Category Archives: Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. CAN WE ADAPT TO LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

12 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Cop26., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., Humanity., Inequality, Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten -minute read) 

It’s time to cut out the bullshit and get a grip when it comes to climate change.

The effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are now irreversible on the timescale of human lifetimes.

So the key question is, what will our emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants be in the years to come?

The simple reason for this is that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy just how much greenhouse gases are going to be released in the next few centuries, and just how much this is going to affect the climate.

Electrical Cars, Solar Panels, Wind turbines, and technology might all help reductions in carbon emissions but they are all products.  They all use the earth’s finite resources to produce profit for companies that created the world of Profit for Profit’s sake that has to lead us down the slippery path to climate change.  

In my opinion, any new normal ( which is going to be far from normal ) has to hold fossil burning industries accountable or nationalizing them till we reach a point where sustainable energy generates higher financial returns than coal and oil. 

 The harsh reality of climate change is now playing out in real-time before our very eyes, with some of the negative changes already locked into the climate system, while global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not moving fast enough to avoid irreversible damage to the planet.

Any solutions are going to take years to have any effect so we need to adapt: or, in other words, get used to the realities of this new, heated-up, wet, violent, world.  

We all know that the climate challenges we are facing on the planet transcend national boundaries.

At present we being told that’s, it’s not too late to stop the forthcoming climate changes totally making our planet unlivable if we move to clean energy. 

However clean energy is only one part of the challenge because the inequalities in the world demand a fundamental overhaul of existing social, political, and economic norms.

It is this new perception that needs to be contagious so it is adopted globally.

The shocking truth is that climate change has only just begun.

In other words, whatever the mitigation efforts of future civilizations, climate change is here to stay.  Regardless of future emission trends, the CO2 footprint from our brief passage on Earth is going to remain in the climate system and impact the well-being of all terrestrial life forms for what could almost be considered an eternity.

In the last year, we are seeing with the current Covid pandemic that we live in a world where HARMONIZATION of any actions is impossible.  

We will witness this in the forthcoming Cop-out / Cop26 summit. 

The above perception is highly unlikely to happen.

Why?

Because the climate change problems will probably worsen before — or indeed if — it gets better, no one wants to bear costs of change that will fall on  – the poor.

Long before this ever happens, humanity must prepare itself for an inland retreat and a constant battle against rising seawater that will continue for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. 

We are incredibly adaptable, but at the psychological level, there’s going to be tremendous disruption among families, societies, nations, etc. when change occurs.

Anything that helps an organism survives in its environment is an adaptation.

Adaptation is an acknowledgment that this.

Some of that change is a given, but not all of it.

For example:

Loss of traditions, habitat, and cultural heritage, and the distress that comes with moving away from the land where your ancestors are buried, where you’ve lived all your life.  Not to mention the extinction of species, animals and plants, and coral reefs, and all kinds of living things, those we depend on and those with which we simply share ecosystems.

None of the solutions so far even begin to address the possibility of an impending mental health crisis due to the upheaval associated with managed retreat and other forms of climate migration.

How do you convince a community that their home will not be habitable?

How do you make room for rural refugees to live in a crowded city?

Climate mitigation is hard, and we are running out of time to do it, but I would argue that adaptation in its absence will actually be a million times harder.

Without substantial cuts to our collective carbon imprint, many more lives will be lost trying to adapt to a changing environment, and countless more will be made meaningfully worse.

Why wouldn’t we do what we can to avoid that?

The long course of human evolution shows that climate disruption, which is what we’re going through right now and in the foreseeable future, is associated with the demise of ways of life.

As difficult as it may be, there is a vast scale of loss associated with climate change that one has to try to comprehend and accept in order to understand the urgency of the situation.

THE NEED FOR HARMONIZATION to anticipate the actual and expected effects of climate change and take appropriate action to prevent or minimize the impacts.

How will we feel when the air inside feels tinny and canned when all of this feels like our future?

The two main responses so far to climate change are Mitigation and Adaptation – they must go hand in hand. 

Adaptation can be planned in advance but it must go beyond just development to include the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions.

Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG emissions.  So we will need a menu of solutions: changes to diets; food waste reduction; improvements in agricultural efficiency; and technologies that make low-carbon food alternatives scalable and affordable.

Methane warms the world twenty times faster than carbon.

Junk-food chains, including KFC and Pizza Hut, McDonald’s have spread around the world.

Take McDonald’s. 

  • It has about 28,000 restaurants worldwide, opening around 2,000 new ones each year

The food industry spends billions a year in advertising and promotion to persuade people to eat more food.

In short, then, this is another example of wasted wealth, wasted capital, wasted labor, and wasted resources.Climate Change What Happens after 2100

On top of all this while the earth warms up it has the capability of releasing 1.5 trillion tons of organic carbon twice as much as Earths, atmosphere currently holds.

The planet is the ultimate ‘global commons’. It belongs to neither a particular individual nor a particular nation. Nor does it belong to a single generation such as us, our children, or our grandchildren.

Instead, it belongs to all living creatures both alive now and in the future. Just as all of humanity is connected ‘horizontally’ across the globe, so too are all past and future life forms bound ‘vertically’ in a continual unfolding of the story of life.

So when you buy something, you buy something that lasts; you buy it because you really need it and want to take care of it. It is none other than this consideration for future human beings and other life forms that should form the yardstick by which we set our mitigation targets — not merely what is politically and economically feasible for the industrialized world today.

Yet the political and economic institutions of our civilization are fixated on enjoying the present and unable to account for the consequences of our actions on tomorrow.

Corporations and governments are forever borrowing from the future in order to improve the present.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. OUR WORLD IS ON FIRE IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

08 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Communication., Cop26., CORONA VIRUS., Environment, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Natural World Disasters, OLYMPICS GAMES., Post-Covid-19, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., 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) 

While we watched a postponed Olympics game unfold in Japan with barely one in 10 Japanese wanting it to happen, a pandemic is exposing gaps with graphic honesty in a  world that has long been overdue for systemic reform of its economic, social, and technological structures.

All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking; all need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks.

Beyond the obvious short-term impacts of climate change and Covid (such as loss of life, a profound hit to economic and social activity), both are casting a long shadow into the future. 

If we remain passive and ununited to the emerging risks, we may lose a historical opportunity to shape the new normal that we want, rather than the one we would be left with.

At the moment the economic risks dominate perceptions, with a prolonged global recession a top concern.

