What shouldn't be done...about climate change

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I actually agree with some of what you said above. Specifically, I don’t have a rose tinted view of the guy. I do not think his motivation is money, other than the means it gives him to achieve his ends - “the ability to allocate capital more productively based on the power of his shareholding”, to use his own words.

I think he has a vision, and to him the ends justify the means. Centuries from now, that may well prove correct, given the magnitude of the goals being pursued. Just like no one cares today about the sailors lost in Columbus’s attempt to cross the Atlantic.

Anyway, I would focus on the net outcomes achieved, rather than every ideological difference one might have with the individual.

This seems like a strange example to use if you're going for one that was beneficial to humanity.  I'm not seeing much good that came out of Europe arriving in the Americas.  

Quote

Again, I think you underestimate the ability of humans to adapt. That said, what will most likely happen is the end of the post-WWII system of treaties regarding refugees and asylum seekers. It's already causing severe strain that manifests in a resurgence of the far-right in both Europe and the US. At some point, the threat from angry natives will outweigh the elites' desire for a cheap labor force and this system will be severely curtailed.

What does this look like, practically speaking, for the 3+ billion people living in areas that will become uninhabitable?

[Week]

His genius plan to replace mass transit underground with one lane of his own self-driving cars is certainly a unique(ly stupid) idea.

[Rippounet]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

We will get there eventually -- maybe as soon as in half a decade or so.

It actually took me some time to realize you'd written "half a decade" and not "'half a century."

It's not that you're wrong from the technical/technological angle, it's just that for the technical to translate into reality we'd basically need a radical eco-fascist movement to already be in power in at least the three major industrial centers: the US, China, and the EU.
It would also be nice to have such a movement dominate in places like Brazil, India, or Australia.

But of course, that's not the reality. In fact, we don't have anywhere close to the political will necessary to act. There are initiatives and annoucements that have little to no impact... Many are in fact counter-productive through various economic or technical mechanisms, and even more so politically, because people (like you) think things are being done, when measures will take at least a decade to have any kind of impact, and most of them several.
During which time, deforestation, the albedo effect, or the thawing of the permafrost will more than negate any positive impact these half-arsed measures may have.

I mean, none of this is exactly rocket science.

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

Again, I think you underestimate the ability of humans to adapt.

Which basically means "I believe in some kind of miracle" or "I don't really want to connect the dots as this would be too upsetting."

It's not like I actually want to convince you. I wish I were the delusional one.

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

Weather is not climate.

Weather is not climate, but climate becomes weather. Taking records from the past is shitty because in the past such records were not happening several times a year, every year, and thus not affecting the eco-system or crops as badly.
The point isn't that +15°C is that bad per se. The point is that +15°C as a common occurrence changes everything.
Again, not exactly rocket science.

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

For anyone paying attention that's the second reference to a course of action that falls under the eugenics umbrella in the last week and the tone both times comes across as regretful that its not an option. This shit needs to be roundly condemned whenever it comes up. Also I'm being charitable by interpreting this as eugenics because this example could just as easily read as straight up advocating genocide - I'm not trying to snidely or deniably accuse you of that, I think you do simply mean eugenics which is bad enough on its own.

I'd rather an increased investment in renewable energy by my country as an action to take, so I guess in answer to the actual subject of this thread - What shouldn't be done about climate change? Eugenics. Eugenics should not be fucking done.

That will always be more acceptable to many in comparison to severely altering our economic system or regulating industries.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In my mind there are however only two long term solutions to the problem - reduce the human population or move much of the population - and associated industry - off planet. The earth’s carrying capacity is finite, so at some point it will be exceeded. All other steps are merely intermediate measures to buy us time.

Less people don’t mean the problem would be less bad.

If it was the US wouldn’t be outperforming in terms to contributing to climate change when you take into population proportion, or the second biggest contributor in total.

And what do you mean much? A thousand? A million? 
What proportion of humanity do you realistically being able to be moved and presumably saved from suffering from the fallouts of climate-change on earth? 
And how are they being selected?

