I don't think that's true. We know how to produce all the energy we need with almost no GHG emissions. Do that, and put greenhouses everywhere, switch everyone to a purely plant-based diet.
In itself that's a sign that we live in a world where our consumption of resources has to be restricted. This is a lowering of quality of life.
Of course food is only one type of resources. We consume many more and if we need to have such restrictions on everything then we only survive at the expense of our quality of live.
So, we can only eat plant-based food. We cannot travel. We need to live in small flats in megacities. We can only use mass transit, etc. This ends up being 1984 meets The Matrix as I commented somewhere else.
Shouldn't the objective be that every human enjoy life while preserving the environment? Have a large garden, have pets (someone commented that they should be banned), travel to see the world? I think it's better to have fewer of us with better quality of life and able to enjoy a thriving environment.
> In itself that's a sign that we live in a world where our consumption of resources has to be restricted. This is a lowering of quality of life.
Yes. The point is that the lost quality of life some experience by going vegetarian (full disclosure: I have not managed to, I've only cut my meat consumption in half) is far smaller than the one everyone will experience if this climate change runs amok.
> So, we can only eat plant-based food. We cannot travel. We need to live in small flats in megacities. We can only use mass transit, etc. This ends up being 1984 meets The Matrix as I commented somewhere else.
I didn't say this. Yes, travel needs to be shifted to renewables. And yes, cities are probably better than rural living.
> Shouldn't the objective be that every human enjoy life while preserving the environment? Have a large garden, have pets (someone commented that they should be banned), travel to see the world? I think it's better to have fewer of us with better quality of life and able to enjoy a thriving environment.
Great secondary objective! We need to find a way to do it that doesn't make us miss our primary one: prevent catastrophic climate change. I think we can do it.
