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Author Topic: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat  (Read 35055 times)

AbruptSLR

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #50 on: April 21, 2015, 01:25:06 AM »
According to the linked article (see extract below), NASA apparently concurs with Elon Musk that it is advisable to colonize Mars in order to help secure mankind's future.

http://stgist.com/2015/04/nasa-mars-mission-congress-hearing-3028

Extract: "But in addition to protecting Earth, Mr. Bolden said a manned exploration of Mars would allow us to step away from “being Earth-reliant”, and become a more “Earth-independent” civilization. In short, reaching Mars is also about securing the future of us, humans, in the midst of the vastness of the Universe. Keep in mind, we only have ONE planet — so why not make it two?"
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #51 on: November 03, 2015, 04:11:00 PM »
The linked PNAS reference indicates an increase in morbidity & mortality in middle aged non-Hispanic white Americans in the 21st century.  Further trends for the use of robotics and climate change stress may extend such trends:

Anne Case and Angus Deaton (November 2, 2015), "Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century", PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1518393112


http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112


Significance: "Midlife increases in suicides and drug poisonings have been previously noted. However, that these upward trends were persistent and large enough to drive up all-cause midlife mortality has, to our knowledge, been overlooked. If the white mortality rate for ages 45−54 had held at their 1998 value, 96,000 deaths would have been avoided from 1999–2013, 7,000 in 2013 alone. If it had continued to decline at its previous (1979‒1998) rate, half a million deaths would have been avoided in the period 1999‒2013, comparable to lives lost in the US AIDS epidemic through mid-2015. Concurrent declines in self-reported health, mental health, and ability to work, increased reports of pain, and deteriorating measures of liver function all point to increasing midlife distress."

Abstract: "This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall. This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases. Rising midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in midlife morbidity. Self-reported declines in health, mental health, and ability to conduct activities of daily living, and increases in chronic pain and inability to work, as well as clinically measured deteriorations in liver function, all point to growing distress in this population. We comment on potential economic causes and consequences of this deterioration."

See also the three attached images from the following associated linked article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-group-of-middle-aged-american-whites-is-dying-at-a-startling-rate/2015/11/02/47a63098-8172-11e5-8ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html
« Last Edit: November 03, 2015, 04:18:32 PM by AbruptSLR »
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #52 on: March 25, 2017, 04:08:47 PM »
The linked article is entitled: "Climate change is more than a tech problem, so we need more than a tech solution".  Due to the limit window of opportunity for timely responses, and due to the scale of our current 'overshoot' situation; I do not believe that the recommended combination of "small is beautiful" systemic social change and "green" technology, will not be sufficient to prevent a socio-economic collapse (circa 2045 to 2060); nevertheless, I believe that both such efforts will help the generation that survive the coming collapse, and thus I support such triage efforts.

https://ensia.com/voices/climate-change-social-fix/

Extract: "Climate change mitigation requires systemic social change, not just technological optimism.

A systems approach to solving problems requires that we look to root causes and seek interventions that change patterns of outcomes.

Climate change is just one of many related sustainability problems that the world faces. In addition to rising atmospheric CO2, we are approaching or have already exceeded multiple other planetary boundaries — such as fresh water, nitrogen, phosphorus and biodiversity loss — that CO2-mitigating technologies cannot solve.

A systems approach to solving problems requires that we look to root causes and seek interventions that change patterns of outcomes. The root causes of climate change are not technologies such as coal power and industrialized, chemical-intensive agriculture, but the underlying social and cultural systems that created and locked people into these technologies through unsustainable patterns of consumption, growth and inequity.

A common critique of our argument is that problems such as women empowerment and meat consumption are simply too big, too wicked, too complex to solve. This is, however, a psychological hang-up that is not backed up by evidence. The power of small-scale change, whether through incremental and place-based intervention or relatively innocuous “nudges,” is increasingly evinced in ongoing social change, including around issues such as women empowerment and meat eating. Additionally, psychological research suggests that people are generally more comfortable with small-scale change than they are with large-scale reform, which is salient in this age when environmental problems and their possible solutions are so heavily politicized.

