Author Topic: Planet of the Humans  (Read 5492 times)

Shane

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Planet of the Humans
« on: May 03, 2020, 12:18:08 PM »
Has anyone watched Planet of the Humans? If so, what'd you think? Is switching to solar and wind really going to make enough of a difference in time to save the planet, or is that just a corporate smokescreen designed to deflect attention from the real problem - humans' ever increasing, insatiable appetite for consumption of Earth's resources? Rather than trying to cancel the filmmakers, this seems like an important discussion those of us who care about the environment need to be having.

Prairie Moustache

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2020, 12:50:02 PM »
I watched it last week. The main message of the movie is something that's been strikingly obvious to me for some time, and was always confused where everyone's dillusional belief that we'll be able to continue to extract an increasing amount of raw materials from the earth so that every Jane, Tom and Dick in developed countries can have a Tesla.

There's a huge disconnect between economic growth and environmental stewardship that's been discussed at length on here and many other places. I'm a bleeding heart mustachian, but I still see a big hole in the logic of frugal living and stashing cash in investments while consumer spending accounts for 70% of American GDP.

When you start digging deeper into how our economies and populations are propped up by synthetic fertilizers that rely on massive amounts of fossil fuels to produce, things start looking even more interesting. I've read estimates that the planet would support about half of us without synthetic nitrogen. Half of the nitrogen in human bodies is created from hydrocarbon synthesized nitrogen. The building blocks of our cells are brought to us by human produced petroleum based hydrocarbons.

That's just a bit of an in-coherent rant, but yes we need to be discussing the premise of that movie more seriously. Nobody wants to talk about population control policies because you start wading into the "telling people what to do with their bodies" territory. Nobody likes that, and we're all special.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2020, 01:40:41 PM by Prairie Moustache »

scottish

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2020, 12:57:09 PM »
I like to follow Hans Rosling on this.   He's gone now, but his ideas are still on the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2020, 01:37:45 PM »
Has anyone watched Planet of the Humans? If so, what'd you think? Is switching to solar and wind really going to make enough of a difference in time to save the planet, or is that just a corporate smokescreen designed to deflect attention from the real problem - humans' ever increasing, insatiable appetite for consumption of Earth's resources? Rather than trying to cancel the filmmakers, this seems like an important discussion those of us who care about the environment need to be having.

At the  Commonwealth Club, for 1 hour,  Dalton interviewed Field, Fenton, and Lertzman about climate change.

Lertzman was the most interesting guest. She spoke about  the typical psychological tendency to avoid facing dire predictions.

My opinion is that collective  measures to mitigate   climate change, including solar and wind power,  will not suffice to prevent aggregate  increases in greenhouse emissions from causing  increased   global temperature that exceeds critical tipping points.

I agree that the "real problem [is]  humans' ever increasing, insatiable appetite for consumption of Earth's resources."

There are simply  too many people on Earth.




HPstache

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2020, 02:17:35 PM »
Watched it and enjoyed it.  Surprised that it was a Michael Moore documentary?  Wish that nuclear would have been mentioned.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2020, 03:41:22 PM »
Watched it and enjoyed it.  Surprised that it was a Michael Moore documentary?  Wish that nuclear would have been mentioned.
Because nuclear's always seemed not worth the risk to me, I've always been against it, but my mind is starting to change. Michael Shellenberger's recent Ted Talk seemed fairly convincing.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Terra Power's innovative traveling wave reactor design sounds promising to me. We need to do something, so if wind and solar aren't going to be enough, maybe we should be looking more seriously at 21st century designs of nuclear reactors. Yeah, nuclear can be dangerous, but so what? If we don't get this right, nothing else is really going to matter.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2020, 03:43:14 PM »
I like to follow Hans Rosling on this.   He's gone now, but his ideas are still on the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling

So, you consider yourself a "possibilist"? :)

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2020, 04:29:34 PM »
Watched it and enjoyed it.  Surprised that it was a Michael Moore documentary?  Wish that nuclear would have been mentioned.
Because nuclear's always seemed not worth the risk to me, I've always been against it, but my mind is starting to change. Michael Shellenberger's recent Ted Talk seemed fairly convincing.



Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Terra Power's innovative traveling wave reactor design sounds promising to me. We need to do something, so if wind and solar aren't going to be enough, maybe we should be looking more seriously at 21st century designs of nuclear reactors. Yeah, nuclear can be dangerous, but so what? If we don't get this right, nothing else is really going to matter.



My friend is a nuclear engineer.

He told me that researchers at ORNL concluded that the use of  coal to generate electricity is 10,000% as radioactively "dirty" as the use of uranium to generate electricity.

Even if every 25 years there is a catastrophic reactor accident like Fukushima  would nuclear power still be a worthwhile alternative  due to its virtually zero emission of greenhouse gas?

I think it's a trade-off  that ought to be considered in light of  new reactor technology.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2020, 04:35:00 PM by John Galt incarnate! »

EvenSteven

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2020, 05:51:49 PM »

When you start digging deeper into how our economies and populations are propped up by synthetic fertilizers that rely on massive amounts of fossil fuels to produce, things start looking even more interesting. I've read estimates that the planet would support about half of us without synthetic nitrogen. Half of the nitrogen in human bodies is created from hydrocarbon synthesized nitrogen. The building blocks of our cells are brought to us by human produced petroleum based hydrocarbons.

That's just a bit of an in-coherent rant, but yes we need to be discussing the premise of that movie more seriously. Nobody wants to talk about population control policies because you start wading into the "telling people what to do with their bodies" territory. Nobody likes that, and we're all special.

*shrug*

There is no reason the energy needed to fix nitrogen needs to come from burning fossil fuels.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2020, 08:40:32 AM »

When you start digging deeper into how our economies and populations are propped up by synthetic fertilizers that rely on massive amounts of fossil fuels to produce, things start looking even more interesting. I've read estimates that the planet would support about half of us without synthetic nitrogen. Half of the nitrogen in human bodies is created from hydrocarbon synthesized nitrogen. The building blocks of our cells are brought to us by human produced petroleum based hydrocarbons.

