“Not the End of the World:” A More Optimistic Approach to Climate Change | Amanpour and Company
Vložit
- čas přidán 18. 01. 2024
- According to a new study in the journal Nature, the ice in Greenland is melting 20% faster than was previously believed. Data scientist Hannah Ritchie says while headlines like these are urgent and alarming, we need to shift our focus towards solutions. This point of view is laid out in Ritchie's new book "Not the End of the World," which she joins the show to discuss.
Originally aired on January 19, 2024
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major support for Amanpour and Company is provided by The Anderson Family Endowment, Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir, the Leila and Mickey Straus Family Charitable Trust, Mark J. Blechner, the Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, Charles Rosenblum, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, the JPB Foundation, the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism and Josh Weston.
Subscribe to the Amanpour and Company. channel here: bit.ly/2EMIkTJ
Subscribe to our daily newsletter to find out who's on each night: www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-...
For more from Amanpour and Company, including full episodes, click here: to.pbs.org/2NBFpjf
Like Amanpour and Company on Facebook: bit.ly/2HNx3EF
Follow Amanpour and Company on Twitter: bit.ly/2HLpjTI
Watch Amanpour and Company weekdays on PBS (check local listings).
Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City.
#amanpourpbs
I’m a Horticulturist in Rome ga. There have been no earthworms or fly larvae in trash for going on 4th yr. Vegetable crops in town town stopped growing after 2 nights warmer than days (D75F, N80F) in spring. I called every research horticulturist I could find on the planet and we all see horrible things happening that the general public cannot understand. Where are all of the birds? Where are all of the bugs? My name is Jimmy Greer and I stand by my observations.
The S is HTF now
Sounds like a invertebrate or worm active pesticide with residual properties.
We’ve lots of worms & fly larvae in Australia. Unfortunately for flies.
But agree re loss of birdlife, insecticides & herbicides eliminating food supply.
And natural systems often collapse catastrophically, not just struggle along.
(eg cod, passenger pigeon)
I studied ecology, never found employment in that sector.
So I don’t see optimism for solving problems until we provide employment.
@@iandavies4853 county wide? Actually I haven’t seen an earthworm in the SE US in 3 yrs. I saw them shrivel and decline over 5 yrs then they vanished. I think insects are suffocating…they can’t breathe. They breathe by evapotranspiration and body size is determined by O2%…more CO2 less O2.
And I grow organic and no pesticides in my area for decades if ever. I think insect worldwide are suffocating.
We don't see that impact in our backyard in the American Midwest.
However, we do see fewer bugs in the windshield when driving through the country. People who don't drive far might not notice this. Hard to be alarmed when a lot of people still don't notice it. I agree with your concerns.
@@laliday I’m in SE and 1980’s bug splatter covered our windshields every 30 min at night we’d have to clean off. Haven’t cleaned a bug splatter off glass in 20 yrs
@@Atheistbatman I walked out to a nearby field in So Oregon to watch a meteor shower a couple months ago, and on my walk home I looked at the annoyingly bright street light at the RR crossing. Not a single moth or bug in view, at the height of harvest season. We still have several types of bees in the garden in the summers, but honeybees are fewer and farther between. Frogs and amphibians also still present, but rare.
I've listened to this argument for optimism and hope for 40 years as a scientist, that we can't tell the public how bad it is, since it may scare people off. I think a little fear is in order now. In fact, a lot if it gets us moving at the speed that's needed.
i think the public know exactly how bad it is, we just don't like to think about it since there is nothing we can do. well that's not exactly true, but as individuals we can't make a difference. doing exactly what we are told by the science won't do shit if the rich keep doing what they're doing, if we keep living in the same systems that got us into this mess. people my age at least have been told the world is ending since we were tiny, and at the same time we were told that if we were just better individuals it would be fixed. but we weren't, so we were doomed. hearing that as kids was crazy. now i see people realising that's not true, that it's this hypercapitalism we're living in that's the problem. but we still have the same problem, that there seems to be nothing we can do that's big enough to help.
Look at the next comment, the fear is there, but not knowing what to do is also a huge issue. Make sure people know what to do: 1) vote and let your reps know (a lot!) 2) do personal stuff (compost, grow a garden, buy less, divest from fossil fuels 3) consider working in solving climate change (lots of great work to do!)
@@BreeneMurphy-vl9xx Then suggest they identify and mitigate their climate risks ASAP too. We actually moved north and away from the Atlantic in '18. I deploy to these disasters - I see what's happening and they're nasty like never before. So suggest they look at their homes. And when I meet clients, I make suggestions on that too. And I tell them to plan on it. Take care and thx.
I heard her TEDTalk and it was filled with arguments that lacked rigor and context.
