I'm gonna put this little video here as well as in the real thread. The problem with the topic is that there is a vested interest of the hyper-wealthy in fossil fuel use. This results in well funded propaganda and influence on politicians and media to the extent that people are being majorly deceived about the situation. The basic facts of climate change are settled science, the basic predictions are already being fulfilled. But still the lies are being peddled, the excuses are being rehearsed, here as everywhere else.

Millions are dying, and billions are in the firing line. Some of us are a little exercised about this. Please try to be patient with us.

"You can't bite your own teeth.". --Alan Watts — frank

But you sure can suck them!

Here is a simple breakdown of the state of play between the media and politics and climate change. My takeaway is this: If we do not reach net zero, the planet will continue to heat up, until we get to net zero. If that means going extinct, we will go extinct. Net zero doesn't mean not using any fossil fuels at all, it means compensating for what we use by sequestration of some sort, either biological or mechanical.

There is also a nice breakdown of the propaganda we are being fed; see how much you can recognise and how much you have unwittingly absorbed.

We are more efficient digestors compared to gorillas only if we can mechanically cook/process our food. Our shortening of the digestive system represents a loss of efficiency of digestion if we must eat like gorillas eat but a gain in efficiency if we can cook, cultivate and grow our food. Is this correct?

What mode/process is more efficient than what mode/process given the relevant inputs/outputs. — Nils Loc

This implies that cooking is just externalised partial digestion, as flies vomit digestive juices onto their food and suck up the breakdown products. More generally, 'efficiency' is very often just an externalising of a process. A human with a chainsaw is more efficient than a human with a handsaw, if one ignores all the human effort in building a chainsaw and refining the petrol and so on.

Thus the search for efficiency is motivated by laziness, which is the great engine of progress. Most people will work like donkeys; only the lazy will take the trouble to arrange for donkeys to do the donkey work.

10 Years After a Breakthrough Climate Pact, Here’s Where We Are

Emissions are still rising, but not as fast as they were. — SophistiCat

Or to put it another way, despite 40 years of warnings and analysis and many developments of alternative energy sources, we haven't even stopped increasing the rate at which we are make things worse, never mind starting to decrease it. We are still getting further away from net zero, and at the same time and in addition, carbon sinks are collapsing, and becoming carbon sources.

And of course even reaching net zero, if we live long enough to start heading that way, will not stop climate change for many centuries afterwards.

I don't claim to have all the answers either - just the right ones. :cool:

So all three claims rely on romantic inversions of meaning rather than reasoned argument. They sound mystical, but once unpacked, they offer no coherent defence of suffering or imperfection. — Truth Seeker

What is your evidence to the contrary? You can claim the meaning of words as evidence, but then you are retreating from factuality yourself. But there is a religious tradition of asceticism that is by no means romantic, that regards voluntary privation as a spiritual discipline, and even mere athletes regard pain as a barrier to be overcome.

Likewise physicists often say that the more one knows the more one is aware of the extent of one's ignorance. In the case of God, He is a simple. He can know everything, but he can also create the unknown-to-Himself. He can hide things from himself, just as you can shut your eyes to some things.

For God, to create is necessarily to create the ungodly, that is creation. Creation is lesser than the creator and thus imperfect. But though imperfect and superfluous, creation adds something to the perfection that is God.

But let me tell you my position. My real claim is that reality cannot be constrained by words. If there is God, words cannot force him out of existence, and if there is no God, words cannot argue Him into existence. So a careful truth seeker will not try to prove with words the existence or non-existence of anything, but will be content to say merely that they have had no experience and found no evidence of God, unless and until they have had such experience or evidence.

Suffering is good for the soul.
Imperfection is better than perfection.
Knowledge creates the unknown.

There's going to be a lot of adjustments to be made by all of us, most of which are likely to be fatal. And there comes a time when the lifeboat is full, and one must fend off desperate swimmers or all will drown. If you are that desperate, then do what you must. Until then help your fellow suffers, because you might need another's lifeboat yourself one day and your home may become uninhabitable.

Tehran might be the first megacity to become uninhabitable.
https://www.intellinews.com/day-zero-aproaches-tehran-as-water-reserves-drop-below-5-410347/?source=Iran

The risk of drought is not much reported, but will probably be the first mass catastrophic result for humans. Millions of people and the taps run dry. But never mind, they're foreigners. There are many other cities at risk from drought, as well as those from sea level rise of course.

