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I both agree and disagree, because this comic is dangerously vague.
A good example is electric cars. It would be great if everyone switched to electric cars, but it would be even better if we built a city that didn't treat pedestrians, cyclists, and public commuters as second class.
The difference being the latter doesn't let private equity make fat returns.
And yes ofc we can both.
Trains are a technology. Walkable city planning is a technology.
Those aren't purely technological solutions though (except in the loosest sense of the word, where any non-hunter-gatherer behavior a human engages in is a technology), as they involve changing the way people live.
The electric car is a mostly drop-in replacement that fits in fine with the existing car centric suburban development model. The transit, cycling, and pedestrian oriented city involves changing how people think about their lives (many people in the US ask how it's even possible to get groceries without a car) and even changing some of the ways we structure our society (the expectation that the cost of housing will increase forever, or even the expectation that housing should be treated as a commodity to invest in at all, as well as many other things to do with the intersection of finance and landuse).
To give another example inventing new chemical processes to try to make plastic recycling work is a technological solution to the problem of petroleum use and plastic waste. Reducing or eliminating the use of single-use plastics where practicable is a non-technological solution, because it doesn't involve any new technologies.
In principle I'm not opposed to new technologies and "technological solutions". However you can see from the above examples that very often the non-technological solution works better. Technological solutions are also very often a poison pill (plastic recycling was made to save the plastic industry, not the planet).
In practice I think we need to use both types of solutions (for example, massively reduce our plastic use, but also use bio-plastics anywhere we can't). But people have a strong reaction to the idea of so-called technological solutions because of the chilling effect they have on policy changes. We saw this with the loop and hyperloop. Rather than rethinking the policies that lead to the dearth of High-Speed rail in the US and investing in a technology that already existed a bunch of states decided to wait for the latest whizz-bang gadget to come out. And it turns out this was exactly the plan. The hyperloop was never supposed to work, it was just supposed to discourage investment in rail projects.
It also ignores that everything has a cost and how much corporations like to pretend that "no study proving bad stuff means there's no bad stuff" for brand new things that haven't existed long enough for bad stuff to show up.
Some bad things take a very long time to show up though; the idea of putting the brakes on any new development until we had complete knowledge of potential bad things resulting simply isn't practical.
Lets take a really basic example: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Ammonia was--and is--used a refrigerant. It was the first one that really worked, and many large-scale industrial systems still use it. It's cheap, it's very effective, and it's environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, ammonia has two problems: first, it's highly reactive with copper, so you can't have any copper in your system, and second, a leak in a refrigeration system can kill you because ammonia gas is toxic. A number of industrial accidents in the 1920s that resulted in a lot of deaths led to the search for non-toxic refrigerants. Enter CFCs; unlike ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and other early refrigerants, they're non-toxic, so a leak in your refrigerator (or the air conditioner in your car!) does risk killing you.
...Except that CFCs absolutely wreak hell on the ozone layer. They were eventually banned. HCFCs were used for a while, because those tend to break down before they get to the ozone layer, but it turns out that if they do get up there, they do more damage than the CFCs they replaced.
But we didn't know that in the 1920s. Hell, I don't think we realized that was a significant problem for 40-50 years after CFCs were in common usage. In that time, food had gotten considerably safer, because refrigerators had become common, and were now in ever home. Without CFCs, we might have never gotten to the point of refrigeration being in common usage in homes. (For reference, the house I had in Chicago was built in the 20s, and had a bricked-over window that went into the pantry. That window used to be where blocks of ice were delivered daily or weekly to an ice box.)
We're still looking for alternative refrigerants--and insulating blowing agents--that are both non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and are can be made cheaply enough to realistically replace the current generation of refrigerants.
in an ideal world (heh) – our primary choice would be pedestrian, bicycle, electric micromobility, public transit – electric cars reserved for accessibility (personal ownership) – gas cars reserved for remote sites (rent or checkout only, no personal or private ownership)
Honestly it would not be better if everyone switched to electric cars. Yes, we should prioritize new cars being electric, but building an electric car is worse than using an existing car all the way to the end of its lifecycle. And yes obviously public transport and infrastructure to promote pedestrians/cyclists is also ideal.
There around 1000 life cycle cost analyses that disprove this idea by now. It takes only a few years of driving electric to pay off the carbon debt from manufacturing, assuming average driving behavior.
Of course, this is complicated because we should be dramatically reducing driving. But for most people it does not make sense to keep a gas car as a daily driver.
I'd love to see one of these analyses, this is new information to me.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-023-30999-3
It does depend somewhat on the specifics but for the vast majority of cases EVs are just better.
They’re still bad mind you, it’s just that ICE vehicles are so much worse.
