Assuming this is well-founded (looking forward to the commentary on this one), I actually find the perspective pretty comforting. Just the idea that things will continue on, at some point. That the world won't become a total wasteland, and not forever.
His book Green Wizardry contains by far the best description of matter, information, and energy I've found in any work. Ignore outsider perspectives at your own peril.
We don't need to emit carbon to live the lives the developed world lives today. The whole of the earth's population can live at our standard of living and emit no carbon.
For everything we do, we can develop and scale technologies to substitute carbon emitting tech for clean tech. We can fight desertification, and restore habitats. Arguments against this usually boil down to "Well, it hasn't happened yet, so it can't happen and it won't happen".
But it will, though it won't be easy. As Covid vaccinations show, there's really nothing in the world that would make everyone do the simple, sensible thing, so we'll stumble forward, but we'll get there.
Arguments against this usually boil down to "Well, it hasn't happened yet, so it can't happen and it won't happen".
Arguments for this usually boil down to "Well it hasn't happened yet, but it's only a matter of time before technology without current expression/science that doesn't yet exist/a miracle occurs and it inevitably, without doubt, happens."
Yes, the global cost function of standard of living may likely have other comparable optimimums at other points in parameter-space (which may be less damaging to the planet).
The question is whether we can move around in parameter-space to reach another optimum, without having to transition trough rather sub-optimal areas of the cost-function for some time.
We may be caught in some local minimum, without society having enough "energy" to climb out of it.
There is no such thing as simple and sensible when it comes to climate change. Let's say meat and soy farming gets banned. Lots of jobs lost. Economic recession incoming. Politicians lose voters.
Changes in liberal democracy happen very slowly as it takes time for information and belief to propagate to all voters and decision makers. Take for example marijuana legalization. It took it decades of lobbying.
The timescale of such a change in policy is also reflected in the markets as well. Consider money printinting, inflation, interest rates, etc. All these rarely make huge differences over night.
Psychology of the masses is hard to predict and influence as the timescale gets smaller. It took Hitler around 15 years to become a chancellor of Germany after joining the DAP after WW1.
Nothing happens overnight and nothing is simple and sensible.
I personally don't see any fast way except ecodictatorship. The urge to take the path of least resistance and most short term joy is just too strong when there is no overseer to punish us for it. But who will control the controller? The core issue of all forms of autocracy. Perhaps AGI, if reached, would also be our saviour here.
The no-carbon and current lifestyle does not seem doable IMO. Electric planes are not happening any time soon due to weight of the batteries. Container ships still burn worst type of fuel even in 2021. Our lifestyle crucially depends on logistics of air and ship travel. And these are not catching up.
Roads won't be free of ICE cars for 30 more years at least and make that 50+ for the 3rd world countries.
Energy generation with solar panels and wind turbines is not stable. Only long-term solution is nuclear so that our children in 20 years breath less coal-burn exhausts.
It will probably happen eventually but we will live through a lot of weather related suffering until then. Thank you previous generations.
I like the perspective offered here but I don't really think the author's perspective on the "leftward end of the climate activist movement" comports with my own experience. Most people I know that I'd bucket as such are eating ~vegan, driving less, stretching the lifespan of their built-to-break consumer goods and (this is the real litmus test in my opinion for upwardly mobile techies) seriously limiting when and why they fly.
Or maybe he's talking about "climate envoy" John Kerry and his private jet. At any rate I hope he meets some climate activists that he likes someday because this is a valuable addition to their conversation and a good antidote to some of the worst doom-and-gloom tendencies in those circles.
Yeah, the random straw-man divergence in the middle of the article was a bit off putting.
I like framing climate change in a further reaching time context, but if anything I think the author has reached too far. The point I took away was something like “it’s all going to happen anyway, and we’ll all be dead, so why bother”.
I think the sweet spot of forward-thinking is somewhere between next financial year and the next geological epoch; I propose around 5 generations (150 years?).
I think if we spent more time imagining and talking about the world our grandchildren’s grandchildren will inherit, it’s close enough to feel a personal connection, and far enough away we can meaningfully direct our destiny.
>In the Hypsithermal, the period of higher-than-present global temperatures that followed the end of the last ice age, the West from the coastal mountains to the Mississippi was far drier than it is today—Nebraska was a desert with sand dunes, for example, and quite a bit ofthe land west of the Rockies was uninhabitable wasteland of the sort you find these days in the Sahara Desert.
From my recent reading on the long term moisture story in the western US, the period after the end of the last ice age was much wetter in the NM/AZ area, because the still-present ice to the north tended to "push" pacific storms in ways that led to precipitation in this area. As the ice receded more and more northwards, this pattern came to an end.
I’m getting increasingly tired of people taking these sorts of “Al Gore private jet” pot shots as though there aren’t tons of people advocating and actually practicing veganism, low/no trash lifestyles, etc.
If you don’t think those lifestyle changes will have an effect, then say so. If you think they’re effective but you don’t want to live that way (that’s me) then be honest about it. But simply saying “the climate activists aren’t making any lifestyle changes, so we don’t have to listen to them!” is incorrect, and even worse, boring. We’ve been hearing that same South Park song for over a decade, it’s getting old.
