I don't think we fully recognise that we are guests of mother nature. Not her owners. We can't come into her house (be born) and trample around rampaging, pillaging and plundering her resources to find some form of happiness, meaning or satisfaction.

She has house rules. Like any good mother, and she'll sweat us out with the AC if she has to. She will put manners on us if we don't put manners on ourselves. The fever is rising. The planet is ill. We can be medicine or toxin. The choice is ours. — Benj96

Mother nature is a bitch, because she never told us the rules, but she will still enforce them just the same.... And the only house rule is, if you go to far, you die.

Any biological organism is looking for surplus energy to propagate it's particular form. That is what is selected for in evolutionary terms. Did we really have a choice to leave free energy in the ground collectively?

Typically, competition among organisms is fierce and adaptive enough so that no single one can take the upper hand for long. We broke genetic evolution however with our ability for cultural evolution. While the rest of the natural world is stuck evolving claws and teeth over millennia, we can create a gun in a couple of centuries.

Unfortunately, our success is also our downfall... yeast. We did everything right to succeed in your game and now you punish us for it, thanks a lot mother nature!

The story is that the economy progresses to improve life for us all, and science provides the best solutions to all human problems. It now appears that science and the economy have produced an existential threat to humans. And you want a "good" solution? Time to change what we think is good, I'd say.

Endless growth is cancerous. — unenlightened

I agree unenlightened, at least in principle, I have no particular love for current society based on economic growth. If we were to turn back time a couple of centuries, i'd say let's not start on this particular track.

Problem is that I think we kindof trapped ourselves at this point. Fossil fuels and technologies build on them enabled us to soar high above what is sustainable.

If we were to cut all of that back however I think we would have some serious problems, because we are with that many, because the whole global economy is so integrated, because a certain amount of climate warming and ecosystems collapse is already locked in for the next century even if we would stop right away etc etc...

All of that means we cannot merely stop what we are doing I think. We need an exit strategy that ideally doesn't involve total collapse of our systems (and lots of people dying), a strategy that people could get behind politically also, and at the same time it would need to get us to some place in the future that is sustainable and gives us some perspective going forward.

People will focus on some small subset of the problem, point fingers, play the blame game, come up with simplistic solutions... or on the opposite side people will deny the problem altogether or at least the severity of the consequences of the problem. I see very few actually trying to integrate multiple aspects of the problem in a coherent solution, maybe because it is very difficult... lets at least acknowledge that much.

It won't? So raising awareness of a clear problem doesn't help in formulating a solution to said problem? I have to disagree here. If you don't vocalise what "ought to be" then we have literally no goals/ideals to strive for. In such a case what can be done? This seems unreasonable and ultimately defeatist.

People need to stomp their feet about wrong-doings in the world. If we just sit back and watch we have little entitlement to complain or not accept the result. If we are aware of something immoral and don't stand our ground against it then we are complicit in whatever passive outcome occurs. You and I are as much devices of change as anyone else.

What do you suggest we do? What solution would you offer? Or are you just here to shoot down any and all possible paths to a resolve? — Benj96

What if there is no good solution? Not every problem has a solution.

But ok, raising awareness and moral outrage generally does matter and can help in solving a problem, I'll meet you halfway on that. The issue here I think is that people don't like the solution, not that they are not aware of the problem. At some point (after 30 years or so) you got to think things like climate denial or minimizing of the consequences of climate change is not a matter of people not being informed, but a matter of people not wanting to know... because they don't like what it entails. And so they back-create a story that saves them from cognitive dissonance.

There is no good solution because fossil fuels, and especially oil, are the backbone of our economy. It's the thing that made the industrial revolution possible and makes the economy tick, because it's a cheap, easy to use and an energy-dense source of energy. Add to that there are whole industries build on derivatives of oil and natural gas.

None of the energy sources that could replace them quite have the same set of properties, and all have their various problems. Wind and solar for instance are only intermittent, actually not that cheap when you'd build them outside of a fossil fueled economy, are also an environmental liability if you scale them up and we'd probably run out rare earth materials if you'd try it as a main energy source world wide.

Nuclear and deep geothermal, if we could solve the issues with drilling, are probably our best bet as a replacement on a large enough scale, but those also do require time to build and/or develop... and we are running out of time as we speak. But that would be a start of a solution, the US and Chinese government (and Europe too) throwing huge amounts of money at research and development, and at building those. Once you have enough carbon-free energy you could power carbon capture technologies and EV's and/or hydrogen-production for things like transport.

And then these rich developed countries would need to enforce carbon-free trade and actively help the rest of the world with their energy-transition, which is probably a big ask with geo-political tensions as they are.