At it's most basic, having a belief is just holding that some statement is true. — Banno

I guess you believe that statement is true, and I would almost agree, except that I have never to my recollection articulated the statement or assented to it. It seems to me that many, perhaps most beliefs are not articulated in thought or language. I don't have to have the thought that I can get to my feet from this chair and walk out of the room, I don't have to have the belief, if belief is always 'in the statement', I just need the habitual act. Just as the cat has no access to statements and beliefs about them, but manages similarly to get up and leave the room. To act as if p, is to believe p without thinking 'p'. And I think that should explain how "bias" comes in too; bias is also an unarticulated tendency to act as if p; eg. 'I'm not a racist, but...'

@Banno

Don't we need to better understand what "ought" means in ordinary language before we can be sure that "O" (and all the formal moves we can make with O) captures this? — J

The bus ought to be here at 8:00 AM every day (according to the timetable). But it isn't always or inevitably.

Ordinary language has use for 'ought' exactly in cases where there is an ideal that may not be realised The bus has fallen from the state of grace; it has sinned against the timetable, and in such a lamentable condition, what ought to be is not what is. The bus is late, or worse, early. My thesis is that one only uses the term in cases where 'what is' departs from 'what ought to be'. I only say 'Dogs ought to have waggy tails' when I come across a wagless dog tail, or a tailless dog, or some other aberration. There's always an implied complaint that the world is out of sorts and not up to my high standards.

So I would say I don't need a formal logic to prove this, to suggest otherwise is not to understand the grammar of language. What ought to be isn't, and what is ought not be. Far too often! By definition!

I wrote this yesterday, and then thought I might be interrupting your reading. Coming back to it, I am struck by the "according to". I think philosophers should probably cite their source whenever they use the word.

According to probability theory, a fair die should roll a six on average ...
According to current physics, the smallest mass that can sustain fusion of hydrogen to helium through gravitation should be ...
According to unenlightened, philosophers ought to cite the source of any obligation they present.
According to Jesus, we should love our enemies.
According to the law of the UK, one ought not use a phone whilst driving.

What ought to be is someone's idea of things, not the way it is.

The sensation of flying is pleasurable. So go jump off a cliff.
Falling is exhilarating, but landing is unpleasant.
Therefore, bungee jumping.

Philosophy is rather stupid about feelings. Life cannot be reduced to the calculus of pain and pleasure or any one dimension of positive and negative, even after allowing that consequences are complex. Consider chronic negative states for example: — ennui, anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance, stress.
What may alleviate ennui, might well increase stress or anxiety.

Call no man happy until he is dead.

Solon, according to Herodotus.

Because a life worth living makes a story worth telling, and unmitigated good is no story at all; it needs the relief of a crucifixion.

It is uncontroversial that pleasure can lead to pain, and happiness to misery. And vice versa. It is worth getting tired and sore gathering food and fuel for the winter. And there is joy in overcoming fear or pain in some achievement; indeed it is some such difficulty that makes it an achievement in the first place.



Or consider satisfaction or contentment - the condition of not seeking either pleasure or to avoid pain. This might be a happy state to be in sometimes, but supposing it could be prolonged, would lead to an empty, apathetic life.

And all this without mention of the complexities of social interaction - the happiness of my friends and neighbours is essential to my own happiness, and when things go wrong with you, it hurts me too.

Yeah, good news. Rooftop solar builds in resilience. Amazing that they survived the storm so well.

Oh and mass migration too, nearly forgot that. — Punshhh

Do forget it, it is a nonsense. Nobody needs to starve in the US because of an influx of migrants until the warming gets really really bad and food is actually running short. People are going hungry and being conned into blaming migrants instead of being grateful for their work in food production, and blaming Trump and project 2025.

discussing China’s role in tackling climate change — Mikie

Despite being the biggest emitter today, however, China’s 11% share of cumulative emissions since the industrial revolution is much smaller than that of the US (20%), which has a population of one quarter the size of China.
China also ranks lower than many other major economies when it comes to per-capita emissions. In 2019, its per-capita emissions were slightly higher than the global average, but similar to Germany’s, about half those of the US and one-third those of Australia’s.

https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/index.html

The CO2 output of the nation’s power sector – its dominant source of emissions – fell by 3% in the first half of the year, as growth in solar power alone matched the rise in electricity demand.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that record solar capacity additions are putting China’s CO2 emissions on track to fall across 2025 as a whole.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-solar-growth-keeps-chinas-co2-falling-in-first-half-of-2025/

What's to discuss? Only the bullshit excuses of the Greedy and Wilfully Ignorant.

In the beginning God created everything, blah, blah. And Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden forever. Happily ever after. The End.

