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Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years
LONDON - Unless there is a "bold change of policy direction," the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the International Energy Agency warned at the launch of its 2011 World Energy Outlook today in London.
Coal-fired power generating station in Shanxi, China. (Photo courtesy Skoda Export) The report says there is still time to act, but despite steps in the right direction the door of opportunity is closing.
The agency's warning comes at a critical time in international climate change negotiations, as governments prepare for the annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, from November 28.
"If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol warned today.
"Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy," said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven.
"Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies," she said.
"The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge," van der Hoeven said.
Some key trends are pointing in worrying directions, the agency told reporters today. CO2 emissions have rebounded to a record high, the energy efficiency of global economy worsened for second straight year and spending on oil imports is near record highs.
In the World Energy Outlook's central New Policies Scenario, which assumes that recent government commitments are implemented in a cautious manner, primary energy demand increases by one-third between 2010 and 2035, with 90 percent of the growth in non-OECD economies.
In the New Policies Scenario, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over the next 25 years amount to three-quarters of the total from the past 110 years, leading to a long-term average temperature rise of 3.5 degrees C.
"Were the new policies not implemented, we are on an even more dangerous track, to an increase of six degrees C.
The IEA projects that China will consolidate its position as the world's largest energy consumer. It consumes nearly 70 percent more energy than the United States by 2035, even though, by then, per capita demand in China is still less than half the level in the United States.
The share of fossil fuels in global primary energy consumption falls from around 81 percent today to 75 percent in 2035.
Renewables increase from 13 percent of the mix today to 18 percent in 2035; the growth in renewables is underpinned by subsidies that rise from $64 billion in 2010 to $250 billion in 2035, support that in some cases cannot be taken for granted in this age of fiscal austerity.
By contrast, subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $409 billion in 2010.
"As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the "lock-in" of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals," said Birol.
The World Energy Outlook also presents a 450 Scenario, which traces an energy path consistent with meeting the globally agreed goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees Celsuis above pre-industrial levels.
Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already locked in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories, the report finds.
Without further action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035.
"Delaying action is a false economy," Birol warned, saying that for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.
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233 Comments so far
Show AllHubris: a series of questions.
How many civilizations will rise n fall, their leaders crying “this is the way, I am the truth” while their soldiers butcher the innocents n their priests chain the dreamers – break them on the wheel, the rack, roast them, excommunicate them, grind them down?
How many stones will hard labour n sweat raise up as temples of hubris only to fall in tangled heaps in earthquake, flood, famine & pestilence? Lying gods falling in flames.
How many monoliths, obelisks, cyclopean portraits of kings and gods will stare mutely back at us, we who no longer perceive them as king emperors of their chosen civilizations? And the sweat-drenched whip-lashed limbs that raised them now lie in the dust as mute witnesses to the tyranny of lies. In desert n jungle giant stones, the punctuation marks of slavery, the stone phrases of domination leer through the centuries repeating the same old question: When, humanity, will you awaken? When will you cast off the yoke of these usurpers n tyrants who hunt your children for sport, rape your women for pleasure n steal your food, your wealth, your dreams, while shoving down your throat a counterfeit reality of their devising sustained by your acquiescence?
How many ruined palaces must the dust n creepers be cleared from, how many lost ruined cities must be discovered beneath the waves before you recognize how many times they have given you a receipt for deceit, corralling you into cities n tightening the collar around your necks? The warriors do their pleasure – illusory justifications of race n religion. They cut out your hearts on the temple steps n would have you believe in their divinity n sacrament. They torture you in dank cells n tell you your security depends on it. They feed you poison n call it manna, tell you lies n call it truth, send you to war n call it valour, steal your riches n call it fiscal austerity. And chuckle endlessly all the way to the banks.
Moloch, Satan, gods of a thousand faces, lying in a thousand languages, pouring salt upon your wounds while they gnaw the flesh from your bones, strip the gems from your earth, and slaughter the innocents, the trees n creatures, all the while telling you it is all for your own good, for a better life, a better wife, a sexier body, a secure retirement.
And your creativity n dignity choke in the dust or turn to cancer in the places where your untapped potential gnaws at your soul.
You were born in infinity to dance with creativity, in the freedom of a higher way. Why do you snuffle for fungi in the darkness of the earth when you could soar with the eagles amongst the clouds of peace?
Race of slaves bred to mediocrity, lied to from the beginning of time by a thousand demi-gods for whom power is the drug, lucre the blood of life, n sex the wedge that drives the slave-warriors into the blood-drenched sty.
Stop listening to the lie.
Stop sending your sons to die.
Stop wallowing in the sty.
Ancient stones cry out for justice, ancient bloodstains cry out from the ground. Every ruined fortress n crumbling city betrays the hubris of the whip-wielding fist, the ruler on the throne, the liar who calls the shots.
O my people, awaken!
Cast off the chains that choke your children. Mothers, sons, wives, daughters, fathers, husbands, husband this earth of ours, do not go down the dark staircase they are driving you toward. Reclaim your truth, your freedom to choose.
