<story><title>CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first time in human history</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/12/co2-in-the-atmosphere-just-exceeded-415-parts-per-million-for-the-first-time-in-human-history/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lm28469</author><text>Because it&amp;#x27;s much easier to deny something that big than to take care of it. We&amp;#x27;d need a economic&amp;#x2F;cultural revolution at a global scale. Everything has to scale down, no more ICE, not more plastic, no more food imported from the other side of the world, reduce meat consumption, reduce traveling &amp;amp;c.&lt;p&gt;The current system is based on unlimited and exponential growth, everything else is considered a failure. An unlimited growth in a finite environment isn&amp;#x27;t possible, it&amp;#x27;s called instability.&lt;p&gt;The second problem is that many people convince themselves that &amp;quot;Science&amp;quot; will save us, that we&amp;#x27;ll terraform Mars or that shifting to electric cars will be enough, but that&amp;#x27;s too little, too late. Even if we&amp;#x27;d hit our ecological goals, and we&amp;#x27;re not, we&amp;#x27;d be far from fixing the problem. We don&amp;#x27;t need to slow down, we need a complete paradigm shift. It&amp;#x27;s like when you move form a basic 40sq meter flat to a fancy 250sq meter house, going back is very hard.</text></item><item><author>Avalaxy</author><text>What I don&amp;#x27;t understand is why this is so controversial. I clicked on a link in the article, leading to this article: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;new-study-shows-human-development-is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;new-study-shows-human-deve...&lt;/a&gt;. The comment on it is extremely dismissive about climate change. I see this on pretty much every news website nowadays. First of all I don&amp;#x27;t see how man-made climate change is even controversial with the amount of evidence we have, but furthermore I don&amp;#x27;t see why we shouldn&amp;#x27;t transition to renewable energy asap anyway. Even if climate change would be a hoax (which it is not), then why would it be a bad thing to make changes to prevent it from happening anyway? Why would it be a bad thing to get rid of air pollution? Why would it be a bad thing to switch to an energy source that doesn&amp;#x27;t run out in ~20 years simply because it isn&amp;#x27;t renewable?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>filleokus</author><text>&amp;gt; We&amp;#x27;d need a economic&amp;#x2F;cultural revolution at a global scale. Everything has to scale down, no more ICE, not more plastic, no more food imported from the other side of the world, reduce meat consumption, reduce traveling &amp;amp;c.&lt;p&gt;This is a sentiment that rubs me the wrong way. I totally agree that we, at a global scale, need to drastically reduce our carbon footprint. And these reductions will have changes to our society. But many of the suggestions of those currently engaged in the cultural revolution are either focusing on small problems (like not buying food in plastic containers) or have complicated unintended consequences (like buying locally grown foods).&lt;p&gt;Shipping stuff on large boats is incredibly efficient per kg&amp;#x2F;km. It&amp;#x27;s not unlikely that I emit more Co2 driving my car to&amp;#x2F;from the grocery store than the emissions from shipping all the things I purchase to the store itself.&lt;p&gt;We should focus on things like stopping the burning of fossil fule for electricity generation and carbon natural land based transportation long before we almost religiously ban plastic straws.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think the best way forward to actually solving this problem is engaging in some almost Protestant self hatred and punishment, trying to make the transition as impactful on our lives as possible.</text></comment>
<story><title>CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first time in human history</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/12/co2-in-the-atmosphere-just-exceeded-415-parts-per-million-for-the-first-time-in-human-history/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lm28469</author><text>Because it&amp;#x27;s much easier to deny something that big than to take care of it. We&amp;#x27;d need a economic&amp;#x2F;cultural revolution at a global scale. Everything has to scale down, no more ICE, not more plastic, no more food imported from the other side of the world, reduce meat consumption, reduce traveling &amp;amp;c.&lt;p&gt;The current system is based on unlimited and exponential growth, everything else is considered a failure. An unlimited growth in a finite environment isn&amp;#x27;t possible, it&amp;#x27;s called instability.&lt;p&gt;The second problem is that many people convince themselves that &amp;quot;Science&amp;quot; will save us, that we&amp;#x27;ll terraform Mars or that shifting to electric cars will be enough, but that&amp;#x27;s too little, too late. Even if we&amp;#x27;d hit our ecological goals, and we&amp;#x27;re not, we&amp;#x27;d be far from fixing the problem. We don&amp;#x27;t need to slow down, we need a complete paradigm shift. It&amp;#x27;s like when you move form a basic 40sq meter flat to a fancy 250sq meter house, going back is very hard.</text></item><item><author>Avalaxy</author><text>What I don&amp;#x27;t understand is why this is so controversial. I clicked on a link in the article, leading to this article: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;new-study-shows-human-development-is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;new-study-shows-human-deve...&lt;/a&gt;. The comment on it is extremely dismissive about climate change. I see this on pretty much every news website nowadays. First of all I don&amp;#x27;t see how man-made climate change is even controversial with the amount of evidence we have, but furthermore I don&amp;#x27;t see why we shouldn&amp;#x27;t transition to renewable energy asap anyway. Even if climate change would be a hoax (which it is not), then why would it be a bad thing to make changes to prevent it from happening anyway? Why would it be a bad thing to get rid of air pollution? Why would it be a bad thing to switch to an energy source that doesn&amp;#x27;t run out in ~20 years simply because it isn&amp;#x27;t renewable?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crispinb</author><text>&lt;i&gt;An unlimited growth in a finite environment isn&amp;#x27;t possible&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even limited &amp;#x27;growth&amp;#x27; has not actually happened. It&amp;#x27;s a fiction. The physical reality is that complex sustainable evolved systems have been broken down to feed simpler crude unsustainable techological ones. There&amp;#x27;s no &amp;#x27;growth&amp;#x27; to be seen - just an increase in planetary entropy. This is somewhat masked on a short-term &amp;amp; local scale because of the remarkable resilience of the evolved systems. But as those systems collapse, which now seems inevitable, the fictional nature of &amp;#x27;economic growth&amp;#x27; will become very evident indeed.</text></comment>