I think nuclear is the higher priority, though. Electricity is mostly generated by coal or gas. — Tate

Nuclear is electricity-production, that would have to replace all other current electricity-production (which is 20% all total energy-use) and also everything else that uses fossil fuels directly as energy, like transport or factory-ovens (which is the other 80%). That latter 80% needs to be electrified first, before we can use electricity as the energy-source, like we are doing now with the electric car.

Really? Is there research on that? Just curious. — Tate

I'm just relying on experts here that seem reliable to me. We have scrubbers already as prototypes, but they seem woefully inefficient energy-wise, and therefor hardly scalable... which makes sense if you consider that greenhouses gasses, while high enough to raise temperature, are still very small concentrations in the air.

Yes, but it doesn't seem to be in the direction of global cooperation. And democratic governments are generally screwed. Apathy takes over. — Tate

I think it could go any way still. Apathy, or even open conflict because of higher stressed relations and scarcity, are all definite possibilities... but so is cooperation, for instance if the need is truly high. In WWII the US and the USSR commies were besties and fighting side by side to defeat the fascists... go figure.

Feasible in what sense? If every nation converts to nuclear power and we start building large scale scrubbers, we could at least reverse some of the changes we've already contributed.

Is that feasible for our generation? No. — Tate

Nuclear (maybe some renewables) and electrification of everything, is what is needed, as well as a fundamental rethinking of agriculture. Forget scrubbers, concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the air are to small to make it worth it to actively pull them out.

It's not feasible in normal times, no, because of the sheer scale of it. Maybe it would be possible in something akin to a transitioning to a wartime economy, like the US or Germany in WWII. That may seem unlikely right now, but we don't know what will happen in volatile times... look at the war and energy crisis in Europe right now. Nobody could have predicted that a few years ago.

Times are definitely a changing.

I agree.

Just as in the Zeihan example, over dramatization still is not great when you are dealing with facts. It's far too easy to ask the question: Is China really to collapse now immediately and get the answer "Likely not". The same happens if we take the most dire forecast in the shortest time period. When that most dire forecast doesn't happen (in the few months or one year) it's supposed to happen, you can seriously question then the forecaster.

To think that the most dire forecast is just a way to "wake up" people and hence it's OK to be alarmist, then one should remember that to get most closest to what happens will be the best forecast. — ssu

Ok, maybe I agree that this kind of alarmism as a political strategy isn't all that helpful, in that it potentially alienates those that weren't already convinced even further. But I'm not sure really, maybe it did help to some extend, climate change certainly is high on the agenda now.

But I wasn't talking about political strategy. Aside from any political impact one may want to have, I just think the truth is that the problem is very very serious, and one is entirely justified in being alarmed, as a normal human reaction to something like this.

Like, we are leaving behind the only climate in history wherein human civilisation have developed and existed thus far, probably permanently for all our intents and purposes... that is quite something. Climate change at the very least will be a risk or stress multiplier on all or most of our vital system, energy, food, water, shelter... for centuries to come. And then we are one of the most adaptable species with our technology, a lot of the rest of the biosphere will have less of a chance to adapt to this unprecedent rate of change.

All of this is pretty bleak and depressing I think, and the mental tax from this on young and future generations is by itself already a tragedy it seems to me.

A good while back I read this book that dealt with these questions, a preface to Plato (history of the Greek mind). I thought it quite interesting at the time :

https://monoskop.org/images/0/0d/Havelock_Eric_A_Preface_to_Plato.pdf

Part of differences between myth an philosophy have to do with the transition of an oral tradition wherein myth originated, to a written tradition. Purely from a practical point of view alone, it is perhaps easy to see that oral pieces that are preformed, will tend to have different characteristic, like how they sound (instead of read) and the fact that you have to memorize them. Verse, narrative, rhyme all are mnemonic devices that you strictly speaking don't need anymore if a text is preserved in written form.

And that's alarmism. Call something existential when it's really existential, then you don't fall into alarmism: of making unwarranted claims. The Sun poses an existential threat to life on Earth as current theory on the sun's stages in the future holds, but that is in the billion year time scale. This isn't just a rhetorical question, it really drives the discussion. Because pointing this out, I am categorized as being non-alarmed about climate change, as simply giving a "meh" about it. When doubting the most severe predictions is labeled as being a denier of the whole problem, that is a real problem for honest discussion. We have to avoid the lures of tribalism and making making issues to be like religious movements with their proper liturgy and other views considered blasphemy. — ssu

I actually made more or less the same point a while back in a discussion with Xtrix in the climate change thread, so I do sort of agree, existential threat is a technical term with a specific meaning and therefor shouldn't be used to describe the threat:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11305/climate-change-general-discussion/p6

But my point this time was that it doesn't really matter that it isn't an existential threat, it is still or should be very alarming nevertheless.

