This is 💯 on point. And yet, we stupidly voted for a government that’s completely captured by fossil fuel (and tobacco, and big Pharma, and industrial Ag and and…) interest groups: “The single most critical thing we could do to set society on the right path is to rid governments of special interest influence so that these choices start to be made on the basis of society’s overall wellbeing, both now and in the future, and not to benefit a few today, at the cost of the many.”
A way to start might be to change economies away from endless growth and production of new disposable consumer goods, to one that is based on recycling and repurposing already existing stuff. In other words, learn to live within the current ability of the planet to sustain life, before it no longer does.
The increased cloud cover and SAD is similar to something I've been contemplating recently. Not only can reduced sunlight effect our moods and physiological health, it can also increase our chance of developing an auto-immune disease.
If indeed some places get more cloud cover from changes in the climate or through geo-engineering, how many more people could develop these conditions as a result? Then there's the photosynthesis consequences for plants. I have skin in the game here having recently been diagnosed with an auto-immune condition. I spent my entire adult life avoiding the sun like a vampire in fear of skin cancer (I also had very low Vit D levels).
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I was also shared Sabine's video by a friend last week and it was refreshing to hear her candid take on the consequences of what's in the pipeline. It's still astounding no one is taking climate change seriously.
Humans tend to prefer a simple story and avoid complexity like the plague. Hence wide popularity of belief-based over evidence based knowledge systems. This is why climate change has become the proxy for a very long and long-lived list of complex adverse anthropogenic environmental and social effects and impacts. The bit below explains why the proxy approach will be a day late and a dollar short in attempting to preserve the Holocene ecosystem in which human civilisation emerged.
Once it's added to the atmosphere, CO2 persistently hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years given its long half-life. Thus, a majority of every CO2 molecule released by every human since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1800, will be working as a GHG to drive AGW.l. As humans change the atmosphere by emitting GHG, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives.
These is where the story becomes unpalatable. If we have changed the temperature by 2 degrees already with a lot of momentum behind that trend, and recognising that humans undertake many activities that release CO2, focusing on fossil fuels with fail. This is because it assumes all governments and people in the future will decide to leave FF in the ground. It is absurd to think we will effectively control the behaviour of 10 billion people and all their descendants, with all their aspirations for millennia. .
The inconvenient truth is that we are focussing many levels two low in a very complex system of systems. This is a simplified system stack from a system science point of view, from larger to smaller systems involved:
Solar System
Solar System Systems (asteroids, comets, etc)
Planetary Systems
Biological Systems
Human Systems
Human Value Systems
Human Consumption Systems
Economic Systems
Energy & Resource Systems
Renewable Energy & Resource Systems
This is a relatively narrow slice and we (governments, NGOs, the media are focused way down the value chain in a “one legged milking stool” strategy approach.
A three legged strategy (the most stable kind of stool) would look at the principal components driving the narrow stack and query whether the focus was too narrow and too deep to be prospective, I.e., likely to produce the desired result.
A number of organisations concluded the same thing. We must remain vigilant and keep eyes on evidence-based solutions to AGW.
A three-legged milking stool strategy would look like this: 1) given that all AGW is caused by humans (a tautology, I know) reduce the number of humans. Many studies show that empowering women and girl's accomplishes this goal across cultures (socially and politically complicated but the most important and it’s happening now). 2) address consumption behaviour. It’s a finite planet with finite resources (psychologically and economically complex). 3) continue to reduce the source of GHGs but recognise that replacing all 1.5 billion ICE vehicles with EVs in a “one person per car commuting from leafy places” is not a solution.
A three legged stool is much more stable thsn a one legged stool. Every child knows it.
Agreed - educating women and girls and providing access to fertility control is a tried and true mechanism for population reduction. Bonus points for being sublimely humane / non-violent. Like all the good stuff, we know how to do it, it could even be financed by a single committed billionaire (the fact that it won't be is another good reason to take that power back). The 'social and political' complications mostly boil down to it being anti-patriarchy. ie requires a change in power structures. That bit rarely happens without violence. Point to note - every time the presidency shifts from democrat to republican, the US withdraws funding for family planning clinics in the developing world (they are not allowed to refer, even obliquely, to abortion, if they want to receive stable funding). It would make sense for the EU to pick up this funding on a permanent basis to get rid of the ridiculous see-sawing in funding for fertility control that is currently hostage to partisan US politics (even when access to abortion was guaranteed in the US, they routinely deprived women in developing countries of the means).
In a full systems view empowering women and girls is by far the most powerfully action in my view. There doesn’t need to be any agenda beyond that as study after study demonstrates the results. Aotearoa has one of the strongest history of women leaders and is very well placed.
Imagine the simplicity of all of this modelling and projecting and predicting if she, of her own will, chooses to have fewer children and has access to reproductive care. The children she chooses not to have and their children will never add emissions ….
I donated to a Population Matters Nigeria project, Donate to Population Connection and recently signed up to Population Media Centre. My staunch cowgirls mates have ensured I “walk the walk”, loudly proclaiming “it’s not all about the girls boy!” Fair enough.
This is 💯 on point. And yet, we stupidly voted for a government that’s completely captured by fossil fuel (and tobacco, and big Pharma, and industrial Ag and and…) interest groups: “The single most critical thing we could do to set society on the right path is to rid governments of special interest influence so that these choices start to be made on the basis of society’s overall wellbeing, both now and in the future, and not to benefit a few today, at the cost of the many.”
But how Dr Sea, do we do that?
