Science defines global warming so well, and science can tell us how to best mitigate the problem

What is the optimal global warming public policy?

Any sane and sober scientist can tell you what to do about global warming: immediately stop carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.   That’s the optimal choice.   Anything else is sub-optimal.  You may define optimal any way you like.

We need to minimize CO2 emissions - the lowest minimum is zero - or in a better world it is less than zero - where we actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere - to sequester it.  Our policy must act to move CO2 levels down fast.   The fact that it takes about 40 years to begin to see the climate effects from a change in CO2 emissions, gives the problem a special dimension.   So minimize CO2 today and see the levels begin to fall in 40 years.   And tragically, the last 40 years of CO2 emissions have been the heaviest ever.   Even with our best effort, things will be a mess until about 2050.

And the second parameter best describes when we should act: right now is the perfect time.   Any other time is less than perfect.  The further we drift from immediately, the further we move from good.  The longer we wait, the worse the consequences.   So right now is perfectly good, to act later is less so, and much later is catastrophically bad.   It is troubling that we don’t really know much about the interim choices in-between the best time of now and the worst time -of way-off or never.   Those in-between areas are the messy crap-shoot areas, the zones of confusion and bickering.  Delay and procrastination makes things worse.   Except for the doom of total inaction - no one can know the physical consequences of acting at any politically convenient time in the future.   If we spend a lot of time arguing about the best time between now and never to take action, then we are moving farther away from our goal.

So atmospheric sciences calls upon us to act fast, act completely.   Now we just need a science-driven policy designed to respect these rules and optimize our actions.  Of course, because it will be difficult and painful, humans will not like to face the tasks ahead.   So after squirming uncomfortably for a while, you may realize what must happen.

We should immediately minimize, control, and stop carbon dioxide emissions and shut down CO2 sources.  Most CO2 comes from the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels.   That would be coal, oil, gas, alcohol and even the combusion from firewood, trash and wild fires. These are all carbon based fuels that release carbon dioxide.   Because it combusts with oxygen, every pound of carbon fuel will make more carbon dioxide than the beginning carbon fuel before combustion. For instance a pound of gasoline makes almost 3 pounds of CO2. Each fuel is figured differently, but for all the carbon fuels, expect more carbon dioxide - multiply the weight by 2 or 3.   So a trainload of coal, gives us 3 trainloads of carbon dioxide.

Only when we make a huge and complex effort can we stop emitting CO2.   Governments, as they move to protect citizens and secure our posterity, can act with force or with taxation.  They can use taxes to change behavior - like taxing alcohol or taxing tobacco heavily.   Rarely do governments tax so severely as to force a business out of existence.   Or governments can use force to smash and destroy bad things - like busting meth labs, moonshine stills or foreign poppy fields.

That’s one way to handle the CO2 emitters - just blow them all up.   The problem is just about everybody uses them and enjoys the cheap energy of hydrocarbon fuels.  Not just cars, much of our electricity for homes and industry is made from burning coal or oil. The energy is good, the carbon source is not.   We are getting skilled at translating one form of energy into another.   The usual process starts with heat to make steam which drives turbine generators that makes electricity.   Burning coal is a big source of heat for making electricity; nuclear energy makes steam for the same reason but without CO2.   But wind and solar make electricity directly from a solar panel or generator.   There are plenty of clean energy sources.

So we have to act quickly, very quickly - the optimal time is right now - to change rapidly to non-carbon fuel sources - called clean energy: wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, etc.   We need to make energy without making carbon dioxide.   Most important is that we have to do away with many of the carbon fuels that we use today - oil, gas and coal.   They should all go away - completely, and the sooner the better.

OK.   From a science prospective, public policy - defining what governments should do - all this is pretty straightforward.   If we want to design a process that drives change as soon as possible then governments can use force, or they can tax.   Later they can spend the money from the taxes in smart ways like health insurance and building railroads.

Here is a simple - two part proposal that nicely fits the science requirements:

Eliminate dirty energy sources
ALL other, ANY other carbon fuels usage should be taxed, heavily taxed, and taxed so heavily that it puts carbon fuel companies out of existence in the fastest way possible.   Eliminate CO2 emissions immediately and completely.

That’s it.   All done.

That’s the simple solution.  I know it is hard to enact.   People can do it themselves or can ask governments to help make it happen.

