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!

Definitely, developing and using what are still called alternative sources of energy the main sources is huge, though I’m on the fence about nuclear energy.
I read about plants using nuclear waste as fuel, which is great.
You may be very correct about an entire new system needed to implement new energies. — 0 thru 9

Nuclear energy is fine. The waste is not that big of a problem, certainly not compared to other issues we have with carbon emissions. The only downside with nuclear is that it is hard to build... it's expensive, needs a lot of skilled people and takes a while. Because of that we couldn't really built them fast enough - even if we wanted to - to phase out fossil fuels in time to stop further warming.

But the skeptic/cynic in me wonders what kind of calamity it would take to dislodge the ‘elite’.
(By which I mean the robber barons and tycoon tyrants).
Would have to be a heck of an upheaval to separate that dog from his bone!
I probably could easier envision agonizingly slow adaptation of bio-fuels as long as they are profitable for corporations and their elected pals.
Difficult to say really, at least for me. — 0 thru 9

Well there will always be elites, right. The question is what kind of elites. Now they are able to float over and between nations and communities because of our globalized world. They can go "shopping" with different governments to get the best tax deals, etc... and are completely unmoored from any particular community because of the sheer scale of things. Globalization like we have it today, might be one of the things that has to go... and then, yes who knows what will happen.

I wonder if we were raised on a steady diet of bullshit, about who we are and what is possible.
If not bullshit, then we are metaphorically feeding on a mixture of gourmet food and broken glass.
(And besides the metaphor, the standard diet offered to humanity wouldn’t nourish a rat).
Welcome to the machine, my child… may you ride the glorious contraption to the heavens!
(Try not to get in the way of the machine though because it crushes everything in its path). — 0 thru 9

We certainly are raised on a steady diet of bullshit, but then that isn't new exactly... since the dawn of civilization ideologies have been created to serve as propaganda for the ruling class. This is maybe a bit of a tangent, but it's not that surprising nor will it change any time soon I'd think, because it seems that reason has developed as a means to justify ourselves to our peers... or put another way rather than truth or reason strictu sensu, 'rationalization' is what we seem to be geared for.

Every culture molds its young to fit in with the group, whole or tribe.
Which is fine and natural, unless the culture happens to be close to insanity.
The average person follows their orders with body exhausted, mind confused, and heart aching. — 0 thru 9

It's a fine line. It seems to me we do need a culture, some kind of group that share a story and we feel a part of... but then it can easily flip to dehumanization and aggression because of in-group out-group dynamics. This is also one of the things we dropped the ball on in the West.

Yes.
Unfortunately, you may be right about more crises forcing the change traumatically.
I hope there’s a surprise happy ending somehow. — 0 thru 9

There's no ending I would say ;-).

I’m not completely convinced by the arguments listed here… sorry to say.
We could and should develop all our potential, and be positive amid the storms.
Desparate times call for a cool head, and a warm heart.
Not sword-swinging warriors who take no prisoners (another toxic role we’re taught).

I don’t view history as gigantic failure of humanity, and the phrase ‘ideal moral standard’ is somewhat problematic, in my opinion.
Of course, becoming misanthropic is a sign that something is dreadfully wrong.
I theorize that when one tries to follow the contradictory, toxic, and impossible advice and standards of our civilization, instead of training the mind with clear awareness and vision, we will live in something akin to what TS Eliot called ‘The Waste Land’.
The waste land is here now (I’m not the first to say), where the good are uncertain, and the bad filled with energy and are ready to battle. — 0 thru 9

Framing things in term of good and bad is a moral way of looking at it. That's fine, if you want... I'm just saying one can take different perspectives on these things, and also be just as (partially) right. The things is, any story we are going to tell ourselves about the totality of this vast amount of things that have happened in history, always has to be focusing on a few aspects and leaving out the majority of things not focused on... it's necessary only partial, a perspective.

But I agree with you that humans are not completely different from animals in every way.
Thinking that we are the center of all is one of our main misjudgments (human exceptionalism).
Humans at the top of the universal pyramid is as misguided as a flat earth as the center of all. — 0 thru 9

And I'd say, even in this misjudgment we are probably not exceptional. Doesn't every organism think itself to be the most important thing?

No, I think you should go radical ;-), but not in the typical way perhaps.

I don't think little tweaks will do it. Climate change, bio-diversity loss and related issues will not be solved with little tweaks to the system. Our entire global economy is set up around cheap fossil fuels. Swapping those out for processes that wouldn't have this negative impact, essentially means re-inventing the whole system. Regular politics cannot go there because there are always vested interests that stand to lose to much from that amount of change.

