Is the world being destroyed?

@maxdancona,

Sometimes industrial solutions can successfully address environmental problems, but not always on the first attempt.

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@hightor,

Great! So now we agree.

I was thinking about examples of industrial solutions to environmental problems. I came up with the following.

- The Covid-19 Vaccine (I think you can count a viral outbreak as an environmental problem).

- Renewable Energy; Hydroelectric, Wind turbines, solar panels.

- Dikes (for example those built around Amsterdam starting in the 1500s) and sea walls.

- The Roman Aqueduct

- Cultures around the world from the Far East to Indigenous Americans built dams to promote agriculture. I might be stretching the word "industrial" ... but there isn't a clear line.

- Irrigation and Fertilizer has been used for centuries. I think irrigation does count as "industrial" by any reasonable definition.

- Heating in general (starting with the human discovery of fire). Houses now are certainly "industrial" and are designed to face the environment.

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Uncle Joe is pointing liberals towards something they need to be more aware of: They have a bad case of progressophobia.

That’s the phrase coined by Steven Pinker to describe a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress. It’s like situational blindness, only what you can’t see is that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War.

If you think America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could vote, and more homophobic than when blowjobs were a felony, you have progressophobia and should adjust your mask, because it’s covering your eyes.

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[A]cknowledging progress isn’t saying we’re done, or we don’t need more. And being gloomier doesn’t make you a better person.

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@maxdancona,

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Great! So now we agree.

No, we don't.

What a disingenuous attempt at securing "agreement". I've consistently stated that the damage to the planet has been a product of the Industrial Revolution. Claiming that primitive agriculture, Roman aqueducts, pre-industrial dikes and dams, and the prehistoric use of fire are examples of "industry" is an obvious, and very feeble, attempt to shield modern technology from criticism and try to make its destruction of the environment and damage to human civilization seem like a necessary and innocent development in human evolution.

I've never flatly condemned modern technology or industrial society. I've repeatedly pointed out that the human enterprise seems to be addicted to short term gains at the expense of responsible long-range planning and that we're always playing catch up with the consequences of our previous poor decisions.

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@maxdancona,

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If you think America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could vote, and more homophobic than when blowjobs were a felony, you have progressophobia and should adjust your mask, because it’s covering your eyes.

I don't believe any of those things. That doesn't excuse modern society from the continued pursuit of economic justice, social acceptance of the marginalized, and sexual equality.

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[A]cknowledging progress isn’t saying we’re done, or we don’t need more.

Acknowledging the harm caused by environmentally destructive industries and criticizing the cult of progress and unlimited growth that has enabled them is not a blanket rejection of progress.

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And being gloomier doesn’t make you a better person.

I'm not a particularly gloomy person and I don't know any social critics writing from an ecological perspective who are. Most of them are pretty energized. Some are more reflective but have achieved solace and maintain creativity. Bill Maher has employed the classic straw man fallacy and you, not surprisingly, fell for it.

By the way, you should check out 39 Ways to Save the Planet, available as a BBC podcast. Lots of good progressive ideas there. None of which underplay the dire circumstances facing living things on this planet.

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@maxdancona,

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Do you have air conditioning, Hightor?

No.

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If not, then you can afford to be smug, at least on this issue.

I think I'll pass.

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@hightor,

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What a disingenuous attempt at securing "agreement". I've consistently stated that the damage to the planet has been a product of the Industrial Revolution. Claiming that primitive agriculture, Roman aqueducts, pre-industrial dikes and dams, and the prehistoric use of fire are examples of "industry" is an obvious, and very feeble, attempt to shield modern technology from criticism and try to make its destruction of the environment and damage to human civilization seem like a necessary and innocent development in human evolution.

Native Americans had industry that caused many important species to go extinct. This was thousands of years before the industrial revolution. Humans from all cultures have been breeding new species of plants, changing waterways and bringing invasive species... all of this long before the single point in time you are calling the "industrial revolution".

I suspect the discovery and use of fire was a far more significant event in human progress than anything in the industrial revolution.

You didn't put a date range on the "Industrial revolution". By this I assume you mean the discovery of the steam engine onwards, and the realization that we could develop things in factories with less effort than earlier ways of doing things.

Humans have progressed quite a bit in the past 300 years. We have extended human life. We have decreased poverty, famine and disease. We live longer. Even the poorest humans have better longer life. I wouldn't want to give up this progress.

But I don't see this as a single event... humans have had many periods of great progress. Life has gotten significantly better for humans in the past 300 years... but I imagine that this would be true for many 300 year periods in history.

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@maxdancona,

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This was thousands of years before the industrial revolution. Humans from all cultures have been breeding new species of plants, changing waterways and bringing invasive species... all of this long before the single point in time you are calling the "industrial revolution".

