So you were exposed to books critical of the US as a kid? Shocking! I don't know how you managed to survived such deep narcissic wound. — Olivier5

Oh yes, the horror, the horror... :razz:

And how will the future generations do in America with the US?

Climate change was already well studied and non-controversial when I was at school, in the 1970s and 80s. It was not propaganda at all; on the contrary, its denial was propaganda and still is. — Olivier5

I think there is an obvious difference in what is said in a childrens book and what is taught at school. At least here.

Just out of curiosity, Tim, in what way do you view the issue of dp's as an adjunct to climate remediation? — Michael Zwingli

The maxim is, "Necessity knows no law." Millions - billons? - of people are going to be pushed out of their homes, probably mainly by increase in sea level. And possibly by rising temperatures near the equator. It seems to me these people will be accommodated one way or another. Better if the wealthier countries make the accommodation rather than have it done to them, and earlier better than later. It's not a national problem or even an international problem, it is a problem for humanity.

As a direct "adjunct," maybe not. Indirect? Big-time. Think Bastille and Bastille day. When they come, only wholesale slaughter will stop them, and maybe not even then. Imho it's world reality- and gut-check time; the longer put off - and put off maybe too long already - the more difficult and less likely good outcomes. And I think the time, the opportunity, for gradualism has passed. We solve the problems now, asap, or we can anticipate the problems "solving" us - and that has already started.

What I want to emphasise is that the things folk find impossible to contemplate giving up are very very recent necessities, that many people have done without for many centuries and many people still live without. — unenlightened

Oh, but the ego, the ego, the hurt to the ego!!

To say nothing of the logistic nightmare that would result due to downsizing, saving etc. What could help is have people live close to their place of work, or that all employees of a company live in the same place, so that transport can be organized for all of them efficiently. But that would require of people extreme levels of mobility and living minimalistically.

If the attitude is, we’re lost and the governments can’t do anything, then we’re lost. — Wayfarer

Neither optimism nor hope can defeat facts.

If you plan x time for doing something, it will take x time (and then some) to do it. — baker

Indeed. And if it is an international program with many countries participating, it will take a lot of bureaucracy also.

For example, the ITER-project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a project on fusion energy, was basically started at 1985 by Reagan and Gorbachev, which replaced the Intor-project of 1979. One participating country has even collapsed during the time the project has gone on...



So, hope they finally get the project done I guess. Completion of the reactor is planned to happen in 2025.

And how will the future generations do in America with the US? — ssu

One possible answer is in the second season of The 100. Another in Hunger Games. These echo (or try to) today's teenagers' views of the future as pretty bleak.

You couldn't do an optimistic scifi movie nowadays. Nobody would believe it.

Oh, but the ego, the ego, the hurt to the ego!! — baker

Ego is extraordinarily resilient.
Unfortunately.

the logistic nightmare — baker

One thing Covid has demonstrated is the flexibility of logistics. Don't cook, Just Eat. Don't shop, Deliveroo. Consumerism on tap like another utility. Easy! It's time to stop eulogising work - the creation of the devil. Civilisation is about labour-saving devices. Let the robots work, and let us play! But play smart.

It's really a shame that Al Gore was the only politician with enough gusto to make the case for action on climate change, at least in the US. Europe is making a lot of progress on green technology. I don't quite understand why jihad was waged against nuclear by ecoterrorists in Germany.

The only positive thing that I've seen coming out of COP26, was from Russia, regarding defining nuclear as green technology.

I'm glad to see my country of former residence (Poland) opting for nuclear in the near future to offset carbon emissions.

During the entire covid situation, I have bought/ordered exactly one single thing online, and that was car insurance, which is time sensitive. Even though I live in a country that had more than 90 straight days of strong lockdown. In that time, I simply didn't buy any clothes, shoes, technology, books, and knickknacs. Just the most necessary groceries and cosmetics at the local grocery store; and I even gave up eating commercial bread (so as to minimize trips to the store, as well as over fear of contamination, since the bread isn't pre-packaged).

Of course, if more people did that, the economy would collapse. Minimalism is not economically viable.

In the case of major technological change, Parkinson's law isn't the problem (but it's an otherwise sound principle).

1) Once a technology is created, it takes time for public acceptance. Wind-generation first met with opposition (owing to its unfamiliarity). Opposition in the upper midwest, for instance, is uncommon 25 years on.

2) Production of new technologies takes time to build up and perfect. Worker require training and supply chains need to be created (or repaired--currently).

3) Infrastructure has to be put into place -- another major operation. Wind generation in the narrow band running from North Dakota to west Texas doesn't work unless the transmission lines are in place. Transmission lines (high voltage wires on towers) are very strongly resisted by affected populations.

4) The end user of new technology (the all-electric home or factory for example) require time and financing to be in place. 90% of Minnesotans, for example, heat and cook with natural gas. Transitioning from gas to electricity is another major undertaking.

That's why it takes more time than one might think. And wind generation is just one set of technologies. Solar, electricity-driven transportation for freight, mass transit, energy-use upgrades in housing and business buildings, and so on also require time. We have hardly begun.