Other solutions such as allowing partial emissions or permitting gradual change over a few decades while gambling with carbon credits - all of those options are wild cards, hard to control, hard to evaluate, require too much time, are easily derailed and have poor chances of success.  We are stepping into areas with no historical precedent.   People will clamor for less-than-optimal change, but anything less is dangerously unknown, unproven and unaccepted by science.

As we wrangle with the colossal changes necessary to adapt and mitigate, the best way to boldly step into the future is armed with optimal solutions.

Governments can know this too.

Richard Pauli
Feb 2009

cross posted to TaxGlobalWarming.org

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2009://17.102 2009-02-01T06:26:58Z 2009-09-23T04:55:16Z

Richard Pauli Here's a debate:  Is AGW denialism treachery or delusion?




Global warming is unfolding faster than expected.
CO2 makes global warming worse, and happen sooner
Carbon fuels generate CO2; more CO2 emissions make the problem worse.
The only known way to reduce CO2 is to reduce fossil fuel combustion
All this is well known and agreed to by all -  except by denialists
These people disagree, deny and obstruct by claiming CO2 is blameless
They may be delusional, or they may be paid propagandists
Either way they are wrong.
If we work to make our world safe, and somebody purposefully gets in the way,
They are making us unsafe.  Even if they really believe otherwise.
Appeasing CO2 polluters hastens human demise
An obstructionist denier who blocks or delays information is harming everyone, even themselves.
Even if they believe it themselves, they pitch scientific falsehoods.
Denialists are not acting like flat-earth believers, or Holocaust deniers, or Elvis Spotters.
These are not silent believers, these are active obstructionists.
While they are entitled to their beliefs, they are not permitted to endanger others.
Their actions hinder our survival. 
No matter what their beliefs or intentions,
Their actions amount to treachery and sabotage.
And we cannot allow them to continue. 
They are now on notice that this is very serious.
Your belief in delusional magic is yours alone. Keep it to yourself.
If you are a paid shill from a carbon fuel company, paid to believe something,
paid to promote and influence a falsehood, then your actions are treason.
You betray a human future with your allegiance to industry or money.
Your intentional obstruction is no longer acceptable.
As global warming disasters pile up and get worse,
your voice will sound shrill and crazy to those of us suffering.
You might want to hold your beliefs in silence.

If you hold contrarian denialism in your mind,
it will be hard to distinguish from professional public relations
Neither is benign.


This issue is discussed further in Climate Progress

If we fail to heed the warning of our top scientists, if we fail to adopt the low-cost strategies need to avert the incalculably high-cost consequences (widespread desertification, large and rapid sea level rise, loss of the inland glaciers, extinction of most species, fatal acidification of the ocean, and on and on), nobody is going to be writing books labeling us "the greatest generation." We will at best be "the greediest generation" and perhaps even "the first unpatriotic generation" since we were the first who would not bear any burden or pay any price to preserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the next generation.

But that is how future generations will label us. We haven't failed yet. Should we question the patriotism of deniers? That is a tough call, made even tougher since they question our patriotism even as we fight to save their children and their children's children from their own ignorance and indifference.

I suppose the answer is "no," we shouldn't stoop to their tactics -- readers can weigh in with other views -- but I will say that if we are going to save this great nation, progressives are going to have to fight back much harder against the despicable actions of the deniers who practice polluter appeasement. Whatever we are currently doing, it ain't enough.

The time to act is yesterday.

 

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2009://17.101 2009-01-29T00:11:14Z 2009-03-07T20:15:23Z

The answer is both: the day breaks both to doom and a hopeful dawn. A good friend writes of his internal debate on global warming....

Richard Pauli The answer is both: the day breaks both to doom and a hopeful dawn.

A good friend writes of his internal debate on global warming.   Are we doomed or is there reason for hope?

We seem to agree that - at least for now - Obama is the very best leader if we want to see any of our DNA make it into the future.  Global population decimation is inevitable.  Decimation has a dual meaning; it can be 1-out-of-10 or nine-out-of-ten.   By the end of the century, some scenarios, derived from IPCC models,  say that our global population of 9 billion will probably be one billion - and only if we are very lucky and smart.  Starting now

Although James Lovelock may stand firmly in the alarmist wing of climatologists, nothing he says is impossible.  All is within model scenarios.  As you can see from the combined graphic on the site  http://localsteps.org/howbad.html   Science can describe the projections for how bad it will be, we didn’t really know when things might unfold, but now with early arctic melting - we are starting to know the when.

Every day, I am ever more astounded that there is not rioting in the streets over this issue, because soon enough (years hopefully) there will be food riots, and refugee riots, and climate refugees etc.

