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Originally Posted by Mathgod
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Thanks for posting, this was definitely an interesting video.
Here is where the video lost me a bit though, right around the 13:30 mark where he attributes massive increases to life expectancy, world population, world GDP, and then verbally- sanitation systems and agricultural developments, not to mention all those inventions he displays before all this- he attributes all these things to science.
I think he is partially wrong and ignores a massive part of why human development is the way it is. I think so much of the above is attributable to the rise of- you guessed it-
fossil fuel use. This is the problem with climate change and the recommendations posed to global societies writ large.
How are we supposed to
maintain- I mean set aside improve, but just maintain- standards of living, global GDP, world populations and life expectancies without fossil fuel use?
I am all for suggestions and improvements to energy systems, invention, new ways of living and hell even new societal establishments but if this implies that we are 20 or 30 years out from some kind of phase out of fossil fuels I just can't buy into that. Fossil fuels is what has enabled the spur of invention, devices, plastics, food, medicines, transportation systems, computing systems, communication, health care and education systems, broad economic stimulus in modern economies and societies that have industrialized. Science is no doubt, absolutely, a part of that- a very crucial part of that, but it is on the back of fossil fuels that enabled all of this.
That's the juxtaposition and problem whenever you hear people say "no fossil fuels" because all I hear is that they are willing to risk killing more people than climate change might. Starvation and heating homes and societal stability are critical things too so it should not shock idealogues that there are some- in the words of the video- healthy skepticism- especially in the face of this uncertainty the author notes.