Category Archives: Climate Change.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. TEMPERATURES ARE RISING AND VERY FEW OF US SEEM TO RELISE WHAT IT MEANS.

24 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., Climate Change.

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( Five-minute read) ) 

A shift of a single degree is barely perceptible to human skin, but it’s not human skin we’re talking about. It’s the planet, and an average increase of one degree across its entire surface means huge changes in climatic extremes.

Even if greenhouse emissions stopped overnight the concentrations already in the atmosphere would still mean a global rise of between 0.5 and 1C.

Air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution with the average global temperature on Earth having increased by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Keeping records began in 1880. 

A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all of the oceans. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age.

The year 2021 had an above-average global tropical cyclone activity with a total of 94 named storms. Snow cover was 9.39 million square miles and the seventh-smallest annual snow cover extent in the 1967-2021 record, with the average temperature across global surfaces 1.51°F (0.84°C) above the 20th-century average.

2021, the sixth warmest year on record. Nine of the ten hottest years or records have occurred in the past decade.

The upper-ocean heat content, which addresses the amount of heat stored in the 0-2000 meters depth of the ocean, was a record high in 2021.

December 2021 also marked the 24th consecutive December with a below-average sea ice extent.

The year 2021 was South America’s sixth warmest year on record at 1.09°C (1.96°F) above average. The year 2021 also marks North America’s 25th consecutive year with temperatures, at least nominally, above average.

The year 2021 was Europe’s ninth warmest year on record at 1.28°C (2.30°F) above average.

Africa had its third-warmest year (tying with 2019) in the 112-year record.

Asia had its seventh warmest year on record.

Oceania had an above-average temperature.   /monitoring-content/sotc/global/extremes/extremes-202113.png

It is irrefutable that we are now looking down the barrel of a Climate Gun. 

Mountains are starting to come apart. Polar ice is melting. Greenland will tip into irreversible melt once global temperatures rise past a mere 1.2C.

At the current rate, the whole Greenland ice sheet would vanish within 140 years.

Miami would disappear, as would most of Manhattan. Central London would be flooded. Bangkok, Bombay, and Shanghai would lose most of their area. In all, half of humanity would have to move to higher ground.

Everywhere, ecosystems will unravel. By the time global temperatures reach two degrees of warming in 2050, more than a third of all living species will face extinction.

Beyond two degrees, however, preventing mass starvation will be as easy as halting the cycles of the moon. First millions, then billions, of people will face an increasingly tough battle to survive. In the two-degree hotter world, nobody will think of taking Mediterranean holidays.

In this kind of heat, the death of the Amazon is as inevitable as the melting of Greenland.

Once the veneer of civilization had been torn away a three-degree increase in global temperature the end of the world is nigh.

BETWEEN THREE AND FOUR DEGREES OF WARMING

It would throw the carbon cycle into reverse. Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide, vegetation and soils start to release it. So much carbon pours into the atmosphere that it pumps up atmospheric concentrations by 250 parts per million by 2100.

The stream of refugees will now include those fleeing from coasts to safer interiors. Both poles are certain to melt, causing an eventual rise of 50 meters. Ice sheets have vanished.

We are looking now at an entirely different planet.

Globalism in the five-degree world will break down into something more like parochialism. Customers will have nothing to buy because producers will have nothing to sell. With no possibility of international aid, migrants will have to force their way into the few remaining habitable enclaves and fight for survival.

At the same time, as the ozone layer came under assault, we would feel the sun’s rays burning into our skin, and the first cell mutations would be triggering outbreaks of cancer among anyone who survived.Faceless firemen by building on fire

One more Degree.

It is not too difficult to imagine the ultimate nightmare, with oceanic methane eruptions near large population centers wiping out billions of people – perhaps in days. All the remaining forests burning, and the corpses of people, livestock, and wildlife piling up in every continent, the six-degree world would be a harsh penalty indeed for the mundane crime of burning fossil energy.

The maximum temperatures a human body can stand without dying or suffering severe consequences is 100 F (38 C) but surviving requires continuous fluid intake. 

As we look forward to 2022, it’s clear that ambitious net-zero targets pose a myriad of difficulties. As it stands, emissions across the world are not declining.

We can’t afford to wait and hope that the world will stop using fossil fuels in time, it won’t. Because the fragility of our food systems and their dependency on fossil fuels is intrinsically linked with an increasing loss of biodiversity. 

We need more than a polluter pays principle so that people who cause damage are financially responsible for their actions.

The reality is that no one wants to suffer the financial costs that affect the changes required to make a difference. 

Here below is a suggestion to address this problem.

https://bobdillon33blog.com/2022/01/10/the-beady-eye-says-we-all-want-it-but-no-one-want-to-pay-for-it/

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. 2022 WILL BE THE YEAR OF DIASTER CAPITALISM.

31 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Disasters., Environment, Extermination., Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., Life., Money in Politics., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Privatization, Purpose of life., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Transition period or Implication period., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Economy., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

When I first started looking at disaster capitalism, it was in the context of warfare and counter-terrorism, now it’s privatized exploitation of  Pandemics and Climate Change. 

During a major crisis, regular people are understandably focused on the everyday challenges of surviving. They rarely can also worry about private industries pushing local policy proposals that might negatively impact their lives never mind cashing in on Pandemics and Climate change.