No solution for overshoot that is easy.
sssshhhh - don't burst anyone's bubbles with real analysis. It's hilarious how people are "waking" up to the ecological crisis to shove down our throats how we need to IGNORE the science and just be positive techno-fixers. hahahaha
It's all nice and good, but finding solutions isn't the problem. The solutions are known. It's doing it. It's implementing them, it's getting people to care and do, and this globally, which means getting all countries to cooperate, quite a few of which are in open conflict. It's repeated often that pessimism won't help, that pessimism only leads to resignation. It can. Meanwhile they're different words with different meanings, because it doesn't have to. The 'don't worry, we know the solutions' hasn't served to truly mobilize the world. Have you tried panic? Have you tried getting the people to internalize the problem, and see if the appropriate reaction might work? It did for me. The realization 'we're not gonna make it' did the trick. Fear, if appropriate, can be a powerful incitement.
It's also too easy to blame only the powerful. It begins with the people. If you think the many who do try and at least take to the street are in fact many, come to where the *majority* of people in this part of the world live. They believe they have other things to care about, from really pressing problems all the way down to Instagram.
Last year the sirens went off around here, no test scheduled, with the war in the Ukraine as context. Fifteen minutes until the notice came: malfunction. For fifteen minutes people should have thought they were facing an *immediate* catastrophe. Nobody outside reacted. Nobody. Kept walking, chatting. What do you expect where the catastrophe is unfolding a little slower?
Also, Mrs. Ritchie, if you think long-term - and that'd be really long-term - actually the climate crisis *can* end the world, where 'Earth' is a planet full of life.
Less than 1 billion years tops until the sun's becoming too hot for life. Brief window. How about not making it even briefer?
Dude, could you please take a minute out of your free time to edit that monstrosity. I can't sift out the editorial junk to get to the heart of what you are trying to say. There are just so many half formed thoughts and assumptions that the reader will know what you are talking about. Can you sum up all that with approximately 80 words in 4 sentences?
Some people just don't care because they don't live with extreme weather or they attribute it to natural changes. Other people don't have the resources to care. And that's her point. The change will come from systemic changes and improvements, and better value. E.g. a sustainable solar power and battery being more stable at protecting from the flood during storms in some areas, heat pumps being stable in all weather and less expensive to install vs traditional gas heaters and a/c. The price and value are better predictors of whether people will install it. Lots of people still don't have the 15-20k needed to make those improvements and they know the panels might break before ROI. It's not humane to force people who are struggling to spend their savings (if they even have savings) on any of that. Changed must be systemic. Only governments can make them, can ban chemicals, can invest in new energy sources when the value is still low, can build rail, make cities more sustainable and not as car centric (for many benefits, not just for the energy and pollution sake). It's all complex, but it seems people will buy something when it has value. It's hard to spend x amount on something that has little short term benefits, knowing that none of the neighbors will make a contribution.
Lots of good point.
Alternative view.
Yes, we’ve had partial solutions for years, known Wright curve cost reduction & technology improvement.
Legacy industry, media control, distraction, conflict, temporary crisis like covid, delay action. We are complacent.
We could perhaps do with a healthy dose of panic to motivate people.
I'm sorry but the time for chipper optimism in the face of the profound challenges and bleak prospects we are now confronted with. I just don't have any patience for the delusional thinking that somehow equates buying a Tesla with saving the planet any more.
Watch again. You missed her point.
Yeah, but it also gets depressing wallowing in depression. A certain amount of denial/acceptance may prove beneficial. Might as well dance to the music; and truly there’s still a lot of beauty in the world to enjoy. I mean, the media would love for me to give The Donald a lot of mental real estate, either in outrage or in worship, but I’m done with letting that asshole constantly creep around fingering my thoughts. So I ignore a lot of it, and I’m happier for it.
The author has the good intention to tell people not to give up hope because there are things they can do to help. The problem with that message is that many people think she means that human caused climate change and overshoot are not serious problems. This has the reverse effect on people. It makes them think they don't need to do anything differently. It is important for people to try to help because otherwise the huge damage could lead to extinction of us humans.
I am reading the book, she's pragmatic and doesn't say BS, just the issues how they are, how we got to now and all the possibilities to solve the issues. It get's lots of work and I think this book must have been read from all the Prime ministers in the world.
As the Washington Post noted yesterday, nobody is doing anything, and nobody is going to do anything about global warming. It's time to find a place likely not to be on fire in the future and settle in there.
Good luck with that, NIMBY's. There is no truly safe place, there are only foreseeable degrees of catastrophe. And that is worldwide, locally true everywhere.
Isn't only hotter temperatures - there'll be more extreme weather events ( stronger storms, freezes, deadly heats, droughts, floods, etc); the weakening of the massive Atlantic Ocean's conveyor belts which affect climates, temps; etc.
