When you look at the world “money game” as having been a bit too successful in multiplying other people’s obligations, measuring the degree of distortion and resetting the whole game seems both quite necessary and the best bet for something guaranteed to work and work quickly. It would let us get ahead of the deflationary […]
Responding to Steve Kurtz 2/14/09
Phil, What evidence do you have to claim that my well-being is dependent upon
me “multiplying other peoples obligations” to me? Steve
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Steve,
It’s mainly a kind of “generosity” and show of “trust” that becomes an onerous multiplying obligartion.
We typically all act to multiply the […]
ed. Dot Earth comment 2/14/09 regarding Darwin, “On the origin and fate of species“. -
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One of the more curious omissions in the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution, still, and also from our understanding of how things survive and thrive around us, is learning. Every kind of ‘foraging’ and ‘risk avoidance’ behavior is […]
letter to NY Times 2/14/09
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There’s a lot of important dissent on the economic “recovery” plan, and you’re not doing it justice at all.
From the “physical world” community, the environmental and physical economy scientists, the flaw in the plan is believing the phrase “lasting economic growth”. Those who study how popular views are misguided seem […]
re: Feb 14 2009 Science News - editor’s comment
Editor Tom Siegfried’s comment emphasizes that the main subject of science is understanding a world of change, but one might not know that from asking scientists. Scientists have built their whole culture around finding fixed rules for things. We call it “determinism” and the whole community is so […]
CCGroup post 2/12/09
responding to Alex:
Phil, I liked your coded message. You mean a threshold like ‘peak oil’? Or the peak carrying capacity of the earth in terms of population? The question is, how do you propose to reduce demand? Right now, governments are doing their damnedest to stimulate demand to save the […]
CCG post 2/11/2009 - responding to Malcolm and RML
Malcolm - “How can we express the climate risk in way the public can understand?”
RML - That is probably the entire point right now. An infinite supply af “facts,” expecting people’s reasoning ability to take over, doesn’t seem to work.
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In that spirit, we might show our own ability to […]
edited Dot Earth comment 2/12/09 regarding misreading short term trends:
“Too Much Hot and Cool Hype? - A leading British climate expert berates climate campaigners of all stripes for overstatements.”
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There’s an interesting add-on to how people are often confused by statistics and trends being interepreted without any actual causal mechanism identified. I’ve seen that […]
To GreenLeap 2/10/09, edited response to Glenn Albrecht saying “I am genuinely surprised that the global financial system has failed before ecological systems.” in his blog post: http://ethicsclimate.blogspot.com/2009/02/ethics-of-nation-building.html
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Glen,
Yes indeed. If surprising, yes, but it’s also quite fortunate that the global financial system failed BEFORE the ecological systems… That gives us a little time to […]
posted to Climate Concern Group 1/28/09, about the urgency.
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You have to laugh about the long range predictions for the environment, though. That ocean levels would continue to rise for 1000+ years even if CO2 increases are halted immediately, with the curve having a different slope depending on how soon, has been in all the literature, […]