Day of Eight Billion

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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Lemur
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by Lemur »

Perhaps. I've been influenced by these boards quite a bit. And I'm reading a book on ecology right now and I can't help but make the connection that ERE can be seen as an "ecological niche."

Like this flowchart from the book I'm reading:
There is a constant competition for food and resources; better adapted species outcompete those less suited to the environment --> Reducing competition increases the chances of survival --> Finding a unique niche is the circumstance that removes competition --> Existence of each species is determined by a slender thread of circumstances.

ERE itself is the niche. The unique niche itself is deliberately reducing consumption. 95%+ of our "competition" does not willingly choose this. I would think this would be an easy sell...but it has not been. Maybe as you say because the argument comes from the micro level. I'll need to translate to the macro.
Last edited by Lemur on Sun Nov 20, 2022 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

jacob
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by jacob »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 10:01 am
ERE itself is the niche. The unique niche itself is deliberately reducing consumption. 95%+ of our "competition" doe not willingly choose this.
ERE1 is exploiting the empty space in between the petals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MGQgQZHx1Q

white belt
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Nov 19, 2022 10:18 am

I think the doomer/optimist schism has to be somewhat transcended. For instance, consider the fact that ERE itself is an innovation towards limiting growth.
Right I was being a bit cheeky, put I for one hate the optimist/pessimist dichotomy because it tends to result in ostrich behavior. I will say the most common trope I hear in my social circles is that "they" will figure out some technological solution for climate change.

ducknald_don wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:45 am
A solution to climate change that requires reducing consumption will target the wealthy (because they are the problem). Reducing their consumption is going to look awfully like socialism.
Well not exactly because if you just take money from the wealthy and give it to the poor, then net resource consumption will likely increase. For example, private jet flights are highly emitting per person but since most people can't afford private jets, then the emissions are a drop in the bucket. Compare that to the impact on global emissions of cheap airfare for the masses.

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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by ducknald_don »

@wb I suppose it depends where you draw the boundary but even in America less than 50% of the population fly in any one year. The wealthy half of the country is causing the damage and if you forced them to stop then their lives would suddenly look awfully like the poor half.

white belt
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by white belt »

ducknald_don wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:15 pm
@wb I suppose it depends where you draw the boundary but even in America less than 50% of the population fly in any one year. The wealthy half of the country is causing the damage and if you forced them to stop then their lives would suddenly look awfully like the poor half.
If you redistribute wealth without reducing consumption then you haven't solved any problems, you're just moving the emissions from one demographic to another. The atmosphere doesn't care.

From a global perspective, the wealthy (developed countries) are causing the most damage per capita. There are attempts to redistribute wealth to the poorest countries in response to climate change (see recent COP27 talks). It's uncertain if we can spend our way out of climate change, but all solutions are welcome.

I agree climate change is a wealthy person problem in the sense that anyone over 1 JAFI spending is part of the problem (myself included). 1 JAFI also happens to be ~75% of the USA poverty line at any given time, but we know that standard of living and quality of life correlations breakdown at the extremes. Consumerist culture (among other things) is causing the damage, it just happens that wealthy people can allocate more resources to their consumerist tendencies. You can't fix a cultural problem by applying a technical bandaid.

I'm all for cultural change and I applaud those like Jacob, MMM, Holmgren, et al who have made attempts to influence others towards a lower environmental impact lifestyle. Personally, I'd like to see a big increase in the price of flights because of the structural changes it would cause in the long term, although things would undoubtedly be painful in the short term. It would be a big boom to local/regional travel if flights became more expensive because people would be forced to travel to nearby destinations. A lot of local resort areas in my region have seen a dramatic decline since my parents' generation since traveling internationally has become so affordable. I dream of a world where vacations are by car and bus to local lakes/mountains rather than flying to Florida/Colorado.*

* = I'm aware that this is already the reality for many that are lower on the socio-economic scale. However, having made some forays into more local resort areas, I've found many to have quite a dilapidated feeling. See Atlantic City, the Poconos, even many parts of upstate New York.

