Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature | Hacker News Reader

Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature

bbc.com

88 pointssohkamyung126 comments

Crapping on nature isn't new for our species. As an example consider how we deforested Europe over the last five centuries, or drove boney whale species to the brink of extinction. The difference this time (with severe climate change) is that actually might upset our way of life. Maybe it's a lesson we need to learn.

It is not new for any species. Others just have no means to reason about it.

So it's a natural phenomenon?

Uh, yes. No other animal species pontificates about living in harmony with nature, or preserving the balance, or anything of the sort. They're all fighting tooth and nail to survive and, if successful, outcompete.

We're only exceptional in that we're so successful, and that we sometimes contemplate deliberately limiting our growth.

It’s true that - as far as we know - no other animal species cares about preserving the environment. But, you could argue that we care because we must. We worsen our chance of survival by messing up the environment to a point where it heavily affects our lives. Maybe, animals don’t care because they can’t do as much damage as us.

My impression is that other animal species generally are in harmony with nature:

Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources. They seem to have no interest in this, even where it would give them a monopolistic economic advantage over their competitors. You don't see animals hunting for sport.

On the other hand, bacteria and viruses will exhaust the resources given to them, and thus end up limiting their own growth. Humans are not so exceptional in this regard.

Cats commonly hunt for sport and have caused the extinction of a few species. Gorillas will go to war with other groups. Plenty of human traits have analogues in other species.

> Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources.

They certainly do, if given the chance. Boom-bust cycles caused by resource overextraction are common throughout the animal kingdom. The only reason that it isn't apparent to you is because you don't pay a lot of attention to animal resource supplies, and because over a long enough timeframe new equilibriums are sometimes formed until some other external impact comes into play.

Re:hunting for sport, cats are the most famous example as mentioned by the sibling commenter, but you also see it with other predators. Play is very common in the animal kingdom and its often violent. I've seen coyotes and foxes kill smaller animals and leave them uneaten many times.

Humans are simply better at resource extraction than other animals. The underlying behavior is not notable.

> The only reason that it isn't apparent to you

It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

I notice both commenters referenced cats - a domesticated and invasive species.

> Humans are simply better at resource extraction than other animals.

Claiming that humans are 'better' ignores my point that bacteria will happily exhaust whatever resources are given to them.

> Claiming that humans are 'better' ignores my point that bacteria will happily exhaust whatever resources are given to them.

So will most other animals. This isn't something unique to humans.

> I notice both commenters referenced cats - a domesticated and invasive species.

Foxes and coyotes, which I mentioned, aren't. Most predators do this (gratuitous killing) to some degree or another. Even some none-predators engage in "pointless" violent aggression towards other species.

> It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

Only because most other species (since cyanobacteria) are drawing from a more limited pool of resources. Other species certainly do radically transform their local ecosystems which leads to disruption until other species move in to fill the new niches. What makes humans different is that our "resources" encompass a much broader area and array of material than other animals.

There is no steady state in the absence of human intervention. I am not claiming that humans are 'better.' They aren't. They're just another animal, just one unusually adaptable thanks to big brains, language, and thumbs. I'm not assigning any more value to that. In the long run, it might be a 'bad' thing, in that, as the comments here show, we tend to be much too proud of those big brains.

> It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

Not for lack of trying. Usually another species or the limited size of its habitable area will stop a species before it has a global impact, but if you focus on smaller ecosystems, you get the typical rabbit-and-hare boom-and-bust cycle resulting in extinction of both fairly regularly.

I don't think any other species has upset the ecological balance to such an extent that it becomes unlivable for them

Unfortunately, the overpopulation of some species can cause havoc to the environment as well and can even lead to an environmental collapse (e.g. desertification). From mammals to viruses and bacteria there can always be unaccounted dominant force. Two examples come to my mind, 1) the lack of predators can lead to overpopulation and total exhaustion of the habitat (currently happening in the central Europe), 2) world supply of bananas being endangered by Panama disease. Who knows, maybe one day humanity will be conquered by super-corona

Although humanity sucks for centuries, we could make the argument, that the 20th century was the century where there was more done for the environment than in the last millennia. Many species that were considered displaced or even extinct have returned to their natural habitat and reclaimed their native land. Science and education showed us the right way forward, making cities way cleaner than ever before. I do not know how about you but I am glad that streets are not littered with human and animal waste and air is not filled with methane and pollutants from coal combustion. Sure, there were plenty of mistakes made (uhm..uhm...atom bomb testing), but we live in the best era in the last 100000s years. Only thing that I see as very unfortunate nowadays is that the environment become a politicised issue (in a sense that facts are neglected by both sides of the debate and are replaced by empty rhetoric and disinformation that is used for political gains and moral high-ground. The fact that there is even a separation into different environmental camps is the most ridiculous event in human history since that time a pirate became a pope!)

edit: repeated words

Also there is more forest than before.

