I suspect that good responses to the article would deal with its 'theory of adaptation' and possible socio-economic organisational strategies that might work irrespective of the doomy-gloomy plausibilities. — fdrake

So I'm thinking about what I might do as say a gardener, in terms of perhaps building in micro climates to allow a greater diversity of plants, in contrast to a sort of conservation attitude, kind of encouraging adaptive change in the ecosystem. Grapes in Scotland already, between the raspberries. Baobabs in case it turns dry between the sitka. Eco systems will tend to move North, so help out the slow-moving bits, like trees.

Let them eat words... A me'afisicll poem.

I want you (I don't want much).

I want you
To feel the heart beneath my skin
And honour flesh and blood within;
To let me be as rich or poor
As Nature, and to give me more.

I want you
To know me more and tell me less,
Forgive what I do not confess,
And take the pain I cruelly give
With joy, and let my cruelty live.

I want you
To be whatever I should choose,
To be yourself for me to use,
To let me win and never lose,
To be the fool that I abuse.

I want you
To leave me free and hold me tight,
Make love in ecstasy all night,
But let me sleep till morning light
And make my wrongs to you all right

I want you
To let me know that I am wise
And always do as I advise.
Love honour and obey, and I
Will want you till the day I die.

I've stumbled into this with in economic and financial debate, the phenomenon of the existence of the so-called permabears. Now a permabear forecasts the imminent collapse of the stock market and the financial system. He or she sounds like a breath of fresh air to the very annoying permabull-people trying to sell you stocks and who see everything through rose-coloured glasses. — ssu

The odd thing about this analogy is that you seem to have it the wrong way round. The permawarmers acknowledge that every few years, the temperature will go down for a bit but overall, the long term trend is steadily or unsteadily upwards. And the permafrosties are always saying it's going down or is about to go down, and the reason for it going up is not the reason that has been theorised for 100 years, burning fossil fuels raising CO2 in the atmosphere, but random woo and the hot air of climate scientists.

I'm not sure why you're fixated on my textbook. — frank

Because you keep hitting me with it, and because you haven't mentioned when repeatedly asked, any other source for your opinions.

They computer simulate. — frank

My turn to patronise. Yes dear, that's right, clever scientists collect a lot of data about the past and from that they produce a model or algorithm that dynamically matches the data sets (to an approximation). And then they use the same model and the current data set to extrapolate to the future. And always the data sets are partial, the models are partial and the predictions are tentative. And this means that a scientist can be reputable, and not stupid, and still get their predictions wrong. So there's no need to slag them off when you disagree with them, or compare them with astrologers and conspiracy theorists.

Don't tell me what I know, you @£$%^*. I'll tell you what I know, which is that the past and the present are the only things anyone whatsoever of whatever repufuckingtation has from which to extrapolate anything at all about the future.

And where is that reference? Or are you unwisely extrapolating from text books you've seen on other topics?

What do you want me to back up? — frank

I want a reference to this text book you keep talking about as if you've read it for a start. I know you can't predict the future, so I already know that "the next decade might be cooler" means exactly nothing at all. That the climate varies I had already surmised.

But you don't have the title or author of the textbook for us, so I have to assume he or she is not a reputable scientist. Stop the fuck shooting the breeze and pretending to be an authority and back up your bullshit with something.

Thanks for the factless reference-less patronising condescension. Sea-levels may fall as well as rise, terms and conditions apply.

This paper is not the venue for a detailed examination of all the latest climate science. However, I reviewed the scientific literature from the past few years and where there was still large uncertainty then sought the latest data from research institutes. In this section I summarise the findings to establish the premise that it is time we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today.

[...]

