I am moving the following discussion over from the "Conservative Scientists & its Consequences" thread:
Quote from ASLR from Reply #659 of the linked thread:
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=1053.650"…. (see the Extract below from the Economist magazine) as based on science it appears that the majority of humans are not wired to deal well with the climate change challenge:
Rafael Wlodarski, John Manning , R. I. M. Dunbar, (2015), "Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women", Biology Letters, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0977
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/2/20140977http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roybiolett/11/2/20140977.full.pdfSee also:
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21642000-promiscuity-and-fidelity-seem-be-specific-biological-adaptations-theirExtract: "Dr Wlodarski and his colleagues calculate that cads outnumber dads by a ratio of 57:43. Loose women, by contrast, are outnumbered by their more constant sisters, but by only 53:47. Each of these ratios tends in the direction of received wisdom. Both, though, are close enough to 50:50 for that fact to need an explanation.
…
If their analysis is correct, Dr Wlodarski and his colleagues have probably stumbled on a type of equilibrium known to biologists as an evolutionarily stable strategy, in which a way of behaving becomes more advantageous as it gets rarer, and less so as it gets commoner. Cads succeed when dads are frequent, and vice versa. Neither can conquer and neither can vanish. Such equilibria are part of a branch of math called game theory—"
The Wlodarski et al 2015 work adds some scientific clarity for understanding the nature of the "Tyranny of the Commons" problem for climate change; as "Climate Cads" (CCs), with a high tolerance for risk for emitting GHG, constitutes about 53 to 57% of the general population; while "Climate Dads" (CDs), who prefer to husband the Earth's Systems for the benefit of future generations, constitutes only 43 to 47% of the general population. Furthermore, when "CDs" work towards a relatively stable society (such as now), "CCs" benefit and become more numerous; while when climate change eventually destabilizes society "CDs" will become more valuable and for some generations to come may out-number "CCs".
Wlodarski et al 2015's work adds perspective on why society pressures scientists (who may have a higher percentage of Dads than society-at-large) to set a relatively high/risky limit of 2 C; as due to thermal inertia in the Earth Systems "Climate Cads" can inappropriately advocate that they have emitted GHG for decades without any consequences, while "Climate Dads" have been overly cautious when they advocate for a lower limit. Due to such uncertainties (as cited by the "CCs") it is not possible to definitively predict how much damage would result from temperature rises projected by AR5 (putting aside the concern that these projections may well be too low); thus "CCs" have pressured the IPCC to set higher limits as "CCs" are in the voting majority and they have high risk-tolerance. "
To which in Reply #660 Lennart asked:
"And is there any way in which we can overcome the apparent tyranny of evolutionary stable strategies (other than possibly by extinction)?"
& in Reply #661 Lennart posted:
"Maybe Gus Speth has the answer:
http://www.thenation.com/article/196217/how-i-became-radical#'Radicalism'?"
My response is that the Tyranny of the Commons problem is a sub-set of the Tryanny of small decisions problem (see Wikipedia link and extracts below):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisionsExtract : "
Aristotle (384–322 BC) similarly argued against common goods of the polis of Athens:For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few.
Thomas Mun (1571–1641), an English mercantilist, commented about decisions made with a myopic, small time perspective:[T]hey search no further than the beginning of the work, which mis-informs their judgements, and leads them into error: For if we only behold the actions of the husbandman in the seed-time when he casteth away much good corn into the ground, we will rather account him a mad-man than a husbandman: but when we consider his labours in the harvest which is the end of his endeavours, we find the worth and plentiful increase of his actions.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (1851–1914), an Austrian economist, observed that decisions made with small time perspectives can have a seductive quality:
It occurs frequently, I believe, that a person is faced with a choice between a present and a future satisfaction or dissatisfaction and that he decides in favor of lesser present pleasure even though he knows perfectly well, and is even explicitly aware at the moment he makes his choice, that the future disadvantage is the greater and that therefore his well-being, on the whole, suffers by reason of his choice. The "playboy" squanders his whole month's allowance in the first few days on frivolous dissipation. How clearly he anticipates his later embarrassment and deprivation! And yet he is unable to resist the temptations of the moment."
With this "Tyranny of the small decisions" background, it is clear that the capital behind capitalism is the compounded delayed gratification (possibly produced by labor) owned by the wealthy that is provided to labor in order to produce more "goods". Unfortunately, capital without power produces nothing so consequently our current modern international capitalistic market place is driven by fossil fuel activated capital (plus resources of labor and material). In this sense, the "Climate Cads" that I discussed are addicted to the "goods" produced by modern international capitalism and are not currently willing to internalize the cost of the climate change related damage caused by fossil fuel to drive the capitalistic engineer that produces the "goods" they addictively want more and more of, even if this addiction means that future generations will likely suffer from societal collapse.
Obviously, the game theory mathematics of the "Tyranny of the small decisions" problem can be played in a very large number of ways in order to gain an improved Nash Equilibrium solution that considers both the common good of the whole planet and the "Social Cost of Carbon", SCC (see also Gus Speth's, JimD's and other's ideas in this thread for some of those solutions). Also, while there is no perfect long-term solution to the "Tyranny of the small decision" problem for climate change for all of society, I believe that it is possible to do much better than we are currently doing by implementing steps including the following:
A. The IPCC should issue small annual reports using projections from the CESM – H model and/or the annual projections issued by the ACME model as it is iteratively improved. Then the consequences of these impacts should be accessed using methodology such as cited by Weitzman (2014a), and then this Social Cost of Carbon, SCC should be added to a progressively increasing carbon fee and dividend plan adopted by COP21 in Paris 2015 as discussed in Weitzman (2014b).
Weitzman, M. L. (2014a) "Fat Tails and the Social Cost of Carbon", American Economic Review, 104(5): 544-46, DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.544
Weitzman ML. (2014b), "Can Negotiating a Uniform Carbon Price Help to Internalize the Global Warming Externality?", Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists [Internet], 1(1/2):29-49.
http://scholar.harvard.edu/weitzman/publications/can-negotiating-uniform-carbon-price-help-internalize-global-warminghttp://scholar.harvard.edu/files/weitzman/files/676039cannegotiatingauniform.pdfB. Any countries refusing to agree to the carbon fee & dividend COP21 plan cited in (A) should be subject to an equivalent tariff on all of their goods exported to the COP21 participants, and the participants should keep the tariffs until the "Climate Cad" countries sign on to the COP21 plan.
Best,
ASLR
Edit: The CESM - H projections can be found here:
R. Justin Small, Julio Bacmeister, David Bailey, Allison Baker, Stuart Bishop, Frank Bryan, Julie Caron, John Dennis, Peter Gent, Hsiao-ming Hsu, Markus Jochum, David Lawrence, Ernesto Muñoz, Pedro diNezio, Tim Scheitlin, Robert Tomas, Joseph Tribbia, Yu-heng Tseng, & Mariana Vertenstein, (December 2014), "A new synoptic scale resolving global climate simulation using the Community Earth System Model", JAMES, Volume 6, Issue 4, Pages 1065–1094, DOI: 10.1002/2014MS000363
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/2014MS000363/And the following link provides public access to the CESM-H model run outputs:
http://www.earthsystemgrid.org/Edit: For those not aware, discussion about Carbon Fee & Dividend plans can be found at the thread linked below:
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1068.0.html