Is the goal of environmentalism to maximize the health of the environment, or to maximize the health of the environment experienced by the average person?

(I think both are valid goals, but they can lead to very different conclusions)

Is the goal of environmentalism to maximize the health of the environment, or to maximize the health of the environment experienced by the average person?

(I think both are valid goals, but they can lead to very different conclusions)

https://x.com/TheGattoniCelli/status/1796949964804747335

What's the difference?

If the health of the environment gets so bad that it's dangerous to 95% of people on the planet, then both goals have failed

The example I provided (urbanism) is a major difference!

If the entire world population lives in dense megacities, then 99.9%+ of the world's surface can remain untouched (except agriculture). But in that world, the average person's life experience would have a lot more glass and steel and concrete and fewer trees.

That world would also still result in destroying the environment as we know it, if we still reached 2.5-3°C of warming or more

The version of "health of the environment" that matters most to humans is how hospitable it is to our civilization at scale

From that lens, megacities vs. country living is the wrong axis

Looks like suburbs are worst for the environment in terms of climate impacts?

Yeah if we were starting human civilization from scratch & could wave a magic wand, everyone would be in dense cities to save 8% on carbon emissions

But that's not the world we live in and 2-2.5°C is likely already locked in. Moving everyone to dense megacities now is very unrealistic and would not save the climate

Looks like suburbs are worst for the environment in terms of climate impacts?

https://unu.edu/article/suburban-living-worst-carbon-emissions-new-research

What caused the ice age? Have you yourself looked at global warming data and how temperatures are collected? The climate changes and that's normal. People have been predicting the end of the world as we know it for centuries.