World Bank

[RenewableCandy]

I've a feeling Biff was referring to a big shift in education in general, rather than in people's attitudes to climate change...

[emordnilap]

We're just at the start of a big shift.

Are we really?

This is what I see: for the last 40 years, starting with scientists and the green movement, and eventually with other parties joining, there has been a massive campaign to raise awareness about the threat from human-induced climate change. This campaign has been reasonably successful in terms of raising awareness. Education levels could still be improved, but on the whole, most of the people who matter already know about climate change. The problem is that the only actual effect this had on greenhouse emissions is to slow down the rate at which emissions are increasing. But they are still rising, and it is now very obvious that in terms of the total amount of greenhouse emissions likely during the rest of the 21st century, this entire 40 year campaign has had no effect whatsoever. It has been an outright 100% failure. There is no reason to believe that any fossil fuels at all which were projected to be extracted 40 years ago are likely to be left in the ground now. If anything, due to changes in technology such as fracking, the total amount of fossil fuels we're expecting to burn has gone up, not down.

With the best will in the world, I do not believe there is any point in continuing to pretend this battle can be won. It does not matter what the World Bank says. It doesn't even matter what the World Bank does, because all the education in the world is going to do no more than slow down the rate we would otherwise have cooked the planet, and at the end of the day it makes little difference what speed we cook it at. The truth is that a 4 degree rise in average global temperatures is now an absolute certainty.

The message has to change. It has to be starker, and more frightening. I do not agree with Nicole Foss that scaring people is counter-productive. I think there are some things that it is right to be scared of.

Agree 100%, very well put. Why there should be any argument against climate change (and worse, against doing anything) is beyond me. Well, not beyond me, just I have no patience for it any more.

Indeed, the talk seems to be about how to cope with climate change rather than how to slow or stop it - which opens the door to 'solutions' which worsen it.

[UndercoverElephant]

At the end of the day, though, climate change is only really bad for humans. A several-degree rise in global temperatures is going to mean the end of civilisation as we know it and a significant die-off of humans. It means the next 100-200 years are going to be rather nasty for the humans who have to live through it, and it means there will be less habitable land for the survivors to colonise. There is also going to be a mass extinction of other species - on the same scale as the biggest 5 previous mass extinctions - but that is already well underway and would happen even if climate change wasn't happening.

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

What will be will be. We've collectively decided what our fate is going to be. I think we have to think now in terms of living through the transition and saving what's best of human inventions, both technological and ideological, from the past two millenia.

[emordnilap]

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

Well, there are but no-one wants to pursue them, apart from oddities like me. If some dictator said, "From today, 20% fewer fossil fuels will come into this country every year", I'd vote for her, if you can vote for a dictator.

But I dream on. The "solutions" which will be pushed with a passion are those that make the problem worse - nuclear, atmospheric interference, fracking etc.

[biffvernon]

I've a feeling Biff was referring to a big shift in education in general, rather than in people's attitudes to climate change...

Yes, I was predicting a shift in how higher education is delivered worldwide.

(I'm about as optimistic as UE on the climate front.)

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

Well, there are but no-one wants to pursue them, apart from oddities like me.

That is the problem that has no solution. The only effective means of getting humans to "do the right thing", especially if it concerns things that aren't going to happen until after they are dead, is to use religious brainwashing, and that turns out to have a load of unwanted other consequences.

[extractorfan]

What will be will be. We've collectively decided what our fate is going to be. I think we have to think now in terms of living through the transition and saving what's best of human inventions, both technological and ideological, from the past two millenia.

and in my opinion, that's the most important message / discussion of the moment.

i don't believe there ever was a solution.

[peaceful_life]

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

Point taken, but I don't think it's entirely fair, there's probably still a few indigenous tribal folk willing to sit round the debating table with you on a few points.

Lucid observations.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~blume013/DanielQ ... xcerpt.htm

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

Point taken, but I don't think it's entirely fair, there's probably still a few indigenous tribal folk willing to sit round the debating table with you on a few points.

Lucid observations.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~blume013/DanielQ ... xcerpt.htm

I agree with a great deal of what Daniel Quinn says. But not all of it.

This:

The Law of Limited Competition

During the Great Forgetting it came to be understood among the people of our culture that life in “the wild” was governed by a single, cruel law known in English as “the Law of the Jungle,” roughly translatable as “kill or be killed.” In recent decades, by the process of looking (instead of merely assuming), ethologists have discovered that this “kill or be killed” law is a fiction. In fact, a system of laws - universally observed - preserves the tranquillity of “the jungle,” protects species and even individuals, and promotes the well-being of the community as a whole. This system of laws has been called, among other things, the peacekeeping law, the law of limited competition, and animal ethics.

Briefly, the law of limited competition is this: You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.

