undefined | Better HN

0 pointstrashtester2y ago0 comments

If the world stopped consuming fossil fuels today, overpopulation would no longer be an issue in about a year or two.

Because 90% of the population would die.

0 comments

Well you don't have to stop in a matter of one day, because that's impossible and unrealistic anyways, but we could at least finally start with reducing our consumption, with the goal to land as close as possible to 0 as soon as possible.

Then again, we missed the window to stop long ago. So why bother anyways, right?

trashtesterOP2y ago

My main point is that demonizing the use of hydrocarbons is absurd. Our use of them is one of the main reasons we've been going from a world where most people was incredibly poor 200 years ago, to most of the world's population living in relative prosperity today (compared to 200 years ago).

Now that we're developing alternative energy sources, we should start/continue to move away from fossil fuels, but if we try to do it too quickly, the price may be higher than the benefit.

ndsipa_pomu2y ago

That seems to be an excuse that's been in use for decades. Meanwhile, we're just dragging our feet about stopping oil use and kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with.

Ultimately, it's a very poor excuse to state that because we can't stop immediately, that we might as well continue digging as much oil as possible out of the ground for burning.

User232y ago

There’s no credible path for reducing carbon emissions enough to reverse warming under current models that doesn’t involve gigadeaths.

ndsipa_pomu2y ago

I suppose that's what happens when we leave it as late as possible to even start to do anything.

Unfortunately, we're going to have far more gigadeaths when crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous. It always surprises me that people claim that deaths will result from cleaning up our act when that's a small fraction of the deaths that will be caused by climate catastrophes.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

4ggr02y ago

Then again, we missed the window to stop long ago. So why bother anyways, right?

trashtesterOP2y ago

Now that we're developing alternative energy sources, we should start/continue to move away from fossil fuels, but if we try to do it too quickly, the price may be higher than the benefit.

ndsipa_pomu2y ago

That seems to be an excuse that's been in use for decades. Meanwhile, we're just dragging our feet about stopping oil use and kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with.

Ultimately, it's a very poor excuse to state that because we can't stop immediately, that we might as well continue digging as much oil as possible out of the ground for burning.

User232y ago

There’s no credible path for reducing carbon emissions enough to reverse warming under current models that doesn’t involve gigadeaths.

ndsipa_pomu2y ago

I suppose that's what happens when we leave it as late as possible to even start to do anything.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse