Excellent - thank you Nate! You have neatly shown how the "climate crisis" is crowding out other vital issues you remind us of. You and your subscribers may be interested in Tushar Choudhary's book: "The Climate Misinformation Crisis: How to move past the mistruths to a smarter energy future". It's not the best book from the point of view of flow of English, but the author makes a sincere effort to steer a path between misinformation from both climate activists and sceptics.
Climate change, whatever it's supposed to mean, if it exists at all and if it's anthropogenic, is NOT THE PROBLEM faced by humankind and, by extension, life on Earth. In a broader sense, adverse - in the sense of what would be optimal for life to proliferate - changes in environmental conditions are the consequence of human behavioral patterns, specifically the unbridled cycle of extraction, processing, production, consumption, and wastage, facilitated by easily obtainable energy.
Humans are behaving like any other species that happens on a bonanza of resources, devouring ferociously everything they can put their hands on. We're destroying the environment left and right in a mad quest for yet another product, yet another fucking sale, yet another fix of dopamine from getting some useless piece of shit gadget that will go to the landfill in a matter of weeks, while we're already craving some other useless piece of shit gadget. That's the gluttonously sick consumerist civilization of the past century, which had been in the making for the preceding few hundred years.
We're mainly witnessing a psychological phenomenon, exacerbated by the fact that the human intellect is unfortunately developed to a point where it can inflict large-scale damage. That's not to say that humans are smart. They're in fact fucking stupid, much less intelligent than most other species, for other critters don't have the general habit of doing things that are detrimental to them, like shitting in the place where they live so to speak, overindulging, and so on. Anyway, the chances that people will change their behavioral patterns are just about nil, as evidenced by historical experience and people's insane comportment that can be observed in real time today.
Thus, things will simply have to run their course. Hydrocarbons will be depleted, the various Ponzi schemes fraudsters have concocted to run this whole circus will collapse, people will scratch their eyes and cut their throats in fighting for the last loaf of bread, nations will launch wars against one another, and so on.
Some people will hopefully be able to squeeze through the cracks and survive.
What will happen next?
Luckily, the surviving humans won't have that abundant hydrocarbon energy at their disposal, which means that they'll be forced to live more closely in harmony with nature, not unlike animals. There is no doubt that there will be as many assholes in the future as there are now and as there always have been, bent on exploiting others and their environment. But the damage they're able to inflict will be limited.
In a broader historical sense, the era of personal freedom combined with cheap energy and technological development has been a total disaster. Gluttony got the better of people and brought them to the brink of destruction. We are selfish greedy bastards, let's face it. Despite being a total atheist, I have to say that people would be much better off if they believed in some god and feared his wrath, should they fuck around. If we're allowed to be our own moral guide, we fail miserably.
But hey, maybe things won't happen like this. With any luck, one of the idiots at the helm will push the red button and put us out of our misery once and for all.
I agree with many of your points, particularly the frame that humans have done with the discovery of hydrocarbons what practically any other species would do upon encountering a “bonanza of resources”.
Given the apparent hopelessness of the prospect of humans at large radically changing our consumptive nature before we careen off the edge of planetary boundaries, I wonder if our best hope might be cracking the code on renewable energy sources, making them vastly more available, efficient, and affordable- e.g., Solar tech, nuclear fusion, geothermal, etc. Especially with recent exponential advancements in AI tech, it seems increasingly possible that humans could unlock the potential of these alternative energy sources. What’s the likelihood that we could use these to make hydrocarbon use obsolete, and to even deploy systems that could reverse a significant portion of the current damage done?
Of course we would still have MANY problems to deal with in this scenario, not to even mention the growing risks associated with AGI misalignment.. but it doesn’t seem like we’re entirely doomed quite yet?
I like this consumerist binge we've been having just like the next guy. I like driving my car, I enjoy some of the wonderful things some wonderful people have made thanks to hydrocarbons, such as my musical instruments. I'd be most happy if things could continue, more or less as they've been. And mind you, I think I behave very reasonably, especially in the context of the current civilization. That's the shortsighted view.
But if you look beyond the horizon, cracking the renewable energy code, as you say, would be worst thing for the planet. It would only enable us two legged idiots to carry on pillaging everything left and right, transforming the world, exterminating other species, so on so forth. We wouldn't be forced to change our behavior, which happens to be the core of the problem.
Rather than finding other sources of energy, we have to reduce consumption. Simplify, slow down. That will happen one way or another, meaning voluntarily or forcibly, the latter being way way more likely.
From where I'm standing, the questions are two:
a) How much of humans have learned and created can be transported to the future and adapted to low-energy conditions?
b) Will humans be able to figure out a sensible societal arrangement, where they're reasonably free, as opposed to being subjected to autocrats, warlords, and other sorts of unscrupulous shitheads?
Anyway, my first paragraph notwithstanding, the sooner the current sick civilization unravels, the better.
It would make much more sense to work on low-energy technologies, building waterways instead of highways. etc., etc. than deluding ourselves that hydrocarbons can be replaced, like-for-like, with something else. Plus, it wouldn't solve what's wrong anyway.
