Happy (Belated) Earth Day!

[hanselthecaretaker]

So yeah, one of the more socially ambivalent holidays happened yesterday, and as such the near-obligatory article condemning unsustainable population growth popped up in my google feed -

It’s time to talk about Earth’s unsustainable population growth | Opinion

51 years after the first Earth Day, time to return to a major concern for its founder.

www.inquirer.com

However rather than scoffing at the source and dismissing it as more anti-human conspiracy-laden propaganda, I read the thing, and can’t really say I disagree on the whole. It seems to be the real “inconvenient truth”.

It’s pretty much a given human expansion, consumption and the byproducts of such have a rather adverse effect on our only life-hosting planet in the known universe. And so we have to question, what kind of world are we leaving kids that will ultimately have to suffer the consequences? Year after year, we say progress is being made, but at least in “developed” countries these efforts certainly don’t seem to be keeping up with humanity’s ravenous social, economic, materialistic, etc. appetites.

In the end, it’s really not the planet that’s suffering, as it “knows” through billions of years how to adjust and regulate itself. However it’s highly doubtful people will be so fortunate when that eventually happens.

 

[Gergar12]

"Earth's unsustainable population growth"

Hard disagree. More people = more innovation = more technology = more ways to fight climate change.

 

[SilentPony]

"Earth's unsustainable population growth"

Hard disagree. More people = more innovation = more technology = more ways to fight climate change.

But also more people = more resources needed = more profit to be had hording resources = more poverty and corporations putting quarterly profits over climate sustainability.

I mean if history is anything to go by, don't trust humans to do the right thing.

 

[Gergar12]

But also more people = more resources needed = more profit to be had hording resources = more poverty and corporations putting quarterly profits over climate sustainability.

I mean if history is anything to go by, don't trust humans to do the right thing.

Yeah, I have been thinking about ways for the left to resist corporations, but unless the left starts making their own hardware, isp, and so fore. Twitter right now is the best way to resist.

Huh, neat after some googling I found this.

Raddle

raddle.me

Edit: The DSA is useless as they have started to back Biden.

Edit2: Justice Democrats suck too.

 

[SilentPony]

SNIP

There's no way to "resist" a corporation as it were. Individuals have no power. The whole idea of recycling, picking up trash, doing our part, it was all bullshit propaganda from Nestle, coal and oil companies and the auto industry to pass the blame and responsibility off to average joes and janes.
The only real way to make a difference is through legislation, and that's an all but bought up game. FIFA, Amazon, Google, Apple, Walmart, China National Petroleum, Microsoft, these are governments in and over themselves with armies of lawyers who will fight on the legal front for decades to prevent a .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% increase in corporate taxes, usually citing JOB CREATORS and half the world believes them.

 

[Gergar12]

There's no way to "resist" a corporation as it were. Individuals have no power. The whole idea of recycling, picking up trash, doing our part, it was all bullshit propaganda from Nestle, coal and oil companies and the auto industry to pass the blame and responsibility off to average joes and janes.
The only real way to make a difference is through legislation, and that's an all but bought up game. FIFA, Amazon, Google, Apple, Walmart, China National Petroleum, Microsoft, these are governments in and over themselves with armies of lawyers who will fight on the legal front for decades to prevent a .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% increase in corporate taxes, usually citing JOB CREATORS and half the world believes them.

We could start adopting right-wing tactics. Look at how successful the right has been.

 

[Agema]

I reckon the Earth's population will peak around 10 billion in a few decades and then decline. If climate change goes badly, it might decline pretty rapidly.

 

[SilentPony]

We could start adopting right-wing tactics. Look at how successful the right has been.

I mean depends on your definition of success. They're certainly convinced a lot of people that certain problems either don't exist, or are caused by minorities of one stripe or another.
Like right wing media, talking heads, and politicians successfully convinced a lot of right wing voters that Covid-19 isn't real. It was a successful PR/information campaign, but it didn't change the reality.
Right wing tactics are very successful at convincing people shit isn't happening. I'm not sure how effective it would be trying to deal with real world problems

 

[Gergar12]

I mean depends on your definition of success. They're certainly convinced a lot of people that certain problems either don't exist, or are caused by minorities of one stripe or another.
Like right wing media, talking heads, and politicians successfully convinced a lot of right wing voters that Covid-19 isn't real. It was a successful PR/information campaign, but it didn't change the reality.
Right wing tactics are very successful at convincing people shit isn't happening. I'm not sure how effective it would be trying to deal with real world problems

Well, we can demonized the rich and powerful like the right does so for Hispanics-Americans, Africans-Americans, and Muslims-Americans. While I have mixed feelings about pursuing tactics like what VaushV and NFAC(Not Fucking Around Coalition) left-wing gun owners could be an option( although if everyone were armed it would amount to a powderkeg, and could be civil war fuel), hell even tea party tactics in congress could help. Or a general strike.