Also, as temps & moisture levels change in a geographical region, so do the foods possible to grow there, and thus its livability, and the new microbes filling in new environmental niches, causing new diseases to humans, animals, plants/food crops.
ETC, ETC.....
I think more and more people ARE doing more and more things to lessen their individual/business/ governmental impacts. But we ALL need to work better and faster. The guest says there is plenty we can do now, that technologies now are wider and cheaper than before, that NOW is the time of OPPORTUNITY -- to benefit both humans and the environment, and that IF we want a better future ( we all do), then we MUST take actions now ( and more than only using reusable grocery bags / water bottles).
Read her book. You then may feel optimistic, empowered, energized to do something.
🙏🏼
Yes, the cost per kWh for wind and solar are crushing NG. My local utility is still moving forward with a NG plant. Many States are making rooftop solar less advantageous. The site selection for wind farms on land and water has become problematic due to drama and nonsense.
1.5 is essentially here. 2° will happen.
The Carbon Gang is the main culprit but I can't control that. At the local level most of the people I know continue to do what they have always done.
Very little personal responsibility.
Thank you for interviewing smart and informed people!
This was a very soft touch interview. There's a much better, more in-depth and revealing interview by Rachel Donald on Mongabay. I recently read Hannah's book 'Not the End of the World' and found Hannah's case for optimism from our dire predicament quite strenuous and unconvincing, and she constructed a lot of straw men in order to make her points. Her use of data was selective to say the least. I also noted a number of inaccuracies (or at least significant divergencies from my own understanding of our predicament).
She has also struggled to justify a lot of the positions she adopted in her own book. The section on de-growth was particularly ill informed, and the idea that renewables can replace fossil fuels, simply fanciful. I also struggled with her 'war' metaphor in the book, which I found bizarre. Her claim to absolute apolitical objectivity also, clearly indefensible.
Ritchie uses what we call 'data blending' which is viewed with suspicion amongst scientists as it can support false assertions. For example, Ritchie states, as cause for optimism, that the EU and USA have significantly reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. Which is, of course true, but not the cause for optimism that she suggests.
Since the rise of China as the world's manufacturing powerhouse, countries like the USA, those in the EU and other developed nations have essentially delegated all of their manufacturing to China which has resulted in their own emissions reducing and China's growing. Overall, global emissions are still rising - it's just that the manufacturing component of those emissions have shifted from other G20 nations to China. This makes China look like the bad guys, when actually all they are doing is producing all of our stuff for us.
Against that backdrop, you can understand why it is disingenuous for Ritchie to pick out EU and US emissions to support her case for optimism when these wealthy countries are contributing to record global emissions by buying more stuff than ever from China. At no point in her book does she caveat her positive message with these ugly truths. She's set out to write a positive book and has evidently cherry picked her data to support that thesis. This is why Greta Thunberg urges people to keep their eye on the global emissions data and nothing else. This clarity of focus makes one immune to the positive spin that the likes of Ritchie churns out.
I don't concur with Hannah's definition of a 'doomer'. I regard myself as a doomer in that I think I have a realistic understanding of our predicament and tend not to seek solace in cognitive dissonance or denial. I try to be a grown up and face the grim reality of our predicament. That doesn't mean that I will ever give up hope in our ability to address some of the worst impacts of climate change - far from it - but I do push back against baseless optimism, which I regard as dangerous. Panic is an important human emotion as it can help us to conjure up the motivation and will to act on our worst fears. Buffering people from panic is unhelpful. In respect of the climate crisis, too much panic is not our problem, not enough panic is our problem.
It's a shame, because I so want to encounter a positive narrative on the climate crisis in which I can believe. Hope is so difficult to come by, that I really willed Hannah to provide a convincing space for hope, but alas, I struggled to find it in her book. In order to make her somewhat plaintive case for optimism, Hannah found herself contorting and making use of accounting tricks and statistical sleight of hand. These strategies needed to be exposed. They are the same strategies used by climate deniers to such great effect.
I think Bill Gates, and perhaps Elon Musk, had much more influence on this book than Hannah would ever admit. It is a techno-optimist, neoliberal manifesto and highly ideological and, despite Hannah's assertions to the contrary, very political. She seems to be suggesting that there is a 'business as usual' route to addressing climate change and the book repeats the myth that 'we have the technology in place to solve this' - an assertion that, for me, has never stood up to scrutiny. I found it a troubling book.
spaces between paragraphs will help people to read. Kudos for this effort though
@@sunflower8075 You Tube removes such spaces automatically. Try it.
Thanks for this analysis. I haven't read her book, but I found her TEDTalk quite problematic.