Anyway, needless to say these are huge transformations which require a lot of time and focussed effort.... in a messy world. It's not that it is theoretically impossible, but it's still very difficult and at the end of the day people typically can't be bothered that much with a problem that will have it's full impact only decades into the future.

But if everyone is waiting for everyone else to be the first one (if they are scared and distrusting of one another) to start then nothing happens. As a matter of fact Denmark, Costa Rica, Scotland and Iceland have all just gone ahead and beyond, and managed to up their renewables to pretty much the large majority of their energy sources. And they havent collapsed economically. So there is a way. — Benj96

No there isn't, no way that isn't very costly anyway. They don't produce the majority of their energy with renewables, but the majority of their electricity, and that is typically only 20% of total energy consumption. First you need to electrify everything and then you need to up your electricity production without fossil fuels times 5 to get to the same levels of energy consumption.... never mind the pre-supposed continual growth (which implies even more energy) that is deemed necessarily to keep our economies running.

And no, Iceland (with warm water springing out of the ground), Denmark (surrounded by windy seas) and Costa Rica (no industry because their economy is tourism) are not representative at all for the rest of the world.

It's ironic that an obvious and needed reform in our power supply is being ignored because of a power struggle between nations. We are fiercely competitive with eachother trying to gain the upper hand meanwhile what we are competing over is an addictive yet toxic substance (oil). — Benj96

It's to be expected, we have been externalising environmental costs and other costs that don't directly impact us for the entirety of our history (maybe there were some exceptions, but they didn't make it in any case). It just so happens that up till recent we were not that numerous and nature was resilient enough to carry those costs for the most part.

National geopolitics should reflect a collective morality. — Benj96

They should but they don't, never have in the geopolitical arena... stamping your feet about the immorality of it won't get us closer to solving the problem.

Yeah as I said. You can't force people to do what you want as it's unethical. Hence why holding a barrel of a gun to someone's head (trying to force them to do what you want for fear of their lives) is generally accepted as illegal/criminal in most countries. You can try to force someone but your shouldn't - is what I'm saying. — Benj96

You can, but you shouldn't, sure, I can agree with that. Anyway, we going on a bit of a tangent here. My original point was not about morality, but about geo-political dynamics which is about nations, and not individuals and so not about morals really.

The US and China should (and are the only geopolitical powers that could) force other nations to follow their lead in phasing out carbon-based fuels otherwise it's not going to happen, because other nations trying to phase them out at an increased speed will suffer in a global market.

This is a simple idea really. You need energy for almost everything you produce. If energy-costs go up in one country (like it is the case now in Europe) prices go up and sales go down because we have a globalised market... and so companies fail or relocate to a place where costs are lower. At the end of this process political parties in power in that democratic country will lose because people don't like being unemployed and prices going up... so they get replaced by another political party that promises to get back the countries competitive edge. Doing the right thing doesn't get you elected just because it's the right thing.

Edit: And by 'forcing' I don't necessarily mean military force, although that could be part of it, but in the first place setting trade standards with the rest of the world so that carbon fueled goods cannot be sold.

Yes I believe beliefs that aren't extremely biased or one sided (not measured) tend to not be favoured over one's that are more balanced and consider multiple viewpoints and opinions. Secondly again yes - I think beliefs or observations that people think are true and honest tend to be taken on board more than blind random lying and unjustified ideation. — Benj96

This is an empirical question ultimately, and I think you are just wrong on this. Google and facebook know, their algorithms figured out long ago that what interest people is not measured and balanced, or even true, but rather what is polarising, extreme, and evoking strong emotions.

On the contrary it is and only ever has been a case of individual morals. Most countries are democracies. So every vote counts. By changing the individual opinion we thus slowly but surely change the general opinion. Democratic politicians want to appeal to the masses, and if an individual opinion has "gone viral" through logic and reason and ethical imperative, then politicians take that on board.

It's foolish to think one individual opinion doesn't count when it's highly agreeable. If it's highly agreeable then it's likely to become the opinion of many. And the opinion of many has clout. It makes a difference. — Benj96

No. Reason and rhetoric are not the same. People are hardly, if ever, convinced by reason.

You cannot force others to change, you can only live and breathe your beliefs and if others accept such beliefs as sensible then well, your beliefs "catch fire" and spread far and wide. — Benj96

Sure you can, the barrel of a gun is probably one of the most effective ways to make people do what you want. But I wasn't talking about people, but about nations... people don't matter all that much in this case.