There's no story at all without evil. So the question can only be about how evil is treated in the story. I haven't watched the series so I cannot comment in detail, but in principle, I would suggest that a move away from the strict rules of separation of heroes and villains, white hats and black hats, cowboys and Indians, is long overdue.

That the hero is the villain, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, is nothing new in the world, but somewhat rare at least in US cinema tradition. So it's all in the treatment of characters, and the details of the message conveyed, that I don't know about.

But that we are the goodies and they are the baddies, is a dangerously complacent message that must surely encourage intolerance and divisiveness. Avoiding that message gets a preliminary in-principle thumbs-up from me. :up:

Well you get some points for effort, I suppose. :cool:

I always saw Harry as an annoying contrarian hack. — Janus

Our eyes coincide.

Have to wonder how much Chinese companies are making — jorndoe

I think China has just leased half of Siberia for 50 years for tuppence ha'penny. I doubt if there will be anyone to claim it back when the lease is up. I think Russia is close to collapse.

partly for low quality, and partly for obnoxiousness, — Jamal

:up: Yes please, thank you. If you're going to be obnoxious, you gotta have some class.

The rich countries should be helping the poorer ones electrify responsibly with renewables, but the rich countries (e.g., America) can't even fund food assistance programs for their own people. — RogueAI

No. They can, of course they can, but they don't want to. The US crisis is deliberately created with malice aforethought. Disaster economics are being used to accumulate wealth in a few hands and the mass of the population is being deliberately impoverished, disempowered, and angered, because they are no longer needed by the rich and powerful. The economy used to run on mass production and mass consumption, but automation and 3d printing makes the mass of people unnecessary. The psychopaths no longer rely on the rest of us for their power. The plan is to get rid of most of the people, and sort out the climate later.

The last mass-production factories will be producing autonomous hunter-killer drones.

Is mere survival even a universally desirable goal? Does everyone want it? — baker

Mere? I'm not going to speak for everyone, or most people, or universality. Are you merely asking questions, or are you seriously asking them?

I don't know what to make of this. There are people who at least behave as if they would rather die than live without their car. But for thousands of years, everyone managed without a car. Does that answer anything?

:up:

“China is the engine,” said Richard Black, the report’s editor. “And it is changing the energy landscape not just domestically but in countries across the world.”

If Beijing is trying to wrest the future of energy from anyone, it would be the United States, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer and exporter. The Trump administration has eliminated almost all federal support for renewable energies and has pressured countries to purchase American fossil fuels as part of trade deals.

The falling cost of renewable energy, though, means that many countries, particularly poorer ones, have a strong incentive to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

Mikie's link above.

Oh, the US is the biggest oil and gas producer? Let's look at coal instead. Why do we still have to waste time on this nonsense. We have to phase out all the fossil fuels, and the sooner we do it the less disruptive and catastrophic it will be.

And adaptation is what we also have to do anyway, and the slower we are at stopping making it worse by stopping burning fossil fuels, the more stringent our adaptation will have to be. And none of this is remotely controversial.

But what makes it water? Why is it water as opposed to acid? — Bob Ross

I don't generally give chemistry lessons for free. In brief though, acids and alkalis are water based solutions containing ions H+ and OH- respectively, along with some varied partner ions of the opposite charge. It is the absence of a preponderance of either H+ or OH- ions that makes difference between neutral water and acidic or alkaline water. This is what humanity has learned by careful study and experiment, that you can learn about in a good history of science text. Now you tell me what you have empirically learned about the essence of water.

↪unenlightenedFine. They just built 100 coal power plants, but they're going to give those up in favor of solar. — frank

↪unenlightened I wasn't fixing the blame. I was pointing out the main obstacle to fixing the problem: — frank

No; you were pointing the finger and setting it up as an excuse to do nothing and claim innocence. And it's not fine, it's reprehensible, that you are distorting the facts in order to do so.

A country that builds 100 power stations of any kind in short order clearly is a developing nation: your denial is false. Fortunately they are developing so fast as to be already past the heavy industrial revolution and well into the electronic and green revolutions, to the extent that they have overtaken the West.

I was pointing out the main obstacle to fixing the problem: — frank

Yes and you were pointing in entirely the wrong direction.