However, if either Covid-19 or Climate change eclipses sustainability on the public agenda where are we then.

What we will be left with are critical non-economic risks concerning the sustainability of life on earth and all that live on it.

On the environmental front, even with an expected 8% drop in global emissions for this year, the world would still miss the 1.5°C targets to avoid a planetary catastrophe.

If we are to truly recover from the pandemic and its impacts, then it will not be about putting things back together to how they were –we are in the midst of a historic event that will change many aspects of our world.

The long-term societal impacts of both, such as an exacerbation of inequality and changes in consumer behaviors, the nature of work, and the role of technology – both at work and at home – will change our way of life forever, for us as individuals, as a workforce, and as a society.

We were unprepared for Covid that was predictable. We are not preparing for Climate change that will create substantial societal consequences for the long term, now being felt by people worldwide. 

There is one thing for certain our attitudes towards traveling, commuting, and consumption will change employment prospects.

So what lessons can we distill, that can feed into your own future scenario, resilience, and business continuity planning?

Profit for profit’s sake will have to be regulated.

No longer can businesses plunder the earth for finite resources to produce worthless short-term material satisfaction. We know that we will have to build back better and address deep systemic vulnerabilities that have been allowed to develop over the last decades.

  • Left unchecked, there is a real risk that inequalities and social deprivation will increase

Therefore, the challenge to return to the ‘new normal’ is as much a psychological as an economic choice.

The timing and speed of the economic recovery, dependent as it is on solving the health crisis, is likely to exacerbate inequality, mental health problems, and lack of societal cohesion. It is also likely to widen the wealth gap between young and old and pose significant educational and employment challenges that risk a second lost generation.

A golden rule of politics is that the timing of a decision is almost as important as the decision itself.

“Timing is everything”, but it is also the element that is hardest to get right.

Of course, we need to focused on the climate, sustainability, and on societal risks, such as inequality, mental health, the lack of social cohesion and inclusion. If we do not do this, then the gaps in inequality – especially financial – are likely to remain and increase destroying all efforts of a green economy, a sustainable economy, or any other form of the economy whether it is socially driven or ever man for himself.   

We are already seeing record levels of unemployment due to lockdown measures, to control transmission and are re-learned hard lessons, particularly that social deprivation determines health outcomes.

So it is time for preparation, for a world of shocks which is likely urging to ramp up economic activity, regardless of impact, to recover at any cost.

Much depends on what governments, societies, and businesses will do next. This should be a long-term change in attitude in the historic public vs private debate.

I urge you to take the time to weigh the potential risks and benefits based on your situation before making a decision you could regret for the rest of your life.

We must draw on all our strengths to build back a better world.

 It’s time for all avenues of communication to be taking the lead.

The New Normal is knocking at the door and the door is already open.

Change is simple and it’s not easy.

Step 1: Do you want to change?

Step 2: Do you know how to change?

Step 3: Are you willing to give a change time?

Anyone who has ever changed has gone through the process. We need all three steps, and if we miss one, we get none.

The new normal in the end will look like we want it to look.

The life you thought was boring, is the life you’re hoping to get back to right now.”

Ultimately, public health is a political choice. A choice we are now confronted with, and one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

 Hopefully, hold on to that sense of shared humanity. 

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THE BEADY EYES; OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE COP26 SUMMIT GLASGOW 2021.

02 Monday Aug 2021

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

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          WE CAN’T CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY BY AN ACT OF WILL.

02/08/2021.  

Dear Cop26 Delegate,

As you know the sheer importance of what is happing at the end of this inflationary period on Earth is going to define all of our futures.

Whether the forthcoming COP26 Summit results are brilliant or terrible if we are not found in harmony with the earth, is likely to make our age, a mythic one, to our distant or future descendants.

Our distant and future ancestors are what everyone on earth shares.

From this perspective.

No human goal today is more pressing than the search for sustainable prosperity.

But it must encompass all other purposes, including peace, justice, health, science, economic development, spiritual pursuits.  Without them, all others will prove transient and illusory.

You will be attending a sobering up BY CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT that will hopefully show the scale of our problems and produce Actions that all in sundry can participate in.

You as a delegate must develop imagery that will bridge the incomprehensible gap between the forces of nature responsible for the very existence.

We are living today at a turning point for our species.

We can all be drowning in yelling about our differences, trying to control matters by fiat, or we can close our mouths and listen and try to follow some common sense.

This is a very special time that will never come again.

This summit is not the place, to blow your own trumpet, make worthless promises, but rather to agree on transparent actions on a global scale.

We all know that we need energy. 

We all know that the production of energy must go green. Not in twenty years, not in ten years but right now.

So why not agree to the following.

Government non-repayable grants.

Enable every home to install solar panels and insulation.

We only have one Earth.



Yours Faithfully

The Beady Eye.

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THE BEADY EYES; OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE COP 20 SUMMET GLASGOW 2021. WE CAN’T CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY BY AN ACT OF WILL,

29 Thursday Jul 2021

Posted by in Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., COP20., Open Letter., Our Common Values.

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Dear Cop20 Delegate, 

As you know the sheer importance of what is happing at the end of this inflationary period on Earth is going to define all of our futures. 

If we are not found in harmony with the EARTH whether the results of the forthcoming COP20 Summit are brilliant or terrible is likely to make our age a mythic one to our distant or future descendants.

Our distant and future ancestors are what everyone on earth shares.

From this perspective.

It is clear that no human goal today is more pressing than the search for sustainable prosperity. But it must encompass all other purposes, including peace, justice, health, science, economic development, spiritual pursuits, without them, all others will prove transient and illusory. 

So you must develop imagery that will bridge the incomprehensible gap between the forces of nature responsible for the very existence and those of us alive today who are living at a turning point for our species.

You are going to attend a sobering up BY CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT that will hopefully will not just show the scale of our problems but produce Actions that all in sundry can participate in. 

We can all be drowning in yelling about our differences, trying to control matters by fiat, or we can close our mouths and listen and try to follow some common sense.

This is a very special time that will never come again if we are to have any chance to solve them.  

So this summit is not the place, to blow your own trumpet, make worthless promises, but rather to agree on transparent actions on a global scale.   

We all know that we need energy. and it is the production of this energy that is the main problem. 

We all know that the production of energy must go green.  Not in twenty years, not in ten years but right now. 

So why not agree to the following.

Government non-repayable grants.  Enable every home to install solar panels and insulation.

We only have one Earth.  