The only thing you have to do to change the world is think thoroughly and in a measured/balanced way and trust that others will do the talking for you. If that wasn't the case how would anyone's ideas (artistic, innovative, technological, religious, educative, etc) ever spread beyond themselves? — Benj96

Because implementing those idea's can give you some kind of advantage? Do you think they get taken on just because they are measured and balanced, or true?

I don't think one particular thing or event will move the needle all that much. Sure it would be bad, but so are a lot of things, not in the least the fact that we have that much greenhouse gasses in the air already, which means a certain amount of rise in temperature is already locked in for the next 30 years or so.

More than certain political parties winning in this or that country, the issue we have and have had for the past 30 years is mostly global and systemic. This is not an issue of individual morals or even of national politics, but largely because of game theory tending towards tragedy of the commons. Fossil fuels is power (and not that easy to replace contrary to somewhat popular opinion), and countries are locked in geopolitical struggle always... which means those that would stop using carbon fuels first loose out, and so they don't.

The only possible way out of this particular prisoner's dilemma is the main geopolitical powers, the US and China, both unilaterally or maybe in a bilateral agreement, deciding to phase out fossil fuels in a short timeframe and forcing the rest of the world to follow. So maybe it could be about national politics after all, but only in a couple of countries, Brazil doesn't matter that much.

https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022

"The report shows that updated national pledges since COP26 – held in 2021 in Glasgow, UK – make a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions and that we are far from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C.

Policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges respectively.

The report finds that only an urgent system-wide transformation can deliver the enormous cuts needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2030: 45 per cent compared with projections based on policies currently in place to get on track to 1.5°C and 30 per cent for 2°C."

Urgent system-wide transformation is unlikely. Enormous investments are needed for that world-wide, and with things getting progressively worse geopolitically, economically and also energy-security wise, investments that only re-pay themselves in the long term seem to be getting more difficult as we get deeper into it. Saying only urgent system-wide transformation would do it, is essentially the same as saying we won't make those targets.

Or at least what purpose or role do these books serve? — Bret Bernhoft

Re-evaluation of values, is the short answer... more specifically re-evaluation of values after our belief in the Gods or the God of old had waned. His writings are essentially a bunch of perspectives on these values, after they had lost their foundation, and so were in need of another justification, which people hadn't realized yet.

And by what process does one evolve their nature/constitution according to Nietzsche? Pain? Suffering? Incremental progress? Discipline? By developing a perfect rear-naked choke? One cannot merely demand that they stop being average and expect to stop being average - coming from someone who is painfully average in most ways.

Or did he just not focus on that? Maybe I'm treating him too much like a motivational speaker. — ToothyMaw

Yes I don't think his audience was the average man.

I think he had an idea of a hierarchy or an ordering of instincts or drives. A well turned out man has these instincts ordered in particular ways, that worked for them and in their environment. I think he did view suffering and pain certainly as being instrumental in that process, but not exclusively so. The whole of life could be seen as an opportunity for trial and error.

Josh has the right idea about his general epistemology, if you could call it that. We can only come closer to truth through falsification, through error. We need categorization, "containers to put empirical data in", even if those don't really exist in some strict delineated way in reality and are ultimately arbitrary. This is one of his key insight IMO, that they are not polar opposites (as philosophers are prone to view them), but one is a condition for the other. A lot follows from that... it's better to try something, anything, even if it turns out to be wrong, than nothing at all.

Maybe that could even be a very crude summary of his philosophy, you try stuff and you fail, you try again, ad infinitum... and you learn to love the process along the way.

What is there to debate?

They should be building nuclear plants en masse non stop.

Winter is coming.

Objective and subjective on a spectrum is maybe not so bad a way of looking at it.

Maybe better still is to forget about the distinction altogether, they are just words.

We view things from a perspective, and those are at best partial views of "reality"... some are a bit wider and a little less partial than others.

The short answer is universalism is an invention of monotheistic religions.

Is it possible to be morally wrong even if one is convinced to do the right thing? — Matias

Yes you can be wrong by the standards of contemporary moral understanding.

Another related question could be: is it possible to be morally wrong retroactively? — Matias

No, as morality is determined by socio-historical context, this doesn't even make sense.

Note that morality is relative to a certain socio-historical context, not relative 'within' a certain context, which is what people generally seem to be confusing.

It's not that I think the person matters for the validity of the argument, it's that I think often it's not the argument that matters in a discussion, but what the person is getting at when making a particular argument.... what their motive is.

Consider the example of the bigot/racist making some seemingly good argument about racial groups I gave earlier in response to another poster. When confronted with that argument, I don't think one should engage with the argument, I think one can disregard it because the argument itself is not really what he is getting at ultimately. I'm certainly not interested in playing the game they are trying to set up.