“If your children ever found out how lame you really are, they’d murder you in your sleep” -Frank Zappa

Its a pity that Obama is so nice.   Human civilization needs a Climate Czar with the ruthlessness of a Stalin.  Otherwise we will have to wait until a sufficient number of our citizens, along with other global citizens, get the message, learn the science and decide to act to assure the future of human life.

But I am buoyed by the recent reports and the direction we are going.   The NOAA report the other day had some power.  Dr Hansen always has something new to say.  Be sure to check  www.climateprogress.org for the news and the policy stuff.   And www.realclimate.org for the science overview to a lay audience.   We are in a time of rapid change now.

We are in constant rumination over doom or hopes.   The astounding enormity of  our colossal blunder is so difficult to apprehend.  Denialism is a normal psychological reaction.  In order to survive humans have to act with ruthless intelligence and logic.  If we are lucky and smart now, in 1000 years, it will be a new species that emerges

Personally,  I suppress my anger, but refuse to suppress the truth.   One neighbor is a retired professor of Atmospheric sciences, who tells me that many scientists have shrugged and moved on with their lives - enjoying their days. They no longer speak out.   Scientists think it is up to politics and human will-power now.  They have done their job, and really shouted all they can.

Yep.  Both doomed and optimistic.   Now we can debate how much of each.

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2009://17.100 2009-01-28T04:49:48Z 2009-03-07T20:16:13Z

And our children’s children cannot escape it either. Even if we suddenly halted all CO2 and reverted to the pure state of Adam and Eve,...

Richard Pauli And our children’s children cannot escape it either.

Even if we suddenly halted all CO2 and reverted to the pure state of Adam and Eve, the damage of today will last a millenium.  CO2 causes irreversible damage for at least 1000 years

Interview with NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon

The original NOAA press release Jan 26, 2008

---

New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible

January 26, 2009

A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.

The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”

The study examines the consequences of allowing CO₂ to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.

If CO₂ is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.

The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.

Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean.

“In the long run, both carbon dioxide loss and heat transfer depend on the same physics of deep-ocean mixing. The two work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than a thousand years, and that makes carbon dioxide unique among the major climate gases,” said Solomon.

The scientists emphasize that increases in CO₂ that occur in this century “lock in” sea level rise that would slowly follow in the next 1,000 years. Considering just the expansion of warming ocean waters—without melting glaciers and polar ice sheets—the authors find that the irreversible global average sea level rise by the year 3000 would be at least 1.3-3.2 feet (0.4-1.0 meter) if CO₂ peaks at 600 parts per million, and double that amount if CO₂ peaks at 1,000 parts per million.

“Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way,” said Solomon. “They could be even larger but we just don’t have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large.”

Rising sea levels would cause “…irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would ultimately become submerged,” the authors write.

Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.

The authors relied on measurements as well as many different models to support the understanding of their results. They focused on drying of particular regions and on thermal expansion of the ocean because observations suggest that humans are contributing to changes that have already been measured.

Besides Solomon, the study’s authors are Gian-Kasper Plattner and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Pierre Friedlingstein of Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

---

The latest CO2 measurements are current and will change as soon as recorded by scientists.

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2009://17.96 2009-01-09T23:41:44Z 2009-06-29T08:14:25Z

Richard Pauli

The Ultimatum Game is a deceptively simple test of human economic attitude.

It goes like this:   The experimenter tells two subjects that he will give one of them a sum of money that they may split.   One person will decide how much to give to the other.  The other person may accept or reject the offer.   If accepted then both keep whatever money they hold.   However, if the other person deems it unfair then by refusing money prevents both of them from getting any cash.   Session over.   The test is given once only.

In examining the results for the Ultimatum Game it seems that many groups will accept a small percentage.   If the experimenter gave 100 dollars, then $5 might suffice.   This changed with Western subjects, who measured 30-40%… meaning they were willing to cut off all wealth until that fairness level.  Some even insisted on 50%.

Economists used to think that we, as rational actors, would always choose the best deal.   The irrational choice of cutting off all money and ending play - was difficult to understand.   Was it the sense of fairness?   Game theory and behavioral economics are pretty new fields of study.   One can see how it may apply to the economics of global warming.

A related experiment is the dictator game where the players who make the offers get to keep their share no matter what.   Predictably they make less equal offers, keeping more of the cash.   The second mover always accepted unequal money.

