Are the best years of our civilization still to come?

[Darzin]

18 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Anyone want to go in with me on an underground , self sustaining colony in the middle of the least populated parts of the continenal U.S. ? I’m good for $300. 
 

We can call it a vault. 
 

After civilization is mostly destroyed we can leave the vault and have wacky adventures in the post apocalyptic wasteland. 

Only if we can bring a panther down with us. 

[JGP]

I was flip late last night with my previous post, but upon reflection I'm not sure it's entirely wrong. 

In the next thirty/forty/fifty years [not a hundred percent on timeline, grain of salt there] hundreds of millions will be displaced by sea level rise alone. Trillions of dollars of value and the housing security of those effected, gone. Certain crops considered optimal/normal to particular geographic regions due to weather, soil, et so on, won't be viable anymore. There will be food shortages, and lots of produce we're accustomed to will more or less become junk food due to rising sugar content. Water scarcity. Water wars... and most of this just in North America. Other places will be much worse. Some will be largely uninhabitable. I suspect dystopia is a mild word for what's coming, and even were humanity somehow to find the will for a courageous 180, we'd still remain beyond the point where a lot of these outcomes are already baked in. I'm not entirely pessimistic about our ability to at least limit how bad it's going to be, for millions and likely billions of people, or even, in general, the survival of the human race. But I also think, however, beyond certain tipping points it will be less about society and more about community.

One positive I suppose is that eventually the earth itself will be fine, and that life will adapt even if we couldn't.             

[Darzin]

I think the impact of climate change on North America will be negligable in the long run. And if you account that the price of housing is wildly inflated and the price of meat wildly deflated based on historical averages arrable land loss can be mitigated. Climate change is not going to be a singular catostrophic event either. It will progress slowly and we already have much of the technology to solve most of the effects. Take food we can grow food in urban farms and in skyskrapers with full spectrum lights. As of now that is only marginally viable but given a 25% increase in food prices and reduction of arable land... well then it  becomes a lot more realistic. We live in a world where I can order meat on my phone at cheap cheap prices we have a lot of room to tighten our belts before things get serious.

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

China, Singapore, South Korea, with Vietnam well on the way. If we are reaching a little farther back all of the post USSR countries ( and I realize their standard dropped with the fall). With Countries like Thailand and Malaysia doing well too. Even Africa while lagging is overall much better than 1980. Your right that the two old super powers are lagging but the world overall is getting better.

So... You're not actually talking about the "past few decades," in fact, but mostly about 20th century stuff.

Africa - you oversimplify. While the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has gone down, the number of people has still gone up, with worrying concentrations. This map is recent and from a reliable source:
https://www.afd.fr/fr/actualites/atlas-de-lafrique-afd-au-fil-des-annees-lextreme-pauvrete-se-concentre-en-afrique

Anyway there has been progress, but if anything this progress is increasingly fragile. The combination of rising inequality and climate change means that in many places decades of progress can be undone in a matter of months.
Though the numbers are still being crunched, the pandemic seems to have demonstrated that. And climate change will be much much worse.

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

The new right in Europe xenophobic as they are frame their arguments against immigrants in terms of protecting the LGB community

No.

I see you were careful to write LGB and not LGBT here. We both know why.

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

and women's rights

Ha ha.

No.

They pretend to - if it suits their purposes.

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

Everywhere in the western world human rights are triumphing

No.

A definition of "human rights" might be in order though. People tend to have vastly different definitions.
No offense, but I would expect anyone living in China to have, uh, slightly different ideas about human rights.

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

these right ring resitances agianst it accept most of the gains and direct most of their ire against foriegners not the rights of their citizens.

No. Definitely not. This may in fact be misunderstanding the very nature of the return of the far-right.

3 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

In the next thirty/forty/fifty years, hundreds of millions will be displaced by sea level rise alone. Trillions of dollars of value and the housing security of those effected, gone. Certain crops considered optimal/normal to particular geographic regions due to weather, soil, et so on, won't be viable anymore. There will be food shortages, and lots of produce we're accustomed to will more or less become junk food due to rising sugar content. Water scarcity. Water wars... and all of this just in North America. Other places will be much worse. Some will be largely uninhabitable. I suspect dystopia is a mild word for what's coming, and even were humanity somehow to find the will for a courageous 180, we'd still remain beyond the point where a lot of these outcomes are already baked in.