Band of brothers, circle of sisters, return to the place where the stars shine upon the healing waters. Return their receipt for lies n charge the new vision with your power.
The hour is upon us.
Their lies lie exposed – a thousand civilizations have risen n fallen n the oppressors still try to shepherd us on to worship at altars of their devising. Their wings are broken; they cannot fly. Their truth is war, rape n poison
- ours is an orchard with a river running through.
Aug. 2011
I would love it if my home was 6 degrees warmer today than it is. I can't afford to heat it.
Move to the Notrh Pole, it's warmer there. You can have beach front property and Bar- B- Q with free methane gas... Take along lots of bottled oxygen though.
Well after reading 179 comments posted so far, I see that only a handful here have any conception or understanding of just how deadly serious the issue is
Hi ~coco~, how ya doing babe?
Aleph Null,,, Karlof1 and some others here have stated this Article does not configure with it's headline of,,, " Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years."
Nonsense,,, if any can comprehend all of the writing in the paragraphs in the article such as the following three, they would not have such a biased and unusual almost GW denying opinions.
From the article ,,,Quote,,, ("The World Energy Outlook also presents a 450 Scenario, which traces an energy path consistent with meeting the globally agreed goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees Celsuis above pre-industrial levels.
Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already locked in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories, the report finds.
Without further action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035.")... End quotes.
Understand those three paragraphs Mr. Null, Karlof1 and others? __ If we do not greatly reduce our Co2 emmissions by 2017, we likely will exceed the 450 ppm range of atmospheric Co2... With huge amounts of Arctic methane releasing that will be easy.... Next summer's Arctic ice melt may be really scary,,, we'll see.
So to say this article does not address what the headline reads is not very smart, in fact it's downrigh ignorant and stupid.
I am no GW denier as ~Mr. Aleph Null~ claims, but I do have a few complaints with our top climate scientist’s public reports.
Here for example is a link for a very current article from the Washington Post which states a (new) report on Global Warming will be announced by top climate scientists within a few day… The new report still talks about (*the end of the century*) we will see more dramatic weather problems... End of the century? __ Damn, why don’t they tell it like it really is?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/apnewsbreak-global-warming-worsens-weather-extremes-international-climate-panel-says/2011/11/01/gIQApMtgbM_story.html
From the article,,, (“BY the end of the century, the intense, single-day rainstorms that typically happen once every 20 years will probably happen“)…End quote…Bullshit,,, they will probably happen every friggin year from now on.
From the article,,, Quote,,, (“In fact, the report says, “for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic” rather than a result of greenhouse gases.”)…End quote….. The greenhouse gases are the most important and most serious issue for God’s sake.
Scientists are a different breed of cat… But we sure as Hell need some smart ones to very soon find a safe way to reverse what we humans have done to our atmosphere.
The three tenets of climate denialism are:
Climate data is wrong.
Climate models are broken.
Climate scientists are incompetent.
Denialist mouthpiece "WayneWR" makes all three assertions in practically every thread. The thing being denied by denialism is the validity of climate science. In this forum climate denialism gets more traction when framed by a façade of environmental concern. Simple as that.
Climate denialism is the most sophisticated, well-financed, and successful propaganda campaign in the history of manufacturing consent. If the fossil fuel corporations are not sponsoring disinformation craftsmen in the mold of "WayneWR" yet, they soon will be. Why wouldn't they?
The professional global warming deniers deny AGW, many deny global warming is even happening, most say everything climate scientis have reported or written is false, the say Al Gore is a thief, a liar and his film is a joke, they say Climategate is for real and scientists purposly altered climate data and so on.
I do not do any of those things ~Aleph Null~~ None! And of course you know that,,, You have a sick minded agenda to attempt to discredit me because I was so rude and bold as to disagree with you and Dr. James Hansen, with his proposal to reduce our atmospheric Co2 emmissions to 350 ppm by the year 2100, 88 years into the future. That proposl is not near good enough but you insist it is all we have to do.
There is nothing wrong with anyone criticizing (*scientists*), politicians, doctors , professors, teachers, judges, police, authors, lawyers, and professional vehicle drivers, parents, military personnel or anyone.
I criticize climate scientists because they have failed to compute methane releases from the Arctic region in their climate computer models.... They have royally screwedd up there and it is something many climate scientists are now criticizing themselves for.
I also criticize climate scientists for being far to conservative with their time frames of when things will happen... That is valid criticism and is not becaue I deny that AGW is a fact for it is the most serious issue humanity has ever faced.
I criticize you for downplaying the Arctic methane threat and our diverse opoinion that we will see runaway GW within the next few years, perhaps by next year, every time you and I are posting comments on the same threads about the GW issue.
You say we have plenty of time to reduce our Co2 footprint, just follow the advice of Dr. James Hansen,,, and I say we don't have much time left to take some very dramatic action to prevent (runaway) GW and we don't have much time left, just as this article states, an article which you have criticiizes as not credible.
