Why didn't humanity save the planet?
November 1, 2018 11:30 PM Subscribe
We don't seem to deserve the freedom to make our own choices. Our only hope might actually just be for a forward thinking authoritarian government to tell us what's best for us.
Oh boy, I don't want to turn this thread into a fight on the second comment, but if you think you don't deserve freedom, then that's your business, but please speak for yourself and no one else.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:14 AM on November 2, 2018 [18 favorites]
Oh boy, I don't want to turn this thread into a fight on the second comment, but if you think you don't deserve freedom, then that's your business, but please speak for yourself and no one else.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:14 AM on November 2, 2018 [18 favorites]
I'm not wedded to my above comment, just wanted to get the ball rolling and see where the conversation goes.
So yeah, that was a, bit tongue and cheek but I do think we're in trouble at a deep systemic level that the market is uniquely incapable of solving. I think of you took the time to listen to the Rosen interview, the context would be clearer.
posted by Telf at 12:41 AM on November 2, 2018
So yeah, that was a, bit tongue and cheek but I do think we're in trouble at a deep systemic level that the market is uniquely incapable of solving. I think of you took the time to listen to the Rosen interview, the context would be clearer.
posted by Telf at 12:41 AM on November 2, 2018
Also, I think we're facing problems several orders of magnitude more complex than we were a century or two ago. It used to be that a village might have had one barber surgeon to provide healthcare whereas as now we have an interconnected healthcare system.
Nowadays we have these fiendishly interrelated issues that can't be solved by what a few politicians and their constituents reckon. The knowledge of certain specialists has really outstripped the capacity of normal people to meaningfully participate in some of the big picture stuff. Not that people don't have the right to, but there is a general lack of interest in the important complicated stuff. Yes, it's a messaging and communication problem, but as a group we've decided not to care and just focus on entertainment or hate watching the news.
We're not making progress on the existential threats and are just hoping that we'll get a last minute deus ex machina.
posted by Telf at 12:52 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Nowadays we have these fiendishly interrelated issues that can't be solved by what a few politicians and their constituents reckon. The knowledge of certain specialists has really outstripped the capacity of normal people to meaningfully participate in some of the big picture stuff. Not that people don't have the right to, but there is a general lack of interest in the important complicated stuff. Yes, it's a messaging and communication problem, but as a group we've decided not to care and just focus on entertainment or hate watching the news.
We're not making progress on the existential threats and are just hoping that we'll get a last minute deus ex machina.
posted by Telf at 12:52 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
There is no market solution to this problem. Any freedom that is a part of the solution of this problem is the freedom to submit to the strictures required to solve this problem. This has been clear for decades but nothing has been done and now we're at a breaking point and still nothing will be done.
The magnitude of this issue and the ticking clock are not being absorbed well by the general populace, and this is a problem.
posted by hippybear at 1:45 AM on November 2, 2018 [17 favorites]
The magnitude of this issue and the ticking clock are not being absorbed well by the general populace, and this is a problem.
posted by hippybear at 1:45 AM on November 2, 2018 [17 favorites]
I'm convinced it's too late to stop catastrophic climate change, and we should get a head start on making the whole thing happen with as little pain as possible. I mean, yeah, let's keep pressuring the capitalist dickheads to do the right thing, because obviously it would be dumb not to. Let's just assume they won't magically break character and become selfless beings of love.
The time to fix climate change was 30+ years ago. When it comes to saving humanity from its effects, I don't want to look back 30 years from now and have the same regrets we have now.
Step one: smash capitalism! Seriously. The planet is becoming hostile to life as we know it because of the actions of a very small group of extraordinarily selfish people.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:27 AM on November 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
The time to fix climate change was 30+ years ago. When it comes to saving humanity from its effects, I don't want to look back 30 years from now and have the same regrets we have now.
