I must admit that I’m a bit disappointed that most questions (except 2) end up leaving out collapse scenarios. It feels like our odds aren’t that great, so just reading most of scenarios here feels like reading “the future will be awesome”[1].[2]
What surprises me, however, is the overall lack of inclusion of environmental limits (see, for instance, this paper).
I know climate is mentioned (altough I don’t get the feeling from reading these sections that large parts of the world would be inhabitable because of heat). But it doesn’t feel like it includes other problems like biodiversity collapse (half of GDP depends on biodiversity, according to a swiss insurance company).
Note that these problems are rather mild right now, compared to what could happen. For instance, the amount of pandemics is expected to increase, because of deforestation and factory farms, and they could be more lethal in the future—Covid wasn’t that deadly compared to other threats. And it doesn’t feel like the world is really good at preventing these kind of problems from arising again.
I understand why we are trying to extrapolate from past trends—especially as, up to a point, it works. What worries me, however, is that by doing I fear that we end up disregarding limits (as this article points out).
In 2020, the global economy was only 8.6% circular — in 2018 it was 9.1%, so the situation is worsening. I don’t think that we can reasonably make the assumption that we’ll automatically succeed at being sustainable—or that we can substitute every finite input at little cost.
Something I find rather depressing is that even in most of these optimistic scenarios, the number of chickens living in factory farms is still 5-10 times higher that the human population. So, even if we assign a moral value 3 times lower to chicken than for humans (like Rethink Priorities does), the expected value would still be net-negative.
I must admit that I’m a bit disappointed that most questions (except 2) end up leaving out collapse scenarios. It feels like our odds aren’t that great, so just reading most of scenarios here feels like reading “the future will be awesome”[1].[2]
What surprises me, however, is the overall lack of inclusion of environmental limits (see, for instance, this paper).
I know climate is mentioned (altough I don’t get the feeling from reading these sections that large parts of the world would be inhabitable because of heat). But it doesn’t feel like it includes other problems like biodiversity collapse (half of GDP depends on biodiversity, according to a swiss insurance company).
Other problems include soil depletion, declining rate of mineral ores, the rising amount of waste, lower access to water, lower access to fertilizers produced from natural gas… There is little empirical evidence that we can solve all of these problems while economic growth still goes on (i.e. decoupling has a poor track record). I understand that technology is improving, but technology has limits, and cannot improve efficiency forever.
Note that these problems are rather mild right now, compared to what could happen. For instance, the amount of pandemics is expected to increase, because of deforestation and factory farms, and they could be more lethal in the future—Covid wasn’t that deadly compared to other threats. And it doesn’t feel like the world is really good at preventing these kind of problems from arising again.
I understand why we are trying to extrapolate from past trends—especially as, up to a point, it works. What worries me, however, is that by doing I fear that we end up disregarding limits (as this article points out).
In 2020, the global economy was only 8.6% circular — in 2018 it was 9.1%, so the situation is worsening. I don’t think that we can reasonably make the assumption that we’ll automatically succeed at being sustainable—or that we can substitute every finite input at little cost.
I tried to highlight some of the challenges of doing an energy transition here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wXzc75txE5hbHqYug/the-great-energy-descent-short-version-an-important-thing-ea
If we don’t find ways to blow ourselves up in the process, as we’re increasing our capacity to do so—see the appendix
Something I find rather depressing is that even in most of these optimistic scenarios, the number of chickens living in factory farms is still 5-10 times higher that the human population. So, even if we assign a moral value 3 times lower to chicken than for humans (like Rethink Priorities does), the expected value would still be net-negative.