Oh, come on. None of these changes, which happened over long periods of time, threatened to melt the ice caps, raised temperatures globally, caused the extinction of thousands of species, polluted rivers and lakes, or increased the acidity of the oceans all in the space of 300 years. (And, btw, what we know as the "Industrial Revolution" did not occur at a "single point in time".)

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@hightor,

Humans have been polluting lakes and rivers, and causing the extinction of species for thousands of years (you are arguing a matter of degree). I will give you climate change.

But here is the important question.

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@hightor,

Was the Industrial Revolution (as you define it), worth it?

You are reading this on a screen created in some factory (probably in china) by a big Corporation. You feel smug because you got your covid-19 vaccines; again from big corporation and manufactured in a factory who knows where.

You expect to live 80 years at least. Children born today have an extraordinarily high chance of seeing adulthood (unheard of in history). You have in door plumbing. Access to quick transportation. And medical care.

We have doubled life expectancy around the world, raised the standard of living for the most poor countries and have drastically lowered famine, deaths from war, and extreme poverty.

We all agree with the "29 ways to save the planet". And yes, we do have some problems to work on.

But the Industrial Revolution was a pretty good thing. So was the discovery of fire, the move to agricultural societies and the invention of literature.

I don't know what world you want to to live in. I happen to like the real world.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

And, btw, what we know as the "Industrial Revolution" did not occur at a "single point in time".

The Industrial Revolution was the transition from creating goods by hand to using machines.
However, the term 'Industrial Revolution' covers a period far too long to justify a single label. And it is misleading for describing a complicated series of forces, processes and discoveries which worked very slowly but gradually and created a new economic organisation.
(The "Agricultural Revolution" is the name given to a number of cultural transformations that initially allowed humans to change from a hunting and gathering subsistence to one of agriculture and animal domestications - Even wikipedia lists five different.)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Thank you Walter.

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@maxdancona,

I don't get your point.

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You are reading this on a screen created in some factory (probably in china) by a big Corporation.

Yes...and? Big corporations found it expedient to manufacture products overseas to take advantage of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations.
Yay team!

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You feel smug because you got your covid-19 vaccines; again from big corporation and manufactured in a factory who knows where.

Um...I can assure you, I don't feel "smug" about having been vaccinated. If anything, having gotten an early vaccination, I'm just hopeful that I'll receive a booster in a timely manner.

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You expect to live 80 years at least. Children born today have an extraordinarily high chance of seeing adulthood (unheard of in history). You have in door plumbing. Access to quick transportation. And medical care.

This describes the life of some of the world population. It's not a universal condition, even for people in wealthy countries.

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But the Industrial Revolution was a pretty good thing. So was the discovery of fire, the move to agricultural societies and the invention of literature.

From a certain perspective, the Industrial Revolution was a pretty good thing. A more balanced view would look at the costs as well as the benefits. (You can even reassess the Agricultural Revolution from a cost/ benefit analysis.) I don't think it's necessary to call it "good" or to label it as "bad". It was, and remains, a multi-faceted istorical development that enabled rapid economic progress at a great cost to natural ecosystems, while enriching some people through the exploitation of others. It was somewhat dishonestly propelled by an economic system which irresponsibly ignored the consequences of the waste that accompanied production, and we're paying a price for that today.

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I don't know what world you want to to live in.

It's not as if we have a choice. You seem to imply that anyone who criticizes any aspect of the modern world must wish to live in a cave. I don't think that's a realistic option. But I do think that simplification, thrift, and strategic planning would improve the lives of more people than hyper-competitive headlong economic expansion. I like the real world, too, but that doesn't mean social reality must remain above criticism.

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Declining Oxygen Level as an Emerging Concern to Global Cities

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Rising CO2 concentration and temperatures in urban areas are now well-known, but the potential of an emerging oxygen crisis in the world’s large cities has so far attracted little attention from the science community. Here, we investigated the oxygen balance and its related risks in 391 global large cities (with a population of more than 1 million people) using the oxygen index (OI), which is the ratio of oxygen consumption to oxygen production. Our results show that the global urban areas, occupying only 3.8% of the global land surface, accounted for 39% (14.3 ± 1.5 Gt/yr) of the global terrestrial oxygen consumption during 2001–2015. We estimated that 75% of cities with a population more than 5 million had an OI of greater than 100. Also, cities with larger OI values were correlated with more frequent heatwaves and severe water withdrawals. In addition, cities with excessively large OI values would likely experience severe hypoxia in extremely calm weather. Thus, mitigation measures should be adopted to reduce the urban OI in order to build healthier and more sustainable cities.

acs

https://pubs.acs.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/esthag/2021/esthag.2021.55.issue-12/acs.est.1c00553/20210609/images/medium/es1c00553_0009.gif

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@hightor,

1. I agree with the conclusion of this article (although they don't give many specifics). Designing cities to be "healthier and more sustainable" is something that I support. I assume this means more parks and ways to control pollution.