The warming of the Arctic reached wider public awareness as it has begun destabilizing winds in the higher atmosphere, specifically the jet stream and the northern polar vortex, leading to extreme movements of warmer air north in to the Arctic and cold air to the south. At one point in early 2018, temperature recordings from the Arctic were 20 degrees Celsius above the average for that date (Watts, 2018). The warming Arctic has led to dramatic loss in sea ice, the average September extent of which has been decreasing
at a rate of 13.2% per decade since 1980, so that over two thirds of the ice cover has gone (NSIDC/NASA, 2018). This data is made more concerning by changes in sea ice volume, which is an indicator of resilience of the ice sheet to future warming and storms. It was at the lowest it has ever been in 2017, continuing a consistent downward trend (Kahn, 2017).
Given a reduction in the reflection of the Sun’s rays from the surface of white ice, an ice-free Arctic is predicted to increase warming globally by a substantial degree. Writing in 2014, scientists calculated this change is already equivalent to 25% of the direct forcing of temperature increase from CO2 during the past 30 years (Pistone et al, 2014). That means we could remove a quarter of the cumulative CO2 emissions of the last three decades and it would already be outweighed by the loss of the reflective power of Arctic sea ice. One of the most eminent climate scientists in the world, Peter Wadhams, believes an ice-free Arctic will occur one summer in the next few years and that it will likely increase by 50% the warming caused by the CO2 produced by human activity (Wadhams, 2016).4 In itself, that renders the calculations of the IPCC redundant, along with the targets and proposals of the UNFCCC.
Between 2002 and 2016, Greenland shed approximately 280 gigatons of ice per year, and the island’s lower-elevation and coastal areas experienced up to 13.1 feet (4 meters) of ice mass loss (expressed in equivalent-water- height) over a 14-year period (NASA, 2018). Along with other melting of land ice, and the thermal expansion of water, this has contributed to a global mean sea level rise of about 3.2 mm/year, representing a total increase of over 80 mm, since 1993 (JPL/PO.DAAC, 2018). Stating a figure per year implies a linear increase, which is what has been assumed by IPCC and others in making their predictions. However, recent data shows that the upward trend is non-linear (Malmquist, 2018). That means sea level is rising due to non-linear increases in the melting of land-based ice.
The observed phenomena, of actual temperatures and sea levels, are greater than what the climate models over the past decades were predicting for our current time. They are consistent with non-linear changes in our environment that then trigger uncontrollable impacts on human habitat and agriculture, with subsequent complex impacts on social, economic and political systems.

He might be wrong. He might be horribly wrong. You might want to check some of those references, he might be a snake oil salesman, or a self-publicist. But the sea level is rising, the ice is melting, global temperatures are rising, atmospheric CO2 levels are rising, Global average temperatures are rising, he's not wrong about that stuff, is he?

And perhaps just consider... he might be right.

80mm is about 3 inches, which is not very much at all, until it's 3 inches of water in your living room, and then it's way too much. Too much because no sewage, no electric and probably no fresh water. If he's right that the changes are nonlinear, then the next 3 inches might not be 25 years away, but 10 years, and the next 3 inches only a couple of years after that. I will be a refugee by then, as I live on the coast.

The issue is not whether it's impossible. If the scientific community truly believed that human extinction is possible due to climate change in the next ten years, this would be of tremendous import. — frank

Frank, there is a prediction made in one place, of social disruption, and even collapse in ten years or so.
And you have attached that timeframe to another section entirely that makes other claims. In introducing the article, I have given highlights, and left out lengthy discussions of evidence and reasoning. And you have mashed together bits of sentences in the most unfair way in order not to have to consider anything that might upset your views.

Has anyone read the article yet?

Different people speak of a scenario being possible, probable or inevitable. In my conversations with both professionals in sustainability or climate, and others not directly involved, I have found that people choose a scenario and a probability depending not on what the data and its analysis might suggest, but what they are choosing to live with as a story about this topic. That parallels findings in psychology that none of us are purely logic machines but relate information into stories about how things relate and why (Marshall, 2014). None of us are immune to that process. Currently, I have chosen to interpret the information as indicating inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe and possible extinction.

The above is a quote from the article that will be under discussion in just a few more pages, hopefully, and is a replica of the last quote in my opening post, without my added bolding. So the last sentence expresses the author's interpretation of the evidence he has presented, and obviously, in context, allows that other interpretations are possible. And being a generous minded fellow he doesn't even insist that other interpretations are idiotic lunacy, or disreputable. My understanding is that the author considers human extinction a possible consequence of climate change. I think one would need that time machine to confidently say it was impossible.

Has anyone actually read the article, by the way?

Here's how that reads to me: "I (, unenlightened,) also do not know enough about epistemology to realize why a claim like that is a problem." — Terrapin Station

And that reads to me like you cannot provide any justification and so resort to ad hom.