But everyone is too scared or co-opted, etc to try any of these.

The working poor is too busy, many social democrats(many people in the suburbs like in Massachusetts, and New Hampshire) including me are too privileged, and fear fascism, and communists taking over the revolution which itself would have to be organized.

Also, rebellions tend to be backed up by credible forces. North Vietnam had China, and the USSR, Iraq had Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the Taliban had the Pakistani ISI backing them up.

Edit: Also, I and many others are a tweet of 'eat shit liberal scum' away from being permaban on Twitter so Twitter is not a good place to be anti-capitalist, but it's is convenient.

 

[Dalisclock]

I reckon the Earth's population will peak around 10 billion in a few decades and then decline. If climate change goes badly, it might decline pretty rapidly.

I've seen that figure, or something close, tossed about recently. Which, Oh nos, we'll have 9-10 billion people on Earth after which it'll drop back down a few billion over decades/centuries. I can think of about 700 problems in the world I'm more concerned with for the next 80 years then "Humans won't grow populations forever".

Projections of population growth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

"Earth's unsustainable population growth"

Hard disagree. More people = more innovation = more technology = more ways to fight climate change.

I’d augment that retort by saying better education and a higher quality of life for those already here lead to that more than simply greater numbers in general. Simply put, we as humans need to up our game, but we’re still too preoccupied with frivolously indulgent crap like wealth hoarding, politics, materialism and race wars.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

There's no way to "resist" a corporation as it were. Individuals have no power. The whole idea of recycling, picking up trash, doing our part, it was all bullshit propaganda from Nestle, coal and oil companies and the auto industry to pass the blame and responsibility off to average joes and janes.
The only real way to make a difference is through legislation, and that's an all but bought up game. FIFA, Amazon, Google, Apple, Walmart, China National Petroleum, Microsoft, these are governments in and over themselves with armies of lawyers who will fight on the legal front for decades to prevent a .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% increase in corporate taxes, usually citing JOB CREATORS and half the world believes them.

Ha, that reminds me -

I guess they thought when in doubt, just make it sound good and call it a day. Hopefully nobody will ever notice...

30 Ocean Pollution Facts, Stats, and Solutions | Rubicon

The ocean remains one of the most vast, mysterious and diverse places on our planet. But as we’ve learned, it’s vulnerable to something as simple as the human

www.rubicon.com

What’s also surprising is that even with the amount of consumerism present in the U.S. it still doesn’t hold a candle to a lot of other countries


Basically seems to follow population trends.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Part of its outsized populations, part of its that certain high-per-capita plastic consumers just export their problems away
https://www.statista.com/chart/18229/biggest-exporters-of-plastic-waste-and-scrap/

Globally speaking, The Masses aren't the cause of pollution

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

"The human question."

"Figure 3 shows an clear upward trend for GDP and a less distinctive, but also upward trend for population. The average total population of the EU has slowly but steadily increased since 1990. This means that the GHG emissions per person in the EU are declining slightly more than the total GHG emissions, but with a comparable pattern.

GDP had been strongly increasing up to the start of the economic crisis in 2008. However, from 2009 onwards, EU GDP was already slowly recovering and GDP surpassed the level of before the crisis in 2014. The large drop in GHG emissions in 2009 is clearly related to the economic recession, but the overall decreasing trend in GHG emissions can certainly not be attributed to a fall in economic activity. In fact, there is a clear divergence, or decoupling, between economic activity and GHG emissions, resulting in a strong downward trend in the GHG emission intensity of economic activity, measured as GHG emissions per unit of GDP.

So while GHG emissions per person decreased by 21 % over the last 23 years (1995-2018), population increased by 5 % and GDP measured in volume terms increased by 48 % over this same period. This implies that there must have been changes in how these human activities were carried out, so that even with almost continuous economic growth and increasing population, greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced."

 

[Baffle]

What’s also surprising is that even with the amount of consumerism present in the U.S. it still doesn’t hold a candle to a lot of other countries
View attachment 3658

Basically seems to follow population trends.

Don't have figures to hand, but are the countries at the top not countries that developed countries export their waste to for 'processing'? I know China was, and in the end banned the import of plastic waste.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Don't have figures to hand, but are the countries at the top not countries that developed countries export their waste to for 'processing'? I know China was, and in the end banned the import of plastic waste.

Quite possible. Not sure if the chart factored in that caveat.

 

[Agema]

Don't have figures to hand, but are the countries at the top not countries that developed countries export their waste to for 'processing'? I know China was, and in the end banned the import of plastic waste.

Malaysia and/or Indonesia too. Turns out we were shipping them our crap for "recycling" and, at best, they were "recycling" our plastic into carbon dioxide, water and toxic chemicals with large amounts of heat.