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Comment by WheelsAtLarge | Hacker News Reader

The problem is the population size. There's no way the environment can recover from 7+ billion people using the resources we need. Additionally, the term comfortably is relative, the more we have the more we think we need to live comfortably. Ask a hunter-gather what he/she need to be comfortable vs an upper-middle-class individual in New York and you'll get an extremely different answer.

I see a future where we get our food directly from the sun and with most animals and plants destroyed- pets and house plants will likely be the survivors we pick.

Very sad!

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The average American uses twice as much energy as the average Briton, five times more than the average Brazilian and eleven times more than the average Indian.

Is the problem that we've got too many people, or is it that the resources we have are being distributed completely unequally?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...

The problem is that everyone strives to get to the American level. Nothing wrong with public commute and having your own garden/mini-farm. Really easy, too.

Indeed, I think much of the problem stems from everyone needing a job, and not having enough time. If I were unemployed, yet housing were free and groceries were free at the local walking-distance market, I probably would not own a car and could entertain myself indefinitely with a laptop, earbuds, library card, barbell, and soldering iron. I could live happily on a tiny fraction of my current energy consumption. With further automation in farming and self driving 18-wheelers, this reality is not that far fetched.

The "problem" (to the extent that it is a problem) is that Britain has 65 million people on an island smaller than the U.S. state of Oregon, most of which has an extremely moderate climate. The U.S. is orders of magnitude larger (i.e., more transportation costs) and has significant regions that require large-scale heating or air conditioning to make habitable. Some require both.

Also, Canada uses even more energy per capita than the United States, for pretty much the same reasons.

>significant regions that require large-scale heating or air conditioning to make habitable. Some require both.

People only moved to the really hot parts of America in significant numbers because of the invention of air conditioning. They abandoned vernacular architectural techniques that kept buildings comfortable using passive cooling.

The entire population of the US could comfortably fit into the climatically mild parts. Vast areas of the US never get particularly cold in winter or particularly warm in summer.

As with suburban sprawl, the human geography of the US is built around wasteful energy use. Those trends were established over time and they can be reversed over time.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/

"The entire population of the US could comfortably fit into the climatically mild parts."

Yeah, well, the entire population of the US could be put in giant warehouses, eating in cafeterias and hotbunking the beds in three shifts.

But that's no way to live.

"Vast areas of the US never get particularly cold in winter or particularly warm in summer."

Where are these "vast areas"? Outside of maybe the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, I can't think of any.

If we really have a problem with too many resources being used, then we "simply" need to decide what is acceptable and tax energy accordingly.

Making assumptions about what people are entitled to, or what standard of living is possible would be a big mistake because it could lead to far worse outcomes than simply forcing the market to provide the solution.

Faith in the markets is working well for global warming so far /s

I have reasonable faith that markets could get global warming under control without most people noticing any decrease in their standard of living, quite possibly seeing a big increase.

Getting impatient for people to actually try markets rather than continue the petro-gangster status quo though.

The market is astonishingly good at solving problems if you make the status quo more expensive than the solution. If we abandoned cap-and-trade in favour of a carbon tax, we would undoubtedly see huge reductions in carbon emissions. The problem with our current system isn't that the market is failing to respond to incentives, but that we haven't set the right price.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program

I'm a fan of the market system but there are limits. It works well for solving one variable with it but our environmental issues are many and no one has found a business model that works to save it. Also, when the market solves for one issue it goes to extremes and often causes other unintended consequences. The market alone is not the answer but a combination of the market system plus our political system. But in reality it's just a matter of everyone understanding the problem and trying to help. Every resource we take from the environment has an impact no matter the size since it's multiplied by billions.

Markets only work when the government regulating them isn't subject to regulatory capture.

Definitely, its way more important to protect a thousand little fiefdoms at all costs, then to solve a true problem. Imagine how the CEOs would feel if there companys where shut down just because they where considered taxwise energy waste.

Why doesn't anybody ever think about the needs of CEOs ?

Seriously - market aside- its obviously a lot of humans need companys and hierarchical structured society to upkeep there ego- so what solution is there to keep those afloat, while ending the ecological suicide that is capitalism?

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