Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Mildlypolite 1423 days ago
"Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574335/

The only pipe dream is to continue breaching the planet boundaries.

2 comments

I mean, of course, it will happen, but not as a voluntary self-limitation, but as hitting against hard limits, especially as they start shriking.
Of course, voluntary self limitation is unlikely.

But severe limitations were imposed during wars on the population by the state, so they are in the realm of possibility (once we acknowledge the severity of the problem, which we are not doing, because of many reasons).

We should also add that the expansion of renewables energy create more jobs than the fossil fuel sector, therefore there is at least some hope of this limitations being not as severe as w think. It was calculated that, to be sustainable, the lifestyle should go back to the sixties, during which we lived fairly well but without a savage overconsumption as now.

The idea of planetary boundaries is ridiculous. Are you talking about the collapse of an ecosystem? Multiple ecosystems? That’s still defined. But planetary boundaries is another word for “saving the earth.”

No. The earth doesn’t need saving. The diversity of life needs saving. Planetary boundaries is the wrong goal.

Read the paper please, planet boundaries are scientifically defined.
It’s not in the paper, actually (searched for “bound”). Reading the Wikipedia makes me feel like it is bad science, tbh. Meaning, too popular to critique adequately. But it makes no sense. Biodiversity isn’t a boundary it is a goal.