Many of today’s most widely debated solutions to climate change fall into a category that emphasizes technological optimism and top-down, engineered solutions. The strategies we highlight here largely fall into another category: solutions that emphasize place-based, social and behavioral innovations. We are not arguing against technology reform. We are arguing that climate change is not, fundamentally, a technological problem.

To be sure, social problems are not easy to solve, but neither are they intractable, unless viewed only from a global, one-size-fits-all perspective. If we use the tools of social innovation alongside technological innovation and embrace a socially focused and place-based approach to our global climate change and sustainability challenges, we will be far better off for it."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Bruce Steele

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #53 on: March 25, 2017, 09:30:51 PM »
AbruptSLR,  Those of us pursuing ' small is beautiful ' solutions but old enough not likely to live until the 2045-2060 transition are challenged with transferring gained knowledge to those who will be living thru bottleneck times. Small farms and farming traditions have been under dissolution pressures for generations already . Even if the economic pressures of idiosyncratic personal desisions to march backwards don't result in insolvency there are likely no direct descendent family members willing to pursue similar life decisions . That is one of the reasons small farms and fishermen family traditions have been failing for the last two or three generations. Marketing our food products via modern communications does offer some relief however.
 I have had dozens of chefs and aspiring  farmers tour my farm operation . They value the quality of the produce , they value the ' small is beautiful ' ideals. Mycology, rare farm animals, truly free range chickens and eggs for their children to collect, green fields , fruit trees , zero carbon goals, all pike their interest. How many of them pursue similar ideals is of course impossible to know but I believe the ascetic is a large incentive. There has to be something besides allowing monetary decisions to drive every decision. Many will fail in pursuit but those who keep the dream alive will pass on this inheritance. The farm may eventually die but the vision is important nonetheless.

 


TerryM

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #54 on: March 25, 2017, 11:46:02 PM »
Bruce
I think documenting your journey here is an important way to reach those who will succeed you. While they may never visit your farm, or respond online, your writing may inspire others to take up your dream long after you've checked out.
Neven's site explores a facet of the most important challenge to humanity since the bottleneck caused by Toba 75K years ago. I imagine it will be studied as long as the internet is powered.
If someone had written Walking the Walk in the years leading up to the Santorini explosion, and it had somehow survived, I'd imagine generations of archaeologists would be studying every word.


Keep up the fight
Terry

Bruce Steele

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #55 on: March 26, 2017, 07:44:09 AM »
Terry, Sometimes re-reading a thread from begining to end reminds me , or scares me , into action.
Wanting less ,not more ,might be something I would add to the earlier posted lists. But maybe I am just an old man realizing my crap is going to be someone else's burden. "Want" , I believe , is on other much older lists we conveniently ignor.
 I recently lost my older brother.  My fond memories of our shared  youth evolve around very simple things like walking to school, riding horses in the desert, skiing on wooden skis . There is nothing unique about these sorts of fond memories of youth but somehow we live too much of our lives acquiring things that neither make us happy nor satisfy what needs might better please our overburbed planet.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #56 on: March 26, 2017, 07:10:47 PM »
AbruptSLR,  Those of us pursuing ' small is beautiful ' solutions but old enough not likely to live until the 2045-2060 transition are challenged with transferring gained knowledge to those who will be living thru bottleneck times.

Bruce,

I am distracted by other matters at the moment but I thought that I would post the following quote from Gandhi:  “Anything that exists is possible. And with possibility begins hope. And with hope, we can change the world."

Best regards,
ASLR
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Bruce Steele

