I don't see how that proves your point. It describes the "kingdom of heaven" as a psychological state to be attained here on earth... that is the idea of not resisting to anything anymore, of turning the other cheek.... out of an oversensitivity to pain. Bliss. He describes it, but that doesn't mean he subscribe to it. Nietzsches whole philosophy is about making distinctions and valuation based on those distinctions, wherein pain plays a vital role... they couldn't be much further from eachother.

Yes sure that's also a big part of it, he tempts people who aspire to greatness, many among them were artists, the list is endless.

So it was natural for Zarathustra was depicting Jesus, and tacitly Nietzsche himself too. I am glad that I am learning something about Nietzsche with this discussion. Thanks. — Corvus

The only similarity is that Jesus and Zarathustra were creators of values. That's the one aspect Nietzsche could respect in Jesus, that he had the strenght of his convictions, and managed to overturn conventional morality and create something new to suit his character. That's why (as I said above) he choose a prophet-type as the mouthpiece for his philosophy in Thus spoke Z, because they were doing a similar prophet thing, creating new tables of values.

Where they took that exercise however, what values they created, could not be more different.

One other straightforward reason for his continued influence up to now, is that most of the 20th century French philosophers took him up, they were all Nietzschians in some ways.

Who is supposed to be Zarathustra? Here in your statement above, it sounds like you are implying Z. was N. Would he be Nietzsche himself? Or some other bloke? — Corvus

Historically zarathustra was the first monotheist, inventor of the good and evil dualism.... the archetype of prophet-moralist leading people astray, away from the earth towards some abstract ideal.

Nietzsche choose him as a mouthpiece for his philosophy because he symbolises everything Nietzsche thinks is wrong about these kind of wisdom-traditions.

..which people hadn't realized yet.
— ChatteringMonkey

Is this part of the reason why his writings remain so influential? — Bret Bernhoft

Yes, one of the reasons probably... Nietzsche's main question, how we get beyond Christian values after the dead of the Christian God is still an open question. But other reason also play a role no doubt, he was a very good writer, he has a knack of drawing you in... he's a tempter ;-).

I think the probability depends on 1) whether the US will face a serious economic crisis or not, and 2) whether someone with enough charisma and talent will stand up to organise that populist movement.

1) Things were way worse still in Weimar Germany. A serious crisis for the US doesn't seem that imminent at this moment, but that could change fast in a fragile global economy that has some serious issues going forward.

2) Trump maybe wants to go that direction, and maybe can get some popular support, but I think ultimately he doesn't have the skills/talent to pull it off. But you know maybe he inspired some people.

I don't hold this against them, since even modern political scientists "select on the dependant variable," all the time (e.g. "Why Nations Fail"). The analysis can still be a good vehicle for ideas, even if it's mostly illustrative. But it hardly seems like Nietzsche sets out to do a history of morals and simply "comes across his results." This is even more apparent in light of his publishing history. By the time he is publishing his mature work, he already has the core of what he wants to say laid out, and the analysis seems obviously there to support and develop those ideas, not as a form of "discovery." — Count Timothy von Icarus

He was a classical philologist, and studied ancient Greek texts from a young age. Check out his dissertation on Theognis of Megara. What sets him apart is that he actually did have a good and untainted (source texts) understanding of a part of history that was radically different than his own culture, at an ealy age. What that does, is it gives you a perspective outside of your own culture, and a point of reference from where you are able to evaluate the valuations you are given by your culture and upbringing. Lacking this external point of view, you invarialbly just end up regurgitating contemporary valuations, as many philosophers did.

So you are right that he already had his point of view made up before writing his mature works, but he did have to do a real re-evaluation of his values following a religious crisis and his classical studies at a young age, and a bit later after his falling out with Wagner and Schopenhauer... This was the impetus for his entire philosophy, and why he became a philosopher instead of a philologist, a real personal need to re-evaluate the values that were given him at the time.

Both. We need a group replicating sameness in its members, and indivuals breaking away from it and introducing new standards in the group. Much like in evolution, its an interplay between replication and mutation that allows for some kind of progression.

Things are getting better and worse, depending on how one looks at it and what one values.

Pinker, Rösling and the like will point at material conditions objectively improving, and present nice charts to illustrate their point. Others will point at climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification,... all kinds of ecological degradation.

Both can be, and are true at the same time. Conditions are getting better for humans overall, while the biosphere deteriorates. What we have been doing essentially is increasing material wealth for humans at a cost to the environment.

The question then is, what is more important? I think ultimately we can't escape the fact that we grew out of and depend on this biosphere we are degrading, and we will have to pay the price eventually. So even if we wouldn't value ecosystems inherently, but only care about say human flourishing narrowly, even then, degrading the biosphere will eventually also have its consequences for that.