That's just a bit of an in-coherent rant, but yes we need to be discussing the premise of that movie more seriously. Nobody wants to talk about population control policies because you start wading into the "telling people what to do with their bodies" territory. Nobody likes that, and we're all special.

Since Americans consume roughly twice as much energy as Europeans, cutting the US population in half seems like it might be a good first step, but that would only put us on par the Germany as far as energy usage goes, and literally NO ONE is willing to even consider halving the US population.

Since Americans are unwilling to cut their population, and aside from fringe Mustachian types, no one is willing to cut their consumption anywhere near the amount that would be necessary to make a real difference within the necessary time frame, it seems to me like we need to find another way to make energy that doesn't have the downsides of wind and solar, and that doesn't emit carbon into the atmosphere like fossil fuels.

Luckily, we already have a source of energy that meets those requirements. It's called nuclear power. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been funding a new start-up called Terra Power that has an innovative new design for a 21st century nuclear reactor. Terra Power is ready to start building a prototype of its new Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR). They just need a government that will partner with them to build and test it. The TWR solves one of the biggest problems with nuclear power. It runs off of the spent fuel discarded by conventional nuclear power plants! The US could power its entire grid - for hundreds of years - just using the spent fuel we already have in storage. We wouldn't have to mine any new uranium for hundreds of years, and we could use up the old fuel we're currently paying big $$ to store in secure facilities like Yucca Mountain out in NV.

Seems to me like it's worth a second look at nuclear power.

DadJokes

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2020, 09:38:47 AM »

Since Americans consume roughly twice as much energy as Europeans, cutting the US population in half seems like it might be a good first step, but that would only put us on par the Germany as far as energy usage goes, and literally NO ONE is willing to even consider halving the US population.

I think North Korea and a few Middle Eastern governments/groups are willing to consider it.

Cue the rimshot

mozar

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2020, 12:43:02 PM »
There was a lot of wrong and unsubstantiated information in the movie (Michael Moore, duh) but I still enjoyed it. A lot of people think/hope that we just need a few people to switch to wind and solar and we'll be saved. For me, more depressing than the movie itself was the comment section. People saying "we're not going to give up over consuming so what can we do?" Consuming can be pulled back. In fact Amazon has been decreasing their advertising because they are overwhelmed. I never thought I'd hear that Amazon is trying to stop people from buying as much.

I think the belief that we in the USA  are entitled to destroy the planet is a bigger problem than overpopulation. There is low hanging fruit here. Focus on educating women, because educated women have fewer children. In Europe cars are required to get 45 miles per gallon and AC units are 25% more efficient. It's not the "will of the people" to keep things this way in the USA, it's that lobbyists spend millions of dollars on preventing changes. One of the Koch brothers spent 140 million+ dollars of his own money to stop the Obama administration from enacting a carbon tax.


Another thing is to tax beef like cigarettes. It's a known carcinogen (see WHO studies) and the beef industry is one of the worst things we are doing to the planet.
Another thing that cripples the environmental movement is white supremacy. If it looks like we are getting closer to real change in our society rich conservative politicians can just say "Hispanic people are bad!" and people line up to vote for them so these politicians can continue to enact destructive policies. That's just my 2 cents. I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do about it. There are some organizations that I think I will donate to, when I have money again.

Greystache

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2020, 08:52:01 AM »
While I agreed with some of the points that the film made, I also found a lot to be outdated and deliberately misleading. It seems s to say that just because renewable energy still requires some fossil fuel to operate, it is of no value.  Here is a link to a good critique of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNjLHRAP2U

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2020, 07:31:06 PM »
While I agreed with some of the points that the film made, I also found a lot to be outdated and deliberately misleading. It seems s to say that just because renewable energy still requires some fossil fuel to operate, it is of no value.  Here is a link to a good critique of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNjLHRAP2U

Just Have a Think's critique of Planet of the Humans made a few valid points regarding some outdated numbers presented in the film, but it didn't really address the main point of the film. Our current economic system is based upon continual growth of both population and consumption - literally, forever. If overall production and sales don't increase every year, that's considered a recession. Everyone agrees recessions are really, really bad, so to be avoided at all costs. How can it be possible to increase population and increase consumption, every single year, forever and ever?

Gibbs' and Moore's film was made over the course of the last 15 years. Has renewable energy become marginally more efficient over that same time period? Sure. Does that invalidate the main point the film makes? Not at all. It's irrelevant. From 2005 to 2020, while Gibbs and Moore were making their film, world population INCREASED by about 20%, from 6.5BB to 7.8BB. So, while it's true that solar panels have become a little more efficient than they were back in 2005, there are far more humans on the planet, now, who are demanding more and more energy every year.

Quibbling over relatively small differences in numbers regarding the efficiency of renewable energy is missing the point. Yes, solar panels have become more efficient, are in more widespread use, and are much cheaper than they were in 2005 when Gibbs and Moore started making their film. Is renewable energy better for the planet than just straight up burning coal? Of course, it is. But, as impressive as the renewable energy industry's numbers may sound, they pale in comparison to predicted increases in global energy usage over the coming decades. Reductions in carbon emissions from the introduction of new solar and wind farms are relatively small in comparison to expected increases in demand in coming years.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts world energy usage will increase by 50% between 2020 - 2050. So, while it's nice that renewable energy went up from 8% to 18.5% of total power produced between 2005 - 2019, solar panels still only produce peak power for a few hours a day, and they still don't produce any energy, at all, at night. That's why, as Gibbs and Moore pointed out in Planet of the Humans, any increase in the production of solar and wind power requires a parallel increase in the production of fossil-fuel generated power, mostly natural gas that's being produced by fracking. The fact that powerful oil and gas producers are some of the biggest proponents of increasing solar and wind energy production isn't a coincidence. They know that every solar and wind farm requires an equal amount of new fossil-fuel produced energy to balance out the load when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing.

