Are you not quietly glad that human progress is such now that it is of a scale similar to that of climate, in that it competes with natural climate, and that what of and will be of the two become increasingly indistinguishable.

Isn’t it in our dissembling little hearts to bend natural climate to the limit, and wont we be master’s of the earth when we’ve got it right on the edge.

How do humans, imbued with fondness of progress, reconcile the mass of the species contribution to being a ‘force of nature’, and how far down the track before this use of the term “nature” becomes itself dubious courtesy ideology.

I’d say in regard to climate change that what’s most significant is that humans aren’t sufficiently in control of their own actions to be able to avoid it. So “human progress”, as depicted here, is still very much a loose cannon.

Bubblecar said:

I’d say in regard to climate change that what’s most significant is that humans aren’t sufficiently in control of their own actions to be able to avoid it. So “human progress”, as depicted here, is still very much a loose cannon.

of people, if you had to group them or categorize re their opinions or feeling about climate change caused by humans

you could say there are..

1. those that care (enough)
2. those that don’t care (enough)

But is there are third possibility, that may in ways include many of those two above, being those that secretly are glad.

glad about what?

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

adjustment

1. those that care (enough)
2. those that don’t care

>glad about what?

If a species prides itself in being a ‘force of nature’, of that sort of scale…..

transition said:

adjustment

1. those that care (enough)
2. those that don’t care

>glad about what?

If a species prides itself in being a ‘force of nature’, of that sort of scale…..

Which species ever has had such impudence?

Bubblecar said:

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

Tragedy of the commons on a global scale. On the other hand I am an optimist. Human migrations are a fact of history, many ruins are under the sea, many civilisations ruins smothered under rain forest canopies, many communities are abandoned due to resource depletion or economic changes. As a species we get by. Of course a rock from outer space may end that but that is under investigation and mitigation strategies being worked out.

>Which species ever has had such impudence?

it’s my view that many individuals are capable of being glad they’re pushing climate to the edge, and that their species contribution to climate will be greatly indistinguishable from natural climate. I say this because many are glad they are part of a ‘force of nature’.

Bubblecar said:

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

—-

I agree. The UN is is a big failure. The recent emergence of China as a power shows that bowing to capitalism produces results.Obviously “communism” is now a flexible term.

The problem with capitalism is, it is run to maximise shareholders interests.
I wonder what will happen in China with regards to wealth redistibution in the coming years. It can only lead to higher wages or unrest.

tauto said:

Bubblecar said:

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

—-

I agree. The UN is is a big failure. The recent emergence of China as a power shows that bowing to capitalism produces results.Obviously “communism” is now a flexible term.

The problem with capitalism is, it is run to maximise shareholders interests.
I wonder what will happen in China with regards to wealth redistibution in the coming years. It can only lead to higher wages or unrest.

China is still communist in its repressive tendencies.

AwesomeO said:

tauto said:

Bubblecar said:

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

—-

I agree. The UN is is a big failure. The recent emergence of China as a power shows that bowing to capitalism produces results.Obviously “communism” is now a flexible term.

The problem with capitalism is, it is run to maximise shareholders interests.
I wonder what will happen in China with regards to wealth redistibution in the coming years. It can only lead to higher wages or unrest.

China is still communist in its repressive tendencies.

What is communist about repressiveness? Why isn’t capitalism repressive by comparison?

roughbarked said:

AwesomeO said:

tauto said:

—-

I agree. The UN is is a big failure. The recent emergence of China as a power shows that bowing to capitalism produces results.Obviously “communism” is now a flexible term.

The problem with capitalism is, it is run to maximise shareholders interests.
I wonder what will happen in China with regards to wealth redistibution in the coming years. It can only lead to higher wages or unrest.

China is still communist in its repressive tendencies.

What is communist about repressiveness? Why isn’t capitalism repressive by comparison?

The history of communist nations has been repressive. If you are asking why it is so, probably because it has had to be to stop people seeing how good things are elswhere and voting with their feet.

anyway, before I venture off to rest while my fire gets going and then to bed…

if you wake up one morning and realize you’re part of a force of nature, that sort of scale like what your species is doing is changing the entire earth climate, then you adjust to that because it’s part of the species ‘bigness’ (scale of importance too), then i’d say the species is committed to pushing climate right to the edge at least. Put crudely, it’s because having climate on the edge sort of symbolizes our species bigness as a force of nature.

transition said:

Are you not quietly glad that human progress is such now that it is of a scale similar to that of climate, in that it competes with natural climate, and that what of and will be of the two become increasingly indistinguishable.

