It’s difficult to provide proofs for things like global tipping points. The signs are there and arguably the tipping point is reached somewhere we are not aware of at a time we are not aware of.

There is no doubt that the permafrost is melting all around the northern hemisphere as is documented in this article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00659-y

This was published before the record heatwaves in those areas just a few weeks ago. I don’t have figures for how much methane will be released. It won’t require much though to nullify all our efforts to reach carbon zero, as methane is at least 25 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

This combined with our lethargy in reaching carbon zero and the continued cutting down of forest(which is still increasing). Is a clear enough sign for me.

Yes, but it’s an echo chamber and only really worth it for those who are interested in breaking news and current affairs.
I quite like it for cartoons and satire.

Yes, we only need look at the tobacco, or oil lobbies.
Here in the U.K. we have a distinct privileged class. An overthrow of our class system. These people are dead against any kind of levelling up, or Universal basic income. It suits them fine for the status quo to continue, by propping up a Tory government. This is entrenched, because they only have to think about the alternative and they are horrified, this prejudice is more than financial, or economic. It’s social and cultural too. Personally I trace it right back to the Norman conquest and our country being ruled over for centuries by French overlords. Johnson has stepped into that role, groomed by Eton college and Oxford.

Agreed, I expect a string of crises will help us adapt. But without them, I expect little change. Perhaps the EU will lead the way.

Interesting ideas, but I have given this some thought and came up with a problem. The rich, some successful business people, elites and privileged people will resist the degree of sharing and cooperation required for any of these solutions to solve the problem.

Rather what I see is the super rich hoarding as much wealth as they can, by unscrupulous means sometimes. Also powerful people might prefer to live in a dystopian world, than a progressive sustainable world.Because of this fear of sharing that will be required and to continue exploitation and profiteering.

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here?

I think we will find ways of managing economies based more on sustainable models through having to deal with a succession of crises. The free market capitalism model was useful for a period of technological growth during the 20th century. But is now proving to destructive, a beast with an ever growing appetite.
We are dealing with such a crisis now, something more sustainable might come out of it. For example, a way of printing money which doesn’t result in the usual negative effects. Don’t ask me how this might work, but I think such solutions are possible.

That the effects could be extremely bad -- that hitting a tipping in arctic ocean ice, which may trigger tipping points with permafrost, forest ecocystems, land-based ice, and the system can accelerate and dominate human emissions (i.e. further human emissions become irrelevant) etc. -- is the reason to not run this experiment in the first place.

These tipping points are already breached. We’ve recently had 30+ centigrade heatwaves in all permafrost regions. They are melting rapidly, there is enough methane there to accelerate climate change beyond what we can mitigate. Even if we had zero carbon production now this methane would more than compensate for the reduction. It’s acceleration and a rollercoaster ride from now on, whatever we do.

It’s no accident that the super rich are using deregulated capitalism to extract as much wealth out of vulnerable countries as they can before economies start to collapse. They will be looking for hiding holes in remote places, like New Zealand right now for their bunkers.

But purely based on those models we're going from on stable state to another right? That's what crossing those tipping points does, even if we stop emmissions, temperature keeps rising. So then where do the variations come in is what I don't understand. Is it just a matter of slightly delaying the increase of temperature then, to buy more time until you get to the next stable state?

There is an angle I have been thinking about here. We are not going from one stable state to another in the short term. We may reach a stable state again in the future, but the instability in the meantime will be unpredictable, have numerous unforeseen effects and last what to us is a long time perhaps 10,000yrs, perhaps a couple of million years, we just don’t know.

The stable state we evolved in might have taken a long time to settle out, also, we don’t know what unsettled states are like. Already we are seeing torrential rainfall events, as in Germany last week, or unprecedented heatwaves near the artic circle as has been experienced all around the arctic circle during the last month. Irregular desertification, the irregular distribution of tornado alleys and high humidity, high temperature regions in the tropics in which humans cannot survive without air conditioning.

We don’t know if the rapid changes going on will affect seismic, or volcanic activity. Or have unforeseen effects in the oceans. Tsunami’s could become commonplace in some areas, along with earthquakes.

