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I've been reducing my human consumption to no more than 2 or 3 servings of long pork a week. Apparently humans are full of unhealthy cholesterol, carcinogens, lead, and heavy metals.
These are the End Times. I just question the reality of what is going. I do not like the reality I see around me, so I refuse to accept it. I refuse to accept this reality.
Indeed. There comes a time when each civilization needs to expand or perish. Make no mistake: Even though the perishing can take a while, refusing to expand does lead to being extinguished. Looking back, all the major advances in human history can be seen in pretty much the same light. We didn't adopt large-scale farming because it was comfortable. Indeed, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle had far more leisure time. We did it because the changing world around us required it for our survival. We did not go through industrialization because it was comfortable, we did it because it solved a number of problems that were becoming massive. We did not adopt cars because they went faster, we did it because horses brought problems that were becoming severe. And so on. There have always been problems - and though the solutions bring their own problems, a solution must be chosen. The problem with the environmentalist solution of frugality, conserving and limiting is that it a) shuts down all other possible options, b) doesn't actually stand a chance of solving the problem, and c) lets unscrupulous politicians use them for their own purposes. That is what is called an UNWORKABLE solution. Choose that to the exclusion of all others, and you deserve the living hell to come.
Look at it this way: To date, nobody has even formulated a plan for how we are supposed to save enough energy to get out of the crisis. Not one year has the energy consumption fallen. If we accept CO2 as the main actor of climate change, we must also accept that what we have managed as for a solution is minuscule, indeed, what we CAN HOPE to achieve is pitiful. As I said, even the "no further emissions" projections are pretty miserable.
So: What to do? As I see it, there are mainly two ways to react. Either you declare that this crisis is the result of the SIN and HERESY of mankind, meaning we must MAKE PENANCE and SUFFER for our ARROGANCE yadda yadda yadda. Or, you do all you can to find alternative options and ways to adapt. Thing is, these two ARE mutually exclusive. The HERESY AND SIN crowd will work tirelessly to stop alternative options from getting research - they are just fine with being the high priests of mankind's final, pitiful verse, and when the end comes, who cares about their role, right? Even worse, should an alternative option prove feasible, they stand to lose everything they have so carefully built up, which means they will do all in their power to destroy it.
I saw a program about geoengineering a few years back that cinched it for me. The idea was that they were going to send up polarized lenses into space, which would lessen the amount of sunlight that reached the Earth. I could see a few problems with this plan, but still. They punched the experimental data from the downscaled model into the prediction algorithms, and found that it would kill the global warming (a few years back, so they hadn't changed to climate change yet) completely. Extended into a thousand years ahead or so, there would be no appreciable warming. They were very impressed by the results...
...and the environmental politico in the room says: "Of course, we'd still have to reduce consumption, limit emissions, and restructure society."
Why? I agree it's probably not a good idea to do it, but if it WERE done, and the problem WAS solved... why would we need to restructure society? Because... it was never about the climate in the first place. At least for a fair number of the politicians on the scene.
I refuse to accept this reality.
So, you're really MythBusters' Adam Savage?
That's the definition of a cancer, and a recipe for short term survival at best.
Optimally what we need, is a steady state civilization, which renews what it consumes with the use of renewable energy. Maybe it means we have to give up extremely wasteful ways of housing ourselves such as suburbs.
It's either this or die in the long run, because no matter what we come up with in tech, we no longer have the option to explore our way out of the problems we make.
And then we die of disease, since cramping a large number of humans together tends to increase local garbage and disease spread.
Try a realistic solution.
The thing is...we only have one Earth. There is no guarantee that there is any other planet remotely near by with all the properties that make it so great for humans. Even if their is, we still don't know if there is any sort of feasible method to actually get flesh and blood people there.
So we shouldn't operate under the assumption that we can just do whatever we want with the biosphere, because hey, we can just colonize space. That line of thinking to me is no different than some fundamentalist who insist that the imminent "rapture" means we don't need to worry about the environment.
That's the definition of a cancer, and a recipe for short term survival at best.
Optimally what we need, is a steady state civilization, which renews what it consumes with the use of renewable energy. Maybe it means we have to give up extremely wasteful ways of housing ourselves such as suburbs.
It's either this or die in the long run, because no matter what we come up with in tech, we no longer have the option to explore our way out of the problems we make.
And then we die of disease, since cramping a large number of humans together tends to increase local garbage and disease spread.
Try a realistic solution.
What is your realistic solution?
Because Sanitation and a strong healthcare system can take care of a lot of those problems. Certainly I don't see cities going away anytime soon, and I hardly think "disease control" was ever a valid benefit for living in suburbia (especially if all your suburbanites are heading into the city anyway to work.
There is a very finite amount of money for environmental research. As it is, without joining the PENANCE AND SUFFERING club, you don't get money for it. There is a finite amount of money with which to improve the environment, and most of that goes toward the goals of setting limits for mankind. Every dollar spent on that is a dollar not spent on biological diversity. The same guys preaching the CANON of climate change are the ones who make sure to kick native and primitive human tribes out of Borneo's forests by declaring the area they live in a natural reserve - which the oil companies that paid them could then drill in. This is the WWF, by the way, one of the major groups making up the IPCC. The point is... CO2 is not the only issue we have, and nobody has yet suggested a relevant way to solve the problem. Meanwhile, non-solutions consume every iota of environmental action.