Isn’t it in our dissembling little hearts to bend natural climate to the limit, and wont we be master’s of the earth when we’ve got it right on the edge.

How do humans, imbued with fondness of progress, reconcile the mass of the species contribution to being a ‘force of nature’, and how far down the track before this use of the term “nature” becomes itself dubious courtesy ideology.

With storms getting worse, the scientific opportunity is there to harness that energy

mapping changing wind conditions using satellite data over years would place wind fans in the changing wind streams etc

AwesomeO said:

Bubblecar said:

Individuals can care all they like but the political mechanisms that would enable us to avoid climate change just don’t exist. Same with various other basic problems, such as global wealth redistribution, global recognition of human rights etc. Humans aren’t in control of themselves and their destiny at a species level.

Tragedy of the commons on a global scale. On the other hand I am an optimist. Human migrations are a fact of history, many ruins are under the sea, many civilisations ruins smothered under rain forest canopies, many communities are abandoned due to resource depletion or economic changes. As a species we get by. Of course a rock from outer space may end that but that is under investigation and mitigation strategies being worked out.

There is an astronomical difference between the size of human populations of over a hundred years ago and today. Today we need so much more to feed and house our populations that this impacts directly on the environment and in time begins to change some of the really big things like the climate, which in turn will change other big things all of which and despite what we may think of our ingenuity are beyond our control and thus leaving us to the fate of nature.

transition said:

>Which species ever has had such impudence?

it’s my view that many individuals are capable of being glad they’re pushing climate to the edge, and that their species contribution to climate will be greatly indistinguishable from natural climate. I say this because many are glad they are part of a ‘force of nature’.

We are not a force of nature, all we have done is accidently woken up the force of nature.

transition said:

anyway, before I venture off to rest while my fire gets going and then to bed…

if you wake up one morning and realize you’re part of a force of nature, that sort of scale like what your species is doing is changing the entire earth climate, then you adjust to that because it’s part of the species ‘bigness’ (scale of importance too), then i’d say the species is committed to pushing climate right to the edge at least. Put crudely, it’s because having climate on the edge sort of symbolizes our species bigness as a force of nature.

Our bigness can be summed up by our greed and stupidity and it is the force of nature that will react against us. Not that it cares one way or the other, only we have brought about the initial change and even if we stopped producing co2 today, the force of nature will continue for many years, such is the scale of it. The correct the force of nature in the short term, is like turning back the tide.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>Which species ever has had such impudence?

it’s my view that many individuals are capable of being glad they’re pushing climate to the edge, and that their species contribution to climate will be greatly indistinguishable from natural climate. I say this because many are glad they are part of a ‘force of nature’.

We are not a force of nature, all we have done is accidently woken up the force of nature.

We are a wart on the arse of nature.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

anyway, before I venture off to rest while my fire gets going and then to bed…

if you wake up one morning and realize you’re part of a force of nature, that sort of scale like what your species is doing is changing the entire earth climate, then you adjust to that because it’s part of the species ‘bigness’ (scale of importance too), then i’d say the species is committed to pushing climate right to the edge at least. Put crudely, it’s because having climate on the edge sort of symbolizes our species bigness as a force of nature.

Our bigness can be summed up by our greed and stupidity and it is the force of nature that will react against us. Not that it cares one way or the other, only we have brought about the initial change and even if we stopped producing co2 today, the force of nature will continue for many years, such is the scale of it. The correct the force of nature in the short term, is like turning back the tide.

“Calling King Canute, would you please report to the foreshore beach, bring your folding chair and a car fridge full of stubbies”

>>With storms getting worse, the scientific opportunity is there to harness that energy <<

Are storms getting worse? Or are we just putting more people where the storms are? This planet has been shaped by its wildness and is not static.

Only 10,000 years ago it was in an Ice Age.

bob(from black rock) said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>Which species ever has had such impudence?

it’s my view that many individuals are capable of being glad they’re pushing climate to the edge, and that their species contribution to climate will be greatly indistinguishable from natural climate. I say this because many are glad they are part of a ‘force of nature’.

We are not a force of nature, all we have done is accidently woken up the force of nature.

We are a wart on the arse of nature.

We can be a bunch of impudent pompous arseholes but we ain’t nothing on nature.
Any changes we make now are similar to tool making. How long did it take to move on from breaking rocks in the hot sun? I fought the law and the law won.

buffy said:

>>With storms getting worse, the scientific opportunity is there to harness that energy <<

Are storms getting worse? Or are we just putting more people where the storms are? This planet has been shaped by its wildness and is not static.