Maybe this is a somewhat sideways answer to your question in that I kindof changed the terms of the discussion, but I do think that generally in the real world this is what matters. People aren't that rational and rarely I find myself in a discussion where both interlocutors are predominantly interested in the argument for the arguments sake.

Arguments, on the other hand, are impersonal. Logic has no face, identity, color or smell. — Alkis Piskas

An argument is always made by someone. While an argument in the abstract ( which is a fiction) may be impersonal, the act of making an argument is not. Someone's making a choice in why one wants to make a particular argument and not make others.

Here's an example. Sometimes a random right winger will bring up some empirical data and statistics about racial groups in relation to crime or intelligence or something along those lines, and then proceed and formulate a conclusion that seems to follow those data and stats. In the abstract, and looking only at the argument, he would seem to be making a solid argument. But if we look at the person making the argument, maybe we could say based on his history, that he is making that particular argument only to justify or promote racist views.

Often in public debate it's not really about the argument an sich, but what is implied by making a particular argument. An argument can be used as a rhetorical device, and is often very good at persuasion because who can argue with some solid logic right?

OP wants to say we should ignore the person making the argument and only look at the merits of the argument. I would say it depends. In an ideal world where everybody is an honest philosopher making desinterested arguments, yes by all means look at the arguments only. Things don't work like that in reality however, people do have agenda's and arguments are made to steer people into certain directions. Therefor I would say, it does matter who is making what argument.

Additional takeaway: Why not present and consider political arguments, rather than elect officials with an agenda? Why not address each issue democratically, rather than allow politicians to wheel and deal with each other? Anyone who wants to participate is welcome, so long as they operate within the landscape of the arguments. To fail in doing so is to fail to participate. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

It would probably be impractical, as is any form of direct democracy.

Conclusion: Seeing as we need not evaluate the characteristics of the person making an argument, and that by doing so we allow our biases to influence the way we consider them (risking ad hominem attacks), we should indeed listen to arguments rather than people. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I do generally agree with this. Probably because i'm personally a bit more predisposed to the rational than most, I tend to look past the person making the arguments generally... but I do think an argument can be made that the person and his history/values does matter a lot. As did Nietzsche for example:

"I have gradually come to realize what every great philosophy so far has been: a confession of faith on the part of its author, and a type of involuntary and unself-conscious memoir; in short, that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constitute the true living seed from which the whole plant has always grown."

My tendencies to ignore the person making the arguments notwithstanding, I have found this to be largely true. People are not really rational at base, but often rather "rationalizing". And so in that sense it does also matter who is making the argument and for what reason, aside from arguments also having some merit on their own in the abstract.

I kind of like the Bayesian approach to all of this, which does take into account peoples histories and their specific experiences - which can wildly differ for person to person - as constitutive for how people come to their beliefs... but it also tries to incorporate a measured and reasoned approach to adjusting those beliefs.

I have become nuclear absolutist, anything else is just tampering in the margins... it's the power of the atom or back to the stoneage.

Oh I agree. But the problem is when the discourse stays on that level when making actual decisions. Politicians just love grandstanding and hence the problem is that rhetoric and actual decisions can part to totally different realms. When an administration that likely has few years to go until the next election makes an "ambitious" plan for the next twenty years, one can be doubtful of what actually will be done in the next decade or two.

This is a basic problem especially in energy policy, which is quite central to the actual environment policy. Since at least 40 years the emphasis has been to "transfer to renewables". Well, that's really happening only now and the current energy crisis shows just how much dependent we are on oil and gas. — ssu

I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting that because the discourse is too extreme, politicians make their plans too ambitious to soothe the public who internalised that extreme discourse... and because those plans are too ambitious, nothing gets done?

I don't know how it went down in various countries, but I don't think too much ambition was the real culprit the last 40 years. I think the problem was simply that it costs a lot of money, the effects would only be felt in a few decades way after election cycles, and ultimately people didn't care that much either. Alarmism and Greta Thunberg only really were a thing the past 5, maybe 10 years.

So yeah, the problem I'd say was mainly apathy because the effects were still so far in the future. That, and yes definitely also the fact that our dependence on fossil fuels is much more difficult to get away from than environmentalist and left parties have been making it out to be. But notice here the issue is not an overestimation of the gravity of the problem (i.e. alarmism), but an underestimation of how tied in with fossil fuels our economy really is and an underestimation of the effort required to build alternative energy-sources... those are two distinct things.

In short, the diagnosis is not the issue, the lack of good workable solutions is.

Sorry about that. The body and conclusions aren't pessimistic. They admit it's going to be a challenge and conclude that multiple technologies are a better than a single solution. — Tate

No problem.

