Will we hand over climate change precautions to AI?
We’re not doing enough by ourselves. Maybe we could make a pact with the Devil. Or have we already?
Read the most recent prediction from the U.N. via Matthew Cullen on Evening Briefing N.Y. Times March 20, 2023.
The Paris agreement reminds us that 2030 is the critical year by which global CO2 emissions must have been reduced by 45 percent to avoid the irreversible consequences of climate change.
Earlier this year the United Nations stated that emissions need to have peaked by 2025, be reduced by 43 percent by 2030, and be at net zero by 2050.
Commitments made by countries of Mother Earth so far will reduce emissions by only 7 percent from 2019 levels by 2030. (See Loss and Damage by Tina Gerhardt, the Nation, current edition. )
Saudi Arabia and other OPEC oil producers are discussing an output increase of up to 500,000 barrels a day, the group’s delegates said: WSJ News per Dr. Rex.
What does a hiatus mean? It sounds sort of formal. I’m sufficiently old=fashioned to still use a paperbound dictionary: I was right! There are several more meanings than I mean–[see also yawn]–Including things related to passage in an organ, two vowel sounds without pause, herniating through the esophageal….
Now that I’ve lost my readership crowd, I’ll tell you all about it: It all started with my printer not working. After a helper tried to fix it, I lost my internet connection. (I had already lost my phone accessibility because I couldn’t figure out how to use it.) See what I mean about planned obsolescense being evil? A couple or so years ago I had a great phone that looked like a small flip phone, and it didn’t pretend to be anything else. Then the battery went dead and a new battery was as expensive as a new phone. Not imagining that I couldn’t buy another soon, I let it “go out of style” as big tech crept in during the night. I’ll give you a tip on how to get rich: Come up with a “flip top” that will only call and/or answer. There are other oldsters all over the world I’m sure that suffer from this lack. The most-touted phone for seniors is very difficult to use. There are smart phones, cell phones, “dumb phones” (not dumb), and “wise phones”, the ads of the latter’s ads I’ve seen have all the ordering info but not the price.
Anyway, that’s not all that has been happening off-blog. My daughter visited and taught me a trick my mother never shared with me: When your cuppa coffee or tea is too hot, make it cool faster by inserting a metal eating utensil in it to draw off the heat. The only thing I can remember her teaching me (other than to be nice) was when at a traffic light and needing to turn left, pull out into the intersection a little bit so you can make it when the light begins to change.
And oh yes–my “helper” quit me because her schooling was getting too hard. So, cast on my own I am succeeding by doing one chore a day (plus cooking and/or eating goulash and taking my medicine): one of the weekdays is for showering. Organizing my papers is out of the question.
My daughter came up from Atlanta to testify before a hearing with lawmakers (and breakers) at the State House in Columbus. It was about the state wanting to close all longterm care facilities for the neediest disabled individuals. (I went with her a couple of years ago and when it came time to speak I was sitting in a stall undergoing “an intestinal upset.”) My youngest daughter needs to continue her residence at the long term facility in Gallipolis. Since I have no car anymore, my oldest daughter and I were able to visit her, an hours’ drive away.
You may have guessed that I live alone–and talk/write too much when I have an audience. So, back to the blog: I do complain, but NO LONGER about the election, I still fret about corporations buying elections, climate change and technology replacing workers. I just came across a quote of the richest man alive, maybe, who plans to start charging $7.99 a month in order that users of his newly purchased Twitter can have a blue check mark by their Twitter name, to assure their authenticity. He is quoted by Time as saying “It creates a lord and peasants system.”
The November 21-28 issue of Time magazine features almost one hundred new innovations (and mentions a hundred more). I may be old and sensitive, but as stated earlier I have misgivings about the mass move to high tech, especially when reading about a “Mini Nuclear Reactor,” the first of which could be running by 2029 in Idaho. Each such reactor could power 60,000 homes.
It seems the push to offset the climate crisis is being fought more fervently by others than the giant coal and oil producers?
From Science News June 18, 2022:
Face the Fungi
Replacing 20 percent of the red meat in our diets with proteins derived from fungi and algae could cut annual deforestation by more than half by 2050. Carolyn Gramling reported in “Swapping meat for microbial protein may take a bite out of climate change.” (SN:6/18/22, p. 5)
For real patriotism McDonalds, Wendys and others need to begin featuring nutritious versions of this, cooked with savory recipes.
By Max Bearak
With an annual summit next month, the United Nations assessed progress on countries’ past emissions commitments. Severe disruption would be hard to avoid on the current trajectory.
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SHORT NOTES FROM NASA
Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, have made Earth’s “puffy coat” warmer. But Earth’s atmosphere can’t simply take off its jacket when it gets too hot. We can, however, stop adding insulation.
There were even disbelieving replies (or comments, whatever) to NASA’s concerns. And of course as I mentioned earlier, there’s a book out denying climate change, with boocoo agreeing responses. I won’t give him the publicity by mentioning his name, but the astrophysicist maintains that “masterful analysis decisively shows that the pessimistic, and often alarming, global warming scenarios depicted in the media have no scientific basis.”
I’m so thankful I didn’t become a teacher!
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MAMA EARTH VS BITCOIN
Excerpt from Greenpeace: Bitcoin’s exponential electricity usage is making the climate crisis worse…
For those who don’t know, Bitcoin is a digital currency known as cryptocurrency. Since 2009, Bitcoin has grown to become the most popular cryptocurrency there is. With that growth has come an explosion in electricity usage — all because the code that makes Bitcoin run is outdated and extremely energy-intensive by design.
13 years since its release, Bitcoin uses as much electricity as entire countries. Bitcoin’s unsustainable growth has already led to the resurrection of multiple coal plants and hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon emissions….