So one privileged person, shares a bit with someone less privileged.  The less privilegled fellow see this is fine, until he sees the privileged one cross some sort of line that is going too far…. like Billion dollar fortunes from bailouts that will raise taxes and condemn our future.  And like a carbon fuel industry selling a dangerous product that kills our future.  That crosses the line.  Increased stakes seem to make subjects more pliant toward small rewards

The privileged ones get vast wealth, vast - the recipient has generations of cheap power, cheap electricity, cheap mortgages, rising value of real estate, easy credit, rising stocks.  The wealth runoff to the recipient is a very small fraction of the vast wealth.

It is easy to apply this to modern economics - Think of a great experimenter bestowing vast free wealth to humans in the form of Forests, Ocean harvests, Mining ores, and Oil and coal.  All were thought to be essentially free, bestowed like money in the Ultimatum Game experiment.  The initial recipients redistributing a portion of the wealth to all others: employees, clients, stock holders and consumers.   The ratio of owner wealth to consumer wealth is something other than 0 and certainly not 100% - At some time it might have been 5% and now maybe 30% [Students in economics will write many papers describing the percentage of this wealth.]  Was it 30%?

The implicit rule of this real life Ultimatum Game is an honest description of the terms of the deal, and promise of safety.

The Ultimatum Game starts with the agreement that all the costs will be known.   Free coal is dug and sold cheaply, and we get warm electricity.   But the soot and CO2 poison life itself and our 30% share (or whatever percentage) is gone - reduced to nothing - or vastly lower.

So the Ultimatum Game is that human recipients are beginning to demand a halt to this play - asking for a new agreement.   The carbon fuel companies have reduced the cost of oil, kept coal cheap in effort to move up the percentage of wealth offered to the others.   We tacitly accept, keep driving and heating and continue the game.

Now however we are about to feel the true cost of the carbon economy.   Any further CO2 output moves our species demise closer.   Even a payoff all the way to 100% is not a good deal if no one survives.   Many will ask the game play canceled.

Those who adopt the dictator stance of economic transaction will be rudely shocked to discover that C02 and atmospheric science does not negotiate with economists.

Richard Pauli

---

More reading in behavioral economics and global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game
http://www.economics.rpi.edu/workingpapers/rpi0701.pdf
http://ideas.repec.org/p/rpi/rpiwpe/0701.html
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/human-motivatio.html
http://tonysclimateblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/behavioral-economics.html
http://europe.theoildrum.com/tag/behavioral_economics
http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/10/21/quick-dirty-literature-review-for-the-ultimatum-game.html
http://www.fte.org/capitalism/activities/ultimatum/index.html

---

“The policy recommendations of most economists are based on the rational actor model of human behavior. Behavior is assumed to be self-regarding, preferences are assumed to be stable, and decisions are assumed to be unaffected by social context or frame of reference. The related fields of behavioral economics, game theory, and neuroscience have confirmed that human behavior is other regarding, and that people exhibit systematic patterns of decision-making that are “irrational” according to the standard behavioral model…. the standard economic approach to climate change policy, with its almost exclusive emphasis on rational responses to monetary incentives, is seriously flawed. In fact, monetary incentives may actually be counter-productive. Humans are unique among animal species in their ability to cooperate across cultures, geographical space and generations. Tapping into this uniquely human attribute, and understanding how cooperation is enforced, holds the key to limiting the potentially calamitous effects of global climate change.” http://www.economics.rpi.edu/workingpapers/rpi0701.pdf

Cross posted to http:theboywhodeniedwolf.com

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.79 2008-12-13T20:15:54Z 2009-03-07T20:17:51Z

Richard Pauli Crazy is doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different result.   

Climatedebatedaily.com continues crazy postings trying to establish and prop up a false debate - promoting doubt about global warming.  More accurately their own words claim they are debating "Calls to Action" or "Dissenting Voices "  (inaction).  But that is not the debate I read there.

Their headings actually are saying "Do we act or not?"   And I can see a reasonable discussion on that question.   But looking at the content on each side, they are not really debating what they claim.  Their global warming postings seem to be divided between new science discoveries versus the magical thinking of global warming denialists.  Science verses religion is an old, tired debate.

They seem to want to divert and delude us from facing the real issue: human extinction.  Do we want to accept it?   Maybe they can re-label their standings as a debate like:  Pro-extinction and Con-extinction

It is crazy continuing to criticize climatedebatedaily.com.  They will
never change.  So I am expanding my messaging beyond theirs.  It is time to ponder the real issue:  "Humans shall persist and thrive - Pro or Con" 

They can frame the debate through the selection of materials they choose to post.  "... of what ultimately goes onto the page, the editors' decisions are final."

