CO2 levels have increased, not denying that. However, the spike in CO2 levels has been slower and less than expected for the rate and quantity of CO2 emissions. — Agent Smith

The CO2 has to go somewhere, and it was difficult to predict how efficiently the oceans could absorb new CO2.

However, the oceans absorbing CO2 is not a good thing, as causes ocean acidification.

Likewise, other sinks, like rain forests, that can absorb more CO2 as plants can grow a bit faster with more of their food in the air, is not necessarily a good thing if we destroy those forests anyways, with slash and burn farming for cattle, or then climate change causing massive forest fires, which simply releases that CO2 back into the atmosphere.

For example, the entire Amazon forest may have already went from being a sink of CO2 to a source.

Edit: beat me to the obvious response, as with the previous response.

A poster had suggested that climate change is simple and easily understood by referencing the laws of thermodynamics. — Tate

Climate change is easy to understand: change the composition of the atmosphere to trap more heat ... and more heat is trapped.

You are confusing basic understanding of a particular issue in a particular subject with modelling the whole subject.

The basic driver of climate change is incredibly easy to understand, and is basic thermodynamics (it's called the green-house effect ... because it's as simple as a greenhouse).

In the 70s there was some debate as to whether another simple effect of pollution, that dust creates shade, would in fact be stronger than the warming effect of greenhouse gases.

One does not need to model the entire climate, or understand everything about it, to understand the globe is warming, why it's warming, and why that's bad for humans and other species.

It's really not complicated at all. It would be complicated and require deep expertise to create a predictive model.

However, it is not difficult to understand the mechanism of warming, the data that supports that conclusion, and what climatologists are talking about when they explain climate change in simple terms.

However, what's the explanation for the long delay in changes to atmospheric CO2 levels, not to mention the deviation from normal are miniscule. One explanation is there are some negative feedback loops that regulate the concentration of gases in the atmosphere and that's precisely what autoregulation is, oui? — Agent Smith

The earth system is not stable, there are no negative-feedback mechanisms that return it to the same state.

The earth-system has a lot of buffers that make change slow. Most of the time change and patterns of change are relatively constant and life easily adapts to these changes.

Thus, total biodiversity can be stable over long periods of time, but even then species themselves are not stable but going extinct and new one's evolving constantly.

This apparent stability is due to large buffers in the earths system that slow down change (but are not negative feedback loops).

A better visualisation of the earth's system is simply a large boat in calm water. It seems stable as long as there's no wind, easily confused with a boat at anchor.

A light breeze and it gently floats somewhere else, totally unpredictable which direction, how far it goes etc. Slow enough the boat can easily just lightly beach itself and later free itself, bounce off rocks and docks etc.

The wandering around of the boat represents evolution.

Where the boat is at any given time we can understand as its journey through evolutionary space (each point on the lake represents some possible configuration of the earth's living systems, and the whole lake represents all possible configurations).

It's a very heavy boat, so takes a significant input of energy to crash it.

Such energy inputs only come around once in hundreds of millions of years: production of large quantities of oxygen for the first time, giant asteroid, volcanic traps, or "perfect storm" combination of various disasters.

Crashing the boat onto rocks represents a mass-extinction, the points along the short that require significant momentum to reach representing low-biodiversity configurations of the earth-life-system.

Same analogy can be made with something that's heavy, that rolls, that seems "stable" but someone gives it a nudge and off it goes, compared to an actually stable situation where the brakes are engaged.

It's not clear whether increased CO2 will take us out of the present ice age or not. — Tate

To remind you of your position in the thread:

↪boethius In my humble opinion, the biosphere is able to self-correct any perturbations from the equilibrium point. There's this concept in physiology termed homeostasis and my hunch is a similar mechanism exists for the living world on the global scale as well. — Agent Smith

Which you have yet to contradict, so are still defending? Or then some cowardly non-defence but ... also not admitting a contradiction!?

You say:

"""
"The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually."
— Tate

And then contradict that statement with:

"As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase. It's Henry's Law."
— Tate
"""
— boethius

That's not a contradiction. — Tate

And, what is clear in the current science is that the amount of CO2 we've released so far into the atmosphere will cause severe damages to earth systems, is already causing severe damages, nothing can now stop that.

What's also clear is that the risk of feedback mechanism (aka. tipping points) is exceedingly high.

And what matters is risk, not guarantees. It is irrational to take an even small risk of melting the Arctic ice-cap and most mountain glaciers and and Greenland. It is irrational to take an even small risk of entering an entirely ice-free climate with the melting of the Antarctic as well.

These are not reasonable risks to take. "100% certainty" is a fossil lobby delay tactic that the gullible fall for (more importantly, a talking point for corrupt politicians knowing they are killing people and destroying the planet for money ... or then just useful idiots financed from the beginning because they're clueless).

For example, let's say it isn't certain as you say.

What is the uncertainty? i.e. risk level.

Why would that risk, even according to your numbers, be worthwhile to take?

That's the standard scientific perspective at this time. — Tate

Did you even read what I wrote? My point was you know this because scientists told you.

The same scientists saying that the climate is not self correcting and our modifications to the atmosphere are of extreme concern and may kill billions of people as well as cause a mass-extinction of life on earth.

Why listen to one thing they say, but dismiss off-hand another?

Global warming is real. Nobody said otherwise. — Tate

Again ... (ignoring the other climate change gas-lighters that drop in from time to time) you yourself literally stated:

↪boethius In my humble opinion, the biosphere is able to self-correct any perturbations from the equilibrium point. There's this concept in physiology termed homeostasis and my hunch is a similar mechanism exists for the living world on the global scale as well. — Agent Smith

... Explain how that's somehow not contradiction again?

And to respond ahead of time to your bullshit.

How do you know we've been in an ice-age as you say?

Did you drill those core samples yourself? Or are you just repeating things that scientists who do that research say?

If their credible on the ice-age scientific facts you base your argument on ... why are they not credible on their opinions on climate change?

You cannot simply selectively pick someone's credibility, when it supports your world view and just dismiss anything else they say when it doesn't. You must at least provide:

A. you understand their analysis that you think is wrong; if their credible on something else, clearly their analysis is something that at least needs contending with.

B. compelling reasons and evidence that their analysis you disagree with is in fact wrong.

Scientists can for sure be wrong, even whole communities of scientists, but one needs compelling reasons and can't just dismiss their wrong-ideas off hand when convenient without justification. It is critical in such situation to make clear what they get right, why they get it right, demonstrate deep understanding of what they get wrong and compelling analysis and evidence that they are in fact wrong.

For example, Einstein didn't just declare "Newton is wrong! Don't believe anything he said!" but rather demonstrated a deep understanding of Newtonian gravity, why it works well in our local context, a deep understanding of where it maybe deficient, and a new theory that addresses those deficiencies with compelling analysis and proof (without contradicting, but providing a deeper explanation of, whatever is true in the old theory).

Truism like "we're in an ice age!" or:

↪boethius In my humble opinion, the biosphere is able to self-correct any perturbations from the equilibrium point. — Agent Smith

Is not scientific theory, but things that sound clever to libertarians (who are collectively dumb as toast).

We are in an ice age guys. Get yourself up to speed. — Tate

Maybe you should get up to speed on what's already been discussed on this very thread.

For people who don't want to spend effort doing basic web searches about this topic before debating it.

Here's a presentation by a credible scientist on the issue of collapse and climate change:
— boethius

Is a comment from 12 months ago, posting a video for those who can't "google" as you recommend others to do.

The key words in "climate change" are "change" and "climate", as in we are changing the climate from ice-age to not-ice age, through the green house effect that heats the planet, heat that is not good for ice.

I drive therefore I am.

Yes, one of the more successful campaigns at getting us to buy things we don't need. I imagine a smoke-filled board room in Manhattan somewhen in the late 1920s -
"People have already bought all the labour-saving stuff that makes their lives easier, it lasts a lifetime, we're going to go out of business. Any ideas?". Long silence.
"We could always sell them stuff they don't need...or make the stuff they do need break...".
"Excellent. We'll do both",
"But people would have to either be really stupid or really desperate to buy stuff they don't even need which breaks after a year",
"Excellent. We'll do both". — Isaac

It's so frighteningly simple.

Yes, it was, in the end, but I apologise for the misdirection. — Isaac

No worries at all.