Where? Could you quantify that in hectares or acres?

In France at least. Our forests have been growing faster than we cut them for a few decades.

The trend is upward over the last 40 years (about 7% more global forest cover now than in 1982[0]) but I don’t think the data exist to extrapolate further back to, say, the beginning of the 20th century.

[0]: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-forest-loss-years-offse...

Edit: oh god 1982 was almost 40 years ago not 30. Tempus fugit.

That comes as a surprise to me. Thanks for linking to the article.

Wood was the main form of fuel, until very recently.

The forests that have grown back are not as healthy as the old growth. In the NE of America, the oaks and transitional maples have greatly diminished. Faster growing, and invasive species have taken their place. Less diversity in the wildlife, as the new trees don't provide the same amount of shelter.

The importance of grasslands are overlooked. The prairies in NA have been turned into a monoculture nightmare. Grasses grow fast and are great at capturing carbon, providing food, and habitat for animals.

But the environment is deeply political! A seemingly simple decision can be fraught with unintended consequences across different groups of people. Just allowing or banning a pesticide could have impact on human health, insect population, birds, pollinators, the livelihood of farmers, and rural economies. Politics is the system we have invented to deal with this complexity, and we should accept that people will have conflicting views in the same way as any other issue.

I think people have tried to artificially de-politicize the environment into something technocratic. But there is no scientific formula that can justify destroying a coal miners livelihood in favor of renewables. That is justified because fighting climate change and air pollution is the right thing to do. That is a moral and a political choice.

"a politicised issue (in a sense that facts are neglected by both sides of the debate and are replaced by empty rhetoric and disinformation that is used for political gains and moral high-ground...)"

Perhaps I was not clear enough, which is quite typical for me, BUT I agree with you 100%! It is important to question and debate this issue through a political system.

What I mean is that the current political culture in various countries has turned this process into a joke and I am not sure if we can even have a civil debate on this topic ever again. Hell, most conversations I have regarding pesticides end up in name calling and ridiculous oversimplifications of reality. I actually gave up on having these discussions altogether. That is my point, I hope I am more clear this time as I do not wish to cause any confusion.

Edit: tone...I unintentionally sounded passive-aggressive

Europe and the middle east are like gallery of civilisations or cultures that once were magnificent and then screwed up so badly that went extinct.

Don't care enough about Geology? Here is a Volcano for you. Now people can see your remains for 20 Euros. You had a life too good and you were too self important to bother to pay attention to those who are not having the best life? Here is a guillotine for you. You were too obsessed with inner politics to care about what's going on in outside of your walled garden? Here is an invasion for you. You made a revolution with no idea how to proceed afterwards? Enjoy your life in your commie blocks when hiding from the mafia. You thought the steel was the only produce that people need? Enjoy being unemployed in a very polluted place.

Not paying attention to the nature or obsessing with politics can definitely bring societies down and the old continent is full with examples of it. It happened many times before, can happen again but this time in huge scale.

The time of deforestation of Europe is a few decades behind us, I think. Certainly in the EU, forest areas are growing slowly (by about 10% since 1990, according to https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache...)

I don’t think the forests will (soon) return to what was there in Roman times, though. There’s a lot less, and of lower age (I don’t think Caesar’s men would find it as easy to find the huge trees they used to build a bridge over the Rhine in today’s forest as they found it two thousand years ago)

Well, if any government was serious about this, they could easily create new rules for corporations to follow - given that corporations are by the cause of destroying nature.

Instead, corporations are 'socialising' the cost of their actions. As if the consumers have any real options, when doing a daily shop, buying a phone, etc. Consumers are being 'guilted' for the actions of another.

Governments are beholden to corporations - it is governments job to put the costs on to citizens, while allowing corporations to act as they want.

I wish people would stop saying 'we' or 'our' as if corporate action to increase their profit is my fault. As if government is not complicit in the shifting the expense and costs on to those who they purport to represent but have no power to change the direction of discussion and law-making.

The solution is a/ not to fall for this shallow tactic where you are personally held liable for the actions of another, and b/ not to look to the government to help manage this situation.