Of course your criticism of this article is just plain ignorance on your part Null, as I have explained in a prior post here above this one... And you or no one else will ever find a single word, sentence, or paragraph I have ever posted, where I deny global warming or AGW,,, none,,, becaue they do not exist.
The only commenters who have ever attempted to discredit me, and there have been several over the years, such as you are attempting, are professional web blogging GW Deniers.
You have recently well shown on several different thread here at CD, that you do not want any to worry about the reduction of the Arctic sea ice...The ones who want to see the Arctic ice free are the oil and shipping barons and you are doing exactly what they desire ~Aleph Null~... Why do you do that tt?
Aleph Null,,, you posted the following here on this thread… (Hansen et al address the Jevons paradox aspect of energy efficiency near the conclusion of The Case for Young People:
Governments have taken steps to promote renewable energies and encourage energy efficiency. But renewable energies total only a few percent of all energy sources, and improved efficiency only slows the growth of energy use. The transition to a post-fossil fuel world of clean energies is blocked by a fundamental fact, as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned.
However, fossil fuels are cheapest only because they are subsidized directly and indirectly, and because they are not made to pay their costs to society – the costs of air and water pollution on human health and costs of present and future climate disruption and change.
However??? __ Oh no! My, my, my,,, why are you criticizing Dr. James Hansen Aleph Null? __ LOL... Someone may say you are a GW Denier Null… I would not say that for that post of yours, (or that reason), but that is the type of crap you have been posting about me here since October first. .
How typically stupid.
As is clear from the inset of both paragraphs in my message, both paragraphs (the one starting "Governments" and the one starting "However") were written by James Hansen.
Moreover, Hansen's main point is in the second paragraph: that the remedy for the economically paradoxical nature of energy efficiency measures can be addressed via a price on carbon emissions.
I made no comment on Hansen's in the message excerpted.
By contrast, "WayneWR" went to a denialist website, copied a bogus paraphrase, and pasted it into his message with quotes around it, with the clearly deceitful intent of misattributing to Hansen something he never said. I don't care who I see doing that sort of thing. That is what the work of a climate denialist looks like.
I am not laughing out loud. Smears against prominent climate scientists like those "WayneWR" and his denialist colleagues Anthony Cox and David Stockwell promulgate have led to death threats against climate scientists and their families. Stephen Schneider, a climate scientist subject to death threats, noted that they shoot abortion doctors in this country. "WayneWR" indulges in anti-science hate speech, which I don't find funny at all.
No it wasn't clear at all Mr. Null... You didn't use any (" ") to indicate it was someone elses words.
It was not a bogus paragraph it was a quote from a newspaper article.
Prominent climate scientist? ___ Hansen and his crew say so... He has failed miserabley as a climate scientist, and he's not alone there... He and the others entirely ignored the Arctic methane threat and he's supposed to be the number one guy. I'll go with the 400 ISSS team's scientists thank yoou.
If bullshit were nickels Null, you'd be a billionare.
Here is a post from Aleph Null's GW Denier which was posted on this thread, WayneWR,, Nov 9 2011 - 1:11pm... Quote,,, ("We do not have a few more years to stop burning coal...We have to stop it now.").... Yes, I wrote that.
And I continues with,,, We have to stop thinking of 20, 30, 40 or more years, or as so many of our scientists say, until the year 2100... We have less than (five years) to prevent RUNAWAY global warming..... Does anyone here not understand that?
II is just like an incoming massive asteroid which would end almost all life on Earth, life down to the microbreal level.
World govvernments' would work together to do all possible to divert that incoming asteroid... They have to do the same to prevent runaway global warming... That's it! We either accept that fact or we go about our business and pretend it isn't happening, or deny it, or ignore it.... Those are our choices as the human race on Earth.
Would anyone here actually ignore it if someone was going to kill them, their family and their children? ___ Well, runaway global warming will most assuredly kill you, your family and your children... That's how it is, nothing to argue about.")..End quotes by WayneWR.") That is what I, WayneWR posted here.
Yep, an obvious GW Denier's comments, according to our mind deranged Mr. Aleph Null... And yes, that is a LOL.
The "newspaper article" from which "WayneWR" copied the bogus paraphrase which he deceitfully misattributed to Hansen is this piece of garbage written by professional denialists Anthony Cox and David Stockwell:
Honest Jim: the science is not settled
Here is the complete paragraph containing the paraphrase in question, with the misattributed passage in bold:
Hansen goes on to explain that the other GCMs share this error because of their common ancestry [page 22]. In other words, they make the same assumptions. Because of these common assumptions, even though the GCMs were developed in separate laboratories in different countries, and even though they all agree on the global temperature rise, they are all wrong in the same very important way.
Cox and Stockwell do not contend that Hansen said these words. That was an extra touch of creative dishonesty from "WayneWR".