I do not see how pessimism and lack of hope is not rational. If the shoe fits, wear it. It does nothing for a sense of urgency by telling people fairytale stories that all you need to do is buy a Tesla and everything will by work out. The scale of our living on the planet (and still growing) should give one pause to respect the meaning of both the exponential function and the second law of thermodynamics.
Best point - Stop framing it as "sacrifice" and start looking at it as opportunity; opportunity to build on even the smallest potential to create a sustainable norm.
Of course it's not the end of the world. It's just the end of the world as we know it
🎶and I feel fine.🎵
Tyrannosaur don’t mind extinct.
Corporations need to get onboard and help incentivize cleaner energy. It seems like this should be an opportunity that’s looked at as a mid to long range benefit.
Wake me up when renewable energy actually starts replacing fossil energy, rather than just adding more to the energy mix. Until then, I see no reason to be optimistic.
Well, solar has almost complete replaced coal in the US. So it’s possible.
@@rationalpear1816 Yes, conceivable, but globally coal use in 2023 was at a record high.
@@rationalpear1816 "Well, solar has almost complete replaced coal in the US. So it’s possible." The problem isn't with this or that fossil fuel source: Globally, fossil fuels are still providing 82% of primary energy, and we were supposed to be cutting that percentage sharply every year, but we haven't.
The book is about as realistic as John Lennon's Imagine without the beautiful music to justify the Panglossian optimism.
Vaclav Smil states that we are growing into or towards carbon not away from it.
in the 1990s a Navajo spiritual leader said to a visiting writer: “the Earth has said ‘Have patience, there is no way you can stop this turn, this cycle. The world is already unbalanced. It’s already on its way, going full momentum. And in this manner, when the world ends, you will eventually go in a peaceful manner. In a respectful manner. Because you human beings, you may be gone, but the Earth is always here. It will revive itself’
instead of being racist just let mother nature deal with it because they don't have air conditioning
I think that’s really the crux of the situation. “The lesson“, if one likes to believe everything happens for a purpose. Because our situation as human beings has always been “how do you choose to live your short life as a mortal being in this world of limitations?” In that sense nothing has changed, and never will change. As Pascal said, “Love, and do as you will”; in the Buddhist teachings, act with non-attachment to results. To accept that death is coming for us all is the beginning of true wisdom.
For years now there is company in India that makes containers ( bottles etc ) from vegetable cellulose ! it’s just as efficient as plastic but doesn’t pollute … why doesn’t she know about this ? And why doesn’t she mention other replacement materials ? Ex glass
Because this didn't cover every dang thing related to climate change and solutions and wasn't the point of it? Geez. She is brilliant and obviously super involved in a lot of solutions. Good example for us.
what's the name of the company in India that does this?
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 "...because I'm super invested in 'saving the world', but I can't maintain focus long enough to leave YT and research it on my own?" Yeah, that's what I do too. Welcome to the present.
@@feedigli no because the commenter asks the question WHY doesn't she know this? So I answered the person's question. Simple. If they can't even provide the NAME of the company that they claim to know about then obviously that's why other people don't know about as well. simple logic. No google searching required!! hahahahaha
Because there are thousands of companies that are doing something and it's not her job to list them all in this interview. Her focus is on illustrating the broader point, that things making the greatest positive impact are the things that are valuable for many reasons instead of just one. Sustainability requires significant governmental investment and executable laws (like those that require filters, ban chemicals, or unsafe procedures) for all business. People buy what they need. If buying and operating an electric water heater costs less, they will buy one. There are lots of companies that make containers, but unless the government bans plastic containers and cellulose containers are affordable, companies and stores won't utilize them. And by the way. Cellulose is not a new thing. When I was a kid, there was more cellophane and glass in stores than plastic. Plastic bags were reused, and people used baskets and some of their own containers for some foods. I grew up in the 80s in Poland. It's great that more companies go back and try finding more ways to make it affordable and mainstream. I know you're proud, but this one solution is just one or many great solutions that are needed.
I respect her work on isolated issues on the Our World in Data website, but here she is simply not telling people the big picture and thus is misleading them about the threats we face. Humanity's total ecological overshoot--which is what ultimately matters--is rising steadily, as is the ecological footprint of countries like the US (despite some misleading de-coupling from CO2 emissions). We have simultaneously moved from overshooting 3 of Earth's 9 major biophysical boundaries to overshooting 6 of the nine. Fixing this goes far beyond solving the climate crisis and some renewable energy, it will require a total metamorphosis of civilization in which we shrink the global economy and especially the economies and lifestyles of wealthy nations while turning the logic of our industrialized capitalist societies on their heads.
