Solving Climate Change.

[Lacewing]

I applaud their creative efforts. It's hard to be heard against the deafening drone of profitable and intoxicated patterns. It seems that extremes can only be shaken by other extremes. And sometimes collapsing of all into dust is the inevitable result, from which we can only hope to survive (hopefully with a more balanced awareness).

Then why bother solving climate change at all? If you want to see society collapse, just wait!

Because our intention creates a great deal and is very important. We can focus on an ideal, with our intention set to evolve/transform us to that -- yet be ready and understanding for the inevitable fallout of all the long-term abuses and imbalance.

One of the papers noted the irony of a huge queue of ExR supporters outside Pret a Manger- wolfing down coffee and prawn sandwiches, and bemoaning capitalism!

Isn't it understandable that we might bemoan the very drugs we are addicted to? Are we supposed to be radiant detached angels from the entire system we are born from and immersed in? Transformation is hard. The outcry for change is coming from all directions, while steering in all kinds of directions. As much as possible, we can try to address/demonstrate our desire/intent to evolve beyond certain ideas/patterns/limitations. There are countless methods. State of mind/intent seems to be even more of a driver than methodology.

Also, in assessing anything, there is always much to consider... and much feeding into it. Positions aren't simply "all right" or "all wrong" (of course) -- yet, as long as we focus on extreme conclusions, we remain (I think) immobilized in (and intoxicated with) those extremes.

Balance takes all the fury and fire out of positions.

communism has failed every country that ever adopted it

Every approach has excesses that fail, no?

I suggest a global approach, I hope will emerge at COP 26 in November. It's an approach based on looking first to a scientific understanding of reality, solving the problem in those terms, and then dealing with the ideological consequences in the way the technology is developed and applied.

Sounds good. There is the challenge of shifting humankind away from a lot of addicted thinking.

We (humankind) are so depleted -- in mind, energy, resources -- that it seems all we can do at times is shake our fists at the sky, collectively. Individually, perhaps, we can strive to be more aware of how we (as individuals) focus our own intention. Do we focus on warring with imbalance... or do we focus on achieving balance? If a whole lot of people clear their minds of their own obsessive and extreme tendencies, they can contribute more clarity and balance into the collective system, along with others who are doing the same. We have amazing capabilities amongst all of us -- and we've become addicted to the products (for better and worse) of our own creativity. It's fascinating. Can we accept and love and appreciate that -- in order to cease the warring and move on from it?

[Vitruvius]

I applaud their creative efforts. It's hard to be heard against the deafening drone of profitable and intoxicated patterns. It seems that extremes can only be shaken by other extremes. And sometimes collapsing of all into dust is the inevitable result, from which we can only hope to survive (hopefully with a more balanced awareness).

Then why bother solving climate change at all? If you want to see society collapse, just wait!

Because our intention creates a great deal and is very important. We can focus on an ideal, with our intention set to evolve/transform us to that -- yet be ready and understanding for the inevitable fallout of all the long-term abuses and imbalance.

Intent is important; and the left intend to fail. It's inherent to a green approach to sustainability, that there's a fixed amount of stuff; i.e. limits to growth, we're using up, and when it's gone, it's gone. This is factually incorrect, but has become the accepted narrative. Their policy approach suggests eeking out our existence somehow, but does not even consider transcending the situation - and does not, because their environmental concern is secondary to their political interests.

One of the papers noted the irony of a huge queue of ExR supporters outside Pret a Manger- wolfing down coffee and prawn sandwiches, and bemoaning capitalism!

Isn't it understandable that we might bemoan the very drugs we are addicted to? Are we supposed to be radiant detached angels from the entire system we are born from and immersed in? Transformation is hard. The outcry for change is coming from all directions, while steering in all kinds of directions. As much as possible, we can try to address/demonstrate our desire/intent to evolve beyond certain ideas/patterns/limitations. There are countless methods. State of mind/intent seems to be even more of a driver than methodology.

Also, in assessing anything, there is always much to consider... and much feeding into it. Positions aren't simply "all right" or "all wrong" (of course) -- yet, as long as we focus on extreme conclusions, we remain (I think) immobilized in (and intoxicated with) those extremes.

Balance takes all the fury and fire out of positions.

It's is understandable. They're communists - using sustainability as an anti-capitalist battering ram. Exactly the same tactics the left employ with regard to political correctness; latch onto some cause they don't really care about, and ride it all the way the Whitehouse - by morally brow beating opponents and virtue signalling to the throng!

communism has failed every country that ever adopted it

Every approach has excesses that fail, no?