I had this same issue come out on the Xi Jinping and the CCP has no clothes thread where, yes, China is facing real difficulties and no, China isn't going to collapse. Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Peter Zeihan seems a bit too much of a demographic determinist and he also constantly over-dramatizes things, probably because it increases his value as a geo-political pundit in times where extreme positions are rewarded by algorithms... So I would take everything he says with a grain of salt, but I do agree to some extend that China has an enormous challenges purely based on demographics and water/food security. You cannot really replace all those aging people, and if climate change causes more droughts and famines it could go fast... every regime-collapse in China's history has been about food at base.

Or it's similar when talking about the financial system. I believe that sooner or later our international monetary system will have a huge crisis and something new will replace this present system. Yes, it's also a big issue, even if climate change is a fa larger issue. But that collapse doesn't mean a societal collapse. The last time when the monetary system collapsed, many didn't even notice what had happened. — ssu

But we did avoid a far bigger crash back then, right? And even if avoided, it still caused a lot of issues for a lot of people.

Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Sure this is definitely a thing, and we should try to avoid it... but at the same time we shouldn't disregard serious issues either because some people are prone to doom.

Those numbers are a bit disingenuous SSU. It's not now that matters most or the positive trend up till now (as if that trend is automatically going to continue/is empirically proven!).... It's the future impacts of climate change that are the real problem. We only have had what, 1.1 or so increase in temperature as of now? The problems are already being felt now, but the real problems only start with 1.5°, 2° C increase in 10 or 20 years, and then it could get really tough by the end of the century if we get to 3° or more... for centuries to come.

Not being an existential problem is a very low bar. I know there's people focusing especially on existential risk, for humans to survive as a species, but frankly I couldn't care less about "the species" if the world is turned into an arid hothouse where most of the other species have died off and only small portions of the globe are really livable without technological assistance. Seriously, I don't get this type of reasoning, it's like saying to someone you will lose most of your limbs, your eyes, your stomach etc, but don't be alarmed we can keep you alive just fine by hooking you up to this machine for the rest of your life.

This is a pretty common idea, but what is exactly the logic behind it?

What is the exact mechanism that requires modern economies to grow in order to be considered healthy?

Perpetual growth seems more like a demand of governments that need to compete with their peers (think for example the US-China rivalry; to stand still is to lag behind), compensation for extremely irresponsible fiscal policy and monetary policy and to keep afloat a system of social security that is not economically feasible in the long run.

Just some questions / thoughts your comment raised in me. — Tzeentch

I'm no economist, but from what i've gathered one of the reasons is that we need growth to offset all the debt we accumulate.

Debt is essentially a claim on the future. Take a house loan for example, you already have the house and can live in it, but haven't yet paid for the labor, materials, value of the ground etc etc... You need money to pay it off, and you need to produce goods or services to accumulate that money. So essentially debt means you have to do work in the future to pay back something you get right away.

Taken as a whole, a lot of debt is accumulated in our economies, more and more actually, which means we will have to produce a lot of stuff in the future to pay that back. If the economy shrinks, we would have trouble making good on all those claims on the future because we produce less (that is what shrinking means in economic terms)... and presumably that would break the system.

Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but it does sound plausible to me.

However, to the people who disagree that global warming is a threat, that climate change isn't real, I would like to have a polite and interesting discussion about why you feel the way you do. — SackofPotatoeJam

Climate change would be our greatest threat if we keep emitting greenhouse gasses at the same pace or even at a reduced pace. I don't think we will, not necessarily because we will reduce emissions voluntarily, but because of collapse or reduction of industrialization.

Basically the idea is that economic growth (that is linked almost 1 to 1 with energy-consumption) as we had for a couple of centuries now, is not the norm nor 'business as usual', but mostly something that was and is only possible because of burning of cheap fossil fuels. They are reliable, energy-dense, easy to use... and most importantly they also have been cheap. As they are limited and easily available stocks run out however, they will get progressively more expensive. As economic growth relies on cheap energy, it will halt and this will eventually also crash our economy because it is essentially set up around the idea of perpetual growth. Presumably all of this will stress relations in and between countries even further, probably leading to a lot of conflict and wars.