That's also the reason I'm not that high on the type of radical activism, or revolutionaries, that demands all kinds of drastic changes to be implemented, not because I don't think we should do them, but because I just don't think it will work. As a whole we will generally not decide to sacrifice short term tangible conveniences for some relatively far off intangible good. We are bad at long term planning, but reasonably good at short term reactive action. And so that is what I think will happen, because these problems ideally demand relatively long term planning and action, we will be late in solving them.

So where does that leave us one might ask :-)? I think some kind of crisis, or multiple crisis, will force our civilization to change. That is both the bad and the good news I suppose. Change will come, but probably not in the way we would draw it up.

What I do, is try to come to terms with that, manage my expectations, and try to develop some general skills that might be useful in a variety of uncertain circumstance. That is something I can do something about. To illustrate this maybe, one can look at this whole history as a gigantic failure of humanity to live up to some kind of ideal moral standard, what we could have done otherwise in some imagined counterfactual world etc etc... and eventually become a misanthrope. Or one can look at this bizarre history of a naked ape coming out of the savanna and consider it half a miracle that we even got this far. No other species voluntarily avoids overshoot either and eventually runs against the limits of its ecosystem when it has overcome its competition... we are not that different. The latter perspective is a bit more humbling and less judgement it seems to me.

Anyway, maybe this is not exactly what you were looking for, but it's what I got. And yes, it's by no means an easy thing to deal with, take care.

My last reply maybe makes it sound like I disagree a lot more than I actually do.

I know this narrative that claims the real issue is that Western culture is to much out to control or out to dominate nature, whereas ideally we should look more to be a part of and live in harmony with nature (like indigenous people used to do for instance).

All of this is somewhere tied to the notion that we as human beings hold a special place in the world and are not really part of nature (Ironically this setting humanity apart from nature is also part of the Christian tradition, but that's maybe besides the point here).

I think all of this is true to some extend. What I would say, and the point I want to make, is that this is only part of the story that focuses solely on the cultural aspects as if these are the prime cause.... and consequently, if we want to solve our problems we should aim to change this culture. This is what I object to. I claim that it's not the culture that needs to change in the first place, but the incentives, the circumstances... and then culture would follow along.

To make this a bit more tangible an example can help maybe. Take for instance the large scale mono-culture farmer vs the regenerative farmer. The latter is what we should do to improve our soils, preserve bio-diversity, procedure healthier food and sequester CO2 at the same time. At this point we kind of know this, or at least anyone who wants to know it, knows it. Yet very few go that route. At the end of the day, I don't think the main driver for this kind of behavior are our cultural values, but rather the fact that it just makes more sense in our current context to do large scale mono-culture. Because oil and gas, energy in general, has been dirt cheap for a couple of centuries, we can afford to fuel big machines to work large swats of land, we can afford to procedure in large quantities and drive food-surplus around all over the world and we can afford to use huge amounts of fertilizer made from natural gas etc etc...

What would tip the scales in favour of regenerative agriculture is energy prices going up, that is material conditions changing, not merely a cultural change.

My take on the LOTR and its possible implications for us… It seems to be that ‘thinking precedes doing’. Humans have many instinctual behaviors, but they are outnumbered by our many learned behaviors. Somehow, we as a civilization have come to a point where we allow and encourage treating the Earth like a limitless bank account. Take whatever resources that will make somebody some money. Because Progress! Progress! Progress! And thus teach this unconsciously to our children. (Hopefully climate change and other crises are making us rethink everything). — 0 thru 9

Ok. I don't think pursuing progress is some whimsical arbitrary decision we made at some point, and we then consequently "somehow" came to this point. Progress is where circumstance took us as tribes came into competition in a gradually more densely populated world.... the ones that were more advanced were generally the ones that persisted.

So what I think is missing in your story is why we came to teach these particular ideas to our children in the first place. I'd say because they made sense in their circumstances... it was progress or perish probably.

Also, I don't think learned behaviour is a bug, but rather a feature of human beings. As eusocial language using mammals, we need a process of acculturation to unlock our full potential. That's why we have an atypical long period until full adulthood, because our instincts are underdetermined and insufficient by themselves to function.

In our quest for a better life (whatever that may entail) we best remember that. Tolkien had the hero not grabbing the power, but throwing it away! Unheard of! Because that power was against that sustainable rule. It was power over the Earth and others, not power with them. Subjugation and domination was the Ring’s one absolute power. This is a game where the only winning move is not to play.

