Cosmic_Equilibrium wrote:
Overpopulation is the root of pretty much everything in this area and some form of population control is needed. Problem is that as soon as one says that people start thinking one is a misanthrope/Malthusian fan. As mentioned above non-coercive policies are the key to doing it sensibly.
Also if you want to maintain civilization's current level while reducing its emissions AND providing a consistent baseline energy then there is really no option but to use nuclear power. Renewable technologies just aren't far enough developed to provide that consistent baseline energy supply most industries and countries need.
Chernobyl basically made everyone overly scared of nuclear power stations 'because dude the reactor man, like it blew up, woah'. The reality is that the reactor only exploded because (as the TV series a couple of years ago highlighted) the people running it turned off the safety systems and then deliberately tested it to the brink of destruction. That was basically the equivalent of smearing oneself in honey and jam and jumping repeatedly on a grizzly bear's ball sack, then wondering why the inevitable happens.... Yes the design of that particular reactor did have a flaw, but Russia has kept on using the same design for decades since and has had no major incidents because they knew the risks and ran them accordingly to the correct protocols.
Yes conventional nuclear fission power is not perfect, particularly when it comes to what to do with the waste products. But in terms of emissions and keeping the lights on, it's the only game in town right now. The French understood this and built a lot of nuclear power plants - result, they now have energy security and can export it too. The Germans on the other hand threw their entire nuclear power industry in the bin because of the green lobby, and now Putin has them by the balls as one look at the European gas supply pipeline network will show. So now the country is MORE dependent on fossil fuels and also has to import them. But the green lobby were celebrating because 'now Germany has no more dirty nuclear power, yay!'
(I should point out that as a Brit I really can't take a high ground as successive governments here have put off making long term energy policy decisions for decades, and when they DO build a new reactor they seem keen to hand the keys over to the Chinese in the process - but that's another topic. What the German green lobby did was so fucking naive though).
Then there are the cries of 'oh but what about Fukushima, man it went so wrong' (this was also a factor in Germany's nuclear shut down)- yeah well 1) Japan gets earthquakes, not every country in the world has that kind of tectonic instability, 2) the reactor withstood something like a 9.1 on the Richter scale, pretty much everything gets levelled in that scenario. But though there was a problematic amount of leakage, the plant didn't completely melt down. Shows that it was a well designed facility and it took something truly exceptional to disrupt it. Germany deciding to get rid of its reactors because of Fukushima made no sense as Germany does not get earthquakes on that scale.
Look, I do not speak from a position of someone who has always been pro nuclear. I was very anti nuclear power stations for a long time when younger, and it was only when I read up on the subject a bit more, realised that Chernobyl was caused by human insanity and not the actual concept or even the design of the reactor itself, and took into account the energy needs and requirements alongside the climate scenarios that I realised that state owned and operated nuclear power really is the only game in town in the short, medium and probably long term as far as energy supplies are concerned.
Finally, there is nuclear fusion, which gives all the advantages of nuclear power but very little or none of the problematic radioactive waste. The common line is that 'fusion power is 30 years away, and it always will be', but TBH the prize of cracking fusion as a power source is so great that humanity just has to go for it. If you manage to get fusion online then the rewards are insane. This is why I'm a big fan of multinational cooperation projects like ITER (google it) or indeed any fusion research and development.
TBH, I think the logical direction of travel is this: keep building more fission reactors -----> develop improved versions (thorium, molten salt etc) as a bridging technology ---------> full switch to fusion power. This has also sourced my most utopian idea ever, a world fusion power grid which would be under the control of the United Nations, essentially providing a continuous flow of pretty clean energy while taking energy policy out of the hands of nation states entirely. I admit that's a very distant scenario, pretty much Star Trek territory, but one worth going for I think.
Bottom line: nuclear power, for all the reasons given above. Renewables can be developed as well, and should be, but they simply cannot maintain a baseline energy level for modern civilization in a regular way at present. Green activists who rail against all and every form of nuclear power are frankly naive, delusional, and foolish. They do not realise that they are hurting their own cause.