[Liffguard]

I'm currently reading Jason Hickel's Less is More. It makes a very compelling case that the primary driver of climate change is the insistence on economic growth as an end in and of itself. He argues that even switching to renewables won't arrest climate change; firstly because it won't address (and might even exacerbate) other forms of ecological collapse; secondly, because under the current economic model, economic growth will always cause energy demand to grow at a faster rate than conversion to renewables can meet.

The solution therefore is to make changes to our economic model such that growth is no longer the primary driving force.

That doesn't mean all growth is automatically bad. Some countries still need to grow more in order to meet the needs of their citizens. Rather, growth for the sake of growth is bad, and causes massive over-extraction of resources far past the point where those resources are providing for human well-being. Some countries and sectors should continue to grow economically, others should undergo a managed retraction.

Furthermore. he argues that in contravention to orthodox economic wisdom, growth only enhances human well-being up to a certain point. Beyond that point you get massively diminishing returns. This did not surprise me. However, further to this he also argues that there is a point beyond which growth actually causes a reduction in human well-being. This is because capital must always leverage new sources of profit in order to survive in a growth-based economy, and the path of least-resistance almost invariably leads to rent-seeking and enclosure (i.e. further privatisation of the commons, so that which was one free and available for all instead becomes only available as a commodity on the market).

In many ways it's a grim book. It doesn't sugar-coat the magnitude of what we're facing. On the other hand, if the arguments it presents hold, then it presents a great degree of hope. Too often, the arguments about the environment suggest that we must reduce our living standards in order to combat climate change. If Hickel (and those who share his argument) is right, then tackling climate change and improving our living standards actually go hand-in-hand. We just need to stop chasing a rising GDP as end in and of itself.

Edit: it's also very relevant to the overpopulation discussion. Without getting into the details too much, only a tiny proportion of the Earth's population is responsibly for the overwhelming majority of humanity's carbon emissions, and most of those emissions are essentially surplus to requirement in terms of human well-being. Most of humanity lives in the global south and contributes a disproportionately small amount to climate change.

[Rippounet]

58 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

The solution therefore is to make changes to our economic model such that growth is no longer the primary driving force.

It's obviously the true solution. It's been obvious all along, for anyone bothering to think about it for more than a few minutes tbh.

It's also one that many people don't want to support, or even think of, because of everything it entails. So we'll get there through pain, because our species isn't evolved enough to use a modicum of self-restraint, even when its survival is at stake.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Growth will slow down because populations will fall, particularly in western nations that are the most profligate in terms of producing GHGs. You already see how many countries there are with birth rates below the replacement rate.

And frankly speaking, as climate change worsens more people will decide to have fewer children or no children at all. Eugenics won’t be involved. Although, since humans are so despicable, genocides will still happen, and even eugenics, but not the wide-spread ‘lets kill millions’ I think was feared was being suggested.

[Liffguard]

28 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Growth will slow down because populations will fall, particularly in western nations that are the most profligate in terms of producing GHGs. You already see how many countries there are with birth rates below the replacement rate.

And frankly speaking, as climate change worsens more people will decide to have fewer children or no children at all. Eugenics won’t be involved. Although, since humans are so despicable, genocides will still happen, and even eugenics, but not the wide-spread ‘lets kill millions’ I think was feared was being suggested.

The problem with this is that it doesn't address growth as an ideology. Under our current system if growth starts to slow down then there is is an immense pressure on capital to find new sources of profit. If reduced birth rates cause growth to slow, but without addressing the underlying structure of our economic system, then capital will hunt for new revenue streams and exploit whatever resources it must in order to find them. 

Hence the comment about enclosure above. Bluntly, if there are less people to buy stuff, then they will privatise more aspects of life so that people are forced to buy more stuff. If they can privatise the air we breathe and sell it back to us at a premium, they will.

The move away from growth must be deliberate and managed, and decoupled from the underlying ideology.

Edit: I fully admit that this is a bit of a stretch, but as an example of the type of thing I mean look at the recent change in covid-19 restrictions in the UK. Regulations for meeting in people's homes have become more restrictive, but not for meeting in places where you might spend money. You could almost see it as a partial privatisation of human socialisation.

[DireWolfSpirit]

12 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In my mind there are however only two long term solutions to the problem - reduce the human population or.....