Image

Yours Faithfully 

The Beady Eye.  

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS; IS THIS OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD?

26 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Disaster Capitalism., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., International solidarity., Modern day life., OLYMPICS GAMES., Our Common Values., Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten-minute read) 

We are at a pivotal moment in human history not because we still don’t really know where we come from, or if we are alone in the Universe, or do we really matter. 

It is, of course, impossible to put into a sentence or a paragraph what is wrong with the world never mind the Universe.  

But it’s possible to describe our world in a word.  Beautiful and we humans occupy an extraordinary place in it. 

The strange fact is that in this age of information when data is our currency of communication, most of us have no idea how to picture the world never mind the universe. 

The last time the Western culture shared a coherent understanding of our world I would say, was away back in the middle ages, when Galileo discovered that we were not the center of the universe. 

Now with climate change and the current Pandemic, it is as if we have just started to see the world in color,  and that changes, not just what is far away, but what’s right here. 

This discovery of the state of our plant challenges us to reframe everything and there is little point in learning a lot of science unless you can do something valuable in life with that knowledge.

                                                       ——–

There is only one image of our world that shows us this.

The photo shows no countries on our planet, only landmass, oceans, and clouds. 

Our endless preoccupation with nations and racial or ethical groups is completely misleading our intuitions.

This image shows our glorious plant in its true state without language in all its forms, cultural identification, religious beliefs, all are just tools, to shepherding ourselves successfully through the coming state of the world 

This is going to require tremendous creativity, combined with more than a large dose of common sense, which unfortunately down the centuries and now is lacking in the collective management of our planet Earth.  

                                                          ————–     

However, we live in a world where all information is freely available at the click of a mouse, so what has changed?

We’re seeing a lazy entitlement wash over the world where everyone feels as though they deserve what they want from their government the second they want it, without thought of repercussions or the rest of the population.

It seems like people don’t actually want democracy anymore, they want a dictator who agrees with them.

The sickest and most grotesque NEWS TOPPING THE CHART, dominating our attention and the news cycle, dividing and recruiting us into its ever more polarized camps, giving us a skewed view of how other people in the world really think, act, and live.

It seems like our new brave world is JUGED by a group of people that represents 0.01%, who take refuge in their own precious identity politics with us buying more and more into a worldview that is disconnected from cold data and hard facts?

The impact of the pandemic is showing despite loud warnings that continuing economic growth is incompatible with sustainability.

                                      ——————–

So let’s take a look at the state of the world.

Even if we did stand on the moon it is a sad read and any solutions will not be found in religious beliefs or technology or in politics but in learning from history.  

There have been over 250 major wars in the world since World War II, in which 23 million people have been killed., tens of millions made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved. Over 37 (or 42) million people have by killed by wars in the 20th century. Three times more people have been killed in wars in the last 90 years than in all the previous 500.

Over 35 major conflicts are going on in the world today.

There are approximately 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world today.

Current global military spending is approximately $800 billion per year; more than the total annual income of the poorest 45% of the global population.

Genocide and other mass murders killed more people in the 20th century than all wars combined.

33% of the world’s people live under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes. 35% of the world’s people live in countries in which basic political rights and civil liberties are denied.

 1/3rd of the world’s labor force is unemployed or underemployed.  

1 out of 6, children ages 5 to 17 worldwide are involved in child labor.

3 billion of the world’s people (one-half) live in ‘poverty.’

Women account for 70 percent of the world’s people who live in absolute poverty.

800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 

1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people, or nearly 2/3rd’s of the world’s population will face water scarcity. 

870 million of the world’s adults are illiterate.

Over 100 million people live in slums.

The richest 1% of the world’s people earned as much income as the bottom 57%.

The wealth of the world’s 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet.

Poor countries (which contain 4/5th of the world’s people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid.

Half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth’s land surface are gone.

Between 10 and 20 percent of all species will be driven to extinction in the next 20 to 50 years.

60% of the world’s coral reefs, could be lost in the next 20-40 years.

More than 20 percent of the world’s known 10,000 freshwater fish species have become extinct.

Desertification and land degradation threaten nearly one-quarter of the land surface of the globe.

Global warming is expected to increase the Earth’s temperature by 3C (5.4F) in the next 100 years.

An estimated 40-80 million people will be forcibly evicted and displaced from their lands.

                                               —————-

The reality no matter how one looks at it, is that the old assumptions that provided the unifying ideas within our cultures are eroding because of our technological advancement, and although we are seeing what may prove to be the emergence of a new worldview consensus based on the Critical Theory it has not solidified its hold on society as yet.

With technology and Algorithms, our cultures have and are continuing to accept the idea that objective truth is inaccessible and that truth itself is, therefore, relative and personal, but how we conduct ourselves is just as important — even more important is how we do it sustainably and so far we have made a great job of it.

The world is now facing a collision of not just climate change but is colliding with finite resources in a much that the current economic growth could end or totally collapse in the not-so-distant future.  

                                              —————

But a free and functioning democracy demands a populace that can sustain discomfort, tolerate dissatisfaction, be charitable and forgiving of groups whose views stand in contrast to one’s own, and most importantly, that can remain unswayed in the face of some violent threat.

The words ” We Need” are only words.  They should be replaced the words ” Action Now” 

Why?

Because we also need to be clear in our own hearts and minds about the solution to the world’s problems. If we are to do anything we must break the alignment between theological advancement –  climate change and pollution. 

The world is at a crossroads as the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the global economy have combined with increasing polarization and highly charged elections.  

                                                    —————

So what will we do? 

Probably have a conference.

But if you could change the world, what would you do?

We live our entire lives as aspiring presidents, aspiring movie producers, aspiring artists, aspiring authors, aspiring human rights activists, aspiring world-renowned scientists, and aspiring thought leaders while we sit in front of our TV screens, walk around glued to Smartphones, or Ipads that fed us pictures of climate change, wars, the covid pandemic, racism, political/economical collapse.

All Encouraging us on one hand, to think that the world is more violent than it really is while on the other hand promoting the glamorous life of people that believe that they are better off than we are;

What I fear is that we’re seeing now is a loss of that ability to handle discomfort and dissatisfaction.

What I would do is help people think for themselves.

Amazon Owner Jeff Bezos Travels Into Space  

While governments introduce more and more taxes to pay for inequality/economic growth charities competing to raise funds to save almost everything, from adopting everything from a child to a fish or animal to a plant, in the real world.