Edit: This one might be a bit more directly applicable: https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-about-electric-vehicles/
Yeah, this is something many climate advocates say - that it is better to keep the car you have - but I don't think this is backed up by data at all. It's very clear that that EVs are able to save more carbon emissions than in a fairly short period than you would save by not continuing to drive an ICE vehicle, with manufacturing included.
If we were going to have a simple rule, replacing all ICE vehicles today with EVs will be far better for the climate than keeping them.
Replacing a gas car with an electric car would only be worse than running your current gas car into the ground, if you were buying a brand new EV and were junking your old gas car. A lot of people won’t do that. If you buy a used EV and sell/trade-in the gas car to someone else to use, a new EV isn’t built and someone who can’t afford EV can get your used car.
Obviously pedestrian infrastructure and public transit is preferable if viable, but it isn’t always viable for the average person (at least in the USA/Canada) to switch to those, so having both options is best
Yeah but that means not everyone is switching to EVs, which is the point of the person you're replying to.
I can't speak for the anarcho-primitivists but I can say I've been alive long enough to understand that a lot of miracle tech is just a cash grab or a way or distracting from the real solutions. Like carbon capture instead of just investing in renewables and zero emission solutions that exist.
Tech bros are intellectually and morally careless and if what they say seems to good to be true, it's likely not.
Renewables are technology.
So is "AI", what is your point? Some are great, some are an absurd waste of resources.
That's a false dichotomy in a lot of the comments here
We do both
Carbon capture isn't so we can continue to use fossil fuels. It's because once we get to 0 emissions we still need to draw down the carbon in the atmosphere
An ounce of prevention is almost always worth a pound of cure but we're still going to want that cure because every extra tenth of a degree we can bring the Earth back to normal is going to be worth it
Nah, we don't do both. Carbon capture projects are bullshit for the most part, see https://time.com/6264772/study-most-carbon-credits-are-bogus/ for example. Some are actually generating more carbon, not less overall. Instead, companies have been using this as a way to "buy" their target metrics, except they are buying offsets that don't really exist. And they use this to market their products as green/net zero products, which incentivizes even more consumption.
So overall this whole thing is most likely a net negative, as in we would be better without them. And honestly is not surprising at all, technology is not magic. It's just people want perfect solutions so we don't have to do anything and the problem goes away, so they keep falling for this bullshit. Case in point, your comment lol.
Oh, and I thought they made carbon capture viable (assuming clean energy). Meh
Carbon capture isn’t so we can continue to use fossil fuels.
But that is literally how it is used in the official plans and projections by governments and the UN. They nearly all plan with an increase of fossil fuel use and later (unrealistic) draw-down to reach "net zero" by the 2050ties or so.
Plot twist: The technological solution requires resources of five earths.
Let's see the technological solutions our top men at Silicon Valley have invented to save the earth
Underground tesla roller coaster
Clean coal
Stop farming food to make fuel instead
More people should just die, also, eugenics
Hey, why is making everyone use public transit instead of wastefully having everyone have their own private vehicle treated as "lowering living standards," huh?
Especially in a world where there's so many fucking cars that you can get stuck in traffic for hours and hours. We've rounded the bend where actually having serious public transit, that was moving on every public street every ten minutes, you'd suddenly have a lot more freedom of movement than you currently do with hours and hours of traffic. Public transit literally could be faster than a car in many big cities but people are too hung up on having to be around other people.
But nooooo, somehow freeing people from the logistically stupid nightmare of every human having a car and focusing on transit, we have to call that a "reduction in living standards." Get the fuck out of here.
it's just short for living standards that reduce corporate profits.
As someone without a car but with a child let me tell you, cars significantly reduce our living standard.
Most places we go I need to constantly tell my toddler not to walk too much to the left or right or run or slow down, I have to control her like a slave, or suppress her emerging wish for independence by holding her by the hand all the time, or even worse, put her in a stroller. Hell there are so many cars parked here (even on corners) that I often cannot leave the sidewalk safely with a stroller or cross the street safely (so that I would see a coming car or a coming car would see me).
I'd happily be less of a "germophobe" and have my kid run around with dirty hands, pick up dirt, etc. But car dirt is definitely not the "healthy dirt" so no, no dirt for you. Don't touch, don't play.
I want my child to grow up in a city that embraces her existence. I want her to feel like a welcomed member of society. But instead I have to keep telling her so many negative things, this is dangerous, don't go there, don't do this. She still loves being downtown and prefers this often to the playground or nature (which we try to encourage). She loves the tram and trains. But there are so many restrictions of free movement it breaks my heart.
And I am in a privileged position living in a German city. I can't even begin to imagine how devastating it would be in an even more car centric society.
Next you're all gonna say I should use dentures to chew my own food rather than have my underage slave girls chew it and spit in my mouth. You people disgust me.
"Clean" coal, corn based ethanol, hydrogen vehicles, plant a tree offsets, planet scale carbon filters, on and on...