Excellent - thank you Nate! You have neatly shown how the "climate crisis" is crowding out other vital issues you remind us of. You and your subscribers may be interested in Tushar Choudhary's book: "The Climate Misinformation Crisis: How to move past the mistruths to a smarter energy future". It's not the best book from the point of view of flow of English, but the author makes a sincere effort to steer a path between misinformation from both climate activists and sceptics.
Climate change, whatever it's supposed to mean, if it exists at all and if it's anthropogenic, is NOT THE PROBLEM faced by humankind and, by extension, life on Earth. In a broader sense, adverse - in the sense of what would be optimal for life to proliferate - changes in environmental conditions are the consequence of human behavioral patterns, specifically the unbridled cycle of extraction, processing, production, consumption, and wastage, facilitated by easily obtainable energy.
Humans are behaving like any other species that happens on a bonanza of resources, devouring ferociously everything they can put their hands on. We're destroying the environment left and right in a mad quest for yet another product, yet another fucking sale, yet another fix of dopamine from getting some useless piece of shit gadget that will go to the landfill in a matter of weeks, while we're already craving some other useless piece of shit gadget. That's the gluttonously sick consumerist civilization of the past century, which had been in the making for the preceding few hundred years.
We're mainly witnessing a psychological phenomenon, exacerbated by the fact that the human intellect is unfortunately developed to a point where it can inflict large-scale damage. That's not to say that humans are smart. They're in fact fucking stupid, much less intelligent than most other species, for other critters don't have the general habit of doing things that are detrimental to them, like shitting in the place where they live so to speak, overindulging, and so on. Anyway, the chances that people will change their behavioral patterns are just about nil, as evidenced by historical experience and people's insane comportment that can be observed in real time today.
Thus, things will simply have to run their course. Hydrocarbons will be depleted, the various Ponzi schemes fraudsters have concocted to run this whole circus will collapse, people will scratch their eyes and cut their throats in fighting for the last loaf of bread, nations will launch wars against one another, and so on.
Some people will hopefully be able to squeeze through the cracks and survive.
What will happen next?
Luckily, the surviving humans won't have that abundant hydrocarbon energy at their disposal, which means that they'll be forced to live more closely in harmony with nature, not unlike animals. There is no doubt that there will be as many assholes in the future as there are now and as there always have been, bent on exploiting others and their environment. But the damage they're able to inflict will be limited.
In a broader historical sense, the era of personal freedom combined with cheap energy and technological development has been a total disaster. Gluttony got the better of people and brought them to the brink of destruction. We are selfish greedy bastards, let's face it. Despite being a total atheist, I have to say that people would be much better off if they believed in some god and feared his wrath, should they fuck around. If we're allowed to be our own moral guide, we fail miserably.
But hey, maybe things won't happen like this. With any luck, one of the idiots at the helm will push the red button and put us out of our misery once and for all.
I agree with many of your points, particularly the frame that humans have done with the discovery of hydrocarbons what practically any other species would do upon encountering a “bonanza of resources”.
Given the apparent hopelessness of the prospect of humans at large radically changing our consumptive nature before we careen off the edge of planetary boundaries, I wonder if our best hope might be cracking the code on renewable energy sources, making them vastly more available, efficient, and affordable- e.g., Solar tech, nuclear fusion, geothermal, etc. Especially with recent exponential advancements in AI tech, it seems increasingly possible that humans could unlock the potential of these alternative energy sources. What’s the likelihood that we could use these to make hydrocarbon use obsolete, and to even deploy systems that could reverse a significant portion of the current damage done?
Of course we would still have MANY problems to deal with in this scenario, not to even mention the growing risks associated with AGI misalignment.. but it doesn’t seem like we’re entirely doomed quite yet?
It's like this.
I like this consumerist binge we've been having just like the next guy. I like driving my car, I enjoy some of the wonderful things some wonderful people have made thanks to hydrocarbons, such as my musical instruments. I'd be most happy if things could continue, more or less as they've been. And mind you, I think I behave very reasonably, especially in the context of the current civilization. That's the shortsighted view.
But if you look beyond the horizon, cracking the renewable energy code, as you say, would be worst thing for the planet. It would only enable us two legged idiots to carry on pillaging everything left and right, transforming the world, exterminating other species, so on so forth. We wouldn't be forced to change our behavior, which happens to be the core of the problem.
Rather than finding other sources of energy, we have to reduce consumption. Simplify, slow down. That will happen one way or another, meaning voluntarily or forcibly, the latter being way way more likely.
From where I'm standing, the questions are two:
a) How much of humans have learned and created can be transported to the future and adapted to low-energy conditions?
b) Will humans be able to figure out a sensible societal arrangement, where they're reasonably free, as opposed to being subjected to autocrats, warlords, and other sorts of unscrupulous shitheads?
Anyway, my first paragraph notwithstanding, the sooner the current sick civilization unravels, the better.
It would make much more sense to work on low-energy technologies, building waterways instead of highways. etc., etc. than deluding ourselves that hydrocarbons can be replaced, like-for-like, with something else. Plus, it wouldn't solve what's wrong anyway.
My two cents
"part of the problem" is that there are grifters exploiting these crises and are not effective and =misgivings about the whole thing.