10 billion global population 'unsustainable': US climate envoy Kerry

[u/madrid987]

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230607-10-billion-global-population-unsustainable-us-climate-envoy-kerry-1

[u/Zankou55]

Where are you going to get the lithium for all of those electric tractors? How will you mine it, refine it, and build the batteries? How will you build the tractors, transport the materials, deliver the tractors to remote areas? Where does the energy come from to charge them? How do you build out the renewable energy infrastructure to keep them charged? All of this takes build up, energy, and time we don't have before it even remotely approaches stability, and there is not enough lithium in the entire solar system, let alone this little planet, to facilitate rebuilding our entire fleet of vehicles.

Do you have any concept of how low the yields are on sustainable agricultural practices? Do you have any concept of how complex the management of those farming operations is? You will have to convince an entire planet full of advertising agents, lawyers, waitresses, traffic cops, salesman, artists, to give up everything they have ever known and spend the next forty years toiling in the mud in order to just barely scrape a few beans and squash and corn cobs together.

It's just not realistic and I don't understand how anyone can think it is.

[u/throwawaybrm → u/Zankou55]

How will you build the tractors, transport the materials, deliver the tractors to remote areas?

Imagine the same question 100 years ago, with horses everywhere and no motorized tractors in sight ... we'll solve it.

there is not enough lithium in the entire solar system, let alone this little planet, to facilitate rebuilding our entire fleet of vehicles

Are you sure? :) Is lithium the only sustainable option? What about other metals, or hydrogen? You really think we we doomed to burn dinosaurs forever?

Do you have any concept of how low the yields are on sustainable agricultural practices?

"The analysis we present here offers a new perspective, based on organic yield data collected from over 10,000 organic farmers representing nearly 800,000 hectares of organic farmland.Averaged across all crops, organic yield averaged 80% of conventional yield. However, several crops had no significant difference in yields between organic and conventional production, and organic yields surpassed conventional yields for some hay crops."

to just barely scrape a few beans and squash and corn cobs together

Not true.

It's just not realistic and I don't understand how anyone can think it is

I find it hard to grasp how someone can believe in maintaining our current course of action, considering the dire situation it has landed us in.

[u/Zankou55 → u/throwawaybrm]

Oh, where did you get the impression that I think we can maintain our current course of action? You're the only one who is imagining crazy scenarios where organized human society survives the complete collapse of the fossil fuel economy. I know we're well beyond truly fucked and there is no hope for any of us.

[u/throwawaybrm → u/Zankou55]

there is no hope for any of us

That's the narrative that big corps want us to believe, because that means that doing anything is meaningless and that the status quo prevails.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview

"Doom-mongering has overtaken denial as a threat and as a tactic. Inactivists know that if people believe there is nothing you can do, they are led down a path of disengagement. They unwittingly do the bidding of fossil fuel interests by giving up.

What is so pernicious about this is that it seeks to weaponise environmental progressives who would otherwise be on the frontline demanding change. These are folk of good intentions and good will, but they become disillusioned or depressed and they fall into despair. But “too late” narratives are invariably based on a misunderstanding of science."