As a comparison: Imagine you are severely in debt. You are bleeding money, say ten thousand dollars in extra debt per month, just to pay the rent. You can try to cut costs, but that will still not dent the basic debt. To make things worse, you have a foreclosure date sometime soon. Now, what to do? Keep trying to save a dozen bucks per month more (which will make your debt grow slightly more slowly), or try to find another solution? Even worse, now imagine everyone allowed a voice in this tells you you need to save even more! Do what they say and it would slow your debt accumulation even more!!! Oh, and they REALLY don't like other solutions.
But it sounds like what we are saying is that...well we can completely solve all the worlds problems, so lets just do nothing at all.
That...doesn't accomplish anything at all.
Of course it doesn't. We need to buy time. This could be done by nuclear power with an extended fissile cycle beyond 50 years or so. That may not be to everyone's tastes, but hey, the only concrete solution I heard from the environmentalists (beyond "give us more money!") was "let's suspend democracy for as long as we feel we need to declare the crisis over", so there is that. Once we have more time, various branches of science will give us more options. If we could build a space elevator, the cost to get off planet would dwindle. New methods for isolation and better materials. New ways to extract useful energy. New foods. Thing about science is you don't know what you will find. There are options, but the environmentalists will not let us chase after them.
I know I don't have concrete solutions. Then again, the only suggested ones will only make things worse (totalitarianism isn't going to help you...), so I am not alone in this.
Biome studies, etological studies, basic biological studies, preservation efforts, and so on... all of which are getting less money than before the crusade against CO2.
That's the definition of a cancer, and a recipe for short term survival at best.
Optimally what we need, is a steady state civilization, which renews what it consumes with the use of renewable energy. Maybe it means we have to give up extremely wasteful ways of housing ourselves such as suburbs.
It's either this or die in the long run, because no matter what we come up with in tech, we no longer have the option to explore our way out of the problems we make.
And then we die of disease, since cramping a large number of humans together tends to increase local garbage and disease spread.
Try a realistic solution.
What is your realistic solution?
Because Sanitation and a strong healthcare system can take care of a lot of those problems. Certainly I don't see cities going away anytime soon, and I hardly think "disease control" was ever a valid benefit for living in suburbia (especially if all your suburbanites are heading into the city anyway to work.
My realistic solution is to engineer bacteria that convert air pollution into oil and work on technologies to clean up water supplies before we run out.
Your reply about sanitation and strong healthcare is inaccurate because cities are inherently the opposite of that. That's in addition to the fact they tend to concentrate and amplify environmental damage, in addition to being environmentally damaging just by even existing. Even the IPCC and EPA acknowledge that their mere existence has a negative environmental impact. So it would be like trying to solve a forest fire by dousing the unburned trees in kerosene.
As for your comment of there being only one Earth: There is... and relying upon that logic as a reason to focus all of our efforts on our planet is a death sentence for humanity. Some of the ecological damage done to the planet that will eventually kill its capacity to support human life predates humanity... but while humanity is not at fault for starting it, humanity has massively exacerbated it and proven we completely lack the capacity to undo it. In one particular case, our efforts to even slow it down have had the opposite effect and contributed to it speeding up. And that's before you get to the massive damage we've done on a global scale.
Earth is dying, and we can't save it.
We might be able to terraform it to habitable again in the future... but first, we need to be off the planet to do that. And in order to leave, we need the planet to support us long enough that we can leave before it dies... so solutions to prolong the lifespan of the planet are necessary, and thus the fight for lessening our impact is a fight not for life on this planet, but for our very existence as a species.
By all science, preventing the environmental disaster is too late; even the IPCC has admitted that if we stop all CO2 output right now, a global environmental disaster is going to happen anyway. We lost that battle. Now, the fight is shifting towards adaptation and towards minimizing the impact... and since we don't even fully understand how Earth's environmental systems work, the second one is a long shot and might not even be within our technological capacity. We simply don't know.
Top it all off, you have people actually focused on renewable energy coming out and saying renewable energy will make precisely 0% difference in what is to come and won't even slow the growth of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Which means we've been approaching this from the wrong angle, if they're right. So, we need a different approach. One that isn't a short-term solution... after all, gasoline was a short-term solution to electric cars, and they in turn were short-term solutions to the environmental disaster of horse manure. As the saying goes, short term solutions create long term problems.
You've been watching too many disaster movies on the "SyFy Channel".
The planet is not dying. it isn't even losing it's capacity to support life as we know it. What it is undergoing is as it has before is a change in climate which is largely being influenced by human activities. And if we continue to ignore those changes, our civilization is going to get a royal smack up the backsides.
I'm referring to two different phenomena: Desertification and declining levels of usable fresh water.