Whataboutism!

I suggest a global approach, I hope will emerge at COP 26 in November. It's an approach based on looking first to a scientific understanding of reality, solving the problem in those terms, and then dealing with the ideological consequences in the way the technology is developed and applied.

Sounds good. There is the challenge of shifting humankind away from a lot of addicted thinking.

Such as?

We (humankind) are so depleted -- in mind, energy, resources -- that it seems all we can do at times is shake our fists at the sky, collectively. Individually, perhaps, we can strive to be more aware of how we (as individuals) focus our own intention. Do we focus on warring with imbalance... or do we focus on achieving balance? If a whole lot of people clear their minds of their own obsessive and extreme tendencies, they can contribute more clarity and balance into the collective system, along with others who are doing the same. We have amazing capabilities amongst all of us -- and we've become addicted to the products (for better and worse) of our own creativity. It's fascinating. Can we accept and love and appreciate that -- in order to cease the warring and move on from it?

It's none of your business who I am as a person. It's not politically valid ground for you to pitch your tent. I decide what's in my rational self interest, and that's rightfully where we meet - in the public sphere. This is a public issue, and a technological issue. Why are you trying to make this a moral issue? It's because you can't solve climate change, and seek moral justification to curtail other's liberties. And it's like you're suggesting we should apply half assed greenwash, sub optimal clean energy technologies that will always require we keep pumping oil, in the hope that poverty and climate change teach us some morally valuable lesson. Because science and technology can solve climate change, and secure a prosperous sustainable future, and do so without violent impositions on individuals, business and society. And what I want to know is, why didn't the greens or the left come up with magma energy - and promote the possibility of transcending limits to growth?

[Vitruvius]

Extinction Rebellion: Nearly 200 arrests over four days

Nearly 200 people have been arrested at Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London over the past four days.

On Wednesday, the climate change protesters blocked off roads near Oxford Circus, glued themselves to a giant table and formed a human chain around the area cordoned off by police. Dozens were carried to police vans by officers who used loudspeakers to warn the crowd to leave or risk arrest. At least 10,000 people congregated near the rallies since they began on Sunday. Currently, 196 people have been arrested on suspicion of a variety of offences.

The Brazilian embassy, Piccadilly Circus and the Department for International Trade (DIT) were also targeted, with thousands listening to speeches and parading through the streets. The group gave the DIT a mock award for "making an outstandingly awful contribution to climate change" and the embassy gathering was "to show solidarity with indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest". The table, which had previously been erected in Seven Dials, represents an invitation to "come to the table" for discussions about fossil fuel. Chairs were left empty to represent an invitation to all those who identify as female, nonbinary or trans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58324146

[Lacewing]

Okay, I'm done here. Carry on.

[Vitruvius]

Okay, I'm done here. Carry on.

First thing you've said that makes sense!

[Vitruvius]

Madagascar on the brink of climate change-induced famine
By Andrew Harding



Madagascar is on the brink of experiencing the world's first "climate change famine", according to the United Nations, which says tens of thousands of people are already suffering "catastrophic" levels of hunger and food insecurity after four years without rain.

The drought - the worst in four decades - has devastated isolated farming communities in the south of the country, leaving families to scavenge for insects to survive.

"These are famine-like conditions and they're being driven by climate not conflict," said the UN World Food Programme's Shelley Thakral.

The UN estimates that 30,000 people are currently experiencing the highest internationally recognised level of food insecurity - level five - and there are concerns the number affected could rise sharply as Madagascar enters the traditional "lean season" before harvest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58303792

[Vitruvius]

Climate change: Europe's 2020 heat reached 'troubling' level
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

Published18 hours ago



Last year was the warmest on record across Europe, breaking the previous high mark by a considerable distance, say scientists. Temperatures across the region were more than 1.9C above the long-term average between 1981 and 2010. The State of the Climate 2020 report from the American Meteorological Society says temperatures in the Arctic are also rising rapidly. The temperature over land there was the highest since records began in 1900.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58333124

[Vitruvius]

Interesting piece in the Guardian abut solving climate change.

“We’re in a climate crisis,” she tells me. “Mitigation isn’t going fast enough. Adaptation needs far more support than it’s getting. It’s clear that we need to remove some amount of carbon from the atmosphere.” How much? “Hundreds of billions of gigatons,” Buck says. “We have emitted so much, and now we have so much legacy carbon. The challenge isn’t just cutting emissions.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/wh ... d=msedgntp

I agree; but surely it follows that we need limitless amounts of clean energy to power carbon sequestration on that scale. Yet there's no mention of this is in the article. It continues...

