Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ...
by 000ooo000 on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:52PM
(#36938000)
It is worth pointing out that alleviating the problem by having people do less (as you put it) is far less of a gamble than betting it all on innovation. Innovation kicks the can down the road. Innovation means relying on a very select few capable of the innovation required, and an even more restricted set of people to finance it.
Also curious is that these compromises are almost never framed as a temporary adjustment to humanity's consumption until the innovation catches up. Would think that's more palatable, but instead it usually seems like "we need to stop consuming like this, forever".
This is also one of my pet peeves with the "degrowth" movement's solution to climate change. Essentially they want to alleviate the problems not by innovating to do more with less, but to have people do less. This would mean less work for everyone, but obviously less work means more leisure time. Unless every decides to take up meditating, they're going to consume more during their leisure time, creating not only more work, but also more of every type of negative externality.