The desertification one you can say is not a major issue within any time frame humanity has to worry about; I would disagree, but that's because my disagreement is based on a potential projected impact of the second issue.
In particular, you can read about it in these links:
Stanford announcing a study.
UNEP report on the subject, saying we have until 2020 before it becomes a major problem
So, in particular, my statement is based on the fact we're running out of one of the very resources we need to live. And that the very scenario we've caused is only going to exacerbate it. Plus, you can check this website and note that desertification is increased as rainfall decreases. And as desertification spreads, rainfall decreases...
It is true that the ship has sailed as far as preventing the change, but we still can influence on the severity of the change and come up with means with living with it. We may loose much of the coast and have to give up on environmentally absurd cities such as Las Vegas, but it doesn't mean that we are foredoomed to bequeath a miserable existence to our grandchildren and their children in a post tech ruin.
Sea level rise I cannot comment on. I am under a NDA related to relevant issues of that topic.
However, I can assure you that Las Vegas is not in danger because of sea level rises. It's in danger because of something that will be a problem in about 5 years, not an issue that will come about closer to next century.
There is no one magic bullet for our problems. We will need a variety of approaches to deal with them, and the poltiical problem means that some of those approaches mean changes in the status quo, changes which go against vested interests who retaliate by funding the "denier" movements.
It's not just the denier movements that benefit from the status quo; the entirety of climate science in America depends on it to some degree. Without the status quo, climate science in America and most renewable energy projects will quickly collapse. Most of the American political support for climate science only exists because the status quo, particularly the lobbyists, have created a situation in which those politicians are encouraged to support it. In fact, climate science in America only even got started because James Hansen abused the status quo to bring it to the attention of those in Congress.
You're right that there is no magical bullet... but at the same time, we need practical solutions that will actually work. Not impractical solutions that will make things worse.
I can't imagine why. Sea level rise isn't exactly an Area 51 level secret, the New York Times even did a multimedia graphic on their site to show how each 5 foot increment of sea level rise would impact us. And what I consider to be the future nail in Los Vegas' coffin will be the growing impracticality of supplying the city with fresh water.
Sea level rise I cannot comment on. I am under a NDA related to relevant issues of that topic....
It's work-related. Part of my job put me in a position where, in order to do what I was being paid to do, I had to come to learn a few things about the topic that are not public information. The banning of most talk about a subject for someone who isn't a scientist isn't atypical ; it keeps people from running their mouth and accidentally spilling something.
The growing impracticality of supplying Los Vegas is what I referred to when I said five years.
What exactly are you citing as "impractical solutions"?
You're right that there is no magical bullet... but at the same time, we need practical solutions that will actually work. Not impractical solutions that will make things worse.
Eliminating suburbs and concentrating people in cities, reducing human consumption while maintaining scientific advancement (those two are near polar opposites in reality), focusing on the idea that this planet is what we must put all focus on, relying entirely on existing renewable energy solutions, the American biofuel efforts (some of the biofuel solutions are very practical; the focus on corn isn't one of them), light bulbs with mercury gas in them (Too Dumb to Live), hydrogen fuel cells, eliminating the cattle industry, solar power for significant portions of the planet (there are regions too far north or south for solar panels to get enough efficiency to be practical), wind power for significant portions of the planet (some areas don't have enough wind access for it), hydrogen power due to the fact it's contributing to a second environmental disaster (the water one I linked to), population reduction on a time factor that would have a significant positive impact (it would meet the legal definition of genocide), and ignoring the problem until later (the worst of the bunch).
Note that not everything I listed is impractical everywhere; solar power is actually practical for significant portions of the planet as well, and so is wind. However, in the long run those are regional solutions that may not ultimately solve the global problem.
Notice I did not include geothermal, despite my previous questioning of it; recent tech innovations are making it increasingly practical as a planet-wide solution to energy issues. It won't be the ultimate solution on its own, but I can see pairing it up with a couple other power sources. It's also one of the ones on the list that would be even more practical for human expansion into space, given many of the planets we would likely mass-colonize would be ones where it could be done. So, quite likely geothermal is going to end up a very long term technology once it is fully matured.
Note: I am giving a very literal answer to your question; the list of what is practical is not the same list as what is environmentally friendly; some of the solutions considered that are practical are not even remotely environmentally-friendly (most biofuels are an excellent example), while some of the impractical solutions would top the environmentally-friendly list.
In order (roughly) my response.
Suburban sprawl is not a necessity. Many Western countries are quite fine without them. Also this isn't the Middle Ages, putting people in cities has not been an automatic death sentence to epidemic for at least a century, at least in the First World.
Also higher consumption is not a prerequisite for scientific advancement. Today's computers in fact consume much less power for what they deliver compared to their ancient forebears, or what Babbage's Differential Engine would have gobbled up if it had been built to full size. Similarly making a car more gas efficient is not a step back in technology because it consumes less. Much of our present consumption is sheer waste and reducing that waste is as contributory to the solution as developing new sources of power.