"The simplest form of geoengineering is the kind of carbon removal many of us learned about in school: planting trees. “Land-based solutions are really important, especially in the next decade or so, because they can be implemented quickly – and we know how to plant forests,” Buck says."

Land is really about water. There's lots of land, but without fresh water, it's not habitable or productive. If we can produce fresh water to irrigate land, we can make wastelands productive. Agriculture, including cattle farming can play a key role, both producing food, resisting desertification and developing the land - but only if we can produce fresh water, and again, that requires massive amounts of clean energy.

And this leads to the conclusion:

"But land-based solutions, though a helpful beginning, probably won’t be enough, Buck says. To plant enough trees to soak up enough carbon to sufficiently cool our planet, we would have to fundamentally change the way we use land in ways that would make our economy and many of our lives unrecognizable."

Given limitless clean energy, this is incorrect. Assuming a rapid and unstinting application of the technology to harness magma energy - the world could be net zero by 2045, having met all our energy needs carbon free, and have the energy available to sequester gigatonnes of carbon per year into the long term sustainable future. In that case, climate change would amount to around 1.5 'C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

Transformative change is neither desirable nor required. When things change rapidly and dramatically, people suffer - even when it's supposed to be change for the better, which this isn't! This is quite clearly advocating authoritarian measures to make people's lives worse, and one might at least have thought they'd be absolutely sure that were necessary!

[RCSaunders]

We (humankind) are so depleted -- in mind, energy, resources -- that it seems all we can do at times is shake our fists at the sky, collectively.

You, "humankind," who think in terms of some super-being you are only cells of deserve whatever you suffer, though most of you enjoy benefits none of you deserve provided by those you despise, who never think in your collective tribal terms and provided you with all the benefits of clean water, indoor plumbing, medicine, plentiful food, comfortable homes, convenient transportation and endless sources of pleasure and enjoyment that make your miserable lives worth living which you take for granted. It was not "humankind," that supplied all those benefits you enjoy but individuals who defied humankind and discovered and produced all the things you enjoy, and they have been hated and persecuted throughout history by despicable, "humankind."

The problem with, "humankind," is that it consists of all those human beings who have surrendered their true human nature and wills to some collective in the belief they can escape the responsibility for their own lives by being part of what is going to change the world or humanity into something they would like. It is hatred of reality for what reality actually is.

[RCSaunders]

If COP 26 (in the UK in October/November) follows the same pattern as the previous 25 such meetings, the biggest achievement will be the group photo! 25 years they've been meeting to discuss climate change - and we are still doomed. Why?

This is not a rhetorical question. It needn't be so. Technologically speaking, we could solve climate change - and if we'd started 25 years ago with that aim in mind, we'd be on top of it by now. However, IMO - because the right have stuck their head in the sand on climate change, the narrative has been dominated by left wing thought, based in Malthusian pessimism and limits to resources, feeding into anti-capitalist politics, and as a consequence - it seems, the idea of solving climate change has never even been considered. Every measure assumes we must back down, tax this, stop that, have less and pay more. This is absolutely the wrong approach.

The Malthusian prophecy of mass starvation, resulting from the disparity between geometric population growth and arithmetic agricultural development, was overcome through the development of new technologies - tractors and fertilizers. Food production has outpaced population growth through the application of technology. Technology multiplies resources - so how can there be a limit to resources? Apply the right technologies, and there is no inherent limit.

The earth is a big ball of molten rock - containing a virtually limitless amount of energy. If we harnessed that energy, we could extract carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it, produce limitless amounts of clean electricity, hydrogen fuel, desalinate water to irrigate land, recycle - it's not that complicated. Technologically, we could solve climate change. Why haven't we?

The main thing wrong with all of this is the belief that the world, or reality, or the environment, or society is anyone's to make into the kind of world, reality, environment, or society they would like. Just because you are afraid of what you think climate might be changing to and don't happen to like it, why should your preference be forced on anyone else?

[Vitruvius]

If COP 26 (in the UK in October/November) follows the same pattern as the previous 25 such meetings, the biggest achievement will be the group photo! 25 years they've been meeting to discuss climate change - and we are still doomed. Why?