To those who say “but there is no other way!”, I’d suggest that if no other way currently exists, then we must build it. For what the Ring represents in our actual reality is the ultimate addiction which gives a temporary high followed by complete destruction. So… throw that Ring into the fire! :fire: — 0 thru 9

Yes the hero is Christ, turning the other cheek... surrendering power and therefor also life. We did try that for a while, in the West - as the only civilization on earth mind you - we had this inversion of values at the centre of our civilization.... and then we proceeded and conquered the world. So much for renouncing power!

It doesn't work because this is against the instincts... even if we are taught to think that, we cannot help but do otherwise regardless. So I wouldn't put my hopes on people throwing away power en masse. We already had Christianity for a couple of millennia and we are where we are anyway... Maybe we should try something else lest hitting ourselves on the same stone becomes fatal.

Ok, I’ll bite lol… Just for fun… how is the philosophy of LOTR “reactionary”? (I take that term to mean ‘wishing to maintain a status quo or return to a previous condition’). Perhaps Tolkien’s depiction of a devolving world where nothing is what once was? (Ahh… the good old days! :halo: :sparkle: ) — 0 thru 9

Yes this yearning for the good old days sums it up pretty much. Tolkien was coming from a world wherein Britain was the dominant world power, a perceived Victorian golden age... all of that was rapidly changing with the onset of world war one. He was also a devout Catholic in a time where the the faith was waning more and more after the dead of God. I think his writings can be seen as a manifestation of his wishes to go back to a pre-modern time, to some kind of idyllic place of authentic living (countryside England) isolated from the rest of the world that was marching on to its doom (the Shire vs Mordor).

Alas one cannot go back, but ultimately only move on, through, to something beyond.... to something new. In that sense his critique of the modern probably still stands, but his imagined solution may be of little consequence.

Lord of the Rings is good, I definitely enjoyed the movies, but as a philosophy it is ultimately maybe a bit reactionary.

There's a ton about this. But maybe Charles C Mann, the wizards and the prophets. It's an interesting read if you want to understand two very opposing attitudes vis-a-vis progress and technology, and how they shaped different aspects of our world and the environmental movement.

Or maybe Nate Hagens specifically for this topic, he has a youtube channel and podcast that tries to look at all aspects of our current predicament and it's fairly easy to digest.

I think (to be fair) you meant this first paragraph to be a disclaimer perhaps, before you commented about sustainability. (Sorry if I’m preaching to the choir, or even preaching at all. Not trying to write a manifesto lol). Many feel that our current situation is dire. That seems to have been the consensus for many years. The differences in opinion mostly concern possible solutions. So any potential ideas must be considered. (Though any ideas that are a shameless grab at power masquerading as innovation can be immediately dismissed of course). — 0 thru 9

Yes it was meant as a sort of disclaimer or framing of how I think one can sensibly speak about these kind of things.

Our situation is dire, I agree with that. Where I usually disagree is not only concerning the possible solutions, but also with the typical analysis being given for our situation. There are these cultural pessimists today who blame our general culture, or see our problems as a result of a kind of moral failing of our societies/ the human species. While these things play their role no doubt, I think these are mostly downstream of the fact that we happened to unlock fossil fuels when we did. As a social species there is always the temptation to moralize everything and look for culprits to blame.

What if there’s really and actually something from ancient / tribal cultures that can help on a large scale, as well as on a personal one? Even if I have great trouble even imagining the particular solution, the remedy appears coming from the past, from the simple people who came before us. I understand that we have a mistrust of anything seemingly tainted by being from primative people or by outdated mythology.

Of course, any partial solutions to be considered must be throughly examined and tested! Science all the way! (Hopefully disengaged from being under control by money). I say ‘partial solutions’ because there isn’t one big monolithic answer, I’m willing to wager. A patchwork solution, borrowing anything that works from anywhere it can be found!

At this point, we might do well to re-examine absolutely everything. — 0 thru 9

It's not my mistrust for the primitive, or any kind of feeling of superiority that makes me doubt the value of the ideas of these ancient cultures, it's just the acknowledgement that our circumstances are totally different now. I believe that our cultural ideas developed in tandem with the material circumstances we find ourselves in... that is, I don't think they are universal or fixed, but are mostly tailored to a certain time and circumstance. Today's world is globalized and high tech, and also more densely populated and ecologically damaged. This I would presume needs different answers than ideas that worked a couple of millennia ago.

But I'm totally on board with finding inspiration in or borrowing ideas from the past if they make sense now, sure why not.

