Best way to reduce consumption is preventing rich people from obscene over consumption. Do you know how many average children could grow up and life a lifetime on the emissions of Tylor Swifts private jet tours? (Arbitrary example, because it has lots of attention right now. Goes for the lifestyle of most rich and super rich people)
What if i told you with renewable energy, public transit mobility, an end to the 9to5 and consume excess hamster wheel, proper recycling and sustainable products everyone could life a good life, many americans even a better life?
The world has enough ressources to sustain a larger human population and give everyone the means to a decent life. It is solely in the way things are done right now, in particular the obscenely rich, that are unsustainable.
It suggest as meanings to maintain, to provide, to encourage… In the meaning of provide and maintain there is no limit to current conditions.
I have laid out the conditions under which the world can sustain such a human population. I find it linguistically wrong to limit it in such a way, that only the current situation is permissable. This is directly contradictorary to any use in relation to future like planning.
E.g. “we plan the building to sustain a 6.5 earthquake” would be wrong under your criteria, as neither the building, nor the earthquake exist at the point of that statement…
Some people don’t care about having kids, others have an innate desire to do so, a biological contact that yearns for fulfilment.
Maybe it’s a lame appeal to emotion but one of the defining characteristics of life is the ability to reproduce.
If you’re not into kids, it’s pretty easy to say “people should stop having kids”, but that assertion is a bit of a kick in the guts to those that feel that drive.
It’s a bit of a moot point for people in developed countries anyway. As in we can all congratulate ourselves on being enlightened enough to realise that we’re overpopulated, but there’s billions of people having as many children as possible to support them in their retirement.
Unachievable though it may be, I think global universal education, healthcare, and UBI is the solution to over population.
I agree that if you don’t feel the need to have children, it is very easy to argue that its a good move, compared to if you have the biological desire to have them.
On the other hand, you can argue that this is what environmental movements are all about. Controlling our desires, in order to avoid exploiting the ecosystem.
If you’re not into kids, it’s pretty easy to say “people should stop having kids”, but that assertion is a bit of a kick in the guts to those that feel that drive
I understand that not everyone can accept not having children, especially if the reason is be to help the climate. On the other hand, we don’t recognize the same “kick in the gut” to someone who feels the need to eat red meat, explore the world or own a big house.
To me, stopping a line of expanding consumerism is a very strong move, as a long term climate action. I can’t compare them to short term actions, but not putting more human in the world, who will keep consuming, and will keep adding even more consumers in the world, feels better to me than turning vegan. I can help the itch, of needing children, by caring for the children in my closest family or even help local organisations setup to match adults to children (a sort of freelance parent/mentor)
Imagine thinking that telling people on the internet to not have kids is an effective strategy against climate change, while downplaying the importance of going vegan. Continuing to be an animal abuser is also more than a kick in the gut to all the animals who are born in extreme captivity, live a life of constant torture and rape, only to be slaughtered (usually in childhood) just so people can satiate their gluttony for a little sensory pleasure and delude themselves into thinking they need to do that because they’ve been trained by unscientific marketing teams into thinking it’s the only way they can get protein.
On the other hand there are a lot of antinatalists in the vegan communities. So if you went vegan, you’d be in good company.
I blame advertising. We should pass laws that every second ad needs to be designed to reduce the amount of shit people buy and cancel out whatever other ads are playing
Don’t blame consumers for consuming what’s placed in front of them. Blame the producers for producing collectively more shit than the entire population will ever need or want.
I agree it’s both but they can do it without the other. Remember when all those copies of the ET videogame were dumped in a whole? It’s a weird example but they often create a lot of product that’s never sold. Likewise consumers will be extremely wasteful and fickle. Like how people won’t buy ugly fruits and veggies so instead ugly carrots are cut into baby carrots.
Not claiming they aren’t producing more than people need just that people seem to want more. There is a sure conversation around the psychology of enticing people to constantly buy buy buy and how lots of products are ‘disposable’ though
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Best way to stop consuming is to stop having children
mhh. nope.
Best way to reduce consumption is preventing rich people from obscene over consumption. Do you know how many average children could grow up and life a lifetime on the emissions of Tylor Swifts private jet tours? (Arbitrary example, because it has lots of attention right now. Goes for the lifestyle of most rich and super rich people)
What if I told you, on the world stage, “rich person” encompasses most Americans.
What if i told you with renewable energy, public transit mobility, an end to the 9to5 and consume excess hamster wheel, proper recycling and sustainable products everyone could life a good life, many americans even a better life?
The world has enough ressources to sustain a larger human population and give everyone the means to a decent life. It is solely in the way things are done right now, in particular the obscenely rich, that are unsustainable.
A decommodification of housing would be amazing as well.