In short we are in for a rollercoaster ride for some time to come.

We are 8 billion people. Thus, we need to apply the technologies necessary to sustain such numbers. Simple logic!

I don’t want to be part of a pile on, only to point out the flaw in this argument( although James Riley has already laid out the reality).

What do those 8 billion people do when the sea level has risen by 30 metres, do they all move uphill a little?
And what about the people already inhabiting the higher land, do they have a say. I would hazard a guess that at least 2-3billion live below 30m altitude, many of the worlds largest cities are below this level and a lot of fertile farmland would be lost.

Not to mention societal collapse and despotic rule, which hasn’t been mentioned yet. Our world would soon become dystopian, making the degrees of cooperation required for your scenario to work, impossible.

I’ll leave it there, for now.

Point is, "recharge" rate of the sun is way higher than geothermal and there's no surface area to volume problem.

I was going to step in and make this point, you beat my to it.
We could easily produce sufficient energy from solar power and solar generation plants are being built, but probably not fast enough. Although it’s probably to late anyway, as the tipping points are already being triggered. Even if we do manage to reduce emissions significantly, the damage is already sufficient for civilisation collapse, as we have discussed before.

Chris Grey’s Brexit blog.
https://t.co/wS92ePJqYu?amp=1

“ As the BBC’s Home editor Mark Easton put it, it is “the paradox of Brexit that taking control of your borders requires more international co-operation, not less”. That doesn’t just apply to control of borders, of course. It exposes the entire fantasy of a sovereignty that can be exercised without regard for that of others, and the lie inherent in the ‘take back control’ slogan. It really is time that David Frost and Boris Johnson understood this, but there’s absolutely no sign that they will.”

I agree about the third way. Although it may have been The Sun giving Blair their endorsement which really swung it.

Going back to the demographic shift, post 2008 the world and the economy in the U.K. has changed. The foundational pillars supporting the Tory’s have faltered. They have shown now that they cannot sustainably manage the public services, the Home Office, social care etc etc. Now they have thrown business and prosperity under the Brexit bus, just to neuter UKIP. They really are a busted flush.

Talk to a young person, someone who has recently qualified to vote, what reasons there are to vote Tory?

We used to say that the young are ideologically to the left until they feel a bit of wealth, success, own their own home. That they turn Tory to maintain that level of comfort. How many of our young (now) are going to reach that degree of comfort?

Enough to deliver a Tory government? On the assumption that they are a safe pair of hands?

I agree about the fear of the left with Corbyn, that it pushed people to vote Tory. But I differ in that I see this as primarily due to a smearing of Corbyn in the press. I don’t think there are the numbers to deliver Tory governments on the fear of socialism alone. Also there is a demographic shift to the left going on. As the voters who remember the winter of discontent are beginning to die off. To be replaced by young voters who have a different outlook on the world and what the priorities of the country are.

The Brexit problems are beginning to bite and due to Johnson’s decision not to delay Brexit until after the pandemic, which was offered by the EU, has guaranteed a winter of discontent at the end of this year. His reckless boosterism is bound to become unstuck at some point. And the numbers of people who will never forgive him and his party is growing.

Perhaps you haven’t been following the negative effects of Brexit closely. They are mounting daily, for example and there are hundreds of stories like this affecting most sectors.
https://twitter.com/CoppetainPU/status/1410727085903990784?s=20
The big farming issue around me is sugar beet. Seems they will soon be in crisis.
Or that Sunak announced yesterday that they have given up on seeking equivalence on financial services within the EU.

I would counter your assessment of left bad and right good on economic policy. It is right wing policy which has brought us to this point after all and which was responsible for 2008.

I do to have time to go into greater depth today, so can return to this later.

Pragmatism, I agree about the excesses of Corbyn mania, but the current leadership is moderate on EU membership.
A pragmatic approach to deal with the adverse effects of Brexit, which are beginning to emerge and will become much worse. I am suggesting an economic crisis for which the solution will only lie in greater economic alignment with the EU.
I can see Tory’s refusing to aligning, because power is their only modus operandi. Labour is more concerned with the health of the nation and we are about to step back into our shoes as the sick man of Europe.