So in short my guess is that we will keep emitting for a while until we can't anymore at the cost we need, which will crash industrial globalized civilization or peg it down a serious notch... which will presumably reduce emissions even further. This will probably still amount to 2 to 3 C° rise in global temperature, which is really bad to be clear, but not that bad relative to the other problems we will be dealing with.

The point of the research is that a lot of policies that seem economically effective, like tradeable carbon credits, are hated because people consider them unfair.. — Benkei

Sure, but that's part of the problem, no? If we wait to do something about climate change until we a have policies that impact everybody equally, we might have to wait until it's to late. The rich are rather good at avoiding taxes and social responsibilities. And then across countries you also have the tragedy of the commons/prisoners dilemma, in that in a world of competing countries you don't want to be the first to make sacrifices that makes you weaker competitively.

People have no problems with making sacrifices as long as everybody does. — Benkei

I don't see evidence for this specifically in the study, but I only skimmed it so maybe I missed it.

They hardly mention any sacrifices that would have to be made to implement the policies, as that doesn't seem to be the subject of the study.

A ban on the combustion engine is hardly a sacrifice if it is understood that they can be replaced by electric engines, a transition that would probably have to be be subsidized by the state anyway.

Also, agreeing with investment for a green transition if they get the money for the investments from the rich is no sacrifice at all:

"Figure A6 shows the answers to the question about which sources of funding respondents would consider appropriate for public investments in green infrastructures. Respondents tend to agree that appropriate funding sources are higher taxes on the wealthiest and a carbon tax. They are much less likely to agree with additional public debt, reductions in social spending, reductions in military spending, or increases in the sales taxes as appropriate sources of funding."

Loosely translated, they would agree to more green investments if it doesn't cost them anything.

Anyway, talk is cheap, across Europe governments are falling over eachothers feet now to reduce energy-prices for the public, which is the opposite of what a green policy should look like because it incentivizes energy-consumption which leads to more emissions.

Yes voluntary degrowth isn't going to happen, since politicians that would push that agenda wouldn't stay in power for very long. Case in point, Europe's current energy crisis. They'd rather turn to coal than accept they will have to do with less energy... And this from the continent that was arguably most willing to try and do something about the climate crisis.

Since voluntary degrowth is no option, we need to try to innovate and transition our way out of it. We especially need more Nuclear power plants, as fast as possible, to try and replace some of the energy we get from fossil fuels. It's the only carbon-free energy source that is reliable and energy-dense enough. Renewables can complement those, but can and should never have been the main replacement. They are simply not energy efficient enough, and you'll always have intermittency problems.

The alternative is involuntary degrowth, or collapse... and that would presumably be even worse since then one tends to turn to the more low-tech energy-sources, which also usually happen to be the most pollutant, like coal.

Anyway, in short, we need more nuclear power. It's safe, it's reliable, it's clean... only problem is, it has a bad rep. The alternatives are a hothouse earth, or a total collapse of industrial civilization.

My counter would be that as a living being it's weird to prefer death over life, as sustaining its lifeform over time, and propagating it, is essentially what life is. That is what defines living beings/sets life apart from non-living things.

So in other words, preferring life over death seems to me a default, almost axiomatic valuation of living beings, and doesn't need any further justification really.

Considering that, my question to you then would be, what prompted you to flip this basic instinctive valuation on its head?

What causes life to turn on life?

You ask for a reason to live, but at base this is not a question about 'reason', or abstract arguments that need to be given for life... but more a question of personal motivation, which is concerned with the affective and aesthetic. What really moves you, what do you find beautiful? What do you feel? If you can answer that, and organize your life around that, I'd think you'll find that the need for coming up with abstract reasons to live goes away.

I think it's a problem for all political parties: when your base intensely believes in some myth which isn't true, they won't start to correct their supporters, even if they know it's not true. — ssu

Yes one of the functions of a political ideology is also that it appeals to, recruits and ties people to a political party. And since people tend to like simple narratives more than say the intricate minutia of public policy, I don't think there's a way around this really.

We are seeing now quite clearly that the mantra "we just have to turn to renewable energy sources" isn't the short term answer that we can pick. — ssu

No that's right, yet it'll take a while still until parties will change that mantra... unless of course an energy crisis will take political parties in speed.