I read her book. Hannah Ritchie is an amazing woman, I'm so grateful for her work. We need to act - but imo the negativity is driving people away from action, not towards action. It leads them to shruk with their shoulders and say "meh the world will end anyways". But that is incorrect - what we do matters. We can do things. We are partially already doing them - but we need to do more and faster, transitioning to a zero carbon economy!
Unfortunately, the problem is far larger than a zero carbon economy, and that's where Hannah Ritchie doesn't grasp the big picture. Because she didn't look at total ecological footprints, she hasn't yet realized that our industrialized civilization will either A) choose to transform to a much more agrarian system with much smaller and localized economies, more use of natural materials, and more manual labor, or B) suffer a catastrophic collapse of ecosystems, our food supply, civilization, and our population. But the only way Earth can support 8 billion people sustainably is if we revert to living more like people in rural Africa or Asia live.
See James Hansen. It's worse than the party line.
We ARE reaching a tipping point! We MAY have already passed it! What happens when ALL of the ice is gone? How many years until it’s gone? Can we save it?
Probably thousands of years but even 1.5'c increase in temperature is bad enough for coastal cities.
From Wikipedia: "] Paleoclimate evidence suggests that in the long run, global warming of around 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) causes Greenland to lose enough ice to increase the sea levels by 1.4 m"
@@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039 at the rate the glaciers and ice sheets are deteriorating we have a decade at most for the ice to go away! It will happen faster and faster!
Okay your guest is completely off the rails in her analysis of the risks of plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is another example of overshoot.
Love Our World In Data! Discovered it during Covid - such an incredibly valuable resource!
Failed politics in the US is making even a modest mitigation almost impossible. And if the US is destroyed by internal dissension, it is not clear who will assume leadership on addressing climate change in a timely fashion.
Cycling along the country lanes in Kent the amount of rubbish is absolutely shocking. People just don't care. Volunteers pick it up every three months, a month later it's all back again
Good show. Hannah has a good mindset for progressively tackling these issues. I like people who use their head for something other than a hat rack .
No not the end of the world just the end of our species
OK, I'm listening thru to minute 6:44, when this young lady says "Where I see the opportunity that we have is I think that ... we can provide a good life for 8-9-10 billion people while reducing our environmental impact at the same time, so I think that's the opportunity that we have", and my mind boggles. Really? This is, simply put, nuts. The earth cannot support 10% of our current population sustainably - and carbon pollution is just one symptom of that gross imbalance. This is wishful thinking brought to the level of hallucination.
I missed that but,. If she said even 8 billion people are sustainable, I don’t know where she’s getting her information from.
@@solarwind907yes the earth could sustain 10 billion peace loving vegans. Unfortunately that's not going to happen
@@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039 vegans on birth control that don’t own cars.
Charging stations out here in the rural area are off to the far end of parking lots, whereas the gas pumps are under bright red roofs with bathrooms and convenience stores. This makes charging, which takes a while, "feel" like the smokers lurking outside alley doorways. Poor salesmanship.
I’m keen to do stuff to help with stabilising and limiting climate change but what the hell is me changing light bulbs going to do when some big corporation is doing a huge amount of damage.
There is only one solution. Don't dig up hydrocarbons!
You’re suggesting we shut the barn door after the horse has bolted
Her accent is so beautiful along with an encouraging message.
Thanks! A feeling of impending doom does not help, but we should not make it easier than it is. If wind and solar were really as good a replacement for fossil fuels as the cost per watt/hour suggests, everybody would be switching to renewables. Since it does not happen there must be some other issue which we should make explicit.
Not a chance. Too little and far too late.
Yes I agree. But how do we get most people in action? I say, tell stoies. My third novel pushing Dark Heat, is now out. Tom Riley
Has any tipping point actually been proven to a high degree of certainty? Aren’t they just conjecturer at this point? Or are they guesses from climate models that otherwise very poorly predict current climate based on historical data?
"Or are they guesses from climate models that otherwise very poorly predict current climate based on historical data?" That statement is simply false: 14 different climate models have quite accurately predicted how much warming our emissions would cause, and some of these models have been doing so for 40+ years. The scientists have had the braod outlines of man-made global warming figured out quite well for decades now.
130 years ago Arrhenius worked it out by hand. Took him a year. 5-6'C for doubling of CO2. Hasn't really changed that much with supercomputers. In the end it's physics.
That chart for energy cost only went to 2019. Solar and wind have continued their cost decline. And the growth of solar had been remarkable.
Two more years of the solar growth trend and we will be at 1500 GW per year which is seen as the required level to achieve under 2 degrees of warming.
82% of our primary energy still comes from fossil fuels, and until that number start dropping significantly every year, we have no chance of staying under 2 degrees C of warming.