As regards Corbyn’s manifesto, when voters are asked about policies in isolation they are broadly supportive of such policies. It was the perception of Corbyn as fed by the Murdoch press and Tory rags to voters. Not to mention the anti socialism we are endemically groomed and conditioned with from cradle to grave, which fed that perception. Culminating in the myth that Corbyn could not be trusted with the nuclear codes and that he would welcome in the worlds despots.

I am working on the assumption of a Labour, or coalition Labour government for two, perhaps three terms. Which would result in a genuinely EU friendly policy. When I say rejoin single market, I’m thinking of the Norway model.

We have been highjacked by the rise of populism, so you/we can’t blame the voting public. They are innocent and very few understand what is really going on here. The blame lies fairly and squarely with the Tory’s who jumped on the populist bandwagon and sold their country down the river so Blojo could be king for a day and usher in another generation of Tory rule.

But, as is dawning on some of them, they have gone to far, lost trust with reality and destroyed the trust upon which the government and constitution is built. That this embarrassment of a government populated by Eton twits is a disgrace and has probably finished their party off for a generation.

Yes, I agree. Fortunately I have a get out clause, I will qualify for Scottish citizenship.
The U.K. EU relations will settle down and I expect we will rejoin the single market after a decade, or possibly sooner. For me this episode is more about a struggle for survival in the Conservative party, following the catastrophic failure of the financial crash in 2008. We are still reeling from the fallout and the financial bubble has not yet burst.

I appreciate your thoughts on the issue and that you would rather not talk about it.
I would agree with you in regard of a number of Conservatives, although I had the impression that Cameron was a moderate. Although I would in hindsight consider that his and Osbourne’s pro EU mutterings might have been lies.
My experience of anti EU politics was from the eighties and early nineties through family connections. I didn’t fall for it and saw it as a prejudice alongside a naive interpretation of the EU. I also concluded that once infected with this anti EU sentiment, Tory’s would hardly ever reject it, only believe it all the more, on very little evidence, in a preference for spurious rumour.

I would echo the points made by Apollodorus, that it was the fear of the Tory party being torn apart by UKIP which drove the talk of a referendum. Also that the promise of one swung the 2015 election in Cameron’s favour.
It has been acknowledged by commentators at the time that Cameron, had expected to remain in coalition with the Lib Dem’s in 2015 and that the Lib Dem’s would block any referendum. And that Cameron was surprised at the size of the Brexit bounce in his favour.

I can’t comment much on France as I don’t receive much news from there. I would expect that there was also some industrial decline in the face of globalisation. The main difference I think is that France didn’t deregulate, shrink the state and reduce taxation, like in the U.K.
So France still has its nationalised services and social support in place. By contrast, here in the U.K. these have been starved of resources until they are in crisis, or have been shrunk to the point of crisis. On the alter of free market capitalism, or something.

The last time I was in France, I experienced this first hand, in a small way, but I was shocked by it. I was walking for the day and caught a train back to the start of the walk, in a small provincial town. As I walked into the station building, I was expecting to come across a ticket machine, but was surprised to find a person in the ticket office. I had been conditioned to think that such staffing had been cut due to cost cutting measures as in U.K. In the U.K. you would be lucky to find a ticket office open in a large town.

Yes, and we still have not dealt with the subprime mortgage crisis. House prices are rising at the fasted rate for years and rental costs for those who aren’t fortunate enough to be on the property ladder are by far their largest expenditure.

Add to this rising interest rates and it could burst and this time it will not just be froth, but mass repossessions and bankruptcy.

She should have been advised that without an industrial strategy U.K. industry would be undercut through the development of globalisation and the rise of Chinese manufacturing.
Likewise the evolution of US style management ideology and its reliance on exploitation of employees for profit.