If we were on the titanic five minutes before it crashed on that iceberg, pointing at all the material wealth and luxury on the ship to argue that things never have been better objectively would seem rather strange indeed... Where we are heading should be an important factor in this equation.

Of course people will disagree about that too, eventough the science is pretty clear... overall the biosphere is deteriorating rapidly on most metrics. And on the other hand there is little to no evidence that we can actually grow and innovate ourselves out of these problems, which would be the obvious proposed solution... traditionally economic growth has had a strong correlation with overall ecologiocal degradation.

Yes I guess I basically agree with your analysis :-), but disagree with the assumption that the world is going to continue in this upward trajectory I suppose.

No.

Morality is not the driver of things, nor does it evolve on its own/following its own logic. Rather, morality is a by-product of, or is at least enabled by, other non-moral processes.

To be more specific, the idea of moral progress is a result of technological and economical progress, that is in turn based on an exponential increase in energy-use. Or to put in another way, we have been able to construe and sustain these moral standards because we have an unprecedented energy-surplus... to put it maybe a bit flippant, you don't need slaves if one barrel of oil can provide work equivalent to 25.000 hours of human labour.

Whether or not we will deem the meat industry immoral in the future will depend in part on whether we can maintain this upward trajectory of increase in energy-production that may be needed to provide alternatives (as it stands lab-grown meat is very expensive and energy-intensive) ... and that is by no means a certainty with fossil fuels ultimately being finite and the effective replacement of them questionable.

Yes, I'm against it, for physical and psychological reasons.

Entropy is a fundamental law of the universe, so ultimately any non world-denying spirituality can only be tragic.

And psychologically a techno-utopia wouldn't even be desirable. We can only thrive if we have some challenges to overcome... this is how we grow as people.

It's the latest incarnation of plain old gnosticism, that promisses that the material world can be overcome for some truer ideal world. And that's a pernicious lie, because mind does in fact not rule over matter... faith in it could eventually destroy the natural world in an impossible attempt to attain its ideal.

What I won’t do is resign myself to doing nothing because it’s a big, difficult problem. — Mikie

How you got this from what I said is bizarre.

I guess we are both kind of arguing a bit of a strawman version of eachothers position then?

I’m not at all certain. I make the choice not to dwell on the idea that we’re probably screwed. It’s useless and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. — Mikie

You make a choice to stick your head in the ground?

It obviously does matter what the likelyhood of succeeding is. Suppose we have a very small chance of succeeding to stay below a certain limit of climate change, than I think it would make sense to allocate a lot more money to resilience measures.

I feel like you are overselling all these psychological effects. That is probably our main point of disagreement. I think it's better to look at our situation as it is, and figure out what to do from there. A failure to aknowledge that is far more dangerous than anything like a self-fulfilling profecy it seems to me.

The real problem is that we have a real problem.

Plenty. I’ve seen none from you whatsoever other than “I doubt it can be done. — Mikie

I doubt it can be done without certain consequences...

You haven't seen them because we haven't talked about that specifically.

Most of these 81 pages have been about rebuking climate change denial, which is a clear cut matter. That doesn't mean there isn't a real discussion to be had about how we are going to solve it.

And yes, I'm still in the process of making up my mind, I don't see how one can be so certain about something with this many moving parts.

That’s been done. — Mikie

You really believe that there no more debate to be had about how we are going to solve this? That seems rather close-minded. I feel like we only have scratched the surface of how we are going to balance different issues.... In any case, I don't think there is one kind of solution, it will also greatly depend on the situation of your country.

Industrialization and modern capitalism goes hand and hand — Mikie

Communism relies on industrialization too, unless you are going for the Pol Pot variety.

Yeah— they do better than fossil fuels in all these areas. With the exception of solar panels and land use, which is comparable to coal but not gas. But what’s your point? That this will be hard and that we’ll have to deal responsibly with the process? No kidding. — Mikie

The point is that it is not as black and white as a lot of you seem to be making it out to be. Or it only gets looked at on this binary carbon emissions axis.... If you take different aspects into consideration, like yes the economy, or other types of ecological damages, than it's a lot more nuanced.

But it has to happen and will happen. So since it’s happening, I’m not sure what good it does saying how hard it will be, how big it is, how expensive it is, or how there are costs associated to it. Yeah, no kidding. We’ve been dealing with those issues for years in an industry that has killed millions and ruined the planet — called fossil fuels.

It does serve one purpose I guess. It enables us to sit back and say “we’re doomed — it’s never gonna happen” and go on with our lives. Sorry kids.

I don’t share that sentiment.

I don't get why this is so hard to understand. Resources, money, time etc etc are limited. If we want to figure out how to best deal with the problems we have, we'd better find out what all the different costs are of the available options.

So-called communism. But the USSR and China were/ are state-capitalist economies. In any case, the US industrialized long ago and knew of this issue long after— they had the technology to change, and didn’t.