Suburbs are an issue, they're extremely wasteful and have a much higher carbon footprint per person than the average city dweller. Sewage management is frequently a more complicated issue to manage for compared to concenrated city dwelling. Suburbs are a contribution to the problem, not the solution.
You disparage regional solutions because they aren't a global answer. Regional solutions are an important part of making the globe work. The more of these problems we can solve on a regional basis, the more of the problem that is solved.
We do have to put our focus on this planet. We don't have a backup to it. Space colonies are only a method to put the rich away from the consequences of the problems they are responsible for. They're not an answer for the population at large, unless you simply want to write them off along with the planet.
My response, in order:
The suburban sprawl is going to become necessary, in part due to the fact that medical technology is about to take a step backwards in its capacity to fight disease due to the loss of antibiotics as a viable disease treatment method. In addition, vaccines are becoming less reliable for the First World due to what is beginning to look like a possible change in disease origin patterns; both H1N1 and the recently-discovered Bourbon Virus had their origin in North America. Given how long it usually takes to create vaccines, we're looking at the possibility that epidemics may be hitting the United States with no warning. Thus, I do not count recent history as it appears nature is adapting to counter our disease-fighting capacity.
And, actually, a higher consumption rate is required for science. They have to go through experimentation, prototypes, etc. Sometimes, these mean going back to the drawing board a lot. Making a car more efficient is not a step back in technology... but the science that to it still involved an expenditure of unrecovered resources just to discover the capacity to make it more efficient. The same with discovering increasing efficiency for computers.
Suburbs do have their own issues, but at the same time they do not have the same environmental impact overall. Cities don't just have the environmental impact of the people and vehicles, but also of the buildings themselves; by merely existing, all of the concrete is known to have an effect that can alter weather patterns on par with what a mountain can do. This is known as the "heat island" effect. So any lessening of CO2 per individual is completely offset by the equivalent impact of the artificial landscape. Incidentally, cities tend to have much less green than suburbs, which in turn means they have less capacity to reabsorb that carbon later.
I didn't mean to come across as disparaging them; I doubt they will have the impact people want them to have, though. But, at the same time, I must admit they are not global solutions, and my doubt comes from the suspicion that focusing on regional solutions may hinder us on solving the global problem. I do not wish for us to pigeonhole ourselves in a harmful tech solution like we did with oil-based technology.
You're not going to like this... but we may have to write off a majority of the population anyway. It's a possibility to avoid, but it's quite possible that medical technology has, through the issues with antibiotic abuse, created a case that the majority of people may simply be doomed no matter what. I know, due to some of my immunological issues, that I am among those who will be written off in that scenario. So if I'm right, I'm dead. But even then, for escaping a dying planet... unless we focus heavily on space technology, it may be a choice between sacrificing the majority of people or sacrificing everyone. And while you are right that we do not have a backup, evidence is also beginning to show that we don't even have an option for dealing with environmental disaster we caused with what we currently have available. Either way, we need to develop new technology instead of relying on what currently exists.
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I am just asking in general, because it feels like the fabric of reality that holds everything together is falling apart...
Getting back to the OP, what organ is it that "senses" the "fabric of reality that holds everything together," and what brand of ginseng improves it so that I can share in this tingly sensation?
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I am just asking in general, because it feels like the fabric of reality that holds everything together is falling apart...Getting back to the OP, what organ is it that "senses" the "fabric of reality that holds everything together," and what brand ofginsengwhiskey improves it so that I can share in this tingly sensation?
FixedThatForMe
Your suburbanites are working in cities. If medical technology breaks down, they won't have immunity from the unwashed masses you see inhabiting there. What we need is to look at new approaches for immunological research, not give into despair on those fronts. Among those new avenues might very well be a less toxic diet.
Resources consumed in developing a product are not the same as per consumer use. The first is one time, the second is ongoing multiplied by the number of users. The fact that resources are used to doing this is really a pedantic observation.
As far as Co2, yes cities don't have a lot of green space, but suburbs are built by eliminating forests and replacing them with monoculture plants such as grass. The maintennce of the artificaially uniform plants such as lawns expands the amount of water use, and the new suburban biomes don't absorb C02 the way the forests they replaced did. In addition the greater energy inefficiency adds to the carbon footprint. And that's not even counting the addition caused by all the single passenger auto commuter transit.
You're operating on a zero sum conception that somehow working on regional issues detracts from the global effort. I contend the reverse, by solving regional problems they contribute to the global effort by removing parts of the problem. There is never a good reason to turn away an idea that works just because it doesn't work for the whole planet.
You're right I don't like your conclusion. it's heartless, defeatist, and cowardly, when it's clear that the only reason we would have to make that kind of choice is persistent refusal to face our problems head on and do what must be done. Despite my general cynicism, I still believe that when push comes to shove, we can be better than that.
It depends on the suburbanites. There are quite a few who do not. In any case, arguing they won't have immunity is a pointless; the only way they would have immunity is to cut themselves off from human society entirely. They would have a lessened risk, which will help serve to lessen the impact of disease while we research those new immunological technologies.
