16 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
  2. Jan 2024
    1. now we are facing a high risk of overshooting 1.5°C - at best - for several decades. Currently, we must admit that we do not know what the consequences are of such an overshoot, i.e., we do not know how long time the big tipping point systems - like the Gulf Stream or the Coral Reef systems, can cope with high risk temperatures above 1.5°C.
      • for: quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - uncertainty at 1.5 Deg C for years

      • quote: Johan Rockstrom

        • now we are facing a high risk of overshooting 1.5°C - at best - for several decades. Currently, we must admit that we do not know what the consequences are of such an overshoot, i.e., we do not know how long time the big tipping point systems - like the Gulf Stream or the Coral Reef systems, can cope with high risk temperatures above 1.5°C.
  3. Nov 2023
    1. we're young we get formed we behave in particular ways and it works for us and so we get reinforcement 00:10:11 and we continue to use it and it's important to understand that overshoot is not about being bad overshoot is about being context insensitive that we 00:10:25 use behaviors that have been successful and that's important we use them because they work but we use them after the conditions have changed enough that in fact we should be adapting new behaviors
      • for: overshoot - context insensitive

      • key insight: overshoot

        • overshoot is not bad, it is context insensitive. We enact old behaviors that have been deeply conditioned into us for a particular context, but the context has changed, while our behavior has not
    2. talking about a double overshoot and that language isn't well established in the literature yet that 00:06:58 folks get the overshoot that is ecological that we're in ecological overshoot but they don't understand that we're also in cultural and even civilizational overshoot and those are 00:07:10 new concepts that are just emerging they're not well established in the literatur
      • for: double overshoot, definition - double overshoot

      • definition: double overshoot

        • ecological and cultural overshoot
  4. Sep 2023
  5. Aug 2023
    1. This increasing energy extraction could then, contra Malthus, support an exponentially growing population.
      • for: Malthus - energy extraction, overshoot,
      • paraphrase
        • increasing energy extraction via cultural evolution of new energy saving and extraction technologies allows a population to continue growing exponentially instead of crashing due to limits of energy extraction growth.
    2. To Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection from the individual level to the group level. Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt driven by the imperative to produce surplus
      • for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power
      • paraphrase
        • to Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection
          • from the individual level
          • to the group level.
        • Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt
          • driven by the imperative to produce surplus
    3. Anthroecological theory (AET) hypothesizes that human social and cultural evolution is the ultimate cause of the ecological crises currently damaging earth systems
      • for: AET, Anthroecological theory, anthropocene - causes, ecological crisis - roots, overshoot
      • paraphrase
        • Anthroecological theory (AET) hypothesizes that
          • human social and cultural evolution is the ultimate cause of the ecological crises currently damaging earth systems
    1. Der Earth Overshoot Day 2023 wurde in diesem Jahr fünf Tage später als im Vorjahr erreicht, was aber größtenteils auf eine veränderte Berechnungsmethode zurückzuführen ist. Insgesamt verbraucht die Menschheit nach dem Berechnungen des Global FootprintNnetwork 1,75 mal so viel regenerierbare Ressourcen als pro Jahr zur Verfügung stehen. https://taz.de/Erdueberlastungstag/!5951934/

  6. Jul 2023
    1. the graph you see here shows the two Alternatives we have 00:12:22 either we really radically reduce emissions and come to Net Zero by 2040 with limited overshoot
      • for: bend the curve, planetary boundaries, planetary tipping points, 1.5 Degree, overshoot 1.5 Degree C

      • two alternatives

        • come to net zero by 2040 with limited overshoot
        • come to net zero by 2060 with 3 decades of overshoot to 1.6, 1.7 Deg C
      • first alternative is no longer viable
  7. Mar 2023
      • Title: Consumption Corridors: Living a Good Life within Sustainable Limits
      • This book explores how to enhance peoples’ chances to live a good life in a world of ecological and social limits.
    1. Theconcept of consumption corridors combines notions of human needs,individual preferences, and freedom as the basis for a good life for all.
      • Comment
      • When
        • human needs
        • individual preferences
        • individual freedom
      • are combined, it provides the individual with agency, creativity and freedom to choose a lifetsyle within ecological limits
      • Especially when we are collectively in overshoot, we must adhere to such limits
      • Limits always exist within any society. There is no such thing as absolute freedom
      • However, we have been abusing our ecological freedom and have thereby threatened our own existence by doing so
  8. Jul 2022
    1. One of the sad ironies of our time is that we have become very good at studying nature just as it begins to sicken and die under our weight. “Weight” is no mere metaphor: of all land mammals and birds alive today, humans and their livestock make up 96 per cent of the biomass; wildlife has dwindled to four per cent. This has no precedent. Not so far back in history the proportions were the other way round. As recently as 1970, humans were only half and wildlife more than twice their present numbers. These closely linked figures are milestones along our rush towards a trashed and looted planet, stripped of diversity, wildness, and resilience; strewn with waste. Such is the measure of our success.