Of course it's legitimate to present intelligent criticisms of climate scientists. Denialists cross the line when they purvey distortions about climate science and climate scientists, often with blatantly deceitful intent.
The newspaper article they quoted was written by a Washington Post reporter.... Sigh.
There is no Washington Post story. The denialist literature "WayneWR" copied from makes no mention of any Washington Post story. It's nothing but pure unadulterated climate denialist propaganda.
This is a pattern. Every time "WayneWR" is caught transcribing denialist filth, he says the denialists he copied (Anthony Cox and David Stockwell in this case, previously Anthony Watts and Mark Morano) were quoting an article which appeared in the Washington Post (with no link to back up this assertion, of course). Why not make it "New York Times" or "Wall Street Journal" next time, just for variety? Why is it always "Washington Post"?
Something is rotten in Denmark when one who pretends to environmental concerns keeps collaborating with professional climate denialists this way. This is the third instance I know of when "WayneWR" has tried to pass off corporate denialist propaganda as legitimate news. And counting.
Hey Null, I posted a lot of links for you since you started your crazy crusade against me on Oct first.. go back and checkem all out.. I really don't have the time to do it for you.... Have fun.... How do you manage a keybord while wearing a straight jacket?
Clearly, there is no Washington Post story. The contention that the Washington Post would be interested in the shoddy propaganda "WayneWR" has been transcribing is absurd on its face. The Post is pretty bad, but not as bad as the denialist sites "WayneWR" frequents.
This is another pattern: if you ask "WayneWR" for a source, he refuses in this manner, implying that he's already provided it. He has not, and will not.
~~Aleph Null~, I'm still waiting for you to cut and paste one paragraph or a sentence and quote the article and date and time,,, where I ever have denied global warming or AGW. Just one Null and if you do, I'll offer you $250,000 bucks and the deed to 80 acres of our property with a well and guest house powered by solar. Okay,, start looking dufus.
You deny this article is credible the headline reads (Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years) and the autor cites reasons why that is so.... You deny that if only 2% of the Arctic's methane releases it will cause runaway global warming and that disaster easily may occur within the next five years... You deny the loss of Arctic sea ice will cause the release of vast amounts of methane gas from the Arctic.. You deny the fact that the Arctic methane threat is our most serious problem,,,,, and yet you try to prove that I'm a GW Denier.
Any you lie about me, saying such things as I frequent the Anthony Watts type of websites.. I read them occassionally, have even quoted a GW Denier's quotes of a newpaper article twice in the past ten years ,,, Like General Patton said, "know thy enemy".
You say that you are a shill for Dr. James Hansen, a man who still promotes nuclear power even after the Fukushia disaster, a scientist who has ignored the deadly dangerous Arctic methane threat... Shlll away Null.
Another agenda of Aleph Null's is to promote Dr. James Hansen's book. Which he hawks over and over here... Null once wrote he is a shill for James Hansen.
And Nul also wrote he a communist,,, or a "flamng red" as he put it, but he doesn't go along with the liberal thinking of developing clean energy on a mass scale.
And Hansen's carbon tax idea that Null hawks here is bullshit... No matter how much tax is put on burning coal or oil, people will still buy it... The few who can afford solar or geothermal for their homes may be enticed to go that route, but the amount of coal burned to produce electricity will not reduce world wide,,, in fact it is projected that coal burning will increase world wide by 35% in ten more years.
We must have a massive world wide program to stop burning coal and develop clean energy and not nuclear energy as Hansen suggests... That sound like a GW Denier to you Null? __ That is a typical comment of mine... Stuff it Null... Btw, where is your sockpuppet today?
"I have found myself wondering why we Human Beings are actually destroying the Earth on which we live. We are doing something which is only done by one other Species of Animal, namely, the African Elephant, which utterly destroys every Tree in the place in which it dwells. We Human Beings are doing exactly this. And wherever you go in Africa, where once there were great ancient Civilizations, you find Desert. For example, there is the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, and under the sands of that Desert, I have found the ruins of ancient Cities, which means that Human Beings turned this stretch of Land, which was once green and Fertile, into a Desert. And, in days when I was with Explorers and Safari people in the Sahara Regions of Africa, I also found evidence of unbelievably ancient Human habitation in places where there is nothing now but angry rock and whispering sand. In other words, the Sahara Desert was once a Fertile country and was turned into a Desert by Human Beings. Why? I must ask myself, again and again, why are Human Beings being driven by insecurity, greed, and lust of power to turn the Earth into a desert in which, ultimately, no Human Being would ever be able to live? Why? And then, I have found that these Countries that are being destroyed by senseless wars which are totally out of character for us Africans, and I speak as an African, are those Countries which, had they been left alone, could have supplied the whole of Africa with food, with water, and with valuable Minerals. I am told, sir, that under the surface of Angola, under the plains of Angola, are deposits of Coal which are without equal in this World. I am further told that in parts of Angola there are deposits of oil which are second only to those reserves of oil which are in the Middle East."