Step one: smash capitalism! Seriously. The planet is becoming hostile to life as we know it because of the actions of a very small group of extraordinarily selfish people.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:27 AM on November 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
About that report: Wait, Have We Really Wiped Out 60 Percent of Animals? The findings of a major new report have been widely mischaracterized—although the actual news is still grim.
Ultimately, they found that from 1970 to 2014, the size of vertebrate populations has declined by 60 percent on average. That is absolutely not the same as saying that humans have culled 60 percent of animals—a distinction that the report’s technical supplement explicitly states. “It is not a census of all wildlife but reports how wildlife populations have changed in size,” the authors write.posted by homunculus at 3:45 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was catching up on short stories and found this story by Peter Watts for the Xprize challenge which features a ...unique* solution to climate change.
*for factors of Watts so grim, existential, etc
posted by The Whelk at 4:13 AM on November 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
*for factors of Watts so grim, existential, etc
posted by The Whelk at 4:13 AM on November 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
In 2018 they were the first generation to understand that humanity was wrecking the planet
Don't lie. I had this drummed into me as a child in the 1970s - presumably those books and TV programmes were made by adults at the time. Their message has been ignored by multiple generations.
posted by nowonmai at 5:22 AM on November 2, 2018 [23 favorites]
Don't lie. I had this drummed into me as a child in the 1970s - presumably those books and TV programmes were made by adults at the time. Their message has been ignored by multiple generations.
posted by nowonmai at 5:22 AM on November 2, 2018 [23 favorites]
The idea that a very few greedy people are the problem must be, in a way, immensely comforting. We could lop their heads off and it would be over! Or at least we can be very mad at them! But we are all fossil fuel slaves, in everything we do, hundreds of millions of us, to a growing extent and in growing numbers.
posted by argybarg at 5:43 AM on November 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 5:43 AM on November 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'm convinced it's too late to stop catastrophic climate change
I mean I don’t want to be contrarian but this is literally the opposite of what the IPCC report says. I read a little bit of it and I don’t know how the headlines ended up as “game over in 10 years.” The report says global warming is over whenever we get to carbon neutral, and that every little bit of harm reduction matters. Over in the sense that the rate of increase of warming will end because we will have stopped adding fuel to the problem. If we can get it down from 3 degrees C to 2.9, it’s harm reduction and it matters. If we can get it down from 3 to 2 degrees, even better.
The US has been having regular street protests and strike waves, I think the majority of people want these problems solved, we just don’t have the levers of power. The despair comes from real, serious powerlessness but also learned helplessness.
Edit: real actual helplessness
posted by cricketcello at 6:07 AM on November 2, 2018 [13 favorites]
I mean I don’t want to be contrarian but this is literally the opposite of what the IPCC report says. I read a little bit of it and I don’t know how the headlines ended up as “game over in 10 years.” The report says global warming is over whenever we get to carbon neutral, and that every little bit of harm reduction matters. Over in the sense that the rate of increase of warming will end because we will have stopped adding fuel to the problem. If we can get it down from 3 degrees C to 2.9, it’s harm reduction and it matters. If we can get it down from 3 to 2 degrees, even better.
The US has been having regular street protests and strike waves, I think the majority of people want these problems solved, we just don’t have the levers of power. The despair comes from real, serious powerlessness but also learned helplessness.
Edit: real actual helplessness
posted by cricketcello at 6:07 AM on November 2, 2018 [13 favorites]
They were too busy posting online!
Which reminds me...........
posted by Burn_IT at 6:33 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Which reminds me...........
posted by Burn_IT at 6:33 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I mean I don’t want to be contrarian but this is literally the opposite of what the IPCC report says
Absolutely. The worst thing now would be for people who care to lose hope. We need to act. There are levels of catastrophe, too. Things are not good at one degree of warming, but two degrees is completely different than four.
posted by pinochiette at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
Absolutely. The worst thing now would be for people who care to lose hope. We need to act. There are levels of catastrophe, too. Things are not good at one degree of warming, but two degrees is completely different than four.
posted by pinochiette at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
oh Peter Watts, you dark treasure. that story is fuuuuuuuuucked.
posted by supermedusa at 8:15 AM on November 2, 2018
posted by supermedusa at 8:15 AM on November 2, 2018
Ah, yes. The old, "climate change is an easily soluble problem, if only human nature was completely different" trope. How droll.
