Why We Aren't Doomed by Climate Change | Hannah Ritchie

[@DaveShap]

I was just thinking earlier today that humans, as heterotrophs, have always consumed other life. A lot of people are deeply uncomfortable with this.

[@real_pattern]

wow so deep. but like, what's your point? the observation surely can't be taken seriously as an argument against minimising the exploitation of any sentient systems as much as is possible & practicable & desirable. if it's a subtle dig at the pessskkyyy vEeeeegaaaaAAns, it's goofy.

[@ossian882]

​@@real_patternI think it was more pointing out the special position that now is the first time ever it might be a positive sum game. For all of history humans have been bad to the environment and it is still the case, but with technology an knowledge it may be possible to change this soon.

[@real_pattern]

@@ossian882 i agree that we can feasibly imagine future scenarios where we drastically minimize our destruction of sentience & earth systems, but i don't see this meaning in the comment i replied to.
idk what dave meant by "a lot" - but it seems to me that a far higher "lot" are not uncomfortable, but outright unaware or indifferent about heterotrophy, some even embracing it in a curious cynical-romantic "it's the circle of life, doggy dog world" way, where they take these facts of the past and present to justify the status-quo and/or even as normative guidelines.

[@DaveShap]

Just a reaction to the idea that humans have never been sustainable.

[@tomdarling8358]

Beautiful pick, David.
Thank you for sharing.
✌️🤟🖖

[@davidbarry6900]

30:20 I don't think she understands Jevon's Paradox. With more efficient lighting as an example, the issue is not that individual people start using 50% more lighting (albeit for less total cost/energy) than they did before. The issue is rather that people who previously could not afford lighting at all start using it, and businesses start trying to improve their workplace environment and efficiency with more lighting, since it is now affordable, and municipalities start adding lighting around town because it is now possible to fit within their budget, and people start doing more activities at night because the cost of the lighting is less, and start adding christmas light ornaments to outside yard trees or their house exterior because it has become cheap, and cars and fridges and other new devices all start including lighting because it is cheap enough to make only a tiny difference in the product price.... and so on. In the end, the total energy used by more efficient lighting is RADICALLY greater, because efficiency allows for many MORE ways to use that service.
30:26 The analogy with perhaps driving your car a bit more if petrol is cheaper is another example of where she gets it wrong. The issue is not that people drive their cars a bit more with cheaper fuel, but rather that people start buying V6 and 3 litre engine cars and light trucks or SUVs instead of classic light cars, AND then a second or THIRD car, and the new generation of vehicles (all much bigger and heavier) use a higher BASE amount of fuel than older cars, even with more "efficient" engines.

[@nico210]

The bigger car will still be more expensive, even if the consumption is level.

[@DaveE99]

⁠@@nico210 if economics of those materials stay the same. But the absolute cost of vehicle + fuel both monthly and life time would change

[@reyndor1583]

The reason people don't talk about solutions is because they're all unthinkable unless we (the population) see the problem as an existential threat. So many solutions people have put out there Hannah talks about them being unthinkable, unattainable, or 'another kettle of fish'.
I agree we need to swap to focusing on solutions at some point but until the average person on the street see it as a pandemic level problem there isn't going to be the push needed.

[@IsitReallyrealreally]

💯🙌🏼

[@MrSeadawg123]

BS the world is top down management.
Look up how many square miles burned in Canadian wild fires last year. From a country that does no controlled burns.