↪unenlightened Take a breath, unenlightened. I'm not your enemy. — frank

Nice one Frank! Like I'm the one making unsubstantiated claims and disrupting your thread. You are the enemy of an interesting discussion, and like I said I'm not giving you the last word. You are the enemy of reasoned debate because you make unsubstantiated accusations in an attempt to pre-empt debate, and now you claim I'm the one with a problem.

A claim like that is sufficient to not take the paper seriously. — Terrapin Station

Reason that, or just be quiet, because a claim like yours is sufficient reason not to take you seriously, without an argument, maybe some references to support it, which the author has already.

You don't know what a reputable scientist is, Frank, and you are totally unreasonable. What basis do you have for saying the author is not a reputable scientist other than that you don't agree with him? You still haven't provided a shred of evidence or a single reference, or any indication you can even read properly.

I'm just suggesting that people refer to reputable scientists. There are a lot of them out there. :) — frank

You are not going to have the last word on this one Frank. You do not have the reputation yourself that would allow you to say that the author is not a reputable scientist. I have provided evidence that he is, and he has provided copious references to support his claims. You have provided nothing but smoke.

And I will not let your baseless accusations go unchallenged, as long as I am able to post. Perhaps when you have finished, some of us will be able to start discussing the article.

Remember folks, refer to reputable scientists before seriously considering the lunacy mentioned in the OP. — frank

Remember folks, this idiot has no qualification in the field, and likes to make up random accusations that he cannot begin to justify.

As I thought, you're the idiot. You have made zero contribution to understanding anything, provided zero new information or perspective, and wasted a deal of time with baseless ad homs and insults. Thanks.

Thank you.
And now let's go back to your qualifications for calling Dr Jem Bendell, a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (UK), an idiot.

Did you not see that Marchesk quoted you? But I'm glad to hear you're backing down on that. — frank

Do you not see that in my post that is a quote of the article? So it is not my words. Will you now withdraw your false claim about me?

↪unenlightened No one suggested you did. You were just talking about human extinction (for some odd reason). — frank

I want you to point out exactly where I talked about human extinction or withdraw the claim, because I think you are making shit up about me.

I think it's fairly clear what is a quote and what are my own words in my posts. But in case it isn't, I have not myself used the phrase "mass extinction" in any post in this thread.

I understand. You have no qualifications whatsoever, you just like to pontificate on what you think is idiotic.

I'd like to see your qualifications for calling this guy an idiot. Otherwise I'll just treat your remark as idiotic.

Just to be clear, this not some way out nut job cherry picking statistics to make a radical fruitcake conspiracy theory. This is an expert in the field.

Dr Jem Bendell is a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (UK).

He focuses on leadership and communications for social change, as well as approaches that may help humanity face climate-induced disruption.

A graduate of the University of Cambridge, he had twenty years of experience in sustainable business and finance, as a researcher, educator, facilitator, advisor, & entrepreneur, having lived & worked in six countries. Clients for his strategy development included international corporations, UN agencies and international NGOs. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recognised Professor Bendell as a Young Global Leader for his work on sustainable business alliances. With over 100 publications, including four books and five UN reports, he regularly appeared in international media on topics of sustainable business and finance, as well as currency innovation. His TEDx talk is the most watched online speech on complementary currencies. In 2012 Professor Bendell co-authored the WEF report on the Sharing Economy. Previously he helped create innovative alliances, including the Marine Stewardship Council, to endorse sustainable fisheries and The Finance Innovation Lab, to promote sustainable finance. In 2007 he wrote a report for WWF on the responsibility of luxury brands, which appeared in over 50 newspapers and magazines worldwide, and inspired a number of entrepreneurs to create businesses in the luxury sector.

There's no way to make an accurate prediction like that. — Marchesk

There is a way, You type the words on a lap top and then click "post comment". Science is all about predicting the future. Weather forecasting is not totally accurate, and yet it is done with some success, without the aid of time machines. Perhaps 1 hour has not been long enough for you to read and absorb the paper, and so you resort to criticising my down and dirty headline teasers. But come up with something bit more sensible and less cliche ridden. This is a serious, well researched, thoughtful paper. Ignore it if you like, but your scorn reflects more on you than on anything said here, so maybe ignore it in silence?