Pandemics might be avoidable in the future but what is unavoidable is a Future Climate that stands to send more unprecedented emergencies, inconsistency, and destruction our way.

(Though it’s still feasible to prevent the planet from becoming completely uninhabitable, saying its crunch time is a massive understatement.)

They both provide the very conditions that give rise to disaster capitalism, which is developing more frequently with more companies and wealthy ‘Philanthropists’ seeing both as a growth sector, not to mention Sovernity Wealth Funds which are investing in everything from drinking water to you name it.

Why? 

Because they stand to make substantial financial returns for their beneficiaries and if managed properly could be contributing to sustainable development in a meaningful way. However, a deeper understanding of the drivers and influences of investor organizations is required to mobilize their capital effectively. 

Globally, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are a major source of capital that has the potential to invest for the long term in sectors that desperately need it. While Philanthropists donations usually only represent 0.05% of the billion accumulated.

(A fraction of the spoils of neoliberal tech capitalism, in the name of generosity, do not try to address the problems of wealth inequality which is created by a social and an economic system that allowed those spoils to accrue in the first place. They are small contributions to a large problem that were created by the success of the industry he or she is involved in.)

List of Top 8 World's biggest Philanthropists in 2021                                ————————-

Let’s put a magnifying Glass Philanthrocapitalism.

Philanthropy serves to legitimize capitalism, as well as to extend it further and further into all domains of social, cultural, and political activity.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Their donations are welcome, however, they are not the simple act of generosity they pretend to be. In this greedy world, it is good to see wealthy individuals repaying to help fix problems that their companies have often caused in the first place.

The risk of philanthrocapitalism is a takeover of charity by business interests, such that generosity to others is appropriated into the overarching dominance of the CEO model of society and its corporate institutions.

Today, large organizations can amass significant economic and political power, on a global scale, and essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class.

When this happens what we witness is, on one hand, is exploitative of labor practices or corporate malpractice being swept under the carpet while the donator is accruing significant commercial, tax, free publicity, and political benefits.

Democracy is sacrificed on that altar of executive-style empowerment. 

The nature of this apparent charity should be openly questioned from the outset.

Because this reformulation of generosity – in which it is no longer considered incompatible with control and self-interest – is a hallmark of the “CEO society”: A society where the values associated with corporate leadership are applied to all dimensions of human endeavor.

What it does suggest, however, is that when it comes to giving, the CEO approach is one in which there is no apparent incompatibility between being generous, seeking to retain control over what is given, and the expectation of reaping benefits in return.

  What can be done?

As historian Mikkel Thorup explains, philanthrocapitalism rests on the claim that “capitalist mechanisms are superior to all others (especially the state) when it comes to not only creating economic but also human progress, and that the market and market actors are or should be made the prime creators of the good society”.

Now take Climate change which is going to take trillions to combat.

As global warming augments cycles of fire, flood, hurricanes, and viral mutations, we learn to live in anticipation, from emergency to emergency, sometimes even before the deaths have occurred.

Disaster capitalism and philanthrocapitalism will not work to revert the outcomes of Climate Change nor will technology, the unloving God. 

Why? 

Because Capitalism has turns everything including us into a product to be traded, resulting in most of the wealth in the world now owned by 1% of its population. 

Before ( not too long ago ) there were Markets now we have Market Societies thanks to the buying of shares and trading them, complements of the British Indian Company.  So a society that is organized around the principle that companies should not be prevented from making things that kill people must also accept as ‘normal’ that many people will die in large numbers from these things.

 But what makes something a disaster?

Certainly what makes a disaster is when the victim is humanly itself.

From epidemiological forecasters to genetic epidemiologists and computational and zoonosis biologists — are the new oracles upon whose prophecies financial markets rise and fall but the awaiting climate disaster will expose a world characterized by gross inequality that is getting worse and worse, year by year.

From the perspective of disaster capitalism, we might say that what makes COVID-19 a disaster is its arrival in woefully underinsured countries, unhealthy populations.

If we had a healthier population, would COVID-19 be considered a disaster? Possibly or perhaps not. To be sure, the virus is deadly, but like other disasters, the actual arrival of COVID-19 magnifies pre-existing vulnerability in ways that also figure in the calculus of disaster capitalism.

The uneven way the climate crisis will continue to impact certain countries. If private interests are already prepped to engage in disaster capitalism, those devoted to building a better world should be prepared with alternatives.

There is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster.’ There is also no such thing as a natural or certain response. But there is preparedness.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT WITH CAPITALISM IT IS UNABLE TO TACKLE SITUATIONS THAT ARE NOT TRADABLE.

As money materialized from fresh air the essentials for life will be traded – freshwater- energy- food- healthcare – education – data – etc. 

We must arm ourselves with knowledge, and laws that ensure transparency. 

What we have at the moment is the transfer of power to technology which we know sweet fuck all about with no regulations. 

Unrivaled power.

One only has to look at Jeff Bezos, the Bransons, the Mark Zuckerberg’s, Apple, Google, etc.

We all work for one or the other for free while they entertain themselves blasting off to space with friends and worthless actors in giant phallic symbols of power. 

However, the real story will unpack differently long before anyone lives on another planet. It will be how our mental well-being – is impacting every facet of our lives.