We invented governments to handle problems individuals couldn't solve. If our governments can't solve this problem, individuals sure aren't going to be able to. And our governments have, as you'll recall, given up.
Since this IPCC report came out, it's been revealed that the oceans may have absorbed 60% more heat than we'd thought. It's become clear that the jet stream is having more severe problems than we expected. More methane sources have been discovered in the Arctic. The waters off the west coast of the United states have been observed becoming dangerously hypoxic on a regular basis. And that's just this past week in the endless parade of sooner-than-expected and worse-than-expected observations that make me think that, just perhaps, the collapse of our biosphere isn't a manageable process.
And that's without getting into global dimming, or the toxic effects of CO2 on our biology, or the death of the plankton that supplies half our oxygen, or the ongoing extinction event and the extinction debt it incurs.
The idea that we can save the biosphere is becoming more of a ludicrous pipe dream every day, and it's absolutely no surprise that people aren't buying into it. The only question that matters now, to my mind, is whether we can survive this as a species. If we can use our current technology to build habitats which can supply their occupants with air, water and food on minimal resources and energy, which can be secured against the threats posed by the rapidly-alienating world outside, humanity might survive.
And I think that's about as much as we can hope for.
If there was a reasonable path towards stopping climate change and preserving the biosphere, I think we'd be all over it. Nobody wants the kind of world we're creating. But the solutions being offered right now are so obviously implausible, and the commitment to these solutions by institutions is so minimal, that they're obviously public relations stunts designed to make people feel better and keep things together for a little while longer. When we've given up hope for the strict global laws and regulations and enforcement that would be necessary to actually make progress on the issue, and we've fallen back to individual efforts and blame, we've admitted that this isn't going to get solved. Expecting people to get enthusiastic about the pretend solutions is pretty unrealistic.
We need to start building large, long-term survival bunkers, lifeboats designed to preserve humanity. Because otherwise, we're going down with this ship.
posted by MrVisible at 9:06 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
We invented governments to handle problems individuals couldn't solve. If our governments can't solve this problem, individuals sure aren't going to be able to. And our governments have, as you'll recall, given up.
Since this IPCC report came out, it's been revealed that the oceans may have absorbed 60% more heat than we'd thought. It's become clear that the jet stream is having more severe problems than we expected. More methane sources have been discovered in the Arctic. The waters off the west coast of the United states have been observed becoming dangerously hypoxic on a regular basis. And that's just this past week in the endless parade of sooner-than-expected and worse-than-expected observations that make me think that, just perhaps, the collapse of our biosphere isn't a manageable process.
And that's without getting into global dimming, or the toxic effects of CO2 on our biology, or the death of the plankton that supplies half our oxygen, or the ongoing extinction event and the extinction debt it incurs.
The idea that we can save the biosphere is becoming more of a ludicrous pipe dream every day, and it's absolutely no surprise that people aren't buying into it. The only question that matters now, to my mind, is whether we can survive this as a species. If we can use our current technology to build habitats which can supply their occupants with air, water and food on minimal resources and energy, which can be secured against the threats posed by the rapidly-alienating world outside, humanity might survive.
And I think that's about as much as we can hope for.
If there was a reasonable path towards stopping climate change and preserving the biosphere, I think we'd be all over it. Nobody wants the kind of world we're creating. But the solutions being offered right now are so obviously implausible, and the commitment to these solutions by institutions is so minimal, that they're obviously public relations stunts designed to make people feel better and keep things together for a little while longer. When we've given up hope for the strict global laws and regulations and enforcement that would be necessary to actually make progress on the issue, and we've fallen back to individual efforts and blame, we've admitted that this isn't going to get solved. Expecting people to get enthusiastic about the pretend solutions is pretty unrealistic.
