The world has probably passed peak pollution

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/peak-pollution

by robertn702 • 2 years ago

278 334 2 years ago

sustainabilitybynumbers.com

Animats• 2 years ago

That's encouraging.

- Peak pollution - check.

- Peak coal - not yet.

- Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1]

- Peak baby - 2013. [2]

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-...

[2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

defrost3• 2 years ago

Peak Coal - Probably, very likely, more or less about right now.

Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273

Can't say for sure until another few years have passed, nonetheless every country in the world has coal on hold or in decline save for India and China.

China is the largest producer of renewable technology and energy (?), India is building out the worlds largest solat array farm (albeit "only" good for 16 million households).

karmakurtisaani• 2 years ago

China still builds more coal power, but they intend to use it only as a backup for when renewables are not producing enough. The YouTube channel Just Have a Think did a video on China's energy future recently, highly recommend checking it out (sorry for not linking directly, writing on my phone).

monero-xmr4• 2 years ago

My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon. All of us that have kids for whatever reason chose to reproduce despite the abundance of modern society. Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially.

developerDan• 2 years ago

Who is to say children today will have children of their own tomorrow? People who are choosing not to have kids “leaving the gene pool” (you say it as if they are some filth to be done away with) doesn’t change anything.

silverquiet8• 2 years ago

If the future is agrarian, extremely-religious people living a very low-productivity lifestyle of essentially subsistence farming, then that’s probably actually a nice balance for the Earth and humanity. However it really doesn’t feel like that’s where things are headed in spite of the current demographic trends you note. In a sense, I think that’s the way the Americas were before Columbus re-united them with the old world.

skissane17• 2 years ago

Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially

I agree with your overall point, and about the Amish and Orthodox Jews (especially the ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic/Haredi).

However, for Mormons, I'm not sure that is true. Mormons, in the US at least, have plummeting fertility rates, and also a lot of problems with retaining their younger members. They don't belong to the same category as Amish and ultra-Orthodox do, they are converging to the American secular mainstream while those groups remain on a clearly different trajectory from it.

iiovemiku3• 2 years ago

From my perspective, the only reason they are resistant to societal factors that drive people to have less kids is that their strong religious values (which are held together by their strong communities). So this really begs the question of what society will look like if the only people who will be breeding in the future are those who form tight communities that promote relatively religiously extreme values (that happen to include having lots of children).

oconnor663• 2 years ago

If we could keep running this era of civilization forever, Matrix style, I'm sure that would be true. But how many more generations will there be before AI+biotech lead to us, I don't know, 3D-printing people? The old laws might not have many cycles left to go before the new ones show up...

AtlasBarfed2• 2 years ago

My problem with it is that it is a public policy failure. Capitalism and perpetual economic growth fundamentally needs more people.

At some point economies will do the math and public policy and figure out how to keep the expansion going.

The US hasn't done it because Mexican immigration fills the gaps. But Germany, China, Russia, and (holy crap) South Korea (although I suspect South Korea will absorb a shitton of North Koreans some day when the regime collapses).

What happenes when biotech extends human life and achieves the artificial womb? Go ahead, say its impossible.

justin66• 2 years ago

My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon.

Ah yes, the "breeder" gene. Very sound thinking.

doug_durham2• 2 years ago

This is a pretty "icky" comment. Naming specific groups that will be growing exponentially has echos of less savory characters using these arguments for political gain.

It is very unlikely that any group will have long term exponential growth. As pointed elsewhere where this type of growth doesn't scale. The groups you mention have been around for centuries and they haven't become dominant. Social cohesion falls apart over time.

skissane17• 2 years ago

- Peak baby - 2013. [2]

I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question.

To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So, that seems to support the article's contention, at least for the US – and if we look at other countries, we observe things are broadly similar, so that in turn supports that contention for the planet as a whole.

However, we also observe in the US small, ultra-conservative religious minorities, such as the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews, who still have a high fertility rate, and also have high youth retention (80-90% of their children will stay in the group as adults). Now, even though these groups are a tiny percentage of the population, the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population, which could then result in a national baby boom. And, eventually, as they spread across the globe (they exist to varying degrees in other countries too), a global baby boom. So 2013's "peak baby" may end up being surpassed.