The total mortality from COVID-19 on a global scale is as yet unknown, but we have been thinking of it as a disaster for weeks now.

What exactly is the disaster, then?

Pandemics have become a dominant framework through which government and financial resources are mobilized in Global Health.

There’s been a lot of dithering about whether or not COVID-19 is a disaster, meanwhile, inequality is growing, and both corporations and the wealthy find ways to avoid the taxes that the rest of us pay.

There is the virus, and then there is the societal reaction of bringing our entire fiscal and economic infrastructure to a near-complete standstill.

Morbid diseases that persist as chronic forms for years but eventually kill more people to seem less like disasters.

It’s not a moment to sort of sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

We all appreciate with the current pandemic that some are making hay while the sun shines, at our expense. Unfortunately, there is little point in getting the Jabs, to extend your time on earth if the earth itself is dying and what remains is been turned into trading products.

You’ve got to fight for your vision of for-profit corporate solutions that may succeed in creating company profits but ultimately fail in terms of democracy, fairness, and justice.

Conclusion:  

To address the problems with greed and power create, we must create equality and this can not be done in a Profit-seeking Capitalist way of trading our way out of the pending disasters.  Wall Street will never close.  

So here is an idea that might help.

Non-Trading Capitalism.  

Green non-tradable bonds to be issued online at a global scale, with guaranteed percentage returns, with a yearly prize draw.

Or

Place a 0.05% World Aid Commission on all tradable financial instruments. (see previous posts) 

Either of the above could be implemented with the click of a switch ensuring a perpetual source of disaster non-profitable funding. 

Both would create trillions and allow fairness and involvement of us all.

It is perhaps worth remembering that capitalism, like its alternatives, is an adaptation to circumstances. It is not a virtue, not a standard for judgment, not a measure of right or nobility. It’s just another ‘ism’

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS SOCIETY SET TO COLLAPSE?

19 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Disconnection., Human Collective Stupidity., Life., Pandemic, POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Society, Speed of technology., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

Not quite, but every major social indicator imaginable is either flatlining or declining and unwinding, from longevity, to trust, to happiness, to wealth.

 

History shows us that economic collapse will essentially happen with entrenched elites seeking to maintain the status quo.

You would have to be an ostrich with your head stuck in the sand not to see that in exchange for your Freedom, Liberty, and Independence, governments are printing currency to pay their bills and support the tens of millions on public assistance.

But if you take a look around societies that are failing to anticipate their own impending collapses.

There are political classes, intellectual classes, and capitalist classes, to name a few that can conceive of the possibility that society is in a grave, profound difficulty. With the help of the Pandemic now reaching unprecedented proportions, and the continuing Climate crises all are adding up to a pending collapsing society.

Why?

Because we are all too preoccupied with merely surviving the vicious cycle as the collapse intensifies. On one hand are acting as if we are already living in scientifically-planned societies, immune to collapse on a time scale that any of us have to worry about. On the other is the idea that everyone is entitled to have what others have earned is now permeating society with the help of social media.

It is not our hard-won liberties that are being taken away it is our means to live a life in an attempt to save dying economies.

                                  ____________________

If that is not enough just look at what COP26 achieved. 

As you know COP26 was an opportunity for nations from across the globe to agree on a way to limit the devastating impacts of climate change.

What we got was a deal that does not go far enough and will not limit global warming to 1.5C by the end of the century.

Because of the current Pandemic, carbon emissions will continue for the foreseeable future, combined with Methane, we are set to see more wars.

Climate change is going to result in mass migration with wars over resources with the pandemic affecting not just the cost of living but the ability to earn a living. We’re already seeing (with the most recent example in Cameroon where farmers and fishermen are killing each other for water) both ( Climate/ Pandemic ) escalating resulting in steep recessions in many countries.

Current projections suggest that the worldwide recession of COVID-19 would be the fourth deepest and most extreme since the Second World War during this time.

Surely it’s time we started to look at both the Pandemic and Climate Change through the eyes of human liberty, consensus, and laws, all are becoming more relevant day by day, which is paramount to all of us.

Today we are not immune to anybody’s problems.

A collapse of a society anywhere is a global issue, and conversely, anybody anywhere in the world now has ways of reaching us.

However, there are obvious differences between the environmental problems and pandemics in the past and the ones that we face today. The difference between today and the past is globalization.

In the past, you could get solitary collapses.

                                            ———————-

If elites wish to maintain the status quo, why don’t people…take action against those elites?

Are we able to choose what we will do with our lives?

What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths?

Common sense tells us that with the state of our planet, that we’re is no longer at liberty to ignore what is happening. If we really can choose, then these choices we have made must be uncaused — something that cannot be explained within the model of science that many of us rely on.

However from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without having been caused by something else? 

A human act is an act that is deliberately performed by one possessed of the use of reason. Branches of psychology and many wisdom traditions, attempt to make sense of human existence and experience and to connect those experiences to the world at large. 

Our current view of human mental evolution is like a jigsaw puzzle where many of the pieces have been taken out of the box.

They have not yet been put together to form a coherent picture.

One of the oldest questions in psychology, and in other fields such as philosophy, is whether humans have free will. The central puzzles about human cognition are its curious combination of flexibility and efficiency.

But is this all that defines us?

We don’t have to live with what we got.

Take, the technology behind a nuclear bomb.