I have nothing against such potential solutions in principle, but I am a bit skeptical yes. Usually they can work fine as prototypes in a lab - which is the context wherein they are studied - but ultimately they often fail as real world scaled up solutions because of the energy or other costs.

This is by no means restricted to greenhouse capture innovations, but applies to innovations in general. Scientists do have some incentive to shed a positive light on their research projects, because that is more likely to secure future funding... and they typically don't have all that much specific knowledge of what it takes to successfully place something in the market.

And so very little of these lab-innovations actually end up being a success. Also energy presumably will be even more expensive if we need to phase out fossil fuels, so operational costs being high doesn't bode all that well going forward.

Check out this article. It's a review of several potential approaches. — Tate

I can't read the whole article, only the abstract, but it does seem to be going for more or less the same conclusion as I have been earlier, namely that it works but isn't efficient/is to costly, which makes it doubtful that it could be scaled up.

"Besides several advantages, NETs present high operational cost and its scale-up should be tested to know the real effect on climate change mitigation. With current knowledge, no single process should be seen as a solution."

The models really need to be accurate, realistic and not simple extrapolations from linear models, where the end result is that you are forecasting the year when the human race, or all species, are extinct. — ssu

I don't think anybody seriously invested in the topic is really claiming definitively that we are going to go extinct, they're just using 'existential threat' as concept that isn't technical but rather figuratively and political, to indicate that it's going to be really really bad if we don't do anything. I think it means something like an existential treat to our current way of life, loosely... and not to the species.

Wrong models could inform bad policies, but we aren't really talking about the models here I don't think. The climate models themselves are, in all their uncertainty, actually pretty clear. If we emit x amount of greenhouse gasses we can expect between y and z amount of global warming. We are talking about what the effects on human civilizations would be, and as far as I know there are no models for that because it's just to complex to model. Nobody can really predict these kind of things beforehand with any kind of certainty.

To demand accurate, realistic non-linear models before we can make any sort of claim about this is effectively the same as saying we should just remain silent about it, which can't be a good idea either because then we would have no impetus at all for said policies. So saying it is an existential treat to our way of life and building policies on that, doesn't seem to far off base, even if it is unsure.

Yes certainly, we are part of the biosphere and it is part of us. Case in point the recent revaluation and attention for the gut-microbiome in medicine and dietary sciences.

Yes, I know. I just meant that switching to electric cars won't limit CO2 emissions until we have a replacement for coal and gas power plants. — Tate

Ok, yes sure... but we need both rather soon.

Forests scrub the atmosphere every summer. I think we can come up with something. Or at least it's too early to give up. — Tate

Scientific consensus seem to be that it's really hard to get greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, and that it's also hard to see inventions or innovations that would do it. Forests can help a bit, sure, but from what I gathered it's not that big of a percentage.

You're saying a global catastrophe could be the solution to global conflict. Could be. — Tate

Yeah something like that, I guess. We'll see what Europe ultimately does in reaction to the energy-crisis, but it certainly has changed a lot of minds in a short time. For instance, a lot of countries were set on phasing out nuclear for years now, and now they are all reconsidering. A crisis certainly seems to create political will like nothing else does.

I think nuclear is the higher priority, though. Electricity is mostly generated by coal or gas. — Tate

Nuclear is electricity-production, that would have to replace all other current electricity-production (which is 20% all total energy-use) and also everything else that uses fossil fuels directly as energy, like transport or factory-ovens (which is the other 80%). That latter 80% needs to be electrified first, before we can use electricity as the energy-source, like we are doing now with the electric car.

Really? Is there research on that? Just curious. — Tate

I'm just relying on experts here that seem reliable to me. We have scrubbers already as prototypes, but they seem woefully inefficient energy-wise, and therefor hardly scalable... which makes sense if you consider that greenhouses gasses, while high enough to raise temperature, are still very small concentrations in the air.

Yes, but it doesn't seem to be in the direction of global cooperation. And democratic governments are generally screwed. Apathy takes over. — Tate

I think it could go any way still. Apathy, or even open conflict because of higher stressed relations and scarcity, are all definite possibilities... but so is cooperation, for instance if the need is truly high. In WWII the US and the USSR commies were besties and fighting side by side to defeat the fascists... go figure.

Feasible in what sense? If every nation converts to nuclear power and we start building large scale scrubbers, we could at least reverse some of the changes we've already contributed.

Is that feasible for our generation? No. — Tate

Nuclear (maybe some renewables) and electrification of everything, is what is needed, as well as a fundamental rethinking of agriculture. Forget scrubbers, concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the air are to small to make it worth it to actively pull them out.