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #57 on: March 26, 2017, 11:36:24 PM »
Terry and AburptSLR, How we tell our story is important. I mentioned interest from chefs in my operations and I would like to offer a couple examples of two chefs that have visited over the last two days.
 One returned for his second visit. On his first trip he brought his wife ,friends and family. I showed their children around , let them pet the wooly pigs and showed them where the chickens were hiding their eggs. We put the eggs in cartons and they took a couple dozen eggs home with them. A four year old carried a dozen eggs back to their car and was proud to get the eggs back to his parents without breaking them. As it turns out the chef is also interested in mycology as am I. I already have some experience in sterile culture and growing shrooms . The holm oaks I have growing are perfect candidates  for inoculation with truffle mycelia. As it turns out mycology, farming, pigs and acorns all share a nexus that may inspire this South African chef and his children . I certainly hope so anyway.
 The second chef as it turns out is interested in acorns. My pigs first attracted him but I believe our shared interest in acorns as a staple for the human diet may lead us both in interesting directions.
As it turns out he is of native American decent. Acorns were a staple here locally for thousands of years but even the native tribes have lost some important knowledge that needs to be reacquired . If chefs and restaurants can introduce the public into the culinary attributes of acorns I think my interest in acorns may be the most important knowledge I can help transfer to future generations( and this one ).
 I have already made some offers to give a local Montessori school a presentation on acorn processing and cooking. If together with native heritage and local chefs knowledgable in the best food presentations we might get kids to think of acorns as food and we might as a community be making progress .At the same time we can walk progress back a step or two.
 

magnamentis

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #58 on: March 26, 2017, 11:56:08 PM »
You are so cool!

A quick addition from here, since party time is soon despite all the trouble:

15  Immediate stop of lignite burning - and coal later, as you mentioned.

16  Manufacturers of machines and goods must guarantee proper functionality for 5 years - increasing to >20 years until 2030. Any repair of low-quality parts must be done free of charge. Planned obsolescence or use of life-time limiting parts is a criminal act.

17  The (energy & ressources) efficiency of the best product in a category is minimum requirement 5 years later.

18  Buyers of things must explain before the purchase, how long they will use it and where to recycle it after use. Without proper proof of recycling a new product of the same category is not allowed.

A nice New Year!

great stuff all

magnamentis

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #59 on: March 26, 2017, 11:59:11 PM »
Sure, guys.

Now tell us how we make those things happen.  You have a hidden army of super warriors you're going to bring to the fight?  Gulags for compulsive shoppers?

You're going to need a pretty strong dictatorship to bring all that off.  Perhaps model your new world government after Stalin's solution?

Can you take some of your goals (wonderful, some are) and work out practical ways they might be achieved?

that's why things are never happening till now, because immediately jumps in the guy who says it's not feasible. it does not matter, first one hast to know, then to advertise and spread the news what's to do and not talking things to death a minute after sharing the idea(s)

negativism is not helpful and basically an alibi (excuse) for: "i don't want" but i'm getting tired of all those guys and will concentrate and discuss things as well as go forward with those who take tasks on without talking for ever until it's too late.

EDIT: further it's condescending and stupid to assume that people who come up with great (correct) ideas are not able tho think and being aware of the difficulties. it's just that some do things and other talk why it won't work and while fear produces the expected outcome, fear of that it does not work is no exception, the result will be, nothing happens as we can observer over centuries and millenia, just with different tasks at hand but all that worked out only worked out because some brave guys took on the challenge and dealt with the details later.

sidd

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #60 on: March 27, 2017, 08:00:11 AM »
Re: "Why it won't work"

Precisely. I am quite tired of people telling me that personal efforts like switching off unused lights and changing my diet with the seasons, and planting trees and ... just wont work because it's just me, and it's too small, and it doesnt really count and i have no way of making everybody do the same.

But then, i mostly remember to just smile and tell them that I don't do this to save the world, just to save my own soul.

sidd


ivica

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #61 on: March 27, 2017, 08:38:11 AM »
Re: "Why it won't work"

Precisely. I am quite tired of people telling me that personal efforts like switching off unused lights and changing my diet with the seasons, and planting trees and ... just wont work because it's just me, and it's too small, and it doesnt really count and i have no way of making everybody do the same.

But then, i mostly remember to just smile and tell them that I don't do this to save the world, just to save my own soul.

sidd
ivica

OrganicSu

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #62 on: March 27, 2017, 12:05:11 PM »
Re: "Why it won't work"

Precisely. I am quite tired of people telling me that personal efforts like switching off unused lights and changing my diet with the seasons, and planting trees and ... just wont work because it's just me, and it's too small, and it doesnt really count and i have no way of making everybody do the same.

But then, i mostly remember to just smile and tell them that I don't do this to save the world, just to save my own soul.

sidd

EMPHATICALLY AGREE WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND WHOLE BEING.