No, we are way over budget on people as it is. Sustain means ‘indefinitely under current conditions’.
Can you point me to a dictionary that specifies, that it can only refer to the current conditions?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sustain
It suggest as meanings to maintain, to provide, to encourage… In the meaning of provide and maintain there is no limit to current conditions.
I have laid out the conditions under which the world can sustain such a human population. I find it linguistically wrong to limit it in such a way, that only the current situation is permissable. This is directly contradictorary to any use in relation to future like planning.
E.g. “we plan the building to sustain a 6.5 earthquake” would be wrong under your criteria, as neither the building, nor the earthquake exist at the point of that statement…
I was thinking more in terms of climatic conditions.
For context:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam
IDK how I feel about this argument.
Some people don’t care about having kids, others have an innate desire to do so, a biological contact that yearns for fulfilment.
Maybe it’s a lame appeal to emotion but one of the defining characteristics of life is the ability to reproduce.
If you’re not into kids, it’s pretty easy to say “people should stop having kids”, but that assertion is a bit of a kick in the guts to those that feel that drive.
It’s a bit of a moot point for people in developed countries anyway. As in we can all congratulate ourselves on being enlightened enough to realise that we’re overpopulated, but there’s billions of people having as many children as possible to support them in their retirement.
Unachievable though it may be, I think global universal education, healthcare, and UBI is the solution to over population.
I agree that if you don’t feel the need to have children, it is very easy to argue that its a good move, compared to if you have the biological desire to have them. On the other hand, you can argue that this is what environmental movements are all about. Controlling our desires, in order to avoid exploiting the ecosystem.
I understand that not everyone can accept not having children, especially if the reason is be to help the climate. On the other hand, we don’t recognize the same “kick in the gut” to someone who feels the need to eat red meat, explore the world or own a big house.
To me, stopping a line of expanding consumerism is a very strong move, as a long term climate action. I can’t compare them to short term actions, but not putting more human in the world, who will keep consuming, and will keep adding even more consumers in the world, feels better to me than turning vegan. I can help the itch, of needing children, by caring for the children in my closest family or even help local organisations setup to match adults to children (a sort of freelance parent/mentor)
Imagine thinking that telling people on the internet to not have kids is an effective strategy against climate change, while downplaying the importance of going vegan. Continuing to be an animal abuser is also more than a kick in the gut to all the animals who are born in extreme captivity, live a life of constant torture and rape, only to be slaughtered (usually in childhood) just so people can satiate their gluttony for a little sensory pleasure and delude themselves into thinking they need to do that because they’ve been trained by unscientific marketing teams into thinking it’s the only way they can get protein.
On the other hand there are a lot of antinatalists in the vegan communities. So if you went vegan, you’d be in good company.
I don’t need to imagine it. I just did it.
I don’t argue that we need to pick one over the other though. Simply that there is no one right way to everybody.
Kudos to you if you do both and even better if you also don’t have a car and drink rain water.
I blame advertising. We should pass laws that every second ad needs to be designed to reduce the amount of shit people buy and cancel out whatever other ads are playing
I argue it’s better to stop producing so much.
Don’t blame consumers for consuming what’s placed in front of them. Blame the producers for producing collectively more shit than the entire population will ever need or want.
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I agree it’s both but they can do it without the other. Remember when all those copies of the ET videogame were dumped in a whole? It’s a weird example but they often create a lot of product that’s never sold. Likewise consumers will be extremely wasteful and fickle. Like how people won’t buy ugly fruits and veggies so instead ugly carrots are cut into baby carrots.
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I promise there’s more corporate waste nobody purched it’s not a stretch.
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They do all the time actually. You need more product than you will sell basically always.
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Err….they definitely aren’t producing more than people want, or at least not enough to matter since they are making loads of money producing things….
I take it you’ve never been to a landfill eh
Not claiming they aren’t producing more than people need just that people seem to want more. There is a sure conversation around the psychology of enticing people to constantly buy buy buy and how lots of products are ‘disposable’ though
So they are definitely producing more than people want? That conflicts with what you previously said.
No they are producing more than people need. People are buying what they want.
And I think people should buy fairphones. It’s a great idea and it needs to be a compelling phone to get more people to buy it.
The problem is that ethics alone as a reason to buy is shit because it’s better to go used ethically.
It’s the reusable grocery bag of phones as long as it’s not comparable to other phones.
Oh yeah for sure. I want to see fairpjone succeed but you’re right about the ethical argument.
To be super clear, definitely don’t think all this is up to the consumer to change, more along government and systems probably.
No, the only way is to drastically reduce the human population.
Not all humans cause an equal amount of emissions though.
Yes. Top three countries are USA, China and India. We can start with them and see how it goes.
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Found the Malthusian
you first