I think this is one of the oddities in considering modern war. All war is aimed at peace. All wars aim to have peace in which the borders (or political influence) have shifted. The aim is (was) never permanent war. So Russia should always be viewed as trying to gain a better bargaining position in the same power negotiations which preceded the war. As such, it would be insane not to be regularly 'testing the water' to see if they feel they've gained that position yet. — Isaac

Completely agreed. The parties that seemed, maybe still seem, to really want war, the longer the better, are the US, UK and the former Soviet NATO members.

... or, indeed, exactly as you say:

Of equal, if not greater, interest to me are the methods they use to wield public opinion as s tool to this end. Hence the interest in the kinds of pro-US comment collected here. — Isaac

So we have to ask, I think, why the US are so uninterested in negotiations. That is the interesting question, and one best answered by looking at what they have to gain from a long drawn out war. — Isaac

Yes, in a matter of months US went from facing criticism for 2 decades of pointless war followed by letting "allies" fall off their planes hanging on in terror, to the "defenders of the free world".

This position ought be unaffected by whether we're winning or not, since at any time the opposing side might feel they have their best case (either because they've gained the advantage they wanted, or because they fear their current advantage may deteriorate). — Isaac

Yes, well said. As for the current situation, for me the litmus test of Ukrainian "winning" ability is Kherson. If Ukraine had any significant counter-offensive capability, it would push the Russians the the East bank of the Dnieper river.

Not only would this be a sure military embarrassment for Russia, but it would radically increase the defensive situation vis-a-vis Odessa (and everything other Westward direction Ukraine), freeing up manpower.

There is now talk of a Kherson offensive starting ... any day now. If it succeeds then legend of Russian exhaustion, extreme casualties, low moral, inferior equipment, would be finally proven true. If it fails then it would be clear that Ukraine has no counter offensive potential (F-16's would not fix anything).

Ideally, the current threat against Kherson is for diplomatic purposes that ultimately succeed.

I don't know what kind of timescale you had in mind, but I think this has been true for some time. I was involved with the road protest movement in England in the 90s and it was (on reflection) exactly as you describe. — Isaac

Honestly not sure how far back this pattern goes, as there's a selection bias of small victories and momentum in order to support the myth of progress which easily (especially in the good times) pervades everything.

No one really talked about the solutions to excessive car use, which would have involved a discussion about the break up of communities, increasing social isolation, the erosion of self-esteem, urban growth policy, taxation (public services provision)...etc. — Isaac

Yes, it really all comes down to cars, suburban sprawl and city planning around cars, and most importantly car culture, which I would argue is the ontological basis of Western individualism and consumerism (I am not of this world because I am in a car).

Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing!

I meant that I didn't expect any serious response for him, not you! — Isaac

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying.

It did cross my mind as a possibility, but then it seemed fruitful anyways to contemplate this criticism as I have a deep respect for your point of view and it was an invitation for some soul searching.

It is valid rebuke that I haven't been talking about compromise lately, and maybe with the grain deal it's a good moment to refocus on that. That this deal was possible I think is grounds for at least hope peace can be achieved in the short term.

It's possible all parties are now in a "it has to stop somehow" attitude.

Especially with Johnson and Draghi resignations, and total collapse of Sri Lanka, the West maybe starting to enter "serious reality" mode.

Likewise, Russia certainly has all sorts of problems relating the war and sanctions, can certainly sell to its people military victory at this point in time, so there maybe strong desire for peace on that side as well.

So, perhaps the conditions are ripe, but I think what is clear is that "open source diplomacy" has been ended as an experiment, so the situation is difficult to analyse.

What cards each side has is easy to point out, but it's difficult to guess what sort of recipe might be accepted by all parties. However, if there's serious intention to find peace, it is certainly doable by the global diplomatic community, and I hope their voices are starting to be louder in the offices of power; even if only for raw self-serving career preservation at this point.

Normally, it implies you respond to the post, not to something else. — Olivier5

Responding to a post in no way means taking every possible opposing position.

As @Isaac has himself clarified, regardless of your interpretation of the author cited, and regardless of what the author is really meaning, @Isaac agrees with the authors goal of exploring and trying to reach a compromise (which his very much an ideation process, until something is found that "works").

Which is the only inference that is warranted from @Isaac's statement, that he approves of people trying to find peace through pragmatic compromise rather than more bloodshed.

my main point was to counter this absurd notion that we'd be surprised people might be willing to compromise to achieve peace. — Isaac

That's what I understood from your statement, a general point about pragmatism and compromise. We're in agreement there.

But I don't really expect a serious debate about that from you, — Isaac

I have no serious peace proposals at the moment as I honestly do not see either side compromising right now, which is what happens when a war goes beyond the initial stages and both sides have sacrificed too much to compromise; very predictable situation.

Before, and at the start of the war, I argued for the compromise of neutral Ukraine, independence of the Donbas, recognition of Crimea and restarting the water there. Of course, this was what Russia was proposing so many said it would be "giving into" Russia, but these points were basically already negotiated in the Minsk agreements, so hardly unreasonable.

Of course, as you point out, more Russia pays a price in blood and insofar as there's no fear of failure, demands only go up as they can be achieved by military means.

So, for the moment the only analysis I see has relevant is refuting statements I disagree with as well as explaining the situation: NATO is bleeding the Russians and calibrating the arms supply to do that without actually risking a Russian loss: hence one weapon system at a time, to observe it's effect and seeing what supply level doesn't really change anything, before moving on to the next weapons system.

If you actually wanted Ukraine to win, you'd supply all the weapon systems as early as possible ... not after critical defeats in Kherson, Mariupol and Donbas.

However, the grain deal is maybe a sign both sides are tiring out and want to reach a deal.

NATO membership has already been ruled out, and the critical terms would essentially be over land.

It's possible Russia makes an offer Ukraine accepts, but seems to me unlikely. So a peace deal would be essentially on Russia's terms and more Ukrainian capitulation. If Ukraine can simply no longer sustain the fight, this is possible. But we really have no way of really knowing the military situation on the ground.

Of course, Europe could go and make serious offers on sanctions, Nord Stream 2, resolution of all legal issues related to the war, and so on to compensate Russia going back to the three initial points.

Maybe this is possible.

There's plenty of serious things to debate in terms of acceptable compromise on all sides.

However, if fighting the Russians is a moral imperative, then compromise would be immoral, so I see this topic as entirely relevant to the matter at hand, as that's how it has been framed in the West: Russia is evil, Putin is Hitler, Zelensky is Churchill, democracy as such is at stake, etc.

I don't see how we get to compromise before wading through these issues, which @Olivier5 and company are representing.

Be serious now. He was responding to my post where I clearly wondered about why the Baltic States should exit NATO. — Olivier5

Sure, but responding to a post does not somehow imply you take the opposite position to everything in said post.

@Isaac's fundamental position (same as mine) is the war should be ended by a negotiated peace by the parties involved, which would obviously mean a compromise.

Of course, what compromise is achievable and reasonable compared to further war can be debated.

Likewise, if the Baltic states increased their real security by joining NATO can be debated, and likewise just as it is legitimate to discuss a country trying to join NATO (and discuss if NATO would let them join), it is equally legitimate to discuss if existing NATO be good or bad for a country. Alliances and international organisations are not one way streets, as Brexit demonstrates.

Now, I would argue that the Baltic states would not, for now at least, even consider existing NATO and there would be no practical way to kick them out of NATO even if other members wanted them gone, which seems unlikely as well, and I'd also argue Brexit was a mistake. Nevertheless, such changes to international relations are hardly unthinkable and happen regularly throughout history, and certainly legitimate to debate.

However, what I was responding to was the idea that Baltic states feelings of security has any relevance in any of these topics. Obviously they most likely did feel more secure after joining. Certainly Ukraine would have felt more secure if they were let in.

That's not a contradiction. — Tate

"As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase" means that both are increasing reaching an equilibrium: an equilibrium in which CO2 concentrations are higher both in the atmosphere and in the ocean when we burn carbon.

Therefore, in direct contradiction with the statement "CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually."

Some of the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, but it is through mostly weathering where CO2 is removed from the carbon cycle, and as this occurs and atmospheric CO2 decreases, then CO2 will also then be released from the oceans back into the atmosphere to maintain the balance.

Difficult to get a more direct contradiction.