This Forbes article by Mike Shellenberger does a good job explaining the link between the fossil-fuel industry and renewables.




aspiringnomad

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2020, 09:10:30 PM »

Travis

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2020, 09:16:27 PM »
Watched it and enjoyed it.  Surprised that it was a Michael Moore documentary?  Wish that nuclear would have been mentioned.
Because nuclear's always seemed not worth the risk to me, I've always been against it, but my mind is starting to change. Michael Shellenberger's recent Ted Talk seemed fairly convincing.



Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Terra Power's innovative traveling wave reactor design sounds promising to me. We need to do something, so if wind and solar aren't going to be enough, maybe we should be looking more seriously at 21st century designs of nuclear reactors. Yeah, nuclear can be dangerous, but so what? If we don't get this right, nothing else is really going to matter.



My friend is a nuclear engineer.

He told me that researchers at ORNL concluded that the use of  coal to generate electricity is 10,000% as radioactively "dirty" as the use of uranium to generate electricity.

Even if every 25 years there is a catastrophic reactor accident like Fukushima  would nuclear power still be a worthwhile alternative  due to its virtually zero emission of greenhouse gas?

I think it's a trade-off  that ought to be considered in light of  new reactor technology.

There's quite a bit of selective concern with folks willing to breath in burning oil and coal fumes 24/7 vs a nuclear world where there's been a single incident once a generation.  And every time it's happened, it was the human factor at fault not the underlying technology.  We go and purposefully make it difficult and expensive to build a reactor, then point out the cost and hassle as a reason not to do it.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #16 on: May 06, 2020, 04:54:20 AM »
I have zero interest in arguing over the specific numbers Gibbs' and Moore used in their film. Totally agree that much of their data on the efficiency of renewables is now out of date, and some of it was exaggerated in order to make a point. So what? The fact still stands that energy consumption is not going down. It's continuing to go up, every single year. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Humans' energy usage is going up much faster than wind and solar farms can be built.

Another valid criticism of Planet of the Humans is that there's no happy ending. The filmmakers offer no real solutions. Luckily, really smart people like Bill Gates are offering the world thoughtful, practical solutions to our energy problems that we should be seriously considering, rather than just focusing all of our hopes and dreams on wind and solar energy.

Nuclear power works. It produces zero carbon emissions, zero pollution, and it takes up a tiny fraction of the footprint necessary for wind and solar. Terra Power's traveling wave reactor (TWR) can generate electricity by burning the spent fuel left over from conventional nuclear power plants. The challenge of storing spent radioactive fuel, basically forever, is one of the biggest arguments against nuclear energy. The TWR solves this problem! HELLO! Maybe we should take a look at this. Don't you think? Nah, let's just cover our ears and eyes and make believe that solar and wind are going to solve all our problems. :(
« Last Edit: May 06, 2020, 05:08:46 AM by Shane »

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2020, 06:41:41 AM »
Thanks to the OP for posting the link. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was a good, fun Michael Moore-style takedown of sacred cattle. And it provided more validation for my anti-environmentalism viewpoint. So what’s not to like?

There is a whole bunch of green washing going on out there and people desperately want to believe it. If you care about reducing your impact, then all roads lead to reducing consumption. Yeah, there is some tech that can help but it’s often at the margins.  Reducing consumption is just not a popular viewpoint. 

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ender

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2020, 08:44:29 AM »
There's quite a bit of selective concern with folks willing to breath in burning oil and coal fumes 24/7 vs a nuclear world where there's been a single incident once a generation.  And every time it's happened, it was the human factor at fault not the underlying technology.  We go and purposefully make it difficult and expensive to build a reactor, then point out the cost and hassle as a reason not to do it.

I've never really understood why nuclear isn't seen as the perfect medium term solution (aka until renewables are more sufficient in quantity/energy generation).

It feels pretty obvious to me as an engineer to tap into this source.

Coal has a ton of negative effects even unrelated to global warming/CO2 output. But none of them make the news like nuclear incidents.

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2020, 08:47:31 AM »
I haven't seen these documentaries yet but i have been saying for the past decade, we need to include nuclear power. Other countries who are more environmentally concerned have already done so. We should have started 15 years ago. Otherwise when we cut fossil fuel use due to price or lack of it, it will be like stepping off a cliff. 

I think multiple things need to change. I keep coming to the problem that people's individual wants as well as individual countries' wants (to infinitiely expand, consume, populate, have a big tax base) is at odds with our survival as a human species, as well as the underlying ecosystems we all depend on. We will have to have something similar to the nuclear disarmament pact that all countries agree to, in the sense that we agree to: limit population growth. Limit consumption of fossil and other nonrenewal resources. Have a plan for protecting land both for our own survival (clean air, water, soil that can still grow things) as well as maintaining biodiversity on this planet.

It seems overwhelming and despairing to me, because people would rather make up conspiracy theories (like 5G and Bill Gates made the virus and are going to profit off it) than the looming huge problems staring in front of our face: environmental degradation, consumption of limited resources, and the reality you can't continue to have increasing population and resource consumption on a finite world. 

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #20 on: May 09, 2020, 10:45:31 AM »
Yeah, nuclear makes sense for a grid based system. But what about redundancy? Solar paired with micro generation is intriguing. That way your local neighborhood mustachian can just go off grid most of the time.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #21 on: May 09, 2020, 07:54:35 PM »
Yeah, nuclear makes sense for a grid based system. But what about redundancy? Solar paired with micro generation is intriguing. That way your local neighborhood mustachian can just go off grid most of the time.

Roof-top solar tied to a nuclear-powered grid seems like the perfect combination. Frugal types living in relatively sunny areas might be able to generate all of the electricity they use from a private roof-top solar system, feeding excess power to the grid during the daytime, and then drawing nuclear power generated electricity back from the grid at night and on cloudy days.

availablelight

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #22 on: May 10, 2020, 06:20:08 AM »
I stand by what I said elsewhere on the forum, in another topic about this: "Overall, I don't trust Michael Moore as far as I can throw him, so I'll wait for the debunking blog post that will probably be better-sourced than his latest crockumentary."

Here and elsewhere, I see a lot of people who would normally default to skepticism of Moore being taken in because he happens to be playing to their biases this time.  (Of course, we're all vulnerable to that, and I am no exception.)