So when I ask them (ClimateDebateDaily.com) to step up and start talking about the real issue - I know that is a crazy request.

Are we a crazy species?   That's still another debate.

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.77 2008-12-03T04:42:06Z 2009-03-07T20:18:53Z

Now we are in the midst of crafting our long term economy while adjusting to the ravages of a self-destructive, short-term economy. All decisions...

Richard Pauli
Now we are in the midst of crafting our long term economy while adjusting to the ravages of a self-destructive, short-term economy.

All decisions made and actions taken in this generation will have to apply to the generations ahead.  If we want to survive as a species, today we must choose carefully and act deliberately.

The horrible penalty of pollution is that it compresses the time left to react.   The rapidly increasing rate-of-change means our adaptation must be logical and decisive rather than genetic and leisurely.

Any failure to make and implement key survival decisions means extinction.  Any species acts to survive.  The human beings that survive and thrive into a future will have to act much differently than we do today.

It is far easier to step into our future by choosing willful change now, rather than wait for the world to deliver the predicted assaults and react at that time to imposed change.


cross-posted to   www.noenergytomorrow.org

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.74 2008-11-23T23:43:50Z 2009-03-07T20:20:45Z

Richard Pauli That would be my Indian name.   Argues-with-Idiots. 

I am tilting at the windmill of human denial about the danger of global warming.   


                                                                                   from ClimateProgress.org

And AGW is worse than ever. Even TIME magazine thinks we should wake up to our dangerous misunderstanding of climate change.  This article ran just a few days before the election.

"... carbon emissions would need to be cut drastically from current
levels. Yet almost all of the subjects in Sterman's study failed to
realize that, assuming instead that you could stabilize carbon
concentration simply by capping carbon emissions at their current
level. That's not the case -- and in fact, pursuing such a plan for
the future would virtually guarantee that global warming could spin
out of control. It may seem to many like good common sense to
wait until we see proof of the serious damage global warming is
doing before we take action. But it's not -- we can't "wait and see"
on global warming because the climate has a momentum all its
own, and if we wait for decades to finally act to reduce carbon
emissions, it could well be too late. Yet this simply isn't
understood. Someone as smart as Bill Gates doesn't seem to get it.
"Fortunately climate change, although it's a huge challenge, it's a
challenge that happens over a long period of time," he said at a
forum in Beijing last year. "You know, we have time to work on it."
But the truth is we don't. "
            http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1853871,00.html

I am gradually growing to accept this human deficiency.  Our species is unable to see, unwilling to act on far off dangers - no matter how certain.   As the future of global warming becomes clearer,  the ONLY global survival solution requires a total unified human effort - with 100% support.. which is, of course, impossible.  The differing opinions and different thoughts and actions are all quintessentially human. This trait works best by having sizable factions in disputed survival judgments and errant thinkers taking different actions.    So whole populations with one trait may thrive, while those with another trait will fail.  It seems like a nice way to design a species: to allow groupings with individual differences to best adapt to a changing future.  This assures that random changes may still act to allow the species to change.
 
We are not ants.  But in this case it may bite us back, for the errant few with denialist tunnel vision are working to constrain any unified effort to change.  And that spells doom. 

They may no longer deny, they may only want to delay. That delay will kill us, the delay means tipping points are passed and runaway global warming cannot be stopped, no matter how strong the human will and effort.   And a destabilized climate will continue to wreak havoc, and the predicted increase in  temperature (11 degrees C ) can extinguish most animal life at sea level.   With less heat increase, perhaps we have better survival chances.

First comes the decimation of our species -  it will take a few decades, disease, drought, storm floods and the attendant wars and violent struggles to survive - met with violent defense.  Eventually the chaos will wean out the weak and the unwilling and the remaining population will have full commitment to survive - but almost no capability to affect global cascading events.  Then in a hot and changing age the struggle will be to survive amidst dwindling resources and scarce living places - perhaps limited to mountainous areas near the poles.   Pretty grim future.  Even though that struggle may be a few generations out - it may be good that people don't realize this just now.  How does one tell a young person about this?

And so I am not going to argue with idiots anymore because the ship is now hitting the iceberg and no change of direction can prevent it.  Now the discussion is about how to best deploy the lifeboats and figure out how best to slow the sinking. Bush was the captain that crashed the boat, Obama is the new captain.  So this is a change of attitude.   The science and the projections remain the same.   I realize this is dystopic - but it is not implausible, and it conforms to IPCC climate predictions.