We need to start building large, long-term survival bunkers, lifeboats designed to preserve humanity. Because otherwise, we're going down with this ship.
posted by MrVisible at 9:06 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
As one of the (presumably) few senior citizens on Metafilter, I have to say that reading the latest and direst news about the planet inevitably prompts the question "What could I have done?"
As a senior in high school in 1970, I celebrated the first Earth Day. That didn't help. Nor did flying a flag with a photo of the planet. Nor did endless hours communing with Gaia. Not being remotely involved with the worlds of business or science, I can never find a satisfactory answer to my question. Would more letters to my Congresswoman have helped?
Go ahead and blame my generation, though. Guilt is something I'm good at. Or blame capitalism. I can join you on that front, although I'm a little short on ideas for how to destroy the beast. I'm tempted by The Dark Mountain Project's "uncivilization," but my optimistic tendencies restrain me from fully endorsing it. I can't bring myself to just give up.
posted by kozad at 9:23 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
As a senior in high school in 1970, I celebrated the first Earth Day. That didn't help. Nor did flying a flag with a photo of the planet. Nor did endless hours communing with Gaia. Not being remotely involved with the worlds of business or science, I can never find a satisfactory answer to my question. Would more letters to my Congresswoman have helped?
Go ahead and blame my generation, though. Guilt is something I'm good at. Or blame capitalism. I can join you on that front, although I'm a little short on ideas for how to destroy the beast. I'm tempted by The Dark Mountain Project's "uncivilization," but my optimistic tendencies restrain me from fully endorsing it. I can't bring myself to just give up.
posted by kozad at 9:23 AM on November 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
It has occurred to me recently that the scary articles are so overwhelming that it may have given the Fiery-Trousered One a boost. Scared primates are especially loyal to an alpha male - alpha being evidenced by bullying and drama. Climate change is so huge that it's hard to think you have any ability to change it or react to it.
I think an effective path to reducing the scope of the disaster is for Americans to pay attention to the stock they own in their retirement plans, or individually. Shareholders can influence corporations, but the fund managers aren't going to be motivated.
One friend who specializes in green building questions the value of his work in the face of impending disaster. I'd love to see a big push towards greener building. Every new house I see going up is oriented towards the road, not the sun, because the builder isn't going to pay for heat or install rooftop solar. I was so surprised to see how few buildings in sunny, sunny Arizona have solar panels, and that was true in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico.
It's not binary - survival or death. Whatever we do, and the sooner we do it, the (slightly) better for humans.
posted by theora55 at 9:25 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think an effective path to reducing the scope of the disaster is for Americans to pay attention to the stock they own in their retirement plans, or individually. Shareholders can influence corporations, but the fund managers aren't going to be motivated.
One friend who specializes in green building questions the value of his work in the face of impending disaster. I'd love to see a big push towards greener building. Every new house I see going up is oriented towards the road, not the sun, because the builder isn't going to pay for heat or install rooftop solar. I was so surprised to see how few buildings in sunny, sunny Arizona have solar panels, and that was true in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico.
It's not binary - survival or death. Whatever we do, and the sooner we do it, the (slightly) better for humans.
posted by theora55 at 9:25 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
We all share varying degrees of guilt and complicity in what's happening to the planet. I have to say, though, I place particular blame on the 62 million Americans who voted for George W. Bush in 2004. He'd already withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. His administration had already signaled that inaction on climate change was going to be official policy. A majority of Americans decided they were cool with that.
2000 was a key time for curbing emissions and stopping climate change. It was essential and necessary that the world begin acting then, not now. Bush's climate denial, and 62 million Americans' tacit approval, set the policy both in the U.S. and around the globe, demoralizing and undermining other countries that might have acted with American leadership doing the right & ethical thing.