Of course, there is no guarantee that is going to happen – maybe they'll get to a certain size, and then they'll stop growing. And of course, it is physically impossible to sustain exponential growth indefinitely. However, it remains a possible future that they won't stop growing until after they've gotten so big that 2013 turns out not to be the year of "peak baby" after all. Maybe it will actually be 2213 or 2313 instead. Our descendants (if one happens to have them) will find out.

bdjsiqoocwk• 2 years ago

the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries,

I don't know if any realm of human sciences where extrapolating exponential growth yields trustworthy results, outside maybe of wealth accumulation, and even then not for 2 centuries.

DavidPiper2• 2 years ago

Maybe it will actually be 2213 or 2313 instead. Our descendants (if one happens to have them) will find out.

Peak-anything is just shorthand for "the first peak on record" because our culture and ability to record-keep has only really existed in a population and resource boom period.

I agree that circumstances might mean that the global peak baby might be 200-300 years away, but the thing that makes the current round of peak-anything relevant is that we don't know how our social and economic systems will function when certain things are in long-term decline (even if they do pick up again in a few hundred years).

If we knew what a few centuries of low birth rates or low oil consumption looked like, we wouldn't be nearly as interested in what "peak-those-things" means, the same way we're not all that interested in specific market peaks because we understand the boom/bust cycles and long-term productivity increases, etc.

andsoitis• 2 years ago

mainstream Americans

What is a mainstream American?

hiAndrewQuinn3• 2 years ago

Putting aside the considerable statistical skepticism, the natural next question we all have at noticing these trends is - is there any way for secular society to get some of the "special sauce" these ultra-religious groups have, before the aggregate supply of everything starts to fall?

Secular pronatalism doesn't seem like it has a lot of staying power with most people as an ideology. But I've been on board for a long time, and so have a lot of my friends. So maybe the best answer is the common sense one: Wait a few generations for all those not susceptible to the secular pronatalism mind virus to select out of the gene pool, and hope society doesn't crumble under its own technical debt in the meanwhile.

navane• 2 years ago

I heard the retention of their offspring was 20%, so they have 5x more offspring, but only 20% of that stays 'in the group', net result 0.

globalise832• 2 years ago

The fact that these are still very much niche interests after many generations indicates that the social indoctrination processes needed to maintain such cultures are not scalable.

shepherdjerred• 2 years ago

the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population

It's so unhelpful to speculate about what the world will be like 100 years from now.

Think about what things were like in the 1920's and how unrecognizable the world is by comparison. Then, consider that technology is being developed significantly more quickly than it was in the 1920's.

rustcleaner6• 2 years ago

Just a friendly reminder to modern Progressives that (on average) you will not be in the future described by parent because you were tricked into an anti-natalist posture and will fail to reproduce adequately. It's a problem which kills itself in time so long as the problem doesn't ideologically metastasize into competiting populations.

faeriechangling8• 2 years ago

the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population, which could then result in a national baby boom.

Only if their reproductive habits do not change in that time. Hard to project out 3 centuries with a good deal of accuracy.

iiovemiku3• 2 years ago

Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being).

Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population thing for a good few more decades.

Looks like we're more or less on a crash course in the next few decades, especially with lifespans moving as they are.

Nicholas_C• 2 years ago

Will be very troublesome for countries with low fertility that can’t attract immigrants to keep the population from declining.

grecy2• 2 years ago

Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly

Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?

wongarsu• 2 years ago

We still won't reach peak population until 2060 at the earliest, and more likely around 2100. [1] has a good graph by region on page 4, and a graph for world population near the end. Most regions haven't reached their population peak yet and subsaharan Africa is still growing strongly.

Of course a lot of this is just delayed by higher life expectancies. Aging populations will require major social reforms in our lifetime, and I don't think society is really prepared

1: https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...

rqtwteye• 2 years ago

At some point we can’t rely on ever growing populations. It may be painful for a while but at some point growth has to stop.

xnx• 2 years ago

Crossing my fingers that we've also hit "peak extinction", and not just because we've killed off most of the vulnerable species already.

