Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[bluewave]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

From a scientific standpoint, such insight would be valuable. However, IMO, from a policy standpoint, it would be unlikely to matter much. Society has effectively chosen to stay the course. It has chosen to continue to rapaciously burn fossil fuels unleashing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere and kicking off a range of feedbacks. Neither the promise of cheaper, cleaner alternatives nor the staggering $7 trillion in annual fossil fuel subsidies has shifted policymakers’ calculus. Instead, emboldened by the applause of a loud minority of bad actors, they have doubled down on their intransigence. In the U.S., there is even a neo-Luddite effort underway to roll back progress on cleaner alternatives, amidst what appears to be a broad and accelerating split with science far beyond climate science.

Although these policymakers seem to believe that their unyielding defense of fossil fuels will grant them immunity from the laws of physics, it won't. The laws of physics are not negotiable. Those laws will prevail regardless of human arrogance or ignorance. For scientists, there may be some comfort in knowing that their warnings were grounded in well-tested and well-proven principles. After all, well-understood laws played out exactly as they were understood. From a knowledge standpoint, that's a very good thing. In short, generations of scientists did their job. They did it well and they did it courageously.

Full responsibility for the consequences will fall squarely on those who knowingly chose to maintain their unsustainable path in the face of clear warnings and insurmountable evidence. They will be the authors of a sea-level rise that could swallow tens of trillions of dollars of coastal land. They will be the ones who made that wholly avoidable outcome possible.

Unlike the rapid sea-level rise around 8,000 BCE when prehistoric humans had no understanding of the forces at work, the ongoing rise during the 21st century and beyond will not be the result of uncontrollable or unknown circumstances. It will be the outcome of deliberate choice with complete knowledge of the consequences of that choice.

Yeah, I agree with you about the policies not changing much in the near term. Seems like the current global stance on environmental issues stems from attitudes which have developed over thousands of years.

Ever since the Neolithic Revolution around 12,000 years ago civilizations and societies have evolved in a way in which they see themselves fundamentally separate from nature.

The natural world is something to be conquered rather than lived with in some type of sustainable balance. Could be the result of deciding to settle down and build large urban centers rather than continue smaller hunter-gatherer societies which were often more nomadic and in touch with nature.

But what may ultimately happen in the future is that the fast changing environmental conditions may foster a shift to a new understanding of how to live more in balance with nature.

Though it could take some dramatic changes to the current global order. So it may have to be more reactive to changing circumstances rather than proactive before some of the more consequential shifts to the weather and global systems occur. 

[donsutherland1]

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that human society will need to experience a crisis of a sufficiently large magnitude to break the inertia. Pandemics, wars, economic crises have all been able to shift the bias from inaction to action. But unless a crisis is sufficiently large to destabilize the business-as-usual paradigm and break faith in some future technological miracle that is used as an excuse for delay, it will be difficult to see significant progress. 

I don't believe a single weather event will suffice. One would likely see a degree of proactive reform on a local or regional scale, as opposed to the global scale required. Moreover, the response would likely be focused far more on adaptation than mitigation. After some passage of time, things would drift back toward business-as-usual. One sees a recent example in terms of growing financial system deregulation now that the 2008 financial crisis is fading from memory. 

I suspect the same thing would happen following a regional failed harvest, catastrophic flood, or lethal heat event. What might break the logjam would be recurring failed harvests on a large-scale, significant encroachment of rising seas into numerous major coastal cities, etc. Tragically, the human and social costs would be far higher under such circumstances than with any single event.

I hugely agree here Don... with the rest of it as well, but the bolds in particular.  

We all echo this sentiment in our own ways... I begin penning the frustration myself several years ago; human's are unfortunately, despite their various acumen and conceits and lordship over this planet, still quite primitively enslaved to the 5 corporeal senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Unless calamity is directly advertised to their personal being via one of these pathways ... urgency is faked.

Stating the obvious, it drafts from biological evolution perfectly. These sense were evolved to make sense of the reality surrounding them. I've mused before, they are akin in many ways to the USB ports that connect the "biological CPU" to the cosmos (for lack of better end expression).  

Global warming does not appeal to these natural senses.  It moves too seductively slowly. I've heard this compared to the "boiling a frog" syndrome.  Well the fire that heats the pot has got to be our own superior adaptation, then - if we were not so mutable ( naturally) it may have already begun that registry.  Since the adaptation is so effective at blinding us from a problem the solution is clear: To put it plainly and simply, humans have to suffer, first, before they move out the way.  Pain, both physical and mental, needs to occur unceasing - else the moment it lets up, humans are quick to resume.   People have to be in a state where not being a piece of shit is a clear salvation from pain. 

It's ironic that adaptation is so superior among the one species causing the problem.  It uniquely feeds back on perpetuating the damage they cause. Fermi explanation?

Not all species adapt as quickly - little does the lay person know, Earth has entered a mass extinction event.  Climate change is both physically observed and calculable in that causation.  Since the rapidity of the change is also mathematically and empirically proven to be objectively humanity's fault, we have become death, destroyers of worlds.  Sorry, but Gita's poetry is unfortunately apropos.

For the rest ... they'll die gasping through their lessening breaths that it's all a hoax, instrumentation bias perpetuating a conspiracy.

[donsutherland1]

33 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I hugely agree here Don... with the rest of it as well, but the bolds in particular.  

We all echo this sentiment in our own ways... I begin penning the frustration myself several years ago; human's are unfortunately, despite their various acumen and conceits and lordship over this planet, still quite primitively enslaved to the 5 corporeal senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  Unless calamity is directly advertised to their personal being via one of these pathways ... urgency is faked.

Stating the obvious, it drafts from biological evolution perfectly. These sense were evolved to make sense of the reality surrounding them. I've mused before, they are akin in many ways to the USB ports that connect the "biological CPU" to the cosmos (for lack of better end expression).  

Global warming does not appeal to these natural senses.  It moves too seductively slowly. I've heard this compared to the "boiling a frog" syndrome.  Well the fire that heats the pot has got to be our own superior adaptation, then - if we were not so mutable ( naturally) it may have already begun that registry.  Since the adaptation is so effective at blinding us from a problem the solution is clear: To put it plainly and simply, humans have to suffer, first, before they move out the way.  Pain, both physical and mental, needs to occur unceasing - else the moment it lets up, humans are quick to resume.   People have to be in a state where not being a piece of shit is a clear salvation from pain. 

It's ironic that adaptation is so superior among the one species causing the problem.  It uniquely feeds back on perpetuating the damage they cause. Fermi explanation?

Not all species adapt as quickly - little does the lay person know, Earth has entered a mass extinction event.  Climate change is both physically observed and calculable in that causation.  Since the rapidity of the change is also mathematically and empirically proven to be objectively humanity's fault, we have become death, destroyers of worlds.  Sorry, but Gita's poetry is unfortunately apropos.

For the rest ... they'll die gasping through their lessening breaths that it's all a hoax, instrumentation bias perpetuating a conspiracy.

Great post. Like you, I believe evolutionary biology has a lot to do with how humans respond, including the preference for the status quo over change, and reactive responses over proactive ones.

[rclab]

50 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Great post. Like you, I believe evolutionary biology has a lot to do with how humans respond, including the preference for the status quo over change, and reactive responses over proactive ones.

Thank you Don, Tip. Sadly thought provoking! Perhaps an Electro Magnetic Pulse caused by a rogue high altitude nuclear device or a Solar Coronal Mass Ejection Event, even though not directly related to climate change, might be enough to knock us out of our ‘business as usual’ ennui. 
stay well, as always……