The largest generator of renewable energy by a country mile is China. In 2023, clean power made up 35% of China’s electricity mix, with hydro the largest single source of clean power at 13%. The growth of renewable power generation in China has been colossal since 2000, far outpacing other countries worldwide. For example, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined in 2022, then doubled additional solar the following year. However, China’s position as a country heavily dependent on fossil fuels cannot be overlooked.

https://energydigital.com/top10/top-10-countries-using-renewable-energies

That is a misleading graph. The problem is not just coal, and not just the last 40 years, and furthermore, the slight decline in consumption in the West is the result of the export of manufacturing to Asia and China. Show the graph for the whole of the last century, and things would look very different. Show the consumption as weighted by population size and it would also look very different. Include oil and gas, and it would look very different.

Blaming the developing world for climate change is hypercritical nonsense. The West is still the main culprit, and has the wealth, education and responsibility to be the leaders and helpers in both adaptation and mitigation. But it is in fact Asia and especially China that is really leading the development of green energy technology.

This is what unenlightened has been driving at -- how do we designate one form of damage "natural" and the other "unnatural" other than to say this is what the speaker prefers? — Moliere

The engineer's attitude to sex is that holes are designed to be filled by shafts with matching threads. You are one of God's bolts and you have to find the right hole to screw yourself into. A rather robotic attitude to creation. Like those specialist insects with a proboscis designed to fit a particular species of flower. Though in this case, only the flower is having sex and being deflowered, the insect is just dining. "One insect's meat is another flower's orgasmic procreation." Who knew that honey was the ejaculate of interspecies sex?

Let's do it by example and start with an easy one. What makes water water to you? — Bob Ross

I don't understand the question. Water just is water. Nothing makes it water to me. Do you mean how do I tell something is water and not white spirit, pure alcohol, or hydrochloric acid? Or how do I tell it is water and not the spirit of forgiveness or a brick?

Apparently, the Inuit make bricks from water, and make houses from the bricks and live in them. I put tiny water bricks in my gin and tonic sometimes.

Notes from underground.

↪jgill It’s because it's the last single digit, and it sorta gets reset to 0 when you get to 10. People have historically attached meaning to that fact I guess. — Dogbert

That is a somewhat superficial property, a feature only of the modernish decimal system. It does have more ancient significance as the number of the fates, and the muses. It is associated with the nine months of gestation and female deities in general. The triple triple is the first number to have a central unit as its core, (as has any product of two odd numbers arranged as a rectangle). And 3 is the sacred number of the Trinity and of the ancient Triple Goddess, at least according to Robert Graves, in "The White Goddess".

Anyway, your choice has a traditional significance that makes it appropriate to your topic. As to "brute" being the ground of all being. Well only a brute would maintain that. :wink:

I'm going to confess some wokeness. (I think that's what it is.) Until I watched the little video below, it had never occurred to that it had never occurred to me, that female psychopathy might be a thing.

The video details somewhat the difficulty of getting the PhD topic accepted by any university, and funded because it was seen as negative towards women. It's quite interesting and important, I think, to anyone concerned with the caring professions.

Wokeness: — is to behave AS IF only white males ever did anything bad.

Is that right, chaps?
And from that place,

Wokeness: — is to treat any and every criticism by any white male in particular, or any white dominated institution, of an oppressed group, "X" or any member thereof as "Xist", without consideration as to the possible truth or validity of that criticism.

So herewith, my apology and retraction of any sexist wokeness in relation to psychopathology.

It's also possible that our activities will lead to mass extinctions, which isn't 100% a bad thing, since these cycles dominate the universe. — ProtagoranSocratist

Yeah, I was at school during the Cuban missile crisis, so I've been expecting to go extinct for over 60 years now. But I think it is 100% a bad thing; I think humanity has some potential.

Are you wanting a precise equation where someone could plug in the values for the variables and it spit out "is this nature"? — Bob Ross

I don't know; I wanted to know how you arrived at your certainties. You speak of 'empirical' as though you can look at nature and see essences ... I can make nothing of it, I think you are hallucinating.

Hmm. 2 months since my last post, and 4months since anyone else's.

There really is nothing to discuss is there? It's all our funerals, and so no one will attend.

Celebrating the official passing of the first tipping point.



And a short discussion of the psychology of climate activism.

This is of course, completely fake; but keep smiling.

There are many here among us,
Who feel that life is but a joke. — Bob Dylan

Ok, I concede. I understand even less than I did when you began of what you claim. I shrug, dismiss and move on. You have no criteria, just endless unsubstantiated pontifications. Your empirical essences are fantasies.

But seriously, for a moment, a 'mass delusion', is by definition not a mental illness but a social one - and that has profound implications. It becomes a great stretch to maintain the medical model at all.

To put it bluntly, if you can see my delusion, then either you are in my mind, or the delusion is out there and to that extent not a delusion. At the moment, I suspect the former is more likely.