'We' are all earthlings; members of the human species; owners of a qualitatively distinct mode of abstract thought that allows us to form forward facing survival strategies. We are not necessarily doomed. Otherwise, sure - you're your own unique little snowflake! Or rationally self interested individual, whatever!Robert66 wrote: ↑January 18th, 2023, 4:48 pm There is no "we". Most humans are merely doing what they can with what they have. Some (the relatively wealthy) are being lied to - eg:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... b25fed6858
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows
The lie is that "we can have our cake and eat it", presented to the wilfully ignorant in the form of greenwashing: actual ecological murder, dressed as "sustainability".
Even a 'big ball of molten rock' has limits. Techo-optimism does not provide immunity to reality. Tapping that molten energy is one thing; surviving ecological destruction, with humans increasingly displacing other species, is quite another.
With regard to the Guardian article; all of that is bunk. I wholly accept the science of climate change, but reject the politics of the entire environmental movement, and governments policy responses to it right back to 'Limits to Growth' by Meadows et.al. from 1972.
You say: "The lie is that "we can have our cake and eat it" Both anti-capitalist greens, and capitalist climate change deniers agree with you! They both believe sustainability requires the sacrifice of economic welfare. I do not agree with that. I'm saying we can have our cake and eat it! I'm saying a prosperous 'and' sustainable future is scientifically and technologically possible. It's not either/or - that's the lie!
To understand why, you need to get your head around the sheer enormity of the magma energy available. It is gargantuan, and then some. It's something I have struggled to adequately express. You say: "Even a 'big ball of molten rock' has limits." That's not correct. The heat energy of the earth is not actually infinite, but for all practical purposes it is limitless. 50% of the heat energy of the earth is primordial - left over from the formation of the earth 4.5 billion years ago. The other 50% is radiogenic - the result of the breakdown of radioactive elements. And it's truly gigantic.
NASA estimated a minimum of 1000 times global energy demand just from the US alone. Minimum. My argument is that we need that energy to spend to reconcile prosperity and sustainability - not just to meet our current energy demand carbon free, but have abundant clean energy to desalinate sea water to irrigate wastelands, so we can bring much more land into productive use even while protecting rivers and forests from over-exploitation. We can recycle all our waste - mince it all up, heat, cool, ferment, digest, separate and distil it into its constituent elements for re-use. We can extract carbon from the air and bury it in the ground. Magma energy would allow us to do all these things and more; transcending the pessimistic equation of Limits to Growth.