I think it's better to get an economic and financial revolution rolling, because if not deploying those less harmful solutions will be as harmful in the long run.

Do you what's use to extract the materials, minerals and rare earth to build solar panels? Fossil fuels.

Do you know what's used to build and ensemble those solar panels? Fossil fuels.

Do you know what's used to ship solar panels around? Fossil fuels.

The more solar panel use, the more fossil fuel use, because you can't get the sort of energy needed for mines, factories, and transport from solar, wind and other "less harmful" options

Both are a meaningless waste of resources only in service of the never satisfied monster of economic growth.

What's the energy cost of extracting materials, processing them, producing, shipping, installing and maintaining all that solar panel infraestructure which will need to be renewed and therefore spend again the same energy every 30 or so years?

There's one thing we need to realise: there's no such thing as clean energy, all energy production and use has a material cost (and every material extraction, production, and use has an energetic cost), it's the laws of thermodynamics.

There are energies that are cleaner and more efficient, sure, but if the objective is perpetual growth and not sustainability, cleaner energies will just buy us some time, but the limits will catch us eventually (sooner rather than later seeing how that climate collapse thingy is coming along).

In fact, in a growthist economic system such as capitalism, any improvement in efficiency results in not a lower, but a greater use of energy and materials, hence, the more exploitation and consumption of resources, the economist William Stanley Jevons discovered this paradox in 1865 with improvements in steam engines and coal extraction and consumption, look it up, it's fascinating... American slaves also lived this paradox in their own skins with the invention of the cotton gin, which was invented to ease the work of the slaves, and hence reduce slavery, and the result was the complete opposite, increasing by orders of magnitude the enslavement of human beings.

Yeah, and privatised health care, and overworking, and crap retirement, pollution from overproduction, and many others... All great for economic growth.

What the actual fuck

>I hope you are not one of those crackpots who think oil comes from deep carbon deposits close to the centre of the earth, right?

No, I hope you are not one of those crackpots who think cheap, easily extractable oil is infinite, and that it doesn't get harder and more expensive (not only money, but energy-wise) to extract the more it is extracted.

>The consequence will be that we will be motivated to expand beyond this rock for more resources, which is a major advantage for humanity.

Do you know anything about planetary tipping points? The earth's climate could turn to something more resembling Mercury if we surpass certain warming tipping points, and same can be said regarding acidification of oceans, biodiversity reduction, and many other tipping points which, if surpassed, it'll be impossible to come back from, and we require as a species. The world and life in general could survive climate catastrophe, humans won't.

That they get universal public health care and robust public services to rebuild, please check the homelessness rate of Costa Rica.

I agree 1.90 per day is poverty, but so is 10 per day, to how much have the 1.90 increased to exactly? because it sounds bloody convenient that 1.90 is the chosen amount for these statistics, when you can be poor with ten times as much than 1.90 per day, don't you think? Quite easy to decrease poverty, when your poverty line is an inch above the floor...

wait, you think that we can extract resources faster than their regeneration cycles with no consequences at all? lol

Yeah, because pretending we can keep indefinitely growing in a finite planet is soooo longtermist... Good luck with your cancerous economy.

How many times has Costa Rica been invaded?

Regarding a space program, yeah cool, but priorities no? Maybe you'd rather explore space while most humanity lives in misery, I'd rather explore the universe with humanity's needs met, we might all enjoy the space exploration way more, don't you think?

Also... planetary limits and tipping points... if we surpass them we might never be able to explore space ever again, either because we've depleted key materials and resources, or because we've gone extinct.

Are we aiming for short-term gains or long-term civilisation? Is this Futurology or Presentology?

prosperous for who and for how many people and at what price, taking into consideration that we are generating a civilisation-ending event for our precious infinite growth in a finite planet.

If the economy doesn't serve humanity quality of life what's the point?

The USA is the country with the most economic growth in history and its overall quality of life in every indicator is lower than most developed countries with less economic growth, even lower than some underdeveloped countries such as Costa Rica, where life expectancy, healthcare, education and homelessness amongst other indicators all surpass that of the USA.

There you go, there's meaningless economic growth.

A greener way of exhausting the world's resources for meaningless economic growth... The prostitution of tech and science :'(