Given that much of the ecological damage is being done by only a billion or so of today’s 8 billion but the other 7 (then 8, then 9) billion are all planning to live like them, is it reasonable to think we can achieve a soft landing? I’m not a pessimist by nature but I wrestle with this obvious conundrum.
That does seem to be the most likely scenario. But nothing about the future is certain. There was an article just last week about the philosophy of “hopeful pessimism”. Obviously it should really be rebranded “hopeful realism” but otherwise it’s quite persuasive. There are always ways to make things better than they otherwise would have been. And, again, the worst scenarios, or even just bad scenarios, are absolutely not inevitable. For example, on the climate issue, there has been a lot of progress in green tech, and the temperature projections are now a bit less bad than they were a decade ago. Not a lot of people know this! Still bad of course, and climate is only one threat among a whole bunch, so optimism is clearly dumb. But nothing is inevitable and so being hopeful is not dumb at all.
That’s a long article. I didn’t fully read it. But I agree with the idea to reject pessimism. If there nothing to be optimistic about, you can at least not be pessimistic. Why? Because it sucks to be pessimistic. And also, moping has never helped anybody. We learn that as kids, but we seem to have forgotten that as adults.
The world population is expected (by the UN) to level off and even start declining this century.
The end of explosive population growth is critically important to stabilizing the world.
Given that much of the ecological damage is being done by only a billion or so of today’s 8 billion but the other 7 (then 8, then 9) billion are all planning to live like them, is it reasonable to think we can achieve a soft landing? I’m not a pessimist by nature but I wrestle with this obvious conundrum.
There’s not going to be anything soft about our landing.
That does seem to be the most likely scenario. But nothing about the future is certain. There was an article just last week about the philosophy of “hopeful pessimism”. Obviously it should really be rebranded “hopeful realism” but otherwise it’s quite persuasive. There are always ways to make things better than they otherwise would have been. And, again, the worst scenarios, or even just bad scenarios, are absolutely not inevitable. For example, on the climate issue, there has been a lot of progress in green tech, and the temperature projections are now a bit less bad than they were a decade ago. Not a lot of people know this! Still bad of course, and climate is only one threat among a whole bunch, so optimism is clearly dumb. But nothing is inevitable and so being hopeful is not dumb at all.
That’s a long article. I didn’t fully read it. But I agree with the idea to reject pessimism. If there nothing to be optimistic about, you can at least not be pessimistic. Why? Because it sucks to be pessimistic. And also, moping has never helped anybody. We learn that as kids, but we seem to have forgotten that as adults.
Completely agree on all counts.
Guess I’m doing my part! You’re welcome all.