It only exists because of the technology because of a cooperative hive mind: hundreds of scientists and engineers working together on an atom bomb.  

This same unique intelligence and cooperation also underlie more positive advances, such as modern medicine and now the vaccines we are using to fight covid. 

Still, as far as we know, we are the only creatures trying to understand where we came from. We also peer further back in time, and further into the future, than any other animal.

What other species would think to ponder the age of the universe, or how it will end?

                                    ———–

Either we put our survival before GDP.

Continue as we are or change by putting our Health before Consumption, putting equality before greed, putting transparency before political power, and sharing our responsibility to future generations. 

We don’t know exactly what led to our brains becoming the size they are today, but we seem to owe our complex reasoning abilities to notice the unexpected, which our world is now experiencing and will continue to experience with less and less critical reflection.  

Critical reflection requires that the thinker examine the underlying assumptions and radically question or doubt the validity of arguments, assertions, and even facts of the case. 

We are now in need of some critical thinking, not reflection to consider the results of having linked our scenario-building minds into larger networks of knowledge that have made us increasingly reliant on each other.

So what if anything will bring us together to act as one or when will we hit peak humanity becoming a singularity basically?

By peak humanity I mean we’ll have the ability to do things we can’t do alone.

If we could all work together as well as the human body can, that’s when I think we individual humans will be “cells” and we as a collective would be called an individual.

Our problem is that the majority of us are incapable of putting anything before our daily needs.

                                       ———————–

Because our rapidly expanding technology has allowed us all to become instant publishers means we can share information at the touch of a button.

This transmission of ideas and technology helps us in our quest to uncover even more about ourselves with an immense capacity for good. At the same time, we risk driving our closest relatives to extinction and destroying the only planet we have ever called home.

The technology that defines us can also destroy the world.

Why?

Because we’re simply trying to advance too much too fast.

Our cultures and mindsets cant keep up with our technology and morality, so chaos ensues.

How do you expect to survive in a world that is based on imaginary delusions of people without basic knowledge about how Earth works in terms of physics and biology.

This tells us something profound about ourselves.

Unfortunately, we don’t know all of the determinants of human behavior, and we may never understand all of these determinants—so the question of whether or not we have free will is likely to remain a philosophical quagmire.

This is why we are unable to act as one.

So we are left pretty much where we started.

Religions, Languages, Nations, and Cultures are what divide humanity today which is just another flaw as a species. 

So of course, we pass on the good and the bad.

Not until we learn to pull together our unparalleled language skills, our ability to infer others’ mental states, and our instinct for cooperation, will we have something unprecedented to fight Climate Change and future pandemics.

We understand what others think based upon our knowledge of the world, but we also understand what others cannot know. 

The answer lies in fundamentally changing social behavior away from the rapidly moving consuming beings that we are.

We are the only society in world history that has the ability to learn from all the experiments being carried out elsewhere in the world today, and all the experiments that have succeeded and failed in the past so at least we have the choice of what we want to do about it or do we. 

Most people realize that 2020 has thrust two game-changing trends upon us that will change the world for years to come.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS THE ENVIORMENT MORE IMPORTAIN THAN THE ECONOMY?

09 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Algorithms., Capitalism, Climate Change., Disaster Capitalism., Economic Depression., Emergency powers., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Pandemic, Politics., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income ., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Five-minute read) 

With the continuation of the covid pandemic, this is going to become the big question because the two are intertwined.

If this pandemic drags on, which appears it will do with new variants, the degree of economic harm will become extreme, resulting in a different kind of “ailment” worse than the one we’re supposedly trying to “cure.”

Either way, the current shackling of the economy cannot be allowed to drag on much longer, or we will find ourselves in a full-blown global depression — and then more people will die.

However, if you combine the pandemic with the other major crises Climate Change the Environment wins hands down. 

Why? 

Because in the long run if the environment is not protected it will inevitably lead to the depletion of economic resources and the destruction of the earth and human life. 

In this world, humans are not here for only survival there are many other aspects that are necessary for the lives of humans. The economy is not, and never was intended as, “an end in itself”.

Everything that belonged to humans came from the environment but we can live without an economy, but not without our environment!

We’re all in this together.

There’s just enough truth to that to convince the average citizen — but the more insidious (and, I believe, likely intended) effect is to promote public docility;

To persuade us to go along with any and all directives issued by the authorities.

An economy is good only insofar as it satisfies our needs for freedom to enjoy the actuality of living, not valuing profit over life itself. On the physical level, human lives literally depend on the economy; not only for paying the bills and preparing for retirement but for healthcare itself.

With no economy, there is no point in having a good environment. everything in the history of the world created by humans came from the environment.

A “healthy” economy is an indicator of a “healthy” society. They live side by side.

If the goal of government policy is only “to slow the spread of infections”“

If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.” — Guy McPherson.

The cure shouldn’t be worse than the disease. Government handling of any public emergency — if those in power are rational and just — will be balanced with their handling of the economy.

Pope Francis said on Sunday that people are more important than the economy, as countries decide how quickly to reopen their countries from coronavirus lockdowns.

What do you think the economy is? 

It is people but unfortunately, with our present system of capitalist economies, people do not benefit equally from its growth. Essential workers versus the unemployed, shareholders versus self-employed, foodbanks versus dialing a meal, the list is endless however without humans, how can we hope to repair anything?