Taxes form a key ingredient in the social contract between citizens and the economy but How taxes are raised and spent can determine a government’s very legitimacy. 

Health programs:  Military: Social Security: Interest on the national debt: Education programs:  Food and agricultural benefits: Pensions. Government machinery.

                               —————————-

Our new world now needs solidarity more than ever to make the world a better place.

Presently in a year when the world is fighting a pandemic, the Olympics in Japan will once again show us what we are capable of in sport to bring our true authentic selves to every situation.  ( See:  Post –  The Olympics games show be permanently hosted in Greece.)  

It represents a true coming together not separation, in a true spirit of humanity.

Without this coming together there will be no new world but a world run by algorithms that will not treat us as equal.

But how can you take on the problems of the world when there’s so much to do already?

In science, we have been staggered by revelation after revelation that things are not what we previously thought them to be, and beneath each layer of reality we have unpeeled lies another.  It is not hard to piece together all this information to comprehensively picture what the end times will look like.

 If so, what are we to do about it?

The only way to beat the attention economy is to opt out of it.

As the growth models of countries cannot be sustained Countries need to overcome political hurdles to invest in infrastructure and human capital.

How?

One way is to publish the information about political capture so that the public can hold politicians to account for reforms.

Because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.

Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.

Finally, we must accept that world problems will always be with us.

The world has woken up to the need to curb emissions and invest in climate resilience.
But we all need to move faster down this path, we now have less than 100 days to go until the UN climate summit, Cop26 arrives in Glasgow.

Five years on from the Paris Agreement, and with countless evidence that the climate crisis is worsening, the negotiations will focus on nationally determined contributions to stop the world from warming above 1.5 degrees. But as the countries confer with each other, it will be the people of the world who have the most to say: we need action, need more of it, and need it now.

They will not address nature and climate as one. 

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED? 

We know that the production of energy is the biggest contributor to global warming.

If we want action not promises to reduce carbon emissions in twenty years in thirty years there is no reason that non-repayable grants could be made available to everyone to convert to green energy by installing solar panels.

So why not use the tools that are available to demand our governments to do so on

Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Emails to  cop26@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.    

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS THIS POSSIBALY ONE OF THE REASONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ?

31 Monday May 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Environment, Magnetic north., The Obvious., The state of the World., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., What Needs to change in the World

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(Three-minute read) 

 

I am no scientist but it stands to reason if the magnetic north is moving the earth is rotating differently than in the previous hundredths of years.

As a result as with any spherical shape that rotates, it is exposing a slightly different surface, either for longer or shorter to any light shining on it such as the Sun causing a difference in temperature to the exposed portion of the sphere.  

What is causing the magnetic north to shift? 

Whatever is causing it the weight distribution on the earth has to be contributing.   

Human-made materials are now equal weight to all life on Earth.

The mass of everything people have built and made, from concrete pavements and glass-and-metal skyscrapers to plastic bottles, clothes, and computers, is now roughly equal to the mass of living things on Earth and could surpass that this year, according to research published today in Nature.

The Earth weight: 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 Metric Tons.

Freshwater. 

Every year we use a massive 4.3 trillion cubic meters of freshwater = 4,260,000,000,000 m3 / tons.

Concrete. After water the single most widely used material globally. It outweighs the combined mass of all living plants. China production of 2 billion tons alone is predicted to reach
four times the 1990 level.  2 billion
tonne quantities per year, by 2050,
concrete use 

Plastic.          –   8.3 billion tons

The world produces a million plastic bottles a minute – many for water. That’s 500 billion in a year!

Asphalt.         –       30% of the world is Land of which 2% is urban which is covered let’s say to the extent of 10%. Therefore 30%x2%x10% = 0.06% of the world covered in Asphalt. 

Sand.             –    15 billion tonnes.

Crude Oil.      –      Nearly 100 million barrels per day. The average barrel of domestic crude oil weighs 302.82 pounds. You do the maths this time. 

 The mass of earth’s life is about 1.1 trillion metric tons.  

In 2016, a team of scientists estimated the weight of the “technosphere”—including not just wholly artificial buildings and products, but also the approximate weight of the land and seafloor that we’ve excavated, modified, or trawled to build cities, plant crops, raise livestock, and catch fish.

They came up with a figure of 30 trillion tons.

Now add, for example, ( The World Steel Association estimates that for every ton of steel we produce) almost two tons of CO2 are added to the atmosphere.

Then add on all the rest of Cardon produced and the amount the whole human race emits every year is 35 billion roughly.

It is no wonder the magnet north has shifted.

To finish I invite any environmental to tell me that I am wrong.  

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THE CLIMATE CRISES IS NO LONGER A LOOMING THREAT IT IS ARTFICAL INTELLIGENCE.

29 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Dehumanization., Digital age., Enegery, Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Green Energy., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Modern day life., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Purchasing Power., Reality., Renewable Energy., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, 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.  , VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Eight-minute read) 

We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.

All are crises that are slowly tipping the balance, questioning our business-as-usual economic model of the past decades, and requiring us to rethink our next steps.

In the next few months, we will once again witness a gathering of verbal diarrhea in Scotland all promising to go green.

There is no doubting in the last few decades that we humans have achieved advances away beyond what our ancestors would have believed possible. The irony is that to survive we have to become something very different from what we are. 

Many optimists believe that technology can transform society and solve climate change.

To a great extent, this is probably true no more so than in the field of medician. 

Take the discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 of Penicillin.

Before its discovery, we were dying thirty years early than we do today. 

His discovery was down to an accidental piece of bacteria landing on one of his Petri dishes which took another ten years to develop into a drug to save lives. 

Today with human intelligence and machine learning we can produce drugs in a matter of months.     

The way forward to reducing CO2 emissions is not a by-pass lane it is by using the technologies that already exist.  

It’s time to cut out the verbal and bull shit and make these technologies affordable to all. 

Yes, the world today is in a dire state and a new kind of social and ecological environment needs to be created with green energy the price of which is toppling daily.

Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls, but every problem is solvable if we devote resources to building a just world and not guns.

THE WORLD RUNS ON ELECTRICITY.  

SO IF WE WANT A GREEN FUTURE NON-REPAYABLE GRANTS TO CONVERT FROM FOSSIL FUELS GENERATED ELECTRIC TO ENERGY BY NON-POLLUTING RENEWABLE MATERIALS – WIND – SUN- WATER-  GEOTHERMAL – HYDROGEN. 

