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Comment by bubblewrap | Hacker News Reader

We are not resource-constrained? What on earth makes you think so? It is genuinely news to me. Has fusion power been discovered?

And even if we were only attention constrained, a project that doesn't work would draw attention away from more promising ideas.

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Yes; it has been discovered in the daytime sky. But that's not the point. We aren't resource constrained. We're not struggling to eat; we have diseases of abundance. We're not running out of oil; we're drowning in plastic. It's not our resources that are lacking but our conscientiousness and enthusiasm for things worthwhile.

Wasn't there a reason why we shouldn't burn that much oil anymore? I can't quite name it, but it is all over the news lately.

In comparison, plastic is actually mostly just an aesthetic issue.

> plastic is actually mostly just an aesthetic issue.

It's like saying burning oil is mostly bad because of the visual aspect of smog. It's not.

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=microplastic+endocrine+d...

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=microplastic+effect+on+h...

So far fish seem to be doing fine, though. Humans, too. I haven't heard of any mass extinction events because of plastic consumption.

There actually lots of other toxic and non-digestible things floating in the sea, not the least life forms who defend against predators by producing toxins. Therefore it seems unlikely that plastic will be that much worse.

The reason doesn't have much to do with lack of resources. Is there a reason why you ignored my answer to your fusion question? Solar power provides more energy than our civilization needs.

Not yet, it doesn't. That's a pipe dream.

In the same way, you could claim we have no plastics problem, because we don't need plastic. That would be the same logic as saying we don't need oil because we could use solar power.

Maybe in theory it is possible, but it is not a reality yet.

And it is not even proven that it is possible, either. Solar power is not zero impact, either, it may just have a slightly smaller CO2 footprint than oil.

Of course it’s proven possible. Are you one of those types that doesn’t think something is shown to be possible until it is already the entire status quo everywhere? At that point, there’s not even any discussion about its “possibility” because it’s the status quo. Solutions exist for these things and whining about how things are not yet ideal, how this earnest effort to clean up should be discouraged because it might backfire or how solar power might not be “proven” even though you can go out and literally buy solar panels (cheaply! And with quick energy payback time!) to charge your car with instead of using oil... ...this is not actually productive. Find a solution and do it.

You can buy cheap solar panels - cheap, because they are produced with energy created from fossil fuels.

You are hopelessly naive. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yes, solar panels exist. That doesn't prove you can fulfill all our energy needs using them. And it doesn't tell you anything about their CO2 footprint.

There is also the tiny problem of energy at night, that has no good solution yet.

Super-yacht business is doing just fine: https://www.superyachtsmonaco.com/sales/pages/sales-central-...

Meaning what?

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