I like Sandy for his realism and cheerfulness in the face of possible catastrophe and applaud his creative expression which I suspect is a necessary counter point to what feels like a relatively dry area of work in its day to day form.
The endless ability of politicians and CEOs to put their fingers in their ears and sing La La La when they are presented with awkward information and then whip out the megaphone when they hear something they like is breathtaking. The financial merry go round does place such lop-sided emphasis on the need for short term profit and is a pernicious influence on otherwise sane human beings.
As important as an energy transition is there is an equally important transition in restoring natural habitat and greening cities which has the multiple benefits of reducing surface temperatures, conserving water and rebuilding the biodiversity on which our existence is predicated, not to mention ensuring food supplies and improving the small matter of our mental health.
This is not to take away anything from Sandy's excellent work but the focus on the carbon side of this existential crisis often excludes the other elements in the rush to simplify a very complex problem for what is assumed to be a simplistic public. Neither are these elements mutually exclusive. There is for example the synergy of agrivoltaics that both produces energy while optimally shading plants from excessive sunlight and saving vast amounts of water that would otherwise be needed - and further optimises the energy produced by the cooling effect of transpiration on the underside of the panels. Up to 10% more!
I suspect I'm preaching to the choir here but its an opportunity for us all to sing!
Sandy makes a really good point here about the mindset of policy makers. If a Nobel Prize winning economist says there’ll only be a 2% dip in GDP by 2100 and it suits the prevailing wisdom/ideology, it’s a far easier message to swallow than using the precautionary principle at a risk of 50%.
Incidentally, there was an XR action recently highlighting the role of the Insurance industry in facilitating new oil and gas exploration and projects, which I saw get a lot of stick by people in that industry. Has the message in these reports by the Institute of Actuaries made any impact in the industry?
It’s hard not to agree with the Nate Hagens assessment that the global economy will shrink, not in a planned way but due to all of the risks that Sandy explains in this discussion.
No possible dollars and cents estimate of climate change destruction to our global "economy" can begin to place a value on what we massively overpopulated/overconsuming humans have already done to the Garden of Eden our early ancestors were gifted with. Just ask a "Native American" or other indigenous person clinging to the increasingly more rare refugia that we have not raped and sold for filthy lucre.
My personal observation is that humans are hardwired to ignore our garbage and waste, using the old "out of sight, out of mind" model for managing detritus of all types. This is a repeating pattern, almost fractal, from historic human settlements, to the kitchen of my own house, to multinational industries. As I see it the truth of the matter seems that rather than the waste itself, time spent attending to waste is considered "wasted," and better spent furthering whatever goals one is pursuing. Especially when the waste can be simply tossed over one's shoulder and, as long as you don't look back, forgotten about.
Unfortunately, we seem to be running up to the planetary limits of this mindset. The dreaded Find Out portion of the FAFO equation. As an individual who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to recycle some small portion of my personal waste stream, while realizing the overall futility of such as one person living in the larger consumer culture of convenience and "disposability" (all that plastic is not really disposable, is it?). I have long ago resigned myself to the understanding that at our current rate of growth and relentless taking of resources, we are likely doomed to drown in our own waste. I would love to see a different outcome, but the hurdle is dauntingly high.
We are not hardwired. We have constructed an economy that erases feedback, so the individual cannot experience the true consequences of their actions. In a non-industrial society, individuals and communities experience either immediate or seasonal feedback to their actions. If they fail to fertilize fields with their "waste", the fields produce less and they go hungry. In such an economy, "waste" is nonexistant.
The individual waste issue is a hard one as there is both the sense of futility in the face of the immensity of the problem and the less than honest treatment of the waste itself by the authorities. There is - for me, at least - a feeling of integrity and a hope that the dial is moved by those who both practice and advocate change however minutely. Think ants in a colony!
The sense of futility is an example of the fallacy of "learned helplessness". It is an excuse for one's own laziness, which is a product of privilege. The people in Uganda, one of the poorest and least developed parts of the world, are developing meaningful responses to the polycrisis because they must for their own survival.
I’m increasingly feeling the learned helplessness is a welcomed, if not intended, consequence of the individualism that governments have promoted for the last 40 years or so. There is an urgent task in higher income countries to rebuild the sense of community and rediscover the power of the collective.
It's true. Humans are a social species. Individual humans are exceptionally inadequate animals. In isolation, a homo sapiens not only feels helpless, it IS helpless. We also have a loneliness epidemic. Yet people sink into laziness, refusing to even go out and see people. There seems to be an increase in feelings of social awkwardness, which discourages socializing.
What timing, I am currently plowing through their paper... It's great to see some realism enter the academic world of climate policy and climate science. An issue we have to keep in mind when it comes to GDP damage discussions is that the damage is to GDP at the time the estimate is expected to hit. It does not mean that in 2070 the world GDP will be 50% lower than it is today, yet with tons more people. Not at all. Saying that it is possible that GDP in 2070 will be 50% lower assuming 3C means that between now and then, economists (not me) expect GDP to continue to grow, by quite a lot. So to say that in 2070 it will be 50% lower than it would have been might still mean (at least in their minds) that it has grown 10 or 30 or 50% more than today's GDP. And most likely, economists are looking at more like a 100%+ GDP growth from now to 2070, so unless we keep that in mind it is easy to be overly impressed by the numbers. Mind you, Sandy's numbers are still much more likely to put a bee in the bonnet of policymakers than Nordhaus's measly 1% or 2% numbers, but there may be those who, insistent on inaction, will simply say "well at least it will grow, growth is good."
I like Sandy for his realism and cheerfulness in the face of possible catastrophe and applaud his creative expression which I suspect is a necessary counter point to what feels like a relatively dry area of work in its day to day form.