Atomsk,( response to Nov 15 2:43 and 3:40 posts)
I’m not going to respond point by point to everything you said, which would take weeks. You want me to provide a somatic psychology 101 course. I will not do that either; it’s a years-long study involving seeing and sometimes touching bodies, and face-to-face exchanges and you’re asking me to teach it to you in a couple of 500-word written posts. I’ve studied it one way or another for almost 40 years, read hundreds of books about it, been taught by world-renowned experts, and consider myself a beginner. So sure, I’ll be able to get you to understand in a thousand words or so despite your apparent desire not to… No problem.
A couple of points: you use straw persons a lot. Maybe they are corporate persons, maybe not; for the argument here it’s not possible to tell for sure. I never said that all material processes follow psychology. Unless one has been completely taken in by “The Secret” one can see how completely silly that idea is. Read what I said.(I should not have said “materialism”, which may have confused the issue) The point is, economics (what we were discussing) is a belief system determined by psychology as well as physical reality—in fact, more than physical reality, as we see the unreality embodied in our economics. Western/US economics are therefore different from Kwakiutl economics, Tsembaga economics, Amish economics. Your attempts to interpret what I mean are so far off the mark I’m at a loss as to how to respond. You then seem to either completely forget or ignore my point about social systems being formed out of our psychology. Of course it’s an interactive system; but our social institutions reflect our collective dysfunctions. Capitalism didn’t just arise out of the Earth the way Venus popped out of Zeus’ head*. It’s a system that reflects the needs unmet in our childhoods—the interaction of individual and collective realms. How it reflects that is more than I can teach you here.
You and others also persist in mischaracterizing framing and propaganda. You say it is lying, “sugarcoating shit” and therefore evil; a vast oversimplification and misinterpretation. I’m tired of arguing this over and over. Read George Lakoff: CD posts, Don’t Think of an Elephant and other books, archived articles from the Rockridge Institute. See anti-nuclear activist David Comey’s report on RHS Crossman (head of Brit. propaganda in WWII) and what they both said about what propaganda is: tell the truth; understate your case; make arguments credible to your opponents, not to you… etc. Try to understand, rather than speaking over and over from ignorance, because understanding it would answer many of the questions you seem to think are unanswerable.
I’m not sure how you can not get how externalization and projection are related, unless you simply don’t know what projection is. That seems likely; we as a people are far less familiar with the study of ourselves than we should be. But don’t argue about it with me from such a position of ignorance AND expect me to teach a class on it right here on CD’s comment thread.
part 2
Externalization and projection (and even more so projective identification) are parallel processes in different realms, similar by analogy, and also, since mind and body are one, and mind is immanent in the world, not just us (Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind) are different ways to describe what is essentially the same mind-body/human-other process. That should make it perfectly clear, right?
To say that any change is impossible when you don’t understand even the basics of the system by which such changes happen is arrogant and naïve. Just like it would be arrogant of me to berate a sheep geneticist that we could make green sheep by breeding, just because we now have green cotton from breeding and it must be the same because they both started out white. Arrogance of ignorance. You also make arrogantly sweeping statements: “Basically, none of what you said counts in any way because none of these actions will limit and decrease absolute levels of resource use and waste over time. Sorry.” When those statements are also about things you obviously know little about it seems like a waste of time for anyone to argue with you, as you will simply say in essence “whatever I don’t understand can’t be true”.
Your point about competitive elimination of non-externalizing countries is well-taken and the reason we all have the same psychological problem—call it Wetiko Disease, Emotional Plague, or whatever. It’s also changeable in many ways.
Your assumption that when I said psychology I meant only individual psychology is mistake. Similarly, your assumption that externalizing confers advantage has many assumptions. (Unconscious ones?) It does, under certain conditions. Change any number of those conditions, and it doesn’t any more. I find more and more and more points to refute and only one refutation necessary: your disdain for psychology and denial of its importance (both in a self-reinforcing spiral with your ignorance of it) is naïve, and as I said, astounding in the 21st century. It keeps you from understanding most of what happens in the human world.
2 examples of useful knowledge:
1. oil is a metaphor for blood in our society, and thus a metaphor for life. So is energy. Deal with those facts in psychological ways, and our perceived need for them can be reduced. That can indeed be done with a sort of mass psychotherapy, through symbolic messaging in art, politics, religion, and all those other realms I mentioned lo these many words ago.
2. Corporations act like psychopaths because our unconscious and unacceptable ‘greed” (Not exactly the right word for it) has to find a place, since our unconsciousness means it can’t live in us, and that is where we have collectively decided to put it. Bring the ‘greed’ to consciousness and treat it with psychotherapy, mass-symbolic therapy and more healthy childhoods, and corporations will not have to hold it for us. (Look up CG Jung’s concept “shadow”)
*To understand more of psychology’s interactions with religion, culture, mythology etc. see: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors, and a psychotherapist.
WOW!! __ Wow-wow!... I do believe somone has just been told off.... Bam, kicked all over the room, several times.... I would not want to get into it with you J4zonian.
