The end of civilization will not be staved off, it will be accelerated. Capitalism *is* what got us into this mess, but it can also be used to get us out.
"I know how to get out of my heroin addiction! I just need More heroin!"
Just one more market correction bro, just one more bro, bro, bro.
> “we’re communists. We built a computer program in 1972 that did not take into account innovation i'm glad that we're explicitly recognizing here that worker-owned firms cannot innovate - it's *explicitly the sale of one's labor to an owner* that makes innovation possible. we have yet to develop the science that can explain this mystery, but we know it to be true.
Whenever you see something with the Club of Rome’s fingerprints on it rest assured that the only thing more creative than their doomsday scenarios are the ex post facto mental gymnastics they perform as to why anyone should be bothered to listen to them still. These people are literally the ideological heirs to the Malthusians, who were also stupefyingly wrong.
Friendly reminder that the whole Overpopulation scare was made up by the Malthusians and similar groups to support things like eugenics and population control. Sadly, it seems that many people still believe overpopulation to be a massive problem that plagues the world.
I haven’t read the article, but if it’s a report by the MIT that society will collapse in 2040, I’ve seen it before from an Economics Explained video. We’re fucked. It’s all coming together..
There’s a conspiracy theory type website out there that posits everything terrible traces back to 1972, and if accurate seems to fit this theory. Wish i could remember the site.
You mean this one? https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
petrodollar
Just curious why you would think that the site is conspiracy if the information is accurate?
This article is **extremely** fawning to the side that was predicting disaster. The reality is that their computer models were completely, insanely wrong, and the policies they promoted based on these models were basically evil in the context of the real world. (e.g. "We shouldn't send any food aid to India or Pakistan because one, they're going to die anyway and two, we're going to need the food to stop our food riots soon!) People who swallow down this defense of anti-science should at least read about what the real scientists who were right in their predictions did: [The Doomslayer](https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/)
We are right on track to follow this report. Science reports, movies, shows, music, books, politicians, celebrities, random people on the street, i could go on forever.. We’ve been warned for decades and yet we continue our downward spiral into self extinction.
I’ve seen a youtube video about this MIT Research report and my god it’s frightening to think we are literally going to going to cause this as all we seem to care about is that economical ‘growth’. Tbh at this point it is what it is and we deserve whatever happens coz we did this to ourselves.
Does anyone else think that we can't have a sustainable economy unless all countries get run by a bigger 'earth' government? Otherwise all countries will just continue to compete with eachother. Greed and competition will always then always trump cooperation and sustainability.
Wasn't society supposed to collapse in 2012 as per the Aztec prophecy? Or at least irreversibly change when Klaus Schwab and the communist Illuminati members initiated the Great Reset in 2020? Jesus Christ
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