I wonder how long it will take political parties to come clean on the myth of progress and perpetual economic growth ;-)

I think France is just fanatic about other things than Germany... :-) — Olivier5

No doubt :-)

On the green movement, I'm critical of it because I think it could be the one political movement with actual solutions to our current predicament. We definitely need an ecological perspective of some kind going forward. But as it stands, the movement usually doesn't deliver, because I think at base it's a bit confused and can't seem to decide between being a real political player that wants to shape current society, and being this impractical back-to-nature fantasy that can't be realised. It probably should let go of the latter, but then that is what seems to appeal to a lot of people. That's why nuclear power plants are such a hard issue for them, and not only in Germany.

Yes maybe that comment wasn't entirely fair towards France... I just wanted to show Germany screwed up because of their ideological inflexibility and despite their best efforts to do 'good'. France is generally a bit less 'fanatic', or maybe more 'lax' than Germany, depending on how you want to frame it... and yet it is still better of energy-wise.

I know France has a decent amount of renewables, I've just been there a few days ago, and the landscape is absolutely filled with windmills along the big highways.

It's funny and ironic too in so many ways, because no other country probably has done so many investments into renewables and such to actually try and do something about climate change. That is unlike say France for example, but they just lucked out because of their historical investments in Nuclear (before carbon was an issue) which now makes them one of the least Carbon-emitting countries relatively.

It's fear of the bomb... combined with an aversion of technology, human hubris, of which the splitting of atoms is a prime example.

That's how it goes I suppose, ideologies are historically contingent. There is some weird 'logic' to them in the way they evolve over time. When confronted with environmental problems, the green movement latched onto some pre-existing religious myths that seems vaguely applicable. Looking for something familiar is probably not a bad idea if you are looking for a way into the hearts and minds of people.

And then, when an ideology is established, when confronted with some new eventuality, it initially doesn't really matter what the facts are because of the inertia of people believing in a story that has been told in a certain way over the years.

Anyway, what this whole affair illustrates to me is 1) that we don't really have that much collective agency as we would like to think, and 2) that ultimately when a country has to make a choice between the two, energy-security will take precedence over measures to combat climate change.

It's a useful convention, allowing us to apply logic, make inferences, abstract and generalize etc etc... enabling us to built up knowledge.

It's important to keep in mind that the law of identity, and logic in general, is not about the world, but about language only.

We arbitrarily split classes of particular things off from the whole/the flux of existence by giving them labels, and decide that classes of things that are given the same labels are equal to themselves.... even though 'in reality' only particulars are equal to themselves, and only at the exact same time.

The fact that x is not exactly equal to x generally, doesn't matter all that much, because it still works for our intents and purposes. And we need this basic 'falsification', because without it we wouldn't be able to abstract from particulars to something more general... any kind of knowledge would be impossible.

And those changes we cannot say are from a tradition. — ssu

I think they are ssu. This will no doubt be a contentious point, but I'd say the whole recent 'woke' flare is a direct continuation of the Christian tradition with its focus on suffering, victim-hood, the individual etc... Of course those taken in by these morals will claim to have some a-historical objective source for them, but that's par for the course... it's always more convincing to have morals spring from the fabric of reality itself than to acknowledge that they are something we create as we go.

You didn't really address the point I was making. We can use our judgement when deciding on how to act, we can be more aware or sensitive to moral issues, etc... this is all fine. I'm saying, when making these judgement, the values and ideas you use come from somewhere. It's not God, it's not pure reason and it's not intuition or some pristine awareness of right or wrong... it's traditions and culture in the broadest sense.

Why does this matter? Because if you let tradition or culture turn to shit, you will end up a lot of people using shit ideas when making these moral judgement. But it's all fine, let's just tell that gen Z kid who grew up on a diet of internet adds, instagram posts and Tiktok vids to cultivate and nurture some moral awareness on his own.

Ethics are more bound to autonomous moral agents, doing right in whatever given situation regardless of traditions; traditions are more bound to culture, following whatever has been done before regardless of doing what's right. — jorndoe

Yeah I think people, or maybe better western philosophy since Socrates, are confused about there being something right regardless of context. I don't think the idea makes much sense without God, which is why western philosophy has been struggling with moral foundations ever since.

You obviously have different ideas and opinions within traditions, but then you are not evaluating tradition to some outside fixed moral standard, but to just another strand within said tradition.

The idea of autonomous moral agents acting morally regardless of traditions is also a bit of a misguided idea I think. We don't pop into existence as blank adult moral agents, but are gradually educated in certain moral ideas given by our cultures and traditions. Moral intuitions are also formed by the traditions we grow up in, not some pristine moral judge we can rely on the find moral good and bad without context.