SUCH A MOVE WOULD CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS AND COULD BE FUNDED BY PLACING A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE AT THEIR HEART. ( See previous posts) 

                                  _______________________ 

 

We are now presented with two very different futures. 

The last generation that can stop devastating climate change. We have the knowledge and the tools – we just need politicians to lead the way.

or

We fail to meet climate mitigation goals.

For certain, either outcome will not be easy or cheap and it is happing faster than we wish to acknowledge.  

The problem is the two outcomes are profoundly interlocked with lots of uncertainty.

HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE CURRENT PANDEMIC CLIMATE CHANGE WON’T JUST DISAPPEAR IT WILL REQUIRE A NEW MEANING OF LIFE.

To recognize that we are entering a new world with opportunities and perspectives is an enormous challenge not because of climate change but because of the current inequalities existing on the Planet.

The choice we are now confronted with is one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

The question is who is going to pay for the transition.  

New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.

THERE IS LITTLE POINT IN REDUCING GLOBAL TEMPERATURES IF BY THE TIME IT HAS STABILIZED HALF OF THE WORLDS POPULATION HAS BEEN DESTABILIZED OR DISPLACED.

A lack of global emphasis on foreign aid, conflict, and political factors have kept poverty as a driving factor of Inequality.

To adjust to the coming new kind of social and ecological environment, how do we frame either of the above outcomes constructively.

We will have to relearn the world to do so. 

We have to become more aware of the future of our planet and our future and the legacy of the human species to start a serious battle to make up for the damages.

At the moment it is difficult to know the changes in the ecosystems that surround us not to mention the social uncertainty to come.

The fundamental economic problem is related to the issue of scarcity.

Society is mostly dominated by people wishing to consume more goods and services that are available.

One in nine people in the world go hungry each day and suffer from nutritional deficiencies as a result.

Currently, 1 in 9 people lack access to clean water across the world.

The problem is not that we aren’t producing enough food, but rather that people lack access to food. Many people do not have enough money to purchase food and cannot grow their own.

To try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them is impossible unless we address the fundamental problem.

To recognize that scarcity will drive almost everything. 

To recognize a sense of shared humanity. 

To recognize that approximately 600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.

To recognize that is not just climate change that treating the world but artificial intelligence and the way we are using it.

Using only the interaction of its embedded sensors, computer programming, and algorithms in the human environment and ecosystem — is becoming a reality that cannot be ignored anymore.

Because building autonomous weapons systems are one thing but using them in algorithmic warfare with other nations and against other humans is another.

They will in no uncertain terms alter the very fundamentals of security and the future of humanity and peace.

As global temperatures continue to rise, technology improves and the world economy grows, it gets easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale with the weaponizing of artificial intelligence both military-wise and as a social tool. 

The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence

The development of autonomous weapons system (AWS) is progressing rapidly, and this increase in the weaponization of artificial intelligence seems to have become a highly destabilizing development. It brings complex security challenges for not only each nation’s decision-makers but also for the future of humanity.

There are always unforeseen consequences when new technology is introduced. Those unintended outcomes of artificial intelligence will likely challenge us all.

 AI algorithms must be built to align with the overarching goals of humans.

As more and more data is collected about every single minute of every person’s day, our privacy gets compromised.

Look at what is happing in China with its social credit system, it could devolve into social oppression.

Unless you choose to live remotely and never plan to interact with the modern world, your life will be significantly impacted by artificial intelligence.

The transformative impact of artificial intelligence on our society will have far-reaching economic, legal, political, and regulatory implications that we need to be discussing and preparing for.

Sure, it can transform our lives for the better.

In fact, people have gotten used to depending on AI for almost everything and can’t imagine not having these technological advancements as part of their life. Because many processes and applications are getting automated, people are getting addicted to these kinds of inventions which can be an issue for future generations to come.

Societies will face further challenges in directing and investing in technologies that benefit humanity instead of destroying it or intruding on basic human rights of privacy and freedom of access to information.

  • In the future, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence will play an even more fundamental role in content creation that will affect our wallets, health, safety, and lives.

The mistake we are making is to think that this situation is the only future. 

That it is impossible to regulate AI because of the rate of AI change entails. 

This is not true as it is possible to Audit all AI technology and algorithms to ensure that comply with human values and to make their programs totally transparent. 

Why is the above urgent?

Because combined with climate change we are faced with and a transactional wealth of a new currency of unknowable value called personal data inequality will ravage the planet we all live in and on.    

These are not some science fiction movie scenarios the current Pandemic is revealing a much more tragic and fragile world that requires more than trust. 

The United Nations (UN) currently lists 22 “Global Issues”. 

These correspond with the most important issues of our time and are known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Here is a few of them. 

FOOD SECURITY.

HEALTH ISSUES.

EDUCATION.

GENDER EQUALITY.

AFRICA.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES/ POLLUTION. 

OCEAN CONSERVATION.

WATER SCARCITY.

GLOBAL ISSUES THAT REQUIRE POLICY SOLUTIONS.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.

Artificial intelligence is not on the list. 

Because the biggest challenge facing the planet needs every solution possible including technology like artificial intelligence (AI). 

But AI is not a silver bullet it can only unlock new insights, pinpointing those responsible for it.

The current environmental issues pose so many problems to industry and society that not enough action has been taken to stop turning Climate change into a product. 

My goal in this blog is not to convince people climate change is real, or that AI is destroying society it’s to get people who do believe that climate change is real and that Algorithms for profit’s sake are plundering the world to do more to affect change.

What can be done by any of us against the might of Capitalism that will have any effect? 

There is only one weapon available to us all and that is our buying power.  

 If we use our collective buying power you will then see not just governments but global corporations change their tune from profit to sustainability.     

We decide whether we want to look at the world in one way or another, always making tradeoffs.

As Harvey Sacks observed.

” If only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed” 

” But the best and brightest devices must be accommodated within existing practices and assumptions in a world that has whatever organization it already has”  

All are under threat because all are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace and are yet to be quantified.

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS HERE ARE THE REAL TIPPING POINTS WHEN IT COMES TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

22 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Disconnection., Environment, Green Energy., Human Collective Stupidity., Renewable Energy., Sustaniability, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., Unanswered Questions., Uncategorized, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Four-minute read) 

I don’t think people realize how little time we have left.

We are in a state of planetary emergency in more ways than one but climate change is the one we should all be addressing if we want to live our lives.

It is obvious why.

