Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Legbiter]

I'm not really interested in that kind of nerd stuff. I'm much more intrigued by how such a low GDP country still basically has everything we associate with modernity.    I googled average Bangladeshi lifestyle and found a Quora thread that had a couple of very patriotic posts describing life there.

What is the lifestyle for people living in Bangladesh?

One has an almost poetic description of life there.

If you want to seek happiness with no condition applied, go visit our rural areas. The way of life has always been primitive and there exist no complications. The people in our village areas live by nature. They respect the nature. In return, they are taken cared by nature. This is a most divine transaction in the entire world. This is why you can even find the most primitive lifestyle here. People use farming tools just like their ancestors like. They prefer manual labor and natural resources instead of heavy machinery. This is why you will be amazed when you see any farmers plowing their beloved soil with the help of macho bulls. Or even you will see the village woman making foods in ovens fueled with chopped up woods.

Another has a pros and cons roundup.

Let's start with cons first.

Heavily populated country. if you plan to live in the capital but like quiet environment, don't even dare to live in Dhaka

Most people are extremely nosy. They will always have problem with your business.

There is dirt everywhere. You have to literally play Hopscotch in order to avoid spit, snot and what not!!

If you are a girl, you definitely can't avoid eve teasing in random street

Extreme traffic jam

Air pollution

No place for entertainment.

Now I am going to talk about pros.

If your workplace is near your house, you can avoid many points mentioned above.

People are usually happy with their lives. So they will be extremely welcoming and greet you with sincere hospitality

Neighbors are very helpful. So if you want to live alone, you often will be offered food or they will send food over to you once in a while.

You don't need to be from sophisticated or classy rich family to hire helping hand or chauffeur. You can easily get them within your financial limitation. In fact, even if people know how to drive, they choose chauffeur to drive. Both temporary or permanent helping hand is available as well.

You don't need to go for miles to get groceries. People roam around the blocks with vegetables on the van or over their heads all day long. Also almost in every block, there are small shops for necessary items and super shop like mini walmart.

Laundry shops, Tailor shops are around the corner as well.

If you are lucky, you may find pharmacy and doctor's chamber just beside your house. If not, you will 100% get them around the corner. Also hospitals are everywhere.

Even though there are public schools, but people from middle class can enroll their children to private schools as well. They don't need to be super rich for that.

If you can go outside of Dhaka, you can see the heavenly beauty of six seasons all around.

People usually are not alone. They are family oriented and often surrounded by friends.

At least labor seems very affordable. You basically pay room and board for domestic help. Day laborers are a buck or 2 per day it seems. 

Minus the modern motor vehicles, smart phones, electricity and the ubiquitous "eve teasing" they're pretty much describing 1890's Northern Europe. Except they have everything modern society has, even if by our standards they're at least 30 times poorer.

[Jacob]

I'm not really interested in that kind of nerd stuff.

I'm much more intrigued by how such a low GDP country still basically has everything we associate with modernity.    I googled average Bangladeshi lifestyle and found a Quora thread that had a couple of very patriotic posts describing life there.

...

Minus the modern motor vehicles, smart phones, electricity and the ubiquitous "eve teasing" they're pretty much describing 1890's Northern Europe. Except they have everything modern society has, even if by our standards they're at least 30 times poorer.

Yeah, it's kind of fascinating.

... I just can't help nerd out about it a bit

[Tamas]

I am going to go out on a limb and say that if you plucked an average western European citizen and put them into an average Bangladeshi life, they would not find it "modern" to the standards they are used to.

[Grey Fox]

Modern standard of living is not cellphones, it's indoor plumbing.

[HVC]

Modern standard of living is not cellphones, it's indoor plumbing.

Netflix and a toilet would keep most people happy

[Josquius]

I would loosely theorise places like Bangladesh being able to maintain a lot of modernity out of such poverty is a product of a high density of low earners. Bangladesh has a very low unemployment rate.

Contrast to say Lagos where the population numbers are there but unemployment is high.

And then in small villages in Bangladesh you have neither the density or the employment level.

I can't really think of any examples where employment levels are good and population low. Official employment needs population in itself. Which suggests employment as key.