Argues-with-idiots-no-more.


Cross posted to www.theboywhodeniedwolf.org

]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.64 2008-09-28T16:00:08Z 2009-03-07T20:21:52Z

Richard Pauli
Humans have decided to accept the risk of certain warming in exchange for easy, cheap carbon fuels.   Of course, mass marketing helps this along by exhorting us to ignore the consequences and to give in to this short term indulgence..

This is similar to the profligate debt packaging of the last few decades. The payoff from the risk is too high for humans to resist.  So we persist despite warnings.  Now just one week of Congressional hubris and we are supposed to think all is well. The financial industry bailout is a model for how government will face the next big problem.  And I am not convinced that government will do very well.

We are disempowered, we keep an eye on the horizon and see the warming coming.  We can speak truth and demand an end to denial, but we are a long way from significant action.  The most fundamental thing we can control is our spiritual center.  We can prepare ourselves for the privation ahead by knowing about it.  Think of it as a slow moving hurricane like Katrina. Everyone was stunned by the unexpected death and destruction and the suffering that still remains.  For the next hurricanes FEMA tried harder, and people sensed the importance of seeking safety preparing and plans to survive.  The next hurricane will teach us more lessons.  

Global Climate Destabilization is kind of like a looming heat storm with no end.  We have never seen this, we don't know what to expect, we are not completely sure about all the catastrophes associated with this.   But clearly our own actions have made it worse, and our actions can make it less destructive.  All of human history has never seen such a storm  Science gives us much of a general view but we don't know exactly when, and we don't know exactly how bad.  But the heat is on the horizon.
 
Humans will eventually know all this by feeling it directly.  It is really hard for me to accept that our species is unable to act to the clear danger.  It tests my acceptance, makes me angry that humans have not really decided to live into a multigenerational future.   That is really sad.  I expect people will feel these kinds of emotions more and more.  ]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.63 2008-09-26T07:14:20Z 2009-03-07T20:22:59Z

Wikipedia can save the world through helping us understand ourselves better Some human traits work to block progress in facing problems of Anthropogenic Climate Destabilization...

Richard Pauli Wikipedia can save the world through helping us understand ourselves better

Some human traits work to block progress in facing problems of Anthropogenic Climate Destabilization

Unique to our species, our human psychology, built from years of survival tests, leaves us with traits unsuited for modern times.  These can explain human inactivity in the face of this impending catastrophe.

Consider a quick sampling of Wikipedia’s social psychology entries :

===  see   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Social_psychology  ===

Denial See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial - postulated by Freud; a condition “in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.”

=====================

Bystander Effect.. A common explanation of this phenomenon is that, with others present, observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so they each individually refrain from doing so and feel less responsible. This is an example of how diffusion of responsibility leads to social loafing. People may also assume that other bystanders may be more qualified to help, such as being a doctor or police officer, and their intervention would thus be unneeded. People may also fear losing face in front of the other bystanders, being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. Another explanation is that bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. Since others are doing exactly the same, everyone concludes from the inaction of others that other people do not think that help is needed.  

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Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.

The term was coined in 1952 by William H. Whyte in Fortune:  …We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity …what we are talking about is a rationalized conformity — an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.

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The bandwagon effect …is the observation that people often do and believe things because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often pejoratively called herding instinct, particularly when applied to adolescents. People tend to follow the crowd without examining the merits of a particular thing. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy’s success.

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Diffusion of responsibility is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned.

Diffusion of responsibility can manifest itself:

• in a group of peers who, through action or inaction, allow events to occur which they would never allow if alone (action is typically referred to as groupthink; inaction is typically referred to as the bystander effect) or
• in hierarchical organizations as when, for example, underlings claim that they were following orders and supervisors claim that they were just issuing directives and not doing anything per se.

This mindset can be seen in the phrase “No one raindrop thinks it caused the flood”.

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An argumentum ad populum (Latin: “appeal to the people”), in logic, is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges that “If many believe so, it is so.” In ethics this argument is stated, “If many find it acceptable, it is acceptable.”

This type of argument is known by several names^[1], including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people,argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum (“appeal to the people”),argumentum ad numerum (“appeal to the number”), and consensus gentium (“agreement of the clans”). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, the spreading of various religious beliefs, and of the Chinese proverb “three men make a tiger”.

