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    Glad to see you're able to correct all the things that John doesn't understand, John! :) I'd still Archived Message

    Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym on October 18, 2019, 8:51 am, in reply to "Re: JMGreer on the reality of AGW, sorry, Rhys, no astroturfing here, just a serious ignorance...."

    suggest, though, that his contention that this situation is complex and inherently not easily prognosticatable is right. We just don't know in detail how it will pan out - though (as he points out from the beginning) AGW is real and is happening. That's hardly denialism. And are you saying, John, that suddenly the capitalist gics have all changed their spots, and are not, this time, trying to make feckless short-term profit and power out of the climate-shift activists? Really? Interesting thesis.

    I should also point out that one piece of science which doesn't seem to be in contention is that mean global temperatures have in the past been a lot higher (and a lot lower) than now, yet life - adjusted to the higher (or lower) mean - has thriven well even so.

    In times of very sudden shifts, the adjustment has been in the form of mass die-offs, with the survival of those who happen by lucky chance to be survivable being the vectors of some very rapid crash evolution by heavily selective breeding. You, I and JMG can all agree, doubtless, that that would be an exceedingly distressful thing to live - and die - through. But life survives, and continues. That's the one long view comfort that I see. And on the even longer view: if not here, then in many other places in the universe, pretty clearly. It - life - seems to be an inevitable evolution in the unfolding of the reality that we inhabit. Faced with terminally dire situations, that sort of philosophical long-term view seems to become essential, just to avoid total despair.

    Nor would any of us disagree that active healing responses on a global scale - like the Ethiopian (and other) tree plantings which I also celebrated here - are urgently needed. Activist pressure - together with the increasing weather disasters - can make people realise very quickly that such revolutionary responses are now top, top priority. It only needs a sudden realisation-shift in a critical mass (far less than 100%) to make such responses unstoppable. Practical alleviations of our calamity are still eminently possible. Moreover, they're likely to remain so, right through the shift process.

    All John G has said consistently is - I paraphrase - that the Chicken Little Panic Syndrome is a consistently popular indulgence of hom sap, and we're at it again in this matter; just take Guy McPherson as a fairly extreme example. And while it's true that 'past performance does not necessarily indicate future results' there is indeed a long litany of panicky predictions which never came to pass, but which generated a lot of hysteria in their season.

    Yes it's dire, but there are plenty of wise responses we can make, and life will continue; and no, panic-indulgence isn't a wise response, as all the failed past examples make clear.

    That short statement, I think, is what we all three can agree on, surely?

    Cheers, John!

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