Some anthropologists think that one of the early traumas of the human race's high level of cognition is the realization that every individual will die. An individual realizing that they are inevitably moving towards death and there's nothing to be done about it is deeply traumatic, but there's a deeper trauma I think, and that'll be when humanity realizes that the survival of the human race or even the planet earth won't be universal. I think it's in that process right now, and that's where we're seeing some really childish ideologies come out of it -- civilization is grieving the realization that some day everything we ever were is going to disappear, and some people are in the denial stage and other people are in the bargaining stage, but ultimately it'll be something we have to accept and find ways to move on from.
Finding ways to survive and thrive as a species understanding that we're going to be destroyed someday whatever we do is going to be quite a bit more complicated than just saying "drill baby drill" or "stop all technology now and return to monkey life". Mindlessly consuming the earth to our premature end is bad, but so is trying to become an acetic monk trying to live off a glass of algae and a gallon of solar desalinated oceanwater and in the process killing billions because that's not doable on a large enough scale.
There are definitely ideologies which, if implemented, would immediately cause billions of deaths. For example, there are a lot of people claiming we need to stop using fossil fuels "RIGHT NOW". that's a call for the deaths of billions of people. You could end up with the worst of both possible worlds: First an immediate wave of death because people can't get food or heat. Then as people fight back against the genocidal governments and implement something in reaction, so climate change is ultimately accelerated anyway.
My viewpoint is that if we want to transition away from carbon (and no matter what we think it's a resource that is non-renewable and won't be renewed by the same processes again -- the carboniferous period is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 million years ago. It was the era after trees evolved but before fungi evolved the ability to rot wood, and massive forests built up and created coal beds), we need to kill some sacred cows. Particularly in Canada, we need to be going all-in on hydroelectric -- the one form of electricity that has been proven to be practical in Canada in cold weather. If Canada went all-in on hydroelectric, then not only would electricity be inexpensive and plentiful such that people could heat their homes and operate transportation using electricity, but they could sell massive amounts of electricity to the United States, replacing fossil fuels for many residential, commercial, and industrial uses in those regions.
There would be a cost. We will need to build things people don't want built in places people don't want to build things. We would massively damage the environment. The question becomes: Do you want to stop using fossil fuels or not? We have solutions that will work, but there will be a cost. There is no solution without an environmental cost, period.
Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia, and I think Newfoundland are almost entirely hydroelectric. Most of that work happened before power dams became NIMBY.
Finding ways to survive and thrive as a species understanding that we're going to be destroyed someday whatever we do is going to be quite a bit more complicated than just saying "drill baby drill" or "stop all technology now and return to monkey life". Mindlessly consuming the earth to our premature end is bad, but so is trying to become an acetic monk trying to live off a glass of algae and a gallon of solar desalinated oceanwater and in the process killing billions because that's not doable on a large enough scale.
There are definitely ideologies which, if implemented, would immediately cause billions of deaths. For example, there are a lot of people claiming we need to stop using fossil fuels "RIGHT NOW". that's a call for the deaths of billions of people. You could end up with the worst of both possible worlds: First an immediate wave of death because people can't get food or heat. Then as people fight back against the genocidal governments and implement something in reaction, so climate change is ultimately accelerated anyway.
My viewpoint is that if we want to transition away from carbon (and no matter what we think it's a resource that is non-renewable and won't be renewed by the same processes again -- the carboniferous period is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 million years ago. It was the era after trees evolved but before fungi evolved the ability to rot wood, and massive forests built up and created coal beds), we need to kill some sacred cows. Particularly in Canada, we need to be going all-in on hydroelectric -- the one form of electricity that has been proven to be practical in Canada in cold weather. If Canada went all-in on hydroelectric, then not only would electricity be inexpensive and plentiful such that people could heat their homes and operate transportation using electricity, but they could sell massive amounts of electricity to the United States, replacing fossil fuels for many residential, commercial, and industrial uses in those regions.
There would be a cost. We will need to build things people don't want built in places people don't want to build things. We would massively damage the environment. The question becomes: Do you want to stop using fossil fuels or not? We have solutions that will work, but there will be a cost. There is no solution without an environmental cost, period.
Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia, and I think Newfoundland are almost entirely hydroelectric. Most of that work happened before power dams became NIMBY.
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