If the owners want me to believe technology can solve the climate problem that is caused by their greed so their greed can continue destroying civilization socially unabated, they need to stop selling climate action policy snake oil to world governments for a quick buck.
And also maybe stop forcing workers who can work at a computer at home to drive into work to maintain the capital value of your commercial real estate as you bark orders from the luxury resort tour that is your life.
Until then, we know not living lives powered by burning ridiculous quantities of dead flora/fauna juice wouldn't further destabilize our only, increasingly uncomfortably hot habitat. We also know that simply stopping won't reverse the damage already done on a time scale humans can perceive.
We are literally turning the habitat of any future humans into 🔥Hell🔥. And if we couldn't make it work here, on easy mode, with enough pre-existing water/air/waste recycling to support millions to billions sustainably, we certainly aren't going to thrive on worlds where a single mistake means oops, everybody dead instantly try again. Im glad of that honestly, as the idea of growing/metastasizing into space and exploiting new world's resources almost makes dollar signs pop out of billionaire's eye sockets, and if thats the core reason they're so eager for us to spread out there, may we die on the vine.
Giant strawman. Not everyone advocating for degrowth is a primitivist.
So why is it that everyone pushing for 'reduced living standards' is also always shilling some new technologies to solve that problem?
If you go through life believing that people are never intentionally doing harm, you are setting yourself up for nefarious characters. Instead, we should behave as it people are not intentionally doing harm (until inculpatory evidence is demonstrated) while reserving judgement on intentions.
Hello, I'm shilling a technology to solve reduced living standards problems. Hear my pitch:
Has this ever happened to you: you want to reduce pollution from your car, but it's so hard to get everywhere without it. Well have I got the solution for you! Introducing the bicycle. This revolutionary transportation method is powered by your own legs, and uses a similar effort to walking while going several times as fast. You can ride a bicycle to work, to the local grocer, or even to the doctor's office. And with my second technology, mixed use zoning, the distances you ride to get where you're going will be even shorter! Interested? Of course you are! If you want to participate, push for mixed use zoning at your local council meetings and buy a bicycle from your nearest retailer.
Stay tuned for further innovations, like our new invention, the "tram"!
I’ve not seen this?
the fuck is this shit doing in a solarpunk community lmao, this is just made up nonsense you'd see on facebook
Oh great, degrowth discourse this should go smoothly
If everyone lived like developed countries we would need even less resources because the birth rate is so low we wouldn't suffer over population. Also look at how less developed countries dispose of garbage.
Not denying how some developed countries send their trash to developing countries for disposal on the beaches. Fuck them. CEO's and politicians responsible need the rope.
do you really think the population would be allowed to reduce? GDP growth would never be allowed to slow down (or heaven forbid GDP shrink) and right now countries with low birth rates use immigration to fill that gap.
look at Canada: small birth rate, but aiming for 100 million population by 2100.
capitalism demands unsustainable growth
Multiple wealthy countries have put incentives in place to encourage increased birth rates, all have failed. Other than forcibly inseminating women there's not much they could do.
It doesn't matter what is "allowed," people in highly developed countries, especially ones with low immigration, are experiencing freefalling birth rates that are already well below the replacement rate, and governments are BEGGING women to have more babies. See South Korea, China, and Japan
To be fair, I don't know exactly what is meant.
But my mind went to meat consumption, which is higher in the developed world, is considered indicative of a high standard of living, and, in my opinion, is best addressed not by lab-grown meat (or other technological solutions), but by reduced consumption (the reduced living standard).
They say this and then reject every technological solution that exists. Like wind or solar energy. Trains. Ebikes. The goalposts always get moved to some not yet existant technology so nothing needs to change.
The classic fallacy that industries have sold us over the past decades that technology would solve all our problems. So funny. They are doing the same again with AI
Wait... It's developed countries using up all our resources? Isn't that, like, the opposite of the truth? And technical solutions are a panacea? Is what tech bros have shown us? This seems like a very odd meme
Afaik, Americans use about 20% of the world’s resources with about 4% of the population. China and India both do use a lot of resources, but they’re also a third of the world’s population
TBF there are far, far too many technological solutions that are “science will save us” but haven’t been fully fleshed out, studied, or require some modest form of unobtainium to work in mass deployment. Also, a huge chunk of those solutions would have to have been implemented 20 years ago, yet haven’t even made it off the proverbial drawing board yet.
IMO solutions need to be implemented now, like wind, solar, especially nuclear power, EV, etc. Yeah, nuclear is temporary, and yes, nothing stays in place longer than a temporary solution, but it’s a known and can be built now rather than yet another 5-15 years of waiting for untried tech solutions. Unfortunately the comic isn’t entirely wrong, we are going to need to lose some things if we want to save ourselves.