Despite what you are told, you are not a citizen of a country - you are an autonomous individual. An accident of birth does not mean you need to support the tyrannical structure you find. It is illegal to use your legal name - it says so on your birth certificate. To do so is to be in dishonour, and in dishonour you are manipulated by the system.

All technological revolutions require more energy and consumption. Remember that the infinite source of societal wealth is technological progress. If you limit technological progress then economics becomes zero sum. This cannot happen, it is a precursor to endless world wars and our inevitable doom by our own hands.

Prosperity vs nature is not a question. There is no path backwards, there is only forward. The only hope is that in our path forward we will come up with solutions that can fix the issues that we have caused due to our past progress.

For some reason this comment makes me think of "The Machine" ad from the Australien Government:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWl7kQZHZE0

The problem is overpopulation. Who cares if economics is zero sum when there is more than enough for everyone? It's only when there's scarcity of the necessities that war becomes a foregone conclusion.

The path backwards is depopulation, and living as stewards of nature who help the land flourish rather than viewing it as a resource to be raped for the benefit of the few.

I disagree. The problem is affluence and technology. We can keep improving technology and keep a fixed population, but we should be reducing affluence. The fact that an equal amount of money can make one live like a king in one part of the world and as a hobo in another part of the world indicates that wealth is not used as effectively as possible.

You can observe that there is instability in every post-industrial society, when there are fewer manual jobs for the working class. When factories close the knock-on effects on households and local economies are devastating. I see it in every council estate of the towns and cities I've visited.

Additionally, it is difficult to see how restrictions on family can be imposed without becoming a totalitarian nightmare. Unless you look to China for enlightenment with its 'One Child' policy... which has the unintended consequence of a gender imbalance favouring boys. That of course means a lot of unhappy males, thanks to a shortage in available women. If we coalesce these two effects, you don't want masses of unhappy, unemployed males.

What is proposed here is impossible to achieve without inflicting unimaginable misery for millions. No thanks. Surely there are better and more gradual solutions which do not require the imposition of force rather than this euphemism of 'depopulation'.

This reads like religious dogma to me.

I read a biography of an Italian farmer from the 1930 to the 1950s. In the 1930s he would prune wine vines, then dry them, and use the cuttings for fuel in the winter to stay warm and cook on. Nothing was wasted. Life in his village was still medieval before the war. By the 1950s he was working on building large tracks of housing, and the entire old way of life was gone. The change has been so rapid, we can't comprehend it.

I recently watched 'The Godfather' and was struck by the scenes filmed in rural Italy. It appeared exactly as you've described. Even as I watched the film, I knew this way of life was long dead.

'She will make a good American housewife...'

Here's the link to the actual document the article is about:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/the-economics-of-b...

I mean, one of the interesting changes that's soon happening is the transition from ICE to electric cars. I think the core issue is the concept of cars themselves. Storing them all over the road (they are everywhere!), people using them for very short journeys, their accessibility/cheapness to practically anyone and how much our society relies on them each and every day, even at the cost of the beloved hedgehogs which are being squished day in, day out (or badgers/roadkill I see frequently, they just can't compete with our death machines).

Electric cars will rapidly slow the pace of life down; with them taking longer to charge, adaptions will be required since you can't fill them in in 2 minutes like an ICE car.

Yet, I am not convinced shifting the burden to electricity completely solves the equation; the demand for battery production and development, the depletion of the batteries and mining for lithium itself is just shifting the problem elsewhere.

Humans need to drive less, consume less and expect less. Yet the global economy is based on consumption; as I write this comment on my computer consuming internet/electricity, buying food (relying on transport for that!) etc etc.

8 billion humans is not compatible with "nature", we've overtaken nature. Our species must be limited to a maximum population and the rest be culled; we did it with the minks due to Covid-19.

Then again, suggesting we cull humans is seen as barbaric but cutting the heads off billions of chickens is okay, apparently, so people can drive to McDonald's and get their 5 nuggets because "capitalism". McDonald's should be illegal if we are to take nature seriously, yet no human wants to make sacrifices "for the greater good".

Maybe we deserve to be the chickens for once.

Using an electric car wouldn't change my lifestyle much at all. Instead of going to a gas station once a week I'd plug it into the wall every day when I got home. If anything, the reduced cost would make me drive more places, not fewer.

"Maybe we deserve to be the chickens for once. "

Many people actually do live like those chickens.

Anyway, cutting the heads off of chickens is not really a problem with me. But how those chickens have to "live" before that. That bothers me.

Nature is not soft either btw., a wounded chicken in the forest would get eaten alive by ants for example. But before that, it usually had a intense life.