[@phrenologisto]

The pandemics are a manifestation of the climate crisis

[@andrewmalcolm79]

I keep championing North Ronaldsay sheep. They were left on an Island in Scotland for about 200 years and in that time adapted to an almost totally seaweed diet. Their mutton and milk has *lots* of iodine from the seaweed which is good for human IQ. Seaweed is good for carbon capture and can be composted, with or without sheep and their manure, and mutton curry is not too bad either. If you're looking to combat desertification in coastal areas, like the UN and their great green wall thing, why not farm seaweed and clams on the coast and feed them to seaweed eating sheep and their farmers? "Greenlandic glacial rock flour improves crop yield in organic agricultural production" Mix rock flour in with the compost from the setup I described and not only the oceans but also the deserts go from dwindling resources to potential opportunities. If sheep can adapt to an all seaweed diet in 200 years, how long would it take chickens and cows to adapt? With modern technology and gut microbiota transfer, much less time? If cattle and poultry could be fed farmed seafood, how much pressure could that take off the land? Dig bunds upstream and inland from the coast to encourage reformation of rivers and restocking of ground water. How could that scale in a country like Australia, with it's huge miles-of-coast-per-human ratio? Shipping, especially by sail, is the most energy efficient mode of transport and carbon neutral if not carbon negative. Crops on land are measured in yield per square kilometre, can seaweed yields be measure in cubic kilometres? Why can't I test these ideas out in Polytopia or something like that?

[@phrenologisto]

Manufacturing is climate instability. None of our technology or abilities stabilize the climate, they're focused entirely on human comfort... and if we can't see the problem with that, wasf.

[@SensemakingNL]

Even if we cant solve the crisis, we need to stop constructing the ‘ crisis’ outside of ourselves. We as humans have to deal with circumstances, whatever they are.

[@IsitReallyrealreally]

#wearetheflaw

[@tsvgoali8843]

And not only whatever they are but also whoever caused them!
Its not relevant if we are responsible for climate change or not for us to care about it.

[@aatukable]

One aspect that was not mentioned is wild animal suffering. Instead of ”conservation biology”, which is one normative vision of the bioengineering we are doing on a massive scale in any case, we need compassionate biology, so that we can be sure the environment provides safety, happiness and peacefulness for all sentient beings.

[@Low_commotion]

Absolutely, conservation misses the ultimate point. How much is ultimately possible is impossible to foresee, but we should do what we reasonably can.

[@richardmoore7367]

As for 'the positive day after day that we don' t see' mantra in this video, this view garnered from global data sets, what happens when the modelling doesn't accurately predict global trends that are progressively worse on a massive scale in areas that we don't see?
With temperatures in the oceans around Antarctica these last two years being well outside global climate models if this temperature rise is not an aberration but a tipping point, global sea level models will have to recalibrate due to Antarctic ice sheet loss to a 5m sea level rise in decades.
How does this help her be positive about the sustainable future? 5m sea level rise in coastal populated areas in decades, yeah humanity can cope with that without a fuss surely?

[@markarchambault4783]

Good interview but I sense a bit too much techno-optimism, given the amount of rare earth minerals, lithium and other scarce resources that will be needed to fully decarbonize technological society. Mining all that material will take a lot of energy besides, and can that be done without fossil fuel energy into the far future?

[@Low_commotion]

As for energy, nuclear & geothermal are the great hopes if you're worried about rare earths, but I think good progress is being made in alternative panel & battery construction materials.

[@douglasjones2814]

Techno-optimism on zero ids…

[@davidbarry6900]

1:12:55 re Palm oil counterfactuals: one more concern is if the productive palm oil crop were banned, what else would the local people do instead for an income? Slash and burn to produce less valuable crops (like farmers in Brazil?), thereby demanding more farming over a larger area to get income, and ending up deforesting a larger region? Or would there be some sort of smuggler/illicit economy instead, like the production of opium by poor farmers in Afghanistan (and other places like Laos)? We don't know without running the experiment, but can't ASSUME that the alternative scenario would be any better for the forest (and biodiversity/ecological outcomes) than the palm oil plantations. It may be much worse. Never try to posit a "solution" without figuring out how the people currently in the region and industry might have to change their activities to survive.

[@zacharyb2723]

Yeah it requires international action to guarantee income for poor folks - as is obvious, the developed countries must provide for transition to those that are less developed.

[@TennesseeJed]

As soon as we started using fire our unsustainable condition began, but none of us would be here now. So it's hard to face.