I think many people have views of wind and solar energy that are not so much wrong as outdated.  The cost of both per unit of electricity generated has fallen greatly in recent years, as has the cost of battery storage, which is crucial to making them reliable standalone energy sources.  In the UK, coal-based electricity has cratered from a constant presence as late as 2016 to being absent for 3,600 hours of last year and entirely absent for the last month.  Natural gas electricity is down substantially this year too (and already was before the pandemic, despite winter being when the UK electricity demand is always the highest).  In the US, Texas generates more wind power than most countries and is just getting started.  That's not environmentalist virtue signaling -- that's because the economics work, and they'll only work better and in more places in the near future.  The technology will only get better for a long time to come.

I'm all for nuclear power, if anyone shows that they can build it and then sell the electricity produced at a competitive price.  While I agree that Western environmentalists have been irrationally anti-nuclear, that's not the full story.  Even China isn't building as much nuclear as they'd planned for, and Western environmentalists would get about as good of a reception there as doctors trying to warn the world about a novel SARS-like coronavirus.  This is for economic reasons: nuclear plants are so expensive to build safely that they need to sell their electricity at a high price to be viable.  The numbers don't work out.

Maybe some of the proposed new approaches to nuclear power can change this -- I'd like to see it happen -- but I'll believe it when I see it.  In any case, the US will probably have another 100 GW of wind and solar capacity up and running before a nuclear plant proposed today gets out of feasibility study, never mind produces actual electricity.  (If it ever does.)

gimmi80

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #23 on: May 10, 2020, 07:22:38 AM »
I moved to US (from Europe) 15 years ago. I came as a post-graduate student, with a regular lifestyle, I was actually living a quite luxurious life compared to my fellow classmates.
I still remember nowadays how deeply struck I was by the wastefulness of the American culture and society.

Paper printed and wasted all over the university. I was shocked by this. A daily horror sight for me, was to see someone print Five-six hundreds pages For a power point presentation, and throw them in the regular garbage, mixed with food residue, after 45 minutes. Despite everyone having a laptop in front of them.
Lower grade school, when I first registered my son, I was very impressed to see that they gave me a textbook, that was a loaner and used by at least other 7-8 student before my son (at least looking at the stamp). That was until I realized that textbook here are just used as paperweight, students are supposed to store them somewhere, forget about them and return them at the end of the year. In the meanwhile, print a load of worksheet/home work assignment everyday. That’s why textbooks look new after  10 years.

Fake recycling.  I don’t know why, I thought US was the beacon of recycling, let’s say I was a deeply disappointed and here in the US recycling just means throwing your garbage in a different color bucket. Not to say that the most important part of the cycle (reducing and reusing) is not even talked about.

Chicken everywhere (in your meal), the unfounded obsession with protein in every meal, leads people to eat a ton of meat and feel cheated if you consume a meal with no meat in it. I’m not vegan/vegetarian I’m omnivore.

Impossible to live without a car. I had a car, but rarely used it. Mostly biked or walked wherever I had to go. Here in US you can not survive without a car.

Oversized homes, built cheaply requiring an incredible level of maintenance. Window leak. Doors break, roof leak, little to no insulation.
Crazy amount of useless furniture to go with, most of it garbage, low quality cheap stuff. 2-3 dining rooms, that gets used maybe once a year. And a pool, everyone gotta have a pool. I don’t remember ever meeting someone that had a pool in my own country.
People buys a lot of garbage, and pay to store it. Storage units don’t even exist in my home country.

Oversized cars with horrible MPG and exotic car maintenance cost. Gotta go to the dealer once a year and drop anywhere between $1000-2000 for something.

Unfortunately with time, I grew into the lifestyle and absorbed most of it. The apotheosis of wastefulness, is symbolized by an oversized blue/red/white stars spangled cooler with incorporated speakers, that I used once to store some beers and listen to rock music from the bed of my SUV truck during a July 4th cookout.
I keep it in a corner, of my epoxy coated 3 car garage, on a 4’ wood workbench (that has even seen a hammer) just as a memento of my stupidity.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #24 on: May 10, 2020, 08:31:22 AM »
Very few cars cost $1000-$2000 to service. Maybe if you're rocking a McLaren or Ferrari. My mid-engined sports car, with an engine you can't even access as a layperson (without specialist tools), costs on average $500/year AUD ($300/year USD) to service at an independent. The MPG is surprisingly good too, as long as I drive like a grandma. I get 34mpg on the highway.

Of course I only get about 8-12mpg when I drive it hard but that's well worth it for the sound of a screaming engine.

Agree with cars being oversized though - the smaller the better.


Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #25 on: May 10, 2020, 09:50:14 AM »
I stand by what I said elsewhere on the forum, in another topic about this: "Overall, I don't trust Michael Moore as far as I can throw him, so I'll wait for the debunking blog post that will probably be better-sourced than his latest crockumentary."

It's easy enough to find "well supported, debunking blog posts," if that's all you're looking for. Agreed, Moore often exaggerates and cherry picks film clips from interviews to make his point. That doesn't, however, negate the fact that what he and Gibbs are saying in Planet of the Humans is true: Resources on Earth are finite, yet, our economic system is based upon the belief that humans can continue to increase their population and the amount of resources they consume - forever. There's no plan in place, as far as I've ever heard, to stop growing our economy, at some point, and to gradually start winding things down to where our footprint on the planet becomes smaller. I feel like Planet of the Humans is valuable in the sense that it draws attention to this basic flaw in environmentalists' reasoning.

After decades of hard work, the US now is almost able to produce 20% of its electricity using renewable energy. I totally support that trend and hope that it continues. The problem is, though, when it's not sunny and it's not windy, solar and wind produce little, if any, electricity, which means we still need to have fossil-fuel burning power plants idling in the background, 24/7, ready to ramp up power, at any time, to prevent the grid from crashing. If, somehow, the US were able to increase solar and wind energy production up to supplying 50% or 60% or 70% of 80% of our energy consumption, we would be looking at a very different landscape in our country. Huge swaths of the United States would, literally, need to be bulldozed flat, removed of all plants and animals, in order to accommodate the gigantic solar and wind turbine arrays that would be necessary to supply that much electricity. And we would still need to have fossil-fuel burning power plants idling in the background in order to supply energy at night, during storms, and when it's just not that windy.