Pt 1 of 3 (sorry :-D)
"A couple of points: you use straw persons a lot. Maybe they are corporate persons, maybe not; for the argument here it’s not possible to tell for sure. I never said that all material processes follow psychology. Unless one has been completely taken in by “The Secret” one can see how completely silly that idea is. Read what I said.(I should not have said “materialism”, which may have confused the issue)."
I don't think I indicated that I interpreted you that way (I definitely didn't intend to, sorry). You said this: "Every process is the result of psychology—every religious, philosophical, economic, cultural, political, societal, engineering, scientific, artistic process, thought, feeling, decision…. Every realm of human endeavor is controlled by psychology. "
I answered this: "It's actually the other way around. There are material processes that are governed by natural laws, and the human mind reflects and manipulates these material processes. Material processes are not controlled by psychology, although through cultural development they become understood better and better both consciously and unconsciously (reflected in patterns of behaviour that fit processes well but aren't consciously understood). These are all behavioural responses to, and not drivers of, real world material processes - which is shown best by the fact that sometimes these patterns of behaviour become out of date and incapable of handling real life problems and result in decline and destruction of social structures. Initially, these are always responses to material circumstances, but in turn, these responses and their effects themselves become part of the material and social environment and so on. "
My point was - especially because you mentioned science - that human endeavours are much more controlled by the material world than by psychology. In every realm of human endeavor, the human mind reflects material processes and tries to influence them. It must submit first to material reality, only then does it have a chance to change it. The human mind itself is a part of the material world and is a result of material processes, its continued existence relies on the continued existence of its material form, and it is a result of a historical development (both evolutionary and cultural) driven mostly by material needs (even if not immediate). The psychology behind human processes is a reflection of the material side these processes influence, not the cause. (Of course this needs to be taken within a historical context.)
"The point is, economics (what we were discussing) is a belief system determined by psychology as well as physical reality—in fact, more than physical reality, as we see the unreality embodied in our economics. Western/US economics are therefore different from Kwakiutl economics, Tsembaga economics, Amish economics. "
Economics is a "belief system"? Well, of course it is, just like any type of science is. Even though the institutionalised science of economics right now has a lot of problems, it is still a (maybe proto)science, which is a pretty special belief system. The differences between Western/US economics, Kwakiutl economics, Tsembaga economics and Amish economics are in how closely and accurately they can describe the real world, how much of it they can describe and how flexible they are in their ability to be applied to different situations. Western history found the "scientific method" that enables Western sciences to get a closer description/understanding of material reality, so ultimately, if things go well, economic science will be able to include what is consistent with reality of the other types of economics. Of course these "economics" will still stay different as social constructs, as belief systems, but their capability to explain reality will be radically different to Western economics (which itself includes a lot of different variants - maybe because it's still very young.) Obviously everyone has a right to choose a preferred belief system, but there are ones that have more practical utility, or are better instruments of understanding the truth and influencing reality, or can survive through history more easily and with much fewer distortions than others. While this may not be a sufficiently deep distinguishing principle for philosophy, it's still pretty important in practice.
Modern Western economics is also a practical tool now so its adherence to scientific method and the principles of science are distorted by the social environment (by immediate material needs it can serve) but that doesn't mean that those methods and principles would not be applicable. Quite a few economists do actually apply them honestly. But its misapplication and distortion doesn't really need to be justified by some psychological parallel when it is clearly driven by material interests of concentrations of power. The "unreality" is not embodied in "economics" because of some deep psychological reason - lots of economists are very much aware of the problems with non steady-state systems. The reason that this is not reflected in "official" economics is absolutely material and practical: concentrations of power prefer the economists who support them intellectually because they serve their need. Even if only five out of a thousand economists really belonged to the laissez-faire school, concrete material interests would select these as representative of the entire science towards the general population. Also, I'm not sure, but I think this is actually what's happening/happened: the Chicago school was not exactly representative of majority scientific opinion when it started to become prominent.
Pt 2 of 3
"Your attempts to interpret what I mean are so far off the mark I’m at a loss as to how to respond. You then seem to either completely forget or ignore my point about social systems being formed out of our psychology. Of course it’s an interactive system; but our social institutions reflect our collective dysfunctions. Capitalism didn’t just arise out of the Earth the way Venus popped out of Zeus’ head*. "
No, I think I understood what you meant, it's just that I am really deeply disagreeing with it. In my opinion it's the other way around. Our social systems are *not* formed out of our psychology. Even though it is a factor (a material factor), the primary things that form them are changing material conditions. There is also an expanding set of behaviours that individuals and structures can exhibit (and acquire consciously and in an institutional fashion or just absorb it from the cultural environment directly), and while the appearance and individual acceptance of these behaviours has a lot to do with psychology (although not completely determined by it, not even mostly), the dominant ones, the ones that work are always selected by the material world. On the other hand, it is true that important parts of our individual psychology may have been formed by pre-existing social systems and groups that were formed through the material process of biological evolution, so in this (very narrow) sense psychology does indeed have an effect - but these are still just remains of adaptations to material processes.