Makes me so grateful for abortion. The most loving, thoughtful gesture one can make towards our planet is to not contribute towards any further increase in the human population, who are probably the greatest source of harm to the rest of planetary diversity and life.

The planet is plagued with too many humans.

[Altherion]

7 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It's not that you're wrong from the technical/technological angle, it's just that for the technical to translate into reality we'd basically need a radical eco-fascist movement to already be in power in at least the three major industrial centers: the US, China, and the EU.
It would also be nice to have such a movement dominate in places like Brazil, India, or Australia.

But of course, that's not the reality. In fact, we don't have anywhere close to the political will necessary to act. There are initiatives and annoucements that have little to no impact... Many are in fact counter-productive through various economic or technical mechanisms, and even more so politically, because people (like you) think things are being done, when measures will take at least a decade to have any kind of impact, and most of them several.

I don't see how an eco movement gets anywhere in any of those countries in today's political climate -- it's surprising enough that most places have subsidies for alternatives to fossil fuels. Fortunately, the technical solutions don't need much government assistance; what they already have is nearly enough because they work within the system. That is, once, for example, electric cars become cheaper than gasoline cars and the supporting infrastructure is similar, people will buy a whole lot more of them -- not only because they care about the environment, but because they're getting a better product for a cheaper price. The same is true of solar power and energy storage and all of the other alternatives.

I mean, it would definitely be nice if some government funded, say, a comprehensive effort to sustainably generate energy via fusion, but the days when governments did stuff like that are long gone.

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Which basically means "I believe in some kind of miracle" or "I don't really want to connect the dots as this would be too upsetting."

It's not like I actually want to convince you. I wish I were the delusional one.

You are not delusional, but you're being extremely pessimistic. Humans live in practically every land biome from the equator to the arctic and it's not because are bodies are particularly great at adapting to various environments, it's because we modify the environment until it suits us. We've done this for millennia and we've gotten particularly good at it over the past century so I have faith in humanity being able to adapt to this too.

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Weather is not climate, but climate becomes weather. Taking records from the past is shitty because in the past such records were not happening several times a year, every year, and thus not affecting the eco-system or crops as badly.
The point isn't that +15°C is that bad per se. The point is that +15°C as a common occurrence changes everything.

It shouldn't be that much common than before and I can't find much evidence that it is. What should happen is that where earlier you would have +14°C, now you have +15°C and so on. It's possible to get other outcomes, but you'd need to be near one of the phase transition points and I don't think you are (not yet anyway). I think you're projecting from a somewhat hot year which is made worse by the fact that you can't go anywhere and must stay indoors most of the time.

[Larry of the Lawn]

46 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't see how an eco movement gets anywhere in any of those countries in today's political climate -- it's surprising enough that most places have subsidies for alternatives to fossil fuels. Fortunately, the technical solutions don't need much government assistance; what they already have is nearly enough because they work within the system. That is, once, for example, electric cars become cheaper than gasoline cars and the supporting infrastructure is similar, people will buy a whole lot more of them -- not only because they care about the environment, but because they're getting a better product for a cheaper price. The same is true of solar power and energy storage and all of the other alternatives.

I mean, it would definitely be nice if some government funded, say, a comprehensive effort to sustainably generate energy via fusion, but the days when governments did stuff like that are long gone.

You are not delusional, but you're being extremely pessimistic. Humans live in practically every land biome from the equator to the arctic and it's not because are bodies are particularly great at adapting to various environments, it's because we modify the environment until it suits us. We've done this for millennia and we've gotten particularly good at it over the past century so I have faith in humanity being able to adapt to this too.

It shouldn't be that much common than before and I can't find much evidence that it is. What should happen is that where earlier you would have +14°C, now you have +15°C and so on. It's possible to get other outcomes, but you'd need to be near one of the phase transition points and I don't think you are (not yet anyway). I think you're projecting from a somewhat hot year which is made worse by the fact that you can't go anywhere and must stay indoors most of the time.

That's half of the problem: we've adapted to face immediate threats and problems that have long term, non immediate consequences.  Those consequences are the problem.  And because of the lag time in an actual effective response, no one is going to do anything until it's too late.  Waiting for the market to make electric cars cheaper is going to take too long.  

