There are studies that if you completely and radically reorganized how we work and live and how wealth is distributed, we could have higher standards of living while only consuming 30% of energy and resources.

But there is no way to get there because the power of the neoliberal plutocrats is too strong. And they employ the smartest people on earth to craft the best propaganda to keep and grow their power. It's not about humanity as a species or human nature, but about the current absolute power of capitalism globally.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Not burning fossil fuels is always pushed to consumers. Most stuff consumers use involves some of it, and most people prefer the stuff, whether that's rational or not.

we could have higher standards of living while only consuming 30% of energy and resources.

Riiiight. Have you ever had to organise or build something? It all takes resources, and nobody is working with a ton of slack. Unless that study is assuming all kinds of futuristic physical infrastructure just magically appears to carry the burden, it doesn't make sense.

If we all lived at a basic third-world kind of standard, we could probably do it on 30% of the resources. If you want to own a car or have a lot of privacy, you're SOL, though. And even there it'd take time to rebuild things to accommodate the new system.

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis - ScienceDirect

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

This is a third world-focused paper, in a development studies (as in "developing nation") journal. It's basically talking about what I described in the last paragraph - everyone gets to live in Mainstreet, India, and nobody in Mainstreet, USA.

It would, indeed, involve everyone getting medically adequate nutrition, education, a flush toilet and an internet connection, which is how they're defining "decent standard of living". Specifically, see table 1.

You could argue this is worth it, and that argument wouldn't be crazy. But, it's not a higher standard of living for the average Lemmy user.

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah possibly. Only one phone and one tablet or laptop per person, no PC battlestation :(

But I would argue it still does mean more luxury in the developed world for one simple reason: The biggest luxury in life is time. But if you only use 30% resources and energy, you can probably cut working hours / employment to something like half.

That is not just lazing about, it's being able to read and learn, to raise your children without having to work, to be relaxed about the future and the economic outlook. Just looking at how children are raised and educated today vs 50 years ago, quality of life has drastically sunk. Gadgets and multiple cars are not all there is to quality of life. There are those comparisons to medical servs who only worked 20 hours a week.

But the larger point is to show the sheer scale and enormity it would take to really address climate change. Banning most meat production would be simple (but hard) because people can just eat potatoes. But most of the rest is hard. It will not be achieved by a carbon tax.

Basically people are tired of greenwashing.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

No PC battlestation, and a family of four living in 650 sqft. It might not be the kind of phone you're thinking of, either, since dumb phones still have a following in poor countries. But sure, you can still live a happy life that way.

It will not be achieved by a carbon tax.

I mean, if aliens invaded and forced us to put on a $1,000,000 per tonne carbon tax, fossil fuel burning would stop pretty entirely. IIRC the economic response to the carbon taxes we've had has been pretty much as expected.

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

a family of four living in 650 sqft

That's not unusual though in EU or Korea or Japan I figure. I grew up in 500 ft².

And I think the idea is that you can still afford more luxuries, and that this would only be the start, what we could do with current tech and production capabilities and equal distribution.