China faces a similar problem now — and is doing much more than we were at that level of development. They’re quite right when they say they shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of this work given historical emissions.

The reason the US didn’t decarbonize wasn’t because of the public. It wasn’t because of free markets. It wasn’t because the technology wasn’t available. And it wasn’t because of industrialization. — Mikie

The reason all of them carbonized was industrialisation.

I couldn’t see heat pumps outselling gas furnaces in my lifetime…but it happened last year.

Maybe none of it happens. That’s a possibility. But we work hard anyway. What we don’t do is sit down and help guarantee nothing happens. — Mikie

We can do a bit better that hope for the improbable I would think.

The rest of the world doesn’t emit much compared to a handful of wealthy countries.

And they are doing a great deal, in fact. Denmark, Netherlands, Morocco, many south sea islands, France, Germany — even China, by some measures.

There are many reasons why it’s slow moving. There’s economic reasons and propaganda just like in the US. But other times it’s simply the early stages of development and lack of funds (India, Africa). Much of it is lack of global leadership (US), with only mild steps forward coming the last few years.

I didn’t say it was one cause. In the US, however, it’s very close to one cause— and it’s obvious. — Mikie

Ok, I agree with this.

Over $20 billion a year (conservatively) is a lot, especially when compared to renewables. And this isn’t factoring in other subsidies. One estimate — the IMF — quotes in the trillions, which you seem to want to discount.

So to argue we’re not subsidizing oil and gas “that much” is a joke. — Mikie

Not as much as some want us to believe was my point. The 7 trillion from the IMF certainly wasn't a very fair estimate, and that's the study that blindly get parrotted everywhere.

Another canard.

Not nearly as much. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a black and white world. Yes, solar and wind require a lot of energy up front. But then they basically run themselves, making up for the initial emissions by a lot.

Compare to fossil fuels and there’s no contest. — Mikie

If you only look at carbon emissions sure... but if you look at land use, which is the main cause of bio-diversity loss, it isn't great, certainly not if we would be serious about scaling up renewables to replace all fossil fuels. Mining for all the resources to build them is devastating too. And then we haven't factored in all the waste we will have to deal with once we need to replace them in 20 years.

It’s not an accident. It’s a deliberate choice, and one made because of greed. Capitalism isn’t a natural law. — Mikie

I dislike capitalism as much as anyone, but I don't think it's the main culprit, industrialisation is. Communism was and is at least as bad for the environment.

Right— so let’s lay down and die. Let’s let the world burn because it’s not economically viable to save it.

Funny how the “debt” gets brought up very selectively.

If we can spend $1 trillion a year on the military, we can spend that on saving the planet. — Mikie

No, I would choose saving the biosphere over the economy in a heartbeat. But it's not up to me, it doesn't matter what I want if there isn't enough political support for it. I just can't see it happening, because I don't think we wouldn't have much of an economy left if we were to include all externalities. I'm talking mostly discriptive here, or I try to at least.

So you didn’t Google Lee Raymond. That wasn’t motivated by sheer greed, I suppose?

Has nothing to do with ideology, unless greed is an ideology. The propaganda campaigns were deliberate, and were conducted by fossil fuel companies and the think tanks that this industry funded. Which staffed the Reagan administration and set the policy agenda.

But I suppose we can shut our eyes and make believe all of this was just an “accident” and a natural outgrowth of “free markets” based on “human nature,” etc… — Mikie

I did google him, and sure he seem like a greedy bastard alright. I just don't think any one person, or even a group of people, has that much influence in the larger scheme of things. How do you explain the rest of the world doing little to nothing to reduce emmission? Europe did a little bit better maybe, but nowhere near enough to seriously stop climate change. Climate change denial hasn't really been a thing in Europe, and yet here we are 30 years further with little to show for. At some point one has to look a little deeper than evil greedy dude destroying the world for profit I would think.

EROI is already much better, and if you factor cost of externalities is no contest.

Whether or not there is enough time is the second issue I mentioned earlier. But that too is because of lack of political will. Nothing has been done for so long, despite warnings and pleas from the science community and the public (and the globe), that it may indeed be too little, too late.

But we don’t know for certain, and in any case it’s a ridiculous position to take if it’s thrown around to justify doing nothing, or rationalizes casually and idly chatting about it. — Mikie

I don't think EROI is getting much better with renewables, there's a cap to how much they can improve in effeciency because of the underlying physics of those technologies.

Very little would be truly viable if you factor in all externalities. It's not as if the external costs aren't huge for renewables too. That is the flip side of progress/growth, it allways seems to involve externalising costs. You seem to think we can have both, even though historically there's almost a one to one relation between growth and damage to the enviroment. There's no evidence that decoupling those two is possible in practice.