So yes, we are the first & last generation, in a way, but not really. A lot of people who voted for Bush are dead now. Dead or not, I'll never forgive them. They chose this.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:45 AM on November 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
2000 was a key time for curbing emissions and stopping climate change. It was essential and necessary that the world begin acting then, not now. Bush's climate denial, and 62 million Americans' tacit approval, set the policy both in the U.S. and around the globe, demoralizing and undermining other countries that might have acted with American leadership doing the right & ethical thing.
So yes, we are the first & last generation, in a way, but not really. A lot of people who voted for Bush are dead now. Dead or not, I'll never forgive them. They chose this.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:45 AM on November 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
When I was a kid, my dad was a State Assemblyman who's district covered a large portion of the lower Sierra Nevadas in Northern California. One day, when I was in high school, news headlines came out that a woman jogging on a trail near Auburn, CA had been killed and eaten by a mountain lion. The lion was of course located and eliminated, but the incident raised a rather tenuous political discussion about the protected status of mountain lions at the time.
Turns out, they had been protected so long from hunting, that their numbers had flourished and they were decimating deer populations in their territories, leading them to range further and hence begin to prey on humans and livestock. It was legal for farmers to cull lions that had attacked their livestock, and I got to go with my dad to see one on a farm in the foothills. It was a mature female and her head hung off one end of the picnic table and her tail off the opposite end. She was huge (she was a lion after all).
My dad proposed some legislation that I believe was passed to downgrade the endangered classification of the mountain lion in California and allow more pro-active management of their populations. He got a number of death threats over this, one from a Ted-Kazinski-type guy who's mug shot gave the distinct impression of severe mental problems (the state's version of the Secret Service, called the Seargent At Arms, who conducted the investigation on the guy, framed his handwritten death threat next to their mug shot and investigation report and gave it to my dad as a gift).
---
Humanity in our generation - less and less arguably - slipped past the point of being able to turn the climate ship from the rocks. Every scientific thinker of any merit at this point is rather in full agreement on this. Considering microcosms in nature that demonstrate what happens when a species decimates it's host environment as it grows exponentially, we can draw some pretty grim conclusions about what will happen to our planet over the coming generations.
It won't be pretty, and pretty much the only thing that can change our path now is large-scale population culling. Which we're probably too resilient for at this point from the standpoint of disease or violence...so the planet will have to do it to us by force of hunger.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:09 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Turns out, they had been protected so long from hunting, that their numbers had flourished and they were decimating deer populations in their territories, leading them to range further and hence begin to prey on humans and livestock. It was legal for farmers to cull lions that had attacked their livestock, and I got to go with my dad to see one on a farm in the foothills. It was a mature female and her head hung off one end of the picnic table and her tail off the opposite end. She was huge (she was a lion after all).
My dad proposed some legislation that I believe was passed to downgrade the endangered classification of the mountain lion in California and allow more pro-active management of their populations. He got a number of death threats over this, one from a Ted-Kazinski-type guy who's mug shot gave the distinct impression of severe mental problems (the state's version of the Secret Service, called the Seargent At Arms, who conducted the investigation on the guy, framed his handwritten death threat next to their mug shot and investigation report and gave it to my dad as a gift).
---
Humanity in our generation - less and less arguably - slipped past the point of being able to turn the climate ship from the rocks. Every scientific thinker of any merit at this point is rather in full agreement on this. Considering microcosms in nature that demonstrate what happens when a species decimates it's host environment as it grows exponentially, we can draw some pretty grim conclusions about what will happen to our planet over the coming generations.
It won't be pretty, and pretty much the only thing that can change our path now is large-scale population culling. Which we're probably too resilient for at this point from the standpoint of disease or violence...so the planet will have to do it to us by force of hunger.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:09 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Our only hope might actually just be for a forward thinking authoritarian government to tell us what's best for us.