As a result we now have an economy and society ravaged by globalisation and deregulated business practices and offshore IT corporations. And stuck with an incompetent Tory party with only one strategy to remedy this situation, Austerity. Oh and further free market capitalism, now global. Which will embed the failure and crisis further.

Quite, I could never understand why Thatcher didn’t produce a sustainable industrial strategy. Had we not been in the EU she would probably have neglected farming too.
I can see interest rates rising again now, I can’t see how it can be avoided. And with our over-leveraged population, this is a dangerous corner to find ourselves in.

As I have said, the Tory’s are finished once they are demonstrably an economic failure. All they’ve got now is more austerity, this cuts the legs out from under the struggling public services, and social security, delivering crisis after crisis. Johnson’s trick of blaming failure on others will soon wear thin. Their solution to this is more free market involvement. But it always ends in crony gravy trains.

They might have been able to scrape by if Brexit had not happened. But now we have a chaotic hard Brexit it will compound all these problems and add a whole layer more on top.

He will increasingly become cornered into relying on raw populism, like Trump.

I can’t see any way back for the Tory’s for a decade, or more now. An opposition coalition will have to pick up the pieces and hopefully break the stranglehold of Murdoch et al and bring in PR.

Yes, in policy terms the gov is no worse than Thatcher. Although following 10yrs of austerity with another 10 to come, the effect on the institutions and services, affected is equally as stark/destructive.

Going back to the numbered points, the effect of political decisions by Tory’s and this gov to deliver a chaotic hard Brexit in itself is anti business, destructive to the economy and has trashed our international standing.
For anyone who has a modicum of interest in politics, presumably it has become clear by now that Tory’s don’t care about the poor, the wealth divide, or reviving sink towns and areas. They’ve had 10yrs to address these issues and have made the situation demonstrably worse. Now we have all this debt from The pandemic, it is clear there is going to be a further round of austerity, which will hit those on median and low incomes.

You write about the gov in a way that the promises they make might have some credibility, that they might just do what they say. I understand this as it is how political discourse has been conducted for decades in this country. But surely by now you realise that these promises are laughable, especially on levelling up, global trade and Green issues.

I agree with your thoughts about populism, it always falls down when people realise it is built on hollow promises, lies and division.

There is an interesting thread here listing the emerging issues with the unfolding Brexit, just to give a flavour.
https://twitter.com/rdanielkelemen/status/1407936175885754373?s=20

Well the difference between us then is that I see this as a significant departure from the norm and you see it as part of the normal rebranding of the Conservative party.

I agree with you about the rebranding and that the Tory’s will regroup with a new leader and develop a collective amnesia for what has happened in the past. The reestablishment of one nation Conservatism etc. This is a cyclical process which rinses and whitewashes the Tory’s, occasionally having an opposition party in power for a term or two (but only a moderate one, not socialists), before the return of our rulers rebranded, clean and fresh, ready to put their safe pair of hands on the tiller again.

My point is that this time they have lost the plot and gone to far. You do presumably accept that this is possible? That a ruling party can go to far, can break the system and the established cycle. If you agree that there is this possibility where do you draw the line, beyond which the cycle is broken? For me it is the trashing, demonstrable on the ground, of the core principles of One Nation Conservatism.
These are (not exhaustive)
Pro business.
A safe pair of hands with the economy.
Levelling up (the inclusion of the poor, or deprived groups)
Managing a moderate/constructive capitalism, entrepreneurship etc.
An ambassador for the important position and role of the U.K. on the world stage.
Governance of the highest integrity, reliability and honesty at home and abroad.

Now all of these principles has been trashed over the last 5 years. Indeed we now have Boris laughing at us as he does it with that petulant grin on his face as he blusters and waffles it away.

As I say there are two main drivers of this destruction.
The embracing of Brexit,
The adoption of manipulative populism

Since Johnson has been resident in No10, the proroguing of parliament, lying to the Queen, the vilification of the EU. The chaos and lies in management of various crises, The lying in plain sight, the mass corruption and misappropriation of public money during the pandemic etc has hammered home this destruction.