The ability to reproduce is clearly a prerequisite for biological success, and we can be sure that every species comes into existence with that ability as an essential heritage from its parent species. In the same way, following the law of limited competition is a prerequisite for biological success, and we can be sure that every species comes into existence following that law as an essential heritage from its parent species.

Humans came into existence following the law of limited competition. This is another way of saying that they lived like all other creatures in the biological community, competing to the full extent of their capacity but not waging war on their competitors. They came into existence following the law and continued to follow the law until about ten thousand years ago, when the people of a single culture in the Near East began to practice a form of agriculture contrary to the law at every point, a form of agriculture in which you were encouraged to wage war on your competitors - to hunt them down, to destroy their food, and to deny them access to food. This was and is the form of agriculture practiced in our culture, East and West - and in no other.

...is a bit like the myth of the noble savage, reinvented. I don't believe there is any evidence to support it, either with respect to humans or other species. I don't believe there ever was any distinction between "competing to the full extent of your capacity" and "waging war". It's just that "our culture" became much more organised, composed of much larger units and eventually the possessors of new technologies which made "waging war" much easier. One could simply restate this as: "waging war" is part of "competing to the full extent of your capacity". The only reason human tribes and other territorial social animals didn't usually "wage war" before the arrival of "our civilisation" was that it was too risky. Apart from anything else, it would be the people taking the decisions, or people they personally knew, who would have to do the actual waging of war and risk death, whereas in our civilisation the people who took those decisions were risking the lives of people lower in the heirarchy who they did not know.


I have other comments I could make about this but I have been called away...

[peaceful_life]

I don't think there are any solutions. How does one solve a problem like Homo sapiens??

Point taken, but I don't think it's entirely fair, there's probably still a few indigenous tribal folk willing to sit round the debating table with you on a few points.

Lucid observations.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~blume013/DanielQ ... xcerpt.htm

I agree with a great deal of what Daniel Quinn says. But not all of it.

This:

The Law of Limited Competition

During the Great Forgetting it came to be understood among the people of our culture that life in “the wild” was governed by a single, cruel law known in English as “the Law of the Jungle,” roughly translatable as “kill or be killed.” In recent decades, by the process of looking (instead of merely assuming), ethologists have discovered that this “kill or be killed” law is a fiction. In fact, a system of laws - universally observed - preserves the tranquillity of “the jungle,” protects species and even individuals, and promotes the well-being of the community as a whole. This system of laws has been called, among other things, the peacekeeping law, the law of limited competition, and animal ethics.

Briefly, the law of limited competition is this: You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.

The ability to reproduce is clearly a prerequisite for biological success, and we can be sure that every species comes into existence with that ability as an essential heritage from its parent species. In the same way, following the law of limited competition is a prerequisite for biological success, and we can be sure that every species comes into existence following that law as an essential heritage from its parent species.

Humans came into existence following the law of limited competition. This is another way of saying that they lived like all other creatures in the biological community, competing to the full extent of their capacity but not waging war on their competitors. They came into existence following the law and continued to follow the law until about ten thousand years ago, when the people of a single culture in the Near East began to practice a form of agriculture contrary to the law at every point, a form of agriculture in which you were encouraged to wage war on your competitors - to hunt them down, to destroy their food, and to deny them access to food. This was and is the form of agriculture practiced in our culture, East and West - and in no other.

...is a bit like the myth of the noble savage, reinvented. I don't believe there is any evidence to support it, either with respect to humans or other species. I don't believe there ever was any distinction between "competing to the full extent of your capacity" and "waging war". It's just that "our culture" became much more organised, composed of much larger units and eventually the possessors of new technologies which made "waging war" much easier. One could simply restate this as: "waging war" is part of "competing to the full extent of your capacity". The only reason human tribes and other territorial social animals didn't usually "wage war" before the arrival of "our civilisation" was that it was too risky. Apart from anything else, it would be the people taking the decisions, or people they personally knew, who would have to do the actual waging of war and risk death, whereas in our civilisation the people who took those decisions were risking the lives of people lower in the heirarchy who they did not know.


I have other comments I could make about this but I have been called away...

The 'myths' of both the noble...and brutal savage, are rooted in the fundamental inability to engage with a truly empathetic cognition of cultural balance and respect and not without a legacy of paradoxical irony either. This inability has manifest over millennia of habitual systems of destruction derived from what we accept as agriculture. Quinn, names this as 'totalitarian agriculture', so is he right?......