[@IsitReallyrealreally]

Nope! Mining, mainly oil -> plastic. The biggest Elephant in the world

[@Yog3r]

Imagine Liv running entire TV channel now. Truly honest information, displaying different views on the problems and no hate. Perhaps some meaningful movies instead of non-stop action. We would laugh, we would cry and most importantly, we would think.
I'm really curious what size of audience this would bring.
Coming from your interview with Lex, it was really nice to listen to both of you there. I feel similar vibe here. That kind and form of information makes me more curious and excited about the future. Thanks!

[@davwunderbrrd6944]

yes, agency! very important message to get across, thanks!

[@robertkoopman4186]

We dont understand nature. We are just geussing, gammbling with lives. How does it feel being the mulak

[@TDrudley]

Liv, yes we use more energy, for sure, but the goal is not to use less energy, it's to have more efficient energy, because that means, per definition, cleaner energy, and that's the issue, the "cleaness", not the amount of energy, we need and want more energy, just cleaner energy.

[@zacharyb2723]

UGH thats such a bad take - you think energy waste doesn't matter?? you think we can just keep accelerating our energy use? not even with 'clean' energy, there's not enough metals to go around, and even solar has environmental problems. Please, please look up Nate Hagens and he will explain better than I could.

[@TDrudley]

@@zacharyb2723 Energy waste? What energy waste? What energy use is waste? Do you mean inefficient energy generation, like burning various things? I did mention that we want efficient generation, which means, less energy waste. Oh, maybe you mean, wasteful energy use, like old school light bulbs instead of LED lights? Of course that's bad as well. I am not talking about generating more energy for the sake of it and just waste it, I'm just saying the more energy we generate the more uses we find for it, historically, and it's also been a very very good thing for humanity.

[@phrenologisto]

Cleaner energy might as well be less deadly nerve gas

[@TDrudley]

@@phrenologisto If the less deadly nerve gas is oxygen, then I'm okay with that silly description.

[@IsitReallyrealreally]

“The plastic’s going everywhere and so on and so on” - exactly the problem.

[@0nelight19-SaveSoil]

Desertification is a huge Problem

[@henrimoens8636]

Doesn't show up in the data. Less desert and more greening is the reality.

[@0nelight19-SaveSoil]

@@henrimoens8636 then your data is fake - mainly to make fake money on the real cost of killing people and life-sustaining micro- and macro biodiversity.

[@reyndor1583]

I want to throw out there it is possible to change farming practices to make it possible to produce meat in a carbon negative way (take more CO2 out air than it creates). It will take massive changes to the way out AG system works but look up Will Harris of White Oak Pastures or what Allan Savory has done in Africa as examples.

[@user-xr1vd4pl7w]

Yep, that part of the discussion was disappointingly misleading. All of the meat I eat is sustainability raised, grass fed, organic, etc...
Sarah's main argument against cattle grazing seems to be land use. The majority of cattle grazing is done on non-farmable land with poor soil fertility, rocky terrain, steep slopes, etc.
Go drive to Phoenix, Arizona and you'll see cows grazing outside the city in the rocky desert.
Moreover, we have less cattle grazing the planet than we did before modern industrial times. It's estimated there were 50 million buffalo roaming America before they were largely killed off. Perhaps even more megafauna roamed the earth during the last ice age before the mass extinction events

[@zacharyb2723]

@@user-xr1vd4pl7w "we have less cattle grazing the planet than we did before modern industrial times"?? where did you hear that? we have 100million cattle in the US. and many are in confined feeding operations, not grazing. We need major shifts in how we do cattle.

[@TDrudley]

Hans Rosling, represent. RIP.

[@BarbraBond]

Yeah this was great :) Thank Liv!

[@user-tk3rc7lq3s]

There is a fine line between "not doomed" and "not a problem". There are no experts on what the economy will be like if we choose to survive. Experts are not the hope. The common sense that we must destroy oil companies is the only hope. Futurists can try to predict what the economy will produce without oil companies, but they will fail. If you want an ideological goal, degrowth is not it. Equality of "persons" would result in fewer oil companies. Economic changeists are the only sustainable ideologues. Reality changes, and supply demand economic conservatives are deadly.