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wisdom of repugnance, or the ‘yuck’ factor  describes the belief that an intuitive (or “deep-seated”) negative response to some thing, idea or practice should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful or evil character of that thing. Furthermore, it refers to the notion that wisdom may manifest itself in feelings of disgust towards anything which lacks “goodness” or wisdom, though the feelings or the reasoning of such ‘wisdom’ may not be immediately explicable through reason.

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Somebody Else’s Problem ..is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual.

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Optimism bias…  tendency for people to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions…over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events.

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The Banality of Evil … describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

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pluralistic ignorance is a process which involves several members of a group who think that they have different perceptions, beliefs, or attitudes from the rest of the group. While they do not endorse the group norm, the dissenting persons behave like the other group members, because they think that the behaviour of the other group members shows that the opinion of the group is unanimous. In other words, because everyone who disagrees behaves as if he or she agrees, all dissenting members think that the norm is endorsed by every group member but themselves. This in turn reinforces their willingness to conform to the group norm rather than express their disagreement. Because of pluralistic ignorance, people may conform to the perceived consensual opinion of a group, instead of thinking and acting on their own perceptions.

[edit]Consequences of Pluralistic Ignorance

In a series of studies conducted to test the effect of pluralistic ignorance, Prentice and Miller^[3] studied the consequences of pluralistic ignorance at Princeton University. They found that, on average, private levels of comfort with drinking practices on campus were much lower than the perceived average. In the case of men, they found a shifting of private attitudes toward this perceived norm, a form of cognitive dissonance. Women, on the other hand, were found to have an increased sense of alienation on the campus but lacked the attitude change detected in men, presumably because norms related to alcohol consumption on campus are much more central for men than for women.

Pluralistic ignorance may partially explain the bystander effect: the observation that people are more likely to intervene in an emergency situation when alone than when other persons are present. If people monitor the reactions of others in such a situation, they may conclude from the inaction of others that other people think that it is not necessary to intervene. Thus no one may take any action, even though some people privately think that they should do something. On the other hand, if one person intervenes, others are more likely to follow and give assistance. For example, in the murder case of Kitty Genovese: About a dozen witnesses failed to help Genovese when she was stabbed to death in 1964. Most of the witnesses only heard the murder (i.e. they were not eye witnesses) and were both unsure of what was happening and unable to monitor the reactions of other people. Nevertheless, pluralistic ignorance may explain their inaction if at the time they were reasoning: “Others must also hear what is happening - if no one else is doing anything about it, then it must not be an emergency.”

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Richard Pauli I try to avoid expressing my hypervigilance much  - but this may be appropriate.  Global warming is totally ignored.  Global denial is getting delusional. 

This is the latest discussion from the global warming front...
http://climaticidechronicles.org/2008/09/24/what-will-it-take-to-get-us-into-the-streets/

This is picking up on some very disturbing news - not yet peer reviewed - but very big change is becoming more inevitable.   Other sites discussed this, but this guy seems to have the best writing.

For me, I think the answers may be more Zen- like, Zen something.  Techno-existentialist quandary here.

Choose:  Insanely radical change to save the very future of the species?  Or let go and live out the lovely end days.   Or how much in between?

I still want to keep trying to discover "how bad?"  and  "when?"  

This disquieting news of Methane melting suggests  Worse and Sooner.  

I am left facing my own life now and trying to enjoy it.   So far, I predict things will get slightly messy and chaotic fairly soon (years), but the real horrors may come about in mid century.  But paleoclimatological studies posit very rapid and radical climate changes in the past - changes in 2 to 10 years.   I call it possible but implausible. For now.



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Cutting the Gordian Knot A Gordian knot is a mythical, impossible to untie dilemma - solved by a swift destructive slash. The decades of denial...

Richard Pauli Cutting the Gordian Knot

A Gordian knot is a mythical, impossible to untie dilemma - solved by a swift destructive slash.

The decades of denial and delay have eliminated the options for gradual change and now present only limited, radical choices for long-term, multigenerational survival.  We overlooked, squandered or were persuaded to miss the opportunities to address the problem with more moderate sacrifice.  Now the enormity and complexity of the problem is so great that only a Gordian Knot solution will work 

The very first decision: Do we want to Live or Die ?    

 If die then keep up business-as-usual (BAU)

   (if the choice is postponed or delayed then the answer biases toward more certain death)

Next decision:  If yes to live, then how long?   Just this generation?  or how many generations?   All humans? or how selected? 

 

Then decide how much adaptation and mitigation we must apply in order to meet those goals.

Truncating to just near-term survival requires very little co-operation.  Any mitigating actions will extend the decline.

