Paul Maidowski @_ppmv offered to respond to some of the tough questions about Climate change. On Jan 16 I posted the following image of how climate change has only accelerated parallel to economic growth, with no recent bumps or bends in the curve, starting the short discussion below (w/ minor edits for clarity).
Paul, Why don’t climate scientists take into account the main accelerator of climate change, investors using the economy’s profits to continually multiply the scale of business? Don’t they see the trap? https://synapse9.com/_r3ref/100CrisesTable.pdf…
Paul’s response
Hi JL, amazing document, thanks! I believe the training of climate scientists keeps them from speaking with authority on other fields – or even engaging non-mainstream analyses. they’ve been burned with the hack in 2009 before COP15 at U of East Anglia, and never recovered. Structurally I link this to whatever causes allowed Nordhaus and the economists to sideline Forrester and system dynamics in the 1970s / 80s.
They may see it as individuals, but in their functions, as scientists or in their institutions, they feel they cannot speak to these questions. I think this is changing now, slowly. But of course, it’s very late. What do you think? It greatly puzzles me too.
Jessie’s response
Paul, Good points. I think another major factor is the backroom control of public interest organizations by financial advisors. I’ve seen that at the UNEP and the WRI, two premier research centers, much adding to hesitation to explore outside the rails. There are systemic sources too, like data representing reality to formal research, and money exchange erasing all negative information, the reality of the growing impacts seems to vanish. So, nearly all decision-making is blinded to the growing threats.
Along with every field operating within its own boundaries and the systems sciences failing to make physics methods work (omitting the myriad autonomous systems) about the only honest voices are of protestors who don’t quite see that the problem is really that the financial system is flying blind, IMHO. FYI
My own approach has been to focus on how most people become experts in starting, resourcing, and perfecting their complex home and work designs. Those are like making dinners, doing office projects, and developing lasting relationships, all of which also follow nature’s plan for making new things that last.
So, if we study how people make systems that work well and it is written about, it could give professionals and protesters both a good idea of what we need to do. The critical point in every complex system design is reading the signals to turn from starting to finishing when perfecting the work becomes the key to making its value last. The recent paper on it is: https://synapse9.com/ISSS-21/ISSSJul11NewSci-IndividSys-MS.pdf