SubiculumCode• 2 years ago

Peak Plastic?

bryanlarsen4• 2 years ago

Hopefully peak plastic pollution, anyways. Plastic is a very useful substance, the issues are that it is made from fossil fuel and that its pollution is significant. If we capture carbon and then use that carbon as a feedstock to create plastic in a form that won't end up as a pollution (aka not plastic bottles or synthetic fleece) we can turn it into a positive.

elijahbenizzy• 2 years ago

“Peak baby” is an objectively bad thing

WA• 2 years ago

It's not. We need a sustainable size of population. Unlimited population growth is not sustainable. It doesn't mean that we are going to die out. It just means that there are as many newborns as old people dying. Check out this good old Hans Rosling video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78

sMarsIntruder• 2 years ago

Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, but are we really associating 'peak baby' with global pollution?

Humans certainly contribute to pollution, but we should address some ethical questions first.

mpreda• 2 years ago

Well, yes.

And, what are the ethical questions we should address first?

cs7022• 2 years ago

I'm not sure "peak baby" is a good thing, but agree with you that the other three peaks are encouraging.

Arguments by smart people like Sabine Hossenfelder have led me to question the conventional wisdom on population growth.

For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 .

Lord-Jobo• 2 years ago

I think peak baby is less about good or bad and more about a turning point for growth demand.

jl64• 2 years ago

Conventional wisdom on population growth is that it’s a solved problem and that the population will inevitably stabilize or decline. I say let’s not count our chickens just yet. There are still countries and groups where the growth rate hasn’t stabilized at all, and even if these are small today, exponential growth means they soon won’t be. Population growth will continue until everyone agrees it shouldn’t.

faeriechangling8• 2 years ago

A shrinking population is fine, this planet has its limits.

A rapidly shrinking population is not ideal.

tiborsaas• 2 years ago

- Twin Peaks - 2017

sandworm101• 2 years ago

Anyone one to watch is 'peak road' or peak transport.

Most countries continue to steadily expand transport infrastructure. Returning some of that back to a natural state, or just abandoning it, does happen but remains very rare.

bamboozled4• 2 years ago

Positive on the one hand, stupid it took us this long on the other.

defrost3• 2 years ago

It's worth looking back at 50 years of fossil fuel producers going into overdrive on casting FUD on harmful effects of CO2 since it was first raised at the UN in the 1970s.

hackerlight2• 2 years ago

To clarify the article. This isn't peak CO2. It isn't even peak pollution. It's peak first derivative of pollution ex. greenhouse gases. We'll get to peak CO2 when emissions of CO2 are net zero, so in a few decades at best. Until then atmospheric carbon and average temperatures will keep rising.

ajross• 2 years ago

Silent Spring was published just 61 years ago (and on top of that into a world with less than half its current population!). Seems like we did pretty well, to me.

MaxHoppersGhost• 2 years ago

Posted from a huge house with air conditioning while using multiple petroleum products (iPhone/computer, chair, desk, fleece, etc). The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago. It’s easy to be in Seattle or New York and say we gotta stop burning oil and coal but there are trade offs that were worth making. If you live in a developing country without aircon those trade offs are still worth making.

vouaobrasil5• 2 years ago

Every single person? Not exactly. What about farmers forced off their land for corporate interests? What about people working in the garbage dumps of Tijuana in Mexico [1]? I've actually lived in the "first world" (born there) and now have lived over a year in a developing country where most people (including myself) don't have "aircon", and whether technology has improved things is not as clearcut as you might think.

Yes, we have better health care and more products, but we also have more pollution, more meaningless jobs, weaker local communities (especially in the most developed parts of the world), and beautiful species are going extinct.

Actually, I think the standard of living, at least in the long-term and for the many future climate refugees, is not actually that much improved.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-25-mn-4650-s...

latentcall• 2 years ago

Ah yes I forgot the standard of living is just more stuff in my house! Meanwhile we have all this cheap junk but expensive healthcare, expensive education, expensive housing, poison in our food and water, and rising temperatures. Glad some folks could binge order cheap plastic crap on Amazon for these amazing benefits. Advancement!

bamboozled4• 2 years ago

We could've had all of that without the C02 we've emitted, please don't talk silly talk.