Doesn't even take a whole government; a group of billionaires could probably pull it off. The cost of spraying global dimming aerosols is on the order of $1B/year. I'm convinced someone will end up just doing some form of aggressive geoengineering without waiting for a global consensus. Probably a government, and plausibly China, but it could also be a private group.
posted by Nelson at 10:25 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Doesn't even take a whole government; a group of billionaires could probably pull it off. The cost of spraying global dimming aerosols is on the order of $1B/year. I'm convinced someone will end up just doing some form of aggressive geoengineering without waiting for a global consensus. Probably a government, and plausibly China, but it could also be a private group.
posted by Nelson at 10:25 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
To a degree we are too busy to save the planet.
My parents, both school teachers, had enough time and money to do a lot of community work. They weren't concerned with environmental issues but the fact that they were economically secure, had defined work hours, and didn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time shuttling their kids to and from school and extra-curricular activities, meant that they had the ability to make the world better. There were tons of people in similar situations who watched TV or something and didn't get involved in community activities but at least it was a relatively easy choice to make.
In my life pretty much every hour is accounted for (or double-booked) so if I do have a free evening or afternoon over the weekend my preference would be to spend it with my family or friends. The best I can do is donate money to environmental causes which I hope is better than donating my time because I have no particularly useful skills in that area anyway. I'm at least financially secure but more people have the same or greater time pressures that I do and are a missed paycheque away from disaster as well.
If people weren't so busy they'd be able to at least try to fix things. I think the only way to make us less busy is some form of social democracy.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:57 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
My parents, both school teachers, had enough time and money to do a lot of community work. They weren't concerned with environmental issues but the fact that they were economically secure, had defined work hours, and didn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time shuttling their kids to and from school and extra-curricular activities, meant that they had the ability to make the world better. There were tons of people in similar situations who watched TV or something and didn't get involved in community activities but at least it was a relatively easy choice to make.
In my life pretty much every hour is accounted for (or double-booked) so if I do have a free evening or afternoon over the weekend my preference would be to spend it with my family or friends. The best I can do is donate money to environmental causes which I hope is better than donating my time because I have no particularly useful skills in that area anyway. I'm at least financially secure but more people have the same or greater time pressures that I do and are a missed paycheque away from disaster as well.
If people weren't so busy they'd be able to at least try to fix things. I think the only way to make us less busy is some form of social democracy.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:57 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Authoritarian regimes won't save you, they're the worst at handling environmental issues as any glance at the history of the Soviet Union will tell you.
Billionaires won't save you, they're the ones making money from destroying the planet in the first place.
Socialism or barbari^climate death.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:21 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Billionaires won't save you, they're the ones making money from destroying the planet in the first place.
Socialism or barbari^climate death.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:21 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Part of the problem of course is that there is literally nothing any of us can do individually that will make the slightest difference. Asking "what can I do to save the planet" is asking the wrong question.
The problem is inherently political. And the problem of climate change has hit a crisis point just when the world's political systems are all appearing to enter a failure mode simultaneously. The social strain caused by runaway capitalism and a huge wealth gap is collapsing not just democracy, but also the very concept of good governance.
At a time when we need a complex, interlinked, international effort with lots of power ceded to sciency egghead types to basically issue massive regulations on the global industrial system, we're entering a phase of our political cycle where internationalism of any sort is distrusted, the concept of government doing good is viewed as a sick joke, and a huge percentage of the people on Earth have decided that the thing they're most interested in their government doing is abusing the minority group they hate at the moment (along with all foreigners on general principle).
The "good" news is that it only takes one government actor or even wealthy private individual, to try the various compounds that might make effective upper atmosphere aerosol dimming work. The bad news, of course, is that we have no idea if that will actually do the job. There's fairly good reason to think it might, but if science has taught us anything about climatology its that poking at the climate has unforeseen consequences.