Those are good points. I have to say, I myself voted "no" to a referendum to reintroduce nuclear in my country years ago and was very much against it, but that was years ago; hopefully there's been improvement on the side of safety. I'm still not completely sold on it, especially because of the waste; also, I'm not sure renewables wouldn't be competitive against it, after all they are now more competitive than fossil fuels, but there doesn't seem to be definitive consensus about it.
However, the steady worsening of the predictions year after year made me partly change my mind.
Honestly, as far as technology goes, the solutions seem to be there, at least in theory. Yet sometimes it seems like the biggest hurdle is to get the conservative/business people on board with the idea that something's got to give. It feels like there's an ideological gap so wide that every discussion leads to a stalemate. This mindset that until stock prices are up all is fine and we can sit and wait that something miraculously comes up and everything solves itself has no place any more, if it ever had. And then there's the more pedestrian attitude of the "man on the street" that just can't be sold environmentalist or progressive rhetoric. These are people that are too out of reach of ordinary activism.
So I think it's refreshing to hear somebody from that world being that outspoken and factual about it.
Osore wrote:
I knew I'll be doing biology ever since it was introduced to me in the 5th grade when we were studying botany and I took extra hours and was allowed to use microscope and watch tissue samples and protists. The entire 7th grade was reserved for ecology and environmental protection and this is when I started feeling anger and eco-anxiety... I wish I don't have stupid allergies so that I could have directed myself more towards ecology.
Anyway, it does not matter if population will stop rising exponentially at one time, we are already damned and the change is not fast enough to halt global warming. We still need to fight for green energy and environmental protection.
Here where I live the climate change can be felt. We have droughts, floods, horrible heat waves and increasingly milder winters, often without snow. Everything is polluted and the government still does not see healthy environment as a priority; they are rather happy to inform us about (Chinese) investments in dirty industry on our land. The entire province where I live has problem with tap water that's not safe to drink, the price of gas went up since the war in Ukraine, so the majority of people cut down forests and burn coal and other shit, they also burn down leftovers from crops on open fields, so the air quality is horrible (in the capital, it's mainly cause is traffic, and I feel that disgusting smog). Every autumn I feel like I'm going out of my mind when the smell from open fires starts to fill my rooms. Once I was yelling and took the phone to call the police and firefighters, because that is absolutely illegal, and my father stopped me physically. I hate this mentality of not reporting people when they break the law and I hate our stupid police that does not protect personal info.
I wish every single person on this planet would accept Voluntary Human Extinction Project, which means the abstinence from reproduction. I had that idea before I found out about it online, but apart from some individuals like myself, unfortunately the majority of people want to reproduce, which I think is partially rooted in selfish reasons (you have a need to raise a child and love it, so why not; I need someone to take care of me when I get old, and since we don't have robots, let's make a human creature), conformism (everyone has children, so do I), religion (god told us to procreate), self-deception (my life is screwed because of my children, but I'm happy because I have my treasures to love), blah, blah...
I understand human psychology is too weak for such great sacrifices. It's a wonderful coincidence that my lack of desire to have children does good both for me and for the planet.
Thanks to everyone who responded in this thread, I am very pleased to hear so many people informed and sensitive about the subject.
If I die now, my biggest wish would be that humanity goes extinct (from coronavirus). The only reason I advocate for vaccines and protection is because I don't want to die. Yes, I love myself the most after nature.
I can absolutely sympathize with what you say about your country. Mine isn't much better, and where I live the steel industry was and in part still is big and there are literally valleys filled with industrial dross, much to the disinterest of ordinary people who are happy to squander their wages on smartphones and fancy cars or don't think anything can be done about pollution, let alone businessmen.
That said, I don't know how productive your approach to the problem is. I myself have no interest in having children, but I don't think it's much useful to put things to people in such stark terms.