We screwed up this hard because we burned fossil fuels as they were highly profitable for a handful of our species.

tech_ken4• 2 years ago

The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago.

I think it's important to note that you are making this statement with virtually no evidence about the long term sustainability of this standard of living. It's great to be sitting on all this bounty, sure, but from the perspective of history we're not even out of the prototyping phase. If climate change models are even remotely accurate, for example, then the standard of living we are currently enjoying will not be shared by future generations in any nation. I definitely take your point that it's unreflective for a citizen of a rich nation to say "pollution for me, but not for thee", however if in the long term we experience severe ecological collapse as a result then is it really worth it for 2-4 generations to have iPhones and air conditioning? Only time can ultimately tell, but I think it's critical to consider how radically unique the last ~200 years of human history have been, and as a result how poorly equipped we are to extrapolate its lessons into the future.

CatWChainsaw• 2 years ago

This argument is literally a comic, which makes you nothing more than a joke.

jereze2• 2 years ago

Well, such an optimistic title, considering that greenhouse gases are excluded in the article.

bryanlarsen4• 2 years ago

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable.

https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

hackerlight2• 2 years ago

No they won't. Only the first derivative of greenhouse gases ('emissions') will peak. Greenhouse gases itself will only peak after the world achieves net-zero.

jereze2• 2 years ago

Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.

AtlasBarfed2• 2 years ago

You mean the growth of emission rates. Emissions will still be ongoing for a looooong time.

yen223• 2 years ago

We aren't allowed to celebrate any victories anymore?

hanniabu• 2 years ago

Not when they give a false sense of security

kersplody• 2 years ago

And ironically decreasing coal and fuel pollution decreases albedo causing faster warming which will persist for a few decades until things balance out. Less pollution is good, particularly when it comes to reductions in sulphur dioxide from bunker fuel and PM2.5 from coal emissions, but it does have side effects amounting to a couple of degrees Celsius of warming according to recent papers. Hanson's "Global Warming in the Pipeline" is a sobering read.

hehdhdjehehegwv3• 2 years ago

The good news is you’ve taken your foot off the gas. The bad news is the car is going 100mph and there is a cliff edge in 10 feet.

perrygeo• 2 years ago

Nailed it. We're confusing the second derivative (how much are we "accelerating" pollution) with the real scalar value of interest (distance from the pollution "cliff"). Taking your foot off the gas does nothing. Putting your foot hard on the brakes may not even do anything! Momentum do what it do.

If humanity can't work through these fundamental math and science comprehension problems, we're doomed.

el_nahual• 2 years ago

Given that (with regard to greenhouse gasses) we've a) unlocked positive feedback emission loops from tropical & arctic methane and b) still pumping increasing amounts of carbon into the air, it's clear to anyone paying attention that we've already fallen off the cliff.

We're just hovering for a second like Wile E Coyote.

hehdhdjehehegwv3• 2 years ago

I often wonder if Looney Tunes physics explains more about our world than classical economics…

silverquiet8• 2 years ago

Is a) actually clear at this time? My impression is that there are some questions about methane levels, but I don't know if sources of them are clear given that humans activity also causes a lot of methane emissions. But yes, apparently we also just had the largest ever recorded jump in CO2 levels at 4.7ppm year-over-year and the sea surface temperature data over the last year is sobering.

tech_ken4• 2 years ago

The best news is that your hush puppies are ready: youtube.com/watch?v=L7eFdTGC3N4

methuselah_in• 2 years ago

With humans burning and producing waste can nothing be like peak. They will keep on going. I don't understand why people don't understand it's human nature until you don't stop them with fines you squeeze the availability of the fossils, they will keep on going on. What soul awakening scientists expects is possible only in few. Govt have to push people with policies and shift their behaviour.

ISL• 2 years ago

We may not yet have had the war that ends all wars.

Whenever I think about protecting the environment, I think about preventing the catastrophes that are wars.

xeornet5• 2 years ago

It would seem politicians, especially in the West do not care at all about that concern.

zizee• 2 years ago

Especially in the west?

mvc• 2 years ago

I don't buy that. There's not a single major Western politician in government at the moment who's political path ahead would not be made easier by the wars currently ongoing to somehow stop and thus be able to chalk up a win for "increased global stability" and profit at the ballot box.