We need to actually engage on this topic and find solutions that will do as much good as possible, mitigate as much harm as possible, and be practical for as many people as possible. It’s going to be a messy combination of practices, policies and technology that get us there. One might go so far as to call it a “Landscape”.
That tone struck me too. I know lots of people who are climate activists, and the vast majority of them are cutting out meat from their diet, getting rid of their cars or at least significantly cutting down their use, reducing water and energy use in their homes, buying organic food where they can, advocating for public transport at the expense of private car use and so on. It come across as a kind of superiority complex - "here's me, the genuis with all the information, and everyone else is a low-functioning idiot".
Greer has been writing similar things for some time (over a decade). Some interesting, some repetitive. Mostly well founded, though much of his writing is based on pretty old studies (so I would double check his climate citations against better studies). Here are some of his older articles on the same topic:
Comparing the Triassic Period and its warmer climate to our situation is misleading.
The speed of change is what is unprecedented here, thus only comparable to other more catastrophic events in Earth's history.
20 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 50.8 ms ] threadSeeing things as landscapes, gradients, allows for choosing where to be on the spectrum.
So climate change is happening? What will you do?
For everything we do, we can develop and scale technologies to substitute carbon emitting tech for clean tech. We can fight desertification, and restore habitats. Arguments against this usually boil down to "Well, it hasn't happened yet, so it can't happen and it won't happen".
But it will, though it won't be easy. As Covid vaccinations show, there's really nothing in the world that would make everyone do the simple, sensible thing, so we'll stumble forward, but we'll get there.
Arguments for this usually boil down to "Well it hasn't happened yet, but it's only a matter of time before technology without current expression/science that doesn't yet exist/a miracle occurs and it inevitably, without doubt, happens."
Both stupid arguments.
The question is whether we can move around in parameter-space to reach another optimum, without having to transition trough rather sub-optimal areas of the cost-function for some time.
We may be caught in some local minimum, without society having enough "energy" to climb out of it.
Changes in liberal democracy happen very slowly as it takes time for information and belief to propagate to all voters and decision makers. Take for example marijuana legalization. It took it decades of lobbying.
The timescale of such a change in policy is also reflected in the markets as well. Consider money printinting, inflation, interest rates, etc. All these rarely make huge differences over night.
Psychology of the masses is hard to predict and influence as the timescale gets smaller. It took Hitler around 15 years to become a chancellor of Germany after joining the DAP after WW1.
Nothing happens overnight and nothing is simple and sensible.
I personally don't see any fast way except ecodictatorship. The urge to take the path of least resistance and most short term joy is just too strong when there is no overseer to punish us for it. But who will control the controller? The core issue of all forms of autocracy. Perhaps AGI, if reached, would also be our saviour here.
Roads won't be free of ICE cars for 30 more years at least and make that 50+ for the 3rd world countries.
Energy generation with solar panels and wind turbines is not stable. Only long-term solution is nuclear so that our children in 20 years breath less coal-burn exhausts.
It will probably happen eventually but we will live through a lot of weather related suffering until then. Thank you previous generations.
Or maybe he's talking about "climate envoy" John Kerry and his private jet. At any rate I hope he meets some climate activists that he likes someday because this is a valuable addition to their conversation and a good antidote to some of the worst doom-and-gloom tendencies in those circles.
I like framing climate change in a further reaching time context, but if anything I think the author has reached too far. The point I took away was something like “it’s all going to happen anyway, and we’ll all be dead, so why bother”.
I think the sweet spot of forward-thinking is somewhere between next financial year and the next geological epoch; I propose around 5 generations (150 years?).
I think if we spent more time imagining and talking about the world our grandchildren’s grandchildren will inherit, it’s close enough to feel a personal connection, and far enough away we can meaningfully direct our destiny.
>In the Hypsithermal, the period of higher-than-present global temperatures that followed the end of the last ice age, the West from the coastal mountains to the Mississippi was far drier than it is today—Nebraska was a desert with sand dunes, for example, and quite a bit ofthe land west of the Rockies was uninhabitable wasteland of the sort you find these days in the Sahara Desert.
From my recent reading on the long term moisture story in the western US, the period after the end of the last ice age was much wetter in the NM/AZ area, because the still-present ice to the north tended to "push" pacific storms in ways that led to precipitation in this area. As the ice receded more and more northwards, this pattern came to an end.
If you don’t think those lifestyle changes will have an effect, then say so. If you think they’re effective but you don’t want to live that way (that’s me) then be honest about it. But simply saying “the climate activists aren’t making any lifestyle changes, so we don’t have to listen to them!” is incorrect, and even worse, boring. We’ve been hearing that same South Park song for over a decade, it’s getting old.
We need to actually engage on this topic and find solutions that will do as much good as possible, mitigate as much harm as possible, and be practical for as many people as possible. It’s going to be a messy combination of practices, policies and technology that get us there. One might go so far as to call it a “Landscape”.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-07-31/dark-age-ameri...
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-07/dark-age-ameri...
Comparing the Triassic Period and its warmer climate to our situation is misleading. The speed of change is what is unprecedented here, thus only comparable to other more catastrophic events in Earth's history.