Right. This is the reality of things. It's extraordinarily well-documented, so at this point anyone talking about the future without taking all this into account is deluded.

Just read about the concept of "planetary boundaries" among other things...

7 minutes ago, Mentat said:

For people who believe things are going to get worse in the future: Do you believe numbers will plateau for some years and then start a progressive decline? Do you believe the decline will be sharp and dramatic? What's your best estimate for the peak year? (maybe you believe it's somewhere between 2017 and 2021?).

I don't think such questions have much relevance.

[Zorral]

The very declaration that "climate change will happen slowly" is preposterous in the face of the daily realities of what we are experiencing just in the last 5 - 10 years.

 

[A True Kaniggit]

2 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Only if we can bring a panther down with us. 

Only one?

[Rippounet]

15 minutes ago, Darzin said:

It will progress slowly and we already have much of the technology to solve most of the effects. Take food we can grow food in urban farms and in skyskrapers with full spectrum lights. As of now that is only marginally viable but given a 25% increase in food prices and reduction of arable land... well then it  becomes a lot more realistic.

This is a misunderstanding of the problem. The problem isn't lack of technology, but implementation.

Here's a quick extract on renewable energy for instance:

Quote

 

In 2014, the World Bank released a report offering the first comprehensive look at this question. Researchers modelled the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and win utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That's enough to power a bit less than half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions (not including a little bit of hydropower, geothermal and nuclear to top it off) – and the results are staggering : 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminium, and no less than 4,8 billion tons of iron.

<World Bank, The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low Carbon Future, 2017

 

The point here isn't about renewables (which can and should be complemented by other energy sources), the point here is about just big a challenge it is to transition.

[Darzin]

9 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Only one?

Or you know as many as VaultTech^tm will allow. I'm sure they only have our best interests at heart. 

[A True Kaniggit]

2 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Or you know as many as VaultTech^tm will allow. I'm sure they only have our best interests at heart. 

16. 
 

16 was the correct answer. 

[Darzin]

13 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

16. 
 

16 was the correct answer. 

Damn failed that 

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

This is a misunderstanding of the problem. The problem isn't lack of technology, but implementation.

Here's a quick extract on renewable energy for instance:

The point here isn't about renewables (which can and should be complemented by other energy sources), the point here is about just big a challenge it is to transition.

That is  a fair point. I mean China hs pledged to be Carbon neutral by 2060 is that enough to stop climate change? probably not. Is it enough to help? maybe. You're right we could do it now but it's a question of political will and popular support. China is not a democracy, the Party could order the country to be carbon neutral in a year and it would be but that would promote disconent and harm living standards so they won't. Even in an autocracy popular opinion matters to a degree. People in the modern world are just to comfortable to accept the measures that would reduce warming and the Party's number one priorty is stability for the here and now. 

I still do think with modern technology and agriculteral techniques  and the deflated price of mea we should be able to manage mostly.

As for European politics I gave my impression but I admit I don't know enough to go to bat for it.

[Zorral]

Why would anyone believe civilization stands a chance when the homo saps in the thousands are taking horse dewormer medicine -- and shoving it into their kids! -- as a remedy to keep from getting covid -- so much so that certain areas of Texas are short or just plain out of supplies of the medication for the horses -- CRUELTY TO ANIMALS!  Doing this instead of getting vaccinated! Clearly the homo sap species is devolving in intelligence while growing ever larger in girth.

[JGP]

Just now, Zorral said:

Why would anyone believe civilization stands a chance when the homo saps in the thousands are taking horse dewormer medicine -- and shoving it into their kids! -- as a remedy to keep from getting covid -- so much so that certain areas of Texas are short or just plain out of supplies of the medication for the horses -- CRUELTY TO ANIMALS!  Doing this instead of getting vaccinated! Clearly the homo sap species is devolving in intelligence while growing ever larger in girth.

In the last decade I concluded humanity has undergone a stealth speciation. 

[A True Kaniggit]

12 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Damn failed that 

Not really. 
 

You did get the Fallout reference. 