The endless ability of politicians and CEOs to put their fingers in their ears and sing La La La when they are presented with awkward information and then whip out the megaphone when they hear something they like is breathtaking. The financial merry go round does place such lop-sided emphasis on the need for short term profit and is a pernicious influence on otherwise sane human beings.
As important as an energy transition is there is an equally important transition in restoring natural habitat and greening cities which has the multiple benefits of reducing surface temperatures, conserving water and rebuilding the biodiversity on which our existence is predicated, not to mention ensuring food supplies and improving the small matter of our mental health.
This is not to take away anything from Sandy's excellent work but the focus on the carbon side of this existential crisis often excludes the other elements in the rush to simplify a very complex problem for what is assumed to be a simplistic public. Neither are these elements mutually exclusive. There is for example the synergy of agrivoltaics that both produces energy while optimally shading plants from excessive sunlight and saving vast amounts of water that would otherwise be needed - and further optimises the energy produced by the cooling effect of transpiration on the underside of the panels. Up to 10% more!
I suspect I'm preaching to the choir here but its an opportunity for us all to sing!
Sandy makes a really good point here about the mindset of policy makers. If a Nobel Prize winning economist says there’ll only be a 2% dip in GDP by 2100 and it suits the prevailing wisdom/ideology, it’s a far easier message to swallow than using the precautionary principle at a risk of 50%.
Incidentally, there was an XR action recently highlighting the role of the Insurance industry in facilitating new oil and gas exploration and projects, which I saw get a lot of stick by people in that industry. Has the message in these reports by the Institute of Actuaries made any impact in the industry?
It’s hard not to agree with the Nate Hagens assessment that the global economy will shrink, not in a planned way but due to all of the risks that Sandy explains in this discussion.
The pull of the pound and BAU is so much stronger than we feared possible.
The science is clear. The expert warnings couldn’t be more alarming. Yet….
What will it take?
No possible dollars and cents estimate of climate change destruction to our global "economy" can begin to place a value on what we massively overpopulated/overconsuming humans have already done to the Garden of Eden our early ancestors were gifted with. Just ask a "Native American" or other indigenous person clinging to the increasingly more rare refugia that we have not raped and sold for filthy lucre.
My personal observation is that humans are hardwired to ignore our garbage and waste, using the old "out of sight, out of mind" model for managing detritus of all types. This is a repeating pattern, almost fractal, from historic human settlements, to the kitchen of my own house, to multinational industries. As I see it the truth of the matter seems that rather than the waste itself, time spent attending to waste is considered "wasted," and better spent furthering whatever goals one is pursuing. Especially when the waste can be simply tossed over one's shoulder and, as long as you don't look back, forgotten about.
Unfortunately, we seem to be running up to the planetary limits of this mindset. The dreaded Find Out portion of the FAFO equation. As an individual who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to recycle some small portion of my personal waste stream, while realizing the overall futility of such as one person living in the larger consumer culture of convenience and "disposability" (all that plastic is not really disposable, is it?). I have long ago resigned myself to the understanding that at our current rate of growth and relentless taking of resources, we are likely doomed to drown in our own waste. I would love to see a different outcome, but the hurdle is dauntingly high.
We are not hardwired. We have constructed an economy that erases feedback, so the individual cannot experience the true consequences of their actions. In a non-industrial society, individuals and communities experience either immediate or seasonal feedback to their actions. If they fail to fertilize fields with their "waste", the fields produce less and they go hungry. In such an economy, "waste" is nonexistant.
The individual waste issue is a hard one as there is both the sense of futility in the face of the immensity of the problem and the less than honest treatment of the waste itself by the authorities. There is - for me, at least - a feeling of integrity and a hope that the dial is moved by those who both practice and advocate change however minutely. Think ants in a colony!
The sense of futility is an example of the fallacy of "learned helplessness". It is an excuse for one's own laziness, which is a product of privilege. The people in Uganda, one of the poorest and least developed parts of the world, are developing meaningful responses to the polycrisis because they must for their own survival.
I’m increasingly feeling the learned helplessness is a welcomed, if not intended, consequence of the individualism that governments have promoted for the last 40 years or so. There is an urgent task in higher income countries to rebuild the sense of community and rediscover the power of the collective.
It's true. Humans are a social species. Individual humans are exceptionally inadequate animals. In isolation, a homo sapiens not only feels helpless, it IS helpless. We also have a loneliness epidemic. Yet people sink into laziness, refusing to even go out and see people. There seems to be an increase in feelings of social awkwardness, which discourages socializing.
What timing, I am currently plowing through their paper... It's great to see some realism enter the academic world of climate policy and climate science. An issue we have to keep in mind when it comes to GDP damage discussions is that the damage is to GDP at the time the estimate is expected to hit. It does not mean that in 2070 the world GDP will be 50% lower than it is today, yet with tons more people. Not at all. Saying that it is possible that GDP in 2070 will be 50% lower assuming 3C means that between now and then, economists (not me) expect GDP to continue to grow, by quite a lot. So to say that in 2070 it will be 50% lower than it would have been might still mean (at least in their minds) that it has grown 10 or 30 or 50% more than today's GDP. And most likely, economists are looking at more like a 100%+ GDP growth from now to 2070, so unless we keep that in mind it is easy to be overly impressed by the numbers. Mind you, Sandy's numbers are still much more likely to put a bee in the bonnet of policymakers than Nordhaus's measly 1% or 2% numbers, but there may be those who, insistent on inaction, will simply say "well at least it will grow, growth is good."
I really liked this episode and was hoping to save a copy of his great poem. Where can I find it please?
Enjoyed listening to Sandy Trust and his poem! Thankyou