Hoping shes not referencing Bjorn Lomborg in her book
She is muddying the waters. She is speaking as a academic and the nuance she talks about won't be understood by the average person. The daily mail just has a story on her and immediately the comments are claiming she is a climate denier and "finally a scientist is telling the truth'. She is making things worse in general even though her specifics make sense but unfortunately these ideas are beyond most people's comprehension.
No matter how much green energy we produce we also keep using more fossil fuels. Bottom line, we have not changed the trajectory of where we are heading
Okay. Let's give up. Is that your message?
@@linguaphile42if you were on hospice, would you apply for a 30 year mortgage?
Depending on who you listen to, we’ve already passed, or are very near 1.5C
There’s optimism and then there naïveté. She’s naïve
I love's Hannah Ritchie's work on individual issues on the Our World in Data site, but as a university researcher who has spent more than a decade studying what we must do to prevent collapse, she's simply not capturing or communicating the big picture here.
First, her definition of sustainability strangely combines wellbeing with sustainability and thus confuses the issue (and distracts us from what sustainability means and requires of us).
Second, any usable definition of sustainability must mention both humanity's collective ecological footprint and the per person footprints we must achieve plus the 9 planetary boundaries that Rockstrom and his team have identified. Humanity as a whole is currently overshooting Earth's maximum sustainable carrying capacity by ~75% per year, we have already overshot--and are in the danger zone--on six of nine major planetary boundaries, and people in wealthy nations have per capita footprints that range from 14-28 acres of resources/impacts per year... and with eight billion people, our fair share sustainable footprint is more like 3.5 acres per year.
Third, because of the points listed under #2 above, we could solve the climate crisis tomorrow, but until we also solve ecological overshoot, human civilization will be very far from sustainability and would be on track for worsening ecological and societal breakdown (which has been gradually picking up steam for decades).
Fourth, to achieve sustainability and still feed everyone, we will have to shrink the global economy by roughly 50%, adopt far more localized and more circular economies, adopt much simpler lives, eat much less beef and dairy, and make many other changes that go far beyond renewable energy. For example, a large industrialized capitalist economy is inherently unsustainable and it is inherently anti-life (its core values and logic lead it to destroy nature to create dollar bills). To prevent collapse and create a livable future, we need less man-made products in the world, less man-made chemicals, and more nature.
She's smart and her heart is in the right place, and some of her work is great, but here she just isn't facing up to the elephants in the room.
I think it's okay to expand a view and offer something new as opposed to summarizing everything we already know . She highlighted what works in the real world with what seems like less effort, less preaching, and more impact than the prior approaches. Her way is also more integrated, as in being sustainable and valuable for more than one reason. Most people don't have the resources to live more sustainably just for the sake of the environment. Many people don't know how. The last time I checked most food had plastic in packaging and most people had to drive to buy food. Some things have to be banned and some systems have to be changed for a normal person to live more sustainably in terms of the environmental impact while being able to afford even the most basic of necessities. Some people are sick or have sick family members and they juggle a lot, including gaining knowledge about their condition and treatment. It's not sustainable for everyone to be an expert in everything, their job, their children, gardening, homestead, healthcare, and environmental impact of things like the paint used in their car. That's what the government is for and the proper agencies should be making those calls so that we are all safer in the short and long term. Forever chemicals are polluting our rivers and grounds. If they were banned, everyone would have to make a different choice. Those companies and hedge funds won't do it on their own because it will affect the price of their product. If everyone was banned then they all would perhaps redesign the product to make profits.
@@laliday Thanks for your long and thoughtful reply.
Unfortunately, she isn't offering the expanded view, she has cherry-picking data that fits the optimistic story she tells. I'm the one telling the big-picture story about our predicament.
While she tells of declining coal use in the UK and elsewhere, she doesn't tell how use of gas has gone up. She says fossil fuel use has flatlined, but it is actually still rising--and was supposed to be falling at 7-8% per year to hit the Paris Climate Accord goal of 1.5 degrees C of warming. She leaves out the inconvenient fact that the ecological overshoot problem is getting worse--and quite rapidly--not better. A few years ago, I was writing that our ecological overshoot was 70%, but now it's 75%. Not long ago, were overshooting 3 of Earth 9 main biophysical boundaries but we are now overshooting 6 of 9. More deeply, the kind of economic and political system we have naturally pulls us toward ecological overshoot and eventual collapse, so until we are well along in discussing and moving towards a more comprehensive transformation of modern civilization, there won't be any light at the end of the tunnel.
We can get there. Solutions exist, but to solve this urgent global metacrisis, we must start with a more complete and accurate appraisal of the scale and scope of the crisis we face, including the fact that human civilization as a whole--and even wealthy nations--are still heading in the wrong direction. For example, although the US HAS somewhat decoupled our GDP growth from carbon emissions, our total ecological footprint/harms has gone UP in recent years... and that is the number that ultimately matters.
