My husband, a meteorologist at the NWS, once explained me. The butterfly effect is no real effect — Cornwell1
What I'm really concerned about is if climate action has a deadline to meet and whether we're already past that date with destiny — Agent Smith
What I'm really concerned about is if climate action has a deadline to meet and whether we're already past that date with destiny. — Agent Smith
What I'm really concerned about is if climate action has a deadline to meet and whether we're already past that date with destiny. — Agent Smith
With regard to the thesis set out in the opening post, ten pages ago, ideally, I think it's our responsibility to understand what's true, and act morally with regard to what's true....not necessarily 'because God says so' but because there is an objective reality that's a web of cause and effect relations, and acting on valid knowledge within a causal reality is necessary to valid outcomes. For instance, imagine a criminal in court - who tells lies. If those lies are believed; the court may act morally, but the verdict will not be just. Valid knowledge of reality is necessary to morally valid outcomes; but also functionally valid outcomes. Imagine a technology based on principles that are wrong to reality. It won't work.
It's the same with the world. Nature is one big machine, and we're a faulty cog insofar as we are wrong, causing a system wide dysfunction. It's scientifically possible to solve the climate and ecological crisis. The earth is a ball of molten rock containing an effectively limitless amount of energy, we could harness to meet all our energy needs, plus capture carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle, and so balance human welfare and environmental sustainability very much in our favour. Nasa proved this in 1982 - but somehow 'The Magma Enenergy Project' was quietly discontinued, and 40 years later, global population and fossil fuel use have doubled, and Trump Digs Coal!
If you see things in terms of chaos and order you end up with totalitarian government, but if you see things in terms of knowing what's true and doing what's right, you get morally valid outcomes that work! — karl stone
↪Cornwell1We haven't made as much progress as we thought in the ethics department have we? Our desire to act (only) on the matter of global warming is driven by economic worries and not in any way due to concerns for the environment. As I thought and this seems to be true, translate global warming into monetary losses and we'll waste no time doing something about it. Why didn't someone think of this from before? Damn! — Agent Smith
It kind of reminds me of Egypt and thinking it is the pharaoh's job to prevent chaos from destroying the harmony with nature that is essential to staying out of trouble. — Athena
It's wierd, isn't it, that despite all this technological advance, things are getting in strange ways worse — karl stone
Despite of all this technology? Because all of this technology. — Cornwell1
Not really, because it's the wrong technology applied for the wrong reasons. — karl stone
Yeah, well, what's more to say about it. — Cornwell1
Despite of all this technology? Because all of this technology. — Cornwell1
That's still technology. — Cornwell1
You might consider technology an art, the material expression of knowledge, and assign high value to state of the art technology, but it is embedded in a larger reality. It's a fact that if the presence of technology increases, and knowledge grows, they will reinforce each other exponentially, a fact supported by economic growth models. You might have a clean energy source, say the Sun, fusion, or magma, like on Island (where the world's first hydropen pump station opened up), you might recycle all you use, but if technology's presence grows exponentially, no technology in the world will be sufficient to restore the disturbed balance. Only a stable presence of tech can prevent disaster. Maybe a technology that doesn't grow but changes. — Cornwell1
I'm not sure I should be pharoah; cultural appropriation and whatnot! I'm thinking more along the lines of philosopher king of the world. But I'll settle for philosopher.
It's wierd, isn't it, that despite all this technological advance, things are getting in strange ways worse. In my view, the chaos we see is the causal consequence of acting at odds to reality. Religious, political and economic ideological concepts do not describe reality as it really is - science does! Acting on the basis of ideological concepts we act at odds to reality, and as the disparity between our course, and 'true north' becomes ever wider, the chaos increases.
Magma energy is a viable technology. It was proven by NASA in 1982, in a series of papers entitled The Magma Energy Project. I cannot be certain the project was not developed because of the vast national and economic interests in fossil fuels, but science showed limitless clean energy is available, and it hasn't been developed. That was over 40 years ago, and in the meantime - global population and fossil fuel use have doubled.
My hope, recognising this relationship between the validity of knowledge, as a basis for human action, and the validity of the outcome - will allow us to have our cake and eat it. I'm certainly not suggesting we tear down the churches, banks and borders, to start again from scratch, making all our representations conform to strict scientific rationality. Rather, my hope is that recognising the significance of a scientific understanding of reality will create the authority to do that which is necessary to survival; namely, develop magma energy to meet all our energy needs, plus power carbon capture and storage, deslaination and irrigation, and the recycling of all waste - allowing for a prosperous sustainable future. — karl stone
For my part, I'm talking about solving climate change by harnessing limitless clean energy from magma, and trying to understand why we haven't done that already — karl stone
Magma energy technology is possible, and could supply the world's energy needs and much much more, without greenhouse gas emissions. So it's not technology per se - it's putting national economic interest ahead of scientific truth. — karl stone
↪Athena On point. We (seem to) have the means to mount a global movement on climate. Nevertheless things look better only by comparison; perhaps there's still a long way to go before democracy and the internet, among other things, can have the required effect.
Relative vs. Absolute. We have improved but there's still more that needs to be done. — Agent Smith
You can harvest the wind too. Or solar energy. And use hydrogen to store the energy and make it portable. Only water will be waste. Not to mention fusion energy. — Cornwell1
Without scientific truth, economy wouldn't have grown as devastatingly as in the modern world. — Cornwell1
That sounds wonderful and I watched a show last night about Bill Nye the Science Guy and his fight to get religious leaders to accept science, We all need to picket this place at the top of the tourist season https://arkencounter.com/ . It is a theme park presenting a full-sized Noah's ark as though this were science. The people who present this park, and visit it, are the enemies of science. They are climate change deniers. Or perhaps we could find out which churches in our neighborhoods are climate deniers and ask to talk with them about global warming? — Athena
It is not strange to me that things are getting worse, because the ancients saw the end as a time when there was more life on earth than the earth could support. We are there. The mass of humanity has overwhelmed the earth's ability to support it. The world seriously needs population control and it would be nice to do this with reason, instead of killing the excess humans in our countries and making war on other countries. The refugee problem around the world is the reality of overpopulation. — Athena
That's one way to go, but do you really want to disenchant people who believe in God as part of their identity and their purposes - but who have no power to craft energy policy? Are you going to look a little old ladies in the eyes and tell them - there's no such thing as God? And even if you are willing to be that cruel - how do you know there isn't a God? I don't know if God exists, and I know I don't know! — karl stone
Fusion could already have been economically if only enough effort had been put in it. — Cornwell1
Solar cells can get more economical still. You can put them on every roof top or even in the dessert. — Cornwell1
Hydrogen can be made with the aid of that energy and truly green cars produced. On my birth island in Italy, magma heath is used for saunas. Who knows what will happen if you tap magma energy for the whole Earth? Nobody. The best solution: lower the energy consumption. — Cornwell1
ITER is saying 'five years and we'll have cracked it' - but IMO - they never will. I do not believe fusion can work in earth gravity. — karl stone
If you have less energy, then everything gets more expensive — karl stone
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