To remove these inequalities is impossible but an economy based on universal basic income for all would allow people to look after themselves rather than state handouts.

Providing inflation was controlled it would go a long way to leveling up. 

Instead, the possibility of dictatorial governments using technology data is now on the cards. This fear is exacerbated by the average person’s lack of reflection on just what “the economy” is, and what it means to both individual freedom and the public good.

History has shown us we shouldn’t underestimate the threat to our liberty arising from the government’s response to Covid. There’s no reason to assume that after the pandemic — if there is an “after” — all democratic governments will voluntarily relinquish their newly acquired power.

Sure the government’s first obligation is to ensure people can survive both Climate change and the virus but without the means to change the way we live our lives it will be meanless.  

So it’s time for the media to make the cost of human life better understood.

It’s time for the advertising industry to stop promoting consumption for profit. 

It’s time to regulate Profit for-profit technology such as non-transparent Algorithms. 

Either we are really all in this together or we are not.

Of course, together will remain only words till we address the weakness which is at the heart of any nation-state project ( Like the current Vaccination program)

The vast majority are unable to participate because of a lack of compensation, by the capacity ( notably economic) of the capitalist system to ensure that everybody enjoys certain equality of access to material well-being. A Basis Universal income would rectify that.      

Modern societies can easily get by without cultural integration, tolerating a situation of competitive pluralism of values without automatically sinking into anarchy feared by the sociological tradition of inequality, if given the means to do so.  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse are chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS : IT IS TIME TO CONNECT THE DOTS.

26 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change., Human Collective Stupidity., Militarism.

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(Five-minute read)

If you think that people are going to stand in water up to their necks or flames burning their hair while starving you are disillusioned.

Climate change and war are Siamese twins and like most wars, there are won or lost by connecting the dots. 

There is no escaping climate change which is going to lead to resource conflicts.

Perhaps this is why the Military is thanks to the Kyoto Accords’ ( the first agreement between nations to mandate country by country reductions in greenhouse -gas emissions), is exempt.

The longer we fail to tackle the causes of the climate crisis the more militarised the consequences. 

                                        —————–

Any talk of climate change that does not include the military is nothing but hot air.

There can be no climate change mitigation without peace and no peace without moving swiftly to provide the poorer parts of the world with the resources needed to adapt to climate change and build resilient economies.

The military that produces 6% of all global emissions reports no climate change emissions to any national or international body.

This loophole is set to grow at a time when other emissions are falling. 

Why?

Because the trillions that are spent on weapons rob national treasuries of the resources needed to provide funds for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Militarism is the most oil-exhaustive activity on the planet.

At the outset of the Iraq war in March 2003, the American Army estimated it would need more than 40 million gallons of gasoline for three weeks of combat, exceeding the total quantity used by all Allied forces in the four years of World War 1. 

The war generated at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) more each year of the war than 139 of the world’s countries release annually.

The US Air Force (USAF) is the single largest consumer of jet fuel in the world. An F-4 Phantom Fighter burns more than 1,600 gallons of jet fuel per hour and peaks at 14,400 gallons per hour at supersonic speeds.

The Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements. 

                                     ——————-

If we connect the dots in recent years, the causes of conflict have been gathering a frightening degree of force due to climate change rendering huge parts of the world less hospitable to human beings, which have simply elicited grievances that are blowing up into full-blown conflicts.

There are already five current conflicts that are affected in some way by climate change. 

The Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, ISIS Invasion of Iraq, Yemen Civil War, South Sudan Conflict, Libyan Civil War.

Climate change is well on the way to causing the largest refugee crisis in human history and it is not difficult to see that mass migration due to climate change will lead to social disruption and potentially violent conflict.

Ideology will always be a surface-level justification for conflict, but if you look deeply at the source of future conflicts, you’ll see a basic resource conflict at the bottom of it all and the veneer of civilization which is already on thin once broken there will be no existing structure of peacekeeping that can hold up under these conditions.

Can Western democratic society, which is built on a system of limitless growth and productivity, which is based on the exploitation of nature and our environment, has trapped us in this paradigm a destructive relationship with nature.

WHICH BLINDS US TO THE LACK OF A SINGLE, SIMPLE CAUSAL PATHWAY THAT LINKS CLIMATE AND CONFLICT.

We should be much better than our collective selves. However, I doubt we have the collective will to work together to get the job done.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT WILL THE NEXT CLIMATE CONFERENCE ACHIVE?

18 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by in Climate Change., Cop26., Uncategorized

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(Three-minute read) 


IF ANYTHING THE FAILURE OF THE LAST MEETING.

Cop 26 was at best a very human flawed attempt to deal with a problem of our own making.

The final pledges on the table are not in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement to hold the rise in warming to well below 2 Celsius degrees, and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 Celsius degrees.

Why? 

Because: 

All Things Considered, it had little to offer on the hope front. 

The conference was not about climate change but greenwashing on behalf of the conference sponsors. 

The concept of loss and damage, where rich countries pay poorer nations for the destruction already caused by climate change, remains an idea rather than a reality in the document.

Because the conference treated indigenous groups as helpless victims.  

If any of us is to continue, we will have to learn from those closest to the land and the sea what it is we really want, as opposed to what the jolly global greenwashing festival is trying to sell us.