There is nothing outside. People seem to have trouble accepting that.

What I'm saying is that they aren't so interdependent as to say ethics = tradition. Ethics can change due to events, public and political debate about ethical issues and changes in the society. That doesn't mean that ethics are linked to traditions of the culture and society. — ssu

I'm not sure you're making a real distinction there, or what that distinction would be exactly? Isn't something that changes due to events, public and political debate, a kind of tradition, something that is socially constructed? Moral constructivism is not saying all tradition is ethics either, but that what is ethical or moral is determined by societal traditions... those traditions would be larger than merely ethics or morals strictu sensu, but do include them. So maybe we don't really disagree.

Ethics can obviously change, hence ethics ≠ traditions. — ssu

But traditions do change, which is why ethics change.

I'm a bit confused because usually the argument against moral constructivism is something like
1. slavery used to be accepted by certain ancient traditions
2. slavery is obviously wrong
3. therefor tradition cannot be the thing that determines ethics and morals.

The argument against tradition as morality is typically one in which morality is seen out of it's historical context (slavery is morally bad regardless, always, everywhere), and therefor contrary to what you seem to be saying, 'unchangeble' or absolute.

I don't see ethics changing as a problem for moral contructivism.... it's rather a problem for moral realists, absolutists, universalists etc.

Ethics ≠ traditions. — jorndoe

I guess this is where the divide in views springs from, for the moral constructivist, the traditions, the mores (customs) actually are the ethics and morals. In this view, if you dissolve these traditions for whatever reason, you have nothing left, or rather they get constructed in other unconscious and perhaps unfortunate ways, like say by corporate advertising. This is not to say that you can't critique traditions if you hold a constructivist view, but that the critique will necessarily be formulated from within the constructed system, immanent, and not by holding it up to some absolute moral standard that exist outside of time or context, transcendent (because that simply is nonsense in that view).

Conclusion: If we do not have public figures who would sacrifice themselves in order to defend our land, politics (both left and right) are not long relatable. Political figures were representatives of our traditions back then. But now they are kidnapped by money and sinful practices. They do not have honour nor ethics. It looks like they do not even assume responsibilities. They [politicians] do not care about us and our identity problem.
They are so coward that they would not be brave enough to sacrifice themselves to save the country. — javi2541997

I think even this is merely a symptom and not the 'cause'. An individual is also mostly a product of the society they grow up in, more than the other way around at the very least. Or put in other words you tend to get these kinds of politicians because there is already something rotten in society.

What is missing after dissolution of traditional structures in the past centuries is an idea of 'societal good', or even 'ecological good' that transcends individuals. This idea of a hierarchy of values should be evident, we simply cannot survive as individuals, or at least not flourish, if society collapses or if the biosphere dies for instance... we depend on the functioning of larger structures.

A society needs to venerate something, put something at the center of it's valuations, that is larger than a mere sum of individuals to function properly. The problem is not one of individual character, i.e. that these people are not brave enough to sacrifice themselves, the problem is that the idea that one should sacrifice something for the greater good has become laughable in current societies.

I want to say confidence in fiat isn't entirely made out of whole cloth. People come to these conclusion because the times, the socio-economical climate is pointing in that direction. In other more stable times one wouldn't deem it worthy of consideration.

Yes inflation is I guess always to some extend about confidence, that is what ultimately keeps increasing the velocity of the inflation-ball. But the ball has to start rolling somewhere. Gas-prices in Europe are 5x to 10x of what they where last year and summer is only beginning. These increases are not a confidence issue, but competition on the energy-market driving up the prices. There is the Ukraine war too yes, but prices were already peaking before the war. This is a long-term structural problem, because climate change, because increasing scarcity of resources, because a badly managed energy-transition, because rising geo-political tensions etc... I don't think it's going away any time soon.

Mostly what I see is record profits. For those without record profits, the usual happens: they enrich themselves to the bitter end, then file for bankruptcy while giving themselves huge bonuses. — Xtrix

Yes tacitly, and even not so tacitly, this is what is generally understood as the maxim of our societies, get ahead by whatever means, whatever the cost... just don't do it overly explicit.

But you are right, it is a belief and could be otherwise. What that otherwise entails though is another question, and one to which one might not altogether like the answer.

