5 ms·
Always the same thing: instead of reducing energy use, humans will find a way to push back problems instead of tackling them head on. Using nuclear energy "beca
by conradk 8y ago
Always the same thing: instead of reducing energy use, humans will find a way to push back problems instead of tackling them head on. Using nuclear energy "because runway is too short" without doing much else is not going to save us.
We have to go out of our comfort zone and start pushing for laws that force manufacturers to allow for 20 year repairability of electronical products (some brands already offer 10 years, so 20 years is probably possible too), pushing for automatic 5 year warranty on electronic products instead of 2 in the EU, disallowing environment breaking agriculture, putting extremely high taxes on airplane tickets, etc.
Sure, that means that we need to change the way we live. We need to consume less and better. We need to think long term instead of jumping onto the new bright innovation every 2 years.
21st century capitalism has gotten to a point of absurdity in which everything in the world "has to" be available within the reach of a click and max 3 days delivery, whatever the cost (environment is dying, poverty is still not gone despite the absurd amount of wealth produced by modern economies, etc).
Maybe we ought to rethink how we consume and what we expect from life.
- javagram 8y agoIn practice people will riot in the streets like the “yellow vests” in France over even mild measures such as fuel taxes. Extreme measures like you are talking about could not be implemented in any democracy.
- elcomet 8y agoCome on. Fuel taxes have a higher cost on poor people, that's why people are doing riots in France. This is about social justice. You can very well have extreme measures that are also socially fair. The example the parent is taking is very good: having 10 years guarantee on all products is pro consumer (it might increases prices a bit, but I believe people will actually save money in the long run).
- jabl 8y agoI do agree that to solve all the big environmental problems we're facing, such as climate change, biodiversity loss etc., we're going to have to change the way we live. Merely replacing gasoline powered cars with electric cars isn't going to cut it. That being said, while improving energy efficiency is good as it makes the challenge of decarbonization easier, when/if we have low-impact electricity generation we could use (lots of) electricity to decarbonize many processes requiring fossil fuels today. Such as production of ammonia for nitrogen fertilizer (today from natural gas), or building heating with heat pumps instead of fuel burning boilers, steel production with hydrogen direct reduction instead of coke, etc.