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Comment by marsRoverDev | Hacker News Reader

"more beneficial than we think"

I mean, apart from the whole not dying in a mass extinction event within our lifetimes...

Who is predicting a mass extinction event within our lifetimes?

e: I'm aware of the Holocene extinction. And as far as I'm aware there are no credible predictions that Humans will share the same fate within our lifetimes, which the parent was implying.

Science? It's already ongoing.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/09/completely-terr...

No need to predict, the insects are going through a mass extinction event right at the moment.

Multiple groups are. Albeit for insects and coral reef, not for humans.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeti...

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/105/37/13736.full.pdf

There are researchers starting to connect the dots on near-term human extinction. A good summary is 'The Uninhabitable Earth' by David Wallace-Wells: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-...

Not predicting; if you’re measuring the rate of extinction of species we are very much in it and to a degree that’s on par with the greatest extinction events in earths history. The only question here is whether we will survive: given our dependency on oxygen and food produced by natural processes that is by no means certain. Furthermore the length of “our lifetimes” isn’t clear any more due to advances in technology.

We're already in a mass extinction event and the effects of climate change are just slowly being felt

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

No one is predicting it because predictions are usually about the future.

> apart from the whole not dying in a mass extinction event within our lifetimes...

Each of as will die anyway so I doubt if anyone can treat not dying in mass extinction as a real benefit.

But clean air, fresh water, free energy, bike paths in place of roads, walking in a forrest, less trash, diving in reefs that ain't bleaching to death - this is more motivating for me.

How would an early death for some future generation of ours not be motivating to avoid, if possible? I'd rather my kids or grandkids, etc, not have to live on a planet with an unlivable climate situation.

I guess people have different attitudes and motivations. If you want global action you should motivate most people not just similarly minded.

Also many people are motivated by visible change rather then abstract concepts I think.

"Future for my children" isn't exactly that abstract to most people...

You'd think that then you look at the way older people as a bloc vote in ways that shaft their offspring.

depends, some people don't have the privilege to be thinking decades ahead if their worry is getting enough food to live through the next week.

And yet people voted for social security, medicare, medicaid, and other entitlement programs which caused us to borrow twenty trillion dollars. Not exactly doing the next generation any favors.

Forget about future generations, people knowingly do many things that harm themselves in the future in exchange for gratification now. People can say they care about the future, but how much is actually shown in their actions.

The children and grand-children of the wealthy people that makes these decisions won't directly suffer the consequences of global warming.

They are too rich for that, it's not like humanity will be wiped out. Only the billions unable to move from disaster-stroken areas will.

Their world will be worse too, depending on societal changes maybe even considerably so.

That's an asinine logic.

Why limit yourself to climate change? You can apply this to anything. Work safety, seat belts, you name it.

> Each of us will die anyway, so I doubt if anyone can treat not dying in a car accident/ work related accident / fire as a real benefit.

Clean air, fresh water, walking in a forest, less trash, and diving in reefs I'm on board with. But free energy? What does that even mean? Who is going to produce that? Unless you mean something like solar, which though it has zero marginal cost, still has significant cost of installation. And bike paths in place of roads? How are we supposed to move goods via bike? I don't see why you would replace roads. What's wrong with electric cars? Many of us don't want to live in some tiny urban bubble, and want to go where we want on our schedules, not wait for a bus.

By 'free energy' I meant solar, wind or heat pump. With enormous progress and components getting cheaper and cheaper my house has energy for 'free' off-grid (with exception of heating in the winter that uses stove).

As for bike paths in place of roads please watch this short movie about Utrecht https://vimeo.com/344373585

Also my country is a transit country between East and West of Europe. And for last 30 years we only hear will be replaced by rail (trucks loaded on rail cars on the border and unloaded on another). Nothing gets done.

Electric cars still pollute cities with 2.5PM, plus need parking space etc. Cities ain't no place for private cars in my opinion.

Continual shoulder rubs would be motivating to me, that doesn't mean I get to force other people to do what they don't want to do.

Or raiding our neighbors for their cattle because we've been in an extended drought and see no other way to survive.

https://vimeo.com/143076522

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