You say part of the problem is that the populace has "subscribed to the bullshit ideas of corporate America". But that isn't exactly how it works, one does not choose to subscribe to one of a wide range of possible and available options, more apt would be to say they have been conditioned in the corporate consumerist bullshit. Corporate advertising has largely replaced or subsumed societal myth/religion/traditions/mores, whatever you want to call it. and part of what made that possible are historical movements to dissolve those societal structures.

Anyway I could go on, but my point I guess is that the problem runs a bit deeper than expecting corporations to unilaterally and suddenly change their goals to something other than profit-seeking. They are also imbedded in systems that give them certain incentives and constrain them.

Sure, but when profits are so high it's worth asking whether or not these corporations can absorb the cost. Turns out they could -- I see no reason why they can't, or no good reason. Rather, they raise prices -- which is passing the extra cost onto others. Why should this be ignored? It's glaringly obvious this is just rampant greed. — Xtrix

Right, you're asking for systemic change then, because companies are no social organisations but specifically set up to make profit. In the current set-up one would expect corporations to try and keep their profit margin, right? I mean, I certainly would be surprised if corporations all of a sudden would collectively and voluntarily decide to absorb the cost themselves.

And I will say, I doubt all corporations could absorb the increase in cost all by themselves. Some, the bigger ones probably could, other ones I'm not so sure.

It's decreasing though. — Benkei

You're talking about consumer electronics specifically here?

Second area, we've seen shortages in components and raw materials due to covid disruptions since 2020 causing inflationary pressures during the pandemic. You would expect, especially if people would be spending more coming out of covid, that production capacity would increase. Instead we've seen three quarters of reduced shipping in consumer electronics. Why? — Benkei

Apparently there is already a drop in demand this year, after the "post-covid" surge last year, coupled with lock-down issues in China, and inflation, etc... all apparently contributing to a scaling down in shipping.

https://www.market-prospects.com/articles/weak-demand-for-consumer-electronics-and-ease-the-shortages-of-supply-chain

But point well taking, this was probably not a good example for the more general point I was trying to argue there.

That's why you have the price mechanism. If something becomes unobtainable, it's price goes extremely high. That creates incentives to replace the "something" with another thing. Hence high oil prices are the best thing that can happen to alternative energy resources. — ssu

Yeah substitutability, that works only up to some extend. Batteries without lithium are inferior,maybe we will eventually find something that could replace lithium, maybe not, there are not an infinite amount of elements in the periodic table. Or fertilizer for example is made with natural gas, we don't know of any good other way I don't think. In the abstract it sounds good, but there are practical 'physical' problem to the idea.

Hence high oil prices are the best thing that can happen to alternative energy resources — SSU

Only if oil and its derivatives aren't used to produce and distribute said alternative energy sources, which is, as it stands, a big if.

Either way, and I've said this before, coal, oil and natural gas are by far the most energy dense sources of energy we have access to. They are the reason we have had an industrial revolution to begin with. I highly doubt the idea of substitutability applies to fossil fuels, because they are what the entire economic system as we know is build on, and not only for the energy they provide. But the amount of energy you can use directly translates to amount of work that can be done, which in turn directly ties into the productivity-equation. If you need to invest more to get access to other energy sources, i.e. energy will be more expensive, this will have consequences for the rest of the economy.

And btw to everybody, has anybody seen anything anymore from the MMT crowd? :snicker: — ssu

Yeah I also would like to see someone try an explanation post-inflation :-). I dunno, I though it had some promise because we didn't have inflation for the longest time no matter what we did it seems, but what we have now seems a knock against it to say the least.

Energy crisis, making basically everything more expensive globally as it is at the base of the entire economy.

Also certain material shortages left and right.

And accumulated debt in the system trying to correct itself.

Those are underlying long term structural causes I'd say, then you also have short term factor like covid, Ukraine war, geo-political tensions and protectionism etc...

Demand takes off after covid, but it turn out supply of energy and materials is rather inelastic ... Increasing energy supply for example typically involves building large infrastructure taking years to build. So prices can only go up if we want to resume growth after covid, which implies increased demand.

Since energy and materials supplies and debt are a structural problem going forward, I'd expect some kind of long-term economic consequences, but wouldn't want to guess exactly what and when.

Only reason I can think of is that supplier sentiment is the market is overheated and we're bound to have a recession, (see for instance onetrust laying of 10% after a record q4 in 2021, Tesla layoffs etc.). — Benkei

What if supply just isn't as easy to increase as one thinks? You see this all the time in economics, that increase in supply is just a matter of demand incentive and volition. But in case of energy and materials there are physical processes to mine or harvest them. The idea that supply would follow demand only follows up to the point there aren't any physical limits we run into to increase supply.

