You are absolutely right. Capitalist ideology is so strong that we can sooner imagine (and cause) the death of our species rather than the death of exponential financial growth. It always shocks me when economic decline is mentioned, even in very high quality journalism, as a universally bad thing, with no discussion on the NECESSITY of degrowth (preferably intentional rather than being wiped out by pandemics and natural disasters instead). The same goes for discussions about declining birth rates: it is discussed—on a national level— as a universally bad thing, without discussing the environmental impact at all.
Right. There is something deeply routed in our culture regarding the idea of unlimited and uncontrolled growth, expansion, and reproduction. Perhaps it is rooted in our DNA (after all, it makes sense as a Darwinian survival mechanism) and is reflected in our ideologies. For example, I once grew up in a catholic environment that compared (more or less implicitly) population control and contraception to mass murder. Even though nobody believes that nowadays, when you are told these things as a child, God knows what kind of subconscious thought patterns this causes in adults, and that then need to rationalize or ignore it. But, perhaps, it is time to go beyond our animal instincts. Isn't it?
It's quite remarkable, in the 50th anniversary year of the publication of E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" - which called a half century ago to the end of exponential growth of GDP, that any climate scientist would be ignorant of the fundamental necessity of this for dealing with climate change.
Especially since in the late 1950s, Schumacher (an economist, not a scientist) was warning about climate change - at a time when even climatologists were dismissing him as a kook.
Right. I rarely hear climatologists talking about this issue. It is certainly not because of ignorance. My impression is that most convince themselves that this isn't a real problem worth a mention. The reasons standing behind this attitude are sociological and ideological (like with the case of physicalism), certainly not rational and scientific.
You are absolutely right. Capitalist ideology is so strong that we can sooner imagine (and cause) the death of our species rather than the death of exponential financial growth. It always shocks me when economic decline is mentioned, even in very high quality journalism, as a universally bad thing, with no discussion on the NECESSITY of degrowth (preferably intentional rather than being wiped out by pandemics and natural disasters instead). The same goes for discussions about declining birth rates: it is discussed—on a national level— as a universally bad thing, without discussing the environmental impact at all.
Right. There is something deeply routed in our culture regarding the idea of unlimited and uncontrolled growth, expansion, and reproduction. Perhaps it is rooted in our DNA (after all, it makes sense as a Darwinian survival mechanism) and is reflected in our ideologies. For example, I once grew up in a catholic environment that compared (more or less implicitly) population control and contraception to mass murder. Even though nobody believes that nowadays, when you are told these things as a child, God knows what kind of subconscious thought patterns this causes in adults, and that then need to rationalize or ignore it. But, perhaps, it is time to go beyond our animal instincts. Isn't it?
It's quite remarkable, in the 50th anniversary year of the publication of E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" - which called a half century ago to the end of exponential growth of GDP, that any climate scientist would be ignorant of the fundamental necessity of this for dealing with climate change.
Especially since in the late 1950s, Schumacher (an economist, not a scientist) was warning about climate change - at a time when even climatologists were dismissing him as a kook.
Right. I rarely hear climatologists talking about this issue. It is certainly not because of ignorance. My impression is that most convince themselves that this isn't a real problem worth a mention. The reasons standing behind this attitude are sociological and ideological (like with the case of physicalism), certainly not rational and scientific.