I agree with many of your other individual points.
I dearly wish things were as rosy as she paints it, but they're not, and YES, most people need help, information, and financial assistance to get onto a more sustainable path.
Take care.
@@karlwheatley1244 I agree about that, but I see her work as a supplement to what we know already as opposed to a replacement. I do think legislation, bans, guidelines, investments etc are all necessary to make a bigger impact quickly. This will not solve itself.
@@laliday "I do think legislation, bans, guidelines, investments etc are all necessary to make a bigger impact quickly." Agreed. What I'm complaining about is that how she defines sustainability is inaccurate and underdefined, she's wrong that we are making overall progress, and she is spreading so-called "hopium" when things are much worse than she is saying--and people need to know that when planning the path forward.
Take care.
It's not the end of humanity but it's the end of civilization as we know it. So it depends what you mean with the world as the word world can mean many of different things. But regardless how you see it climate change will lead to allot of humans will die in wars, famines, and diseases.
Global Political Military (Government) Deterrence and Containment depend on Fossil Fuel Control.
Governments have to implement the change. What is an average person to do?
Run for a seat in government? Get to know your representatives? Lobby them? Write and inform them of things? Make videos of yourself explaining things since that might be more effective? Do letters to the editor? Take up oxygen talking to your friends and community about it?
I personally chewed out Vice President Al Gore about how his family wealth was attacking the indigenous U'wa people in the rainforest in Colombia - and he needs to read his own book.
LoL why shut the barn door after the horse has bolted? Stop having kids and live for today, cuz there ain’t no tomorrow. That’s the solution.
Your guest seems disconnected from the realities of resource constraints and finite environment. She clearly is only addressing a small, selective portion of climate change and ignoring the real problem of overshoot. Useless.
Bingo!
Thanks for highlighting data driven opportunities
12 billion billionaires are not inconsistent with a fusion AI Ultra-Flexinol based party on sexy monkey troop. We all can have it all always if we smile and are nice. Probably 20 billion really so long as they have guns and liberty.
Dang it Chester! we’re having serious adult conversations here, and you come in all high and everything being funny. That ain’t no way to save the world buster, take it from the experts.
Excellent, a bit of hope. Yet huge scope of problems, barely ameliorated.
Media & (Western) politics are the problem for action, for morale.
That’s just AGW.
Food (artificial production) is next challenge - totally agree, but not carbon, habitat & species loss.
We can eliminate both broad acre grains and animal husbandry, return land as habitat.
A lot of work required, we’ll need widespread robots & artificial intelligence to succeed.
No, we don't necessarily need to throw more high tech shit at our self-created problems (and then discover more unintended consequences). We do need human will, human energy, human connection, human cooperation, human political solidarity, and that's why I personally don't think our way out of this (if there is such a thing) is going to be anything we can predict, because in 72 years I haven't seen a lot of lasting unity in human civilization for the sake of mostly intangible, undefined, probably less-financially profitable collective benefits. In other words, the mass of people are programmed to focus on short term practicality, rather than long term reality.
Why can’t I report "Ira" for pornography?
Human-caused Global Warming
Human-caused Global Warming
Human-caused Global Warming
Human-caused Global Warming
Human-caused Global Warming
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
Voldemort
9:37
The hottest temperature since measurements began? These are not relevant facts! Measurement in the shade? Where measured?
That is no real!
Bye! ❤
This lady uses her brother as an example of someone who’s doing something good for the environment. Buying a Tesla.
If her brother is charging the Tesla with renewable energy, then I see her point. If he is like most Tesla owners, charging their batteries with grid power, (probably coal, natural gas, diesel with a little bit of wind and solar.) then it’s not much good.
Right now most of our governments are controlled by the fossil fuel industry.
Until that changes there is NO hope for a livable climate in the future. PERIOD.
Well, that's partially correct. But even if you're charging on a grid using fossil fuels, the grid is more efficient and pollutes less than individual combustion engines do through the principles of economy of scale. More people using EVs also makes transitioning to a renueables based grid more attractive and feasible. At worst, it does no more harm than ĥaving a combustion engine vehicle would.
@@stevenkies802 Steve, I’m not sure you’re right on that. I seem to remember that a diesel generator can generate around 14 KWH per gallon of diesel. 1 gallon of diesel fuel can generate about 100,000 BTUs. 1 kWh equals 3415 BTUs the last time I checked.
I guarantee you that my numbers are not exactly correct however, they’re not off by that much. When you burn a gallon of diesel in a generator you lose about 30% or more of the energy in the diesel when you convert it into electrical energy.
