> It is called PROGRESS.
There is no such thing as PROGRESS for progress' sake.
And FYI, agriculture is a wonderful invention.
Yet for about 5000 years after its introduction the average human had worse nutrition than the average hunter gatherer, which led to such things as height decreases for those 5000 years.
Industrial agriculture is another wonderful invention. Yet 150 years later we're not sure it's sustainable and it's likely many of its aspects aren't, which will raise some sticky issues soon ("which billion people do we decide to let starve since we can't make enough food for everyone after most of our soil eroded?"). Repeat this for industrial textile production, mining, etc.
I won't even go into climate change.
And again, scale matters. Most individuals can only control what they do, and what they do generally doesn't impact much. But companies can impact a whole lot.
> "ripping off", "uprooting", "leeching (read: creating)" wealth
Let's not be 100% cynical here. A lot of what humanity has achieved has been genuine wealth creation and distribution/re-distribution. I would say more wealth has been created than leeched off.
* * *
And before you think I'm some starry eyed teen, I'll play the game. At the end of the day, me and mine have to outrun you in the face of PROGRESS.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
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Next time can you please start with stuff like this: "Climate change? Lmao." so that everyone reasonable can ignore you? The science beihnd climate change is accepted by freaking BP and Esso.
What science? Pray tell.
Does more CO2/Greenhouse gasses etc raise temp? Yeah duh.
Does not using those bad refrigerant gasses is good? Yeah duh!
EVs are better for environment than ICE? Oh yeah!
But climate is not just a first order effect. It has more orders and complications than we can calculate. Our models are horribly incorrect, predictions further than a few years are always wrong. But that's science. We do our best and try to correct asap.
What's wrong is zealots who spreads doom and gloom about this. Makes predictions like my country will go under water by year 2000. Do you know how frightening it was for a science interested kid to read that? Kilimanjaro snow will be gone within decade. One extra decade gone by already, why is there still snow? 96 months to climate/ecosystem collapse? Double 96 months gone by, where's the collapse?
EU shot its own economy to pieces chasing these garbage. Wealth creation is the answer. Look at China. Didn't give one shit about it, built up wealth and power. Now they have the resources and they are rapidly cleaning up. In 50 years, China will be more green than US/EU while Germany killed the cheap nuclear power that was the backbone of their economy.
The REAL climate change is not tiny amount of co2 or whatever humans are doing; it is earth and sun. Orbital geometry, solar output, ice sheets, oceans, volcanoes and tectonics.
You can remove 100% of "environmental damage" from earth by humans from start of humanity, and it will not make a dent if/when earth/sun decides it is time to warm up. And we know for a fact that earth goes thru high temperature times and right now it is in an ice age.
What we need is even faster pace of generating wealth, power, and technology that helps us to clean up the air and water. Not be regressive out of premature fear.