None of this matters, not one iota. The world is choking in the filth we are creating, all while people like this pontificate about the next generation of the system that positively reinforces the creation of filth.
This sentiment is as old as religion: it's the good old millenarian instinct. People constantly think the world is on the precipice of something transformational (good or bad).
We'll see. My money is on things chugging along pretty much as they have been. I think this planet can take far more than we can throw at it.
RE: the article - seems like common-sense recommendations but no specifics. We'd all like to see more competition. The question is how to get there with as few side effects as possible. The specifics are the hard part.
I don't want to be around when we discover the planet can't actually take more than we can throw at it. We are unable to deal with minor pokes of the planet (storms, fires, earthquakes). Imagine what's gonna happen when it really pokes at us. We're probably gonna get wiped out. This planet is more fragile than people think and our power to control it is miniscule.
The planet has been around a while and taken a lot, certainly more than we can throw at it. Now, wether we can survive is another issue. But the planet will be just fine, especially by the standards of geological time.
It would be very difficult to totally wipe out humans - including all remote tribes, all underground sealed bunkers. I'm not saying that's perfect, but the less-bad it gets down from that kind of global catastrophe level, and the less sudden it is, the greater the number of humans who will survive it.
As for the planet, what does it mean for it to be "fragile"? It survived whatever impact split The Moon off.
"the only known mass extinction of insects.[9][10]" - one event that serious in 6 billion years and the planet wasn't destroyed, is your cite for how it's fragile? I'd expect tool-using humans to prepare better, survive more, and recover sooner than the creatures described there, wouldn't you?
"Cod: Over 35,000 fishermen and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities became unemployed.[..] federal government intervened, [..] income assistance [..] retraining of workers [..] Newfoundland has since experienced a dramatic environmental, industrial, economic, and social restructuring, including considerable emigration,[18] but also increased economic diversification, an increased emphasis on education, and the emergence of a thriving invertebrates fishing industry"
and the present status 20 years later is "recovering" up to possibly 10% of earlier levels - nothing like the million years to recover of the previous link.
Change happened, people adjusted to it in many ways. That sounds resilient, not fragile.
Us tool wielding humans are gonna get wiped out just like those insects. Whenever the forces of nature hit us our tool wielding seems to matter very little.
My point re: the fishery collapse is that all the tool yielding people didn't forsee the collapse and when it happened were unable to deal with it effectively. You're not gonna have 20 years to figure stuff out if climate changes dramatically, ecosystems collapse or some feedback loop kicks in. The scale/force/power of these changes is well above our current ability to engineer and our illusion of power is going to disappear very quickly once our society and infrastructure disappear. The romantic notion of 50 people in a bunker surviving and continuing the human race while the oceans turn into acid .. not gonna happen.
We'll see. My money is on things chugging along pretty much as they have been. I think this planet can take far more than we can throw at it.
RE: the article - seems like common-sense recommendations but no specifics. We'd all like to see more competition. The question is how to get there with as few side effects as possible. The specifics are the hard part.