The chickens in the factory have no life. (and many of the people who eat them, neither)

Did you really just advocate for mass murder? Humans are not chickens.

I don't believe this. The answer is actually much simpler. We invest into technological progress, solve our problems and that's the end of the story. That's how we have done things the last 500 years. The insistence that we have to give anything meaningful up is what is causing this avoidance of progress. We don't. A lot of the things that we will have to get rid of are actually not as valuable as we think and the things that we will gain will more than make up for the loss.

You overestimate how much environmental harm is actually necessary for humans to continue to exist. It's mostly a matter of incentives and tragedy of the commons.

Overpopulation is not a problem in societies with educated women. Those women can decide for themselves how many children they want and when they want them. That's what is causing the demographic shift to an aging population.

There is no risk of runaway population growth if everyone is making informed decisions about having children. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with having exactly 2 children.

I'd still rather have prosperity

Yes! A lot of people don't even have access to electricity, even more don't use as much because of the price.

We would need to be using way more fossil fuels / nuclear to have more equality.

This idea to reduce our impact in nature forgets the most vulnerable, which could use some impact in nature in order to have more prosperity.

Well, this is all way easier said than done.

Our impact in nature also affects the most vulnerable disproportionately bad. Changing weather pattern, floods, droughts, poisoning the niger delta with oil leaks is a result of an economic system that puts (our) prosperity above all other goals. It’s no coincidence that China is actually making increasingly strong environmental demands and promises. They’re not doing it for some romantic notion of nature, but because it’s an issue that puts them at risk.

This isn't true at the moment, it could be in the future.

Less people die because of nature disasters and such today that they did 100 years ago.

Technology and medicine helps us, they would, without a doubt, be better off with technology than they do without it.

> This isn't true at the moment, it could be in the future.

Shell just lost a lawsuit because they did spill oil all over the Niger Delta https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jan/29/f...

Took only a decade and a bit to even acknowledge that they’re liable.

What makes them vulnerable? What are they vulnerable to? Are there not indigenous peoples that live in harmony with nature? Are they prosperous?

> indigenous peoples that live in harmony with nature

This is usually called poverty.

Yeah, they think its great to live in the jungle, seeing every other newborn dying, just cus your carbon footprint is low.

They couldn't care less for those forgotten children.

It requires respecting nature as a new class of asset. I think anyone might understand who has had the beautiful field next to their home developed into a neighborhood, or watched the woods behind their house torn down and developed.

Had that beautiful field or wooded area been given a "nature cost" to destroy, maybe the developers would have made other choices.

Nature, they are vulnerable to nature.

They could use cars, ambulances, hospitals and etc.

Nature is brutal, always has been, no one lives on harmony with it.

Look at the indigenous peoples death rate, child mortality.

> Are there not indigenous peoples that live in harmony with nature?

Probably there are some somewhere. But most rely on completely unsustainable practices.

> Are they prosperous?

You've received some answers, but keep in mind that "poor" is a word we usually apply to people in much wealthier situations.

> Probably there are some somewhere. But most rely on completely unsustainable practices.

In what way are the practices unsustainable? Could you give me an example?

Undiscriminating hunting, fire based agriculture, centuries of monocultures without any soil treatment... And always moving into another area because the earlier one isn't productive anymore.

It would really be easier if you explained why you think indigenous (to where?) people live in harmony with the nature.

Exactly. Equality. People have had no electricity for most of human history. The the vulnerable and poor are considered vulnerable and poor only because, by definition, the wealthy and prosperous exist. The reason not having access to electricity or technology is inherently bad is because the majority do.

All we can do is hope the median moves up over time and, more importantly, and the spread doesn't get too wide.

> for most of human history

I think the problems of the poor today are quite different than those of people of the past. For most of human history, people were not trapped within borders and systems of private property and so could provide for their basic needs. They don't just not have resources, they are prevented from having them. Nor were people of the past going to be the effected the most (according to everything I read) by pollution and climate change. Things have changed a lot, I'd say.

It’s not just having the fuel.

Nigeria is oil rich, absolutely bogged down with the stuff in the southern parts of the country.

Somewhere in the central/northernish part of the country is a family owned farm that runs entirely off of diesel generators out of a lack of decent power generation. An immense amount of money is spent simply on fuel.

Those costs naturally affect transport of their goods, and the price they get for them.

The most pressing issue by far in their micro region however, are herdsman from another ethnic group to the north intentionally running their cattle onto newly planted fields to graze.

Not power generation. Not prosperity. Not nature.