The good news is that Bitcoin doesn’t actually have to use so much electricity. Other less-popular cryptocurrencies are proving that by adopting a more modern coding system, Bitcoin’s energy usage can be reduced by 99%.
I question the rationale for the writing of and printing of this week’s NY Times Magazine article,
The effect of the article, days before the election and with new troublesome issues being brought to light every week, let’s face it: what do you think the impact is? If the author and magazine editor really thought there was a real danger in climate change, would/could they have written/published such an article? And at this time?
I am tired and will not review all the news about continuing or escalating environmental practices by the giant corporations. There appears to be some widespread but meager meaningful initial response to the problem, but certainly not sufficient to warrant or justify such a reassuring widespread article. No Catastrophe in sight? I pray its publication does not reflect any of the current shifting shadows in our land. A small admission that the article may not justify its title entirely is one I picked out at random. Sorry, this is nervy of me but I am still aghast at the effect it will likely have on the future of the Earth, which is a pretty big deal:
….All of which suggests an entirely different view of the near future, equally true. The world will keep warming, and the impacts will grow more punishing, even if decarbonization accelerates enough to meet the world’s most ambitious goals: nearly halving global emissions by 2030 and getting to net-zero just two decades later. “These dates — 2030, 2050 — they are meaningless,” says Gail Bradbrook, one of the British founders of Extinction Rebellion. “What matters is the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and there is already way too much. The dates can be excuses to kick the problem into the long grass. But the important thing is that we’re doing harm, right now, and that we should stop absolutely as soon as possible with any activities that are making the situation worse.”
A lot, then, depends on perspective: The climate future looks darker than today but brighter than many expected not that long ago. The world is moving faster to decarbonize than it once seemed responsible to imagine, and yet not nearly fast enough to avert real turbulence. Even the straightest path to two degrees looks tumultuous, with disruptions from the natural world sufficient to call into question many of the social and political continuities that have been taken for granted for generations.
My comment: When the world is not moving fast enough to avert real turbulence, why this article at this time? I’m not questioning the author’s freedom of speech, just reflecting on the probable impact of it for so many fervently engaged grassroots individuals. Maybe something along the lines of “How Far We’ve Come but How Far Yet to Go” might be more palatable.
When I went to double-check the author’s name I came across a column by German Lopez, recommending the above-discussed article. Lopez’s column was titled “What was once the worst case scenario for climate change seems much less likely”
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PARIS — After taking a few steps back to get a running start, Hadj Benhalima dashed toward the building, pushed against its wall with his foot, propelled himself upward and stretched out his arm.
At the peak of his leap, he flipped off a light switch, more than 10 feet off the ground. A click sound rang out, and the bright lights of a nearby barbershop went off instantly.
“Oooh,” his friends cheered, as Mr. Benhalima, a thin 21-year-old dressed all in black, landed back on the sidewalk. It was the second store sign he had turned off on a recent nighttime tour across Paris’s upscale neighborhoods. Many more would follow as he soared up and dropped back down across the city.
Over the past two years, groups of young athletes practicing Parkour — a sport that consists of running, climbing and jumping over urban obstacles — have been swinging around big French cities switching off wasteful shop signs at night, in a bid to fight light pollution and save energy. Excerpt from
Videos of their feats, showing Spiderman-like aerialists clinging to stone facades and balcony edges before plunging streets into darkness with the flick of an elevated switch, have been popular on social media since the start of the trend.
But these so-called Lights Off operations have become extra resonant in recent months, with France embarking on energy conservation efforts to cope with Russia’s chokehold on Europe’s gas.
Paris, the City of Light, is a favorite target. While its landmark monuments now go dark earlier than usual, many store signs still stay lit all night.
“Everyone can contribute in their own way” to save energy, said Kevin Ha, the leader of the Paris-based On The Spot Parkour collective, with about 20 members. “We put our physical abilities to good use.”
Artist” Kevin Siers
BEST of the BEST
When I was in graduate school I read The Symbolic and the Real by Ira Progoff (McGraw-Hill, 1963), and it had a tremendous effect on me, and I think was responsible for my becoming friends with my unconscious–or psyche, as he would call it.
Before that, in beginning therapy, I recall being asked about my fantasies, whereupon I said I never had fantasies. I came to understand that I had them, but didn’t take notice or recognize them. When I read Progoff, I came to recognize that deeper than fantasies were images. Progoff describes this process as follows:
“In the method of twilight imaging, the individual relaxes, closes his eyes, and permits himself to observe and describe the flow of imagery that flows upon the screen of his mind’s eye. This flow, which is the faculty of the image-making process of the psyche, is kaleidoscopic. It simply moves on, presenting itself in one form after another. Its energy is not integrated, but moves with no cohering principle, until a pattern is formed by the formless flow of the imagery itself. This is the “pure” process of the psyche. To the degree that it is not induced by any selfconscious attitudes, the pattern that is formed and dramatized is an authentic expression of the psyche and reflects what is taking place at its unobservable levels. The free flow of imagery thus becomes a channel by which the inarticulate depths of the person can communicate to consciousness the problems and the aspirations involved in reaching a fuller integration.” (p. 92)
Earlier this evening, while sitting in the dark after Spectrum had turned itself off, An image came to me of a giant walking past my patio window. I only imaged his huge feet tromping by, mashing things underfoot, and I was reminded of him stalking from the hurricanes of the southeast to the wildfires of the west coast. (How ethnocentric–I am largely ignorant of the details of the earthquakes and tsunamis and plane crashes abroad).
I reflected on the image of the giant stalking the land and climate change, and realized that prior to language there were silent images which issued from the protoplasm of the ancients. And then I found Progoff’s book on my shelf after turning on the light, and came to my computer to share.
the world turns on a word
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