We all — governments, financial institutions, individuals, and companies — now need to change and step up to address this challenge. As countries transition to green energy, a deadly race for global power begins.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been selected to host the COP28 international climate conference in 2023.

It will be the third time the talks are hosted by a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Former OPEC member Qatar hosted in 2012 and Indonesia did in 2007. The hypoxia of it all is beyond belief.

Crude Oil Production in the United Arab Emirates increased to 2833 BBL/D/1K in October from 2786 BBL/D/1K in September of 2021. Dubai alone was built on the back of an oil and real-estate boom.

Long live the sponsors.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADT EYE SAYS. WHAT DID THE BEADY EYE TELL YOU? COP26 WOULD TURN OUT TO BE A COP OUT.

14 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by in Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change.

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(Three-minute read) 

WOW!

AFTER TWO WEEKS OF NEGOTIATION WE HAVE MANAGED TO PRODUCE A HAPHAZARD APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE. 

It should’ve been our moment for climate action — but

wealthy nations’ leaders failed to deliver meaningfully

climate action.

 

The headline is that leaders from the countries that created and worsened climate change have failed — squandering the opportunity to take the truly transformational actions that this crisis demands.

SO WHAT NOW?

We are going to reconvene in Egypt in 2022.

When the fact will still remain that we are still far off the 1.5C target, and we will still need on-time and effective policies and legislation to make the existing but insufficient pledges a reality.

Pledges from COP26 put us on track for global warming of between 1.8C and 2.4C.

( If you want to see what a 2.4c temperature will look like see the previous post) 

As Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley said as the conference began: “How many more voices and how many more pictures of people must we see on these screens without being able to move, or are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?”

“Can there be peace and prosperity if one-third of the world literally prospers and the other two things of the world live under siege and face calamitous threats to our well-being?” 

The climate crisis threatens the lives and livelihoods of billions of people around the world and could unravel decades of gains made in the fight against poverty.

The announcements the private sector made at COP26 were predictable and can be broadly lumped into three buckets: the defiant, the greenwashing, and the genuinely positive.

what are they actually talking about? is profit.

It’s vital we understand what this means in reality.

Neither they nor our world leaders grasped that there is no negotiation with the climate and  Net-zero essentially means contributing nothing to global warming.

It is not carbon neutrality.

Although that term also refers to bringing the overall emissions level to nothing, it can commonly be achieved by offsetting the equivalent amount of carbon emissions reductions elsewhere. For example, a rich country could pay for its carbon budget to be offset by a developing country. 

We cannot stop the climate crisis.

Establishing a long-term net-zero target is one thing. Properly funding it is quite another. It’s not just possible — it’s essential. 

Cop26 should have translated into immediate action if it was to have any real meaning to the planet and us.

There might be strong evidence that parallel worlds probably exist, but to have a parallel world one must have a world in the first place.  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WILL THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY GET RID OF INEQUALITY.

29 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Afghan War., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Environment, Green Energy., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Technology v Humanity, Technology., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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(Thirteen-minute read)

With or without technology there will always be inequalities in the world.

So why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology?

Because this way of thinking is so ingrained that is adopted by organizations that fight poverty—which often refashion themselves to resemble technology startups.

Inequality has been growing so much that all governments and civil society speak about it with increasing worry, trying to understand its causes, but unable to find solutions, because of greed. 

It is our policy on technology that drives inequality.

There is no better example of this than in the way the world is handling the current Covid pandemic unable to share the know-how to make the vaccinations. 

Patents and copyrights are not guaranteed as individual rights, like the right to free speech or religion.

After all, why would a drug company pay large amounts of money to people to develop new drugs if the drugs can be copied and sold by competitors from the day they enter the market?

If it is not already obvious, patent and copyright monopolies are instruments of public policy, not acts of God.

This is why there is still not enough coronavirus vaccine to meet worldwide demand.

A year ago there was no commercial market for mRNA products.

Vaccine manufacturers long ago should have been sharing technology and expertise to boost production in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in developing countries. 

The same would be true of software developers, makers of medical equipment, computer manufacturers, smartphone companies, and any other product where the cost of research and development was a substantial portion of the price of the product.

The complete elimination of patents and copyrights is of course an extreme scenario, but it is a possible policy option.

If we did choose this policy option, we would have a much more equal distribution of income, in spite of having the same technology.

In short, the fact that there was a huge increase in inequality associated with the development of technology over the last four decades was the result of policy choices, not technology.

There should be serious public debate about both how strong we want to patent and copyright protection to be and also whether they are always the best way to promote innovation and creative work, as opposed to alternatives like direct public funding.

If we acknowledge the extreme case, where we literally have no patent or copyright protection, then we have to recognize that there is nothing inherent in our technology that would cause inequality.

Few things, in principle, can’t be delivered through technology.

It is entirely our rules on technology that can cause inequality to increase.How Technology Ends Inequality

So on one hand, technology can eradicate poverty — not by making poor people less poor, but by making it less valuable to be rich.

On the other as technology spreads, making its creators rich, but treating its users the same, we should expect more monopolies and more financial inequality.

Although it is your data you can’t pay for a better Facebook experience.

Companies are incentivized to offer a product if it makes more than it costs. And technology ends up not costing much once you’ve built it.