They’re planting melons near the approach to their land last I heard as cattle can’t eat the shoots? I’m not sure, but it sounded like a common solution.

That's shortsighted. Humanity will run off the proverbial cliff if that sentiment stays.

Sure, you might not suffer now, but at this point, probably your kids and/or grandkids will. If you don't have nor want kids, then you'll be hurting your friends' and relatives' kids.

If you really don't care, well ain't nothing that can be said to convince you otherwise unless you feel the actual effects.

It’s not an either or question. A devastated nature will also lead to less prosperity. We’re more in the realm of takin on debt we can never pay back.

It was framed as an either-or choice in the headline. Between nature and prosperity - I’d absolutely pick prosperity; my hopes are that we’ll come full circle and use prosperity to repair nature (green tech and all that), so that perhaps ecologically destructive actions taken during the last few centuries will be more of a loan from nature to us than a permanent grant.

The enlightened caveman, after whacking some other poor guy upside the head with a big club: "My hope is to use this food I took from you to develop new medical technologies to fix your shattered skull. This is more of a loan than a grant."

I just have to wonder how all those who chose nature over prosperity had the technological means to downvote me.

Those who would give up nature, to purchase a little prosperity, deserve neither and will end up losing both.

Just substitute “modern medical care” for “prosperity” and you’ll see how ridiculous your statement is.

Except in your sentence it doesn't make any sense because there is no arbitrage between nature and modern healthcare.

When prosperity means “throwing away tons of electronic crap people give each other for Christmas because they have been exposed to ads and social pressure to buy crap” or “flying planes in circle in the sky because people are nostalgic of traveling during lock-down”, then you can't have “prosperity” without harming nature.

All that crap people buy and flights people take generate economic value that helps pays for stuff like medical care. You can't have one without the other.

No. “Economic value”, that is GDP, means consumption. We are consuming plane trips, and that counts as valuable because we were ready to pay for it.

If I enjoy watching people dig holes and refill it in my backyard, and pay people to do so, this is creating “economic value” because “it bring you pleasure, and you were ready to put a hundred dollar in it, that means it gave you $100 of pleasure” (that's literally how GDP works), it doesn't benefit medical care in any way. And it fact, if I'm paying $1000/h for hole digging, I'm actually harming medical care, because some people would become hole digger instead of nurse / doctors / researchers.

I don’t think you said anything that contradicted what I said.

Consumption = creation of economic value = what pays for healthcare

You missed the point, being: “Economic value” can't “pay” for anything, because it's a “spending” (you pay with what you earn, not with what you spend). From an economic PoV, “economic value” is a spending, and “natural resources” (including work) is the earning. When someone is building/designing an iphone, he's not building a MRI scanner, and the energy consumed in the process isn't going to healthcare either.

You can’t create economic value without a buyer and a seller, so no it’s not just consumption.

And you cant get an MRI without exchanging something of value (whether paying or with your own money or through taxes).

Hence the creation of economic value on one hand feeds consumer desires and on the other hand creates value that can be spent on things like health care.

You cant have one without the other.

Here, you are talking about “money” and “transactions” which have very little link with the creation of “economic value”, sorry. Since you don't really understand what we are talking about, I can't do any better than advising you to learn a little bit about economics (any econ 101 on coursera would do the trick).

Good day.

A question for you - are you one of the relatively few people on Earth who actually gets a part of that prosperity? Like, access to electricity on demand, enough food to eat, clean water to drink, health care, the whole deal?

Cause there are a lot of people who don't get to have prosperity and still are seeing the effects of your choices. In fact, many of them are even more impacted by the harmful effects of the choices you're making than you are! Why don't they get a say too?

Developing nations pollute more than developed nations. They are mostly seeing the effect of their own choices. (yes, you could argue they don’t exactly have a choice, but still it’s not like they’re suffering from GP’s personal choices)

This is not true. Per capita, the highest polluters are developed nations. On absolute terms, the highest polluters are also developed nations.

Most pollution comes from industry, not individuals. As far as I'm aware you cannot choose what another industry does, because they have private rights. There is no 'but still', no one has a choice.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

Thank you for bringing some actual data. However, I think one has to question the accuracy of CO2 emissions data collected in developing nations [0]. That's not to say it's all pointless, just that I doubt they'll be keeping track of the emissions of that tire graveyard that accidentally burned down yesterday, for example. Or chemicals dumped into the environment by the local mining company.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying in your second paragraph. Maybe you could elaborate?

[0] https://e360.yale.edu/features/paris-conundrum-how-to-know-h...