Unfortunately it's the politicians that are not beholden to ballot boxes that have no incentive to stop blowing people up.

xeornet5• 2 years ago

https://www.cato.org/commentary/four-western-provocations-le...

benatkin2• 2 years ago

Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0

Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable.
While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is.
But it’s not. None of it matters to you now.

https://sive.rs/berklee

tech_ken4• 2 years ago

Kind of repeating myself from another comment, but the person making this comment is basically standing atop one of the most singular vantage points in all of human history. To say this advice is non-generalizable is an understatement, IM personal O. Setting aside that this was the entry point of the ZIRP years (unique even among US history), the United States from 1920-2020 was basically unprecedented in terms of global hegemony, access to material resources, and scientific knowledge. Even a cursory examination of the global situation indicates that these factors are not going to hold forever, probably not even for the next 50 years. I think a prudent person has to ask themselves "do I really want to turn off the news and focus my entire being on creating a startup? Or do I want to have some Plans B-Z in case the Roman Empire falls?" It's true you can't fix everything yourself, and many people waste their lives trying, but tbh that seems less foolish than taking serious advice from an '08 UC Berkley graduation speech.

selimthegrim2• 2 years ago

Wrong Berkl(ee)

orthecreedence2• 2 years ago

It's possible to build a life that attempts to solve the world's problems. Then you have personal accomplishments and meaningful social contribution. But your comment reads like "who cares about the planet we live on, just do whatever you want" which isn't really great advice or a particularly sustainable mindset. I'm getting strong Ayn Rand vibes.

benatkin2• 2 years ago

It's possible to build a life that attempts to solve the world's problems.

The mere attempting is what I think isn't especially worthwhile. Actually helping is worthwhile.

And if someone is building their life to somewhat directly solve these problems, then they aren't getting distracted. They may have chosen to become journalists or sustainability experts.

Ditto if they're in a field like music paying attention but not so much attention that they're distracted. Their contributions to society within their field can often indirectly help.

I see people who are pulled in a lot of different directions by their heartstrings and I don't think it's effective. Many latch on to someone like Bernie or Andrew Yang. Sivers said "the media" and I think right now it's social media. And I'm distracted by it as well. I'm going to have to do something deliberate to cut my social media distraction.

unnouinceput2• 2 years ago

2B humans out of 8B are in China. You do not have numbers for China nor, if you manage to get it, can those be trusted anyway. I feel that while the West started the downtrend, China will not offset that but surely pass as how much pollutants it spews. We are not out of the woods until China gets on board too.

iamthemonster• 2 years ago

I think I trust the numbers for China more than your estimate of China's population which is out by 43%

unnouinceput2• 2 years ago

If you really think the official numbers spilled by the communist party from there is the truth then I have a bridge to sell to you.

illiac7864• 2 years ago

I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate.

“Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward.

That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast.

Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.

tmvphil• 2 years ago

For e.g NOx with a high half-life, you are probably right that we are still increasing pollution. For short half-life pollutants like SO2 and CO, I would expect this means the actual atmospheric levels are decreasing.

marcosdumay2• 2 years ago

For e.g NOx with a high half-life

Their half-life is shorter than a day. On the same magnitude of SO2.

The one of CO is indeed much smaller.

mycall• 2 years ago

I thought greenhouse gasses will increase in concentration as the feedback loop of polar region is forcing trapped gasses out of the ground.

gavindean90• 2 years ago

I thinks that’s been predicted but not observed thus far.

MostlyStable• 2 years ago

Importantly, this article is not primarily about greenhouse gasses.

NewJazz3• 2 years ago

Isn't the concept of pollution highly subjective?

tsimionescu• 2 years ago

It's really not, for most things. What exactly would you call an oil spill or leaded gas fumes if not pollution?

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

Within certain bounds. Climate scientists likely don't agree on the ideal CO2 PPM level, while agreeing that the current level is not it.

Anyone who wishes to claim pollution is always a subjective concept is welcome to drink a few gallons of water from Lake Karachay.

illiac7864• 2 years ago

Doesn’t really matter here, I’m talking about the pollution the article is referring to. I am simply discussing the concept of reaching a peak in pollution vs. a peak in emission of the same pollutants.