(Also, this is just nitpicking , but I never heard of a birth myth of Venus popping out from Jupiter's head (or Aphrodite from Zeus')...afaik it was another body part (of another god) she was born of, closely related to her role. The head wouldn't make much sense.)
"It’s a system that reflects the needs unmet in our childhoods—the interaction of individual and collective realms. How it reflects that is more than I can teach you here. "
I still find the idea that capitalism emerged in history as a result of the development of tools of production much more believable and realistic than the idea that it is just a reflection of human psychology. Conscious division of labour, developments in science and its method and engineering, and discovery and conscious exploitation of non-human energy were the *material* discoveries and changes that gave it birth. My point is that you can understand capitalism much better and in more practically important ways if you look at it from this point of view, as opposed to something that just grew out from the human mind. All of these are (after they're discovered and put in learnable form) simple concepts and simple discoveries, a human child can understand them, but they still say very much about reality.
"You and others also persist in mischaracterizing framing and propaganda. You say it is lying, “sugarcoating shit” and therefore evil; a vast oversimplification and misinterpretation."
Obviously I do not *identify* propaganda and its methods with "lying" and "sugarcoating shit" - I *judge* it with using these expressions. I just prefer to be offensive towards people working in propaganda and I think the their work is morally equivalent to lying. I thought this much was obvious, and this is why I don't often discuss the actual methods of propaganda. I only read a few books about this (Bernays, Ellul, Aronson and a few others whose content I probably don't remember anyway), as I'm not that interested in the method, only its applications (which are mostly driven by (material) historic processes :-D).
"I’m not sure how you can not get how externalization and projection are related, unless you simply don’t know what projection is. "
Yep, I'm pretty ignorant, but this interests me, so why don't you explain it clearly please? I do know what projection is and I use the word pretty often. But imo this explanation is not very good:
"Externalization and projection (and even more so projective identification) are parallel processes in different realms, similar by analogy, and also, since mind and body are one, and mind is immanent in the world, not just us (Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind) are different ways to describe what is essentially the same mind-body/human-other process. That should make it perfectly clear, right? "
First, I can not accept an analogy (especially such a vague and inconsistent one) as an explanation. Second, I do not think that saying that "mind is immanent in the world" has any explanatory value,at all, without describing the actual real world mechanisms that connect this mind to actual real-life processes. Of course you can easily think of the Earth (or the entire Universe) as a "living system" or even as a Mind (btw this has been a pretty standard sci-fi trope for several decades now, maybe based on Bateson or Lovelock, no idea), but I don't see the actual method that describes even in a general outline how the processes in this Mind map to or influence real life processes.
"To say that any change is impossible when you don’t understand even the basics of the system by which such changes happen is arrogant and naïve."
I never ever said any change was impossible. I only said that relying on individual-based change and increasing resource efficiency will not lead to change in overall resource consumption and especially waste and pollution, and that this requires that limits external to the economy (political limits) be imposed on resource use.
"Just like it would be arrogant of me to berate a sheep geneticist that we could make green sheep by breeding, just because we now have green cotton from breeding and it must be the same because they both started out white. Arrogance of ignorance. "
I think it was you who misunderstood me, and while I'm not exactly the most humble person in the world, and sometimes (even in this thread) I indeed am an arrogant patronising hypocritical asshole - just not in this case. This is a simple historical fact: increasing resource efficiency did not lead to lower total resource consumption. In addition to this, even locally decreasing per-human resource use through efficiency will also not decrease total resource consumption. This stems from the nature of capitalism and how it "manages" tools of production.
Pt 3 of 3
"You also make arrogantly sweeping statements: “Basically, none of what you said counts in any way because none of these actions will limit and decrease absolute levels of resource use and waste over time. Sorry.” When those statements are also about things you obviously know little about it seems like a waste of time for anyone to argue with you, as you will simply say in essence “whatever I don’t understand can’t be true”.
This was badly phrased, sorry about it, but it's still true. I don't disagree that what were described in that post are necessary steps to take, my point is simply that these are not enough in themselves by far; a stronger statement is that without absolute external limits on consumption, these changes may even increase total resource consumption (that was the reference to the Jevons paradox). This is afaics very much supported by historical facts. Of course it's important for people to stop driving cars etc etc, but unless the entire economy is transformed, just people stopping to use cars will only lead to a redirection of resource consumption, or maybe, in the best case, to a temporary slowdown of resource consumption (or more probably, of its rate of increase :-/). I mean, maybe it would be different if all people in the world were somehow reprogrammed to be nice, but even in this case, you'd have to first create a functioning material economy that people can join to obtain their material needs for subsistence - otherwise they'd just have to go back to doing the old stuff. No matter their psychology, people must fulfill material needs for subsistence, and capitalism is so totalitarian that it made it almost completely impossible for people to be outside of the system and still subsist.