So, in the end, you charge people whatever they can pay and in poorer countries, people just pay and get paid less.

Times are changing from the days that growth in inequality was largely an organic process independent of government policy.  

“Owning” the robot/algorithm is not a technical relationship, it is a legal one, and therefore one that depends on our laws.

The reason some people might get very rich from owning robots or algorithms is that they own patents and copyrights that are needed for the making of the robots/ algorithms.  

                                         __________________

In the past, technological improvements would be beneficial to all:

Extreme economic inequality is corrosive to our societies.

Around 8% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty — but do you know why?

Gender inequality, caste systems, marginalization based on race or tribal affiliations are all economic and social inequalities that mean the same thing:

You might think that poverty causes hunger (and you would be right!), but hunger is also a cause — and maintainer — of poverty. This is why now with climate change, negotiating international trade agreements behind closed doors with only bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists present has to end.

Economics should take into account ethics and the environment, and treat its claims less like invariable truths.

It goes without saying that any actions coming out of Cop 26 climate change conferences to reduce temperatures will be derailed by not just income inequality, (only the higher income household will be able to afford green energy technologies. Solar panels, electric cars, heating pumps, etc.) but by the total lack of shared responsibility to do anything about it.   

Of course, there are hundreds of other elements that contribute to the problems our world is now facing. 

World poverty isn’t a problem of limited resources, it is a problem of inequality and this inequality is upheld by the idea that aid creates dependence.

Climate change will drive up to 132 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030.

The pricing carbon emissions on average is at a mere $3 a tonne.

The price of inequality in all its forms is greed. There are vast fortunes to be made with Technology/ Algorithms for profit and nothing blurs ethical lines faster than greed. 

So far, any decoupling has either been largely relative – in the sense of merely achieving higher rates of economic growth than gains in emissions – or achieved by shifting dirty production from one national territory to another.

And that is why, for now, global emissions are still rising.

The idea of “Just Transition” without financing is pie in the sky. 

Take the aftermath of the Afghan 20-year war.

The country is now facing starvation. Why not bomb it with food.   

By coming together to tackle the plague of destitution around the world, we have the opportunity to advance the human condition and eliminate global poverty in a way no one has done before.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. LETS IMPRESS ON THE MINDS OF ALL THE DELIGATED TO THE COP26 CONFERNCE BY TURNING UP THE HEAT.

22 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Cop26.

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(Three-minute read)

Shortly in Scotland on the 31st of October, we are going to be treated to twelve days or longer of verbal by Politicians, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Climate Activists, Royalty,  Greta Thunberg, and David Attenborough, to keep global temperatures from rising. 

We all know that humans are capable of astounding feats, including some that seem to defy everything we know about the body. The body can survive for 8 to 21 days without food and water and up to two months if there’s access to an adequate water intake but your brain can only survive for five to 10 minutes without oxygen.

Most humans will suffer hyperthermia after 10 minutes in extremely humid, 140-degree-Fahrenheit (60-degrees-Celsius) heat.

If your body temperature reaches 104°F (40°C), you have hyperthermia. If it rises as high as 107.6°F (42 °C), you can suffer brain damage or death.

Heat kills more people on an annual basis than any other weather-related factor.

So the link between one’s body and mind is a crucial part of everyday life.

The human brain has a memory capacity that is the equivalent of more than four terabytes on a hard drive.

So why not impress a lasting memory of the Conference that they can take home.  

                                ————————————–

The conference is to be held in the Scottish Events Center so why not make it an event by preheating the center to a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius.  

Few locations have hit a wet-bulb temperature of 95 F in recorded history, according to the Science Advances study.

There are places that are already starting to experience these conditions for an hour or two. Unfortunately, with global warming, that’s only going to become more frequent.

Since the late 1980s and 1990s, hotspots have been the Indus River Valley of central and northern Pakistan and the southern shore of the Persian Gulf.

Locations that are at risk of these temperatures in the next 30 to 50 years include northwest Mexico, northern India, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.

Hundreds of millions of people live in a tropical climate near the equator in South/Central America, Africa, and Asia. This includes huge countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

All of these people are in imminent danger from climate change.

In any IPCC scenario between +2° and +4° of global warming, areas near the equator will experience such conditions on most days of the year and up to a point where not only physical activity but being outdoors, in general, becomes lethal! 

These countries will become basically inhabitable.

What does this mean for possible future scenarios?

  • The most likely scenario is that many countries will not be able to deal with the adverse conditions caused by global warming.
  • The economy in those countries will most likely collapse, posing an additional threat for the people living there.
  • Millions of people will become refugees of both global warming and the ensuing economic crisis.

SO PERHAPS (BEFORE  BILLION OF WORDS)  A TWO MINUTES OF EXPERIENCING 70 CELSIUS MIGHT concentrate their mind to ACHIEVE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

Now of course we don’t want to fry them all, and the cost of heating the Scottish Events Center (not to mention the carbon footprint) would be in total contradiction to what we want to see.

However, a small jacuzzi or heated glasshouse at the entrance would do the trick.   

( If the wet-bulb temperature rises above the human body temperature, you can still sweat, but you’re not going to be able to cool your body to the temperature that it needs to operate at physiologically.)  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT MIGHT COME OUT OF THE NEXT CLIMATE CHANGE WORLD CONFERENCE IN SCOTLAND.

