[FRIAM] climate change questions

Wed Jan 1 14:44:09 EST 2020

Please see larding below.  

My larder is still broken, but it should work well enough.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 12:19 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] climate change questions

convict of what?

premeditated Gaia murder?

voluntary climate slaughter?

involuntary climate slaughter?

reckless endangerment?

conspiracy to commit climate change?

accessory after the fact?

[NST===>] All of the above.  

Not trying to be either specious or difficult. I would be ready to vote in favor of human activity contributing the "tipping point factor" but not the cause.

[NST===>] As a philosophy camp-follower, I am curious about the distinction, but right now we have a planet to save. 

The following is stipulated:

 - Dr. Kwok, et. al. are correctly reporting phenomena and consequences.

[NST===>] Is the whole jury prepared to “convict” on these counts?  I am sorry, I should probably stop punning on “convict”, here.   I guess the real question is, are these proposition upon which we are all prepared to act? 

 - The planet is getting warmer.

 - Human activities are a critical component of the cause, and the only factors that might be altered to partially ameliorate the situation.

[NST===>] Sorry, but the last part of the above was unclear to me.  Is there a missing word? 

But,

How to I analyze the models (I am unwilling to just take 'The Experts" word on the matter) and evaluate the importance of the various factors such that I can start to plan a course, mostly personal, of action.

What options are available to remediate the problem. What options might I adopt as an individual? What options must I try to convince the masses to adopt?

How to I avoid being exploited - by politicians seeking power, by opportunists seeking an income, from fraud like green washing?

[NST===>] Dave, it seems there are two threads here.  One concerns trust.  An expert is just somebody whom we trust to evaluate the data for  us when we are incompetent to do so.  I sense in what you write here an assumption that you are going to be able to make your personal decisions without having to avail yourself of trust.  But surely that’s a dream, right?  So the question is, “How are we to deploy trust?

The second thread is the relation of personal responsibility to group action.  Now I think that we can stipulate that group action is the only way we are ever going to have a solution to the climate.  It’s like what your mom told you about those Poor Starving Armenians.  If every mom served to her kid only the amount of spinach that that kid would eat, and shipped all the rest to Armenia, the Armenians would not have starved.  But no rational connection exists between my eating my spinach, and any Armenian child being fed.  So, in fact, if we actually cared about Poor Starving Armenians, we would have paid to send a boat load of spinach over there, and eaten whatever spinach was left over.  In fact, perhaps we should have Federalized the Guard, confiscated all the spinach, and sent it to Armenia. Because even if every kid ate all the spinach on his plate, and every,  mom served her kid only what he would eat, still, and all, THAT WOULD NOT GET THE SPINACE TO ARMENIA.  

Yet the quakers had a point, and Gandhi had a point, and there is a point to voting.  If no individual takes action, then no action will be taken.  

davew

On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, at 7:55 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:

Friammers:

Let’s constitute ourselves as the “climate change jury”.    The jury can have a conviction but only if we all agree.  Otherwise we remain a hung jury. 

So, does the Jury agree that with Dr. Kwok of JPL that “ … sea level rise, disappearing sea ice, melting ice sheets and other changes are happening”?

If, so, is the jury prepared to convict human activities for causing those changes?

I am polling the jury.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly

Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 11:27 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] climate change questions

>From NASA:

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/16/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-climate-change/

-----------------------------------

Frank Wimberly

My memoir:

https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 11:24 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> > wrote:

What scares me is recent assertions that we have passed the tipping point and there is nothing we can do about it.  I have no references.

Frank

-----------------------------------

Frank Wimberly

My memoir:

https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 11:09 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Dave,

I like these questions, and I think The Congregation should take them as a

challenge.

What can we-all, we who have long association, and a generalized (if

somewhat guarded) respect, come to agree upon with respect to climate change

and human activity?  By what process, with what attitudes, by what rules of

engagement, are we likely to arrive at ANY truth of that matter.  Because,

if we, here, cannot agree on some matters, agreement would seem to be beyond

human reach. 