Again, what do you expect to happen to the people currently living in the tropics?  What is life like for them when they're locked into a 120 degree environment by immigration restrictions in the temperate world?

[Altherion]

58 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Again, what do you expect to happen to the people currently living in the tropics?  What is life like for them when they're locked into a 120 degree environment by immigration restrictions in the temperate world?

Where are you getting 120°F from? Presumably they'd do what everyone does when it gets hot: stay out of direct sunlight, drink a lot of water and, if it gets bad enough, invest in air conditioning.

[Larry of the Lawn]

44 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Where are you getting 120°F from? Presumably they'd do what everyone does when it gets hot: stay out of direct sunlight, drink a lot of water and, if it gets bad enough, invest in air conditioning.

Well the 120 is an assumption of a heatwave in the tropics in the near future, and following up on this:

Quote

Again, I think you underestimate the ability of humans to adapt. That said, what will most likely happen is the end of the post-WWII system of treaties regarding refugees and asylum seekers. It's already causing severe strain that manifests in a resurgence of the far-right in both Europe and the US. At some point, the threat from angry natives will outweigh the elites' desire for a cheap labor force and this system will be severely curtailed

What do you expect to happen when people are living in a literally uninhabitable place and they are locked out of anywhere habitable?  Air conditioning, huh?

[maarsen]

49 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Where are you getting 120°F from? Presumably they'd do what everyone does when it gets hot: stay out of direct sunlight, drink a lot of water and, if it gets bad enough, invest in air conditioning.

The energy required for AC contributes to global warming. The second law of thermodynamics is at play here. Unless you use lasers to radiate energy out into space, the only way to reduce temperatures globally is to use less and use less fossil fuels.

[KingintheNorth4]

7 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Makes me so grateful for abortion. The most loving, thoughtful gesture one can make towards our planet is to not contribute towards any further increase in the human population, who are probably the greatest source of harm to the rest of planetary diversity and life.

The planet is plagued with too many humans.

Thanos was right.

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

Humans live in practically every land biome from the equator to the arctic and it's not because are bodies are particularly great at adapting to various environments, it's because we modify the environment until it suits us. We've done this for millennia and we've gotten particularly good at it over the past century so I have faith in humanity being able to adapt to this too.

The first fallacy in your discourse is that you systematically confuse "humanity" with "humans." Humanity will adapt. Humans will not. Or, to put it differently, humanity will adapt, 3,3 billion humans cannot.
While we're at it, let's bear in mind that those 3,3 billion humans we're talking about happen to be some of the poorest of us all, who live in developing states that -under the current global economic system- do not have the means to invest significantly in the infrastructure necessary for adaptation or transition.

It's why we're basically talking at cross-purposes. I'm thinking in terms of human suffering and its consequences. Either you are ignoring the plight of people less fortunate than you are, or you are assuming some form of international collaboration that does not exist, and is unlikely to develop in the necessary timeframe.

Let me go back a bit btw:

21 hours ago, Altherion said:

The good news regarding the crops is that there is currently more than can be consumed and it's routinely being thrown out to keep prices up. Furthermore, while some areas will become less hospitable to crops, others (in the northern US, Canada and Russia) will be more hospitable. Also, we can genetically engineer crops to tolerate a higher temperature range.

Your second fallacy here is the timeframe. At a glance you seem to be suggesting that as crops fail around the tropics, food production will be either moved, or be "adapted" through genetic engineering.

It's not just that you're ignoring the human and geo-political consequences of the relocation of agriculture, you're also ignoring the timeframe. Neither relocation nor genetic engineering are instantaneous. Crop failure otoh can be near-instantaneous: crops can fail from one year to the next.

The point is that you can't just plant genetically engineered crops when the "normal" ones fail. Assuming you have such "super-crops" on hand, you can only plant them the following year. But about 25% of the world's population practice subsistence farming. So if their crops fail, they starve. And could they afford genetically engineered crops anyway? Thanks to neo-liberalism and its perspective on intellectual property, these generally ain't free.