Anyway— what “people” do you refer to? You seem to want to continually shift the majority of blame upon the average citizen. — Mikie

This isn't about blame. I think ultimately all of this is more an unfortunate accident of history/evolution. We need food, shelter, social status etc etc, and have had to labour continuously to provide those things. Of course we are going to use free energy that makes things easier.... We aren't really equipped to deal with all this complexity and long term planning and allways have more or less made stuff up as we go.

You’re also exaggerating the costs and making a lot of assumptions about human beings which I don’t see much support for. I think average “people” care about their kids and grandkids’ futures, and would prefer that the world as we know it wasn’t burned or under water. This shows up in polling too — they want their governments to do more.

People aren’t against heat pumps or efficient public transportation or solar panels. They’re not against utilities generating electricity from renewables. The costs are way down, and should be subsidized further (as we’ve done with oil and gas for decades). There are indeed problems when it comes to NIMBYISM regarding transmission lines, losing jobs, etc — and that can be dealt with. Not insurmountable at all. — Mikie

People are against having to pay a large portion of their hard earned money to pay for basics like energy. This is pretty obvious, and shouldn't need much defence.

And we haven't really been subsidizing oil and gas all that much. Most of so called "subsidizing" the IMF reported on have been governement contributions to the energy bills of the poor, and counting not payed for externalities as "subsidies". Direct subsidies have been only a very small portion of that.

Governments have unprecedented debt already. Sure you could say why not pile on some more, but then you're only kicking the can ahead of you some more... someone will have to pay for it eventually.

Still largely a success— although phasing out nuclear was a mistake. — Mikie

We shall see. These kind of things play out over decades. If Germany's economy tanks, and it drags Europe with it, or if it starts its coal plants again because ernergy price get to high otherwise... I wouldn't call that a succes.

Well, then all I can repeat is that I don’t think you’ve looked into this aspect enough.

Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the White House roof in the late 70s. Torn down by the fossil fuel shill Reagan. Imagine if instead we started a large renewable push in the 80s, and gradually transitioned? How much better would we be today?

I’d also Google Lee Raymond. — Mikie

Yes you seem to think these evolutions are allways driven predominantly by idea's or ideologies. The fact of the matter is that photovoltaics were nowhere near as good as fossil fuels back then, and that is the main reason they didn't gain a lot of traction... Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the roof of the White house because he was scared of running out of energy in the wake of the oil crisis. He was an ideological child of the whole limits to growth movement that started in the early seventies.

Chomsky’s classic Manufacturing Consent is good on this. — Mikie

It can be manufactured only to a certain extend I would say.

I know you think that— you’re just wrong. People around the world, and in the US, want something done. The solutions are already available in most cases (apart from heavy industry). If other countries can put in place sensible policies, so can we. Won’t be overnight, but could happen — and should have started years ago. — Mikie

Equal replacements in terms of EROI and all other conveniences are not available at scale, and not within the timeframe necessary to avert climate change. This is a technical issue that is hard argue either way, I do realise that... but it is the point where this argument hinges on.

People want to solve the problem in the abstract, sure, why not if they get told it won't cost them anything. I don't think they want to solve it in practice because they don't realise everything the solution entails. That is the point I've been making, yes.

You point to other countries that have sensible policies in place. I say these countries are some of the most wealthy in the world, and have exported most of their energy intensive industry to China as part of a globalised economy. That is largely the green-washing game Europe has been playing BTW, relocating its production capacity somewhere else, and importing the products where they are still made with a lot of carbon emissions. It looks good if you stop at the border, but climate change doesn't care where carbon gets emitted of course.

Why didn’t it start years ago, by the way? Is it really that “the people” were so stupid and ignorant that they didn’t push for it? Partly true I guess. But the political class elected to make the significant decisions did nothing. — Mikie

What about the obvious answer? That it's just very hard to do, and goes against the very fundaments our world is build on. The ozone layer issue got solved rather quickly, because swapping out some spray can gasses only marginally impacted some economic niches.

False choice. It’s not Stone Age living versus clean energy, as it’s often portrayed. And Europe is doing much more than the US. — Mikie

It not that black and white, but I do think there is something to it... And Europe will become largely economically irrelevant shortly. It is in a very precarius situation at the moment, thanks to, in no small part, the energywende. Let's hope we get bailed out by a mild winter again like last year!

The education system and especially the media play a big role in this. Not to mention fossil fuel companies bribe and lobby both parties in the US but essentially own one outright (Republicans). It’s similar elsewhere, but only in areas where the economy relies on fossil fuels (Australia, Russia, Canada, etc.). You have the strongest propaganda there, so more climate denial.

It’s the same tactic used by tobacco companies. “Hey people just want to smoke — the people don’t want restrictions — the science isn’t clear.” Powerful industries can afford expensive propaganda. I don’t blame the average person for being taken in by it. — Mikie

Sure, I don't want to absolve them of blame. They certainly don't help, but I don't think we would have solved climate change even without their propaganda. The problem isn't necessarily solved either in countries where these industries play little to no role .