Here's what's going on in America,:

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/big-oil-climate-change-hearing-10-28-21/index.html

First Dog on the Moon - Cop26 Cartoon

Net zero by 2050 is just snake oil. We need an actual hold-it-in-your-flippers zero
Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin says it’s time to crush the net zero con that puts cash over people’s future. — Guardian: Cop26 Cartoon

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/29/net-zero-by-2050-is-just-snake-oil-we-need-an-actual-hold-it-in-your-flippers-zero

You couldn't do an optimistic scifi movie nowadays. Nobody would believe it. — Olivier5

It's more that people are taught to look at the future negatively and critically. Being optimistic sounds too much as being care free and not being worried about future. It isn't politically correct.

Hence Science Fiction is the best window for the feelings of the day when they were written or filmed. People show actually better the "signs of the times" with Scifi than with anything happening at the present.

It is an interesting point. Just look at the Star Trek movies and series of today and compare it to the original series (or even to the Next Generation). Not much if anything to do with the vision of Gene Rosenberry nowdays. Of course the optimism before the oil crisis is totally understandable. I remember the makers of the absolutely brilliant 60's movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, did emphasize in an interview that they wanted the movie to be as realistic in describing the technology. If you make a simple extrapolation of the advances is space technology from the 1960's to the next 40 years with looking how the exploration of space advanced from the 1920's to the 1960's, it seems totally possible and realistic.

What the scifi-movies don't understand is the presence of history even in the future and that once a technology has advanced to some level, it remains so as there is no need to improve it.

It's more that people are taught to look at the future negatively and critically. Being optimistic sounds too much as being care free and not being worried about future. It isn't politically correct. — ssu

It's also not scientifically correct, and honestly, simply not credible. Trump is part of our reality, and scifi must reflect that sinister turn taken by our civilisation toward crass stupidity, ignorance of consequences and sadism. Strong, aggressive climate change is now certainly our future. People are just too stupid or too crass to change, and the kids know it. They can read the news just like adults can.

Optimism was perhaps the biggest BS you were made to believe in as a kid...

Hold on Olivier5. The stupid crass people and their kids never had a say in the future at any critical stage. The boards of directors of banks, mining companies, power generating companies, auto companies, petroleum companies, etc. are the small exclusive group of people who made the major decisions at critical stages over the last 150 years. Individuals like Senators Mnuchin and Sinema are in a vastly more powerful position than 99% of the population to decide whether we have a strong effort to lower CO2 or not.

What is stupid and crass is sizing up the overwhelming majority of people who had no say about past or future energy policy and calling them stupid and crass.

On the other hand, I agree with you that climate pessimism makes more sense than climate optimism.

It's more that people are taught to look at the future negatively and critically. Being optimistic sounds too much as being care free and not being worried about future. It isn't politically correct. — ssu

I don't think they're 'taught' this exactly. It is just fashionable to be moody most of the time. Whilst negative nobodies writhe in despair the rest get to work. It's been like that for a long time it's just that now the nobodies have a megaphone created by those they holler at sadistically.

Enough people grow up to become children again thankfully :)

I agree with you that climate pessimism makes more sense than climate optimism. — Bitter Crank

One without the other is stupidity. I'm a self confessed pessimist. Because of my pessimism I am always rewarded with reasons to be optimistic because nothing is ever as bad as I imagined it would be. Wallowing in pessimism, and/or raging about it, is the kind of thing I spit on though ;)

Careful where you aim your spit, please.

I'm too 'hungry' to waste it most of the time :D

The stupid crass people and their kids never had a say in the future at any critical stage. — Bitter Crank

They do everytime they vote, though. Why vote for climate deniers or do-nothingers again and again? In the US, Bush and Trump were deniers, and Obama did nothing much while sabotaging international agreements. Biden, I don't know yet but I doubt he'll do anything.

Democratic world government, not first past the post, publicly funded party campaigns, I'd vote for: government administered by an AI, managed reduction in population, rationing (especially meat), rewilding, sailing ships, heave ho, bicycles, no packaging, everything loose in boxes, baskets reusable bags etc, compost toilets, everybody sleep a lot more.

What you say about "our" political leaders [sic] is true enough, but you don't think the political system is actually left unattended, so that We The People would ever be able to elect a Congress that would liquidate the fossil fuel and other oppressive corporations... do you?

As Uncle Karl said, "The government is a committee to organize the affairs of business." We The People are SOL.

We could have a revolution, of course, and just do away with capitalism. There are reasons why that hasn't happened and isn't going to happen. In order to have a revolution, a popular political movement is required to inform, educate, and organize We The People. Such organizations have appeared. Then what happened? They were vigorously attacked and crushed--like the labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the Socialist Party (first third of the 20th century); the Communist Party; and anyone to the left of Attila the Hun (the McCarthy witch-hunt); and the labor movement again in the latter part of the 20th century.