OTOH, reducing the amount of energy we consume in the US could be done without spending any money, without bulldozing anything, but that appears to be a conversation environmentalists are extremely reluctant to have, probably because it would be bad for business to suggest that Americans curb their hyper-consumptive lifestyles. Americans consume around double the amount of energy as people in comparably rich, prosperous countries in Europe. Why should it be taboo to talk about that inconvenient fact?

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #26 on: May 10, 2020, 10:00:25 AM »
I moved to US (from Europe) 15 years ago. I came as a post-graduate student, with a regular lifestyle, I was actually living a quite luxurious life compared to my fellow classmates.
I still remember nowadays how deeply struck I was by the wastefulness of the American culture and society.

Paper printed and wasted all over the university. I was shocked by this. A daily horror sight for me, was to see someone print Five-six hundreds pages For a power point presentation, and throw them in the regular garbage, mixed with food residue, after 45 minutes. Despite everyone having a laptop in front of them.
Lower grade school, when I first registered my son, I was very impressed to see that they gave me a textbook, that was a loaner and used by at least other 7-8 student before my son (at least looking at the stamp). That was until I realized that textbook here are just used as paperweight, students are supposed to store them somewhere, forget about them and return them at the end of the year. In the meanwhile, print a load of worksheet/home work assignment everyday. That’s why textbooks look new after  10 years.

Fake recycling.  I don’t know why, I thought US was the beacon of recycling, let’s say I was a deeply disappointed and here in the US recycling just means throwing your garbage in a different color bucket. Not to say that the most important part of the cycle (reducing and reusing) is not even talked about.

Chicken everywhere (in your meal), the unfounded obsession with protein in every meal, leads people to eat a ton of meat and feel cheated if you consume a meal with no meat in it. I’m not vegan/vegetarian I’m omnivore.

Impossible to live without a car. I had a car, but rarely used it. Mostly biked or walked wherever I had to go. Here in US you can not survive without a car.

Oversized homes, built cheaply requiring an incredible level of maintenance. Window leak. Doors break, roof leak, little to no insulation.
Crazy amount of useless furniture to go with, most of it garbage, low quality cheap stuff. 2-3 dining rooms, that gets used maybe once a year. And a pool, everyone gotta have a pool. I don’t remember ever meeting someone that had a pool in my own country.
People buys a lot of garbage, and pay to store it. Storage units don’t even exist in my home country.

Oversized cars with horrible MPG and exotic car maintenance cost. Gotta go to the dealer once a year and drop anywhere between $1000-2000 for something.

Unfortunately with time, I grew into the lifestyle and absorbed most of it. The apotheosis of wastefulness, is symbolized by an oversized blue/red/white stars spangled cooler with incorporated speakers, that I used once to store some beers and listen to rock music from the bed of my SUV truck during a July 4th cookout.
I keep it in a corner, of my epoxy coated 3 car garage, on a 4’ wood workbench (that has even seen a hammer) just as a memento of my stupidity.
As an American who spent several enjoyable years living in Europe, I, too, am constantly amazed by the extreme wastefulness I see all around me in the US every. single. day. Suggesting what seem like fairly painless strategies Americans might try to help conserve some energy and resources, is in my experience pointless. When confronted with the ridiculous, and often completely unnecessary, wastefulness of their lifestyles, Americans become defensive, and seem to double down on their insistence that wasting less is not possible and anyone who is suggesting they consume less must be a "communist", un-American, or just downright evil. :(

availablelight

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #27 on: May 11, 2020, 07:39:00 AM »
I stand by what I said elsewhere on the forum, in another topic about this: "Overall, I don't trust Michael Moore as far as I can throw him, so I'll wait for the debunking blog post that will probably be better-sourced than his latest crockumentary."

It's easy enough to find "well supported, debunking blog posts," if that's all you're looking for. Agreed, Moore often exaggerates and cherry picks film clips from interviews to make his point. That doesn't, however, negate the fact that what he and Gibbs are saying in Planet of the Humans is true: Resources on Earth are finite, yet, our economic system is based upon the belief that humans can continue to increase their population and the amount of resources they consume - forever. There's no plan in place, as far as I've ever heard, to stop growing our economy, at some point, and to gradually start winding things down to where our footprint on the planet becomes smaller. I feel like Planet of the Humans is valuable in the sense that it draws attention to this basic flaw in environmentalists' reasoning.

Obviously exponential growth (e.g., 3% GDP growth per year) can't continue forever.  Neither, for that matter, can 7% stock market growth per year, yet here we all are.  This is because we expect it to continue during our lifetimes.

First-world countries (yes, including the US) have been polluting less while continuing to grow GDP for a long time now.  This includes CO2 emissions.  Cleaner energy sources are fundamental to continuing this process.

After decades of hard work, the US now is almost able to produce 20% of its electricity using renewable energy. I totally support that trend and hope that it continues.

It's just getting started, since energy produced from new wind turbines and solar panels is reaching the point where it's cheaper than energy from existing coal plants, and comparable to new gas plants.  In 2020, the US is expected to retire as much coal and gas capacity as is being built, while building 31 GW of wind and solar capacity.  See https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42495

The problem is, though, when it's not sunny and it's not windy, solar and wind produce little, if any, electricity, which means we still need to have fossil-fuel burning power plants idling in the background, 24/7, ready to ramp up power, at any time, to prevent the grid from crashing.