Well as mycology is one of you're interests, you will appreciate that our soil is indeed a complex system of living communities that are teaming with activity and life and is the foundation interface between our Sun....and mostly all living things on our planet, it's probably fair to say, that if the human condition is to throw itself at anything of unquestioned worship........it should be our soil, or at least those dependent on it. When ever it exactly was (some say Göbekli Tepe, in and around 10,000 years ago.I expect this date to be pushed back) , the point in time where some of our number veered away from grazing, gathering and hunting, to focusing on taking advantage of the seeds from the cross pollinated goat grasses, is absolutely critical, because it's from the stumbling upon this available excess energy, or...'extended capacity', that we pick the biggest fight of all, the attempted dominion over nature...and therefore...ourselves.
The first ploughs being driven into the ground are a fair analogical comparison of the of cultural severance from not only our spiritual roots, but our notions of limits and accountability to immediate cause and consequences. Going on from this new found source of energy on-tap, that's cut us adrift from the life source.... 'we' plough headlong/strong further down the path of abstraction with increasing 'extended capacity' that enables the composition of much larger units and by doing so we outsource and outstretch ourselves and forfeit the proximity of the social interactions previously developed as checks and balances in the decisions of war, but things are much more nuanced than simply caring who lives or dies by being nominated to go to war, some aboriginal tribes practice 'whistle cocking' for instance (I don't recommend it), with foresight on the carrying capacity and population growth.

Stepping outside of the anthropocentric for a moment, if we were one of the 50 billion microbes contained in a tablespoon of soil, or at least if we can visualise these beings on a size scale to ourselves, is it then fair to consider the obliteration of their habitat as...an act of war?....I'd say it obviously is and....just because it's all taking place at the micro level doesn't make the act any less barbaric, couple this with the deforestation in clearing lands to produce yet more whilst simultaneously destroying habitat, encouraging erosion, flooding and desertification, it's clear that not only is it a behavior of extreme violence, it is indeed an abomination. So rather...... "waging war" is part of "competing to the full extent of your capacity"......it's the over extending of that capacity that is in itself the act of war and the velocity of new technologies is derived from that....and...reinforces the intensity of that loop, but I'm not aware of any other creature that exploits energy to the point of detriment of not only itself..but every other species too, none. In fact, it is true that many tribal folk shun our behaviours, even to this day. These folk aren't ignorant to the possibility of harnessing more energy than they could ever possibly need, as is indicative of the, Brewarrina fish traps, estimated to be some 40,000 years old, rather they utilise their creativity for well-being and within limits.

And if we come through the ages we can see that the detachment and abstraction, with the addition of monetising to ancient hyrdocarbons,has eventually culminated into what 'we' have now, which, thanks to technologies such as the, Haber Bosch process, we find ourselves essentially....eating violence, or if you will...war. This is a direct correlation from practices of agri-culture, the clue is nearly in the word, which could read as, agressive-culture, due to over extension.
It is then, almost perversely ironic, to pay homage to a myth of a myth, written by folk influenced and submerged in an existence of detached abstraction, about other folk that wouldn't recognise.... nor care for such descriptions of them as they go about their business for the most part in connected reality, while the former continue to destroy the environment of both...and mask our painful self loathing and loss, by labeling the latter as 'savages'.

So the only hope to solutions that I can see, is the fact that not all of our kin are adrift....and perhaps we can learn a thing or two to inform us on acts of repair and use our existing technologies to help us do that, of which....I'd say the microscope is a mighty fine thing.
As the man says...
“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” --- Leonardo DaVinci.

An interesting read.
http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0246.htm

[RenewableCandy]

It sounds to me as if people are talking about the difference between a non-equilibrium, or Pioneer-type, lot (agricultural/industrial humans, fireweed, etc) and a bunch of species who have reached equilibrium (e.g. an unknown-to-us forest including indigenous people...there's a technical term, is it Climax?). I think Quinn is talking about the latter, but we assume, because of our present culture, that human beings are always the former.

[peaceful_life]

It sounds to me as if people are talking about the difference between a non-equilibrium, or Pioneer-type, lot (agricultural/industrial humans, fireweed, etc) and a bunch of species who have reached equilibrium (e.g. an unknown-to-us forest including indigenous people...there's a technical term, is it Climax?). I think Quinn is talking about the latter, but we assume, because of our present culture, that human beings are always the former.

But that's the thing, it's not like we're ignorant to other ways of living and the comparisons of consequences to this...and that. I wouldn't know to call it equilibrium, but at least other ways are evidently sustainable. And I think how we interact with the land in terms of food production affects us quite profoundly. So it's fundamental that we change the CAP policy, it's absolutely necessary.

[RenewableCandy]

I've just been reading about the attempts to change the CAP as a matter of fact, in the Farmers Guardian. Apparently the specification that farmers have to rotate crops, is causing a lot of them to consider dropping out of the system altogether (i.e. going it alone, sans CAP payments).

[peaceful_life]

I've just been reading about the attempts to change the CAP as a matter of fact, in the Farmers Guardian. Apparently the specification that farmers have to rotate crops, is causing a lot of them to consider dropping out of the system altogether (i.e. going it alone, sans CAP payments).

Could you drop a link for that specific piece please, RC?

[RenewableCandy]

Here we go http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/hot ... 08.article