I am trying to not even feel tired when I hear it. I want to let it flow past; No longer a rock in the middle of it's flow but up on the bank singing with glorious nature
« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 12:12:32 PM by OrganicSu »

Neven

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #63 on: March 27, 2017, 12:42:39 PM »
Thanks, sidd, I'll have to remember that one.
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

GeoffBeacon

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #64 on: March 27, 2017, 12:57:28 PM »
LIFESTYLES - MARKET BASED SOLUTIONS?

We cannot rid the world of the market-based politics that promotes polluting but affluent consumerist lifestyles - at least quickly enough to save the planet.

My faint (daft?) hope is that new products appear on the market - neighbourhoods, villages & cities that can provide pleasant lifestyles with jobs and a pleasant environment and a properly low (or negative) carbon lifestyle. These would become exemplars for the world to follow with local food, few cars (& much less traveling in general) and pollution free surroundings. Then the moral urge to do the best for the planet can have more expression in the way we live our daily lives.


They might be called eco-towns. Unfortunately, the "eco-towns" I know about are far from being eco - more like greenwash-towns.

Employment is obviously an important factor so I wrote  a submission to a "Commission of the future of work" set up by the UK Labour Party Deputy leader. It suggests ways of dealing with employment issues in a "sustainable" lifestyle context that fits our market economy.

Given the current state of the climate, it's probably a pipe dream but it can be down loaded from here.

Perhaps I should just try a pipe dream myself - but I don't know where to source the opium.
Il faut cultiver notre cité-jardin
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #65 on: March 27, 2017, 06:17:45 PM »

EMPHATICALLY AGREE WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND WHOLE BEING.

I am trying to not even feel tired when I hear it. I want to let it flow past; No longer a rock in the middle of it's flow but up on the bank singing with glorious nature

Per the attached words from Gandhi, what is in your heart and being is what counts & not some given attainment.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Red

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Re: Climate Change Triage - cutting out the rot and the fat
« Reply #66 on: March 27, 2017, 07:47:00 PM »
LIFESTYLES - MARKET BASED SOLUTIONS?

We cannot rid the world of the market-based politics that promotes polluting but affluent consumerist lifestyles - at least quickly enough to save the planet.

My faint (daft?) hope is that new products appear on the market - neighbourhoods, villages & cities that can provide pleasant lifestyles with jobs and a pleasant environment and a properly low (or negative) carbon lifestyle. These would become exemplars for the world to follow with local food, few cars (& much less traveling in general) and pollution free surroundings. Then the moral urge to do the best for the planet can have more expression in the way we live our daily lives.


They might be called eco-towns. Unfortunately, the "eco-towns" I know about are far from being eco - more like greenwash-towns.

Employment is obviously an important factor so I wrote  a submission to a "Commission of the future of work" set up by the UK Labour Party Deputy leader. It suggests ways of dealing with employment issues in a "sustainable" lifestyle context that fits our market economy.

Given the current state of the climate, it's probably a pipe dream but it can be down loaded from here.

Perhaps I should just try a pipe dream myself - but I don't know where to source the opium.

Our present market economy is a pipe dream. The following is an excerpt from Flassbeck with the link after:
 The problem is that green-blue infrastructure is now being sold as a strategy to tackle climate change. ‘Green capital’ (sic) is said to increase the resilience to climate change of our urban environments and our societies as a whole (see for example here). This is not even sheer illusion. It is utter and sickening untruth.

Resilience is the new buzz word. It is the ideology that says that it is possible to confront climate change – which increasing resilience does not do – while keeping power relations and capitalism, as it functions nowadays, intact. It is the TINA of environmentalism: whatever social forces do, change is impossible, capitalism is nature, hence, it is meaningless to discuss new forms of production, consumption and distribution. It is useless to speak about the sociology of the global system. This is environmental neo-liberalism, the ideology of COP21, the music that accompanies the sinking of the Titanic. Never before has society been less sustainable, never before there has been more pollution and more destruction of habitats worldwide. Never before has there been more commodification. Now the mainstream wants to improve our “resilience.”
http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/the-ideology-of-resilience-co2-concentrations-and-the-methane-bomb/