onlooker wrote:Another point I think we should stress is how soon can the environment recover. Ibon, I defer to you because of your expertise in these matters. However, related to what Vts stated, maintaining this worldwude industrial civilization going just like maintaining our huge population is impacting adversely our Biosphere. So, Degrowth as a proactive strategy makes sense, especially if the recovery period for the environment takes generations. Because a totally denuded Earth does not augur favorably for future potential societies
There is no avoiding major harm to our environment as we go through this process. On the other hand, I shy away from using terms like "Denuded Earth". There is an incredible dynamic at play, incredible resiliency. I stand before 1.5 million acres of montane tropical forest and I know about many such places that I have visited in the past and that I hear from many of our guests.
Mixed bag. Places like India, SE Asia, Philippines will suffer enormously. Places like equatorial Africa and huge swaths of the Amazon and American tropics will do just fine. Temperate areas like North America will still have their biodiversity glass more than half full.
As much as you despair the thoughtless damage you see unfolding you have to correct your narrative that our biosphere is this fragile place. It just isn't so. There is so much resiliency and so much biodiversity. Humans for all their rogue virus attributes will not blanket the planet with their filth. There are huge areas untouched.
Boreal forests circumpolar above 45 degrees for example. Look at a map of canada, russia, siberia, finland. Huge huge vast areas of low human population density.
We are not all that powerful a presence on the planet even if we are fucking things up royally.
Onlooker, sacrifice a bit of your carbon footprint and drive to a trail head on the Appalachain Trail and take a 20km hike. Or go to Santa Clara Colombia and visit some of the national parks of your country of birth. Colombia has enormous areas of protected parks and rain forests.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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