The risks of adding several megatons of various sulfates to the atmosphere are unknown, the risk of letting the climate continue to heat with no end in sight is known with a fair degree of certainty, so clearly if we can't get emissions under control (Ron Howard: we won't) giving geoengineering a try is our only real hope. But the idea that it'll simply solve the problem and everyone can be happy and keep rolling coal in their SUV is absurd. It **WILL** have unexpected and likely bad side effects.
But, again, working ourselves into a tizzy about what we individually could/should do or do better is hubris. You aren't able to do anything, and neither am I. There are a few thousand people who are actually in a position to do anything at all (that is, the executives and national government leaders of large and powerful nations), and if any of them post on MeFi they do it under carefully maintained pseudonyms.
I'm certainly not saying we should give up in our efforts to pressure our governments. But I am saying that basically we're up against the entire global capitalist system here, and it's foolish to feel guilty or inadequate for failing to overturn the entire global economic system by yourself.
This just is not a problem that is addressable by any degree of personal virtue or effort. Again, I don't mean that in the "so you might as well roll coal and give up" sense, but in the "stop beating yourself up" sense. It's ok to fail when your task is, literally, upending the entire global economy.
posted by sotonohito at 1:41 PM on November 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
The problem is inherently political. And the problem of climate change has hit a crisis point just when the world's political systems are all appearing to enter a failure mode simultaneously. The social strain caused by runaway capitalism and a huge wealth gap is collapsing not just democracy, but also the very concept of good governance.
At a time when we need a complex, interlinked, international effort with lots of power ceded to sciency egghead types to basically issue massive regulations on the global industrial system, we're entering a phase of our political cycle where internationalism of any sort is distrusted, the concept of government doing good is viewed as a sick joke, and a huge percentage of the people on Earth have decided that the thing they're most interested in their government doing is abusing the minority group they hate at the moment (along with all foreigners on general principle).
The "good" news is that it only takes one government actor or even wealthy private individual, to try the various compounds that might make effective upper atmosphere aerosol dimming work. The bad news, of course, is that we have no idea if that will actually do the job. There's fairly good reason to think it might, but if science has taught us anything about climatology its that poking at the climate has unforeseen consequences.
The risks of adding several megatons of various sulfates to the atmosphere are unknown, the risk of letting the climate continue to heat with no end in sight is known with a fair degree of certainty, so clearly if we can't get emissions under control (Ron Howard: we won't) giving geoengineering a try is our only real hope. But the idea that it'll simply solve the problem and everyone can be happy and keep rolling coal in their SUV is absurd. It **WILL** have unexpected and likely bad side effects.
But, again, working ourselves into a tizzy about what we individually could/should do or do better is hubris. You aren't able to do anything, and neither am I. There are a few thousand people who are actually in a position to do anything at all (that is, the executives and national government leaders of large and powerful nations), and if any of them post on MeFi they do it under carefully maintained pseudonyms.
I'm certainly not saying we should give up in our efforts to pressure our governments. But I am saying that basically we're up against the entire global capitalist system here, and it's foolish to feel guilty or inadequate for failing to overturn the entire global economic system by yourself.
This just is not a problem that is addressable by any degree of personal virtue or effort. Again, I don't mean that in the "so you might as well roll coal and give up" sense, but in the "stop beating yourself up" sense. It's ok to fail when your task is, literally, upending the entire global economy.
posted by sotonohito at 1:41 PM on November 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
The planet will survive, in an altered state. It's us we need to save. Yesterday at work we were talking about the whole billionaire-prepper thing, which should scare people more than it does. It is literally the rats abandoning the sinking ship, except these rats gnawed the holes that are sinking the ship.
