How do we go about changing societal expectations to stop expecting perpetual growth? People aren't going to be happy it is no longer a given their children will do better than themselves, or even that they will be capable of taking care of them in their old age due to resource and economic crunches.
I'm all for taking action against climate change, but the 10% number is just pure fear mongering. Robert Rhode at Berkely did an excellent job of showing what the true risks are here:
As politicized as this climate change has become, I would hope to see more reasoned responses in the future - but given the current environment of discussion, I won't hold my breath.
Without perpetual growth wouldn't those who are not already well off have almost no hope of getting ahead? That is, it seems like currently the system only works for at least the middle class because people can invest in 401ks and mutual funds. If those were taken away then what would the non 1% have left?
Edit: To be clear, I mean this as an honest question. I see a lot of smart people arguing that expectations of growth need to change in order to tackle issues like global warming, but I don't see a scenario where that doesn't result in most people becoming serfs.
The USA doesn't have to worry about the guillotines, we are armed to the tooth where I'm from.
A simple fact is that all 7 billion people can't live like upper middle class Americans, it's impossible. Why not have one place in the world that a huge number of people sit at the top?
I guess the major difference is I see myself as an American Citizen and not a Global Citizen.
> A simple fact is that all 7 billion people can't live like upper middle class Americans, it's impossible. Why not have one place in the world that a huge number of people sit at the top?
Because winning the birth lottery gets you to the top, otherwise if you're from somewhere else in the world...good luck.
Of course 7 billion people can't live like upper middle class americans. Upper middle class americans are going to have to bring their lifestyle down to a sustainable level.
We have a myriad of problems at this moment in time, some of them existential. I have very little sympathy for people who think we should maintain the status quo in the face of these problems.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
I don't see that class giving up lifestyle changes to prop up the third world and if you try to take it, in the south, they are armed. Which is the reason our 2nd Amendment exists.
I'm not sure there are good alternatives in the US. If you want a decent job, a family, and to live somewhere that that is progressive and not boring, then you pretty much have to make upper middle class money.
We don't. If those who want to fight climate change don't understand that economic growth is not an option but a requirement, then it doesn't get fought.
That said 10% in a century isn't that hard -- think of the different standard of life between 1914 and 1996. Even 10% poorer in 1996 would still be effing amazing, and we would likely have more than that without two world wars and a Spanish flue (also why I shifted it 104 years back).
Paywalled for me, but I presume that's "knock 10% off of what the US GDP otherwise would have been by the end of the century" and not "the US GDP at the end of the century will be 10% lower than it is now". That is, we'll have less growth than we would have had with a better climate, but we will still have growth.
In fact, what would US GDP growth be over 80 years? The real US GDP grew 900% from 1947 to 2017, which is 70 years. If we could do anything close to that over the next 80 years, but then we lose 10%, that's still pretty good.
How do we go about changing societal expectations to stop expecting perpetual growth? People aren't going to be happy it is no longer a given their children will do better than themselves, or even that they will be capable of taking care of them in their old age due to resource and economic crunches.