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0 pointsrevscat3y ago0 comments

> What he is pointing out is the long history of doomsaying being wrong, because it implicitly depends on the assumption that technology has reached its peak and cannot further improve.

This is a straw man. The arguments against humanity’s survival are not technological, but economic: we will not survive because our economic systems continue to poison the environment, to the detriment of all. Solutions exist, but because it is taken as a matter of faith that economics is more important than environmental impact, no technological solutions are implemented. Capitalists fight almost literally to the death to maintain the status quo of a fossil fuel driven society, and has shown no ability to change in ways needed to stave of doom.

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pfdietz3y ago

But there are plenty of examples of changes, involving both changes in economic incentives and changes in technology, that greatly reduced pollution. To pretend there's some iron law connecting industry and pollution is simply dishonest.

ahevia3y ago

There isn’t, but that change is slow & constantly challenged. Any progress towards protecting the Earth, our environment, and our resources are extremely hard fought, sometimes poorly-implemented, or at risk of being revoked when the government changed hands.

It is difficult not to blame industry because they profit off continued pollution & resource exploitation. The markets have a larger short term incentive to maintain the status quo

throwaway65323y ago

>or at risk of being revoked when the government changed hands.

This is happening now. Everyone is focused on getting to "net-zero" and switching to natural gas as a "transition" to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources. This has resulted in nuclear/coal going offline and being switched out for natural gas and natural gas prices shooting up like crazy, then war breaks out and natural gas imports are at risk and people still need power, so policy makers turn to "well maybe its time to switch the nuclear power plant back on?".

When things shift such that the short-term incentives shift away from the push towards the sustainable, renewable direction then it goes back the other way and it can and will happen.

revscatOP3y ago

How so? Saudi Arabia still exists. There is not a single country on Earth who has taken the necessary steps. Hell, the EU is being threatened existentially by a fascist Russia, and they barely even entertain the idea of reducing natural gas imports from the country that is threatening them. So while there may be sporadic examples of pollution reduction, human civilization as a whole is not taking the steps that are necessary to prevent collapse.

lasc4r3y ago

Not that your point is wrong, but the EU has plans to cut their gas and oil imports from Russia by two thirds in the next year. And I'm guessing cutting them off entirely in the next few years. It's not feasible to do much more than that I think, they will be making real sacrifices, like implementation of rationing in Germany.

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