Per consumer may be different, but calls to reduce human resource do not impact just the per consumer use; they also impact the development use, as the development has to more heavily justify why it is using the larger resources on an individual level (despite the smaller overall usage) than the average person. This has been a massive problem with science where it comes to helium, as science unsuccessfully justified keeping its use higher than the public. Even more unfortunately, we're looking at the idea of doing this on a societal level, and for some reason societies tend to weigh both military and scientific usage as being heavier than civilian usage when the truth is often the opposite. You're looking at having to fix a perception problem. If you want to start reduction immediately, you do not have time to do that; if you want to do that first, you put off resource use reduction possibly for as long as two or three generations.
Unfortunately, the single passenger auto commuter transit issue simply isn't solvable at current; the U.S. simply doesn't have the infrastructure. The water issue could be solved with proper development of advanced water reclamation technologies... which we're going to have to develop anyway just to keep the cities going. So the water issue is a bit of a moot point because, very likely, it's going to end badly for both types of settlement. And while those areas can take in less CO2, it's not an issue that wouldn't happen anyway; packing everyone in cities would require, in the long run, expansion of agriculture on a very large scale just to solve some of the U.S.'s food distribution issues... which, in turn, means that forest land would be lost to land that wouldn't reclaim as much CO2 anyway. With the current standard, we can at least encourage suburbs to be more self-reliant on food production, in turn lessening the need for expanding farmland somewhat.
Where do you see me saying we should turn away from regional solutions? I'm saying I do not believe they will fix the global problem and that we shouldn't put our focus on them.
And, you're really not going to like this... your comments on why you don't like my conclusion are the same rationale that a lot of climate deniers share as to why they don't accept climate change. Because, sadly, there's a lot of climate scientists who are saying we may simply have to throw the majority of humanity under the bus to get anything done. So some of the deniers have become so simply because they cannot accept the sheer ruthlessness of it. Yet, at current, that's where the science is pointing as the most likely solution for a lot of our most critical resource problems. The papers just don't like stating it directly.
And, you're really not going to like this... your comments on why you don't like my conclusion are the same rationale that a lot of climate deniers share as to why they don't accept climate change. Because, sadly, there's a lot of climate scientists who are saying we may simply have to throw the majority of humanity under the bus to get anything done. So some of the deniers have become so simply because they cannot accept the sheer ruthlessness of it. Yet, at current, that's where the science is pointing as the most likely solution for a lot of our most critical resource problems. The papers just don't like stating it directly..It's my feeling that many of the climate scientists who say such things are doing so out of sheer frustration. Writing off the bulk of the species is pretty much equivalent to folding your hands and giving up on the problem and hoping it doesn't fully manifest in your lifetime.
While there may be some among the deniers who are there because of that, I'm convinced that the majority of them are those who deny human influence entirely, or are simply recoiling from the fact that massive changes in our society will become a necessity. Maybe I am irrational in my lack of cynicism or fatalism. But I'm not convinced that we are at the point of no return. I still think that action can be taken to determine the future. Call me what you will on that, and agree to disagree.
Here's hoping you are right on it being sheer frustration. Unfortunately, it doesn't look that way to those who stumble across the studies. Which is part of why I find myself facepalming at science sometimes. Some of the issues where they are hindered are their own fault for accidentally shooting themselves in the foot.
You're right on the majority, I fear. Some of them deny humans have affected nature at all. Unfortunately, that's the side most likely to get people in office, it seems :/ And to be honest, those with the rationale of not accepting the fatalism tend to be ex-supporters. To them, climate scientists made one too many mistakes and... well, one of them described it as "like realizing Santa Claus isn't real." It doesn't help that climate science has made some truly boneheaded mistakes, or just how much is a part of what is accepted within the science that originated as denialist claims (heat islands, for example). There's only so many times you can say "okay, the denialists were right about that one..." before you begin to wonder if, maybe, they're right about everything. Eventually, you either reconcile that even people who randomly guess are going to be right, you give up on believing, or you come to accept that the science might not actually know what its doing but is still right on the general premise and will eventually accidentally discover what is correct. Sadly, a lot of human science tends to fall into the third category at first; generally, once they figure it out, it's nearly impossible to keep them from making massive discoveries and refining human knowledge.
I am trying to read these responses, but I know its all bu**s**t. The governments of the world are owned and operated by the giant corporations, and they will not allow real change to take place on Earth until a few billion people die. I think the future will be just like 12 Monkeys, but without the time travel.
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Imagine you're in a poker game. Let's add, for spice, a few rules:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't stop playing.
What you need to do in this situation is to change the game. Otherwise you WILL lose. It's pretty much where we are already as regards climate science. If even the "no further emissions" scenarios spell doom, there is exactly NO WAY we can solve the crisis by saving, conserving and limiting.
When exposed to harsh conditions that will kill them, you know what bacteria do? They mutate. Despite a higher energy consumption (that will kill them sooner unless it works), despite the risks of becoming nonviable, and so on. And lo and behold, it is a method that has worked well enough that there are still bacteria.