It is not an abstract threat already causing wars, mass migration, the extinction of species, plants, scarcity of fresh water, quality air,  you name it and it will be affected by a raft of new diseases. 

A groundswell of demand for green energy can push a behavior, product, or technology from the fringe and into the mainstream but at what cost to the health of the earth.

While the term “tipping point” is applied quite loosely regarding the political and societal change, it is clear that a number of them will need to be crossed – and quickly – to avoid toppling those in the Earth system. 

These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information. 

Earth’s climate will not respond to forcing in a smooth and gradual way.

It will respond in sharp jumps which involve large-scale reorganization of Earth’s system.

Along with the climate, I think we also need to be looking at tipping points in human, social and technological systems.

There are, for example, many different views on how the term should be defined and used.

Here is my definition.  A transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause.

And then there’s another definition that actually says there needs to be a positive feedback mechanism associated with the element. So that means there is something that’s self-reinforcing and then that could lead to irreversible changes as well.

Both definitions point to a system that would not revert to its original state even if the forcing lessens or reverses. In other words, it stays in its changed state for some considerable time, or possibly even permanently. It is subsequently difficult, if not impossible, for the system to revert to its previous state.

A glance at the news media on any given week will likely highlight all sorts of climate change impacts. We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.

Ecological systems are deeply intertwined.

The interactions among the elements of our global climate system mean a substantial change in one will affect others.

Powered by heat energy from the sun, the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, living organisms like forests, and the soils all affect, to a greater or lesser extent, the movement of that heat around the Earth’s surface.

Tipping points we thought might happen well into the future are already underway.

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment.

For example, the slow collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is in progress.

Arctic warming and melting of Greenland’s ice sheet are driving freshwater into the North Atlantic, which is contributed to a recent 15 percent slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Atlantic Ocean.

Aerial view over Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica. Credit: Universal Images Group North America LLC / Alamy Stock Photo. E4DW38

Extensive thawing of permafrost is already happing with the potential to realize billions of tons of methane gas.

There is more heat-absorbing open water and 40 percent less reflective ice so we’ll reach 1.5 C in one or two decades. 

Even if countries act on their Paris climate agreement pledges to reduce emissions, warming will still rise more than 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F).

It’s important to know that global temperatures aren’t driven by human emissions of carbon alone.

The risk of those cascading into an irreversible global tipping point with tremendous impacts on human civilization warrants a declaration of a planetary climate emergency.

To err on the side of danger is not a responsible option. It is significantly cheaper to prevent additional global warming than it is to face its impacts. 

We need to change our approach to the climate problem because our efforts to reach global targets have been “utterly inadequate”

No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us now that we face an existential threat to civilization. The reality is that the cumulative impact of these changes will cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically and irreversibly.

While climate records are being routinely broken, tipping points are not part of any economic analysis of climate policies it is widely assumed to mean that we are now committed to suffering these tipping events.

The time for talking is over and no matter what we do there has to be a radical change to our behavior.

Climate change will not be stoped by technology unless we distribute both the cost and benefits by allocating 0.05% of profit for profit’s sake in order to distribute wealth by way of nonrepayable grants to all activities that will mitigate its effects. ( See previous posts ) 

Only a fraction of articles and papers in economics journals discuss climate change.

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. THESE DAYS WITH TECHNOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE ARE TREATIES OR TRADE DEALS WORTH THE PAPER THEY ARE WRITTEN ON.

16 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., POST COVID-19., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, World Trade Organisation

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( Fifteen-minute read) 


Countries can do whatever they choose and there is no organization in the world with any authority over any country’s government.

An anxious, frightened nation desperately turns to the government for leadership in managing and overcoming emergencies. This does not mean that momentous events like COVID-19, which tap into our deepest feelings of insecurity and mortality, ought to rule out the airing of legitimate differences of opinion.

This is how for all intended purposes the Good Friday Agreement was arranged not Brexit and subsequent Northern Ireland Protocol. 

The burdens of office are momentous but the actions we take are a great source of information about ourselves but underestimating the significance of platforms like social media for debate has its own consequences. The Arab Spring, Donal Trump’s election, Brexit, the handover of Hongkong, and now the Northern Ireland Protocol (designed to protect the Good Friday Agreement) a debate triggered by an online petition launched by the Brexit supporting DUP. 

Perhaps it’s time that trade deals and treaties were arranged by independent third parties because I believe that the detached self is able to paint the most accurate picture of who we are and how we work.

Brexit as I predicted is a good example of the unforeseen effort and costs involved when exiting a deal that is not properly understood in the first place. 

Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union.

Outside the EU a border inside the EU no border. 

Any trade deal or treaty comes with rules and regulations agreed to by all parties prior to the agreement any changes must to agreed upon by the signatures to that deal before implication.  Any unilateral actions nullify the deal as there is no point in agreeing on something that is not going to adhere to.   

                                      ——————–

Trade always takes the line of least resistance.

The implementation of the protocol on Northern Ireland was always going to be difficult – Brexiters have never accepted the need for the Irish Sea border that they have nonetheless created, arguing right up until the protocol was signed, that a mixture of technology and “mutual enforcement” by both sides could obviate the need for a trade border in Ireland.

As far as the Unionist in the north of Ireland choosing to put a trade border in the Irish Sea, Boris Johnson unsettled the fundamental constitutional ambiguity at the heart of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement peace deal as the price of delivering a fully “sovereign” Brexit for the rest of the UK.

The Good Friday Agreement functions (however imperfectly) because it enables the people of Northern Ireland “to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both”, but the protocol means the Unionist community now feels that its identity is threatened.

Alas, this week’s row — in which the UK government unilaterally granted itself more time to phase in burdensome bureaucracy, sparking a threat of legal action from the European Commission — shows how far trust and communication have broken down between both sides, obscuring the practical requirements noted above.

Government is not perfect — no human institution can be without trust.

To just exist without following any of the pre-agreed treaty clauses or simply for political gain is bad form. It also is a sign to the rest of the world that a treaty with a particular country and government in power that breaks it outside of those planned options isn’t trustworthy.

With that deadline gone and both parties have ruled out any extension to the transition period, it is now clear that there is no longer time for parliamentary approval on the EU side.

So where are we? 

The EU  which includes some large member states is not yet fully confident that a Johnson government will implement the agreement it signed — and yet in demanding demonstrations of UK willingness to implement the deal fully, it is at serious risk of testing the protocol to destruction. 