It’s absolutely a matter of political will. There are a number of factors which influence political still and government action. But the biggest influence is money, which comes from the corporate sector. — Mikie

Yeah maybe this is it. I don't see the world like this. I think all of political action happens against the backdrop of public opinion/common culture. That is the undercurrent force that constraints how far you can take political action in any given direction. Money probably can shift policies some degrees in other directions, but I don't think it is ultimately the driver behind all of this.

It’s fine to say it’s a complicated issue with many moving parts, and will require major changes. But that’s a truism — that’s the case in any issue. — Mikie

Don't agree, it is the issue of our times ;-). Everything will pivot arround it.

The fact is that we need sweeping government action on par with WWII and Covid. The reason we’re not getting it is because of fossil fuel companies. If you fail to see this you’re just missing it. I’d recommend Naomi Oreskes new book. — Mikie

I haven't read the book... so I can't judge that. But as follows from what I said above, I think the quote unquote "real driver" behind all of this, is the people not really wanting the changes needed to solve this problem.

As has become blatantly obvious here in Europe, with the energy crisis that started before the Ukraine war, people will never ever choose solving a perceived far-off problem before their short term energy-security. It's not that some polticians didn't want to take measures to try and solve it, it's that they would loose the following elections if any of their measures would lead to even modest increases in energy-prices.

I don't doubt the Oil companies played a dirty role in all of this, but pushing their preferred policies wouldn't be possible if they didn't find some fertile ground in the public to plant their seed.

I didn't claim that. Only thing I did was question the black and white "no-brainer" distinction you set up between doing something about climate change and doing nothing about is. Solving this problem will be at least a balancing act between various issues, with a lot of trade-offs in all directions... that is all.

Please don't twist my words.

So, yes, damned if you do, and damned if you don't...
— ChatteringMonkey

Such certainty...?
Well, unless sufficiently justified, the suppositions/scenarios above still apply to those "doomsayers", right?
(I mean ... "Suppose [...] What's the worst that could happen?")
Incidentally, I know someone, not a climatologist, that, with a big sigh, says we're too late, but still have to try.
The Holocene extinction is another factor here; something that ought to be addressed. — jorndoe

I don't think I'm saying anything out of the ordinary. We know climate is changing because of carbon emissions, and we know our economy and entire civilisation relies on the energy we get from fossil fuels. We also know that in 30 years we haven't managed to lower carbon emissions eventhough we have know it would become a problem.

None of this controversial or speculative. What is speculative, and in fact contrary to the evidence we seem to have, is that we can replace fossil fuels and all the infrastructure and economy that comes with that, and has been build up over 200 years, with a whole new alternative energy system without enormous changes to our societies.

I'm not just a doomsayer that says we can't and therefor shouldn't do something about it. I'm saying we should take serious the idea that it will be very difficult and will probably entail major economic and societal changes. I take issue with the idea that this is just a matter of political will, and that it's all the doing a the rich or the immoral ceo's of oil companies, instead of a deep systemic problem that includes all of us.

damned if you do, damned if you don't?
Hmm Didn't that come up earlier? — jorndoe

Did it? Usually people either deny climate change or the consequences... or they "deny" the consequences of phasing out fossil fuels.

So, yes, damned if you do, and damned if you don't... what is left is figuring out what is least damned. There's still a lot of gradations to damnation.

Anyway, I think only a minority of radicals demand immediate drastic political/societal change of the sort that destroys civilization, e.g. Ama Lorenz doesn't. — jorndoe

Maybe they only think they don't demand radical political change of that kind out of ignorance, because they don't understand what it would take to keep global warming below say 1.5 C.

When for instance Ama Lorenz says what is quoted below, it doesn't seem to me like she really gets what would be needed to replace the energy provided by fossil fuels.

When will fossil fuels run out? If the world quickly comes to terms the planet's changing energy requirements and implements advanced tech solutions and necessary adjustment to consumption habits, fossil fuels will, hopefully, never run out.

Just FYI, one of the numbers I was looking for was the net amount of available fossil fuels (over time). This would give an indication of net anthropogenic chemical/physical change of our shared environment, and then an assessment of net effects over time. ("Think we can burn all this accumulated stuff [...]".) — jorndoe

The nummers she gives seem to be in the ballpark of what most experts agree on. We won't be running out of coal or natural gas anytime soon. Oil is a different matter, some think we may allready be over the peak, and the fracking revolution has only temporary delayed that downward trajectory. It's hard to give a definitive answer to this because, 1) we don't know what deposits are out there before we look for them and find them, 2) we don't know how technology will impact yields in the future before the technology exists and 3) countries probably obfuscate how much reserves they have in their deposits because of geo-political reasons.