It's not feasible in normal times, no, because of the sheer scale of it. Maybe it would be possible in something akin to a transitioning to a wartime economy, like the US or Germany in WWII. That may seem unlikely right now, but we don't know what will happen in volatile times... look at the war and energy crisis in Europe right now. Nobody could have predicted that a few years ago.

Times are definitely a changing.

I agree.

Just as in the Zeihan example, over dramatization still is not great when you are dealing with facts. It's far too easy to ask the question: Is China really to collapse now immediately and get the answer "Likely not". The same happens if we take the most dire forecast in the shortest time period. When that most dire forecast doesn't happen (in the few months or one year) it's supposed to happen, you can seriously question then the forecaster.

To think that the most dire forecast is just a way to "wake up" people and hence it's OK to be alarmist, then one should remember that to get most closest to what happens will be the best forecast. — ssu

Ok, maybe I agree that this kind of alarmism as a political strategy isn't all that helpful, in that it potentially alienates those that weren't already convinced even further. But I'm not sure really, maybe it did help to some extend, climate change certainly is high on the agenda now.

But I wasn't talking about political strategy. Aside from any political impact one may want to have, I just think the truth is that the problem is very very serious, and one is entirely justified in being alarmed, as a normal human reaction to something like this.

Like, we are leaving behind the only climate in history wherein human civilisation have developed and existed thus far, probably permanently for all our intents and purposes... that is quite something. Climate change at the very least will be a risk or stress multiplier on all or most of our vital system, energy, food, water, shelter... for centuries to come. And then we are one of the most adaptable species with our technology, a lot of the rest of the biosphere will have less of a chance to adapt to this unprecedent rate of change.

All of this is pretty bleak and depressing I think, and the mental tax from this on young and future generations is by itself already a tragedy it seems to me.

A good while back I read this book that dealt with these questions, a preface to Plato (history of the Greek mind). I thought it quite interesting at the time :

https://monoskop.org/images/0/0d/Havelock_Eric_A_Preface_to_Plato.pdf

Part of differences between myth an philosophy have to do with the transition of an oral tradition wherein myth originated, to a written tradition. Purely from a practical point of view alone, it is perhaps easy to see that oral pieces that are preformed, will tend to have different characteristic, like how they sound (instead of read) and the fact that you have to memorize them. Verse, narrative, rhyme all are mnemonic devices that you strictly speaking don't need anymore if a text is preserved in written form.

And that's alarmism. Call something existential when it's really existential, then you don't fall into alarmism: of making unwarranted claims. The Sun poses an existential threat to life on Earth as current theory on the sun's stages in the future holds, but that is in the billion year time scale. This isn't just a rhetorical question, it really drives the discussion. Because pointing this out, I am categorized as being non-alarmed about climate change, as simply giving a "meh" about it. When doubting the most severe predictions is labeled as being a denier of the whole problem, that is a real problem for honest discussion. We have to avoid the lures of tribalism and making making issues to be like religious movements with their proper liturgy and other views considered blasphemy. — ssu

I actually made more or less the same point a while back in a discussion with Xtrix in the climate change thread, so I do sort of agree, existential threat is a technical term with a specific meaning and therefor shouldn't be used to describe the threat:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11305/climate-change-general-discussion/p6

But my point this time was that it doesn't really matter that it isn't an existential threat, it is still or should be very alarming nevertheless.

I had this same issue come out on the Xi Jinping and the CCP has no clothes thread where, yes, China is facing real difficulties and no, China isn't going to collapse. Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Peter Zeihan seems a bit too much of a demographic determinist and he also constantly over-dramatizes things, probably because it increases his value as a geo-political pundit in times where extreme positions are rewarded by algorithms... So I would take everything he says with a grain of salt, but I do agree to some extend that China has an enormous challenges purely based on demographics and water/food security. You cannot really replace all those aging people, and if climate change causes more droughts and famines it could go fast... every regime-collapse in China's history has been about food at base.

Or it's similar when talking about the financial system. I believe that sooner or later our international monetary system will have a huge crisis and something new will replace this present system. Yes, it's also a big issue, even if climate change is a fa larger issue. But that collapse doesn't mean a societal collapse. The last time when the monetary system collapsed, many didn't even notice what had happened. — ssu

But we did avoid a far bigger crash back then, right? And even if avoided, it still caused a lot of issues for a lot of people.

Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Sure this is definitely a thing, and we should try to avoid it... but at the same time we shouldn't disregard serious issues either because some people are prone to doom.