Is this all going to be whitewashed away while Starmer has a brief stint in Downing Street? Somehow I doubt it.

Then there is the demographic time bomb. The young just don’t get the Tory’s anymore. The gravy train in which the young turn Tory when they feel a bit of wealth and financial comfort has ended, or at least been drastically reduced. Young people don’t believe the government on the their lies about green issues, levelling up etc. Both which are going to become big issues over the next few years.
The other prong of the demographic time bomb is that their base is dying off of old age. They rely on comfortably off retired people who are insulated from the failings in the economy. But every year they die off by about half a million.

I see their days as numbered and I’m sure they have seen this as a possibility, hence their selling out to populism.

My rationale is that Tory’s have been in crisis following the growth of UKIP and the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008. Alongside these issues, the apparent success of Corbyn put the wind up em and their policy of austerity has started to attract criticism as a failed policy.

A generation of anti EU sentiment had matured among a section of their base and the parliamentary party. There was a steady stream of these Euro skeptics out of the party in favour of UKIP. This was partly responsible for the growing call for a referendum. In reality Cameron had little choice but to call the referendum because of this split. We don’t know what discussions and rows were going on behind the scenes

Whatever happened in the party, though resulted in the party offering a referendum and then embracing Brexit, following the result. Theresa May was continually pressured by the ERG, indeed she appeared to be far more scarred of them than the opposition. However a majority of Tory MP’s were openly in favour of remaining in the EU. By this point there were open rows in the party about what kind of Brexit should be delivered. May and the ERG quashed this repeatedly, splitting the party further.

By this point the issue was becoming polarised, the party and the population began to divide into leave and remain camps and serious discussion and argument increasingly became less and less possible as positions became entrenched.

Pro EU Tory’s found themselves in a position in which they had no choice but to back the government, whatever the government line. While the direction of Brexit was being steered by a small group at the top under intense pressure from a fanatical ERG. A handful of Tory MP’s could not accept this authoritarian line and others were thrown out of the party, the rest just kept their heads down and blindly supported the government whatever the dictat. As May’s Brexit began to founder a group of hardline anti EU Tory’s split from the May government and started to form behind Johnson. They recruited the vote leave campaigners and began to employ the populism which they had used to win the referendum.

This is where the Johnson camp crossed the line into ruthless populism. I’m sure that many Tory MP’s looked on in horror at these developments. But they had already sold their souls to this Brexit project and again put their heads down and kept quiet.

The fact that the government is now riding rough shod over the principles, values and integrity of the Conservative party and embracing power driven populism is a symptom of this crisis within the party. If there were no such crisis, there would be no populist coup. Onlookers and I’m sure party members can see the integrity of the party being torn up, that it is dividing the country and storing up untold social and political problems for the future. But feel powerless, or impotent to stop or moderate this rampant power grab.

It seems pretty psychotic to me.

Edit,
I thought I would add this article, which lays out the populism which the conservatives have embraced. A political strategy which trashes their reputation and reliability as a good/safe pair of hands in Governing the country. MP’s and supporters of the party, to an extent, have gone along with this, others haven’t and others feel betrayed.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/06/17/boris-johnson-and-the-rise-of-make-believe/

I’ll reply tomorrow, I have explained my conclusion before, but as I know it is not agreed on by many, I will happily explain again.

The perfect storm is on the horizon. We have the three crisis happening at once. The effects of Brexit on trade with EU(fresh produce, just in time supply chains). The effects of COVID(massive economic upheaval) and now the knock on effects of the suez container pile up.
https://twitter.com/vivamjm/status/1405171792369627141?s=20

It feels as though we are about to go over the waterfall in a barrel. Just as we go into a third wave with the Johnson variant(Delta variant). Hold on tight and stock up on a few essentials.

Quite, I am ambivalent on the question of UK’s membership of EU in principle. But see the current situation as a train wreck and more about a psychotic episode in the Tory party, than any rational process about the UK’s position in world affairs.

In fact the train is shortly going to run out of track. Time to reach for the popcorn.

That article requires subscription to read. I wouldn’t support the telegraph because it is little more than a Brexiter pamphlet now.