Putting the above aside though, I would disagree. Everything is subjective except math (and even there, I think there’s a debate), but I would definitely not classify pollution as _highly_ subjective, that makes it sound it belongs to the category of things that particularly lack consensus, which is definitely not the case amongst the scientific community. Not to say there’s 100% agreement on all things, but I think there’s a broad consensus.

consf2• 2 years ago

I think that it is primarily grounded in objective measurements and scientific understanding

akira2501• 2 years ago

will actually _decrease_ going forward.

The ratio of (pollution/living person) will decrease. Unless you want to start unaliving people then this is a fixed fact of the world we live on.

Dylan168077• 2 years ago

Is there a reason to care about that number?

Oh I thought of another one, if people smoke more cigarettes then the ratio of cancer deaths to packs smoked decreases!

notfed2• 2 years ago

...where "pollution" means "air pollution".

illiac7864• 2 years ago

You mean “emission of pollutants”. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere for example will continue to increase at a slightly lower speed.

consf2• 2 years ago

The idea of having passed peak pollution could suggest that we are beginning to see positive changes...

illiac7864• 2 years ago

Agree, but it’s like hurling toward a brick wall at 100mph instead of previously 110mph and saying “we’ve reached peak risk”. Sounds a lot better than “we’re braking but currently we are still going to hit the wall and life expectancy of passengers still currently is measured in second”, but what we need is to push people to brake more, not sugar coat the situation.

mad0• 2 years ago

So a more accurate statement would be that a derivative of pollution has peaked.

benreesman3• 2 years ago

If economic and political capture fail to destroy civilization before climate change does I’ll be glad because we have science for the latter but not the former.

Science almost always gives you a fighting chance but there seems to be no motivation let alone research directions on unchecked income inequality.

I’m from the United States, a very wealthy country if you use the arithmetic mean to calculate prosperity (which is the devil’s own summary statistic in such matters), but children live in tent encampments even in ostensibly wealthy cities and it goes downhill from there.

I hope climate damage becomes a relevant problem because we have ideas for how to tackle that, arguably even credible plans.

Income inequality is utterly unchecked and will wreck civilization sooner.

diob• 2 years ago

The problem is that the two are entangled. Those at low incomes (heck even middle income), will be disproportionately hurt by climate change.

benreesman3• 2 years ago

I think the problem is that the best and brightest (of which HN’s readership is a plausible sample) dislikes this observation: a great many people who rarely use anything but hard rationality still believe that not only will they be the one to join the tiny elite (can’t be all of them, most are wrong by construction), but that this is acceptable.

Of secondary importance is what a depressing commentary this is on the ethical caliber of our intellectual elite.

Of primary importance is that only a tennis court and a guillotine will stop them, something one hopes we’d all like to avoid.

tim333• 2 years ago

Peaking nitrogen oxides has made quite a difference for me personally living near Oxford Street. A decade ago it had some of the highest NO2 levels in the world and I was getting stinging eyes and thinking of moving. It's quite a lot better now mostly down to the vehicles having less polluting power sources.

ninininino• 2 years ago

Peak pollution (that we're aware of).

Given the modus operandi of "manufacture first, find out about carcinogenic / animal-extinction-properties second", it's almost certainly a given that we've not yet passed peak pollution because we keep creating new forms of pollution that are harder and harder to clean up.

riffic• 2 years ago

we still got forever chemicals, industrial accidents, radiation, and microplastics to keep us company for a while yay.

edit: how can I leave out space junk, that's always been my fav.

selimthegrim2• 2 years ago

I just got Hannah Ritchie’s book out of the library yesterday and I was like oh I think I know where this is from.

faeriechangling8• 2 years ago

The population still hasn't peaked so I'm doubtful.

kshahkshah• 2 years ago

China's population is rapidly declining and India's population already peaked and just started declining. More to do elsewhere, but is is really not the case population hasn't peaked or is about to?

edit: well according to: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022

it'll be 2083 (!) before we peak in population

bionhoward• 2 years ago

Tell that to the toolbags who leave their truck idling while they use multiple gas powered lawnmowers, trimmers, leaf blowers!

barbazoo• 2 years ago

People leaving their cars/trucks idling with no one inside are on the same level as those still throwing their cigarette butts on the ground. I guess we can't reach everyone or some people just don't get it.

nostrademons4• 2 years ago

It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions.