      As the Tel Aviv researchers who revealed the pattern of progressively overhunting the largest fauna to extinction, then turning to the next largest available fauna noted:

      "We believe that our model is relevant to human cultures everywhere. Moreover, for the first time, we argue that the driving force behind the constant improvement in human technology is the continual decline in the size of game. Ultimately, it may well be that 10,000 years ago in the Southern Levant, animals became too small or too rare to provide humans with sufficient food, and this could be related to the advent of agriculture. In addition, we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created -- from the bow and arrow to the agricultural revolution. The environment, however, always paid a devastating price."

      https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2021%2F12%2F211221102708.htm&group=world

      It seems humans have a built-in blindspot that prioritizes short term needs over long term survival. History shows us that we are continuously biased towards prioritizing the human environment over the natural one but future generations eventually pay the price for this myopia.

    1. Dr. Ben-Dor: "Our findings enable us to propose a fascinating hypothesis on the development of humankind: humans always preferred to hunt the largest animals available in their environment, until these became very rare or extinct, forcing the prehistoric hunters to seek the next in size. As a result, to obtain the same amount of food, every human species appearing in the Southern Levant was compelled to hunt smaller animals than its predecessor, and consequently had to develop more advanced and effective technologies. Thus, for example, while spears were sufficient for Homo erectus to kill elephants at close range, modern humans developed the bow and arrow to kill fast-running gazelles from a distance." Prof. Barkai concludes: "We believe that our model is relevant to human cultures everywhere. Moreover, for the first time, we argue that the driving force behind the constant improvement in human technology is the continual decline in the size of game. Ultimately, it may well be that 10,000 years ago in the Southern Levant, animals became too small or too rare to provide humans with sufficient food, and this could be related to the advent of agriculture. In addition, we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created -- from the bow and arrow to the agricultural revolution. The environment, however, always paid a devastating price."

      This is a fascinating claim with far reaching consequences for modern humans dealing with the Anthropocene polycrisis.

      Technological development seems to have been related to our resource overshoot. As we extirpated the larger prey fauna which were slower moving and able to be successfully hunted with crude weapons, our ancestors were forced to hunt smaller and more agile species, requiring better hunting technologies.

      Agriculture could have been the only option left to our ancestors when there was insufficient species left to support society. This is the most salient sentence:

      "we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created"

      This is a disturbing finding as technology has allowed humanity to be the apex species of the planet and we are now depleting resources not on a local scale, but a global one. There is no planet B to move to once we have decimated the environment globally.

      Have we progressed ourselves into a corner? Are we able to culturally pivot and correct such an entrenched cultural behavior of resource mismanagement?

    1. We did not find strong evidence to suggest that climate, climatic fluctuations, rainfall, or vegetation over the last 1.5 million years, influenced the size of animals hunted and consumed by humans. Rather, mean body size declined linearly on a backdrop of multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. New human lineages subsisted on smaller prey than their predecessors and used more advanced tools to cope with hunting smaller prey. We suggest that hominins were likely the leading cause of Pleistocene

      The evidence suggests that humans were responsible for extirpating the largest prey fauna at the time, resulting in intergenerational decline in prey fauna body mass.

      This early finding has implications for modern human behavior. In fact, it explains our tendency to overshoot resources until we extirpate them is not a new behavior but one that dates back millions of years. The implications for our current polycrisis suggests we are dealing with an entrenched behavior that may be difficult to change and that technology has amplified our ability to mine natural resources, extirpating them at a faster rate. From this perspective, the Anthropocene can be seen as a logical result of an ever decreasing extirpation rate brought about by increasing efficacy of technological tools for resource extraction.

    1. We emerged from the apelike human phase thanks to fire and language. Together, those advantages made us apex predators: we could learn to hunt and forage from our elders and then gain more energy by cooking the food we gathered. After 200,000 years some of us still live that way, but it was what Lewis and Maslin call a “progress trap.” After modern humans left Africa, they effectively exterminated most of the larger mammals they encountered: the mammoths, giant sloths, sabre-tooth tigers, and countless others. In effect, they overshot their resources.

      Archeologists and anthropologists have evidence to suggest that modern humans were responsible for the extinction of numerous species due to superior predation skills combined with lack of ecological foresight, leading to resource overshoot. This lack of ecological foresight is not a modern phenomena, but goes back to our early ancestors.