This pesky little "time" problem is not specific to agriculture: it's every where. My point here being that most technical solutions need to be implemented preventively : once disaster has struck, it's too late, you have a crisis on your hands.

And no, I'm not being your typical liberal here, this isn't altruism or empathy talking, but well-understood self-interest. Because what happens when the country struck by disaster still has a functioning military? Missiles, or -even- nuclear weapons? Nuclear blackmail doesn't work because no one will commit suicide - that's MAD. But what if millions have nothing to lose, what then?

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

Fortunately, the technical solutions don't need much government assistance; what they already have is nearly enough because they work within the system. That is, once, for example, electric cars become cheaper than gasoline cars and the supporting infrastructure is similar, people will buy a whole lot more of them -- not only because they care about the environment, but because they're getting a better product for a cheaper price. The same is true of solar power and energy storage and all of the other alternatives.

That's just a variation of "the market will take care of it."

Spoiler alert: the market is terrible at this. Contrary to what you say a great deal of government assistance is required for things to change. And even if this works in developed countries, how does this work in developing ones?

Let's put it another way: the first modern-age electric car was developed in the mid-1990s. We've basically been waiting for these to become cheaper for at least two decades now, and even the most developed nations have not transitioned to them in any meaningful way.
And it's not just about people buying electric cars. You need the infrastructure, the production of the cars to be relatively "green," the production of electricity to be "green" ... and all of this is close to useless if most people just keep using functional gasoline cars until they break down.

In short, it hasn't happened yet, and contrary to what the Musk fanboys believe, it's still not happening. Teslas's moderate success in the US is a drop in the ocean on the global level. At this rate, it'll take many decades for the transition to happen. To sum up: too little, too late.

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

Where are you getting 120°F from? Presumably they'd do what everyone does when it gets hot: stay out of direct sunlight, drink a lot of water and, if it gets bad enough, invest in air conditioning.

You seem to not be aware of what the wet-bulb maximum is:

Quote

Humans, like all mammals, are heat engines; surviving means having to continually cool off, like panting dogs. For that, the temperature needs to be low enough for the air to act as a kind of refrigerant, drawing heat off the skin so the engine can keep pumping. At seven degrees of warming, that would become impossible for large portions of the planet’s equatorial band, and especially the tropics, where humidity adds to the problem; in the jungles of Costa Rica, for instance, where humidity routinely tops 90 percent, simply moving around outside when it’s over 105 degrees Fahrenheit would be lethal. And the effect would be fast: Within a few hours, a human body would be cooked to death from both inside and out.

So what are people in the tropics going to do? Live inside? All 3,3 billion of them?

And in case you don't give a fuck about these people, bear in mind climate change could make any geographical area uninhabitable or agriculturally unproductive. The tropics will be hit hard, yes, but there's zero reason to assume the US and the EU will be spared. In fact, right now, they're really not, quite obviously.

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

It shouldn't be that much common than before and I can't find much evidence that it is.

You haven't looked much then, have you.
Since we were talking about France:
- This is for temperatures.
- This is for heat waves.

Anyway... to make it simple... You don't have any information I don't have, do you? The only thing you seem to be offering is faith: faith in humanity, faith in adaptation, faith in the market...
Since you work in STEM, as a scientist, what are the odds that the less informed person -relying on faith- will turn out to be correct? Objectively speaking, since you didn't even know heat waves are becoming more common, what are the odds that your entire discourse is completely bonkers?
Or to put it succintly: what if you're wrong?

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

The first fallacy in your discourse is that you systematically confuse "humanity" with "humans." Humanity will adapt. Humans will not. Or, to put it differently, humanity will adapt, 3,3 billion humans cannot.

Once you get into the billions, it is humanity and not just humans. The vast majority of those billions will adapt.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

It's not just that you're ignoring the human and geo-political consequences of the relocation of agriculture, you're also ignoring the timeframe. Neither relocation nor genetic engineering are instantaneous. Crop failure otoh can be near-instantaneous: crops can fail from one year to the next.

Yes, crops can fail from one year to the next, but it's rare for them to fail in many places at once and it will remain rare (the local spikes do not matter here). We can and already do move food from one place to another -- this is one of the points where globalization plays to our advantage.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

This pesky little "time" problem is not specific to agriculture: it's every where. My point here being that most technical solutions need to be implemented preventively : once disaster has struck, it's too late, you have a crisis on your hands.

