• SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The problem is crashing the economy will kill a lot of people right now, no need to wait or come up with a better solution

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      If you look at it on a case-by-case basis, it’s harder to catastrophize. Would the world economy collapse if petroleum-derived food additives vanished? No. Plastic bags? No. The vast volumes of cheap plastic packaging? No. Shipping? That’ll take a while. Fertilizers? Partial substitution can happen immediately, but a full changeover will take years. And so on through the list. You can rack and stack each case by its social value, how hard it will be to eliminate or replace, and the lead time needed to transition. Beyond that it’s engineering, planning and politics.