However, worse, ocean absorbing CO2 is not a "good sink" that helps, but leads to mass ocean death due to ocean acidification. It is a terrifying problem that the oceans absorb a good part of the CO2 we release in the atmosphere, the extreme other end of the spectrum to "oceans will deal with it, nothing to see here".

In short, oceans will not absorb all the CO2 we've released somehow magically solving our problem, and of the CO2 we release that enters the ocean it is in no way a good thing but entirely a bad thing if one cares about other species (and our own).

I understood this to mean the removal of NATO membership for those NATO members already bordering Russia, i e. the Baltic States. — Olivier5

Well, that seems of the two options you thought of, the wrong one.

As you point out yourself it could also mean no additional members, which makes far more sense for someone to propose, especially as the current members that border Russia (excluding Kaliningrad).

Removing existing members from NATO is obviously far more extreme, impractical, and unrealistic, and so maybe give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume a less extreme interpretation unless it is clearly clarified that indeed they are meaning the extreme interpretation.

So he was clearly talking about the Baltic States walking out of NATO to appease Moscow. — Olivier5

This is not at all clear.

Almost difficult to argue at all, since first you would need to argue that @Isaac has the same understanding of "no more" as you did (which is far from obvious) and also by "some people are willing to take pragmatic steps for peace" he is endorsing this extreme "kick existing NATO members out of NATO", rather than just an expression of principle ... which is in direct contradiction to your interpretations of "no more" as it's clearly in no way pragmatic to kick existing NATO members states out of NATO.

If Eastern European countries feel threatened by Russia and therefore join NATO as deterrent against direct aggression (it doesn't matter if they are justified), NATO expansion is still the culprit. — neomac

Again, the basic issue: Eastern European countries do not necessarily have the option to "feel threatened by Russia and therefore join NATO". Some do and some (such as Ukraine) don't, since NATO doesn't let them in ... they are unable to simply "therefore join NATO".

Of the countries that were allowed to join by the grace of NATO, it can of course be debated whether it actually increases security or not. True, NATO is a powerful ally, but if joining NATO destabilises your entire region, your security maybe severely undermined even sans-WWIII (and increasing the odds of WWIII isn't exactly "good" for security).

Why is that always NATO expansion is the culprit that can not be excused/justified based on perception/reality analysis of moral or geopolitical reasons? — neomac

Again, if the argument is that Ukraine feels threatened by Russia and therefore wants to join NATO since 2008 ... I see zero problems with such a argument.

The problem is NATO didn't let Ukraine join.

If your point is that hypothetically Ukraine would have liked to join NATO, and would like to still, and hypothetically this would be good for Ukraine, I don't have a problem with such assertions. Sure hypothetically it may have triggered WWIII or then hypothetically it would have avoided the war and been great for Ukraine.

These hypotheticals did not happen though. NATO is definitely the culprit in pretending the "might" do it, which is purely provocative and without actually doing it provides essentially zero additional security to Ukraine.

↪boethius What? — Tate

You want me to explain it again:

You make false statements that you yourself agree are false:

You say:

The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually. — Tate

And then contradict that statement with:

As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase. It's Henry's Law. — Tate

Your other statements are not even scientific.

The greatest challenge to life on earth so far was low CO2, btw. High CO2 hasn't been been as much of a threat. — Tate

What "challenges" to life have existed over the past 4 billion years requires a non-scientific teleology for life, a goal to life in which to be challenged about, which pretty much any scientist would point out is non-scientific anthropomorphism ("all life" doesn't have any goals, as far as science goes, other than what we project on to it) as obviously the only goal available to postulate is making sentient and intelligent life (ourselves) and anything that we suppose goes in that directly is a good thing and anything that doesn't is a bad thing.

So, not a scientific statement and the followup of "high Co2 hasn't been much a threat" is not even clear how it relates to your teleology of life: threat to all life and total extinction of everything? or threat to particular ecosystem epochs ... in which case CO2 rise has been a major threat:

Roughly 251 million years ago, an estimated 70 percent of land plants and animals died, along with 84 percent of ocean organisms—an event known as the end Permian extinction. The cause is unknown but it is known that this period was also an extremely warm one. A new analysis of the temperature and fossil records over the past 520 million years reveals that the end of the Permian is not alone in this association: global warming is consistently associated with planetwide die-offs. — Scientific America

I'm afraid it is the issue we are discussing. Read the thread. — Olivier5

No where does @Isaac claim:

The argument was already provided: if the baltic states joined NATO, it is most probably because they felt safer inside it than outside it. — Olivier5

You were responding to:

I realise this will come as a surprise to someone who think civilian casualties are just like extras in a film, but some people actually care about peace and are willing to take pragmatic steps to maintain it.

Such as not being part of a military alliance your massive, very militaristic neighbour considers a threat. — Isaac

Which has nothing at all to do about anyone's feelings.

@Isaac's satement here is in no way contradicted nor has any problem accommodating people's feelings. Whether the Baltic state's feel safer or not, has no direct bearing on whether they are actually safer.

For example, NATO eastward expansion (which Baltic states have participated in) is a big, if not "the" big reason for the current war, which plenty of experts predicted would happen (including the US's own cold-war top analysts's and policy makers), and the current war is a major threat to Baltic security. Things can be argued both ways ... but people can feel safe independent of whatever the facts are.

And again, no one here is disputing that Ukraine (as defined as a majority or just the ruling elite) would "feel safer" in NATO. Feelings don't matter in this context. See my bank example above.

As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase. It's Henry's Law. — Tate

You are literally repeating what I stated: a balance is reached.

Your statement was that oceans will eventually absorb all the CO2 ... literally stating:

The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually. — Tate

But if you know your chemistry fundamentals, why made such an absurd claim. The idea shouldn't even come to mind.

Or, maybe you had no clue what you were talking about, but have since educated yourself a bare minimum.

Which is good, having a basic respect for the subject matter you're discussing is a step in the right direction.

For example, if you cite data collected by scientists, borrowing their work and credibility to make a point, a basic respect would be at least take their theories, models and interpretations (in terms of politics and ethics) of the data, that they collect and study, seriously enough as to not simply dismiss anything you find inconvenient entirely based on a-scientific, hand-wavy, vague truisms such as "biosphere is self-correcting" or then simply false statements like "The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed by the oceans".

Also, last week I pointed out that the escalation in weapons systems is calibrated to ensure Ukraine loses (and so Russia has no reason to use nuclear weapons), each weapon system is hyped as "the thing" that will defeat Russia, each weapon system fails to do so, and then the cycle is repeated with the next weapon system.

And, after HIMARS have both made a "decisive" difference (like the shoulder mounted rockets, drones, artillery, body armour, air defence, and all the rest before) ... but has also not produced victory and anything resembling winning important battles.

Literally a few days after HIMARS was announced as basically the greatest success that has occurred in the history of warfare ... F16's ... right on cue.

↪Isaac The argument was already provided: if the baltic states joined NATO, it is most probably because they felt safer inside it than outside it. — Olivier5

That's not the issue you're even discussing. Obviously the people joining likely felt safer to join and that's why they therefore joined (the alternative being bribery).

However, the baltic states are small, do not occupy so critical strategic locations (such as compared to Georgia) and have few ethnic Russians (mainly due to them having been concentrated in Kaliningrad), but mainly they are just small and not a big strategic threat. Russia never expressed that the Baltics in NATO was a major security risk that they would need to react to (only forward missile bases, that for a while was respected, and even, at least nominally, there are no forward offensive missile bases, just defence against Iran, supposedly), made any threats about invading the Baltics if they joined NATO, and did not invade.

However, in the case of Georgia and Ukraine it was made very clear by the Russians that they would view joining NATO as an intolerable security threat, that they would do something to prevent it happening, and in both cases kept to their word on that.

Of course, you can argue that the best thing for Ukrainians, even considering Russia threats and clear intention to carry them through (especially after doing exactly that in Georgia), would still be join NATO and have NATO come and defend Ukrainian borders and extend the nuclear umbrella the eastern border and tip of Crimea.

Maybe true.

The problem is that NATO didn't let Ukraine join.

Say I want the bank to give me 10 billion Euros.