I think to try and deal with this in terms of rebels and conformists is a mistake. All one can say with any confidence is that the atrocities of a rebel will not be so extensively repeated as those of a conformist, not that one is better than the other in principle.

For example, when an attempt is made to set down the principles of the conditions under which it is immoral to conform, as you want to do, one must declare that to rebel against these principles is always immoral. But we don't need to start from scratch here: https://museums.nuernberg.de/memorium-nuremberg-trials/the-legacy-of-nuremberg/birth-of-international-criminal-law/

It seems obvious to me that things take place within the concepts of past present and future. — Andrew4Handel

It seems far from obvious to me that things take place within any concepts at all. It seems to me that things take place in the world.

It's a debilitating affliction, not a philosophy.
— unenlightened

That's a matter of opinion. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was talking about my wife, and she agrees with me. You can say it's a matter of opinion, but that too is a matter of opinion, and your opinion is worth rather little on this occasion, not having met the lady. What is not a matter of opinion?

Things are usually valued over time. — Andrew4Handel

You come out with these things as though they are evidently true. It's not true. things are valued at the time; memories are valued at a later time. I too value memories, and prefer happy ones. But you persist in playing a game with time whereby you look from a place that you cannot look from in order to make a negative pronouncement on the place where you are. If this conversation is worth having, it's worth having it when we have it, and if it's worth remembering, it will be worth remembering when we remember it. What it isn't worth to an imaginary Andrew who doesn't exist and doesn't remember at some other time, is a nothing - a mere verbal trick.

Was it worthwhile seeing the film now — Andrew4Handel

Here's the switcheroo on display for all to see. No, it wasn't worthwhile now because you've just specified that I don't know what you're talking about now.

It was worthwhile seeing the film then.

However death erases (completely) the self - the very thing that desires meaning. So, death makes life meaningless. — TheMadFool

It makes no sense to me. A daffodil is a beautiful thing, though the flower only lasts a few days. It is still a beautiful thing if I do not see it or if no one sees it, and it will still be a beautiful thing when I am dead as it was before I was alive. Death makes life limited, not meaningless. If you argued that a life with no joy or beauty is meaningless, I might believe you, but infinite duration bears no relation to meaning.

Or am I just a believer in Eurocentrist science that doesn't get the point of decolonization of science? — ssu

I'll have a short go at arguing this to be the case. Let's assume for now that there is a scientific method, a blueprint that applies universally to anything one might wish to study. And let's grant that it is impartial and objective in all the relevant senses. Still it is the case that scientific practice is subject to other considerations and forces. Take medicine, for example. It is much easier to get funding to research a field that promises to produce a patentable remedy, than one that might produce an equally effective remedy that is un-patentable - eg a diet.

Now consider how much research effort has gone into looking for racial and sexual differences of intelligence, personality, and so on. Allow that it has all been done with impeccable scientific methodology, still one can ask why this is the thing that matters, or rather who does it matter to?

In other words, science is not just method, it is institutions, it is embedded in society that directs its enquiring gaze howsoever objective and impartial, at some questions and not others. And here is how it can be used against a culture :

"There is no scientific evidence that...XYZ"
But if the society that controls science finds it convenient not to know XYZ, there will never be any scientific evidence, though another culture may have known it informally for millennia.

Birth and death are temporal boundaries to my being the way my skin is the spacial boundary of my being.

I am small and the universe is large; I am brief and the universe is long-enduring. That there are times and places I wot not of, does not render my life pointless. I have made a point, I don't have to make all points.

And it also isn't a rhetorical thing when I say that I'm realizing more and more that I've unconsciously edited out the negative parts of these memories. Kids are dicks, kick over other kids sandcastles. Perfect memories usually are founded on near-perfect repressions. These idylls feel uncomfortably close to the idylls of nostalgic germans or russians circa when its relevant — csalisbury

Yes, I'm not really in the nostalgia business as such, because (a) it was crap at the time, and (b) it lead to this. I hope I'm doing something more interesting, which is to start to tease out some of the forces behind social change. I am partizan in finding a certain worldview abhorrent and destructive, but I'm not promoting the good old days at all; they were worse in many ways and more competitive in someways, more humiliating, more cruel. I'm only trying to illustrate a distinction, and open up a possibility.