The important thing is not necessary total reserves as such, but "usefull" reserves. What matters is Energy return on Energy invested (EROI). Reserves will technically never run out, because at some point it will take more energy to get out less energy. They will stop way before that point even, because we need a certain net energy surplus.

Most modern societies run on a high net energy surplus. They can do that because the EROI from fossil fuels was very high, and has remained relatively high because of new technologies (like fracking). The EROI of alternative energy sources is typically a lot lower. Can we keep modern societies with much lower net energy surplus, or can we find ways to increase net energy surplus without fossil fuels? Maybe, but it's by no means a certainty, not in theory and certainly not in practice.

So you know, it's easy to say we must phase out fossil fuels, it's another thing to know how we can do it in the timeframe necessary to avert climate change.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that anthropogenic climate change, pollution and all that is a red herring, but we still do something about it. What's the worst that could happen? Longer oil supply? Less plastic in the oceans? — jorndoe

I don't think this is entirely fair. Doing something about anthropogenic climate change is reducing our use of fossil fuels. Reducing our use of fossil fuels is reducing our energy consumption. And without a certain surplus of energy, modern societies as we know them are simply not possible.

The worst thing that could happen, is the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, we can try to find ways to replace the energy we get from fossil fuels, but that is by no means something that is easy, there are trade-offs (economic as well as ecologic), and it takes a lot of time and costs a ton.

This is not just a matter of political will.

At this point there is a disconnect between what would be needed to solve climate change and the ecological crisis more generally, and societal goals. Societal goals aren't actually aligned to solving these problems, but more aligned to economic growth, increase in GDP, or something along those lines... It's more like two ships passing in the night at this moment.

What could change it, is some type of crisis, like we saw at the start of WOII, when the US mobilised in a very short time. That's why I think it's very difficult to see a clear path to a solution at this particular moment.... but you know, things can change quickly.

It's at least disgusting when some nattering nabob of negativity very reliably pipes up with "That won't do any good!" "It won't work!" "If one march doesn't lead to victory, why bother?" Etc. — BC

I think it's important to point out things that won't work because resources, time and political capital is limited. If we bet on and invest in things that won't work, that means there is less for things that do work.

To give an example. Germany invested a lot in renewables, more than most other countries, decommissioned its nuclear plants, and counted on natural gas power plants as a back up for unavoidable down periods that are the consequence of relying on renewables. Then when natural gas prices spiked just before Putin invaded Ukraine (which was probably the reason Putin thought it a good idea to invade at the time) Germany found itself in a lot of trouble... and actually had to revert back to coal power plants, which are many times worse than other fossil fuels for climate change.

A lot of ideas are just bad ideas. Most ideas are in fact bad, because the world is a complex place, and ideas are easy to come by. The whole green energy transition as conceived is a bad idea, because of it's reliance on renewables prodominately. I don't want to defend Agree to disagree, his arguments are just poor and he seems to be disingenious, but I think there's also a real danger of being pressured into going along with proposed solutions that will not work, just because you are thereby percieved to be opposing the ones that want to solve the climate crisis, i.e. "the good guys".

I think you don't realise what a couple of degrees of global warming really means.
— ChatteringMonkey

I agree that global warming will cause some problems. But it will also bring some benefits. — Agree to Disagree

Here's another example of why it's not only about heat vs cold :

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/08/storm-hans-causes-havoc-in-norway-with-heaviest-rain-in-25-years-forecast

More heat causes the atmosphere to take up more humidity, which in turn causes more extreme weather like storms and floods. We used to have very few of these in Europe.

I think you don't realise what a couple of degrees of global warming really means.
— ChatteringMonkey

I agree that global warming will cause some problems. But it will also bring some benefits.

In my opinion it is almost impossible to stop global warming. The best that we can do is adapt. — Agree to Disagree

I agree it's going to be hard to stop global warming, and I agree there are some real tradeoffs (not necessarily between heating and cooling, but between climate change and the economy which is based on fossil fuels), but It's not an all or nothing deal, there are degrees of warming we could mitigate. At the very least we should try to avoid a good amount of the additional warming, as much as possible given other factors that we should take into account (like the economy).

And as I said it's not only about the problems and benefits of heat vs cold, it's also the rapid change of climate that causes problems in itself... The idea of an impoverished biosphere for the next couple of millennia at least is enough to give me pause.

Plants don't have legs to migrate to northern latitudes, or heating/clothes to adapt to the worst of extreme temperatures. And animals depend on plants... Even in those places that a couple of degrees wouldn't be that bad for humans, it would be bad for the ecosystems that evolved in temperatures that are changing rapidly.

Pole and glacial ice will melt eventually with a couple of degrees, which means global sea rise everywhere regardless of local temperature. Even if we manage to re-locate this will costs enormous amounts of money because a lot of big cities are built near the coast.

I think you don't realise what a couple of degrees of global warming really means.