In Bangladesh There's enough people earning a wage through regular employment channels that there is a market to provide modern services.

Also worth noting in terms of ppp they're just in the region of 1/6 of first world nations rather than 1/50

[crazy canuck]

Modern standard of living is not cellphones, it's indoor plumbing.

Netflix and a toilet would keep most people happy

That explains the drop in the birth rate

[Tamas]

Middle class Englanders would freak out if they were dropped into the life of a middle class Hungarian, let alone a middle class Bangladeshi.

And on the earlier point of Sheilbh that people were disciplined with the pandemic - sure, but think of NIMBY-ism. People are fighting solar farms and windmills just to avoid slight worsening the background view when they are out fo ra hike.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, it's kind of fascinating.

... I just can't help nerd out about it a bit

Yeah and there is theory about this. In general emissions is directly linked to economic growth, but developed countries are now decoupling. So to look at the UK, since 1990 GDP has by just over 50%, production based CO2 emissions have fallen by just under 50% and consumption based emissions have fallen by about 35% (all per capita). Mapping the UK onto a chart and the turning point was basically around £10-15k real GDP per head.

And for the UK and the rest of the West we broadly know what we need to do. There's five key drivers of carbon emissions: energy, transport, housing, industry and agriculture. For the first three we broadly already have the solutions (with a couple of exceptions like shipping or air travel, but that are relatively minor in the grand scheme). Industry and agriculture are more difficult. So to an extent we've already decoupled growth from emissions and we have solutions for a lot of current emissions and just need to do it.

But this is why I think the geography (and relative unimportance of the West) matters. Because all this focus on how do we decarbonise rich economies is sort of missing the point - we already, broadly, have a pretty good idea. The challenge is how do we decarbonise development, because we just don't know and India's the big hope and most important test case on this. Similarly on industry, for example, over 50% of the world's steel is made in China - my guess is that the development of zero carbon steel will also happen in China.

I am dubious that any approach that is based on making lives of people less comfortable or making less/doing less is going to work. First of all because I don't think that is a sustainable project in a democratic society. But secondly because I don't see how scarcity ties in with the challenge of decarbonising growth - to an extent we've already seen some of this with the Russian invasion. Germany and some other EU countries suddenly became massive importers of the LNG which has effectively priced out many developing countries who have traditionally relied on LNG imports - like Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both are now suddenly competing with really rich Western countries because of a manmade scarcity - a consequence is that they are moving a bit back onto coal which is more locally available and where prices fluctuate less which obviously will have a big impact on their emissions.

I think on every front what we need is more, not less: more renewables, more EV charging points, more electricity grid, more funds to decarbonise hands etc. We still need to work out how to decarbonise development but more will also mean, hopefully, economies of scale that will reduce prices on zero carbon projects, enabling developing countries to have a look in - while reducing our consumption would just make those projects more expensive and for the already rich. I also think "more" is a better pitch in a democratic society than "less".

But how it all works and interacts and all the moving parts etc I find really interesting.

[HVC]

Modern standard of living is not cellphones, it's indoor plumbing.

Netflix and a toilet would keep most people happy

That explains the drop in the birth rate

Germans deserve love too

[Grey Fox]

Selling people on potentially tough measures to lower CO2 output doesn't win votes (yet?), unfortunately.

Meanwhile, the view from Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/climate-heat-models-1.6905606

After Earth's hottest week on record, extreme weather surprises everyone — even climate scientists

We're in 'uncharted territory' with heat and extreme weather events models can't always predict

And it's way worse. It was revealed today there's a over 1 million hectares fire in the Quebec's nordic north. Usually those are only fought when they get close to infrastructure (this one did).

(Maybe satellites had seen it)

[Jacob]

I wonder if there are a greater tha average number of fires in Siberia.

[mongers]

 

[Jacob]

Turns out that yes - Siberia is also experiencing an unprecedented heat-wave. I'd assume there are massive fires there as well, but perhaps less covered in the West because Russia doesn't want to talk about it, and because the smoke impact stays in Russia and Central Asia.

[Duque de Bragança]

Portugal has been spared by the heat wave, for now, due to the Atlantic influence.
Hot, but still within normal temperatures for the season.