Ordered. Look forward to reading it. Thanks.

Thanks for the optimism but greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite all the sustainable wind and solar infrastructure that we've been building globally. I'll really feel optimistic when I see that we are no longer on the path to failure. Please read Catton's book Overshoot.

@davestagner

2 ай бұрын

Just because greenhouse gases have been rising does not mean they will continue to rise indefinitely. There is - must be - a transition period. Renewables have crossed the threshold to being cheaper than fossil fuels, and EVs are on the cusp (and are there already if you consider operating costs). Both have seen compounding growth - the same exponential curve that makes what happened to global population look so shocking.

Ordered. Looking forward to January 9, the launch date.

Great book, really enjoyed it. One thing I would love to know though is what is the carbon footprint of our pets. If we replaced our cats and dogs by rabbits and guinea pigs what difference would it make?

I found Hannah's case for optimism from our dire predicament quite strenuous and unconvincing, and she constructed a lot of straw men in the book in order to make her points. Her use of data in her book was selective to say the least. I also noted a number of inaccuracies (or at least significant divergencies from my own understanding of our predicament). She has also struggled to justify a lot of the positions she adopted in her own book. The section on de-growth was particularly ill informed, and the idea that renewables can replace fossil fuels, simply fanciful. I also struggled with her 'war' metaphor in the book, which I found bizarre. Her claim to absolute apolitical objectivity also, clearly indefensible. I don't concur with Hannah's definition of a 'doomer'. I regard myself as a doomer in that I think I have a realistic understanding of our predicament and tend not to seek solace in cognitive dissonance or denial. I try to be a grown up and face the grim reality of our predicament. That doesn't mean that I will ever give up hope in our ability to address some of the worst impacts of climate change - far from it - but I do push back against baseless optimism, which I regard as dangerous. Panic is an important human emotion as it can help us to conjure up the motivation and will to act on our worst fears. Buffering people from panic is unhelpful. In respect of the climate crisis, too much panic is not our problem, not enough panic is our problem. It's a shame, because I so want to encounter a positive narrative on the climate crisis in which I can believe. Hope is so difficult to come by, that I really willed Hannah to provide a convincing space for hope, but alas, I struggled to find it in her book. In order to make her somewhat plaintive case for optimism, Hannah found herself contorting and making use of accounting tricks and statistical sleight of hand. These strategies needed to be exposed. They are the same strategies used by climate deniers to such great effect. I think Bill Gates, and perhaps Elon Musk, had much more influence on this book than Hannah would ever admit. The book is a techno-optimist, neoliberal manifesto and highly ideological and, despite Hannah's assertions to the contrary, very political. She seems to be suggesting that there is a 'business as usual' route to addressing climate change and the book repeats the myth that 'we have the technology in place to solve this' - an assertion that, for me, has never stood up to scrutiny. I found it a troubling book.

@apersonlikeanyother6895

5 ай бұрын

Agree. Do you know of any good sources for solutions? Or realistic optimism?

@patrickkelly1195

5 ай бұрын

@@apersonlikeanyother6895 There don't appear to be any solutions on the horizon, but I remain hopeful that there is something I've overlooked. I find Nate Hagens' podcast to be the most well informed source of information. He seems more capable than most at joining the dots in a clear, rational way, but even he admits to not really knowing how this crisis might ultimately unfold, or precisely when. I think his analysis of the potential for 'A Great Simplification' is very well researched. He makes a compelling case. I don't see any solutions on the horizon at present. If our politicians were going to really act to rescue us fro this predicament, they would have done so by now, but instead we get endless meaningless CoPs, which, I suspect, are simply annual events planned to make it seam as if progress is being made. A cover, and distraction from their utter inertia. De-growth and doughnut economics are nice ideas, but impossible to implement due to our collective 306 trillion dollars of global debt. It is the need to keep up with payments on our governments' debt mountain that keeps us well and truly locked into the current consumption death spiral. We're victims of our own excesses. Added to which, we're quickly stripping the planet of all its resources to an extent that wars over the diminishing supplies becomes almost inevitable. No, whichever way you choose to look at it, only chaos, destruction and violence awaits. I'm holding out hope that enough of us survive to rebuild society on better, more equal terms. That gives me some cause for optimism.

@Max2050x

5 ай бұрын

I can't say I struggle with it but I was puzzled at the techno optimism since technology is what raised growth the last 100 years or so that allowed the problem to begin with; who's not to say that we delude ourself that more energy use, while a core part of civilization, is the undoing and even with green energy phasing even fast enough, just keeps growing that energy use and so we slowly destroy the ecosystem anyway. It seems there's this sense of centralisation that neoliberalism, loosely, is not a political movement and I guess the attempt is to depolitice the issue in some healthy manner, it's hard to fault her for that given the dire situation and how young people will have to cope with it. Still, I guess the question needs to be asked if technology won't help us, what will? In my opinion, if higher energy use is one core tenet of civilization over the long term, more people, money and specialized jobs are others. If that's true, it will be hard even good use of technology so perhaps we rely on what we have. I agree it would be unfeasible to "convince" or "manage" the world into degrowth; too many people would fight it. "contorting and making use of accounting tricks and statistical sleight of hand", would you mind going into details or provide some examples? I'm only on chapter 3 but I'm not a trained accountant or statistician so it's useful to know this and critical thinking is always healthy for a civil discussion.

@Max2050x

5 ай бұрын

@@patrickkelly1195 $306 trillion in debt huh? We will never be able to pay that back. Combined with expected fertility crash in ~60-80 years it's looking rather grim.

@MrPaddy924

5 ай бұрын

@@Max2050x "contorting and making use of accounting tricks and statistical sleight of hand", would you mind going into details or provide some examples? Yes, I'll give you just one example, but there are numerous. Ritchie uses what we call 'data blending' which is viewed with suspicion amongst scientists as it can support false assertions. For example, Ritchie states in the book, as cause for optimism, that the EU and USA have significantly reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. Which is, of course true, but not the cause for optimism that she suggests. Since the rise of China as the world's manufacturing powerhouse, countries like the USA, those in the EU and other developed nations have essentially delegated all of their manufacturing to China which has resulted in their own emissions reducing and China's growing. Overall, global emissions are still rising - it's just that the manufacturing component of those emissions have shifted from other G20 nations to China. This makes China look like the bad guys, when actually all they are doing is producing all of our stuff for us. Against that backdrop, you can understand why it is disingenuous for Ritchie to pick out EU and US emissions to support her case for optimism when these wealthy countries are contributing to record global emissions by buying more stuff than ever from China. At no point in her book does she caveat her positive message with these ugly truths. She's set out to write a positive book and has evidently cherry picked her data to support that thesis. This is why Greta Thunberg urges people to keep their eye on the global emissions data and nothing else. This clarity of focus makes one immune to the positive spin that the likes of Ritchie churns out.

Climate change has nothing to do with Pollution, infact pollution exacerbate the issue.

cherry picking data is not really a scientific stem attitude imho

Can we still feed 10 billion people without fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides that come from fossil fuels?