So I’m pretty sure you’re wrong that it’s a wash. Please look it up. You don’t seem like the type of person trying to spread misinformation.
You may be right that if more people bought EV’s, we would be able to transition to renewables faster But, I’m not sure why that would be the case.
oil companies own the politicians and much of the energy infrastructure in the United States and in the world. That’s the big problem we need to fix! I think we’ve got the technology pretty well figured out.
@@stevenkies802 1 kWh = 3412.14163312794 BTU
I had to look it up.
Anyway, economies of scale are good for something, but they are not magic. Even if you are able to reclaim part of the heat from a diesel power plant, you will still lose at least 25% of the energy when you convert it to electric. Burning coal is really bad for air quality. Anyway, I’m sticking with my original thinking. The only sane way to charge an EV is with renewable energy. Please let your local politicians understand that you know this fact, and you’re not gonna vote for them unless they promote renewables as if life itself was at stake.
Not to mention the Aerosol Masking Effect is twice as bad as previously thought as Daniel Rosenfeld research proved. So less coal means another 1 degree Celsius temp increase in the atmosphere!! Hilarious. These data wonk people IGNORE the real ecological truth of geophysics. I'm all for policy solutions - I worked on policy solutions as an activist for 25 years!! hahahaha.
And as usual, we'll just blow by the resources used to mine, refine, transport, forge and construct millions of vehicles, cover huge swaths of land with pavement and parking, the waste of time and energy sitting in traffic, etc, ad infinitum, that comes with letting the car be king of the transportation system for much of the world.
It's a shame they always look only at the big picture, instead of just telling us what each individual or household can do every day to help bring us in a better position while they also work on the more serious matters.
You could burn lignite coal to heat your home and provide all the energy you could ever need, driving a horrendously inefficient car, travel by jet weekly, and over your entire lifetime you wouldn't come to 1% of the carbon footprint that America's energy companies create in a year... the idea that your individual contribution is what matters in this fight is the direct result of corporate marketing so those corporations don't have to do anything that would risk their record profits while you get to mentally masturbate about how much "good" you are doing for the environment.
- Consume less.
- Plant a garden.
- Develop supportive relationships and networks.
- Western habits and expectations must change, and that can actually result in more meaningful lives.
@@anahata2009 The only thing most people love more than freedom is slavery. It’s less work for one thing.
I think you’re missing the point of this video. This young lady wrote a book and wants you to buy a copy. Period.
Doomism has pretty much now exceeded denialism as our species' greatest threat sadly.
I don't see how doomism threatens the species. I never hear of doommers lobbying for partying like it's 1999. Actually I believe that people like Hanah Ritchie are the bigger threat, by offering soothing thoughts, allowing us to keep doing basically nothing.
she is wrong all the facts prove we are done. she needs to study more,,learn more wake up people
Please post your references. I don’t think we’re done but I’ve got very little confidence that we will ever have. The political will to stop this freight train. I get my climate information from James Hansen fyi
What’s that gonna do for everyone? Besides prove you right?
You’ve misunderstood the point of the video. The young lady is here to sell you her book. Period.
Yap, yap, yap, yap..... this is a great example of why the general public hates the renewable fuel discussion. Alternative energy sources will never provide the energy density required for energy hungry humans. Natural gas, nuclear, hydro, petroleum, and coal can and do provide what we need at a reasonable cost. If you want anyone to take you seriously you can't look in their eyes and tell them alternative fuels are cost effective in the short term. Humans live 80 years. That is short term.
You're being proven wrong every day.
Do you personally mine uranium?
@@linguaphile42 please do tell. Almost all renewable energy sources are subsidized by the government to make it feasible. This is how it should be. We use the rest of our dwindling supply of fossil fuels to build the infrastructure and do the research for tommorow's energy solutions. We can innovate without hamstringing ourselves.
Electric cars are really bad ideas.
Petrol or dieselgate cars are worse, 10 times.
BEVs are a start, along with solar & wind electricity.
I’m guessing you’re just a troll, out to distract, spread FUD propaganda for oil industry.
@@iandavies4853 They help build our world, and made it possible for you to communicate with Wanda there.
No, but electric cars powered by diesel, coal, and natural gas are not much of a solution.
Can't push for an alternative cleaner sources to diesel and gas until you have alternative kinds of trucks and cars.
@@solarwind907 europe chose diesel gate as solution to AGW, US chose humongous pickups, China chose EVs.
Now China owns car manufacturing globally, US & EU dying.
China also makes PV for entire world, own this industry too, EU tied to Russian methane gas from frozen north, US swapped coal for fracked methane gas.
It pays to plan for the future, not be dragged there against your will.
Don't get me started on burps and farts of cows. My husband gives off more methane when he eats rice and beans.