2. The phrase "so far attracted little attention from the science community" made me chuckle.

3. Hightor selected this piece (I think) because it has an outrage porn title. "Declining Oxygen"... "Emerging Concern".... these are words that are arousing to the political left. The article doesn't seem to say anything important (air quality including ozone levels is already very well understood as an issue).

There is an interesting question about whether it is better for the environment to have people live in cities, or to live spread out across the countryside. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that cities use fewer resources per human being and are a net benefit.

Actually, apart from the title and that weird little graphic, this is a little disappointing as outrage porn.

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Hightor, It is an interesting how hard you are trying to avoid agreeing with me.

The truth is that you and I probably agree on 90% of policy. And we agree on the same goals; sustainable policies, controlled population, and a good standard of living for all communities (regardless of wealth).

I would like to see a fast switch to renewable energy. I support sustainable cities. I believe that public transportation should be free, and that people living outside of sustainable areas should be taxed.

Our biggest difference, from reading what you write, is economics. I think we pretty much disagree on this topic. But there is lot that we do agree about.

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@maxdancona,

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Hightor, It is an interesting how hard you are trying to avoid agreeing with me.

I could say the same about you – except that I don't post these articles seeking "agreement", nor do I expect people to agree with me when I post my opinions.

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The truth is that you and I probably agree on 90% of policy.

Possibly. I've often thought that, in real life, you're probably nowhere near as imperious as you tend to present yourself here.

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3. Hightor selected this piece (I think) because it has an outrage porn title.

I didn't. And why I post articles isn't the issue.

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"Declining Oxygen"... "Emerging Concern".... these are words that are arousing to the political left.

I wish you'd get off of the "outrage porn" kick; it's dumb. It has nothing to do with "right and left". I doubt anyone is "outraged" or "aroused" by this stuff anymore; we've all witnessed countless examples of environmental degradation in our lifetimes. It's become part of the scenery. And I wish you'd accept the fact that many people share a sense of concern over whether we can meet this challenge. I post articles which show why concern is justified or why someone thinks concern is justified.

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The article doesn't seem to say anything important (air quality including ozone levels is already very well understood as an issue).

It's only an abstract of a larger study. Whether hypoxia emerges as a significant problem in large cities (which I rather doubt) as the climate warms remains to be seen, but there's no reason people shouldn't be alerted to the kinds of research being applied to potential problems in urban environments.

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@hightor,

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we've all witnessed countless examples of environmental degradation in our lifetimes. It's become part of the scenery. And I wish you'd accept the fact that many people share a sense of concern over whether we can meet this challenge

This is the ideological narrative that I want to challenge. You are cherry picking articles to support thitive, and you are making claims that arent supported by facts or science.

The ideological narrative is neither true or false. It is just a narrative. It is based on some truth and it ignores other truths. That is how narratives work

Your claim that there is "environmental degradation" is obvious. This isnt a scientific fact (since you haven't defined a testable metric). It is an emotional truth that you can easily confirm by googling for the worst disasters. Of course the work restoring evironments and doesnt fit into that narrative.

The hand wringing over whether "we can meet that challenge" is meaninless emotional pap.

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@maxdancona,

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This is the "ideological narrative©" that I want to challenge.

Yawn.

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You are cherry picking articles to support thitive, and you are making claims that arent supported by facts or science.

Yes I am curating these articles. But show where I am "making claims that arent supported by facts or science".

If you don't believe that the environment is being degraded and that living things and the natural networks that sustain them are jeopardized by destruction I don't see why you even bother to post here.

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This isnt a scientific fact (since you haven't defined a testable metric).

This thread isn't a scientific study.

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Of course the work restoring evironments and doesnt fit into that narrative.

I've explained to you many times, I'm posting the articles and stories which make people suspect that things aren't going that well with regard to the global environment.

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The hand wringing over whether "we can meet that challenge" is meaninless emotional pap.

What "handwringing" are you talking about? Surely not your own oft-repeated concern that this thread makes it difficult for the sides to come together.

If there are two sides, it's people who deny anthropogenic environmental damage on one side, and people who are concerned about it on the other. People who want action taken and people who want more drastic action taken are on the same side.

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@hightor,

1. Yes, there is climate change that is caused by humans. It will have serious effects that we are already seeing including sea level rise and extreme weather. Yes, this warrants strong actual now to mitigate the effects.

2. NO! The world is not ending. There is no credible scientific organization saying that human civilization is going to collapse. The animals aren't all going to disappear. Humans are not getting sicker, or dying of starvation, or killing each other, or being reanimated as zombies.

You don't have to pick one of the two extremes. I take the science, I take all of the science, and I don't go any further.

1 Reply

Is the world being destroyed?

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