This is not a rhetorical question. It needn't be so. Technologically speaking, we could solve climate change - and if we'd started 25 years ago with that aim in mind, we'd be on top of it by now. However, IMO - because the right have stuck their head in the sand on climate change, the narrative has been dominated by left wing thought, based in Malthusian pessimism and limits to resources, feeding into anti-capitalist politics, and as a consequence - it seems, the idea of solving climate change has never even been considered. Every measure assumes we must back down, tax this, stop that, have less and pay more. This is absolutely the wrong approach.

The Malthusian prophecy of mass starvation, resulting from the disparity between geometric population growth and arithmetic agricultural development, was overcome through the development of new technologies - tractors and fertilizers. Food production has outpaced population growth through the application of technology. Technology multiplies resources - so how can there be a limit to resources? Apply the right technologies, and there is no inherent limit.

The earth is a big ball of molten rock - containing a virtually limitless amount of energy. If we harnessed that energy, we could extract carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it, produce limitless amounts of clean electricity, hydrogen fuel, desalinate water to irrigate land, recycle - it's not that complicated. Technologically, we could solve climate change. Why haven't we?

The main thing wrong with all of this is the belief that the world, or reality, or the environment, or society is anyone's to make into the kind of world, reality, environment, or society they would like. Just because you are afraid of what you think climate might be changing to and don't happen to like it, why should your preference be forced on anyone else?

Good question. Ideally, I assume only that people value the continued existence of people, and the rest is scientific fact. As one must exist in order to have values, I do not think this too great an assumption. Because the nature and purpose of knowledge is the relationship between the organism and reality, and a valid relation facilitates survival, existence is the bridge between the is and the ought. In this context, what's true matters - and you have an evolutionary obligation to be right.

We are not on that ideal trajectory, but it illustrates the existence of a neglected mechanism - a trustworthy rationale upon which we might agree, and in terms of which we might act to address that which is existentially necessary. We need not 'make all our representations conform' (Popper) to science as totalitarian truth, domestically - to see the utility in recognising science as truth for the purposes of addressing climate change internationally. And consequently, I need only assume people would prefer to continue to exist, and on the basis of a scientific understanding of reality, can advocate we harness magma energy on a global scale to sequester carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle.

Technologically, as far as I can tell - it is the least disruptive, least expensive, most effective solution. Harnessing limitless clean energy and attacking the problem from the supply side would not imply gross impositions on individuals, business and society. And overcoming this crisis positively, the possibility of balancing human welfare and environmental sustainability very much in our favour, and living well long term - hoves into view. I suppose in theory - one could value negatively the possibility of a prosperous sustainable future, but even so, this approach makes no great impositions on your freedom against which you might protest, other than that we choose to exist.

[Vitruvius]

Extinction Rebellion activists vandalise Queen Victoria Memorial in London with red paint
Rachael Burford



Extinction Rebellion activists have vandalised the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace with red paint. Police reportedly dragged away at least three campaigners who doused the fountain at the end of The Mall in paint and dyed the water a dark crimson on Thursday. Protesters let off flares as they stood in the fountain holding up placards which read: “A royal blood bath.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslond ... uxbndlbing

"The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were retainers who had accompanied them: notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov. The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, buried and mutilated with grenades to prevent identification."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution ... nov_family

Stalin-era mass grave found in Ukraine

What may be one of Ukraine's largest Stalin-era mass graves has been identified by researchers. The remains of between 5,000 and 8,000 people were found in 29 graves in the southern city of Odessa. The site, believed to date back to the late 1930s, was uncovered during exploration works for a planned expansion of an airport. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are believed to have died during Joseph Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union.

Sergiy Gutsalyuk, the head of the regional branch of Ukraine's National Memory Institute, told AFP that the victims were likely to have been killed by the Soviet secret police unit during the late 1930s. However, he said it would not be possible to identify the victims as any records were held in Russia. According to the Ukrinform website, around 8,600 people in Odessa were sentenced to death by the Soviet secret police between 1938 and 1941.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58340805

[Vitruvius]

Climate protesters throw red paint over London’s Guildhall
Tess de La Mare



Extinction Rebellion protesters have daubed the famous Guildhall in the City of London in red paint.

“It is the symbolic and actual centre of the system that is killing us.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/c ... d=msedgntp

Incorrect. The root cause of the climate and ecological crisis is not capitalism. It's a mistaken relationship to science, dating back to the trial of Galileo in 1635. The trial of Galileo effectively divorced science as an understanding of reality, from science as a tool, supressing the former to maintain the religious, political and economic ideological architecture, while using science as a tool to drive the Industrial Revolution, circa 1730.