chenda
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by chenda »

white belt wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:51 pm
A lot of local resort areas in my region have seen a dramatic decline since my parents' generation since traveling internationally has become so affordable. I dream of a world where vacations are by car and bus to local lakes/mountains rather than flying to Florida/Colorado.*

* = I'm aware that this is already the reality for many that are lower on the socio-economic scale. However, having made some forays into more local resort areas, I've found many to have quite a dilapidated feeling. See Atlantic City, the Poconos, even many parts of upstate New York.
Yes a very similar thing happened in Britain where numerous coastal resorts were killed off from the 1960s onwards, where air travel to places like Spain became available to the masses. There was no way the chilly north sea could compete with the Costa del Sol (Franco encouraged this as he was desperate for the pounds and deutchmarks)

Aviation is a difficult one. The fact that air travel is accessible today to most people in the developed world is in some ways a great, democratising thing. Not so long ago foreign holidays were a privilege of the ultra rich. Now it's available to most first worldlers. It's help to break down cultural barriers, brought the world closer together, allowed for many mix-nationality relationships and lots of other good things. A century ago, immigrants left knowing they may never see their family again, ever. It's hard to imagine that today.

But there is obviously a cost, and aviation only exists because of massive government subsidy and a failure to price in the externalities. Globally only about 2% of CO2 emissions come from aviation, but most people in the world have never flown so it's still a big part of an individuals carbon footprint.

Frankly, all the resources we are putting into electric cars would be better off diverted into making hydrogen fuelled aircraft or something. We can easily substitute cars for alternatives, it's much harder to substitute air travel, especially long haul.

white belt
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by white belt »

chenda wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:53 pm
Frankly, all the resources we are putting into electric cars would be better off diverted into making hydrogen fuelled aircraft or something. We can easily substitute cars for alternatives, it's much harder to substitute air travel, especially long haul.
Or put into revitalizing ocean travel: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/06 ... iners.html

chenda
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by chenda »

white belt wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:00 pm
Or put into revitalizing ocean travel: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/06 ... iners.html
Yes I could definitely see that happening, especially with remote working the journey time might be less of an issue for some. 19th century steam ships would have done more to connect the world than aviation did in the 20th. Most cargo is of course still carried by ship, aircraft usually is only cost effective when used for small, light, high value goods like lobsters or iphones.

Boeing and Airbus have both dabbled in hydrogen fueled aircraft, though it seems to be more at PR splash stage.

I'd love to see some airships back in the skies but they seem thwart with problems.

ducknald_don
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by ducknald_don »

white belt wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:51 pm
If you redistribute wealth without reducing consumption then you haven't solved any problems, you're just moving the emissions from one demographic to another. The atmosphere doesn't care.
I didn't say anything about redistribution. The point I was making is once you take away peoples ability to consume excessive amounts of energy then society will look a lot flatter than it currently does. You are taking from one without giving to another.
chenda wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:53 pm
Globally only about 2% of CO2 emissions come from aviation, but most people in the world have never flown so it's still a big part of an individuals carbon footprint.
I did the maths a couple of years ago and it comes out at ~3% and that is purely the emissions from burning jet fuel. It excludes extraction, refining, all the ground support services, travel to and from the airport, etc. It's also going to keep climbing as the rest of the economy decarbonises and air travel increases.

white belt
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Re: Day of Eight Billion

Post by white belt »

ducknald_don wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 2:28 am
I didn't say anything about redistribution. The point I was making is once you take away peoples ability to consume excessive amounts of energy then society will look a lot flatter than it currently does. You are taking from one without giving to another.
I don't understand how taking away the ability to consume excessive amounts of energy will make society any flatter. Human society existed in hierarchies long before fossil fuels and the wealthy will find ways to signal superiority one way or another. If it's not jets then it will be boats, exotic meats, horses, vacation homes, domestic help, etc. I also think offering a negative decree "You can't fly" rather than proposing an alternative is not effective for typical human persuasion. Kinda like how Jacob focused on the "freedom" carrot to convince people to pursue ERE rather than just telling them to stop consuming everything.

The free market solution says that high prices are the cure for high prices, which I think we've already seen over the past year or so as airfare prices have increased significantly faster than inflation. However, Jevons paradox says that any innovations to make flying less emitting will be offset by overall increased demand.

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