Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread
Posted: Sat 02 May 2020, 07:34:27
EV’s and Renewables are vital and excellent tech but the application is important. If human behavior is going to remain status quo of growth, comfort, and more capable then green is just a slave to these unsustainable attitudes. The film highlights the fallacies of a fossil fuel world attempting to be made fake green but that does not mean EV’s and all those other great techs are then wrong. This is point is probably as bad. These technologies can be used in excellent applications. Even if the world goes full into a sure to failed 100% renewable world policy the failure of this will leave many good applications. 100% renewables policy will likely fail at around the point where the amount of grid, storage, and gathering systems overwhelms. This overwhelming will be economics, technical, and with human acceptance and in several places this point is near. These places will have been test beds of how far renewables can be introduced into this complex system set to fail with any policy. It is obvious the world will not be covered in renewables then experience the failure. Failure is much closer in time and investment. This means what is being done with renewables now is fine. Economies of scale and innovation mean many more needed successes. The waste and redundancy will happen. Now tell me please on the other side of the equation with fossil fuels if the situation is much better for our complex system? It is not like we have much of an alternative. There are no alternatives and the opportunity cost next to none with a system carbon trapped in path dependencies. This is a natural evolution of failure.
Of course, a world that embraces smart degrowth with the acceptance that civilization is failing and will fail is a paradigm shift. Planetary failure plus limits to growth are obvious beacons for this smart degrowth. In this case, yes, the much of the renewable project as is being pushed today would be a waste. The reason is a vastly different world would emerge of life boats of things and hospices of attitudes. In this world both green and brown tech would be utilized in a reality tested way and applied to lessen the pain and suffering. Instead huge wind and solar farms will likely be stranded assets as will huge fossil fuel development but also skyscrapers and vast highway networks. The understanding the climate is no longer Haloacene and is now adapting on its own in tipping points makes things like the Paris accord a joke. In this world it would be understood modern life peaked in 2020’s and will eventually find a floor significantly lower with population and consumption. It would be accepted and adapted to with behavior acceptance of forces of decline. The acceptance would be with consequences too like a criminal who embraces his fair punishment in atonement.
There would be economic abandonment, dysfunctional systems, and irrational policy but this would be proactively prepared for. Chaos of decline is unavoidable but it can be managed. True wisdom of an awakened human intelligence would embrace this. If this new human system is more sustainable and resilient then the forces of decline will become a benchmark of policy for change. This new way is completely centered on human behavior and the wisdom of acceptance. It revolves around the huge human behavioral ability to say no and to stop. These are so simple and basic as to appear absurd but paradoxically the keys. The inability to embrace this most fundamental change is the reason in a macro and systematic way why humans are failing and will fail. Instead forces of decline just like we see with Covid will shape the world in a haphazard way. What we are seeing now is a muddle of policy and emotions that are irrational and dysfunctional to begin with in any situation. They reflect the fantasy of continued status quo human growth in any form fake green or brown. This point to a human society in a state of shock moving into the unknown blind and angry. Finger pointing everywhere instead of a profound self-examination and a resulting learning experience.
So, this “Plant of Humans” is wrong too as is its criticism. Humans are wrong and can’t be made right except by the forces of decline. Humans will muddle through this but with so much more damage both planetary and human. Where the awakening of transformation will occur is with individuals and small communities who will be like the small little mammals who survived the Dinosaur demise. This is happening and these individuals and groups will be the seeds of a new world if that is humans survive as intelligent beings. We may go back to savages in the wreckage of techno pyramids or worse the way of the dodo bird.
Of course, a world that embraces smart degrowth with the acceptance that civilization is failing and will fail is a paradigm shift. Planetary failure plus limits to growth are obvious beacons for this smart degrowth. In this case, yes, the much of the renewable project as is being pushed today would be a waste. The reason is a vastly different world would emerge of life boats of things and hospices of attitudes. In this world both green and brown tech would be utilized in a reality tested way and applied to lessen the pain and suffering. Instead huge wind and solar farms will likely be stranded assets as will huge fossil fuel development but also skyscrapers and vast highway networks. The understanding the climate is no longer Haloacene and is now adapting on its own in tipping points makes things like the Paris accord a joke. In this world it would be understood modern life peaked in 2020’s and will eventually find a floor significantly lower with population and consumption. It would be accepted and adapted to with behavior acceptance of forces of decline. The acceptance would be with consequences too like a criminal who embraces his fair punishment in atonement.
There would be economic abandonment, dysfunctional systems, and irrational policy but this would be proactively prepared for. Chaos of decline is unavoidable but it can be managed. True wisdom of an awakened human intelligence would embrace this. If this new human system is more sustainable and resilient then the forces of decline will become a benchmark of policy for change. This new way is completely centered on human behavior and the wisdom of acceptance. It revolves around the huge human behavioral ability to say no and to stop. These are so simple and basic as to appear absurd but paradoxically the keys. The inability to embrace this most fundamental change is the reason in a macro and systematic way why humans are failing and will fail. Instead forces of decline just like we see with Covid will shape the world in a haphazard way. What we are seeing now is a muddle of policy and emotions that are irrational and dysfunctional to begin with in any situation. They reflect the fantasy of continued status quo human growth in any form fake green or brown. This point to a human society in a state of shock moving into the unknown blind and angry. Finger pointing everywhere instead of a profound self-examination and a resulting learning experience.
So, this “Plant of Humans” is wrong too as is its criticism. Humans are wrong and can’t be made right except by the forces of decline. Humans will muddle through this but with so much more damage both planetary and human. Where the awakening of transformation will occur is with individuals and small communities who will be like the small little mammals who survived the Dinosaur demise. This is happening and these individuals and groups will be the seeds of a new world if that is humans survive as intelligent beings. We may go back to savages in the wreckage of techno pyramids or worse the way of the dodo bird.