Those numbers are a bit disingenuous SSU. It's not now that matters most or the positive trend up till now (as if that trend is automatically going to continue/is empirically proven!).... It's the future impacts of climate change that are the real problem. We only have had what, 1.1 or so increase in temperature as of now? The problems are already being felt now, but the real problems only start with 1.5°, 2° C increase in 10 or 20 years, and then it could get really tough by the end of the century if we get to 3° or more... for centuries to come.

Not being an existential problem is a very low bar. I know there's people focusing especially on existential risk, for humans to survive as a species, but frankly I couldn't care less about "the species" if the world is turned into an arid hothouse where most of the other species have died off and only small portions of the globe are really livable without technological assistance. Seriously, I don't get this type of reasoning, it's like saying to someone you will lose most of your limbs, your eyes, your stomach etc, but don't be alarmed we can keep you alive just fine by hooking you up to this machine for the rest of your life.

This is a pretty common idea, but what is exactly the logic behind it?

What is the exact mechanism that requires modern economies to grow in order to be considered healthy?

Perpetual growth seems more like a demand of governments that need to compete with their peers (think for example the US-China rivalry; to stand still is to lag behind), compensation for extremely irresponsible fiscal policy and monetary policy and to keep afloat a system of social security that is not economically feasible in the long run.

Just some questions / thoughts your comment raised in me. — Tzeentch

I'm no economist, but from what i've gathered one of the reasons is that we need growth to offset all the debt we accumulate.

Debt is essentially a claim on the future. Take a house loan for example, you already have the house and can live in it, but haven't yet paid for the labor, materials, value of the ground etc etc... You need money to pay it off, and you need to produce goods or services to accumulate that money. So essentially debt means you have to do work in the future to pay back something you get right away.

Taken as a whole, a lot of debt is accumulated in our economies, more and more actually, which means we will have to produce a lot of stuff in the future to pay that back. If the economy shrinks, we would have trouble making good on all those claims on the future because we produce less (that is what shrinking means in economic terms)... and presumably that would break the system.

Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but it does sound plausible to me.

However, to the people who disagree that global warming is a threat, that climate change isn't real, I would like to have a polite and interesting discussion about why you feel the way you do. — SackofPotatoeJam

Climate change would be our greatest threat if we keep emitting greenhouse gasses at the same pace or even at a reduced pace. I don't think we will, not necessarily because we will reduce emissions voluntarily, but because of collapse or reduction of industrialization.

Basically the idea is that economic growth (that is linked almost 1 to 1 with energy-consumption) as we had for a couple of centuries now, is not the norm nor 'business as usual', but mostly something that was and is only possible because of burning of cheap fossil fuels. They are reliable, energy-dense, easy to use... and most importantly they also have been cheap. As they are limited and easily available stocks run out however, they will get progressively more expensive. As economic growth relies on cheap energy, it will halt and this will eventually also crash our economy because it is essentially set up around the idea of perpetual growth. Presumably all of this will stress relations in and between countries even further, probably leading to a lot of conflict and wars.

So in short my guess is that we will keep emitting for a while until we can't anymore at the cost we need, which will crash industrial globalized civilization or peg it down a serious notch... which will presumably reduce emissions even further. This will probably still amount to 2 to 3 C° rise in global temperature, which is really bad to be clear, but not that bad relative to the other problems we will be dealing with.

The point of the research is that a lot of policies that seem economically effective, like tradeable carbon credits, are hated because people consider them unfair.. — Benkei

Sure, but that's part of the problem, no? If we wait to do something about climate change until we a have policies that impact everybody equally, we might have to wait until it's to late. The rich are rather good at avoiding taxes and social responsibilities. And then across countries you also have the tragedy of the commons/prisoners dilemma, in that in a world of competing countries you don't want to be the first to make sacrifices that makes you weaker competitively.

People have no problems with making sacrifices as long as everybody does. — Benkei

I don't see evidence for this specifically in the study, but I only skimmed it so maybe I missed it.

They hardly mention any sacrifices that would have to be made to implement the policies, as that doesn't seem to be the subject of the study.

A ban on the combustion engine is hardly a sacrifice if it is understood that they can be replaced by electric engines, a transition that would probably have to be be subsidized by the state anyway.

Also, agreeing with investment for a green transition if they get the money for the investments from the rich is no sacrifice at all:

"Figure A6 shows the answers to the question about which sources of funding respondents would consider appropriate for public investments in green infrastructures. Respondents tend to agree that appropriate funding sources are higher taxes on the wealthiest and a carbon tax. They are much less likely to agree with additional public debt, reductions in social spending, reductions in military spending, or increases in the sales taxes as appropriate sources of funding."

Loosely translated, they would agree to more green investments if it doesn't cost them anything.