These days I'm very curious about the Bronze Age Collapse. I am not a historian, but within the last several years, two different historians I heard lecture have linked this to a major environmental collapse, the destruction of forests and desertification due to human overuse of wood. Not only in the Mediterranean as the wiki says, but all the way from England to China. The reason I'm rediscovering it right now and studying it is that I have moved to an area with really rich stone- and bronze-age finds and a long later history of desertification. It seems to me there is something to know about our current predicament in there.
The more archeologists learn about the stone- and bronze ages, the more it seems that the cultures of those ages where highly sophisticated and interconnected across huge distances. Not at all primitive tribes living in small clearings in the primordial forests, but societies who built large monuments and travelled wide and far. Until they couldn't because they had broken their own natural environment.
posted by mumimor at 2:01 PM on November 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
These days I'm very curious about the Bronze Age Collapse. I am not a historian, but within the last several years, two different historians I heard lecture have linked this to a major environmental collapse, the destruction of forests and desertification due to human overuse of wood. Not only in the Mediterranean as the wiki says, but all the way from England to China. The reason I'm rediscovering it right now and studying it is that I have moved to an area with really rich stone- and bronze-age finds and a long later history of desertification. It seems to me there is something to know about our current predicament in there.
The more archeologists learn about the stone- and bronze ages, the more it seems that the cultures of those ages where highly sophisticated and interconnected across huge distances. Not at all primitive tribes living in small clearings in the primordial forests, but societies who built large monuments and travelled wide and far. Until they couldn't because they had broken their own natural environment.
posted by mumimor at 2:01 PM on November 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
On the side note of humans appearing to have basically reached the limits of their ability for self governance, I'm both hopeful that we can work out some better systems and in the longer term offload some/all of the problem to benevolent algorithms which will basically have the undesirable job of spending a lot of time saying "no, naughty human, you can't take that other human's stuff or kick them".
But we do certainly seem to be hitting the failure modes on most, if not all, the extant governments and building a new, free, functional, governments is going to be a messy process that, historically, has tended to involve a lot of fighting and dying.
posted by sotonohito at 2:02 PM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
But we do certainly seem to be hitting the failure modes on most, if not all, the extant governments and building a new, free, functional, governments is going to be a messy process that, historically, has tended to involve a lot of fighting and dying.
posted by sotonohito at 2:02 PM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The cost of spraying global dimming aerosols is on the order of $1B/year.
Do you want Snowpiercers? Because that’s how you get Snowpiercers.
posted by dephlogisticated at 5:45 PM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Do you want Snowpiercers? Because that’s how you get Snowpiercers.
posted by dephlogisticated at 5:45 PM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
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This sort of reminds me of the old Seed Article from 2006: Why We Haven't met any Aliens.
I just re-found that article having not read it for about 12 years and realized it was written by Geoffrey Miller, so take that with a grain of salt depending on your personal sensitivities.
Ezra Klein's recent interview with Jay Rosen seems heavily tied into this discussion as do the recent rounds of interviews with Matt Taibbi. Essentially, now that news is solely in the entertainment/ragertainment sphere of 24 engagement and compulsive anxiety confirmation, we can't really expect to move forward on anything. As others have said, it's Postman's warning only exaggerated beyond anything he could have imagined.
As much as the environment has always been a coordination/collective action problem, now with 6 hour news cycles, nothing will stick long enough for news to make a difference. (Who could actually bring themselves to read IPCC report? Better to just shove it down into the base of our brains and think about other things.)
You know, I've been really worried that China was going to become the dominant civilization and that when aliens come down, they'd only meet a monopolar sino-terran hegemony. (I don't have anything against China specifically, but a government with more respect for human rights would be nice.) Now I think that might be our only hope. We don't seem to deserve the freedom to make our own choices. Our only hope might actually just be for a forward thinking authoritarian government to tell us what's best for us. (The us that is included in their definition of who deserves representation) The modern entertainment industry complex as an id amplification device has pretty much shown us that we can't have nice things.
posted by Telf at 11:59 PM on November 1, 2018 [2 favorites]