The greater the survival scheme the more aggressive the response required.

If the decision is for multgenerational life, then this must be decided by consensus.  Anything other than consensus is tantamount to acquiescence.

With the global agreement to transgenerational survival, then comes the committment to ruthless enforcement of atmospheric care. 

Any delay in implementation means greater challenges

(Sub decision by any civilization: decide how many of the existing human population will be saved - i.e. 10 million displaced and starving - will they be ignored?  Since this is a discussion of civilization - and certainly allowing large populations to die is not civilized - hence such an uncivilized act would be better characterized as anarchist/neo-con.  Not to excuse the act, merely to say that it is not the mark of a civil government)

So we need a civil society with strong governments, sufficient to protect its populous and bring about a radical restructure of industry, commerce, agriculture and transportation.

Failure to change, means demise is delayed, not belayed.

Here is the only solution I can see - painful, untested, but scientifically plausible.   It would require a full testing of all the best traits, discipline, organization, fealty, and enthusiasm that humans have ever displayed.

Which is why I think we are doomed.

The only hope  - see:  http://www.credoandscreed.com/2008/09/why-we-are-doomed-pt-2---the-only-hope-is.html
]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.58 2008-09-24T02:02:34Z 2009-03-07T20:25:25Z

Richard Pauli The Professional Denier's script
Purpose:  to delay any organized reaction that could limit carbon fuel consumption

For optimal delay - try to prolong time between each statement, begin:

"There is no such thing as global warming"
 
"OK there is some warming
        But the science is still not sure about it
"OK most ALL Scientists agree that there is warming
        But some scientists do not agree.
"OK I see that you don't really need to be a scientist to see the warming
        But it is not warming everywhere
"OK I see the data says the average temperature is warming
        But your data collection is flawed
"OK I see that data has been collected for years just about everywhere
        But not the oceans, the oceans are still just fine
"OK I see the oceans are warming most everywhere
        But Antarctic ice is increasing
"OK I see the Artic ice is melting, and Greenland ice cap too.
        But that is natural cyclical change
"OK I see that there is no cycle changes except our recent industrial age
          But global warming is not really caused by humans
"OK I see the warming may be greatly enhanced by humans
        But we cannot possibly do anything about it.
"OK maybe we should try to do something about it.
        But it won't be a problem for another century
"OK maybe it is smarter to face the problem sooner rather than later,
        But we should not be overly concerned or act with too much haste
"OK we should be really concerned and start to act right now
        But we should not be too anxious or worried
"OK we should be worried
        But we should certainly not be alarmist
"OK maybe we should sound the alarm,
        but we should not panic.
        

( "OK that should delay things for a few decades, can we have our paycheck now?)
 
Richard Pauli 9-08 ]]> tag:www.climatedebatedaily.org,2008://17.54 2008-09-14T17:23:37Z 2009-03-07T20:26:01Z

Richard Pauli
I think we have about 4 generations left

I am not shouting this.  But I think it may be so.  And I know most will ignore my Jerimiahed screed.

Humans have about 4 generations left on this planet.  Not much more. 

That puts it into the next century. There are plenty of serious climate model scenarios described out to the year 2100.  Some are not so bad, some are horrible.  Even the more optimistic views are predicated on very radical changes to our civilization to fight this.  Something we are not doing in the slightest.  Not even started. No real plans. As David Letterman said recently about global warming, “We are so screwed”   

So We Humans are pretty much doomed, but not Us Humans now. Right now everything is pretty nice.  Beautiful summer, plenty to eat, and for the most part, skies are clear and cool.  . But climate destabilization is so great, and carries such momentum, that we have long passed our opportunity to effect change.  Now, today all we can say is Adapt, Mitigate and Accept.

I really don’t want to stand on the corner in a hair shirt and sandals preaching doom.  Nobody wants to hear it.  No one wants to spoil the party. And it is not fun for me.  Some want to stay oblivious for fun, some for profit, and some because they really cannot face it.  Many, many know it, but carry on with civil grace, social acceptability, and economic momentum.

The internal debate I hold is about how I let that affect my life today.  Since I am 59 years old, I may not be facing much of the big problems that the future generations will be facing. We might figure that our grandchildren will be living in a world that we cannot even imagine  - if they are lucky.  What do I owe them in preparing and warning and accepting?   If I cannot really change much, shouldn’t I just shutup and be happy?

I suspect this is a very big debate.  Philosophical, existentialist, grief and everything you want to think about applies here.  A much better debate, I think than anything else.

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