That's only true if you don't have enough energy storage.  That can take the form of batteries (existing lithium-ion technology is already being deployed for this), pumped hydroelectric storage (the biggest source of energy storage today, but limited by geography, as with other hydroelectricity), or, potentially, synthesizing fuels with excess wind or solar energy, which could then be burned in existing gas plants.  This doesn't have good round-trip efficiency compared to the others, and isn't economical currently, but if the cost of building solar panels and wind turbines continues to decrease, we could build them to exceed demand much of the time, and produce synthetic fuels with any remaining energy after saturating batteries, pumped hydro, and other energy storage.  These synthetic fuels could decrease the amount of fossil fuels required for emergency situations, and eventually eliminate them.

If, somehow, the US were able to increase solar and wind energy production up to supplying 50% or 60% or 70% of 80% of our energy consumption, we would be looking at a very different landscape in our country. Huge swaths of the United States would, literally, need to be bulldozed flat, removed of all plants and animals, in order to accommodate the gigantic solar and wind turbine arrays that would be necessary to supply that much electricity.

You're going to have to show me your math backing that up if you want to convince me.  (I'll even assume you mean "energy consumption" and not "electricity consumption", which gives you another factor of 3 or 4 here, because there's no reason we'd be dedicating huge swaths to get to 50% when we're not dedicating 40%-huge swaths now to get to 20%.)  From what I know, a relatively small fraction of the US could provide enough energy from solar for that.

You don't need to bulldoze land to make it useful for wind or solar generation, either: farmers often install wind turbines and solar panels on farmland that remains in use, and benefit from both uses.

And we would still need to have fossil-fuel burning power plants idling in the background in order to supply energy at night, during storms, and when it's just not that windy.

Nope, as above, you can build wind and solar to exceed the demand much of the time and store the excess.

OTOH, reducing the amount of energy we consume in the US could be done without spending any money, without bulldozing anything, but that appears to be a conversation environmentalists are extremely reluctant to have, probably because it would be bad for business to suggest that Americans curb their hyper-consumptive lifestyles. Americans consume around double the amount of energy as people in comparably rich, prosperous countries in Europe. Why should it be taboo to talk about that inconvenient fact?

I don't know which environmentalists you have conversations with, but in my experience there are plenty that say that people (and particularly Americans) shouldn't eat meat, shouldn't drive cars, shouldn't fly, shouldn't use air conditioning (or not nearly as much), etc.

While reducing unneeded excess in energy usage is worth doing, we can't replace fossil fuels with austerity, only with technology.  If you look at energy usage during the current, unsustainable lockdown situation, it's lower, but not low enough to get anywhere near carbon-neutral without a lot more wind and solar power, along with nuclear if it can step up to the plate, and advancements in battery technology, heat pumps, etc., to deal with fossil fuels used for transportation, heating, etc.

It seems Michael Moore thinks the solution is for him to be a much fatter, much more murderous, slightly less purple version of Thanos.  No thanks.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #28 on: May 11, 2020, 08:29:51 AM »
@availablelight , Hopefully, your more rosy view of renewables will end up becoming the new reality. My family and I lived off grid, generating most of the energy we used with PV panels, for 16 years. The lifestyle was great but, in hindsight, pretty sure it would've been better for the environment had we just continued living in our 1 bedroom apartment in town, where we could walk to everything, rather than moving 25 miles out into the countryside, driving 4WD vehicles 50 miles roundtrip back and forth to our jobs, for shopping, etc. As the price of solar got cheaper, we were able to afford to add enough panels to the array, so that on sunny days, by noon, at the latest, the batteries would be completely full. The batteries only held enough energy to power our home for ~1.5 days if there wasn't any sun. As backup, we had a diesel generator that generally burned 100 - 150 gallons/year. We used to joke that we stored excess energy produced on sunny afternoons in loaves of bread baked in an electric bread maker. Pretty much, batteries were the weak point in our system. Our battery bank cost >$3K, and had to be replaced every 4 years. If, as you say, energy storage technology improves, over time, maybe it'll allow us to gradually phase out fossil fuels, more and more. I hope you're right.

availablelight

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #29 on: May 11, 2020, 09:01:24 AM »
Batteries are definitely a key sticking point in making renewable energy reliable.  Lithium-ion technology has gotten better in recent years, in energy density, battery life, and cost.  I know it wouldn't even have been considered for home storage due to cost until relatively recently.  This is due in part to electric car companies like Tesla and China's BYD pushing the limits of the technology.  (As an aside, since cobalt for lithium-ion batteries is relatively rare and particularly hazardous to extract, Tesla uses a low-cobalt battery chemistry, in which they've been working on cobalt reduction over time with an eye to eliminating it completely in the near future, while BYD has always relied on lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which never contained cobalt to begin with, though this results in lower energy density.)

I'm not too knowledgable about potential advances in other battery chemistries, which may be more specialized for storage (something low-energy-density but cheap could outcompete lithium-ion in stationary energy storage) or for other uses.

In any case, it's good to hear from someone who has your experience, and a better idea of the practical challenges on a household scale than I do.

ETF2

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #30 on: May 11, 2020, 09:04:32 AM »
I've been surprised at how many people missed the point of the film.  Even if solar is better than coal, it's NOT THE ANSWER.  That was the point, and it went along with the over population theory.  Because even driving electric, renewable energy, etc... it's still way too much resources.  Renewables are not going to save us...

I thought the documentary was good.  It challenged both left and right wing ideas, and funny enough, it was a very mustachian film :)

ETF2

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #31 on: May 11, 2020, 09:07:26 AM »
Watched it and enjoyed it.  Surprised that it was a Michael Moore documentary?  Wish that nuclear would have been mentioned.
Because nuclear's always seemed not worth the risk to me, I've always been against it, but my mind is starting to change. Michael Shellenberger's recent Ted Talk seemed fairly convincing.



Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Terra Power's innovative traveling wave reactor design sounds promising to me. We need to do something, so if wind and solar aren't going to be enough, maybe we should be looking more seriously at 21st century designs of nuclear reactors. Yeah, nuclear can be dangerous, but so what? If we don't get this right, nothing else is really going to matter.



My friend is a nuclear engineer.

He told me that researchers at ORNL concluded that the use of  coal to generate electricity is 10,000% as radioactively "dirty" as the use of uranium to generate electricity.