[@rolandgibson-murphy2853]

Right NOW many children are living in substandard put together living quarters on squalor, while so many other children dont make it to adulthood. If either they live and stay in their underdeveloped homes or they leave to better countries. The increase in pollution will grow. Consumption, pollution, and resources will have a negative impact on the environment.
There are just too many people in the world.

[@HeJurm]

Amazing stuff.

[@a1b1c184]

We just aren't ready to stop using fossil fuels yet. It's coming and breakthroughs are happening everyday but today, right now we are just far to dependent on oil. If the goal of a carbon tax would be to ultimately save lives how many would die if products like heating oil or natural gas became twice or three times more expensive because of a carbon tax?

[@njsification]

The "volkswagon scandal" was really only a scandal that the US made impossible emissions standards to prevent European competition. Trucks have none of the same requirements as passenger cars.

[@Nors2Ka]

Not boycotting palm oil? Ok, easy way to dismiss everything else that was said, thanks.

[@johanponken]

6:17 Hand Rosin? I need to play this on 0.75 speed... It's Hans Rosling if anyone is interested.

[@LivBoeree]

Hans rosling

[@ericksoun]

You should invite jason hickel

[@BarbraBond]

"the way we do human" :)

[@nubianpwr]

The human being is now fundamentally distorted: faster, more food, more data, more sex, more... and now we want to change nature itself to suit something unnatural😆😅🤣

[@TDrudley]

I'm happy to hear that Hannah knows that the transition will happen without any political pressure. I am a bit sad that she thinks it would take a century, it will take a couple of decades at MOST, even without political pressure, because, like she said, market forces, market forces are stronger and faster than getting politics to do anything.

[@phrenologisto]

Planetary forces are even stronger than market ones, especially while we pat ourselves on the back for nothing good

[@TDrudley]

@@phrenologisto Yet market forces control some planetary forces, I mean, that's why climate change is a thing.

[@MuscleBandit]

Ooohh I'm looking forward to this one, hopefully Greta's handcuffs weren't too tight last week when she was arrested again, twice!!

[@phrenologisto]

You know you're on the wrong side of history when your enemy is a kid holding a sign asking you to educate yourself until you understand why she's standing there holding a sign.
Why do you care about Greta Thunberg, let alone relish in her potential injury? All she's ever encouraged was adults cleaning up after themselves... how dare she /s

[@douglasjones2814]

A slightly dystopian view of reality? Sub Saharan Africa is cooking under heatwaves. Meat alternatives manufactured in labs? Imagine how much more damage we can do to humans with Ultra Processed Food if we add manufactured meat to our diets on top of the Massive damage already being done by ultra Processed Food. There seems to be a massive disconnect with reality with this sort of conversation.

[@phrenologisto]

Lab produced meat will never be more efficient than a cow. Every bit of "good news" I've heard, has always been nonsense

[@govcorpwatch]

There aren't enough resources to go "all electric" with transport.... and the DoD has both anti-gravity tech and "quantum/" teleportation tech as well... at least according to the whistleblowers! Some of who are very credible.

[@njsification]

This is just a vegan propoganda episode masking as trying to save the world

[@TDrudley]

Why is Hannah talking about degrowth like it's something she wants but it's not politically viable? It's not even logically viable, it's insanity. At first it sounded like she "got it" but after that it sounds like she totally does not "get it". Growth = progress = efficiency = less polution. Degrowth = less progress = less efficiancy = more polution.

[@phrenologisto]

That's not been demonstrated in our emissions at all

[@IsitReallyrealreally]

NO to electric cars. No More recourse extraction !!

[@rienkhoek4169]

Back to the horse and carriage?