So, for starters, I find I am inclined to disagree with your facts as

stated.  They seem to assert that Things (whatever Things are) are not as

bad as they were predicted to be.  Yet, I find, I am inclined to believe

that in fact Things are worse.  The only specific data I feel I have been

exposed to recently is ocean surface rise and glacial melting.  But even

there, I would be hard pressed to match your specific references to any of

my own.  So, I guess the conclusion is, I disagree, but I don't know what I

am talking about.  Ugh!

I could (after some labor) cite data to support the following concern:  what

we should be watching out for, perhaps more than long term climate warming,

is increases in year-to-year climate variability.  You can grow rape seed in

Canada and maize in the US, and as the climate alters, the bands of climate

supporting these two crops will move north.  But what happens if one year

the climate demands one crop and the next the other?  And the switch from

one to the other is entirely unpredictable.  Anybody who plants a garden

knows that only two dates have a tremendous effect on the productivity of

your garden: first frost and last frost.  The average frost free period in

my garden in Ma 135 days or so, but only a few miles away, it is as short as

90.  And while we have never had a 90 day frost year, we have had last frost

dates in June and first frost dates in early September.  It would take a

very small year-to-year increase in variability to turn my garden from

something that could support life for a year in New England into a 30 x 50

wasteplot.  

I think I could show you that the period in which we live, the Holocene, is

a period of remarkably low, year-to-year, variation in climate VARIABILITY.

I think I could convince you that everything that has occurred in the last

ten thousand years by way of civilization is entirely dependent  on that

anomalous stability.  The neanderthals were not too stupid to do

agriculture; the climate of the Pleistocene would not permit it.  The whole

idea of nation states depends on the idea that one can make more or less the

same kind of living by staying more or less in the same place and doing more

or less the same thing.  A return to Pleistocene year-to-year variation

would obliterate that possibility.  

If then, I could convince you, that --quite apart from Global Warming-- we

are seeing an increase in climate variability, then, by God, I think I could

scare the Living Crap out of you.  

The only question is whether we have the energy and sitzfleisch to do it,

and some way to keep our correspondence is order so that it's value could be

harvested for the long run. 

Happy New Year!

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 9:45 AM

To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 

Subject: [FRIAM] climate change questions

Questions,  that do NOT, in any manner or form deny the reality of climate

change.

In 1990, citing the "best scientific models available" stated that because

of carbon dioxide emissions, the Earth would warm by an average of 3 degrees

Fahrenheit and the U.S. as the largest producer, by an average of 6 degrees

Fahrenheit by 2020.

The UN IPCC report of the same year predicted a range of temperature

increases ranging from 1-5 degrees F, with the most likely expectations

being 3-5 by the year 2020.

The current report predicts a rise of 2-5 degrees by 2100.

The New York Times, CNN, and the President of Exxon USA predicted the end of

domestic oil and gas reserves by 2020.

The undisputed rise in Earth (and US) temperature as of 2020 is 1 degree.

Exactly how does one go about constructing a reasoned, and accurate,

argument for the need to address climate change in the context of badly

incorrect predictions, grounded in the best available scientific models, and

over-hyped "disaster scenarios" promulgated by those with political or

simply "circulation" motives.

In light of this context of "error" and "hype," is it fair to tar everyone

expressing questions or doubts with the same "deny-er" brush?

Is it possible to constructively criticize either the models or the proposed

"solutions" without being dismissed as a troglodyte "deny-er?"

Is there a way to evaluate a spectrum of means (eliminating coal to carbon

scrubbers to ...) along with analyses of cost/benefit ratios, human

socio-economic impact, etc. and compare them?

Is there more than one strategy for getting out of this mess; and if so, how

do we decide (and/or construct a blend) on one that will optimize our

chances?

davew

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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