If you lend me £50,000, I promise you I'll buy back the old forum. — S

I have the money ready for you, which I have inherited from my uncle who was the minister for exciting things in Nigeria, and is unfortunately a bit dead. I just need your bank details, and £500 to complete the probate papers, and I will be happy to transfer all the money and a £10,000 agents fee to you at once.

A lot to go at here, so forgive me if I ignore some stuff. First, a defence of my memory, from a very brief google:

I think you are reminiscing about a past that never really existed but perhaps I'm wrong. — Judaka

And if that doesn't teach you to respect your elders, I don't know what will.

Humiliation can be defined as depriving someone of their previously held pride. Double-checking with Wiktionary, it can also be defined as making someone humble, i.e. endowing them with humility.

Here’s a possible monkey wrench thrown in: humility is not always a personal negative, as humiliation is understood to always be. — javra

I think this is more or less in line with what I have beens saying: I want to stay away from positive and negative, because these constructions are reflexive. If humility is a virtue, then it gives status and is a source of pride. This is a rabbit hole of paradox I acknowledge but would like to simply avoid because the conversation will become impossible.

But generally, we are playing in the field of competing images, and some images are supported by power structures. So if I think I'm a damn fine philosopher, but everyone else on the site thinks I'm a pedantic old fart and not worth talking to, then my self image is liable to be challenged. I don't know really if I want to say that there is a fact of the matter or not - I have in mind Van Gogh not selling a painting in his lifetime... Still he had artist friends. Here, the images with power are those of the moderators and any who already have their respect (see the feedback again?). If they think I'm not worth talking to, then that cannot be ignored the way an ordinary member's opinion of me can.

Those who identify with a zero-sum worldviews shall always be humiliated in being made humble. In this worldview, to not be on top of others is to necessarily be trampled by those who are on top. Here, to be humble is to be trampled upon as someone else’s inferior (and being trampled upon is here always shame-worthy).

The same entailment does not apply to those who do not so identify with zero-sum worldviews (egalitarians included, I presume). More likely, here the “other” is found to be those who strictly pertain to a zero-sum worldview of winner/looser relations—regardless of their physical attributes (be they rich or poor, etc.). That guy who was filmed standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square (hope most know of him) seems to serve as an example of this personal identity type: He didn’t lose pride in so doing, — javra

This is quite interesting to me. It looks as though there are in the case of the guy in front of the tanks, 2 conflicting world views, both of which might be zero sum, but with opposing signs ... the guy is hero or villain he is humiliated or the army is humiliated.

If so, then it doesn't quite get to the place I am wanting to contrast with zero sum. There is nothing ordinary about the guy or his act.

To others, there is a general argument to be made for closing less discussions and deleting more or finding other ways to deal with them. That's something we'll take on board. — Baden

I think one thing that makes closures more attractive here is that it leaves a trace, and the moderation is otherwise almost totally invisible. If only we had proper Pauline software.

I suppose that if you could exclude all doubt from your mind, you would have absolute certainty. I do not think that this is humanly possible. You mentioned "absolute doubt", so I assume that this would be to exclude all certainty. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is peculiar. As if doubt is some ubiquitous and penetrating miasma that will infect any mind not entirely closed. As if, as I open my front door, I am in some doubt as to whether the street will be outside. No, no, no. I don't in the least doubt as i spoon the instant from the jar into the cup, that when the water is added it will taste a bit like coffee, only not as nice, that the precipitation I see through the window is water and not gin, unfortunately, I don't have to grit my teeth and not think of bizarre improbabilities with great difficulty. I am certain of these things. One cannot live in universal doubt, because there simply isn't time. I could conceivably doubt any of these things, but I couldn't conceivably doubt everything - that is the philosopher's fiction, because one would have to doubt that the words mean what one thinks they mean and so whether one's doubt itself is something or nothing. I rest in the certainty that I am talking sense and folks can understand me, that folks are going to read this and get the meaning. I have no doubt of it, though I dare say I could imagine a scenario in which it would not be so.

My partner is like this when it comes to arithmetic. She starts a calculation, but never quite believes the result she gets and has to go back a check it, and double-check. And by then she has lost her place in the original problem and has to start again. It's a debilitating affliction, not a philosophy.