It's true that most technical problems need some lead time, but climate change is also quite slow so they will have their lead time (random disasters can be nearly instantaneous, but again, they're localized).

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

And no, I'm not being your typical liberal here, this isn't altruism or empathy talking, but well-understood self-interest. Because what happens when the country struck by disaster still has a functioning military? Missiles, or -even- nuclear weapons? Nuclear blackmail doesn't work because no one will commit suicide - that's MAD. But what if millions have nothing to lose, what then?

The widespread use of nuclear weapons is known to result in global cooling (the so-called "nuclear winter") so if somebody truly feels this way, we can make an example of them and cool the world at the same time. It's a win-win situation.

Since there are people in this thread who have no sense of humor and tend to interpret everything I say in the worst way possible, I will preemptively point out that the above is dark humor -- it's a terrible idea for so many reasons. More seriously, it will not come to that. Again, food is relatively cheap. If the alternative is widespread famine (which even the most hardcore capitalists don't want for those same selfish reasons), we can afford to give it away.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Spoiler alert: the market is terrible at this. Contrary to what you say a great deal of government assistance is required for things to change. And even if this works in developed countries, how does this work in developing ones?

Developing countries (China is not one of them anymore) are currently responsible for a relatively small fraction of emissions. With any luck at all, by the time they start to use energy on the scales of developed countries, the clean technologies will be cheaper than the old ones.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Let's put it another way: the first modern-age electric car was developed in the mid-1990s. We've basically been waiting for these to become cheaper for at least two decades now, and even the most developed nations have not transitioned to them in any meaningful way.
And it's not just about people buying electric cars. You need the infrastructure, the production of the cars to be relatively "green," the production of electricity to be "green" ... and all of this is close to useless if most people just keep using functional gasoline cars until they break down.

People are working on all of those things. Regarding the slow uptake, this is the general problem of tipping points: electric batteries have gotten dramatically cheaper over the past two decades, but because they started from a point so much higher than gasoline engines, electric cars are only now become competitive with their internal combustion equivalents. It should go faster from this point on.

Regarding people keeping their gasoline cars: this is where government can help, but it won't be the national governments, it'll be cities. Once electric cars become widespread, it's quite likely that cities will ban non-electric cars from at least some areas which will further help drive electric car adoption (this is what happened with horses way back in the early 20th century).

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You seem to not be aware of what the wet-bulb maximum is:

I know what it is, but keep in mind that dry air is easier to warm than humid air (that's why all of the areas claiming to be the hottest on Earth are deserts). The two effects balance each other to some extent.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You haven't looked much then, have you.
Since we were talking about France:
- This is for temperatures.
- This is for heat waves.

Doesn't that show exactly what the models are saying (and what I said) though: there's an increase of roughly 1°C?

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Anyway... to make it simple... You don't have any information I don't have, do you? The only thing you seem to be offering is faith: faith in humanity, faith in adaptation, faith in the market...
Since you work in STEM, as a scientist, what are the odds that the less informed person -relying on faith- will turn out to be correct? Objectively speaking, since you didn't even know heat waves are becoming more common, what are the odds that your entire discourse is completely bonkers?
Or to put it succintly: what if you're wrong?

No, I don't think I have any extra information. However, I don't think I would call it faith -- it's more of an educated guess based on what I know of the technologies in question and of history. I don't think it's possible to predict the odds of such a guess being correct; it involves the physical, economic and political systems of the entire planet so... well, good luck making a quantitative statement about it.

If I'm wrong, the US can always annex Canada. It's the largest country in the world, it has a lot of natural resources and it's currently cold so warming it will make it more hospitable, not less.

[DireWolfSpirit]

8 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

Thanos was right.

Thanos : Little one, it's a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources, finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting.

[Fragile Bird]

And that’s why we hate Americans. 

[maarsen]

Annexing Canada when parts of the US become uninhabitable is not that good of an idea. Look at a landform map  and see the extent of the Canadian Shield. It is not agricultural land.