There's no default position how the world ought to be, right, but there's a way the world is right now. And the way the world is, informs what the world can be, and therefor what the world should be. What should be is constraint by what is. Of course people disagree, but that doesn't mean that some visions just aren't very plausible from where we are now.

I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say.

The limits to growth fanaticism doesn't come from marxism I'd say, but more from some religious inspired eco-romantic back to nature notion couple maybe with some neo-Malthusianism, i.e the garden of Eden, i.e. the tower of Babel, i.e. Akira... there's tons of old and modern myths about it. It's the idea that reliance on knowledge and technology will do us in ultimately (human hubris) and that we need to return to some previous more pure natural state to save us all.

Also Marx was all for industrialization, It was the reason the bourgeois historically could have taken over from nobility, which ultimately paved the way for the proletariat to take over. It's a question of distribution and who controls the means of production for Marxists, wealth and prosperity an sich are fine. Not so for back to nature-guy.

It does look a bit suspect, certainly given the history fossil fuels industries have with lobbying. So sure, one can create a credible narrative that explains it in that way.

But here's another perspective. Scientists do have an interest in making their particular field attractive for investments. Most research projects rely on government funding to keep on existing and the succes of a researchers more or less gets measured in how much funding they can secure for their projects.... So that's another narrative one could create around the data we have.

What sways me however is that it isn't being used on a large scale anywhere in the world right now, eventhough energy security is such an important issue. It's not only about the US and NASA. I'm not an American, and I know that they are researching deep geothermal in my country, but it's always only at very specific locations to see if it's even viable there. Never is it seen merely as a question of implementing a technology that we know will work anywhere. You'd think that if it was such a no-brainer, they would've come to that conclusion, a good 40 years after NASA already did.

I did consider that possibility, and I kinda figured you would bring that up as a possible answer to that question, which is why I added "not exhaustive" afterwards... I won't deny that political and industrial interests probably play a role in choosing what energy sources to go with, I just don't think in this particular instance that would be the most important reason why it wasn't adopted. Sure, vested interests will push for more financing in their particular sector, but lobbying only gets you so far. If it was such a clearly abundant and cost-efficient energy-source, politicians wouldn't be able to steer political decision processes in other directions... not in an issue with so much public attention. The simpler explanation in my mind is that there are in fact some technical, technological or practical issues that hamper implementation everywhere on a large enough scale.

'Thought' seems a bit strong. I get that sensory stimuli created some sort of reaction in your brain - but that's not necessarily thought. Thought, I would suggest, is a process of challenging those autonomic mental reactions - and I see no evidence of that here. What I see is the stubborn post-rationalisation of an automonic reaction. Thought would have altrered your position by now. Were you actually thinking you would be forced to accept that the energy is there, and that the fossil fuel industry has extensive knowledge about drilling holes deep into the earth, 40 years in advance of anything NASA had available. You would be forced to accept that "experimentally proven by NASA" - while a blatant appeal to authority, is a credible basis upon which to claim it's a viable technology. Instead, what I see is a dismissive use of the term 'theorectical' - as an opening slavo, and what that suggests is that you are arguing from an attitude - reacting; not thinking, for thinking is to be aware, and sceptical of one's attitude. — karl stone

I think (here not used to indicate an instance of thinking, but to voice some amount of uncertainty or subjectivity in what I'm about to say) that what I did was in fact thinking in this case.

That tentative conclusion that you might be talking about a 'merely' theoretical study, came as an answer to the question in my mind: 'why isn't magma-geothermal being used everywhere by now, if it was shown to be that good by NASA?'.

My priors going in were something like (not exhaustive)
1) NASA does seem like a trustworthy organisation,
2) I don't think Karl Stone is straight up lying,
3) Magma-geothermal isn't being used on a large scale anywhere
4) There are a lot of studies being made (in case of renewables for instance) that don't take into account full costs and availability of human and material resources when talking about replacing fossil fuels, i.e. they are theoretical in that they don't take into account real world constraints

Running that question through my mind, I thus came up with an explanation that violated my priors the least/fit into my view of the world the best. I did look at some of those priors, but didn't find anything that would make me want to reconsider them. And then you shared the link to the study, which only confirms my tentative conclusion that is was only theoretical. As a kind of Bayesian, that is what I think thinking is.