Americans are quite literally schooled to accept the lies of big business. It takes heroic efforts to break through the smoke screen -- literally that, in countering the denials of the tobacco companies in the 1960s and forward (and still not finished).

I'm very, very, very pessimistic. The modern political system is mainly a free market defending, capitalistic, technocratic, science-based, production and consumption directed, working-ethos-promoting, programming, nature- confining and-fencing, normalizing, weaponizing, law-constructing institute, with global panoptic aspirations, with secondary attention for Nature. Nature already shows the first signs of fighting back and She will one day roar and tremble, to shed people off Her once furry skin, that people have managed to turn from an enjoyable colorfull, varied, vivid and friendly look into a scarred, pale, bleeding, hair-deprived, flattened, concrete-beaten, artificial, linear, smoking structure, by means of superstores, super fires, and Earth quakes, in an apocalyptic event of which we can't even imagine the powers of destruction at work. Then it will be silent, and Nature will be so kind to give us a second chance. I hope they will have learned by then.

As Uncle Karl said, "The government is a committee to organize the affairs of business." We The People are SOL.

We could have a revolution, of course, — Bitter Crank

Bernie could have done something useful I think. He's still trying.

I like Bernie, but it's not a "one man problem" -- it is a big complex systemic problem.

Shankar Vedantam, the host of the public radio program, Hidden Brain, put it this way: We face an existential threat from survive climate change. Compared to WWII, are we at D Day, or are we at Dunkirk?

Dunkirk! Like the British Expeditionary Force, many localities around the world (including places in the US) will have to retreat to survive. D Day--the long-awaited massive counter offensive against Hitler's western front--isn't in the offing. Global sea level rise (between 3 feet and 10 feet, depending on the model, and whether its the middle case or worse case) is baked in -- even if we stopped producing CO2 right now.

There aren't any great alternatives; there are no over-looked wonderful solutions.

I'm pessimistic about climate change -- not a fatalist. Too bad we didn't act sooner, too bad things are going to get worse, regardless. But we can, we will adapt to the consequences of bad decisions. I don't like it, we could have done better, but here we are.

Shankar Vedantam, the host of the public radio program, Hidden Brain, put it this way: We face an existential threat from survive climate change. Compared to WWII, are we at D Day, or are we at Dunkirk? — Bitter Crank

I heard part of that. An excellent discussion. I was a meteorologist long ago and my opinion is that it's far more important now to prepare for the inevitable. Sure, we can push intelligently toward green energy, but Miami could take a clue from the Maldives where efforts focus on building up the ground levels on the islands. As Shanker stated, we have lost the battle with climate change and must adapt. Little Greta notwithstanding.

I saw a news program quite a few years ago in which Miami's ground water upwelling was just beginning to be a visible problem--little pools of water rising in yards. They asked real estate agents what they said to prospective buyers. "Nothing." Just guessing, they probably have to deal with it more frankly now.

I'm 75; I don't have a lot of water and climate worries, provided I don't live too much longer. I wonder what plans informed adolescents and young adults are making in light of the ongoing crises which they will have to live with.

I like Bernie, but it's not a "one man problem" -- it is a big complex systemic problem. — Bitter Crank

Many people like Bernie but not enough to ever vote for him. Instead, they voted for someone else, someone who looked more serious and less bizarre, someone who could be trusted to never lift a finger against corporations. And then they shed crocodile tears about how they can't change a thing by their vote... That's how the con works: you don't even try because you think you never had a chance.

I like Bernie; I voted for him. Neither Senator Sanders nor any other single person can effect systemic change by themselves. That's is just the fact of the matter. Capitalism is an interlocking global system worth mega trillions and protected by armed forces. You think you know how to disestablish capitalism? Tell us.

You think you know how to disestablish capitalism? Tell us. — Bitter Crank

That's a very different question than CC. Capitalism is like gravity: you cannot escape it. My point was simply that people are only powerless against climate change when they want to be powerless. There's always something to do, including through your vote.

I wonder what plans informed adolescents and young adults are making in light of the ongoing crises which they will have to live with. — Bitter Crank

I don't know - has anyone asked them ?
Even if they are like 'informed adults', there will be a variety of responses.
Depending on where they live, their education and work opportunities, their physical/social and psychological state of wellbeing. Passion or pessimism. Swinging moods if not opinion.

A good first step is to be 'informed' in the first place.
Knowledge of what can or should be done/not done is at the heart of any decision-making process.
Does everyone agree ? Are electric cars the future ? Perhaps build that ark now...

Cop26 might only be a blah-blah-blah exercise for some politicians and world leaders but the young are making their voices heard with demands for immediate and effective action.
"There is no Planet B".

Education at primary level for all children is key to giving a sense of possibility as well as responsibility.

Growing numbers of headteachers and academics are supporting young people in their action to put pressure on governments to take the climate crisis seriously. Time is running out and young people know that that they are the ones who will suffer.

So what can schools do to support young people to address the climate emergency? Here are eight suggestions... — TES: Tackling climate crisis - 8 things schools can do

https://www.tes.com/news/8-things-schools-can-do-tackle-climate-crisis