this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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Sadly I think you are right. We have to stop the warming or slow it down somehow. Considering we are never going to stop the wheels of civilization, people won't stop driving, won't stop eating meat, and otherwise won't accept a decrease in their standard of living, it leaves us no alternatives.
We either geoengineer our way out of this mess, or we die.
The climate crisis is not because of the wheels of civilisation or because that or this, it's because of capitalism. There are alternatives, but these alternatives hurt shareholders profits, so they are not discussed.
I mean, maybe, if that makes you feel better (because the argument is purely an exercise in epistemology).
Fact is, humans didn't need to invent capitalism to collapse whole ecosystems (Easter Island is often brought up as an example here). I don't think other economical systems would fare much better, to be honest. I think what we see is the result of individualistic societies, of generally placing comfort and immediate needs above sustainability, of being organized in competing tribes (who prefer to be above the neighbour than higher with them), and of playing with a science we barely understand as an amplifier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
We need to be careful and smart, but yeah, this is the only way out, better we start now.
We can cut down on meat and gas cars too, the low-hanging fruit, but pretending we're all somehow going back to hunting-gathering while sustaining our current population is some kind of delusional fantasy that only comes from drinking too much LSD.