Does this mean that the UK will crash out without a deal?  

Not only the Council and the European Parliament have to ratify the agreement, but also the legislatures of all 27 member states by qualified majority voting or unanimity, depending on the scope of the agreement.

In the meantime the pandemic has flung the world into a maelstrom, we’re still not quite sure how to get out of it never mind climate change. 

We can’t build back better if we don’t know what building back better looks like.

So a good starting point is to think of the problems we have now, and what we can do to find solutions to help build back better.

With the astronomical cost of the pandemic yet to be determined radical economic or social change is the last thing governments want right now.

What’s needed is stability, to allow the economy to recover. A radical shift in policy seems unlikely when we’re in the midst of an economic crisis. It would be like taking the air supply away from a sick person fighting for their lives. It is quite literally, the last thing you would do.

We need to remember governments tend to react to problems, rather than proactively create radical reform, and herein lies one of the greatest challenges in dealing with the climate crisis never mind the No Nay Never Unionists. 

Under International law a border there must be till either Northern Ireland is reunited with the South or England rejoins the EU. 

England could leave the customs union with the EU,  Northern Ireland could not. 

                                             ——————— 

When it comes to Climate change to be sure, the governments have gotten a lot of things wrong.

Yes, we’re already in a crisis. A problem of breathtaking proportions. But does it feel like a problem? Not really.

From the perspective of people who have bills to pay, screaming children, stressful jobs, how does the climate crisis impact their lives?

For the majority of people, the climate crisis isn’t that high up on their list of priorities.

Things are going to have to get really bad for people to take notice.

It’s only when the climate crisis starts to feel like a problem affecting people’s lives that they’ll start demanding change.

At that point, it will be too late for governments to do anything about it.

The problem with government is that we are unable to make it work-work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back.

With public sentiment gripped by anxiety and uncertainty as we race to rationalize and intuit what COVID-19 will mean for how we live, the last thing anyone wants to see is politicians and other leaders bickering over the many prescriptions needed to address what is going to put Coivd -19 in the shade – the climate.  

To date, we’ve largely been spared that fate.

However, as technology turns climate into a product the climate movement needs to wake up to the uncomfortable realization that we need to be patient and let the system implode, but be damn sure to be ready when it does.

Lockdowns that ground society to a halt have given the environment a break. Governments would be well served to anticipate this next phase.

If they don’t accommodate what will become a loud chorus demanding, not without justification, regular demonstrations of accountability in the face of the most far-reaching encumbrances on personal liberties we’ve seen in our history.  

Climate is what shapes and defines our lives in various ways, and it is an indispensable resource during times of hardship and sacrifice.

All the “solutions” to the government’s problems promise to speed, streamline, standardize and modernize, but they rarely address the organizational changes required to actually make them effective, or the organizational changes that result.

The climate will take no prisoners so those attending the next climate change summit need to understand what is now their starting position is with economies being crushed by the Pandemic and the forthcoming Depression.

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond. 

These meetings have been vital to find a global consensus on an issue that requires a global solution.

Among the many elements that need to be ironed out is the financing of climate action worldwide. (  See previous posts )

Because the clock is ticking on climate change, the world cannot afford to waste more time: we must collectively agree on a bold, decisive, ambitious, and accountable way forward.

This cannot be done by written agreements that are non-binding. It can only be achieved by rewards like non-repayable grants funded by placing a 0.05% World Aid Commission on all profit-seeking activities. ( See previous Posts)  

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THE BEADY ASKS. JUST HOW CLEVER DO YOU THINK THE HUMAN RACE IS?

12 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Disconnection., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Life., Pandemic, Post-Covid-19, Reality., Renewable Energy., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty to Thirty-minute read)

Do not read this if you are depressed or are easily depressed.

If you do read it try not to click the moron like button, but comment.  

We, humans, believe that we are the most intelligent beings on the planet. 

We believed that are superior to the animals due to our exclusive ability to reason.

In simple terms, this comes about when we select only the ‘survivors’ – those that outperformed the rest, whether people, machines, or companies – and come to conclusions based on their attributes, without looking more broadly at the whole dataset, including those with similar characteristics that failed to perform as well.

Our collective ingenuity has got us into the mess of Climate Change and now a Pandemic that is not just killing us but shining a light on our collective stupidity.

The Earth’s carrying capacity could absorb our endless acts of stupidity. 

So to answer this question one could go back over the history of humanity and pick out numerous examples since man emerged from his cave.

From the Nuclear bomb to stepping on the moon. From Michelangelo to Albert Enstine. From the Stone age to the Tec age we have put greed and power before looking after what we had in the first place – Earth. 

                                       ————————

As there is no escaping our interconnected world in this post I want to address the origins of Planetary realism when it comes to that interconnection.

Why?

Because we are now engaged in two possible futures for the world, the worst or the best. 

Are we going to continue shooting ourselves in the foot?

or  

Are we going to recognize that Human DNA is too similar to split us into subspecies or races of stupidity?  

Can we act like one? 

I firmly believe we know enough to solve our problems, I just doubt we have the collective will to work together to get the job done. We should be much better than our collective selves.

We have to start accepting our common vulnerability and therefore our common interest instead of just National Interests which is paramount to decisions that have to be on a global scale.    

When the stakes are high, we want those making decisions – whether they be machines or human, to be correct, trustworthy, and responsible.

However, now we are handing these decisions more and more to machine learning algorithms and neural nets. 

We implicitly grant artificial intelligence a degree of agency that not only overstates its true abilities but robs us of our own autonomy... It is always humans who choose whether or not to abdicate this authority, to empower some piece of technology to intervene on our behalf. It would be a mistake to presume that this transfer of authority involves a simultaneous absolution of responsibility. It does not.

Perhaps technology can be correct. But can it be trustworthy and responsible?

While it’s hard to judge even if another person is trustworthy or responsible, it may be even harder to judge something that thinks in such radically different ways as humans.

We once viewed ourselves as the only creature with emotions, morality, culture, which is not true, they can be found in the animal kingdom. 

Confucius:

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

This is to say that intelligence is the ability to recognize our weaknesses and one of our greatest weaknesses is the impenetrable barrier now being created right in front of our eyes between Artificial Intelligence and Capitalist Greed. 

If we measure the IQ of AI it would be against its capabilities of reasoning and its problem-solving ability and nothing else.

Rational thinking and intelligence don’t tend to go hand in hand. 

This measurement doesn’t measure curiosity or creativity.