I am not sure which aspect you are referring to. Are you talking about:
- the use of the temperature in pre-industrial times as the baseline, or
- using a single temperature (or single temperature anomaly) rather than a range of temperatures

Who was the “genius” who decided that the Little Ice Age (otherwise known as pre-industrial times) was the perfect temperature for the whole Earth?

Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It was a Climate Scientist who doesn’t look at actual temperatures. Having a temperature anomaly of zero makes any temperature look “normal”.

If the earth was abnormally cold in the Little Ice Age (pre-industrial times) then the temperature recovering to normal (i.e. global warming) is probably a good thing. — Agree to Disagree

Both.

It's a convention, like I said, and makes some sense considering the industrial revolution was the time we started burning fossil fuels, and therefore emitting CO2, which was indentified as a greenhouse gas. But ultimately it doesn't matter what point you take as a starting point, what matters is absolute temperatures and rate of change.

It would be a good thing if all we did was return to pre-little ice-age temperatures, but that's not the case, we going to temperatures not experienced for 100.000 of years, and the rate of change is probably unprecedented in all of earths history.

I am comparing temperature changes (and rates of temperature change) with temperature changes (and rates of temperature change). Your body can't tell the difference between +1 degree Celsius from global warming and +1 degree Celsius from seasonal warming.

Most people don't live at the global average temperature. People live at locations which have their own local temperature range. Alarmists want you to believe that any temperature increase anywhere is bad. But there are many places in the world where a small temperature increase would be good. — Agree to Disagree

No, it's about 1) extreme temperatures on the one hand, and 2) how fast those are rising on the other.

1) No matter how slow you raise temperatures, we couldn't handle boiling water. There's a maximum of temperature combined with humidity we can handle.

2) Animals and plants have evolved strategies to deal with seasonal changes in temperature, they shed their leaves, they hibernate, they go dormant etc etc... They don't have strategies for dealing with extreme temperatures on top of seasonal changes.

There are more people living in places where increase in temperature is bad, India, Africa etc... Those people will need to move if warming continues because of wet-bulb temperatures, rise in sea-level, failing agriculture... Where do you think they will go?

But more importantly you're missing what it entails for ecosystems. Animals and certainly plants can't adapt to this rapid change in extremes because evolution is a much slower process than the current rate of change caused by climate change. This means a lot of earths ecosystem is or will die off.

Consider Canada. Canada is a very cold country. Nearly all of the major cities are near the Canadian/American border, to be as warm as possible. Even being near the border it is cold.

Do you think that Canadians are worried if they get a new extreme temperature which is a little bit higher than the previous extreme temperature?

Not all extremes are bad. — Agree to Disagree

I don't think they were that happy with the 2021 heat wave that killed more than 800 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave

And it's not just a little bit higher... changes in extremes are bigger than the average global rise in temperature, and changes in nothern hemisphere averages are also higher than rises in global average.

Also billions of climate refugees will cause problems regardless of whether some rise in temperature isn't that bad locally in some places.

Another mistake that climate scientists make is to just use a temperature anomaly. This represents just one temperature (the pre-industrial temperature plus the temperature anomaly). — Agree to Disagree

This is merely a convention, so that they talk about the same thing... it is not a mistake, but a choice, one could maybe argue about, sure.

But humans don't live at just a single temperature, they live at a range of temperatures. I have calculated the range of temperatures for each country. From the countries "average high temperature for the hottest month" to the countries "average low temperature for the coldest month".

Why haven't climate scientists done this? Is it because the size of global warming is small compared to the size of seasonal temperature variation? — Agree to Disagree

We don't need to calculated average high or low temperatures, because we know them... because we keep track of them? This seems like a weird thing to focus on.

Also don't forget about the speed that global warming is happening at. Global warming is currently about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius per century. This is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 degrees Celsius per year.

Many locations on Earth have a 20 to 30 degree Celsius temperature difference between winter and summer. Let’s call it a 25 degree Celsius average. These places warm by 25 degrees Celsius in 6 months. This is equivalent to 50 degrees Celsius per year.

50 degrees Celsius per year compared to 0.02 degrees Celsius per year is warming at a rate 2,500 times faster than global warming. All humans, plants, and animals, have evolved to tolerate this speed of warming. — Agree to Disagree

You're comparing apples to oranges. You're talking about the difference between local extremes, while climate scientists talk about the difference in global average temperatures.

A rise in global average temperature of say 1 degree, also means a likelyhood of extremes that are many times that 1 degree. This is really important to realise... record temperatures are continually being broken by a lot more than the global average temperature rise.

And also important to realise is that we do not experiences averages, but we do experience the extremes... a couple of days of extreme temperature is enough to kill a lot of people, animals, and plants and crops. Averages are just there to track the evolution of warming.

And what's up with doubling 25 to 50? You got to be kidding me.