A way to start might be to change economies away from endless growth and production of new disposable consumer goods, to one that is based on recycling and repurposing already existing stuff. In other words, learn to live within the current ability of the planet to sustain life, before it no longer does.
Not with this govt, that’s for sure 😔 I can really only see the Greens willing to tackle special interest groups…
And yet a recent poll shows the Nats and Act up. What in the hell is going on here in Aotearoa?
I’d take that poll with a grain of salt - it’s run by Atlas-funded Taxpayers Union! A Roy Morgan one showed the Greens on 15.6% and Act down 🤷♀️
The increased cloud cover and SAD is similar to something I've been contemplating recently. Not only can reduced sunlight effect our moods and physiological health, it can also increase our chance of developing an auto-immune disease.
If indeed some places get more cloud cover from changes in the climate or through geo-engineering, how many more people could develop these conditions as a result? Then there's the photosynthesis consequences for plants. I have skin in the game here having recently been diagnosed with an auto-immune condition. I spent my entire adult life avoiding the sun like a vampire in fear of skin cancer (I also had very low Vit D levels).
-----
I was also shared Sabine's video by a friend last week and it was refreshing to hear her candid take on the consequences of what's in the pipeline. It's still astounding no one is taking climate change seriously.
Link to study on Vit D and auto-immunity:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/vitamin-d-reduced-rate-of-autoimmune-diseases-by-22/
Humans tend to prefer a simple story and avoid complexity like the plague. Hence wide popularity of belief-based over evidence based knowledge systems. This is why climate change has become the proxy for a very long and long-lived list of complex adverse anthropogenic environmental and social effects and impacts. The bit below explains why the proxy approach will be a day late and a dollar short in attempting to preserve the Holocene ecosystem in which human civilisation emerged.
Once it's added to the atmosphere, CO2 persistently hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years given its long half-life. Thus, a majority of every CO2 molecule released by every human since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1800, will be working as a GHG to drive AGW.l. As humans change the atmosphere by emitting GHG, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives.
These is where the story becomes unpalatable. If we have changed the temperature by 2 degrees already with a lot of momentum behind that trend, and recognising that humans undertake many activities that release CO2, focusing on fossil fuels with fail. This is because it assumes all governments and people in the future will decide to leave FF in the ground. It is absurd to think we will effectively control the behaviour of 10 billion people and all their descendants, with all their aspirations for millennia. .
The inconvenient truth is that we are focussing many levels two low in a very complex system of systems. This is a simplified system stack from a system science point of view, from larger to smaller systems involved:
Solar System
Solar System Systems (asteroids, comets, etc)
Planetary Systems
Biological Systems
Human Systems
Human Value Systems
Human Consumption Systems
Economic Systems
Energy & Resource Systems
Renewable Energy & Resource Systems
This is a relatively narrow slice and we (governments, NGOs, the media are focused way down the value chain in a “one legged milking stool” strategy approach.
A three legged strategy (the most stable kind of stool) would look at the principal components driving the narrow stack and query whether the focus was too narrow and too deep to be prospective, I.e., likely to produce the desired result.
A number of organisations concluded the same thing. We must remain vigilant and keep eyes on evidence-based solutions to AGW.
A three-legged milking stool strategy would look like this: 1) given that all AGW is caused by humans (a tautology, I know) reduce the number of humans. Many studies show that empowering women and girl's accomplishes this goal across cultures (socially and politically complicated but the most important and it’s happening now). 2) address consumption behaviour. It’s a finite planet with finite resources (psychologically and economically complex). 3) continue to reduce the source of GHGs but recognise that replacing all 1.5 billion ICE vehicles with EVs in a “one person per car commuting from leafy places” is not a solution.
A three legged stool is much more stable thsn a one legged stool. Every child knows it.
https://theconversation.com/population-cant-be-ignored-it-has-to-be-part-of-the-policy-solution-to-our-worlds-problems-219812
Agreed - educating women and girls and providing access to fertility control is a tried and true mechanism for population reduction. Bonus points for being sublimely humane / non-violent. Like all the good stuff, we know how to do it, it could even be financed by a single committed billionaire (the fact that it won't be is another good reason to take that power back). The 'social and political' complications mostly boil down to it being anti-patriarchy. ie requires a change in power structures. That bit rarely happens without violence. Point to note - every time the presidency shifts from democrat to republican, the US withdraws funding for family planning clinics in the developing world (they are not allowed to refer, even obliquely, to abortion, if they want to receive stable funding). It would make sense for the EU to pick up this funding on a permanent basis to get rid of the ridiculous see-sawing in funding for fertility control that is currently hostage to partisan US politics (even when access to abortion was guaranteed in the US, they routinely deprived women in developing countries of the means).
In a full systems view empowering women and girls is by far the most powerfully action in my view. There doesn’t need to be any agenda beyond that as study after study demonstrates the results. Aotearoa has one of the strongest history of women leaders and is very well placed.
Imagine the simplicity of all of this modelling and projecting and predicting if she, of her own will, chooses to have fewer children and has access to reproductive care. The children she chooses not to have and their children will never add emissions ….
I donated to a Population Matters Nigeria project, Donate to Population Connection and recently signed up to Population Media Centre. My staunch cowgirls mates have ensured I “walk the walk”, loudly proclaiming “it’s not all about the girls boy!” Fair enough.
Consumption behaviour is a much trickier beast for all demographics, and can change during a lifetime. Figure 2 sums it pretty well.
https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.12376