More evidence suggesting degrowth is the only plausible path forward.

[PETRUS]

This is a paper from last year, but I only just discovered it now.

The limits of transport decarbonization under the current growth paradigm

Highlights

-Transportation is the sector most difficult to decarbonize.
-Technological change alone cannot achieve ambitious GHG reductions.
-Transport decarbonization can only be achieved with a strong reduction in demand.
-Strategic minerals are a serious limit to the expansion of electric vehicles.
-MEDEAS-W model shows the limits and rebound effects of transport electrification.

Abstract

Achieving ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) is particularly challenging for transportation due to the technical limitations of replacing oil-based fuels. We apply the integrated assessment model MEDEAS-World to study four global transportation decarbonization strategies for 2050. The results show that a massive replacement of oil-fueled individual vehicles to electric ones alone cannot deliver GHG reductions consistent with climate stabilization and could result in the scarcity of some key minerals, such as lithium and magnesium. In addition, energy-economy feedbacks within an economic growth system create a rebound effect that counters the benefits of substitution. The only strategy that can achieve the objectives globally follows the Degrowth paradigm, combining a quick and radical shift to lighter electric vehicles and non-motorized modes with a drastic reduction in total transportation demand.

Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X20300961

[Pantagruel]

1. The obvious solution

is population control before the Malthusian consequences overwhelm the planet.Bitter but necessary medicine.

[PETRUS]

6. Someone nearly always chimes in with that sentiment.

I don't think it's the answer, and I'll explain why I feel that way.

Although I personally think the human population is probably too large, the immediate crisis we're facing is not because of the size of the global population, it's because of the activities of a small fraction. As a group, the G7 nations are responsible for 77% of excess emissions. As individuals, the richest 1% are responsible for more emissions than the poorest 50%. People have built models indicating that it's possible to provide everyone (based on the current global population) with decent lives while still remaining within planetary boundaries. Here's one example I posted some time ago: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127140679

Another problem with population control as an answer is that if nothing else changes, there's no morally defensible way to reduce the population quickly enough. That said, if you do want to approach the problem of ecological overshoot this way, the best way to make a meaningful impact is to start with the wealthiest people and work your way down...

[zuul]

7. +1

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Global warming will become Mother Nature's self-cleaning oven.

With every year that goes by more and more people will die due to heat-related causes, including direct heat deaths, and deaths due to malnutrition or starvation due to crop failures caused by heat, and deaths related to clean water shortages, again due to the heat.

[PETRUS]

5. I'm afraid you are correct. nt

[raging moderate]

3. Maybe we could do less shipping?

When I was a little girl, more products were produced closer to home. My mother bought most fruits and vegetables from a horse-drawn wagon that drove through our alley, carrying produce from a local farm. We had factories nearby, making many kinds of goods. It was fine.

[PETRUS]

4. Yes, I think that's part of the answer.

In a previous job, I was responsible for arranging the manufacture of consumer goods for the U.S. market. I had most of the work done in China, because that's where I could get the lowest price. Curiously, there were domestic factories that could do the same things. These factories were much more efficient in terms of the amount of raw materials and energy used vs. their Chinese counterparts, and that's before taking into account the energy and materials involved in shipping the finished products halfway around the globe. (The differences in price were mostly due to currency and labor arbitrage.) It seemed pretty irrational to me that an option that was more costly in real terms was cheaper in financial terms.

[hunter]

8. Economic "productivity" as we now define it isn't productivity at all.

It is, in fact, a direct measure of the damage we are doing to our planet's natural environment and our own human spirit.

Most of us suffer work that does not make the world a better place.

With steeply progressive taxation we could pay people to experiment with lifestyles having very small environmental footprints. We would judge the success of these experiments in terms of happiness and sustainability.

Successful, sustainable, lifestyles would spread spontaneously.

Making the best specialty tofu in your neighborhood is a much better job than chopping apart pigs in a huge factory.

Almost any job is better than mining coal or cobalt.

Cheap bacon is not a necessity. Coal generated electricity is not a necessity. Universal automobile ownership is not a necessity.

[PETRUS]

9. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

One of the advocates for/theorists of degrowth that I've read - I can't recall exactly who - said something remarkably similar about the economy - that GDP growth is essentially a measure of the progress of ecocide (or something like that). It's also worth noting how poorly distributed the proceeds of growth are. Since 1980, nearly a third of new income from global GDP growth has been captured by the richest 1%, and nearly half by the richest 5%.

I agree that a lot of jobs are both unpleasant and unnecessary, and many are socially and environmentally destructive.

I'd be interested to read a fleshed-out version of your prescription, i.e. steeply progressive taxation and paying people to experiment with alternatives. I don't think it's incompatible with what I believe is required; namely, a project of massive decommodification. We need market logic (and the growth imperative it produces) to retreat from aspects of life it's come to dominate.