Now, we are not bacteria. We can't do what they do. However, one thing we most certainly CAN do is allow for far more variability. Primarily, then, this would entail getting rid of IP law entirely or at least restricting it to very short periods of time. If humanity's future is dependent on the right methods being found, then we need every man and woman with a iota of free time to think of and work at solutions. To be able to do this, they need free access to information and the right to try different approaches without worrying about some big corp's patents. Nobody can know what idea will work, or who will figure what out, given what stimulation, situation and education, so let everyone try what they like. This would also mean giving up on the sad, sad idea of moralistic laws for how people should live - to allow maximum possibilties and options. It would be a scientific flowering unlike anything previously seen, given the tools we have today such as 3D-printing, the internet, and so on.
It is a harsh realization that we don't know today how we are supposed to survive the climate problem - but we do know how to go about finding it.
Eliminating the idea of limiting information wouldn't create a massive growth of scientific innovation; it would pretty much doom scientific innovation due to the sheer outpouring of rage as people learned exactly what some of the things that have been considered were. And the fallout from the few people crazy enough to actually try some of the innovations in their garages.
We're not talking about experiments as nice as the U.S. government intentionally unleashing chemical weaponry inside of subways. We're talking about things where even the most unscrupulous, sociopathic, people-hating researching at ExxonMobil found themselves morally opposing it.
One of the things the general public doesn't realize about IP law and secrets where it comes to scientific research is just how much it protects them. Science is an outlier career path; in general, it attracts people that are the outliers of society. This means you get some honest, dedicated, completely good people... and it means you get the people where "genocidal psychopath" isn't descriptive enough. A surprising amount of closed-door scientific considerations is weeding out the experiments that are generally just too evil to do. And even if you limit it to just climate research, you're going to find quite a bit of weapons data, including weapons of mass destruction ranging from the traditional (nuclear, chemical, biological) to the downright science fiction (nanites, engineered plantlife, engineered macro-organisms).
Yeah, the goal is beneficial to humanity... but like all good causes, it has its people willing to achieve their Utopia by building it on the bodies of nearly everyone else. Or who are willing to sit back and say to themselves, "you know, mustard gas kills a lot of people, but I wonder if spraying Toronto with it will have an beneficial side effect?"
Most of these get vetoed due to ethics concerns. And for obvious reasons. But imagine all of that dumped into the lap of the public, WITHOUT the censors and systems of control, and waiting to see who tries that Toronto experiment without stopping to ask if, maybe, the price just isn't worth it. After all, it's not like society is lacking for crazy people willing to kill a bunch of others.
I was specifically talking about IP law, not removing every part of ethics in science. Nor of opening up every archive for the juicy secrets there.
Now, some of that ethics oversight is a problem, given the streamlining of projects it leads to. It is also hardly a question of a "bare minimum", given that (for example) Big Pharma has lobbied for decades to make pharmacological studies as expensive as possible to prevent competition. They keep complaining that it's too expensive, but that just means nobody else gets into the game. This was the reason Phillip Morris decided to support a law forbidding tobacco advertising. However, it was not what I was talking about. Given that the majority of research I was discussing would be low-cost, small scale and wouldn't involve humans (except for mustard gassing Toronto, of course...) I think a very much simplified process for ethics oversight would be something to look into.
As for secrets, I didn't discuss that at all. And you still managed to draw the conclusion that I wanted to spread "quite a bit of weapons data, including weapons of mass destruction ranging from the traditional (nuclear, chemical, biological) to the downright science fiction (nanites, engineered plantlife, engineered macro-organisms)." I really have no idea how to answer that. Opening up secrets and making a transparent government is a good thing, mostly, but still, nothing I said touched on it.
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Eliminating the idea of limiting information wouldn't create a massive growth of scientific innovation; it would pretty much doom scientific innovation due to the sheer outpouring of rage as people learned exactly what some of the things that have been considered were. And the fallout from the few people crazy enough to actually try some of the innovations in their garages.
We're not talking about experiments as nice as the U.S. government intentionally unleashing chemical weaponry inside of subways. We're talking about things where even the most unscrupulous, sociopathic, people-hating researching at ExxonMobil found themselves morally opposing it.
One of the things the general public doesn't realize about IP law and secrets where it comes to scientific research is just how much it protects them. Science is an outlier career path; in general, it attracts people that are the outliers of society. This means you get some honest, dedicated, completely good people... and it means you get the people where "genocidal psychopath" isn't descriptive enough. A surprising amount of closed-door scientific considerations is weeding out the experiments that are generally just too evil to do. And even if you limit it to just climate research, you're going to find quite a bit of weapons data, including weapons of mass destruction ranging from the traditional (nuclear, chemical, biological) to the downright science fiction (nanites, engineered plantlife, engineered macro-organisms).
Yeah, the goal is beneficial to humanity... but like all good causes, it has its people willing to achieve their Utopia by building it on the bodies of nearly everyone else. Or who are willing to sit back and say to themselves, "you know, mustard gas kills a lot of people, but I wonder if spraying Toronto with it will have an beneficial side effect?"
