[corporateslaver]

That’s what happens when you have this many people. For the kind of population growth, it’s either we stop having so many people, or the animals die. It’s us or them. Why is this so hard to understand? No amount of talking points and musing on environmentalism will take away those facts of human existence.

How could the industrial boom in China or the USA in the late 1800s and early 1900s have happened without emvironmental destruction? How can growth happen in China now without it? Get real about human development and the necessities of human development.

[dwaltrip]

It's a function of lingering ingorance and misaligned incentives. We have the technology and the institutions that can prevent the majority of this damage, despite our large numbers.

[codeisawesome]

I am genuinely curious. Clean energy systems exist, but they are either expensive, restricted and dangerous to proliferate or expensive, inefficient and inconvenient.

What institutions exist that can make clean energy palatable to all the human societies that require it for their survival—at-scale, that they are all ignoring?

Leaving energy aside, what other powerful means of doing good to ecosystems as a whole, are they simply ignoring? Is there any quantification of the damage?

I am most certainly not trying to attack your position. I pretty much believe the same things you said. But we should have these answers documented. Is there a single source for these things on the web?

[vkou]

> How could the industrial boom in China or the USA in the late 1800s and early 1900s have happened without emvironmental destruction? How can growth happen in China now without it? Get real about human development and the necessities of human development.

Not all of that environmental and human damage was necessary. Much of it was out of ignorance, and more was out greed, combined with a callous disregard for human life.

[nothrabannosir]

> Why is this so hard to understand?

Who said anything about hard to understand?

Are you explaining the observation or justifying it? Because the former might be a fool’s errand; everyone understands, as you so eloquently put it.

In other words: just because I know why something happens, doesn’t mean that I think it’s a good thing, or that it shouldn’t change.

[corporateslaver]

I’m saying enough with these lamentations about the environment, would these people rather be living in the woods? It’s complete nonsense. Destroying the environment has been a necessary step to human evolution.

[PhasmaFelis]

I was nodding along with you--yes, the population explosion is destroying the environment--until I realized, with mixed bemusement and horror, that you were in favor of this.

Just for starters: Why is "the Industrial Revolution happened" an argument against trying to do better in the future?

[corporateslaver]

It points to a hard fact about what kind of things cause environmental destruction but are also massive improvements for humanity. The picture painted where environmental destruction is superfluous is completely wrong and disingenuous.

[telchar]

Don't forget the plants! They're dying as well through the effects of agriculture, draining swamps for new subdivisions, and such. And from the few invasive species that thrive to the detriment of many native species.

Although I suppose the animals are getting the worst of it since we actively go after many of them.

[windows_tips]

>How could the industrial boom in China or the USA in the late 1800s and early 1900s have happened without emvironmental destruction? How can growth happen in China now without it?

Possibly if they had used solar-thermal power generation and focused on battery tech instead of exploiting petroleum so heavily.

[nickparker]

I'm reading "The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century"[0] right now, and it's at least partly dissuading me of the whole "We couldn't possibly have developed without fossil fuels" idea, along with the similar "If we collapse now we'll never build back up without abundant surface fossil fuels."

Worthwhile electric generators really weren't that far behind worthwhile steam engines. Without any fossil fuels, I think we would've just built lots of hydro and wind.

[0]: https://gutenberg.org/files/41538/41538-h/41538-h.htm

[corporateslaver]

Sarcasm?

[MaxBarraclough]

> either we stop having so many people, or the animals die. It’s us or them.

This assumes there can be an 'us' without a 'them'.

[viggity]

Nobody give corporateslaver the infinity stones.