08 Friday Oct 2021

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

The effects of human-caused global warming are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today and will worsen in the decades to come.

The last three decades of climate negotiations are littered with broken promises.

This puts the challenge with COP26 into perspective.

It is probably the last chance to re-envisage the challenges of our planet and try to understand what’s going on in our world.

The major threats to human survival – world environmental degradation, extinction of species, climate destabilization, nuclear war, terrorists with weapons of mass destruction – result from unrestrained use of such technologies without a concern that makes sense of the nature and scale of their power. 

Today many people are thinking on minuscule time scales and therefore only see short-term costs and benefits as real.

Why? 

Because we human beings only perceive threats that make sense in our Newtonian time which implies that humans are of no particular significance in the universe and therefore don’t see long-term consequences:

WE THINK IN METAPHORS.  

                               ———————————-

Consequently, the real challenge with the current approach to climate policy is that as long as cutting emissions is expensive, leaders will talk a lot but do little.

The world will need to increase its spending by hundreds of billions per year (a relatively small sum) compared to the £135 billion we are already spending on subsidizing ineffective green energy today.

If the world can develop green energy that is cheaper than fossil fuels, then we will have solved global warming.

AND THIS IS NOW the world’s greatest collective action problem.


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Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond and no matter what is agreed human-induced warming is superimposed on a naturally varying climate, the temperature rise has not been, and will not be, uniform or smooth across the country or over time.

DESPITE PRESENT DAY WORLD FEVOR,  progress on climate change remains elusive.

Enacting policies today to cut greenhouse gas emissions won’t have a discernible impact on global warming for decades, if not centuries.

That’s because we have already locked in significant warming due to our historical emissions.

  • It’s rational for an individual country not to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, given most economies are heavily based on energy resources that emit them. Yet, if all nations act that way — indeed, that’s what’s happening — most countries would eventually be worse off due to the cumulative impacts of all our emissions.

Put another way, what’s better for each individual country in isolation is actually worse for the planet as a whole. Conversely, what is worse for each individual country, overtime would be better for the planet.

Unlike other policies, climate change is cumulative.

The longer we wait to address it, the bigger the problem it becomes and the harder it gets to solve, fueling a feedback loop that makes solutions ever more difficult.

Big climate policy would have to offer concrete benefits outside of its impact on emissions — think jobs or energy security — to overcome this time disconnect.

Pay now and pay later

Climate change presents two separate costs.

  • Cost No. 1: Responding to flooding, heatwaves, and other extreme weather that climate change is often making worse.
  • Cost No. 2: Enacting policies to reduce emissions, which would come in the form of higher fossil-fuel costs today.
  • Cost No. 1 will continue for decades, if not centuries, even in addition to Cost No.2  (This is because of the aforementioned time disconnect: the amount of warming locked in already has also locked in associated costs — which will come in the form of not just money, but also health, lives, and nature losses.)

The costs will hit different parts of the world disproportionately, setting the stage for conflict, not cooperation. (further complicating the first point).

  • Low-lying nations whose very existences are at risk due to climate change have a very different set of cost concerns than Saudi Arabia.
  • By 2060, the cost of inaction on climate change is predicted to reach a staggering $44 trillion, with the highest anticipated GDP losses in the Middle-East, Northern, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

By contrast, you invest money in your retirement savings plan with a reasonable level of confidence you’ll get it when you retire.

Imagine getting taxed before you put that money into your fund and then not living long enough to reap the payoffs of your fund.

That’s what will happen with climate change, on a global scale.

The bottom line:

Decades of climate negotiations and failure to stem greenhouse gas emissions are a reminder that we lack effective global governance. The outcome of Glasgow must be all nations agreeing to spend much more on green R&D and to implement a process of verification to monitor compliance. 

The science is clear: Our climate is changing. The most marginalized communities—historically shut out of decisions made about their futures—will bear the brunt of the damage.

We are the first generation of humans to start paying the price for a warmer world, and we are also the first to face costs as we try to address them.

We’re paying now and later.

Other than other, Canada, at the present, there are few countries with a policy for sustained mass immigration, with most reluctant to accept more refugees.

Why?

Because foreign populations tend to plant-wide and deep roots and governments don’t want any international authority telling them which people or how many people they should absorb.,

However, people will not stay standing up to their necks in water or gasping for air due to heat or starving because there is no food, they will migrate to whatever altitude, latitude, or longitude is required to survive.

No frontier border of immigration policies will stop this migration.

Ironically the response to the Covid pandemic reinforces border closures at a time we need to reimagine the opening of borders to allow for the inevitable shifts in the occupancy of the planet.  

Will the world climate stabilize?

Of course, not – one effect has a knock-on effect with as I have already stated humans becoming a species in search of the right combination of latitude, altitude, and attitude. 

The COP26 (the 26th UN ‘Conference of Parties’ on Climate Change) due to take place in Glasgow in November will hopefully highlight the truth, but this truth will not be enough unless it changes us all, to provoke a new way of thinking about climate change governance.

If not what the world so often holds dear will be counted of little significance. The ambitions of businesses to profit from their exploitation of finite natural resources too often leads to environmental degradation and disregard for the value of human life. 

What must change is the way in which people and nations are driven to compete for a greater share of creation’s wealth is destructive of the very creation on which we all depend.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.