China’s Next Economic Transformation: Going Carbon Neutral by 2060

[erik8lrl]

 

[aurum]

@erik8lrl

The only problem I have with this is thinking that "carbon neutrality" is the equivalent to ecological health.

It's not.

Carbon emissions are one potential metric of success. And it happens to be one that is relatively easier to measure, as opposed to other environmental indicators of success.

What are the environmental costs of all those solar and wind farms? That is usually not mentioned.

It also plays directly in the illusory narrative of continual economic growth. Growth is over and has been for some time, but we are still pretending it can and should be achieved.

[Rilles]

Lol, we'll be dead by 2060 if we go by that pace. 

[Opo]

51 minutes ago, aurum said:

@erik8lrl It also plays directly in the illusory narrative of continual economic growth. Growth is over and has been for some time, but we are still pretending it can and should be achieved.

Can you explain this? 

[Preety_India]

Lol. I'm not sure if humanity is gonna survive till 2060. If it did it would be a miracle. 

 

[DIDego]

@Opo It's tricky going any near these kind of topics, discuss fact mixed with personal perspectives and own opinions to try make some "theories" where we coming from, what we can learn from history, to "imagine" and try grasp somehow a bigger picture whats maybe are actually going on in the present, can be seen as conspiracy theories, and that are forbidden to discuss.

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Opo said:

Can you explain this? 

Economic growth means increasing the total amount of our economic activity. Almost everyone believes this to be a good thing, and historically they might have been right. Low economic growth or recession has rightly been associated with unemployment, inequality, etc.

Much of justification for all this green tech comes back to economic growth. Sure, we want to save the environment. But not at the expense of the economy. Not at the expense of our jobs, which equate to survival. Not at the expense of consumerism.

Hence, someone like Joe Biden's environmental plan or the Green New Deal, which both promise to stimulate the economy and save the environment.

But here's the problem. The economy cannot be stimulated anymore. Not like in the past, when Keynesian economic theory took hold.

Real economic growth has essentially disappeared. Japan has had declining GDP for years and many developed countries are following suit. The small amount of growth in GDP that we currently see is largely artificial, propped up by things like the major tech companies and war. And even that is getting harder and harder to maintain.

Even growth in "undeveloped" countries is largely only the result of developed countries' influence, e.g the IMF imposing debt and austerity measures to force countries to grow.

The reality is there is no more growth to be had. Your entire life has already been commodified. The natural resources of the planet are rapidly approaching limits, if not already been hit. Growth is over.

So the idea that we will just forever continue increasing our economy activity, and offset the environmental damage with "green tech", is absurd.

The good news is that even though growth is over, we don't need it.

Yes, we would need to restructure our systems to make them no longer growth dependent. But that can easily be accomplished if we have the wisdom to do so.

Edited January 1, 2021 by aurum