Anyway, talk is cheap, across Europe governments are falling over eachothers feet now to reduce energy-prices for the public, which is the opposite of what a green policy should look like because it incentivizes energy-consumption which leads to more emissions.

Yes voluntary degrowth isn't going to happen, since politicians that would push that agenda wouldn't stay in power for very long. Case in point, Europe's current energy crisis. They'd rather turn to coal than accept they will have to do with less energy... And this from the continent that was arguably most willing to try and do something about the climate crisis.

Since voluntary degrowth is no option, we need to try to innovate and transition our way out of it. We especially need more Nuclear power plants, as fast as possible, to try and replace some of the energy we get from fossil fuels. It's the only carbon-free energy source that is reliable and energy-dense enough. Renewables can complement those, but can and should never have been the main replacement. They are simply not energy efficient enough, and you'll always have intermittency problems.

The alternative is involuntary degrowth, or collapse... and that would presumably be even worse since then one tends to turn to the more low-tech energy-sources, which also usually happen to be the most pollutant, like coal.

Anyway, in short, we need more nuclear power. It's safe, it's reliable, it's clean... only problem is, it has a bad rep. The alternatives are a hothouse earth, or a total collapse of industrial civilization.

My counter would be that as a living being it's weird to prefer death over life, as sustaining its lifeform over time, and propagating it, is essentially what life is. That is what defines living beings/sets life apart from non-living things.

So in other words, preferring life over death seems to me a default, almost axiomatic valuation of living beings, and doesn't need any further justification really.

Considering that, my question to you then would be, what prompted you to flip this basic instinctive valuation on its head?

What causes life to turn on life?

You ask for a reason to live, but at base this is not a question about 'reason', or abstract arguments that need to be given for life... but more a question of personal motivation, which is concerned with the affective and aesthetic. What really moves you, what do you find beautiful? What do you feel? If you can answer that, and organize your life around that, I'd think you'll find that the need for coming up with abstract reasons to live goes away.

I think it's a problem for all political parties: when your base intensely believes in some myth which isn't true, they won't start to correct their supporters, even if they know it's not true. — ssu

Yes one of the functions of a political ideology is also that it appeals to, recruits and ties people to a political party. And since people tend to like simple narratives more than say the intricate minutia of public policy, I don't think there's a way around this really.

We are seeing now quite clearly that the mantra "we just have to turn to renewable energy sources" isn't the short term answer that we can pick. — ssu

No that's right, yet it'll take a while still until parties will change that mantra... unless of course an energy crisis will take political parties in speed.

I wonder how long it will take political parties to come clean on the myth of progress and perpetual economic growth ;-)

I think France is just fanatic about other things than Germany... :-) — Olivier5

No doubt :-)

On the green movement, I'm critical of it because I think it could be the one political movement with actual solutions to our current predicament. We definitely need an ecological perspective of some kind going forward. But as it stands, the movement usually doesn't deliver, because I think at base it's a bit confused and can't seem to decide between being a real political player that wants to shape current society, and being this impractical back-to-nature fantasy that can't be realised. It probably should let go of the latter, but then that is what seems to appeal to a lot of people. That's why nuclear power plants are such a hard issue for them, and not only in Germany.

Yes maybe that comment wasn't entirely fair towards France... I just wanted to show Germany screwed up because of their ideological inflexibility and despite their best efforts to do 'good'. France is generally a bit less 'fanatic', or maybe more 'lax' than Germany, depending on how you want to frame it... and yet it is still better of energy-wise.

I know France has a decent amount of renewables, I've just been there a few days ago, and the landscape is absolutely filled with windmills along the big highways.

It's funny and ironic too in so many ways, because no other country probably has done so many investments into renewables and such to actually try and do something about climate change. That is unlike say France for example, but they just lucked out because of their historical investments in Nuclear (before carbon was an issue) which now makes them one of the least Carbon-emitting countries relatively.

It's fear of the bomb... combined with an aversion of technology, human hubris, of which the splitting of atoms is a prime example.

That's how it goes I suppose, ideologies are historically contingent. There is some weird 'logic' to them in the way they evolve over time. When confronted with environmental problems, the green movement latched onto some pre-existing religious myths that seems vaguely applicable. Looking for something familiar is probably not a bad idea if you are looking for a way into the hearts and minds of people.

And then, when an ideology is established, when confronted with some new eventuality, it initially doesn't really matter what the facts are because of the inertia of people believing in a story that has been told in a certain way over the years.

Anyway, what this whole affair illustrates to me is 1) that we don't really have that much collective agency as we would like to think, and 2) that ultimately when a country has to make a choice between the two, energy-security will take precedence over measures to combat climate change.