Plants and animals have evolved to tolerate seasonal change in temperature, but not to tolerate higher or lower extremes. This is not open to discussion, or something to be settled scientifically, but well know fact at this point.

So it really comes down to this: how much faith do you have in your own species? People who hate humanity will just be bitter no matter what. People who love it and believe in human genius, will see that there's a way. — frank

There's a third option. I think these problems precisly come from being to smart, from being to succesfull. We managed to outsmart the ecology we came from, outgrew and degraded it in the process... and may ultimately fail because we do still depend on it. Icarus was smart too...

If his point is that some countries won't coöperate he obviously does have a point.
— ChatteringMonkey

Yea, we'd need a global government probably. Or if a new power source was just so much better and cheaper than fossil fuels, that would do it as well. — frank

Yeah, but then a global goverment comes with its own set of problems, a heavy bureaucracy would be one of them. And a lot of power attracts all types of nasty figures invariably, so i'm not sure that would do it. But maybe some type of seperate organisation that gets funding and power specifically to tackle this problem could help... I don't know exactly.

It's not only about the raw energy, but also in what form it comes, how easy is it to use etc. Nuclear fission for instance probably can compete with fossil fuels on Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), but the problem is you can't turn it on or off at will like fossil fuel plants... it's mostly a base load, and what we need is peak power.

And maybe more importantly, we need fossil fuels not only for energy, but for all the derivatives, like plastics, chemicals, fertilizer etc etc etc... For instance we do not know how to make fertilizer in an economically viable way without natural gas. This means we need to rethink and remake our entire agriculture if we want to produce enough food without cheap fertilizer.

The same is true for most of the economic sectors. We literally need to rethink most of them from scratch, because they organically grew out of cheap and easy to use energy and the readily available waste and byproducts of refining oil and gas. It's hard to overstate the enormity of this exercise, because years of iterative innovation on these existing processes and enormous amounts of capital investements need to be throw away to basically start over.

Ok maybe I can buy that to some extend, a lot of people aren't really all that politically motivated at all.

But saying they want to combat climate change, isn't really true insofar as combatting climate change precisely entails less of these things they really want. That's a bit like saying, I want to be a top athlete, but I don't want to train for it... then you don't really want to be a top athlete.

I guess part of the problem is that contempory poltical ideologies give them justification for believing that they can have both consumerism as they have it now, and combat climate change at the same time. Maybe that's precisely part of their appeal, in democracies especially where the majority of votes determine who's in power.

If his point is that some countries won't coöperate he obviously does have a point. Whatever Russia says in COP related meetings, it won't reduce its extraction of fossil fuels because its entire economy depends on exporting that stuff.

And Russia isn't alone. Most countries have been making promises that they apparently have no intention of fulfilling. The issue is internationally recognized at least since the Kyoto protocol of 1992. And emissions only have gone up since, eventhough the whole idea was to limit and reduce emissions... This is more than 30 years ago, why would things suddenly change now?

And if one looks deeper into the energy-economics of it, I think it quickly becomes apparent why we have failed. Fossil fuels are the economy. That's the dirtly little secret nobody wants to acknowledge... because acknowledging that ultimately also means acknowledging that we probably can't have a world with 8 billion people having a reasonably affluent modern life-style.

This is where all the cognitive dissonance comes from, from all sides of the political aisle... at some point the issue of climate change (and the ecological crisis more generally) clashes with some aspect of the ideology one holds dear. And then we tend to deny the things that clash with the ideology, because it's harder to change deep seated valuations and ideologies than denying reality. Conservatives will often flat-out deny climate change or deny the consequences, liberals and socialists will deny that we can't just change our economy by swapping out fossil fuels and keep our affluent life-styles at the same time... and greens will deny that we can't return to some prestine garden of eden type earth.

I don't think anybody really knows BC. Global warming is typically presented in averages, 1° C, 1,5 C, 2° C rise in global average etc... actual temperatures we experience are not averages, and can fluctuate from year to year, place to place. This is by the way probably the biggest issue with climate change, that the extremes will get more extreme... We don't need an average to have people die, or crops fail, one day of extreme weather is enough.

What we are experiencing now could be an outlier, el nino combined with some other chance-events, and temperature could return to the quote unquote "normal" expected climate change adjusted temperatures in the coming years. But it could also be that climate is changing faster than we expected. I don't think tipping points have been incorporated into climate modelling al that well yet, and the IPCC and scientists in general do seem to be on the conservative side in their estimates to avoid being seen as alarmist/unreliable. "Faster than expected" does seem to be a phrase that comes up alot.

Yes it just depressing, imagine this 20 years further, and probably minimum another 1° C of global warming on top of it. We'll have to deal with this the rest of our lives... but don't worry things have never been better according to idiot geniuses like Steven Pinker, Hans Rosling and like, because the numbers say so!