Dr. Deborah Brosnan, a climate and ocean scientist, predicts that Earth could eventually become uninhabitable for humans given the grave state of the planet
How can you be so optimistic? With everything that’s going on in the world, I get more pessimistic everyday. At bad days, I’d just think “let just humanity perish because we just keep repeating the same horrible things over and over anyway”.
The social media echo chamber has that effect. But statistically speaking, this is humanity’s golden age. The average lifespan is up, we have instant global communication and positioning (wow!), conflict is down (take the wider view)…
Like, even if you added Ukraine and Gaza to this, they’re small compared to historical conflicts. And this graph would be even more pronounced if we normalized it as percentages against the global population – literally the last few generations have been least likely to die in conflict across all of human history.
For me its because if you zoom out, the world is a better place to live in now, than it was 1000 years ago. Progress moves in waves, and right now it definitely feels like a significant low tide, but over time the coastline keeps creeping forward.
Humanity is the only meat eating animal that has significant percentage of its population willingly avoiding eating meat and instead finding ways to obtain essential nutrients without it (need to add that I am NOT one of those animals, I’m personally waiting for lab grown meat before I obstain from death based meat, if I ever do)
Humanity by and large no longer needs to leave its sick and wounded to die because we invented technology and infrastructure to both heal, and take care of those we cant heal
We’ve progressed to the point as a species where in order to bring more prosperity to our community, we no longer have to take from other communities, and that wasnt always the case (unfortunately this is only a recent achievement, and as such, not all of our population has adapted to this, hence our current problems)
Sure it’s been a long struggle with deniers and alternate reality and those purposely working against the need but it’s been even longer …
Think of the lightbulb wars! There was all the same pattern of denial, obstruction, intentional malfeasance, but we won! Lighting now uses 80% less power than before while lasting much longer! But it’s been even longer ….
I was a kid in the 1970’s so I’ve seen huge improvements in airr and water quality, toxic waste cleanup, appliance efficiency, weather proofing, ozone hole, and yes, huge improvements in climate change. Despite all the doom and gloom we are approaching peak emissions and ready to turn the corner! We do have many of the technologies we need, and just need to scale them up while working on the rest
My gf calls me a “radical optimist” for believing in people eventually doing the right thing :)
How can you be so optimistic? With everything that’s going on in the world, I get more pessimistic everyday. At bad days, I’d just think “let just humanity perish because we just keep repeating the same horrible things over and over anyway”.
The social media echo chamber has that effect. But statistically speaking, this is humanity’s golden age. The average lifespan is up, we have instant global communication and positioning (wow!), conflict is down (take the wider view)…
Like, even if you added Ukraine and Gaza to this, they’re small compared to historical conflicts. And this graph would be even more pronounced if we normalized it as percentages against the global population – literally the last few generations have been least likely to die in conflict across all of human history.
For me its because if you zoom out, the world is a better place to live in now, than it was 1000 years ago. Progress moves in waves, and right now it definitely feels like a significant low tide, but over time the coastline keeps creeping forward.
Humanity is the only meat eating animal that has significant percentage of its population willingly avoiding eating meat and instead finding ways to obtain essential nutrients without it (need to add that I am NOT one of those animals, I’m personally waiting for lab grown meat before I obstain from death based meat, if I ever do)
Humanity by and large no longer needs to leave its sick and wounded to die because we invented technology and infrastructure to both heal, and take care of those we cant heal
We’ve progressed to the point as a species where in order to bring more prosperity to our community, we no longer have to take from other communities, and that wasnt always the case (unfortunately this is only a recent achievement, and as such, not all of our population has adapted to this, hence our current problems)
“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson
Same here - parts take climate change ….
Sure it’s been a long struggle with deniers and alternate reality and those purposely working against the need but it’s been even longer …
Think of the lightbulb wars! There was all the same pattern of denial, obstruction, intentional malfeasance, but we won! Lighting now uses 80% less power than before while lasting much longer! But it’s been even longer ….
I was a kid in the 1970’s so I’ve seen huge improvements in airr and water quality, toxic waste cleanup, appliance efficiency, weather proofing, ozone hole, and yes, huge improvements in climate change. Despite all the doom and gloom we are approaching peak emissions and ready to turn the corner! We do have many of the technologies we need, and just need to scale them up while working on the rest