"Your point about competitive elimination of non-externalizing countries is well-taken and the reason we all have the same psychological problem—call it Wetiko Disease, Emotional Plague, or whatever. It’s also changeable in many ways. "
But it's not a "psychological problem". I think this is in fact the core of our disagreements. It is the other way around. You don't even need a mind for this process to work. This is something that happens in the natural world and you can actually simulate this process on a computer based purely on simple cost-minimising gain-maximising algorithms. A behaviour that has more operational "survival value" will survive. This is not even a theory, it's just a truism. Human psychology is a *reflection* of this material process, not the other way around. The real mountain is not the one on the map.
"1. oil is a metaphor for blood in our society, and thus a metaphor for life. So is energy. Deal with those facts in psychological ways, and our perceived need for them can be reduced. That can indeed be done with a sort of mass psychotherapy, through symbolic messaging in art, politics, religion, and all those other realms I mentioned lo these many words ago. "
Oil may be a metaphor, but it is also a physical, material resource that gives you physical power over the world and over other people (and it can only be a metaphor for blood because it actually has this material property). Behaviours that use this power will of course be "stronger" (in the short run at least :-/) than behaviours that don't use it and will be "selected" by history. The immediate (psychological) reason for why a society starts to use this power is relatively unimportant: the important thing is that if a society with this behaviour emerges, it will have a competitive advantage over other societies. (Also don't misudnerstand me, this is not a judgment from my part. I'm no social darwinist - I don't think that this judgment is "just" or that we shouldn't try to free ourselves from this pressure; but it exists.)
"2. Corporations act like psychopaths because our unconscious and unacceptable ‘greed” (Not exactly the right word for it) has to find a place, since our unconsciousness means it can’t live in us, and that is where we have collectively decided to put it. Bring the ‘greed’ to consciousness and treat it with psychotherapy, mass-symbolic therapy and more healthy childhoods, and corporations will not have to hold it for us. (Look up CG Jung’s concept “shadow”) "
Corporations act like psychopaths because acting like a psychopath is good for the "survival" of the corporation. Psychopathy works. And because of high levels of competition, non-psychopathic corporations will simply die off. This means that once this form of behaviour comes into existence, and can be reliably repeated, it will inevitably spread to the entire system. The system selects for psychopathy and counterselects for humane behaviour. Even thinking about the roots and origins of this behaviour, I think it would be invented even if no psychopaths existed: it is simple, logical, practical - so much more simple and obvious than normal humane behaviour.
This does not mean that CEOs and other "deciders" have to be psychopaths individually, because important decisions within a corporation are not primarily shaped by a person's psychology but by the structural institutional needs of the corporation. Of course the corporate system of selection and filtering seems to prefer psychopaths but that's a different mechanism (still very important).
Perhaps you are an engineer; I often run into intelligent and radically stunted engineers who cannot imagine what they cannot beat on with their fists. I read your posts, liked the challenge, thought and wrote… but it went on so long and you kept so stubbornly to your relentlessly repeated concretized concrete linear thinking that encompasses the whole range of human experience all the way from A to B…that I realized you are a man sitting on a tennis court watching a tennis ball machine spit out balls. Wow, you say, I didn’t know that’s where tennis balls came from.
The vast world of rubber tappers, cotton farms and farmers, trucks and ships and trains and factories and dye makers and shoppers isn’t there on the tennis court with you so you sit there thinking hmmm, so that’s where tennis balls come from. Someone tells you no, there’s this tree that bleeds latex when it’s cut and people collect it… and talks to you about all the systems behind the tennis balls and the machine that shoots them out and you say no that’s wrong. I DON’T SEE THAT. This machine is making tennis balls.
The person sits there with you and says there are factories where people in trucks bring cotton and rubber and other people take them to huge machines where they get processed one bit at a time and they describe the whole system of tennis ball manufacture to you and you sit there and say, no, that’s wrong. I DON’T SEE THAT. This machine is making tennis balls.
Then the person describes downtown and shopping at the sporting goods store and bringing the balls home in the car and how the tennis ball shooting machine came on a white, red and blue truck and was carried to the back yard and set up and the person shows you the buttons and how it works and you say no, that’s wrong. I DON’T SEE THAT. This machine is making tennis balls.
You are an idiot; though maybe, like the human race in general, an idiot savant. I have better things to do than teach you psychology and do therapy with you online to figure out exactly what has wounded you so much you can’t face the pain of admitting that there are unconscious motives to our actions, individual and collective. Your intransigent refusal to see, or even to give the benefit of the doubt to one who you might at least guess has been around and observed the world of tennis balls long enough to maybe have some ideas you haven’t considered, is quite amazing. The possibility that someone else might be well enough versed in another system of thought that s/he might know something about what you continue to deny seems beyond you. It is an example of what keeps the human race trundling on toward utter destruction. There’s not enough room on all the CD comment threads posted today to provide the education you need. Find a therapist who can explain it to you.