Even if every 25 years there is a catastrophic reactor accident like Fukushima  would nuclear power still be a worthwhile alternative  due to its virtually zero emission of greenhouse gas?

I think it's a trade-off  that ought to be considered in light of  new reactor technology.

There's quite a bit of selective concern with folks willing to breath in burning oil and coal fumes 24/7 vs a nuclear world where there's been a single incident once a generation.  And every time it's happened, it was the human factor at fault not the underlying technology.  We go and purposefully make it difficult and expensive to build a reactor, then point out the cost and hassle as a reason not to do it.

Nuclear is the obvious answer.  Reminds me of a recent story written by an Obama guy about energy and how nuclear is the answer.  It's nearly unlimited, clean, safe energy.  It provides the energy for desalination, easily, too.  It solves virtually all of the issues we are facing in regards to energy and pollution.

red_pill

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #32 on: May 11, 2020, 02:47:42 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

DadJokes

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #33 on: May 11, 2020, 06:25:07 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #34 on: May 11, 2020, 06:48:17 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Well, that’s not going to happen. At least not voluntarily, with the possible exception of a subset of affluent westerners who will be replaced very quickly.

ministashy

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #35 on: May 12, 2020, 03:06:17 AM »
It's really easy to handwave away the potential catastrophic risks of current tech nuclear reactors when you're not the ones living next to them.  I'm thinking the people who used to live in Fukushima province who can never go home would have a different opinion.  It's also really easy to ignore the long lead times and very large costs on bringing any new nuclear reactors online, both of which make them less competitive with coal or renewables.  And then there's the ever-present, still-unsolved problem of insanely toxic waste that no one wants to store anywhere near where they live, that will remain dangerous literally longer than any country on earth has been existence.  Sorry, but IMHO humans in general (especially those involved in politics) have proven to be too short-sighted and fallible for us to ignore these risks just because we want an easy answer.

I've looked into some of the reactor alternatives that people have proposed as a 'magic bullet' solution, and so far all of them have serious liabilities.  Thorium reactors make it really easy to propagate weapons-grade enriched uranium.  Molten salt reactors are so corrosive they're still trying to figure out how to engineer them so that they don't have to replace the internals every year or two.  Travelling wave reactor proponents have been pretty cagey about the potential liabilities of their tech, but I found a decent discussion of it here:  https://energycentral.com/c/ec/terrapower%E2%80%99s-travelling-wave-reactor-%E2%80%93-why-not-use-ifr .  I haven't yet looked into these IFR reactors yet, but I assume they also have technical or other liabilities, since the news isn't talking about venture capitalists fighting with each other to throw money at them. 

While I haven't watched the documentary in question, I can tell you that most serious environmentalists are fully aware that the only way to combat climate change and resource depletion is a worldwide, systemic change in how humans live and do business.  This includes renewable energy, reduction of consumption, massive increases in recycling and repairable goods, smarter use of existing freshwater supplies and farming practices that are less dependent on irrigation and nitrogen fertilizers. 

Will we as a species be able to make all these changes in time?  On my good days, I think we can, once we're forced to--past history shows humans as a whole are an insanely adaptable species.  On my bad days, I think modern civilization is heading for a concrete wall at 60 mph and has no intention on touching the brakes until we crash.  Guess we'll find out.

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #36 on: May 12, 2020, 05:32:18 AM »
I think we will begin to do something about climate change only when large sections of the developed world experience things like serious, long lasting shortages of basic food stuff. Insane price rises in the foods that do remain available, electricity shortages and drinking water shortages.

Until the average person in the developed world has to face a few of the kind of problems that poor people in the developING world have had to deal with for decades, they won't be forced to change.

Desertification expanding outward from the equator is another problem. The main reason is that it's happening slowly enough that it doesn't seem like it's a problem, but in the long run the world's population is going to be squeezed into the temperate zones.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #37 on: May 12, 2020, 07:21:55 AM »
While I haven't watched the documentary in question, I can tell you that most serious environmentalists are fully aware that the only way to combat climate change and resource depletion is a worldwide, systemic change in how humans live and do business.  This includes renewable energy, reduction of consumption, massive increases in recycling and repairable goods, smarter use of existing freshwater supplies and farming practices that are less dependent on irrigation and nitrogen fertilizers. 
@ministashy , thanks for the link to the post comparing IFR and TWR. That was interesting.

Environmentalists claim to be aware, in theory at least, of a need to reduce consumption but, in reality, almost no one I know is willing to make any meaningful, personal lifestyle changes. Friends who claim to be environmentalists insist on driving everywhere - even very short distances of <1 mile, over flat terrain, in beautiful weather, when they're not carrying anything besides their cellphones.

Talking with friends who claim to be environmentalists, it becomes immediately clear that they are unwilling to make any meaningful changes to their lifestyle:

"Would you be willing to move closer to your work, so you could walk or ride a bike?"
"Hell no. I love my McMansion on 1/2 acre in the suburbs."

"How about taking public transport to work?"
"There's no public transport that would work for me and my schedule."

"Okay, how about carpooling?"
"No, I couldn't carpool. That wouldn't work for me. Some days after work, I like to stop at the grocery store on my way home, so I couldn't carpool."

"Well, don't you think, maybe, your coworkers who you could carpool with might also like to stop at the grocery store to pick up some food on the way home from work sometimes?"
"No, it wouldn't work out to have to coordinate shopping. It's just easier for me to drive my own car. That way, I can stop when I feel like it. I like the freedom. It's part of being an American, you know?"

"Well, how about trading in your F-150 for like a Prius, or something?"
"Ha, ha, ha! I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those commie death traps!"

bacchi

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #38 on: May 12, 2020, 10:35:59 AM »
"Well, how about trading in your F-150 for like a Prius, or something?"
"Ha, ha, ha! I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those commie death traps!"

That was going well until this one. Environmentalists don't drive F-150s. They drive Subie SUVs. They'd also never use the epithet "commie."