The problem is the bank doesn't give it to me, not my desire to have the 10 billion which can remain constant nor the arguments I can make that getting the 10 billion would be good for me, and my simply restating my desire for 10 billion Euros, and the reasons getting that 10 billion Euros would be good for me, is not an effective strategy to deal with the problem. Effective strategy would be realising despite my desire for 10 billion Euros of the banks money, the banks power to give it to me if it wanted, and my justifications of why such a thing happening would be good for me, that the bank is very unlikely to give me 10 billion Euros just because I ask for it and think I should have it, and to come up with an entirely different life plan.

Now, no one disputes Ukraine wanted to be in NATO and that NATO had the power to let Ukraine join (even now it could fly over some papers and have Ukraine in Nato tomorrow), and no one disputes that Ukraine joining NATO would be good for Ukraine.

The problem is NATO didn't think that would be good for NATO (otherwise it would have done it years ago).

NATO is the friend you don't want to have: not by your side when you need them, offering mainly moral support that is (over time) demoralising, and offering indirect no-skin-in-the-game material support insofar as you serve their purposes (of course, time will tell if as much talk, money, and energy will be spent by the West rebuilding Ukraine).

The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually. — Tate

Untrue statement.

Ocean concentration reaches a balance with CO2 atmospheric concentrations, that it is absorbing and releasing the same amount.

Ocean absorption for the atmospheric concentrations we've reached (higher than in millions of years) is a major ecological problem as it changes the PH of the entire ocean than what ocean life has experienced in millions of years, but we are approaching an acidification level in which in which calcium shells simply don't form. A total catastrophe, not the oceans helping out by eventually solving the problem.

CO2 is not eventually all absorbed the ocean, but it removed from the carbon cycle through weathering, reacting mostly with basalt, in a super long process that takes thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Eventually it is all weathered out, but new CO2 is added to the carbon cycle, mostly, through volcanos and a balance is reached.

The greatest challenge to life on earth so far was low CO2, btw. — Tate

Again, untrue statement.

Arguably greatest challenge to life was starting and "holding on" in the first place, and the conditions for that were: "When Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago from a hot mix of gases and solids, it had almost no atmosphere. The surface was molten. As Earth cooled, an atmosphere formed mainly from gases spewed from volcanoes. It included hydrogen sulfide, methane, and ten to 200 times as much carbon dioxide as today's atmosphere" as informed by Smithsonian Environment Research Center.

The very next slide explains: "Three billion years ago, the sun was only about 70 percent as bright as it is today. Earth should have frozen over, but it didn’t. Why not? Because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly methane and carbon dioxide, trapped enough of the sun’s heat to keep temperatures above freezing."

I think the knowledge you are looking for is that the earth's atmosphere has had a lot of variation and life has not only adapted to but a main cause of these variations.

By pumping billions of tons carbon into the atmosphere every year for over a century, we are pushing the earth into a "hot house" dynamic where snow is largely missing from both poles, changing the climate significantly to one a large part of current multi-celular life is not adapted, cannot adapt in pace with changes, and will go extinct (as is currently already happening from many other human actions, but climate change is a lot worse as it also affects man-made or happenstance refuges for life).

High CO2 hasn't been been as much of a threat. — Tate

What's even the purpose of this statement? Even if true that high CO2 hasn't been much of a threat, obviously doesn't even exclude that it's a threat now. Other species have not dug and pumped up vast quantities of carbon, completely disturbing the carbon cycle balance.

Are you suggesting that running this uncontrolled experiment of what happens when a species does dig up carbon and dumps vast quantities in the atmosphere in a single geological moment, that it's somehow less risky because no species has run the experiment before?

↪boethius I'm sure Google can help you out in searching for instances of life's self-correcting feature. — Agent Smith

You did not state life has "self correcting features". There's plenty of self correcting features, from DNA repair to tectonics plats "correcting" mountains by rising to compensate weathering.

You stated self-correcting is a feature of the biosphere so strong that current CO2 changes will be self-corrected like all the others in the ice-core record.

Furthermore, I literally state that the biosphere is self-correcting to short term and limited changes ...

Nevertheless, you're right on the money that this ability of the biosphere to right itself after being knocked over (roly-poly toy like) has limits - beyond a certain point, the point of no return, the system collapses into a death spiral. — Agent Smith

So what are you even debating?

This is why scientists (the ones that produced the data you are talking about) are alarmed. That the changes to CO2 levels (and land-use, fish, etc.) we've caused is far beyond planetary boundaries.

↪boethius In my humble opinion, the biosphere is able to self-correct any perturbations from the equilibrium point. — Agent Smith

First, it's simply a false understanding to say the biosphere is self-correcting.

Ecosystem stability is measured in the variability of biodiversity, but that biodiversity itself is not self correcting but constantly changing with a "background" level of extinctions, invasive species, as well as antigenic drift within species. Self correcting would connote returning the same state, but the biosphere does not do this even in "normal" times.

The biosphere adapts to changes and does not somehow resist changes by self-correcting.

Now, if you want to reformulate that by biosphere you don't mean the biosphere as such but certain abstract variables, then yeah, sure; but "self-correcting" yourself like that only betrays a total lack of knowledge and respect for the subject matter you are discussing.

Of course, far worse mistake, and not a matter of taxonomy in the slightest, is your belief that "self-correcting" mechanisms of the biosphere can simply be assumed to be robust enough to deal with climate change.

There is zero evidence for this vis-a-vis climate change. If your justification is simply that you have a right to your opinion despite having zero evidence and zero analysis supporting it ... sure, yeah, great justification, hats off to you.

The earth's biosphere only has self-correcting mechanisms of perturbations, for short term and limited changes. A limited amount of pollution can be diluted and / or processed and / or simply tolerated by the biosphere, but those buffers only last for a certain quantity of pollution. Enough CFC's and the dilution and processing of CFC's is overwhelmed and ozone gets depleted, enough ozone depletion and life systems cannot tolerate the sudden increase in ultra violet light (protection from which has existed on earth since oxygen).

Geological history does show long periods of stability as no event or series of events exceeded the buffers maintaining stability. Over long periods of time the earth's systems can be remarkably stable, one geological eon, the Archean, lasting a billion and half years.

However, the geological record also demonstrates what happens when buffers are exceeded: mass extinction and recovery of biodiversity over tens of millions of years.

The "Freakonomics" guys thought they had some great insight when they pointed out that what matters is rates of change. They honestly seemed to believe it had never occurred to any physicist that the difference between a car crash and a normal stop is the rate of change of the speed of the vehicle.

It wasn't a new insight, but it is of course true: the difference between a stable ecosystem in terms of biodiversity and a mass extinction, is the rate of change of number of extinctions.

That mass extinctions are "good" or "bad", there are arguments on both sides. Mass extinctions do "shake things up" and send life on a different direction than it was before, but each one could also be simply delaying complex life emerging and a significant risk of some "great filter" event. However, I don't know any position that argues causing a mass extinction the best we can, as thoroughly as we can, is our duty in order for new and better stuff to maybe evolve later.

"The earth will survive" argument I have only ever heard supporting the position of apathy and indifference to other species and other people.

However, if you are apathetic and indifferent, why speak?

This video provides really great context to one of the big global issues that has been discussed during this war (especially in non-Western countries I'd say the major justification of non-Western countries not joining sanctions, which, in my opinion, were / are the real geopolitical stakes in this crisis).



A lot of the myths debunked in this video I never even heard any contradictory opinion about, and I've studied WWII a lot (far less than a historian of WWII, but more than the average person).

Have you seen climate records, as read from Antarctic ice cores? They tell a story of not one but many CO2 crises that resolved themselves without any intervention at all. — Agent Smith

You do realise that it's these records that have the scientists that collect and study this data so alarmed?

"Crisis resolving itself" at CO2 levels nowhere near the present (far above anything in the records you cite) does not support the idea we'll stay in the Pleistocene, a long period of glaciation and inter-glaciation to which all life currently on the planet is adapted. These were not crisis but part of the long term natural variation.

Melting the North polar icecap is a completely different scenario than the last 2 million years.

Now, if you mean to say whatever we do we can't kill everything and therefore the situation will be "resolved" in that way. No scientist, and I doubt anyone in the environmental movement, claims that the world's biodiversity will not eventually recover in tens of millions of years if we continue the current mass extinction to it's further extent possible.

The question is if the species currently on the planet have any value and if we have any responsibility to not destroy them for our own amusement (including our own species).

