alt Hacker NewsI think a lot of people actually dont realize the value it gives humanity. Lots of people think we would have been better of in an alternate universe where we never discovered oil & gas.
How is this short therm value for people using them? They are drivers of the most fundamental stuff in our day to day lives. Either enabling billions of people cheap efficient transport, efficient agriculture producing cheap food, cheap and efficient global shipping of goods, a great portable and ajustable source of electricity.
I think as of now its a question on how much you are willing to sacrifice human welfare over preserving current nature/environment. Extreme weather has largely been solved for humans, the trend is still less death and starvation caused by extreme weather, we are immensely adaptable and resilient.
Im not sure our current pace of reducing emissions is that horrible. There are reasons to why it takes time. I might be too optimistic, but I think we will largely solve human issues. Nature as you point out, im worried about, although I know less about. And its hard to quantify what the value is for us.
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> I think a lot of people actually dont realize the value it gives humanity. Lots of people think we would have been better of in an alternate universe where we never discovered oil & gas. How is this short therm value for people using them? They are drivers of the most fundamental stuff in our day to day lives. Either enabling billions of people cheap efficient transport, efficient agriculture producing cheap food, cheap and efficient global shipping of goods, a great portable and ajustable source of electricity.
People who oppose the fossil fuel industry do not suggest we return to the 17th century tomorrow. They suggest being less wasteful with the resources we have (nobody would die from eating lentils instead of beef, even though this would cause 98% reduced CO2 emissions) and investing in alternative solutions that achieve similar outcomes but cause less harm to the environment. Some things being more expensive or less convenient would not be a global humanitarian catastrophe, and since you strongly believe humans are immensely adaptable and resilient I think you would agree we could adapt to this as well if working together.
> I think as of now its a question on how much you are willing to sacrifice human welfare over preserving current nature/environment.
No, it's about how much you are willing to sacrifice the quality of life of the current generation to preserve the quality of live of subsequent generations. The worry about causing instability in the environment is not an aesthetic concern about the purity of nature being lost, the worry is that such instability will cause real and tangible death and suffering for real humans and have long term negative consequences for future generations.
> Extreme weather has largely been solved for humans, the trend is still less death and starvation caused by extreme weather, we are immensely adaptable and resilient.
You will have to provide some better source than your gut feeling and a cheerful attitude for me to believe you on this over the countless of people who have done actual analysis and vehemently disagree with you. Just a single example to get you started:
"This report’s projections of morbidity and mortality from climate-intensified natural disasters, cumulatively close to 15 million deaths, more than two billion healthy life years lost, and $12.5 trillion in economic losses by 2050 bring into focus the dimensions of the crisis. The risk from global warming threatens to destabilize both the healthcare ecosystems and the planet. [1]"
You claim to be against irrational decisions, but seem to base your "rational" view on very simplistic analysis about economic value always being good and the 17th century being bad, combined with a scoopful of wishful thinking.
[1] https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Quantifying_the_Impact_of_...
> Lots of people think we would have been better of in an alternate universe where we never discovered oil & gas.
Who? Other than strawmen, I mean.
If oil and gas would not exist, then liquid fuel would be produced from coal. With the latest processes the cost of production is like 80 dollars per barrel, but with processes that Germans developed during WWII it was probably like twice of that in modern money.
In alternative universe that would be cheaper due to massive scale, but the era of very cheap liquid fuel would never happen. So electrical cars on big scale will happen much earlier. And given that coal is much more evenly distributed on Earth, one can speculate that there would be much less reasons for conflicts.