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Sent: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 1:57 PM
Subject: Most likely worst case climate change scenario?? (3)
Ira and Jim,
Thanks for your comments, but my initial reaction is to do what most other "normal" people are doing today--that being to at least temporarily anesthetize myself by watching Super Bowl! I may have more to say later but, for now, I will simply use football metaphors in response.
If worst-case climate scenario comes to pass (bad pun intended), I think at least some humans will still try some sort of "Hail Mary" pass play and/or the old "hook and ladder/lateral" and "Statue of Liberty" plays (most recently made famous again in 2006 Boise St v Oklahoma), and/or now legendary Stanford-Cal "multi-lateral" (in this context, a football--rather than political--term) "run over the marching band" kick-off return in last ditch attempt to snatch "survival" from the jaws of "extinction" against their highly favored opponent.
I think these could range from attempts to use Earth's abundant microbial life to reverse or slow climate change, and/or clean up pollution, and/or for pollution-free energy as well as more conventional alternative and renewable energy sources to more exotic "hard-tech" fixes eg the recently publicized proposal to put an array of mirrors in geosynch orbit around Earth to slow global warming by reflecting some solar energy. Whether any of these would succeed in beating the odds of worst-case scenario I will leave to others to ponder for now.
However, I think some such human reaction to climate catastrophy is a near certainty--unless the example of frogs' different reactions to being put in pan of boiling water before vs after water brought to a boil would apply. My current bet for most likely scenario is climate change that is serious enough and fast enough to cause significant pain, stress, and perhaps even distruction of large portions of humanity over next century, but not sufficient to overwhelm our species completely.
In long run (in this context, more than a century), I think "humanity" will survive in some form--perhaps a synthesis? of Jim and Ira's preferred futures, e.g. humans who can photosynthesize their own food as suggested in one of the HRCSF scenarios for Hawaii 2050 Sustainability conference last yr--or other cybernetic combo/s of chemically, genetically, digitally, and/or robotically/prosthetically enhanced form/s, combined with "unenhanced" traditional homo sapiens who successfully adapt to what remains of free market economies and/or are able to maintain/re-establish successful subsistence economies (and/or somewhere other than Earth as many futurists have proposed/predicted). I also admit none of these are original thoughts, and may even possibly reflect something close to currently "mainstream" consensus thought--at least among most self-designated "futurists".
I think it is possible this scenario could also eventually result in better quality of life for most of humanity, but currently think this is still far from a certainty. As economist J.M. Keynes (I think) said, "In the long run, we're all dead."
Aloha,
Tom Brandt
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From: dator@...
To: irohter@...
Cc: tbhawaiiowan@...; hrcfs-l@...; HOONANEA@...; louiserteschik@...; Aabaer@...; dameb001@...; cozlen1@...; gs7larson@...; randoo49er@...; schmoejoe_risin@HOTMAIL.COM; h_jahanmir@YAHOO.COM
Sent: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: How much time--and how--to avoid worst case climate change? (2)
Sorry, Ira. You are far too optimistic for me. Humanity should have begun addressing the present and emerging futures forty years ago when many of us first raised the issue as urgently as we could. I, then optimistically, thought humanity would be sensible enough to do what was necessary (either bring appropriate technologies online quickly--my preferred solution--or transition towards a lower-tech, more "sustainable" lifestyle--which I believe was your preferred future). It is certainly far too late for my high-tech future now and I don't see any much willingness on the part of the US or any newly "developed" or rapidly "developing" nations to adopt yours. On the point of the Evangelicals, I would like to point out that some of what they are doing now comes from Tom Sine who was once a dean at Maui Community College. Upon hearing the discussion at the first Earth Day celebration in Maui, he quit his academic job, went to seminary, became an ordained Evangelical and began the "Mustard Seed" ministry within that persuasion that has led to the current Evangelical position--unique among all religious denominations. Extremely laudible, and certainly more successful than either of us, but still too little and late. Jim Dator
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