[@EngiRedbeard]

You are still missing the point. CO2 is plant food, will only lead to more plants and animals on the planet, more life. CO2 is not pollution. It is a tasteless, odorless, TRACE gas. It is just as important as O2 to the life cycle. We are currently in a CO2 drought if you look at the historic CO2 levels. CO2s heating affect is also saturated, so adding more will not warm the planet in any noticeable ways.
All of the things you discuss in this podcast all are predicated on the first incorrect thing, that CO2 is a pollutant and bad for the environment. Think for yourself. Challenge the first ASSUMPTION before you build logical arguments on a false ASSUMPTION.

[@guidobolke5618]

You haven't understood what this is about. It's not about saving earth, nature or life on this planet. It's not about making it dirty. It is only about the risks to the survival and welfare of us humans.
There is also no "saturation of the CO2 heating effect". That's nonsense.

[@markarchambault4783]

Carbon Dioxide may not technically be a pollutant, but there is such a thing as too much, especially if the increase is very rapid. We're headed towards levels of CO2 last seen tens of millions of years ago, when the earth was 4 to 5 C warmer on average and sea levels were hundreds of feet higher.
To have that degree of change occur over one hundred plus years rather than thousands of years will radically destabilize agriculture at the very least, which could stress complex civilization to the breaking point. Is thar worth the risk of taking a denialist approach as you're doing?

[@Low_commotion]

​​@@markarchambault4783Exactly, it's not about the planet, the biosphere will survive in some form or another. It's about civilization and whether it can adapt quickly without ruining quality of life for humans.
Besides, if we plan to go off-planet at some point, we will need to perfect our methods of powering civilization without oil, which only exists on earth and has no route of becoming 10-100x as abundant quickly (unlike renewables & nuclear).

[@zacharyb2723]

EngiRedbeard - there is no polite way to say that everything you just said is nonsense. NO, we are NOT in a CO2 drought in the history of humanity (ie, the conditions we adapted to survive), and NO, CO2 heating is not saturated, that is COMPLETELY made up. I don't know how else to say it.
And the heat swings and drought caused by increased CO2 are BAD FOR PLANTS. I've heard this terrible argument before and it blows my mind. I am a botanist. Too much CO2 can cause mess up plant growth - like oxygen for humans - you'll die if you get too much oxygen for too long, fyi. btw am botanist. We've ALREADY observed food system disruption from climate change - its not the future, its ALREADY believed that climate change has caused higher food prices outside of other inflation.

[@EngiRedbeard]

@@zacharyb2723 You are completely wrong. Interesting how you said "history of humanity" to cherry pick your time frame. CO2 has been far higher in the past. Orders of magnitude higher and life thrived and the planet didn't burn up. You should do some research into how CO2 works. Saturation is a thing. You are either ignorant or a liar.
You should ask for your money back regarding your botanist education. More CO2 does not "mess up plant growth." It allows plants to grow with less water so your previous statement about droughts is also incorrect. If there is more CO2 then plants can grow with far less water. O2 for humans is nothing like CO2 for plants. Those are two completely different processes. Increase CO2 has clearly been shown to increase plant growth. You really should complain about your botany education. We have more food now than we have ever had in all of history. Do a little research. The only reason there might be supply chain problems with the food system is because of poor governance by people who have no clue what they are doing or talking about. Like yourself.

[@monstrositylabs]

You can't be doomed by something that doesn't exist

[@channelwarhorse3367]

You got me laughing by 7 planes of light, 7, 4/3, 7 earth at POWER, a step beyond Einstein's metric 0, 4/3, 0.

[@monstrositylabs]

@@channelwarhorse3367 Glad to please

[@user-rn1ws5id8h]

@@channelwarhorse3367What is this witchcraft 😂

[@zacharyb2723]

As technically correct as it is suicidally stupid.

[@rienkhoek4169]

Something like physics?

[@TDrudley]

Lol, Hans, great man, Greta, terrible person. Sweden has them all!

[@janmyklebust3915]

How is it possible to create so much nonsense.? The CO2 Psychosis..

[@phrenologisto]

The work of every employed environmental scientist over decades. I can tell from this comment that you're not one of them. I shouldn't be able to know you don't work in the field based on one comment unless you're wrong.