[Darzin]

13 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Why would anyone believe civilization stands a chance when the homo saps in the thousands are taking horse dewormer medicine -- and shoving it into their kids! -- as a remedy to keep from getting covid -- so much so that certain areas of Texas are short or just plain out of supplies of the medication for the horses -- CRUELTY TO ANIMALS!  Doing this instead of getting vaccinated! Clearly the homo sap species is devolving in intelligence while growing ever larger in girth.

Because it's  pretty much all Americans and Americans are a minority of the world population and it's a minority of Americans at that. 

[Zorral]

Ya, like there are no right/white violent anti-masking etc. movements in any other country in the world. Your ideas of what's going on globally are extraordinarily out of touch with what is going on, far closer to those boobie bird Texians than what the ever accelerating end of ice caps, lack of snow in Greenland mountains, etc., the ever accelerating toxification and heating of the global oceans and seas tell those who study these matters, which neither you nor the Texians have done or will do.   

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Darzin said:

Your right we could do it now but it's a question of political will and popular support. China is not a democracy the Party could order the country to be carbon neutral in a year and it would be, but that would promote disconent and harm living standards so they won't even in an autocracy popular opinion matters to a degree. People in the modern world are just to comfortable to accept the measures that would reduce warming and the Party's number one priorty is stability for the here and now. 

Getting there.

You're right about the political angle -and public opinion- being tricky enough. On that front, China may indeed have a small advantage over, say, the US, btw.
But the other issue is about the implementation of solutions.
Urban farms are a great idea for instance, but they have to be created in a way that is itself carbon-neutral. In other words, it would probably be counter-productive to build giant "vertical farms" with tons of materials... Better to use the rooftops of existing buildings.
This is a huge problem right now in the West. The market is shit at producing solutions to problems... What it does is produce lots of greenwashing indeed. So while people do want to fight climate change, chances are high of ending up supporting a "solution" that is in fact counter-productive.

The West will have to end neo-liberalism before anything substantial can be achieved.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I can't help but think that the ghost of Oswald Spengler is cackling at this thread.

More immediately, the West's handling of Covid is beyond awful. If that is a sign of things to come, it will not be a fun century.

[The Marquis de Leech]

10 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The West will have to end neo-liberalism before anything substantial can be achieved.

Problem: neoliberalism is under attack from the Right, not the Left. The Left has abandoned class for identity politics.

[ThinkerX]

Way I see it...

...we are in the early stages of what amounts to a decades long forced transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Because fossil fuels, to be blunt, are nonrenewable and getting scarcer. At the end of that period, fossil fuels won't be gone, and in fact will still be pretty big in some local areas, but most energy will come from renewable (green) sources. Problem is, barring major improvements in energy efficiency, renewable energy plus 'remnant' fossil fuels won't be enough to keep things 'as is.'  So, the overall standard of living takes a hit.  This transition, however, does affect Climate Change...to a point.

 

Some elements of Climate Change are 'baked in' - global temperatures will increase over the next few decades pretty much regardless of what is done, sea level will increase, and so on.  The question is 'increase at what rate?'  Much of the increase is driven by fossil fuels, and I find it interesting that the 'forced transition' away from fossil fuels overlaps the span when Climate Change gets really bad.  

 

Economy wise, jobs lost to fossil fuels might be mostly regained in the renewable sector.

 

Suburbia is almost certainly a goner, unless you are rich or way the hell out in the sticks next to something that makes such a life tenable - like farm country or a mine.  Lingering social programs, though, will keep oldsters in declining suburban houses for multiple decades yet.  Much of suburbia, unless transitioned to actual towns with businesses and what not...not pretty.  

 

US rail network should be expanded, double tracked, and electrified.  Biden seems to have taken a few blundering steps in this direction.  Air travel and long range automobile travel probably go into decline (though with the new generation of electric vehicles....) 

 

Politically, one stripe or another of authoritarianism for a while across much of the world for as much as a few decades.  Then...liberalism of sorts as things improve, either through remaining legal mechanisms or 'people power' movements (something utterly ignored these days).  

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I will consider a mass human extinction event a vast improvement to this civilization.

So yes it's best years are right up ahead, the sooner the merrier.