It's Time to Call It What It Is: A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis | Hacker News Reader

It's Time to Call It What It Is: A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis

commondreams.org

Well, hello from Eastern Europe where after 40 years of building communism we had forests burnt by acid rains (lignite coal power plants without any filters), dead rivers smelling like sewer and full of nasty foam (cleaning facilities are expensive, comrade!) trash everywhere and thick smog from industry emissions being absolutely normal.

Those things are fixed now, because necessary regulation were put in place, but it has nothing to do with capitalism or communism.

I think it would be better said as "unchecked capitalism".

For the most part, the US democracy experiment had prosperity, infrastructure, and common good until about the 70's. The EPA was just coming on line with clean air and water measures. But at the same time, all of the careful checks and balances that separated corporate and public moneys began being eroded, to the point where we're now actually PAYING fossil fuel companies subsidies and protections to pollute while at the same time they're lobbying against any emissions sanity.

If the US were to remove money from politics, restore checks and balances, and stop subsidizing public harm, it could again say it's the least bad alternative.

>For the most part, the US democracy experiment had prosperity, infrastructure, and common good until about the 70's.

Obligatory https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

If you managed to create a functional efficient socialist society that uplifted everyone out of poverty and gave everyone a good standard of living, that would require more energy than an unequal society with lots of poor people.

It’s just thermodynamics. Order takes energy. Producing products and services takes energy.

Yes, that will help convince people that GW is real and needs attention, and isn't just being overhyped an excuse for pushing socialism.

Seriously, this is one of the biggest reasons why no real action takes place, everyone wants to push their political worldview instead of solving a technological problem.

The idea that it is just a technological problem is a political worldview.

It's not a technological problem for as long as it is cheaper to clear-cut rainforest, burn coal and emit toxic gasses than it is to organize a new type of power generation method, set it up for industrial scale, invest in technologies to make processes cleaner, etc.

The entire problem is that it's easiest to be bad. It takes political effort to demonstrate that there is a global commons that is being spoiled through this behavior.

I'd like to also add, there is no feasible way everyone alive on Earth today may have a hot shower. It can't be done. This extends to other luxuries, too. This is, fundamentally, an unanswered political question. There is no amount of technology short of pure magic that can help here.

At some point, humans have to decide what a future looks like for us and the planet. At the moment, we choose not to.

Enough sunlight falls on the earth every 2 minutes to power humanity for a year. Your assertion has no merit. Even if you have to desal or atmospheric extract water and then heat it, there is plenty of clean energy potential available.

https://www.ku.ac.ae/two-minutes-of-sun-enough-to-power-a-ye...

> “Every two minutes, the energy reaching the earth from the sun is equivalent to the whole annual energy use of humanity. All the energy … the cars, lighting, and air conditioning of the world … in one year is equivalent to two minutes of the sun,” said Dr Lamya N. Fawwaz, vice-president for Institutional Advancement and Public Affairs at Masdar Institute at the 22nd SolarPaces Conference.

(There are 525,600 minutes in a year)

I don't know if I agree with the GP, but the existence of the energy is all but irrelevant. You almost might as well quote the amount of power the sun produces from fusion, the amount of wind, the amount of uranium, whatever. For everyone to have a hot shower, you need indoor plumbing, clean water, water heater, etc, all of which implies a standard of living which I think is the point.

While there might be a weak rebuttal about outdoor showers, that would be "begging the question" - the point is that equality in standard of living is not possible (not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out that incident solar energy on the earth is irrelevant)

Present your alternative, then.

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