Most of these get vetoed due to ethics concerns. And for obvious reasons. But imagine all of that dumped into the lap of the public, WITHOUT the censors and systems of control, and waiting...
Are we even remotely still talking about climate change research and lessening our industrial footprint? I have known my share of climate change researchers...I am pretty sure most of them are not Doctor Doom.
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Like seriously...as a publishing scientist...scientists are...people. They have the same ratio of personality quirks as the rest of the population, and the idea that somehow we harbor a greater percentage of genocidal psychopaths than the normal population actually makes me angry.
I was specifically talking about IP law, not removing every part of ethics in science. Nor of opening up every archive for the juicy secrets there.
Now, some of that ethics oversight is a problem, given the streamlining of projects it leads to. It is also hardly a question of a "bare minimum", given that (for example) Big Pharma has lobbied for decades to make pharmacological studies as expensive as possible to prevent competition. They keep complaining that it's too expensive, but that just means nobody else gets into the game. This was the reason Phillip Morris decided to support a law forbidding tobacco advertising. However, it was not what I was talking about. Given that the majority of research I was discussing would be low-cost, small scale and wouldn't involve humans (except for mustard gassing Toronto, of course...) I think a very much simplified process for ethics oversight would be something to look into.
As for secrets, I didn't discuss that at all. And you still managed to draw the conclusion that I wanted to spread "quite a bit of weapons data, including weapons of mass destruction ranging from the traditional (nuclear, chemical, biological) to the downright science fiction (nanites, engineered plantlife, engineered macro-organisms)." I really have no idea how to answer that. Opening up secrets and making a transparent government is a good thing, mostly, but still, nothing I said touched on it.
You do know the U.S. government doesn't make weapons, right? It uses contractors for that. Sometimes, it wants to know what the environmental impact of some of those weapons are. Sometimes, someone within a corporation gets the idea that maybe these stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons they have sitting around might actually have a more beneficial use in the area of combating climate change. And sometimes they want to know the theoretical climate impact of weapons that don't even exist yet (why, I have no idea; I suspect a few of these are just projects to keep funding).
So, yes, what you said touched very much on weapons technology. Because some of the companies doing some research in relation to climate are also companies that manufacture weapons.
Unfortunately, when it comes to cheap research, you're not talking about much that isn't already in the public domain. That's primarily data crunching, and most of the data is already freely available (what isn't freely available is, again, related to weapons technology). There really isn't a lot of proprietary data due to the fact the nature of publishing means they tend to end up giving that data away to a lot of people. After all, you can't patent the laws of physics.
But the ultimate problem is that a lot of other items are simply not cheap. You wouldn't get much outside of the wacko science that would never be approved that the public could make any headway in.
Also, there's no conspiracy theory on research. The ethics boards exist to make certain science doesn't become mad science. The pharma companies spend so much on research because it's necessary for the research to be safe instead of psychotic.
Well Games workshop is doing there fantasy campaign called the end times maybe thats what there all on about?
That's exactly what I was thinking. Even Games Workshop is schilling the End Times.
Are we even remotely still talking about climate change research and lessening our industrial footprint? I have known my share of climate change researchers...I am pretty sure most of them are not Doctor Doom.
Yes, we're still talking about climate change research.
And, sadly, I'm not so sure most of them are not Doctor Doom. So much of the conclusion of climate change research seems to focus on doom and despair that it sometimes comes across as the scientific equivalent of a supervillain's victory speech. Which, really, it kinda is... the supervillain being humanity's damage to the planet, though.
Wait, I have a sock puppet for that...
I WILL WIN, PUNY MORTALS!
Like seriously...as a publishing scientist...scientists are...people. They have the same ratio of personality quirks as the rest of the population, and the idea that somehow we harbor a greater percentage of genocidal psychopaths than the normal population actually makes me angry.
Then feel free to be angry. It won't do you any good.
Unfortunately, the higher ratio of mental disorder among intelligent people is established science. It is primarily linked to creativity, but they've also established a link to other intelligence as well. And science itself, as a profession, tends to attract people who are far higher in intelligence.
It's one of those cases of scientists shooting themselves in the foot. In this case, it's a Catch-22 situation; there's no good outcome from from their announcement.
If you want a climate science example, all I have to do is cite James Hansen. The same guy who, as of 2009, shouted we only had 4 years to avert catastrophic climate change, eventually had to quit, and was arrested outside the White House protesting several times before finally being shunted aside by many of his former supporters, including those within climate science. The same guy who publicly endorsed a book calling for us to completely abandon modern civilization and go back to nature. And, yes, that means everything: scientific research, computers, automobiles, health care... That's the kind of crazy James Hansen subscribes to.
