I get your point, but I think this describes a dilemma for the entire world, not just one country.
Do we have enough wealth for everyone on earth to get champagne (or the equivalent for other goods, more than once in their lifetime)? The global north can do that pretty easily, but that relies on exploitation of the rest of the world. A US standard of living and consumption profile is absolutely not sustainable for everyone in the world. There may be a European country with an average standard of living that’s close to sustainable for everyone, but it wouldn’t be one of the rich ones.
I can’t find it right now, but I saw a yearly consumption and living standards chart for what would be universally sustainable for humans, and it was pretty sparse. It involved limiting electricity to four hours a day and cooking hot food something like 10 times/week.
If anyone knows what I could look for to find that, please let me know, because I really want to look into it. I remember it also noted how big your living space per person was and either how many clothes you could have or how often you could do laundry (or both), and I’m pretty sure I encountered it on here, though it no might have been a comment. There’s this lifestyle calculator, which advocates
2.5 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent/person/year, but that doesn’t get into house size or number of possessions, just acquisition of new ones.
I can’t find it right now, but I saw a yearly consumption and living standards chart for what would be universally sustainable for humans, and it was pretty sparse. It involved limiting electricity to four hours a day and cooking hot food something like 10 times/week.
That sounds, quite frankly, insane. We have so much ability to produce carbon free energy, just with our current level of tech, not even getting into things like fusion. With wind, solar and hydro we can provide effectively unlimited power to everyone on Earth, if we’re not wasting it all on gigawatt scale data centres that no one needs. And with our recent advances in battery tech - especially sodium batteries, which can be produced with extremely widespread resources - and fusion power as a backstop there’s no need for our energy to be linked to CO2.
Same goes for food; feeding everyone isn’t actually that hard, we just need to stop seeing food as a profit source. The planet can easily sustain our current population.
Yes, there are some lifestyle changes required. We need to reduce - not eliminate, reduce - our reliance on animal protein. We need to learn to use local produce more in our diets. But these aren’t exactly crippling conditions to live under.
But frankly, most of the changes needed for a sustainable world are actually positive for the average person. The things we use need to last longer and be repairable. We already know how to do that. The reason they’re not is because it benefits capital holders to sell us crap that falls apart. A world where you buy a coat and keep wearing it for decades sounds pretty damn good to me.
That may be, energy is less of a worry than it has been previously.
Tbh the thing I was most interested in was the laundry restrictions, because we’ve still only got so much water.
That and I actually do pretty alright on that quiz, but I did not have a lifestyle anywhere close to the guidelines I saw.
Can we produce carbon free energy everywhere/easily transport it anywhere?
Can we produce carbon free energy everywhere/easily transport it anywhere?
Pretty much. The exact mix of solar, wind, geothermal and hydro varies, but some combination will typically get the job done. And we have nuclear fission as a backstop where necessary.
That’s equally inspiring and infuriating, given the amount of fossil fuels that we use.
I do really hope someone sees my comment and remembers the source/knows what to search for, because I wonder if it was calculated before the explosion of rooftop solar/advances in battery technology or if it’s generally leaning towards fear mongering. Or maybe it was just being pessimistic about the likelihood of political will required for carbon free energy everywhere.
I get your point, but I think this describes a dilemma for the entire world, not just one country.
Do we have enough wealth for everyone on earth to get champagne (or the equivalent for other goods, more than once in their lifetime)? The global north can do that pretty easily, but that relies on exploitation of the rest of the world. A US standard of living and consumption profile is absolutely not sustainable for everyone in the world. There may be a European country with an average standard of living that’s close to sustainable for everyone, but it wouldn’t be one of the rich ones.
I can’t find it right now, but I saw a yearly consumption and living standards chart for what would be universally sustainable for humans, and it was pretty sparse. It involved limiting electricity to four hours a day and cooking hot food something like 10 times/week.
If anyone knows what I could look for to find that, please let me know, because I really want to look into it. I remember it also noted how big your living space per person was and either how many clothes you could have or how often you could do laundry (or both), and I’m pretty sure I encountered it on here, though it no might have been a comment. There’s this lifestyle calculator, which advocates
2.5 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent/person/year, but that doesn’t get into house size or number of possessions, just acquisition of new ones.
That sounds, quite frankly, insane. We have so much ability to produce carbon free energy, just with our current level of tech, not even getting into things like fusion. With wind, solar and hydro we can provide effectively unlimited power to everyone on Earth, if we’re not wasting it all on gigawatt scale data centres that no one needs. And with our recent advances in battery tech - especially sodium batteries, which can be produced with extremely widespread resources - and fusion power as a backstop there’s no need for our energy to be linked to CO2.
Same goes for food; feeding everyone isn’t actually that hard, we just need to stop seeing food as a profit source. The planet can easily sustain our current population.
Yes, there are some lifestyle changes required. We need to reduce - not eliminate, reduce - our reliance on animal protein. We need to learn to use local produce more in our diets. But these aren’t exactly crippling conditions to live under.
But frankly, most of the changes needed for a sustainable world are actually positive for the average person. The things we use need to last longer and be repairable. We already know how to do that. The reason they’re not is because it benefits capital holders to sell us crap that falls apart. A world where you buy a coat and keep wearing it for decades sounds pretty damn good to me.
That may be, energy is less of a worry than it has been previously. Tbh the thing I was most interested in was the laundry restrictions, because we’ve still only got so much water.
That and I actually do pretty alright on that quiz, but I did not have a lifestyle anywhere close to the guidelines I saw.
Can we produce carbon free energy everywhere/easily transport it anywhere?
Pretty much. The exact mix of solar, wind, geothermal and hydro varies, but some combination will typically get the job done. And we have nuclear fission as a backstop where necessary.
That’s equally inspiring and infuriating, given the amount of fossil fuels that we use.
I do really hope someone sees my comment and remembers the source/knows what to search for, because I wonder if it was calculated before the explosion of rooftop solar/advances in battery technology or if it’s generally leaning towards fear mongering. Or maybe it was just being pessimistic about the likelihood of political will required for carbon free energy everywhere.