But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization.

The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...

detourdog2• 2 years ago

It might be more like the "dark ages". The people got along we don't know what they were doing but the result was the "renaissance".

2four2• 2 years ago

The growth in power of megacorporations has been coined a new type of feudalism, so dark ages might not be a bad description.

maxwell• 2 years ago

They were called such due to the decline of written material: the written record went "dark" compared to antiquity and then modernity.

Definitely in another dark age in that sense, due to the postmodern decline of meaningful written communication on paper.

robohydrate• 2 years ago

I've been playing Fortnite almost every night for 5+ years because it is more interesting than doomscrolling on my phone!

jackcosgrove3• 2 years ago

The distinction between the two scenarios is the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred. It's a pretty glaring miss when you're trying to make predictions.

This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

cvwright• 2 years ago

“life is so miserable” and yet “so many children” was basically most of human history

wing-_-nuts3• 2 years ago

If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

This right here is why I'm child free.

First, My own upbringing did nothing to equip me to properly raise a child. I simply cannot trust myself to do a good job.

Second, why would I bring a child into a world where each year will only be worst than the last, and their lot in life is to suffer the decline of the natural world and perhaps civilization as we know it until they themselves have to make the same choice? I'm sure someday the future will look brighter but it sure as heck isn't today, or any time in the next 50 years.

sophacles• 2 years ago

the original, theoretical scenario did not foresee the negative feedback loops that actually occurred

Several of those feedback loops came from people seeing the theoretical scenario and the evidence for it mounting. Like literally the phrase "if we don't do something - this will happen" is the rallying cry. It's silly to say it was an oversight in the model that shows that things need to be done.

If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?

Something humans like to do to escape misery is: sex.

crznp• 2 years ago

LtG summary from the intro:

1. If the present growth trends... continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years...
2. It is possible to alter these growth trends...
3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success

Far from "missing the negative feedback loops", I think that amplifying that feedback was the whole point.

Also, we're only halfway through the original period, so it seems premature to declare victory.

cs7022• 2 years ago

The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting.

Even though your statement is meant to be evocative, as opposed to factually descriptive, it sure feels to me like it captures the zeitgeist.

Which is... disappointing, upsetting, sad.

I suspect that, like me, you hope you're wrong.

hpeter• 2 years ago

I emit less methane than a few years ago, since I changed my diet. No gluten and lactose.

idunnoman1222• 2 years ago

Really do forever chemicals go away or something? or do they mean the peak output of pollutants because that’s not the same thing at all.

Dibby053• 2 years ago

I'm skeptic.

United States. Population: 335M. Vehicles: 305M.

Germany. Population: 85M. Vehicles: 52M.

India. Population: 1428M. Vehicles: 79M.

China. Population: 1400M. Vehicles: 500M.

Ethiopia. Population: 121M. Vehicles: 1.2M.

Nigeria. Population: 230M. Vehicles: 13M.

Indonesia. Population: 279M. Vehicles: 23M.

etc.

hi-v-rocknroll2• 2 years ago

Recently launched MethaneSAT locates anthropogenic ultra-emitter methane plumes to their sources. CH₄ GWP is ~70 in 20 years.

Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US (2022)

https://archive.ph/eYig4

https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/over...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo... (2022, 400k t)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak (2015-2016, 100k t)

atleastoptimal• 2 years ago

Now it’s time to bring pollution back. Without sulfur dioxide warming will accelerate. As many people pointed out it had been accidentally load bearing on warming

gavin_gee• 2 years ago

Perhaps the planet but definitely not the mind.

jmakov• 2 years ago

Probably not. Nice try

greentxt• 2 years ago

Reminds me of Fukuyama, and yes I know he wasn’t saying that exactly.

Pretty sure this is not true as long as birth rates are declining. What is that saying about assumptions…

The world has probably passed peak pollution

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