What about the people that suffer the consequences but that do not have prosperity? What about the people that come after you?

I think this cartoon sums it up quite aptly: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

I don't care. I know this will get downvoted, but it is the most popular position—most people simply don't care. I don't, either.

Given the actual attitude of most people, rather than their word, I believe you do represent a majority of humans.

Yes, that's the result of decades of shaming by the mass media. They make people feel guilty about not caring, so they won't say it out loud, but they still don't care, so they won't change their choices.

Your justification for not caring is a circular "because it is the most popular position". You still know it's wrong and have no good justification for it, of course people are going to shame you. It's not some media agenda.

No, that is not my justification for not caring. I said it is the most popular position because I wanted to avoid being downvoted.

I don't even know if shaming works. Ok, it is bad to do thing X but I still can't do anything about it. I can now hate myself for committing a "sin", I can deny it entirely and hate you for shaming me or I can do something superficial that makes me look and feel good.

This is not a recipe for incremental change. Lots of people quit smoking through vaping because they can easily control their nicotine dosage and thus incrementally change their addiction problem. If you quit cold turkey you will just fall back to old habits.

The title should say economic growth and not prosperity. You can have prosperity in a system whose objective is not infinite growth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPUogXUkr7I

I’m not watching your video but prosperity (as most people define it) and economic growth are very closely linked.

Prosperity is about having an abundance of the things in life that really matter. That only requires economic growth when there aren't enough of those things to go around. Right now, there are enough of those things to go around, and way more, if all the people doing stupid useless shit like working in advertising became farmers and makers. Our society is being held hostage by plutocrats.

This is a fantasy that sounds good in practice, but sucks in reality.

You’re dying of incurable cancer. Do you have enough or do you want more economic growth so we can try and cure it?

If you're willing to die from stepping on a nail, then ok. I'm not.

Death will always be a thing. I'm not selfish enough to want to enslave the planet to buy me a few more years.

Ok, but don’t force your views on others. If you want to die because a tooth is infected, then go for it. I’ll trade “enslaving the planet a bit” for another 50 decades of life, thank you very much.

You have the example of the United States which has economic growth but has recently seen its average life expectancy fall. Many other countries have less GPD per capita but higher average life expectancy. What do you think of this?

Life expectancy is a crappy measure of healthcare, too many confounding factors.

And let’s ignore the US. For other countries with high life expectancy, how do you think they pay for it? By economic growth. Norway drills and sells a ton of oil.

Don’t kid yourself. People clicking on ads and buying new iPhones is the type of economic activities that pays for things like healthcare, welfare for the poor, etc.

If given the choice between not dying of a tooth infection and the destruction of some not insignificant part of nature, I’d take not dying as well.

There is no prosperity if natural catastrophes destroy our homes.

This comes from the ideals that nature and animals are for our consumption, which comes from many underlying religious values. Its where we are today. Animal and biodiversity is so important but our greed has taken over.

Is there a way to plausibly and without corruption just tax these externalities at least more than the cost of repairing the damage - and spend the tax money actually doing that?

There is some problem in competitive systems that somebody will have an advantage over you once you tax these externalities. For this to work you would need the world (or a big enough part of it) to cooperate on this issue.

Tariffs and boycotts. The internet has collaborated to give mumble rap videos billions of views, I don't see why it couldn't drive cooperation among good actors to change something.

The issue was with the definition of prosperity. I'm sure a lot of tribes in the rainforest are 'prosper' in their own definition.

> Covid-19 has shown us what can happen when we don't do this, he added. "Nature is our home. Good economics demands we manage it better."

I fail to see the link, can someone please explain? Is it that Covid-19 has shown us what could happen if we dampen our impact, e.g. less pollution, wildlife being more visible etc.

The theory is that ecosystem destruction pushes animals into closer contact with humans, allowing zoonotic spread to happen.

However, as the origins of covid-19 are unknown it’s too soon to say this applies to the current pandemic.

Common alternatives for viral origin are hunting, animal husbandry and animal markets, but contra to early theories the wet market in Wuhan is not thought to be the origin. Chinese authorities tested and found no virus amongst animals there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_orig...

Generally when people say that about Covid, what they mean is that zoonotic diseases (diseases that spread between animals and humans) could be prevented by:

a) separating dense human populations from wildlife

b) having in place systems for the detection of outbreaks

Yes, there have been lots of stories about nature "bouncing back" during lockdowns.

> all the types of social, economic, industrial and urbanization activity suddenly shut off, nature takes the advantages and showed improvement in the quality of air, cleaner rivers, less noise pollution, undisturbed and calm wildlife

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...