Only 10,000 years ago it was in an Ice Age.

There are certainly more people where the earthquakes, storms etc., are.

roughbarked said:

buffy said:

>>With storms getting worse, the scientific opportunity is there to harness that energy <<

Are storms getting worse? Or are we just putting more people where the storms are? This planet has been shaped by its wildness and is not static.

Only 10,000 years ago it was in an Ice Age.

There are certainly more people where the earthquakes, storms etc., are.

Never mind the peoples on islands lowering into the sea or the underdeveloped countries that nobody seems to care about. The majority of the wealthiest countries live on sea ports, river ports. Rising sea levels will sort them out quick smart.

In the words of Lee Cunxin, “life’s most valuable lessons come from mistakes.”

Thanks for the questions. They prompted me to have a look at what that Wikipedia had to say about the Gaia Hypothesis.

Assuming that what Wikipedia says is at least in general terms accurate, it seems to me that both the proponents and critics of the hypothesis are missing at least two mechanisms by which it would work:

1) If in the Universe (meaning everything that exists) you have a large number or infinite cases of life developing and evolving, those cases where the process continued to evolve to the state where you had at least one species capable of thinking about how it all happened would be those where the evolutionary process led by chance to stable favourable conditions over long periods of time. In other words it is a consequence of the anthropic principle that these conditions existed on this planet.

2) If life has developed to the stage of a complex ecosystem there may be times where a single species becomes dominant to the extent that it upsets the environmental equilibrium. In this case the planet will be able to sustain only a smaller population of living things, and there will be a mass extinction until the dominant species either becomes extinct, or is reduced in numbers to the point where it is no longer disruptive. Evolution will then continue along its merry way with a different mix of species.

What happens when we have a species that can alter its behaviour outside the processes of evolution, to cope with changed environments, I don’t know.

“Calling King Canute, would you please report to the foreshore beach, bring your folding chair and a car fridge full of stubbies”

sigh, everyone gets the Cnut reference wrong.

The story of King Canute and the waves is a possibly apocryphal anecdote illustrating the piety or humility of king Canute the Great, recorded in the 12th century by Henry of Huntingdon.

In the narrative, Canute demonstrates to his flattering courtiers that he has no control over the elements (the incoming tide), explaining that secular power is vain compared to the supreme power of God. The episode is frequently alluded to in contexts where the futility of “trying to stop the tide” of an inexorable event is pointed out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_waves

My only point really, was that of the possibility there were a ‘gladness’ the scale of human activity is and will push established climate to the edge, that adapting requires a gladness about the scale of the human proliferation and development enterprise, and that this is not really separable from climate.

We will become day and night, the wind, rain, the seasons, the sun.

Humans are made a greater force of nature by pushing it (climate and all) to the edge, the rest of nature (what remains) is then sort of at our mercy, so to speak.

So, the philosophical question i’d put is, to what extent do you want humans to be a force of nature. I think the answer out there is, ‘as far as we can take it’.

transition said:

My only point really, was that of the possibility there were a ‘gladness’ the scale of human activity is and will push established climate to the edge, that adapting requires a gladness about the scale of the human proliferation and development enterprise, and that this is not really separable from climate.

We will become day and night, the wind, rain, the seasons, the sun.

Humans are made a greater force of nature by pushing it (climate and all) to the edge, the rest of nature (what remains) is then sort of at our mercy, so to speak.

So, the philosophical question i’d put is, to what extent do you want humans to be a force of nature. I think the answer out there is, ‘as far as we can take it’.

How many of us will walk amongst lions unarmed?

>Humans are made a greater force of nature by pushing it (climate and all) to the edge, the rest of nature (what remains) is then sort of at our mercy, so to speak.

Since humans don’t have global control of our actions, all of nature (including us) are pretty much at the mercy of cause & effect in regard to global consequences of our behaviour.

>all of nature (including us) are pretty much

…should really be “is pretty much” :)

buffy said:

>>With storms getting worse, the scientific opportunity is there to harness that energy <<

Are storms getting worse? Or are we just putting more people where the storms are? This planet has been shaped by its wildness and is not static.

Only 10,000 years ago it was in an Ice Age.

I don’t think it is an ‘only,’ as 10,000 years is a very long time. It seems a long time ago when Capt. Cook arrived in Australia, but that was only 250 years ago and see what we have done to the country since.