Here's another one though:

"Maybe you can vacation closer to home this year?"
"No way! Iceland this year and hiking in Patagonia next year!"


bacchi

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #39 on: May 12, 2020, 10:42:09 AM »
I think we will begin to do something about climate change only when large sections of the developed world experience things like serious, long lasting shortages of basic food stuff. Insane price rises in the foods that do remain available, electricity shortages and drinking water shortages.

Until the average person in the developed world has to face a few of the kind of problems that poor people in the developING world have had to deal with for decades, they won't be forced to change.

Desertification expanding outward from the equator is another problem. The main reason is that it's happening slowly enough that it doesn't seem like it's a problem, but in the long run the world's population is going to be squeezed into the temperate zones.

Agreed. When it becomes abundantly clear, the developed world will take serious action. It'll be too late in a lot of ways by then.

DadJokes

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #40 on: May 12, 2020, 11:00:46 AM »
Per this article from Grist, despite drastically reduced air travel and vehicle use during the pandemic, emissions are only down about 5.5%. The author cites an agency saying that only about 20% of all emissions are coming from transportation.

As far as I can tell, the only thing that's going to reduce carbon emissions enough to meet people's lofty goals is for a substantial drop in the planet's population.

(Tongue in cheek) Why are we trying to minimize loss of life from the virus again?

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #41 on: May 12, 2020, 11:01:15 AM »
"Well, how about trading in your F-150 for like a Prius, or something?"
"Ha, ha, ha! I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those commie death traps!"

That was going well until this one. Environmentalists don't drive F-150s. They drive Subie SUVs. They'd also never use the epithet "commie."

Here's another one though:

"Maybe you can vacation closer to home this year?"
"No way! Iceland this year and hiking in Patagonia next year!"

Yeah, guess you're right. F-150 drivers are usually a different demographic. Believe it or not, though, I actually know one person who refers to himself as an environmentalist but, yet, just bought a new F-150 last year. He uses it to commute 50+ miles round trip to work, 5-days a week, and occasionally, also, to haul a few bags of rubbish to the dump.

red_pill

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #42 on: May 12, 2020, 11:04:02 AM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

red_pill

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #43 on: May 12, 2020, 11:09:20 AM »


(Tongue in cheek) Why are we trying to minimize loss of life from the virus again?

A friend of mine was saying the same thing - that a virus that kills old and ill people is probably (and he admits this is horrible) beneficial for the overall health of the population.  Humans aren't exempt from the laws of nature that occasionally requires disease to cull the herd's population, and that is not necessarily an undesirable thing.

As for me, I'd rather see us have a healthier population as a whole and reduce our population in a gradual way through family planning. 

bacchi

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #44 on: May 12, 2020, 11:17:45 AM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

Most of the energy used is from developed countries. A billion people generating <1 ton of C02/year is a lot better than 400M people (US+Canada+Australia) generating 15 tons/year. Europe and China, which are better than those three, are also part of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

It's not that women's education+contraception in Africa isn't a good idea but the problem is mainly us.

red_pill

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #45 on: May 12, 2020, 12:17:42 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

Most of the energy used is from developed countries. A billion people generating <1 ton of C02/year is a lot better than 400M people (US+Canada+Australia) generating 15 tons/year. Europe and China, which are better than those three, are also part of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

It's not that women's education+contraception in Africa isn't a good idea but the problem is mainly us.

A few issues with your argument.

First, 1B at <1 ton per year is only "better" than 400M at 15/tons per year if your measurement is total CO2 usage.   But that does not account for quality of life and ability for people to maximize their full potential in life. With consumption comes technological advancement, exploration, and the general elevation of the human condition.
 
Second, environmental impact is not only measured in CO2/year.  Those soon to be 8 billion people have to live somewhere, have to eat, etc. That all has impacts beyond CO2.

Third, and most important, is that those other countries are trying to catch up with the North American living standard, and not many people in North America are trying to live like someone from Gambia.  Afghanistan has one of the lowest CO2 consumption rates in the world...but I don't want to live like that.  Consumption is only an issue if there's too many people consuming. 

That said, yes of course we North Americans need to smarten the hell up with our stupid consumption levels.  For sure.   But, we also need fewer people.  Sure 1B at 1 tons is "better" than 400M at 15 tons, but 10 billion, 12 billion, etc is a disaster no matter what.

Barbaebigode

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #46 on: May 12, 2020, 12:33:24 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

The US emits about 4x more CO2 than the whole continent of Africa, while having 30% of the population. How about reducing the american population?

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #47 on: May 12, 2020, 12:39:47 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

Most of the energy used is from developed countries. A billion people generating <1 ton of C02/year is a lot better than 400M people (US+Canada+Australia) generating 15 tons/year. Europe and China, which are better than those three, are also part of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

It's not that women's education+contraception in Africa isn't a good idea but the problem is mainly us.

Agreed, population reductions in already developed countries would have the most positive environmental impact. Most rich countries already have a negative population growth rate. I read recently that the US is at 1.79 children per woman. If Western countries stopped encouraging workers to immigrate, pretty much all of their populations would start decreasing, which would be a great thing for the planet. Unfortunately, our economic systems require constant growth: of population, production, sales, consumption. This seems to be the root of the problem.

Shane

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #48 on: May 12, 2020, 12:44:07 PM »
These problems all cease to be problems with 5 billion fewer people on the planet.

Good point. Has anyone seen Thanos lately?

No need for Thanos.  Invest in women's education and contraception in Africa and you solve a lot of issues right there.  And encourage countries to have family planning supports in place like Iran did for years.  Way better than waiting for economic/ecological collapse to do it for us.

The US emits about 4x more CO2 than the whole continent of Africa, while having 30% of the population. How about reducing the american population?

Sounds good to me. If the US went back to a population of, say, 100MM or maybe 150MM people, seems like there'd be more of everything to go around: fresh air, open spaces, natural resources.

Barbaebigode

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Re: Planet of the Humans
« Reply #49 on: May 12, 2020, 12:49:50 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

In 36 years, China's population increased by about 400 million. That with a centralized authoritarian government. Surely the policy slowed down the population growth, but if anything, this large scale experiment showed that family planning, birth control and women rights are a very long term strategy when it comes to population control.