“Ancient wisdom” is a cliché and a marketing ploy. It’s very popular. It is allowed to exist for sale as long it’s not too questioning. I have a suspicion that this “wisdom” is definitely not taken seriously on the highest levels of power. I imagine that is thought of as quaint at best. (Even if some of the more clever leaders read ‘The Art of War’ and ‘The Tao Te Ching’). But are they honestly missing something? Or just pretending? Are the rulers of today content and happy with the status quo, simply because they are the rulers? (That’s my guess, unfortunately. But if rulers, elected and otherwise, are not leading well, then such people are part of the problem and lose all credibility). — 0 thru 9

Of course there are varying levels of understanding among leaders, as there is among people in general, but I think insofar they realize what's going on, they are rather clueless as to what they can do about it, and scared of the public backlash that is likely coming their way when things do go south. One shouldn't overestimate their individual power, they are always embedded in a party-political context wherein promises are made to their constituencies and stakeholders. Their problem is that, even if they wanted to, they probably couldn't implement the policies that would be a real solution to the problems we have because these typically don't have enough political support.

I voted other, because I think the idea that civilization should be a certain way is misguided. We invented civilization and keep on re-inventing it as we go along and as circumstances change... there's nothing like it that came before, no ideal model we can compare it to. So imbalanced compared to what? Some kind of imagined ideal balance? Nature perhaps? But nature isn't necessarily balanced either, sometimes it can reach temporary stable states for some duration, but that is by no means a given.

That said you can look at it and evaluate it from certain perspectives. And sustainability is probably not a bad one, because it is of particular importance to us as we rely on the civilization we are a part of. And then looking at your definition of unsustainability, maybe we should add critically to it, because probably no civilization since the dawn of civilization has been really sustainable. Any mineral or fossil fuels resource use is ultimately unsustainable by that definition because it typically takes millennia to replenish those.

And as a last caveat, sustainability is also a function of total population size because if you deplete your environment it helps if you can just move somewhere else. Hunting and gathering with 8 billion people on earth wouldn't be sustainable either.

So what I would say is that our civilization now is critically unsustainable mainly because we use way to much energy :



Most of this energy comes from fossil fuels, so it is finite by definition. Because we can extract them at a relatively low cost, energy is underpriced as long as this one-time endowment from the earth lasts. And because it is underpriced we were able to build our civilization around all kinds of processes that would otherwise be to wasteful and to costly. It also allowed us to artificially inflate world population to numbers that could not be reached otherwise, and can probably not be sustained without this.

All of this has had a number of by now well know adverse side-effects on the bio-sphere, but aside from that the issue for our civilization is that we have come to rely on this energy-surplus and probably cannot easily wean off of it as we run out. That's why I'd say it is critically unsustainable.

The reason indigenous governance and harmonious living with nature won't save us should be clear, we are with 8 billion people living in a globalised high tech world... that is a totally different world from the one in which indigenous people developed their ideas.
— ChatteringMonkey

The idea that the environment needs to be safeguarded because it is essential to life scales up just fine as far as I can see. — Pantagruel

It doesn't work because in a global economy you get outcompeted by those that cannibalize the environment for any kind of edge... so then there's a systemic pressure against this idea. I personally like it to be clear.

Also I would say that there is a real tension between feeding all of the worlds population and safeguarding the environment. At this point we probably need to continue large-scale mono-culture to get high enough yields... and this is highly destructive for the environment, so much so that it is probably the main cause for bio-diversity loss.

I was talking about a bigger transition to managing the environment on a global level; managing the transition out of a growth model, managing the transition to non-carbon based energy sources. But more, what would we have to become to carry those changes forward on a permanent basis? A global government? A new religion?

I think if you want something to become real, you have to imagine it. You can't bring about change by wagging an index finger. You know? — frank

This sounds reasonable, but I don't think this is how it actually works, at least not on the societal scale. How many times in history has a giant transition really been the result of people imagining a new world? I would guest not that many times.

How we get to a new system, is the previous system breaking and being forced to adapt to new circumstances. Necessity is the mother of invention.

This is also why people are having difficulty envisioning the future now (and why I think all current political ideologies are totally off base), we can't predict and see past a phase shift.

One-hundred percent. Presumably there will be an increase in the general level of social awareness, out of which consensus emerges the forms of governance we deem acceptable. In Canada, there is a growing trend where the government sponsors and supports indigenous-led environmental initiatives.
e.g. Natural Climate Solutions
Area-based Conservation

I'd go one better, and get behind indigenous-led governance. Our indigenous groups have always attempted to live in harmony with nature. It's an attitude whose time is long overdue. If you look at the real numbers of politicians involved criminal self-promotion in violation of the public trust, the need for a really new approach seems clear. — Pantagruel

In Europe there already has been a decent amount of social awareness of the problem. One war and energy-prices skyrocketing, and that social awareness gets thrown by the wayside... people will choose short term energy-security over long-term ecological impact every time.

