Yours is the most valuable and insightful analysis of the issues relating to climate change that I have found in a full year of researching the issue. However, it dodges some elephants in the room.
I would like to discuss with you concise, realistic, brass tacks layout of:
1. the size of the response needed;
2. the forcing functions needed to overcome the institutional deficiencies you elaborate;
3. the preconditions likely needed to enable the forcing functions to be effective;
4. the most cost-effective, doable action to be targeted for implementation.
For example:
SIZE OF RESPONSE
Since there is no known technology capable of lowering atmospheric carbon fast enough to avoid catastrophic sea level rise within a number of centuries, quadrillions of dollars and/or thousands of years will likely be needed to find and implement novel technology to stop and reverse sea level rise, and dealing with the migrations forced in the meantime will require additional massive expenditures to avoid political instability.. This needs to be dramatized and accepted by the public (see below).
FORCING FUNCTIONS
Realistically, one of the following (a list to elaborate) is likely needed to catalyze global response:
1. AMOC slowing dramatically;
2. Dead pool above the Hoover Dam;
3. Tundra-methane aggravated northern arboreal wildfires creating a global breathing crisis;
4. Abandonment of Tehran due to water shortage;
5. Unstoppable migration of Bangladeshis into West Bengal.
PRECONDITIONS
1. Replacement of Trump in the US and Putin in Russia and Xi in China with less bellicose politicians.
2. Bankruptcy and/or restoration of solvency in the world's leading democracies;
3. A media or news event raising worldwide popular recognition of the climate crisis;
4. Insolvency of global property reinsurers.
COST-EFFECTIVE ACTION
Clearly, a worldwide carbon tax that rises slowly and certainly to prompt investments before hurting consumption is one.
Institutional innovation, as per your work, is the other.
-------------------------------
My examples may not be the best. But the concept of this type of realistic followup to your analysis is recommended.
I would enjoy contributing to your follow-on work.
Sadly, there is zero recognition in this piece that we operate within an ecocidal framework.
Climate change is just one aspect of global ecosystems collapse; both of these phenomena are the direct consequence of our entrenched behaviour patterns. We are on a finite planet of 12 billion global hectares. We consume 20 billion global hectares per annum. We have been consuming more than 12 billion global hectares per annum for over 50 years. This is the definition of ecological overshoot. The carrying-capacity is exceeded at about 6 billion global hectares, this allows space for biodiversity to flourish. The last time humans consumed less than 6 billion gha per annum was about 100 years ago. Consumption per capita was much less and population was about 2 or 3 billion.
Growth economics, wealth inequality, patriarchy, colonialism, striving for military supremacy, and pronatalism can all be categorised as a 'fluency' response from our limbic system. These are all unwise behaviour patterns during ecosystems collapse, but our critical thinking gets by-passed in favour of business-as-usual.
I think ecological overshoot is an essential part of this discussion & I don’t disagree that climate change is one symptom of a much larger destabilization of planetary systems.
But I’d distinguish between diagnosing the drivers of collapse and developing the capacity to change them.
That’s partly the argument I’m making: our institutions were largely designed around assumptions of growth, stability and externalizable costs. Those assumptions become increasingly dangerous when the underlying ecological conditions no longer hold.
And there’s a deeper paradox here: we can become increasingly capable of managing the consequences of a system while remaining incapable of changing the system producing them.
That’s why I think civilizational response capacity must include the ability to question, redesign and, where necessary, retire the very institutions and incentives driving overshoot.
Resilience that preserves the drivers of collapse isn’t resilience. It’s a more sophisticated form of fragility.
Mehrad Yaghmai:
Yours is the most valuable and insightful analysis of the issues relating to climate change that I have found in a full year of researching the issue. However, it dodges some elephants in the room.
I would like to discuss with you concise, realistic, brass tacks layout of:
1. the size of the response needed;
2. the forcing functions needed to overcome the institutional deficiencies you elaborate;
3. the preconditions likely needed to enable the forcing functions to be effective;
4. the most cost-effective, doable action to be targeted for implementation.
For example:
SIZE OF RESPONSE
Since there is no known technology capable of lowering atmospheric carbon fast enough to avoid catastrophic sea level rise within a number of centuries, quadrillions of dollars and/or thousands of years will likely be needed to find and implement novel technology to stop and reverse sea level rise, and dealing with the migrations forced in the meantime will require additional massive expenditures to avoid political instability.. This needs to be dramatized and accepted by the public (see below).
FORCING FUNCTIONS
Realistically, one of the following (a list to elaborate) is likely needed to catalyze global response:
1. AMOC slowing dramatically;
2. Dead pool above the Hoover Dam;
3. Tundra-methane aggravated northern arboreal wildfires creating a global breathing crisis;
4. Abandonment of Tehran due to water shortage;
5. Unstoppable migration of Bangladeshis into West Bengal.
PRECONDITIONS
1. Replacement of Trump in the US and Putin in Russia and Xi in China with less bellicose politicians.
2. Bankruptcy and/or restoration of solvency in the world's leading democracies;
3. A media or news event raising worldwide popular recognition of the climate crisis;
4. Insolvency of global property reinsurers.
COST-EFFECTIVE ACTION
Clearly, a worldwide carbon tax that rises slowly and certainly to prompt investments before hurting consumption is one.
Institutional innovation, as per your work, is the other.
-------------------------------
My examples may not be the best. But the concept of this type of realistic followup to your analysis is recommended.
I would enjoy contributing to your follow-on work.
__________________
Ronald K. Randall
+1 201 888 3633
ron2randall@gmail.com
Sadly, there is zero recognition in this piece that we operate within an ecocidal framework.
Climate change is just one aspect of global ecosystems collapse; both of these phenomena are the direct consequence of our entrenched behaviour patterns. We are on a finite planet of 12 billion global hectares. We consume 20 billion global hectares per annum. We have been consuming more than 12 billion global hectares per annum for over 50 years. This is the definition of ecological overshoot. The carrying-capacity is exceeded at about 6 billion global hectares, this allows space for biodiversity to flourish. The last time humans consumed less than 6 billion gha per annum was about 100 years ago. Consumption per capita was much less and population was about 2 or 3 billion.
Growth economics, wealth inequality, patriarchy, colonialism, striving for military supremacy, and pronatalism can all be categorised as a 'fluency' response from our limbic system. These are all unwise behaviour patterns during ecosystems collapse, but our critical thinking gets by-passed in favour of business-as-usual.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/limbic-loopholes-barbara-williams-2icae/
I think ecological overshoot is an essential part of this discussion & I don’t disagree that climate change is one symptom of a much larger destabilization of planetary systems.
But I’d distinguish between diagnosing the drivers of collapse and developing the capacity to change them.
That’s partly the argument I’m making: our institutions were largely designed around assumptions of growth, stability and externalizable costs. Those assumptions become increasingly dangerous when the underlying ecological conditions no longer hold.
And there’s a deeper paradox here: we can become increasingly capable of managing the consequences of a system while remaining incapable of changing the system producing them.
That’s why I think civilizational response capacity must include the ability to question, redesign and, where necessary, retire the very institutions and incentives driving overshoot.
Resilience that preserves the drivers of collapse isn’t resilience. It’s a more sophisticated form of fragility.