James Hansen
What is wrong with James Hansen?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen"At the end of 2008, Hansen stated five priorities that he felt then President-elect Obama should adopt "for solving the climate and energy problems, while stimulating the economy": efficient energy use, renewable energy, a smart grid, generation IV nuclear reactors and carbon capture and storage. Regarding nuclear, he expressed opposition to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, stating that the $25 Billion (US) surplus held in the Nuclear Waste Fund "should be used to develop fast reactors that consume nuclear waste, and thorium reactors to prevent the creation of new long-lived nuclear waste."[78]
In 2009 Hansen wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama where he advocated a "Moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2".[75] In his first book Storms of My Grandchildren, similarly, Hansen discusses his Declaration of Stewardship, the first principle of which requires "a moratorium on coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester carbon dioxide".[85]"
None of these things sounds crazy at all. Where did you get your information from?
From that same Wikipedia entry:
Hansen and 1251 other activists were arrested in August and September 2011, at another demonstration in front of the White House. Hansen urged President Obama to reject the Keystone pipeline extension intended to carry more synthetic crude oil from Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands to the Gulf of Mexico.[82] On February 13, 2013, Hansen was again arrested at the White House, along with Daryl Hannah and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during a further protest against the proposed Keystone pipeline extension.[84]
As for the crazy... go back and look at the book link. Then go find a copy and read it (or just read the reviews; one of the reviewers gives a very accurate summary). Then notice that, on the page I linked to, one of the people quoted as agreeing with the book is James Hansen.
To say that global warming has nothing to do with manmade emissions is like saying...
...that Earth is dying. We can be saved. Mankind can fix it.
crazy
OK, I read the full interview, and several reviews of the book, and I just can't find anything that controversial, much less crazy. It might have seemed crazy back in the 1980's, but now it is generally accepted science. OK, the idea of getting rid of our industrial way of life may shock some people, but I would invoke Einsteins definition of crazy as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". If pollution is a problem, stopping the pollution isn't crazy.
crazyOK, I read the full interview, and several reviews of the book, and I just can't find anything that controversial, much less crazy. It might have seemed crazy back in the 1980's, but now it is generally accepted science. OK, the idea of getting rid of our industrial way of life may shock some people, but I would invoke Einsteins definition of crazy as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". If pollution is a problem, stopping the pollution isn't crazy.
How do you do that without causing a worldwide genocide that would go down in history as the most evil decision humans ever made? Unfortunately, we're talking about billions of people, and the individual resource requirements for each individual human are simply beyond what a non-industrial society can supply. The post-industrial societies like the U.S. really haven't fully abandoned the industrial way of life simply because it's unfeasible.
Plus, the book itself advocates abandoning all forms of medical care. All forms. This means no vaccinations, no antibiotics, no medications for diabetes or HIV or even simply birth control. No seizure meds, no headache meds... No matter how you try to slice it, you're still talking a minimum of one billion deaths as a minimum result of that decision, and a more likely death ratio of four or five billion.
Also, one other thing to keep in mind: Part of that industrial lifestyle is such simple things as recycling, solar panels, wind turbines, sewers and water treatment plants, a surprising amount of advanced farming techniques... In other words, we're going to have a bunch of people with no drinking water or food who will be looking with envy and greed at the few who do have it. Picking up a history book and reading just about any chapter on early warfare will tell you the outcome of that and why it's bad for the environment.
And, yes, the book advocates abandoning everything about modern civilization. Also, it wasn't published in the 1980s; it was published in 2009. So this isn't talking about abandoning technology we've since moved away from.
I think you are confusing exposing yourself to an idea, vs following it blindly. James Henson has his own ideas, such as the five listed in my post above. The book covers a wide range of topics, many of which James has no seeming connection to. For example, I could go tell you to read a bible, but it doesn't mean I think you should stop trimming your beard or eating bacon. I could also recommend you read a book like "Pimp: The story of my life" without actually encouraging you to exploit women.
Industrial life isn't the end all be all of everything. Something like 70% of the worlds population are fed by non-industrial, sustainable agriculture. And if you are even remotely concerned with fresh water, industry is the last thing you should be defending.
I don't think completely quitting industry is really worth discussing, because it just isn't going to happen in any scenario. I would also say that maintaining the current systems of production and consumption is also not worth discussing, as it only really benefits a small fraction of a percent of the population, and isn't even remotely sustainable.
Do you have any proof of that 70% figure? Because I can tell you right now that I have not seen any science to back it, and plenty that says agriculture is not sustainable without industrial products (specifically, certain fertilizers) and cannot feed as many people with industrial mechanisms (the entire transportation industry being an important one).
Plus, even the IPCC has said that agriculture is a bit of a miniature environmental disaster on its own.
Also, I think you are trying your best to let Hansen off from on this; he didn't just state that one should read the book or that it is good. He said, and I quote, "Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, and the 'system' is the problem" The "system" that Keith Farnish talks about in his book is modern civilization. So, there's really no ambiguity at all about what Hansen supports.
since my wife died in july i feel like ive been living in my personel endtimes
Watchmanx, you have my sympathy. I am sorry for your loss.
its really werid coming back to the paizo site..since i was my wifes cargiver when i lost her i also lost my job..so now i come on and peek at the new releases..being a book person and not being able to buy books was one of the strangest side affects of losing her...she did not like rpgs, fantasy, sci-fi or just about anything i read..but she let me be me and love me for it...sorry folks just had to vent a little