Had the Church welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, science would have been pursued, recognised and valued as truth, integrated into politics and economics. In that context, capitalist competition would not imply a race to the bottom - but businesses could still function profitably, just so long competitors were held to the same scientifically informed standards. Thus, it's philosophy informing politics that has not valued science appropriately as an understanding of reality i.e. Trump digs coal, to blame - not capitalism per se. Hence, communism is not the answer. Taking the science seriously is the answer.

[RCSaunders]

The main thing wrong with all of this is the belief that the world, or reality, or the environment, or society is anyone's to make into the kind of world, reality, environment, or society they would like. Just because you are afraid of what you think climate might be changing to and don't happen to like it, why should your preference be forced on anyone else?

Good question. Ideally, I assume only that people value the continued existence of people, and the rest is scientific fact. As one must exist in order to have values, I do not think this too great an assumption. Because the nature and purpose of knowledge is the relationship between the organism and reality, and a valid relation facilitates survival, existence is the bridge between the is and the ought. In this context, what's true matters - and you have an evolutionary obligation to be right.

Evolution certainly does not confer any teleological values on anything and certainly no kind of obligation of any kind. Obligated to whom?

I see no value whatsoever in the indiscriminate, "continued existence," of people. The vast majority of humanity is worthless and not worth saving, especially at the expense of those few human beings who are worthy of life and have earned it. If you are thinking of the social advantages to individuals, most societies are comprised to parasites who are a constant drain and impediment to those who produce the wealth and values that make the lives of the parasites possible.

The climate is going to change. It always has and always will. Human behavior can do nothing about changing it one way or the other. If you want to believe otherwise, and want to spend you own effort and resources addressing climate in some way, you ought to. If you can find others to agree with you and support your efforts, no one should interfere in your efforts, but you may not rightly attempt to use anyone else's effort or resources for your aims without their choice.

The world is not about to end. Everything changes--some we'll like, others we won't, but it is our nature to always learn and make all the necessary changes in our own lives required to adapt reality to our needs and our ways to the requirements of reality.

If, by the way, you are able to discover and produce a practical method of utilizing geothermal energy your fortune will be made. Good luck. Have you looked into ocean wave power?

[Vitruvius]

The main thing wrong with all of this is the belief that the world, or reality, or the environment, or society is anyone's to make into the kind of world, reality, environment, or society they would like. Just because you are afraid of what you think climate might be changing to and don't happen to like it, why should your preference be forced on anyone else?

Good question. Ideally, I assume only that people value the continued existence of people, and the rest is scientific fact. As one must exist in order to have values, I do not think this too great an assumption. Because the nature and purpose of knowledge is the relationship between the organism and reality, and a valid relation facilitates survival, existence is the bridge between the is and the ought. In this context, what's true matters - and you have an evolutionary obligation to be right.

Evolution certainly does not confer any teleological values on anything and certainly no kind of obligation of any kind. Obligated to whom?

I see no value whatsoever in the indiscriminate, "continued existence," of people. The vast majority of humanity is worthless and not worth saving, especially at the expense of those few human beings who are worthy of life and have earned it. If you are thinking of the social advantages to individuals, most societies are comprised to parasites who are a constant drain and impediment to those who produce the wealth and values that make the lives of the parasites possible.

The climate is going to change. It always has and always will. Human behavior can do nothing about changing it one way or the other. If you want to believe otherwise, and want to spend you own effort and resources addressing climate in some way, you ought to. If you can find others to agree with you and support your efforts, no one should interfere in your efforts, but you may not rightly attempt to use anyone else's effort or resources for your aims without their choice.

The world is not about to end. Everything changes--some we'll like, others we won't, but it is our nature to always learn and make all the necessary changes in our own lives required to adapt reality to our needs and our ways to the requirements of reality.

If, by the way, you are able to discover and produce a practical method of utilizing geothermal energy your fortune will be made. Good luck. Have you looked into ocean wave power?

Your opinion:

"The climate is going to change. It always has and always will. Human behavior can do nothing about changing it one way or the other."

...is a view on the verge of extinction. Pretty much everyone accepts that climate change is a thing, and that carbon emissions are responsible. I've mentioned several times previously that this thread is premised upon the accepted view that climate change is a real and significant threat. I'm not willing to waste time debating whether climate change is real. If all the science out there doesn't convince you - I cannot. I can only tell you that I'm convinced by the science that's out there, and proceed on the basis that climate change is a real threat. If you don't think climate change is real - start a thread on the subject and I'll contribute, but not here. This thread is about solving climate change.