Of course, "dampening our impact" has also set our economies back decades, caused untold misery, and has been particularly hard on the most vulnerable members of our society, which is an indication of the price we'd have to pay to help nature bounce back in this way.

> The report proposes recognising nature as an asset and reconsidering our measures of economic prosperity. It is expected to set the agenda on government policy going forward.

LOL. That would be great, but, expected by whom?

And why now, from Boris Johnson's government, after hundreds of years of monarchs and governments choosing prosperity over nature at any cost?

The article doesn't say.

Capitalism makes one feel like they are touching the absolute a not an example of human universality but rather as the universal. Each individuated human identifies as universal. This makes the entire article merely a description of our economic order. We don't need a new approach to nature we need to imagine a different economic order.

Is anyone surprised?

There's no two ways about it: economic growth means more ecological damage. Technology will not save us. IMO the only way to mitigate the onslaught of climate change is to do a controlled contraction of the world economy. If we do not do this willingly, nature will force it upon us.

Okay, you first.

Being less facetious, we can grow the economy while reducing the resources we require with the right incentives in place.

I have already started doing it: less travel, less dining out (or take out), and generally spending less money. More work is to be done on household energy consumption and water consumption, but that's coming.

The most impactful thing you could do is refrain from reproducing, but that's generally not a popular suggestion.

Suicide is even more impactful. He should try it!

Isn't this something that is happening without people even caring about the environmental benefits?

We need to stop pretending that nature will survive. Once you start treating the natural world as just another finite resource all sorts of policies become common sense.

For example an oxygen tax to keep enough land set aside for plants of some description. Or better yet, fusion based co2 scrubbers.

How do you imagine killing nature? We could not do that even if we declared is a as sole goal of the humanity.

Nature will survive. Plants might not, humans definitely won't, but given the extremes at which we've found life on Earth it's obvious something will, even if it's just bacterial colonies in hydrothermal vents deep under the ocean.

Life... uh.. finds a way.

Clean power is often more expensive at least initially, contraction would not only kill people through poverty but also make the environment worse as jobs transition to agriculture and power is generated through things like Coal and Oil

Clean power is an easy jobs program. You can easily reduce income inequality by reducing unemployment and reap environmental benefits all at the same time.

> IMO the only way to mitigate the onslaught of climate change is to do a controlled contraction of the world economy

This straight up does not work, it's too late for that. It might be tempting as a philosophical thought but contraction just cannot work. It might have been a viable option in the 70s or 80s but we're past that point and it's too late to change the past emissions.

Even the Paris agreements are referencing carbon removal technologies because everybody realized that's the only viable solution at that point.

Why do you think contraction "just cannot work"? I think nobody really believes technology will not be part of the solution. Rather the question is if just technology will be able to solve the problem.

edit: added question mark

Because we still would be in trouble right now even if the emissions would reach an absolute zero. Additionally, contraction can make it worse because it destroys the budget needed for carbon removal.

I do agree that we've got some reduction of emissions during covid but the amount of public money spent to try to prop up the economy is massive across the world, I'm afraid that this will severely affect public spending for carbon removal technologies & public support for carbon taxes.

You are wrong. The earth is getting bombarded with free (as in money) energy from the sun at all times. It is a matter of logistics and political will to use that energy to its fullest extend. There can be prosperity and nature preservation at the same time thanks to technology.

My sister is building an off grid house right now with a huge solar array and a tesla power wall. If all goes well she won't have to pay for electricity, heating or gas for the car ever again.

If only this were that simple. To make electricity out of the sun's energy and in addition to store it, you need some materials coming from the depth of the earth: lithium, silicate, copper, iron, and I guess dozens of metals and rare earth metals. Have a look at how those are extracted, and the (fossil) energy used in extracting, refining, transporting and fabricating all those solar panels and batteries.

This is factually untrue.

Sorry to see people downvote your statement, which is clear and obvious to those who can step outside the mainstream system and its values of material growth, externalizing costs, extraction, comfort, convenience, and efficiency.

Many cultures have thrived with complementary values of personal growth, responsibility, sustainability, meaning. purpose, and resilience. Those values reinforce each other just as much and lead to health and happiness just as much, with the added benefit of not destroying Earth's ability to sustain life and society.

Many people defend the former way for creating more material wealth, which they erroneously believe necessary for health and longevity. It also creates craving and addiction, not such great happiness.