"Theoretical" is in no way meant to be dismissive by the way, just that it doesn't look at real world implementation yet. It is part of the process, and a vital step in coming up with new technologies... you have to start somewhere.

Anyway I stand by my original position, that we can't sensibility talk about the viability of this in relation to other energy-sources, if we don't have data about the costs and other practical stuff. Maybe it could work at scale, I just don't know.

May I direct you to NASA's final report on the magma energy project. I'm sure that will answer many of your questions. It's too much here. No magical thinking though. NASA don't go in for that sort of thing.

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6588943 — karl stone

It is, like I thought, 'theoretical' though, in that its aim was to only research scientific feasibility. There's still a big gap between showing something to work in a research project and unlocking the technology on a large scale in an existing energy market. Costs for instance typically are no factor in a science project, because the are subsidized and economic feasibility is not the aim of the research.

Resources are a function of the energy available to create them. Given limitless clean energy to spend there is no bottleneck in humankind's foreseeable future. We are not running out of anything; except perhaps helium - which I think can be manufactured given enough energy. — karl stone

This is not entirely right. Raw resources like all kinds of metals, are not created, save in rather rare events like supernovae or the big bangs. We have to do with what has been given us on earth for the most part.

Energy is a factor in the sense that you need energy for mining, and thus more energy lets you mine more. But this isn't free by no means. It"s typically a highly ecologically damaging activity, and not only because of burning fossil fuels, but mainly because of destroyed ecosystems.

The density of needed resources is diminishing over the years. We used to find copper in big lumps scattered across the land, now it's typically only a small percentage of the mined rock. This has been fine because mining technology coupled with dirt cheap fossil fuels let us grind through tons of material at relative little financial cost... but at the cost of larger and larger areas being mined.

So 'limitless energy' only get's you so far, if we assume we have limitless energy to begin with, which i would doubt. To begin with there's no such thing as limitless energy in physics, and even though theoretically the heat of the earth would be limitless for our intents and purposes, I highly doubt that we can turn that into limitless usable energy. The same thing can be said about solar energy, theoretically more energy than we could ever use, shines on the earth every day, for a couple of billion years still. But in practice it turns out photovoltaic cells can only turn a small percentage of that into electricity, we need to much of certain materials to build the panels and the batteries to scale them up, they wear off over time, you end up with a lot waste etc etc...

Nothing is free, to make energy usable for us you need to build all kinds of facilities and machinery, which makes that you run into all kinds of practical limits if you want to scale it up. For magma-geothermal we, I guess, don't know what the real costs are because it hasn't been deployed on a large enough scale. And that is by itself already a big issue because we need to decarbonise right now ideally. We have little time to put our hope in future technologies.

Looked at in this way, it follows that limits to growth is the consequence of a misapplication of technology. No-one need have a carbon footprint. I'm not claiming magma energy would solve everything right away, but abundant clean energy gives subsequent generations the best shot at a decent future. And limitless clean energy changes the calulus of economic rationality; allowing for recycling for example, or desalination and irrigation. The increase in downstream value will sustain civilisation. — karl stone

Carbon is hardly the only thing that matters. There are definitely limits, it's just not clear where they exactly lie. Waste heat of continued increase in energy use alone would fry the earth eventually.... But anyway, I do agree with the sentiment that we should give future generations a decent shot by finding the best way to generate energy.

The sheer scale of the energy available changes the equation in a most unexpected way; and that's what I'm trying to communicate. I assumed for a long time that sustainability required sacrifice, and couldn't see past that - but because of magma energy, I don't believe that's true, nor is it the right approach. The best and right approach to climate change is to have massively more clean energy to spend; not slightly less similarly polluting energy. That way leads to madness! — karl stone

I will say, even if we assume energy to be nigh unlimited and free of carbon, that doesn't mean we have reached sustainability. Energy and climate change is what is focused on most of the time, but that's only one of the major issues we are dealing with at the moment. There are also other, material and bio-physical limits we run into now, and if not now, eventually.... More energy let's us kick the can a bit further ahead of us, but at some point we will have deal with it. I tend to agree that we need more energy right now, because the alternative isn't very appealing (to understate how dire things could get), but I wouldn't presume we solved everything with that.

No that's right, I don't expect an answer right here, but those are the type of questions one needs an answer to to be able to settle the debate.... If not, then one does seem to engage in something akin to magical thinking as per title of the thread.