Is it moral that I destroy your painting or a painting of a great master just because someone can paint more later? If I burned the Mona Lisa would you sagely point out that nothing has been lost and the situation will be resolved by more people painting more stuff, just like plenty of paintings have been lost in the past and people just made new ones. Or would you agree I should go to jail for destroying a thing valuable in itself and also part of our cultural heritage? Or should I only go to jail because I destroyed property?

... But is not the earth and all its species and life systems our collective property, and not in an analogous sense, but our current legal framework: states own land, lakes and oceans (and only through this foundational state property does any individual or corporation get subsigned any property rights to what is fundamentally state property, always restricted and always returnable to the state as punishment, requisition or eminent domain purposes) and collectively managed in inter-state legal frameworks even the things "no one owns" as common-property (international oceans, space, antarctic). And people own states; or so I'm told.

However, even so, destruction of the earths life systems damages my property also, far more than if someone put up ghastly window shutters across the way.

↪boethius I beg to differ. — Agent Smith

You beg to differ with a direct citation of the Tao while attempting to claim its cachée and mystique for yourself?

Let's wait for the problem to solve itself, oui mes amies? — Agent Smith

This is not what Taoism teaches.

Taoism teaches:

A good traveler leaves no tracks,
and a skillful speaker is well rehearsed.
A good bookkeeper has an excellent memory,
and a well-made door is easy to open and needs no locks.
A good knot needs no rope and it cannot come undone.
Thus the Master is willing to help everyone,
and doesn't know the meaning of rejection.
She is there to help all of creation,
and doesn't abandon even the smallest creature.
This is called embracing the light.

What is a good person but a bad person's teacher?
What is a bad person but raw materiel for his teacher?
If you fail to honor your teacher or fail to enjoy your student,
you will become deluded no matter how smart you are.
It is the secret of prime importance. — The holy Tao, Chapter 27

By coincidence, George Monbiot spoke of this issue a couple days ago, I think worth viewing:



The no "alarmism", meek speak, no difficult demands, incrementalism, approach has achieved essentially nothing.

George Monbiot also points out that while the environmental movement has achieved essentially nothing based, our opponents have achieved system change (implementing neo-liberalism and more extreme oligarchic control).

I think a useful analogy to demonstrate my point is: imagine you were an anti-NAZI activist before the NAZI's gained imperial power, and then NAZI's gain imperial power. Ok, yes, resistance can continue, but it's simply reality that in the the previous goal of preventing the NAZI's from taking over has been defeated. Recognising this defeat is simply reality, and to call it "defeatism" is a category mistake.

If I accept I lost a chess game (because I lost the chess game) this says only that I see reality for what it is, and am not in denial about it, and informs nothing of whether I have a defeatist attitude in chess, or generally speaking, in life.

Of course, yes, people who lose chess games may take on a defeatist attitude and not play anymore; however, to trick them into believing they've won, or maybe tied, when they lost is not a solution to defeating defeatism.

You may say: ok, ok, yes, we've lost a lot of battles but what matters is what we do now.

Which I agree with.

Why I am emphasising the defeat is because if we don't see reality as clearly as possible and don't learn from the past then our next actions will not be very effective.

The environmental movement has been going on a pretty long time spinning the same plans around and around; it is, broadly speaking, become closer to a ritualised mea culpa artistic expression, precisely to avoid effective actions (for it is this non-threatening version of environmentalism that is allowed to not only develop unhindered--as it's not threatening anyone--but provided plenty of resources for marketing purposes of the "Great Firms").

Not only would I argue environmentalism has been soundly and unequivocally defeated since it's inception in essentially every dimension, I also argue that the examples of humanism "wins" were also defeats in the final analysis. Even ignoring that social justice means ziltch if we have no environment in which to have a society: did we really defeat slavery? or simply call it by another name? Do we even have democracy? or do we have a global aristocracy in which "democracy" is part of its self-justification, its sense of superior civilisation, its racism, supporting its imperial control of the entire globe? Have we really accomplished these things? or have we merely built the illusions necessary for global elites to normalise their indifference to the vast suffering required for every one of their comforts, block out every fact that would disturb proper conversation.

Not only would I argue we've lost these battles, every advance merely temporary and somehow subsequently subsumed into a mythological reorganisation of the human spirit to render the defeat of every evil in appearance (in the following moments when our movements rest and congratulate themselves on a job well done) are utilised to transform into a far deeper evil, far more pernicious reality, far harder to fight again: for the defeat of the symbol without the defeat of the substance merely renders what was once fought a nameless entity, continuing as before, truly freed from any scrutiny.

We do not have democracy. We do not have humanism. We do not have literacy. We do not have any single one of the slogans slapped on our citadels of hate and corruption (equality? fraternity? life? liberty? pursuit of happiness? good governance? "peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet"? are but whimsical fantasies representing the holy grail of tyrannical power: appropriation of the very minds of the oppressed).

For, I would go even further in my analysis. That not only has our cause met with defeat in every single dimension, every single battle waged, but we have now been pressed back to defending our very last refuge: The castle of our own skulls; our consciousness, sense of self and perception of the world. And the enemy is at the gates. The walls are crumbling in. Our gardens of concepts and experience necessary to sustain the very idea of a fight in the first place, are on fire.

There's no way to move to renewables at current energy usage levels. Energy networks can deal with at most a 10-15% shift in energy production, anything beyond that and you get black outs. Renewables will cause much larger shifts and we don't have adequate battery technology to store the necessary energy to fill in the gaps. (That's not to say there aren't hopeful developments in this area). — Benkei

Natural gas being needed to "transition" to keep the grid stable (basically only hydro and gas can react to variations from renewable energy, and hydro is generally maxed out pretty much everywhere), as I've written about in previous posts.

However, the problem is actually even worse than even you describe above, since if you want to move from fossil to electric cars and trucks, now the grid needs to be expanded even more to power these systems.

Just an additional point to add to the de-growth requirement.

However, I don't think for Europe and US a voluntary de-growth is now feasible, but it will happen involuntarily. President of the EU telling member states to cut gas consumption by 15% is already manifestation of that process.

What is interesting to focus on is the other half of get people to a 1950's level, which means growing the economy for billions of poor people.

If that is done with renewable energy (the mythical leap frog), and in a profoundly different way to aping Western society (no cars, local living, local working, gardens, etc. which is easy to do in areas of the world that are still rural) then it could actually just keep going in terms of developing and surpass not only 1950's but even our Western standard of living.

For, if you had a truly renewable and local based economy with significant renewable energy access and highly educated, which costs little resources to share knowledge, using mostly solar, then you'd have pretty much all the benefits of Western technology without the downsides of pollution, urban anonymity, commuting, stupid jobs, homelessness, etc.

It would still consume way less resources and so be smaller if resource throughput is the measure of economy (or GDP essentially a proxy for resource throughput), but quality of life can be far higher than even middle class Western standards today.

It's not that you're wrong in what you point out, it's that it can be a preventative to much-needed action -- it encourages despair and apathy. — Xtrix

This is the disagreement.

The reality is whatever it is and understanding it as best we can is essential (accounting for different perspectives, limitations of our senses and analysis and all that).

A really large amount of effort was spent in the 90s "softening the blow" to society realising this incredible threat and its danger.

Many in the environmental movement bought into this fossil fuel propaganda of making the message more palpable for people to process. The argument was that if people believed it wasn't so bad, no "alarmism" then A. scientists wouldn't be accused of alarmism and B. starting at least some actions would be easier.

However, the water-down-the-danger strategy simply resulted in Kyoto just being a completely ineffective thing, whatever it was.

This was mixed with a lot of corruption, such as creating monetary conflicts of interest for everyone involved including the environmental movement insofar as possible (aka. bribes), but "rational" people need to be able to rationalise their corruption, and the soften-the-blow strategy, people need to have a not-so-alarming message, was the essential mental mechanism to do that. People then quickly believe their own propaganda, that there really was more time, "a hundred years".

The scientists that refused and activists that refused to get onboard the softy-slowly-wobbly-train (basically an alliance with fossil fuels who were going to "invest" in green energy, beyond petroleum and all that) were then just pushed out of the media (due to insane levels of corruption there; journalism quality was way different in the 90s and the denialism industry had not yet really been created, as the strategy of the 70 - 80s was "we need more research" which accepts the rationalists framework, and so setup the "research is done to justify action" in the 90s, which there was not yet a network of just zany anti-rationalist, anti-science denialism).