The real issue is that our whole economy and society is built on fossil fuels. Aside from energy in the most dense and use-friendly form, plastics, steel, fertilizer, concrete, etc etc.... all the pillars of our economy are derived from refining fossil fuels. We have no idea how to replace those "on scale".

Advocates of a green transition, or green growth have no idea what they are talking about from any practical point of view (engineering, materials, financial, energy), it's pure political theory-crafting without any base in reality.

The reason indigenous governance and harmonious living with nature won't save us should be clear, we are with 8 billion people living in a globalised high tech world... that is a totally different world from the one in which indigenous people developed their ideas.

We do need a new approach yes, one that is serious about what can be done and takes all the different constraints into consideration.

If the goal is in reducing the environmental impact of humanity in the planet, my focus is terribly flawed. If it's the other goals I've pointed out, it's not. — Hanover

I think attaining these other goals cannot be separated from humanities impact on the planet. It's not only about people having different values, but also about not fully thinking through or acknowledging the ramifications and impacts of climate change and other ecological issues we are facing now. If we do little to mitigate, we'll have a progressively harder time to increase or even maintain standards of living.

I do share your scepticism about the effectivity of global cooperation on this. Geo-political interests and competitivity-loss make it very difficult. But at the same time, if shared interests become high enough in maintaining some semblance of a liveable biosphere, maybe they can come to some minimal deal.

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)"
— ChatteringMonkey

He was a poor, sick man. I wasn't. Different experiences lead to different conclusions. — Vera Mont

I don't think so, It's probably as close to an universal human psychological truth you can come. Maybe you could say he probably saw it a bit more clearly because of his illness.

Some do, some don't; some find it, some receive it, some invent it; some join organizations, armies, movements to be "part of something greater than themselves", some prefer interactions on a small scale, some are loners; some crave ideals, or truths or certitudes; some crave power, wealth or social status; some crave love but will take revenge instead; some cry, some laugh, some lie, some work, some pray, some fight; all die. — Vera Mont

Sure, I'm an atheist and I don't have any particular need for religion, I just think a lot of people probably do.

I don't think it's about fear necessarily.

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)"

I think we want to see our actions framed in a larger whole ideally, so they become infused with some kind of meaning.

So I think Mao actually was consistent in his logic to implement the revolution. Tradition and religion are stabilizing and crowd controlling forces. If your are serious about creating a communist society, you do need to get rid of those... hence the cultural revolution.

But then what, is the real question? It's not as if we, once we get rid of tradition, once we get rid of these controlling evil forces, that we magically start living peacefully all together. Something does need to come in its place. And since we erased the past, in the short term, it can only come in the form of some ideological artifice, top-down imposed... and untested, unproven and unrefined in the real world. Is it really a surprise then that these experiments have invariably been worse then what they sought to cure?

But some leftist atheists during and just after the war came to believe that there was something in the secularized culture of modern Europe that allowed totalitarianism to happen. European antisemitism at the time of the Nazis had become scientific in character (we now know that it was pseudo-scientific, of course). It took up the older religious tradition of antisemitism and ran with it in a racialist direction, so it was motivated and justified differently than it had been in previous centuries. So some pessimistic atheist social theorists blamed the very historical evolution of which the loss of religion's social importance was a central feature. From this point of view, it is something in the progress of secularization that led to totalitarianism and genocide (the instrumentalization of reason and all that). In other words, religion was being lost, and without anything to take its place, bad things happen. — Jamal

I made a similar point earlier, namely that secularization may in fact have created the space for these events in the 20th century. If religion has been a part of all but one civilization since the beginning of written history, it only seems a fair question to ask what functions it serves in society, and whether you can just cut it out without adverse effects.

I dunno, this whole idea, that religion is bad and that we therefor should just do away with it, seems rather shallow to me.

Me, I certainly wouldn’t say that atheism or secularism necessarily result in totalitarianism. The minimal point I suppose is that society can end up in oppression, war, and violence whether it’s religious or not, and therefore that these evils have other causes. The idea that it's all caused by religion is no better than a conspiracy theory. — Jamal

There have been totalitarian religious regimes too, yes, so maybe that's not the axis we should be looking on. What I would say is that religions have heavily curated traditions that only change slowly and are therefor typically more a force for stability than the other way around (Although Christianity may be a bit of a special case). As this influence wanes, you supposedly have more of a chance for societies to oscillate into extreme and unpredictable directions, like we have seen in the 20th century. Mao's cultural revolution is maybe the best example of this kind erasure of the past.