The HN community is like Robert Moses and his engineers before Jane Jacobs, thinking building just one more highway will relieve all this traffic, not realizing their would-be solutions are creating bigger problems. I'll suffer the downvotes too, hoping at least a few will reconsider their devotion to a destructive culture anyone can see is making Earth unlivable, even if we happen to be living at peak extraction, enjoying the last of the abundance. We can switch cultures. Humans have done it before.

Well said.

I disagree. Framing the problem this way has denied us the low hanging fruit that technology has given us and we collectively refuse to pick them. The idea that we have to choose between one thing and the other when in reality we can easily have both. That's what's truly holding us back.

I think this is a problem that will solve itself as global inequity is reduced. When there's no cheap third world labor the average person won't be able to afford to fill their home with Chinese knick knacks, and there won't be enough land to support a meat-heavy diet. Pod living and bug eating naturally follows

Part of me wonders whether Covid-19 was natures way of allowing it a little breathing space, there are many studies about the results of shutting society away for a time and the positive impacts it had on nature (in some cases)

Yet, when I think to what has actually changed, I can't think of much. There were supposed to be more cycle lanes, more pedestrianized areas and less reliance on cars/transport and more emphasis on greener ways of getting around, yet the truth is, the population is too lazy/fat for that and it'd be far too inconvenient (I would suspect the vast vast majority of those with cars would refuse to give them up and would angrily protest at the thought! including myself). Borris Johnson himself said he was too obese and vowed to make changes, yet they never materialized. Why are we so scared to experiment? Why not make it illegal to use a car in London for 1 month and study the impacts/effects?

Can anyone detail any global significant change since we were aware of the "climate emergency"? Cars are as popular as ever, roads are still accessible to cars even if they weren't for a very short time (some areas disallowed cars to enable 'social distancing'). In my view of the world, absolutely nothing has changed or will be changing since it'd require a substantial rethink of how everything works.

We're still warming the planet,

We're still producing far too much plastic,

We're still sending far too much into landfill,

We're still having far, far too many children who just consume for their entire lives and input/provide nothing of value back,

We're still consuming way too much of nature,

for no benefit to nature whatsoever.

And that will continue until the day humans are essentially extinct, no government is capable of reversing the damage already done and damage to come, they just want good "PR" to be see as "helping".

If we are serious about this, we need to implement laws now about population control, there are too many families who do not need kids which are causing the trouble (among other things)

According to J.M. Jancovici in order to keep climate change under 2ºC in 2100 we would need to contract the global economy by 5% each year for about 20 years (IIRC). Basically, an additional Covid-19 crisis every year.

> "Borris Johnson himself said he was too obese and vowed to make changes, yet they never materialized. Why are we so scared to experiment?"

There are hundreds of millions of people in the USA and UK who are overweight, and another hundred million who aren't. From those kind of numbers you ought to be able to produce at least a couple of million people who dieted, exercised, lost weight, and kept it off long term. Where are they? There are decades of things like Weight Watchers and Slim Fast, there ought to be well-honed methods that work and studies of successes, Weight Watchers crows about a 5% weight loss. That's 300lbs down to 285lbs.

"Fat is officially incurable" - https://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/fat-officially-incurable... - basically anyone who loses weight, regains it. The very few who don't turn it into an obsession, or have surgery.

> "yet the truth is, the population is too lazy/fat for that"

"5 Baffling Lies Society Told You About Fat People" - https://www.cracked.com/article_22964_5-baffling-lies-societ... - "Think the problem is that people these days have simply gotten too lazy? Well, studies show that in parts of the country where physical activity increased, so did obesity. (Note: People who exercise tend to eat more.) Oh, and your "lazy" Western lifestyle burns the same amount of energy as that of your hunter-gatherer ancestors.".

Is that the truth or did you just make it up because it sounds simple and makes you feel morally superior?

> "Can anyone detail any global significant change since we were aware of the "climate emergency"?"

The UK has gone from almost no wind electricity generation to 30% and peaking over 50%.

> "for no benefit to nature whatsoever."

Define? This is suspiciously similar to the "HuMaNs ArE A CanCer" nihilist nonsense that somehow vaguely classifies humans as "outside nature" and therefore that things which benefit humans are "bad" and things which hurt humans are "good" for nature. Humans are nature.

> "We're still having far, far too many children who just consume for their entire lives and input/provide nothing of value back,"

What value are buffalo providing back? What value are plants providing back? What value are whales providing back?

> "And that will continue until the day humans are essentially extinct,"

That should please you, Mars seems to be your dreamworld - it's cold and there are no humans and no landfill, and that's apparently everything you care about.

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