Quite. I wonder where the philosophers congregate?

Yes, there aren’t any Brexit supporters now. I was being bold in my comment, party to flush out any Brexit supporters lurking.

Harsh words regarding the membership of a philosophy forum there. Surely there are plenty of amateur philosophers here.

You won’t find any Brexit supporters on a philosophy forum.

You give Johnson an inch, he will take a mile.

Anyway, any alternative to implementation of the protocol is no solution. Except, for NI leaving U.K. and rejoining IRL.
Perhaps you can describe such an alternative?

The problem for the EU is that if they make a concession the U.K. gov’ will grab it and ask for more while shouting even louder that the EU is bullying them and that the concession proves this. Because by admitting to the concession, they are admitting that the fault is with them.

Meanwhile Johnson is making hay in his culture war and EU blaming at home.

The best strategy for the EU, as is best in dealing with a bully, is to stand firm on what was negotiated. Because to concede won’t improve the situation, it will only deepen the crisis. It would give ammunition to those who seek to legitimise U.K. position and sully EU position. By dragging EU into a dirty slanging match.

Observers know who is the villain of the peace.

Things hotting up over NI protocol.
The government is squirming.

https://t.co/8fcBLs2SQH?amp=1

He added: "Devolution could work perfectly well if only the Conservatives were in charge in Scotland, which would make a triumphant success of it.

What you focus in on amounts to the same thing.
SNP are a failure, we know that they are now the dominant party, so by extension devolution is a failure because it has enabled SNP dominance.
Devolution would work if the Conservatives are in power in Scotland, well of course it would because they would also be in power in Westminster and they would conspire to keep the Scots happy while not enabling Scots to have a say in their affairs unless governed, viewed through a Tory lense.

I recognise the significance of the amendments to the Scotland act. It will be interesting to see if it has any teeth during the tussle over indyref2.

However I won’t be taking seriously anything spoken by a Tory after 2014. They have shown themselves to be disingenuous and self servingly devious after that.

I agree the abolishment of devolution is a not a policy, which I did not suggest, but the Tory’s will be looking to how they can bring Scotland to heal. An impossible task as far as I and many others can see.

In reference to the EU, the ambition of an ever closer Union has faded in recent years in the light of various crises. The development of EU wide policy has been a good thing for the Union as a whole and is focussed on means of cooperation in critical areas, rather than in any kind of arresting of political powers, or institutions. Also the UK has been free to negotiate opt out clauses and vetos.

So the criticisms and failures perceived in the minds of those in the UK about the EU are largely fabricated and have been groomed to transfer our own failures and inability to cooperate in the project of the EU onto the EU parliament.

This has been going on for many years and is fuelled by the right wing client press in the UK. Which has been drip feeding concocted and false narratives into the population for a generation.

If one is looking for genuine reasons for Brexit, it will inevitably lead back to the cancerous influence Murdoch. Alongside the failures in Blair’s government to manage the flows of Eastern European migrants following secession in 2004.

It is certainly not anything to do with the European Commission.

Now if we look at this Westminster/media bubble through the eyes of Scotland, particularly following the EU referendum. Is it any wonder Nicola Sturgeon is doing so well.

I’ve met some very Scottish people, more Scottish than I could have imagined, before I met them.

Your comparison of being ruled from Westminster being equal if not better than being ruled by the EU, in terms of freedoms of governance and autonomy, is absurd.

I am no expert on the powers Scotland has been given by Westminster, but it doesn’t give them much freedom. They still have to go cap in hand for most things. Just recently Jacob Rees Mogg said in the house that devolution is a failed project and that it is now time for its abolition. The same government has been saying in their anti EU rhetoric that we are controlled by the EU and that’s why we have to leave the EU. But in reality the EU is largely trying to regularise standards, regulations, tariffs and enjoy a customs Union between members. Allowing the establishment of the single market. Any notion of an EU superstate had receded years ago and of course we would always have had the right to veto.
Imagine if Scotland vetoed the abolition of devolution.