The big environmental organisations got behind "biofuels" so that people wouldn't need to contemplate driving less, even though the science is clear that biofuels cannot possibly displace any significant amount of fossil fuels, competes with food and wilderness, and public transportation and in particular trains are the ecological transport solution (had USA started a high speed rail network in the 90s, it would be now reaping the same benefits China is now getting).

Now, what was the obvious truth back then?

The obvious truth is that even with the "rosy models" approach, the risks were still clearly insanely high. A political standard had been created (by the fossil industry) that 30% risk of total catastrophe (extreme climate change) was acceptable.

The non-corrupt scientists continued to point out that such a political standard was insane, biofuels a fools errand and not only delays effective actions but makes the problem worse by encouraging more car culture, that by the time we feel the consequences of climate change a large amount of damage will be locked in due to the momentum of the system as well as such effects will cause political and social costs and instability which makes effective actions even harder.

Most of all, the obvious truth the now marginalised scientists continued to explain, was that's it's completely insane to continue to not only ignore not only the climate costs but all the other costs to society of fossil fuel use (in particular cars) on health and ecosystems and just inefficiencies compared to public transport and intercity rail, but continue to subsidise fossil fuels and develop even dirtier fossil fuel extraction methods! and that the policy of stopping the subsidies and internalising even non-climate related costs is by definition a net benefit to society in itself (society is paying those costs through taxes and costly harms ... just not at the gas pump).

So, in short, the "don't be too alarming" play and its consequences has already played out before, fossil consumption went up like business as usual, the critical infrastructure projects that take decades to build didn't happen.

Now we're fucked.

That's the simple truth.

People need to accept that we're fucked (in my opinion) to start understanding and dealing with the situation.

The "it's not so bad, not so alarming, we have time" argument worked when things still seemed normal and we didn't feel any consequences.

The older generations went from being concerned, clearly an issue governments should sort out, another of a long list of frightening pollution issues that need to be solved ... to "I'll be dead by then!!" Older people absolutely loved saying this.

I remember hearing all my older extended family joking about this around the Christmas and thanks giving table etc. And I remember the burning anger and "they know not what they do; the fucking bastards" impression it gave.

The greatest trick the devil ever played, was convincing the baby boomers global warming didn't concern them as they'd be long dead before the disastrous impacts. Also something about markets and progress and whatever.

Now people feel the consequences, are extremely anxious about, wondering how we got here and where exactly here is.

They need to hear the truthful message: We. Are. Fucked.

As, that's what corresponds to their actual experience. People can sense that we're fucked.

What now? Yes, that's the followup question, but the followup question to accepting that we're fucked.

Global famine is here. I wrote (as many others) about that being a "big moment" of global destabilisation and we need to act before such things start to happen, to avoid being fucked, 20 years ago.

Analysis was correct then, correct now, and now that global famine is upon us the conclusion of such analysis, that we're fucked, also remains true.

Of course, actions can make us less rather than more fucked, and we should do what we can.

It seems to me that this gets "recognized" over and over again on this forum and in this thread.

The situation is hopeless in terms of the damages already done ... which most people are unaware of.

The situation is also hopeless in terms of avoiding significant further damages that are simply now physically unavoidable.

We are currently in a global famine, caused by climate change and socio-political disruptions arguably themselves also related to climate change not helping stability as well as direct resource competition.
— Xtrix

I don't see much recognition of real actions and solutions. The underlying message is: it's hopeless. I don't see how anyone can read these comments and not have that be the takeaway. — Xtrix

This is not my message.

You completely ignore the part where I explain my view that doing whatever we can, as effectively as we can, is a moral imperative, regardless of the likely outcome.

Furthermore, I made it clear I viewed extinction as highly unlikely and everything we do now has significant impact on where the environmental and social damage eventually plays out.

Which I'm sure on a "philosophical level" you agree with.

What you seem to take issue with is, again without disagreeing, my laying out the reality in blunt terms (as I see it).

The reality is simply that it's no longer 40 years ago where obvious, easy to implement policies (stop subsidising fossil, start internalising its true costs ... which society pays anyways a long list of, not just climate change!) could have easily avoided the current crisis.

It's not even 20 yeas ago when I got full time into working on climate change, where bold but feasible actions, again, would have avoided the current crisis.

The only ones denying the horrors of climate change are climate deniers.

I'm not claiming anything said is false, I'm questioning the emphasis. Yes, we should have acted -- yes, it's bad right now and will get worse -- yes, it's a very hard path ahead.

That being said, let's move on. Dwelling on it does no good, and in fact can have the opposite effect -- i.e., of retarding action. — Xtrix

Yes, I agree we are only really debating emphasis.

Which, I gave my view on the "hope" question because I was asked specifically that.

However, to act effectively requires a clear understanding of the situation, this is where maybe there are genuine differences.

An optimal plan depends on the effective-time and resources-over-time available.

Decades ago, the actions required were obvious and there was time to implement the policies in a gradual way.

I would argue that is no longer the case, and we are in a much more urgent situation, and "exactly how urgent" does matter in the calculus of optimum strategy.

Though, I don't think the idea of a "midnight deal" with Ukraine would have been very realistic. — Tzeentch

Obviously not. I develop the possibility to simply underline that the proposed moral imperatives to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukraines's "right to join NATO", and defending freedom and so on, are obviously not the guiding principles of NATO or US foreign policy vis-a-vis Ukraine.

They say these things, but they are obviously not true.

Ukraine is one of Russia's primary foreign policy interests - the country and its institutions are likely soaked with Russian intelligence operatives. — Tzeentch

Although I agree with these statements, I would disagree that somehow Russia would have thwarted Ukraine joining NATO (in nearly 2 decades of talking about it). If Russia had that power, the 2014 coup would not have happened, and if it did anyway, Russia would have reversed it.

Ukraine even put in their constitution the aspiration to join NATO, and Zelensky tells the story of going to NATO and asking "are we there yet" a bunch of times.

Furthermore, NATO is at least on paper a defensive alliance. While the United States is by far the most dominant partner in the alliance, such a move would greatly damage NATO's legitimacy even to its own members. — Tzeentch

Ukraine joining NATO would have just been for Ukraine's defence. Obviously it is provocative to Russia and could trigger a war ... but a defensive war from NATO's point of view. NATO apologists even today argue that expanding East, including the "partnership" with Ukraine is all purely defensive and therefore not aggressive, missiles in East Europe are to defend against Iran etc. and therefore NATO is in no way responsible for the Ukrainian war and did not "provoke" Russia.

Again, just begs the question that if it was so obvious to everyone that Ukraine will never join NATO, why does NATO state Ukraine will join NATO and build military partnership and so on, if there's no intention to every follow through?

For the United States and Ukraine to enter into a pact bilaterally I think is equally unlikely, not to mention not very convincing. — Tzeentch

The point of mentioning the bilateral possibility is just to prebuttal the excuse that joining NATO would be a long process in which Ukraine would be invaded.

US has zero problem with unilateral actions that upset their allies when it wants; just throws some freedom fries at the detractors and calls them names.

And, the double standard, UK rushes over to Finland to offer bilateral security commitment of some form to cover the NATO "ascension" process.

The reason the bilateral option is the exact same analysis is because it's US policy to say Ukraine can join NATO and Ukrainian sovereignty is so important and so on, without doing what coheres to such statements.

Second, Ukraine is on Russia's doorstep, whereas 9,000 kilometers and an ocean seperate Ukraine and the United States. In the unlikely event that the United States would commit to defending Ukraine with conventional means, by the time it arrives the battle would have been over. The Baltic States suffer from the same strategic problem. — Tzeentch

The current war is approaching half a year ... so I don't see how the US could not show up in this time frame.

However, the point of an defensive alliance pact with Ukraine and sending boots on the ground and planes into Ukrainian airspace to defend Ukraine, is because (before the war) it puts Russia in the position of attacking American troops directly in a war of aggression, which risks nuclear escalation.

In terms of conventional military terms.

Obviously, the US directly intervening would be a significant increase the force compared to just Ukraine, it would optimise in a whole bunch of ways the effectiveness of Ukrainian troops.

In terms of conventional military analysis, there are high risks on both sides.

One may argue that if Ukraine has been able to compete by itself and arms supplies, that Ukraine + US would easily win.

The problem with that argument would be that Russia has not fully mobilised, and is only committing enough troops and resources to win while trying to minimise political and economic risks.