Unlike the robotic world, people desperately believe they’re smart because they desperately want to see themselves as smart and sometimes because they really can’t tell.

Most of us measure our IQ as being five points higher than it actually is.

Thinking AI might work in the same way as a human brain is not only misleading but dangerous.

Up to now AI only takes orders and does not think by itself so there is a massive disconnect from biological networks. They, that is AI lacks some crucial components essential to navigating the real world…. they do recreate something like human intelligence that has the ability to analyze all matters from multiple angles while not or never will be prepared to take on responsible decision making.  

In short, Dunning and Kruger discovered that the less intelligent you are, the more confident you’re likely to be that you know what you’re doing and the more likely you are to be wrong. Being unsure, in this context, is often a mark of intelligence.

Without being curious, an intelligent person won’t ever use their intelligence to learn and form new ideas.

At the same time, a person without curiosity it seems, be less likely to question themselves or the world around them in the first place. As a result, it seems they would also be unlikely to ever use what intelligence they had to learn new things and question their own misperceptions.

But AI is learning to manipulate human behavior, creating more problems for the world. 

Of course, there is just one thing that nags away at the average man or woman in the street in amongst all this academic and government research and analysis, how safe is AI going to be for me – can I trust big business and government to behave ethically? 

It is already exploiting vulnerabilities in ways people make choices. Click like and the AI steer you towards particular actions by filtering your choices. 

WE now have  “behavioral modification empires.”

The purpose of organizations such as Google and Facebook ceased to be building connections, and instead became about adapting your habits and thought patterns in the name of profit.

With so much misguided thought and active disinformation online, it has become difficult for people with insight worth sharing to do so. Behind the anonymity of the web, anyone can claim to be an expert. When everybody is an expert, nobody is.

In other words, the AI learns how people make choices.

Broad, anonymous social networks breed collective stupidity.

This has enormous ramifications for the future as AI could be used to steer people away from stupid choices or to make them.  

AI can outwit us on the virtual battlefield so let’s not put them in charge of the real thing.

This is already happing with drones that identify, track and kill people without any human intervention. They have no moral capability to decide who lives or who dies, no empathy no compassion. 

However, if a machine can beat us at a game does it make them more intelligent than us?  

Despite the many warning raised not only will we see robots fighting wars they will be planning them too. 

David Dunning and Justin Kruger, “The miscalibration of the incompetent stem from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

This goes directly into how people view themselves and their abilities. For instance, most people think they’re above average when that literally cannot be true.

In any leadership role, you’ve got to establish trust.

It’s trusting that the person is going to do things and trusting that they’re telling the truth and being upfront and honest.

But how you go about doing that virtually is a little different – it’s a different skill set.

We have seen that Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter transform Donald Trump into one of the worst presidents of the USA and a proud country England into a whaling nation of Nigel Farage has beings.

Because of our collective stupidity, social media transformed both into remote winners with lies.

Therefore it is reasonable to say that with the current Coivd-19 Pandemic that hopefully, people are now more likely to be seen based on what they actually do, not based on who they are.

Why?

Because they simply don’t translate into anointing leaders by virtual leadership.

Neither of them got better at the skills, such as reasoning from given data. Indeed smart people are more prone to silly mistakes because of blind spots in how they use logic.

                                       ———————–

Considering the benefits accruing from AI.

Let’s start with how much data we produce globally.  

It’s about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data produced every day in the world. 

Next, if you Googled “how much energy do Google’s servers use?”  

Unsurprisingly, it’s a lot. An estimate in 2017 claimed that the amount of power required to run Google’s servers is 2.26 million megawatts per year – enough to keep 200,000 homes going for the same time. 

Facebook, in contrast, uses a wee bit more than Google, at about 3.43 million megawatts per year. Between them and Google they could power over 20% of the houses in Scotland.

When we come to the internet as a whole, it uses a bit more than 10% of the world’s energy consumption. 

All electricity generation systems have a ‘carbon footprint’, that is, at some points during their construction and operation carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted.  Then again all electricity generation technologies emit CO2 at some point during their life cycle. None of these technologies is entirely ‘carbon-free’.

While the energy involved in all bitcoin transactions in one year is 77.78 terawatt-hours – equivalent to the entire electrical consumption of Chile.

It’s no wonder that even without co2 emissions have climate change. 

We are going to have to find a way to generate more electricity to power the economies and societies of the future, but in a manner that doesn’t wreck the planet.

There is a saying that “Mad dogs and English men go out in the noonday sun.” 

Did you know the sun produces the equivalent of 38,460 SEPTILLION watts – that’s 3.846 x 1026 watts) PER SECOND.  That’s almost enough to power a Metallica gig.

So you would think that it is a no-brainer that we have solar panels to enable everyone to use this source of energy by giving nonrepayable grants to every home to install them.  To stop Co2 emissions. We have to fit our species into the energy flow of its biosphere.

That is the meaning of life in case you are so stupid still looking for a meaning. 

Instead, we have Paris Climate change conferences promises and the forthcoming Glasgow Zome dribble turning CO2 into a product – for profit.  

Introducing more change to Be-IT

One thing is certain:

The original purpose of the internet has been lost. It set the stage for a technological revolution that could harness human intelligence and advance our shared knowledge.

Its click-baiting algorithms and lack of regulation have brought with them chaos.

As social media came to dominate the landscape, it made using the internet for the purpose of collective intelligence increasingly difficult.

The rise of social media was supposed to bring us closer together but instead, I argue, it has done the opposite.

A system based on generating clicks and interactions has created an environment for the outlandish and bizarre to flourish, with expertise falling by the wayside. With so much content being generated, how can experts possibly stand out from the crowd?

Machines and AI are great, but we have to retain some capacity to think for ourselves. 

No matter how algorithms are retrained they will continue to impact the millions who use them.

The results will be that AI over time, will not categorize people into races on traits it thinks are most important – but into stupid or clever. 

For obvious reasons, this year is different.

The pandemic has, of course, transformed how most workplace in-person teams are now all or partially digital operations in the wake of the pandemic, removing Joe Soap from any say about the Future.

At the moment we have a warlike philosophy – if we continue to develop AI it might not overtake our individual stupidity but our collective stupidity, putting our very existence in danger.

Tech should never be any more than a tool that helps us to bring out the best in humanity. Many of the issues we throw billions at and attempt to solve with technology could be easily achieved if we were able to better utilize our collective intelligence.

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

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