Tom,
I guess the problem is that we’ve been steering the development of the earth as if expanding our vehicle with our windows painted over with out of date explanations, having a party and not watching the earth’s responses as we crashed into things. Our blind procedures, then, have not been doing what we intended them to do.

I could be a lot more specific, but steering requires watching the thing you’re steering through.   Old wives tales won’t satisfy.   Continue reading What can people do?… to fix our violation of nature →

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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 scientists who study the economics of the environment and physical economy, the flaw in the plan is believing the phrase “lasting economic growth”.  Those who study how popular views are misguided seem always to be mostly unpaid or underpaid, for failing to support what is popular of course.

Spokespeople for the real world are treated as an annoyance.

As a community we also don’t really ‘do’ political speech well, tend to speak with original scientific thought, don’t have a “down pat” story line to offer, and have no particular soap box to get your attention from.     We do ‘thinking’ and ‘observing’ instead. Continue reading Unheard dissent – the “real world” problem →

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 obligations others have to us for performing financial and resource exploitation around the world in two ways.    You and I and everyone else buys products that are made by businesses that are given financing only if they return a profit.

It has to be a level of profit that assures their investors a rate of compounding returns, too, better than or equal to what is generally available.     Secondly You and I and nearly everyone else, have money in the bank or in the markets earning compound interest, acting in to be the enforcer of the first process from the investor side of it.

It has no limit but for those so obligated breaking their trust and failing to be able to do so, as when the economy as a whole ceases to provide net returns.

We choose to receive compounding returns better than or equal to what is generally available, or we move our money elsewhere to get a better compounding return.     With each choice we opt for using the surpluses of business to create real multiplying obligations for others to fulfill.   Continue reading Ever multiplying obligations – the “Gold” rule →

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 reason with simple arithmetic.    If you consider a growth system as always starting with a non-renewable seed resource, that is finite, then as the system grows what can you say about the rate of % changes in the balance of the seed resources available?

(meht gnissorc erofeb sdlohserht ees ot elba eb ot doog eb ti dluow .e.i)

Assuming you get the first part of that right, it’s not so hard, how valuable would it then be to have a way to tell?

Phil Henshaw
NY NY  www.synapse9.com

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 global economy from implosion. You’re saying let’s reduce demand. How? How is this going to work? Asking a question for which there’s no answer is probably a good way to get no answer. 
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Alex,
Thanks very much.  My usual worry is not leaving people with questions, but getting none in return. Whether any answer about the future is more than half an answer, after all, depends on what question you ask.   The best available answer to what “people want to know” is often only speculation.

Yes, “being able to see thresholds before crossing them” would apply to “peak oil” and to the carrying capacities of things.    For example, the rate at which a scalar peak like “peak oil” is approaching is visible in the derivative rate long before.    Continue reading Getting peeks at the the coming peaks →

“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 in lots of “whacko conspiracy theory” kind of science discussion that is all over the blogs these days.

The confusion seems to be between scientific answers and questions.

How often the error is clearly visible in the work of rather distiniguished scientists too, points to how we are all rather inept at “public science” discussion.   If science is to lead the world it can’t be done in a closet where sloppy reasoning gets sorted out in private. Continue reading Missing from the scientific message →

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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 think, before the calmity occurs that we couldn’t recover from.

Now, let me think…  What happens if we restore the global financial growth system to its former glory…?     Hmmm…. Continue reading So fortunate the economy collapsed! →