However, if US were to send boots on the ground in Ukraine, full mobilisation would be a likely result. So, such a scenario is quite far from the current situation.

If diplomacy failed and Russia to conventionally attack in this scenario, taking land would not be a big priority in the first phase of the way.

The big stakes would be air power.

No one knows (not even the engineers and commanders and pilots) what the effectiveness of stealth planes would be in a full scale air war. If it's highly effective, Russian air power and air defence would be completely humiliated. If it's not highly effective, the US would be humiliated.

Likewise, no one knows how effective US air defence would be in a full scale war.

Russia would of course hesitate to invade, things would be insanely intense, and there would be an attempt at a diplomatic resolution.

In strategic terms, there's lot's to debate, however, the real reason it did not happen and was never even a credible possibility for everyone is:

1. USA has no genuine interest in Ukrainian sovereignty, defending freedom and all that (it's purely propaganda to sell the intervention part of the policy, supplying arms, and then the "duh, get real, we won't actually defend Ukrainian sovereignty we're just saying we care to bleed the Russians" position is explained to answer the question of why not do more).

2. USA has no genuine interest in a diplomatic resolution to have avoided or then resolve anytime since the start of the war.

3. USA does not have the diplomatic statespeopleship or sufficient cognitive level of governance processes to conduct a high stakes, skin in the game, standoff strategy and concurrent diplomacy required for a Cuban missile crisis style move (which saw the US directly embargoing Russian ships and a military standoff in the Atlantic, very close the WWIII, but a diplomatic resolution as neither the US nor the Russians actually want WWIII). You would need actual non-corrupt politicians that at least genuinely believe what they are saying, and are actually focused on governance rather than their stock portfolio, and aren't older than the life expectancy of the country they are governing, for such strategic moves to even be contemplated seriously to begin with.

The point of developing the this scenario is to simply point out that there were options available if Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian lives and drawing the line on Russian expansionism, was actually a priority.

It's "not realistic" for Ukraine to "actually" be defended by its "friends" is an argument that attempts to cover for the fact Ukraine is not a priority, Ukrainian lives don't matter, and "stopping Russia" is insofar as Ukrainians are dying to slow Russia down and not a serious undertaking.

However, the idea it's not realistic simply begs the question of why NATO stated Ukraine would eventually join in the first place.

Had NATO and Ukraine never been jerking each other off in an alleyway, and then suddenly there's unprovoked "Russian aggression" then the policy of "bad Russia, naughty Russia, we don't expand empires in the 21st century!" followed up with "helping Ukrainians defend themselves" and sanctions, would make coherent sense. NATO had been hands off Ukraine, and such respect for Russia was met with an illegal invasion. Since US and NATO policy is to not provoke Russia in Ukraine as it's totally unrealistic US and/or NATO would ever put actual skin in the game in a Russia-Ukraine conflict, then, ok, the policy line of just supplying arms and giving Ukrainians the "means to defend themselves" could make some sense.

And, that's become more-or-less the discourse now, rebranding NATO expansion Eastward as "just defensive" and "nothing to do with US imperialism", and the NATO-Ukrainian collaboration was not a provocation as everyone "knows it's not realistic for NATO to ever actually care about Ukrainians", and so on.

But it is simply in contradiction to the facts, and requires memory holing things that happened literally months ago, such as "Ukraine's right to join NATO" and "Ukraine's sovereignty over it's territory, even over regions that objectively do indeed want to separate" and "Ukraine's right to self-determination" (just not it's individual components) was the "big" meme going around justifying dumping arms in Ukraine, and justifying Ukraine rejecting all proposals by Russia, such as recognition of Crimea, Dombas independence, neutrality (NO! Right to join NATO!!!).

Of course, the "right to join NATO" without it being realistic to ever be able to join NATO (but by golly come on in Sweden and Finland, we have a door open policy!), is fucking dumb and tens of thousands of lives later, and no feasible way for Ukraine to take back all it's territory by force, much less Crimea, and the diplomatic resolutions available at the start of the war seem pretty attractive and the "right to join NATO" ... but only for Finland and Sweden seems very much cynical hypocrisy using Ukrainians as pawns, so, memory whole.

But those things happened. Those things actually happened.

Another tactic that gets deliberately perpetuated is the sense of hopelessness and helplessness. "I can't do anything; It's too big; nothing will change anyway; it's already over." — Xtrix

Recognising the damage already done and also baked in, is not a "I can't do anything".

I repeat several times that it remains a moral imperative to do what we can, and also what we do now will have a large effect on how much damage we end up doing.

However, it is simply reality that we can not avoid severe damages, which have already happened. 85% reduction in animal biomass is incredible level of damage to life.

This is true not only of climate change but of many other issues; it was true for women's rights and civil rights and gay rights. — Xtrix

There's a few differences with these comparisons that may help elucidate my point.

The transatlantic slavery trade and American slavery was going on for hundreds of years before it was abolished (not to say slavery elsewhere or at other times was less bad, but just to focus on one particular sequence of events). There's already a large amount of damage and suffering that has been perpetrated, that obviously people against slavery recognised. The amount of suffering and social damage transatlantic slavery caused over hundreds of years is truly immense.

Certainly, for many against slavery, the "institution" seemed so powerful, the madness going on so long and the suffering so enormous that it would feel at times hopeless. And put yourself in the shoes of people who opposed slavery hundreds of years before it was eventually abolished.

And, here's the point, no matter how overwhelming the suffering is and the danger of that inspiring helplessness rather than action, simply denying the reality of the suffering of slavery doesn't help. Pretending that "slavery isn't so bad" to make the issue more emotionally approachable I think you would agree is not a good strategy for anti-slavery work.

The difference with climate change, is that we had the potential to avoid these damages.

So, a better analogy would be people who acted to try to avoid slavery, transatlantic or otherwise, starting in the first place, or avoid one of the various genocides.

Obviously they failed. Now, doesn't mean their actions were useless, or "hopeless" in the sense they should not have acted.

However, denying the scale of the horror once it happens is not useful either, and certainly has an emotional impact.

Policies were easily available to avoid severe consequences of climate change. The thing to do now is limit the damages, but it is simply reality to recognise the failure to avoid the entire disaster in the first place.

You're bat shit crazy. — Olivier5

I'll explain it again (I don't expect for your benefit, but perhaps others).

Consider these positions:

1. Ukraine has a right to join NATO and NATO was right to invite Ukraine to join, extend a hand as friends do.

2. Ukraine joining NATO would obviously have significant risk of WWIII and thus it is right that NATO never let Ukraine actually join over nearly 2 decades of talking about it.

The simultaneous praise of NATO defending Ukrainian sovereignty to join NATO as well as the "level headed" evaluation that Ukraine must never join NATO to avoid risk WWIII, are simply incompatible positions.

The only logic where these position make sense is if the goal is to bait the Ukrainians into a war with Russia by giving them a false sense of security and that their elites, and large part of their population, can simply ignore diplomacy with Russia and more-or-less just flip them off, as "NATO's got their back".

However, had NATO actually followed through on it's word (or simply US and UK in a separate nuclear umbrella alliance), actually cohered with point 1 above, then it would be a bold move but war would very unlikely and other things could be offered to Russia to compensate Ukraine in NATO. For, Russia doesn't want WWIII either (if they did ... we'd already be dead).

So, the crisis would have been extremely intense, but likely less actual risk of WWIII than the current situation, and no actual war in Ukraine, no food and energy crisis.

Now, if Ukraine joining NATO would potentially cause WWIII and "everybody knows that" so Finland Sweden can join a weak after changing their minds about it, but Ukraine: No Ukraine, No, Bad Ukraine, No NATO for you!

Then why state Ukraine will eventually join NATO multiple times, start NATO "partnership" and military training and collaboration, as official NATO policy ... without ever the intention for Ukraine to actually join NATO.

If the position is "Ukraine can't join NATO, everybody knows that!" what was the purpose of NATO playing footsie with Ukraine for nearly 2 decades?

More importantly, this half-asked support for Ukraine is more likely to lead to WWIII than simply a midnight deal (even in the days before the war) of US placing Ukraine in a defensive pact.

The current trajectory profoundly destabilises the entire global political system.

The consequences are completely unpredictable, not just the war in Ukraine and its regional implications, but the consequences of the added food and fuel crisis during an inflation crisis and negative consequences of Covid policies (which, whether you evaluate them as "justified" in themselves, the price is a seriously weakened political and economic system globally, in which the amplification by the current war must be taken into account in the risk-benefit analysis--and, regardless of the analysis, recovering from the pandemic is not "the best time" for the sort of war in Ukraine).

This sort of chain of overlaying crisis is what collapses systems.

Resources (both mental and physical) are only available to deal with a limited amount of crisis at a time. Multiple crisis at some point overwhelms a system's ability to interpret what is happening in a remotely accurate way, and no further effective decisions can be made even if suddenly elites genuinely want to "fix things" (which is also not a given).

And all this is information known to NATO planners and decision makers.

Bleeding out the Russians and trying to collapse the Russian economy, obviously has certain consequences: war of sanctions (ah, sorry it's "weaponising exports" and not tit-for-tat sanctions when Russia does it), obstructing food exports that obviously comes with a protracted war (during a global drought!?!), advanced weapons flooding into the black market, all of which destabilises profoundly the whole global system.

A profound destabilisation that makes WWIII certainly more likely than not-dumping-weapons-in-Ukraine and supplying intelligence, and, I would argue, more likely than had US done a midnight deal to "#stand with Ukraine" and "#believe Ukraine". Had US sent boots on the ground and "stood up to Putin" a war would be less likely, diplomatic solution more likely (such as giving Russia Nord Stream 2, other concessions needed to avoid a war). Of course, you can say that's not a good idea as there's still a chance of WWIII in such a tense standoff ... ok, but then in that logic the current policy is no more defendable and arguably increases likelihood of WWIII even more.

And the bodies are already starting to pile up, even if we consider only humans and ignore the 85% loss in wild animal biomass.

Perhaps the most succinct way to express my point of view here, is my contention is that to that to say there's still hope to avoid disaster is to say the pile of bodies we already have doesn't count, and we'll start counting later for some reason.

Of course, I would agree we must do our best regardless of the likely outcome.

A moral imperative does not conveniently go away simply because the goal is unlikely to be achieved.

But in terms of evaluating prospects, certainly seems to me now that we'd need a miracle to preserve anything remotely resembling "normal" and our precious "civilisation".

We are certainly experiencing the consequences of some people's actions. Yes it does seem futile; yes it is hard to be optimistic; yes some people have lost faith in humanity. — Bitter Crank

Are the people to blame for this? The power imbalance corresponds to level of responsibility, in my view -- and the imbalance is very, very skewed towards the wealthy. — Xtrix

I agree with these statements.

I'm not sure if and I are saying exactly the same thing, but I believe so.

Our point of view here is considering humanity as a whole including its elites, just as anthropologists do the same for past society's. Nearly all societies have hierarchy and elites, more or less inequality (from brutal slaving to mostly symbolic differences in wealth and power).

When anthropologists consider the reasons for a society's "success" or "failure", be it defined as basic survival or then imposing or resisting hegemonic power, the elites are simply one component in the analysis. Certainly they are "more to blame" than the less powerful individually, but if we agree the less powerful could easily unite and topple the elites at any moment ... then collectively the less powerful have more responsibility.

However, in terms of simply evaluating prospects of a society, the blame game is irrelevant to that. If a society fails, who's to blame is a followup question to how and why the society failed (certainly elites are an important factor, but not the only one).

To summarise, and this is where perhaps I diverge with in terms of assigning things to human nature, by faith in humanity, at least speaking for myself, I must be honest and recognise my faith in my youth was in this particular humanity, elites and all, overcoming our differences and failings at least enough to avoid a climate disaster.

I truly had in my mind the "we did it" moment. Truly believed the elites were genuinely divided on this question of the destruction of the planet and enough elites and enough of everyone else could and would band together for what no one can deny: the destruction of the planet's living systems is not a good thing and we should avoid it.

And, perhaps, if we simply had more time (and, hopefully, we do have more time than it appears now) the "day, indeed, would come".

But today, it at least feels, time has run out on this humanity.

Perhaps there will be other humanities in the future, who learn from our mistakes and misdeeds and indifference, and truly cherish and care for the crumbs of life; that fall from our table of plenty.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... private equity laundering money off the shoulder of Angola ... I watched I-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

... All those moments ...

!! In my new book !!!

But this has nothing to do with the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. The reason Biden is being cautious is because he wants to avoid WWIII, i.e. a war between Russia and NATO.

I think even you can understand the difference between WWIII and the use of nukes against Ukraine. Those are two very different hypotheses. — Olivier5

Nukes in Ukraine is the start of an escalation pathway to WWIII, also just makes the world generally more unstable and WWIII more likely people seeing nukes being used and "in play" so to speak, makes everyone else on a hair trigger.

But it's not just WWIII, breaking the nuclear taboo is bad for USA, as it reduces their conventional force relative power if people have and are willing to use nukes to strike carrier groups; and as nuclear proliferation continues, which the actual use of nuclear weapon would super charge, it increases the probability of state and non-state actors willing to use Nukes against the USA in "self defence" and simply not caring if USA nukes them back ... which USA may not actually do (nuke cities in retaliation for nuking a carrier group).

That's the paranoid answer, but it's not the only one. — Olivier5

Paranoid how? If it was a moral imperative to supply Ukraine and defeat Russia, then you want to send in all the weapons systems day one, not supply only shoulder mounted missiles, hype the shit out of them, and then when that doesn't actually "defeat Russia" and Ukraine is insisting on heavier weapons, send in the excess soviet stuff lying around, hype the shit out of ex-soviet state bravery to dump all that in Ukraine (and get replacements from US), then send in a few M777's, more sophisticated anti-air systems, hype the shit out of those ... also what happened to the switch blades ... and then literally 5 months later when all those weapons failed to "win" supply 9 HIMARS in a show of "we care".

It's just the obvious truth. NATO could do way, way more than it has done even just in weapons supply (not to mention a no-fly zone or boots on the ground). It doesn't do more.

Well why? Why do just enough so Ukraine doesn't completely collapse but not enough to even credibly say you are trying to support Ukraine to the win?

The funniest part of your hypocrisy is that you see NATO as not expansionist enough. You are asking: why don't they expand to Ukraine? — Olivier5

Yes, a midnight deal to put Ukraine into NATO, dare the Russians to attack, would at least be coherent with the view that Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative, and I would have respected such a move.

Maybe I'd be dead in a nuclear fire, but I'd be burning with a minimum respect for the people who triggered WWIII. They said they cared about Ukrainian sovereignty and they fucking followed through.

Now, pointing out I'd respect such a move more than dangling NATO in front of Ukraine, giving them a false sense of security, leading directly to this disastrous war, doesn't mean I think that was the best choice.

However, had NATO (or even just the US and UK on their lonesome) put Ukraine under their nuclear umbrella before the war, obviously it would have ben a ballsy move I could respect, in the sort of insane ballsy cowboy, staring down them mine shaft boys sort of way. And maybe it would have worked, that Russia would have backed off, or then some diplomatic resolution from a hard negotiating position, but giving Russia Nord Stream 2, a bunch of other concessions to accept Ukraine in NATO.

Would have maybe avoided the war, avoided the food crisis, avoided the energy crisis.

Of course, American's don't have the fucking balls, nor give a shit about Ukrainians at the end of the day.

What's left?

Pawns.

Pawns in the rain.

Unfortunately it'd be too late in large part to stop the damage. — Mr Bee

Yes, question is how much damage.

In addition the failure to act will open up a whole host of other issues on which society will divide itself such as fights over natural resources, migration, and more pandemics (and judging by the way COVID was handled, it's not looking very good). — Mr Bee

The window of political feasible solutions closes before, potentially a lot before, the window of strictly physically feasible solutions.

This was a big point of particular emphasis 20 years ago in the community of collapse analysts), that the time to act is when the system is stable and not unstable due to the consequences of the bill coming due.

It's safe to say that this year has pretty much made me lose faith in humanity altogether. — Mr Bee

Same.

I suppose it is necessary to try nonetheless, but it does feel more and more futile.

With all the recent events going on now, it's hard to be optimistic. — Mr Bee

Agreed.

Human nature is just inherently flawed and we probably deserve whatever is gonna come our way. — Mr Bee

Of course we can debate human nature, but I think we would agree that we are now experiencing the consequences of our actions.