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Comments 4351 to 4400:

4351. One Planet Only Forever at 15:47 PM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      Found the quote in my comment @59

      "It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards.

      What is required is correcting the harmful unsustainable aspects of what has been developed. That will allow growth of the economy through the development of even better ways of living than the 'sustainable' starting point humanity ends up at after the correction (not going back to cave living but, based on the evaluations by groups like Project Drawdown, going back to many pre-industrial ways of producing food with possible improvements due to legitimate improved understanding - note the base understanding is that many of the pre-industrial ways are actually superior to the industrial ways)."

4352. One Planet Only Forever at 14:05 PM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      My response to your @60 which started with "You appear...", started with "You appear to misunderstand my perspective."

      In my comment @36 I included the following along with other information about my perspective. "I prefer to say something like ‘correction of harmful development’. Degrowth is too generic. I understand that undoing harmful developments at the pace required to limit harm done to future generations could result in reductions of measures used to track economic progress like GDP. But that indicates that the measure of economic progress failed to properly account for harm done because they are ‘externalities to the money math that are hard to precisely monetize’. They would be negatives if they were monetized."

      And I paraphrased your "The system needs time to adjust." to highlight what Figure 2 indicates ... there is no longer the luxury of time.

      From your comment @70 "However we can phase in such changes at a reasonable pace and it would likely happen that way anyway. " That is where we are unlikely to establish a common understanding. That is a different way of saying "things will eventually work out". I have pointed out that the available evidence, particularly through the past 50 years, is that the developed systems have harmfully resisted being corrected, persisted at being poorly governed to limit harm done (and, agreed, the Soviet Union and China also pursued harmful ways of appearing to be superior). They are powerfully biased to resist being corrected. And, going back to Figure 2, what is your anticipated time frame to maximize climate harm impacts and begin the reduction of CO2 levels (well past 2050)? And what total impact (well above 2C) are you suggesting is fair to the future generations and less fortunate who will suffer the most?

      And I agree, the less fortunate, especially the ones that have been further challenged by climate change impacts caused so far, should not be the ones to suffer. That may be where we differ. Your perspective may be wanting to minimize suffering in the middle class of the richer nations. I share the perspective that those who have benefit more from the harm done should suffer the most. But it is too late to have only limited loss suffered by the middle classes of the nations that, to this day, continue to have the highest per capita ghg impact rates. Based on WorldoMeters 2016 data, those nations would include:

      • a bunch of smaller oil producing nations
      • Canada (18.6 tonnes per capita) The country I live in
      • Australia (17.1)
      • USA (15.5)
      • Russia (11.4)
      • all other nations are below 10 and most are doing better

      New Zealand at 7.14 is not facing a significant rate of correction (NZ is not in the top 10% of high impacting nations), certainly nothing like what is required in Canada. And I live in Alberta, the epicenter of rapid required correction. Some of us in Alberta 'get it'. Recently, the Conservative Government tried to undo protections that were keeping coal mining out of important natural areas. They appear to have backed down because of public opposition. But, many Albertans fight really hard not to understand, and they did not understand the demands for reinstating the decades old protections.

      Please re-read all of my comment on this item. I did not provide the comment @57. And after quickly reviewing things I am pretty sure I never commented that "It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards", and certainly not @57. If you do find it let me know and I will respond to the full statement in its context.

      I have said versions of the thought that it is possible for economic growth to happen de-coupled from harmful impacts and material consumption. (and in my comment @65 I included a quote from the Fortune article you linked “green growth probably doesn’t exist — at least not for the next couple of decades” - and put in context regarding my thinking). Improved ways of living can always be developed that are better than what we already understand are sustainable ways to live - fitting in as parts of the robust diversity of life on this planet and developing helpful technology that does not require its harms to be excused by misleading claims about the benefits obtained, by some people, being worth the harm done to Others.

4353. nigelj at 10:33 AM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF @69

      "That was twisting, significantly misunderstanding, my comments. So I replied accordingly."

      No its not twisting what you said.  I said "you appear" to be saying xyz. This is not putting words in your mouth or twisting what you said. I honestly couldnt figure out 100%  what you were saying - so I paraphreased my best guess in the hope you would clarify your position and used the word appear.

      And even if I had twisted what you said, how does that give you the right to do the same? Have you heard the wise old saying "two wrongs dont make a right?"

      You "appear" to also still be supporting that growth can and should go on forever. Your comments:  "It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards" @57. If so, I think you are wrong other than to say poor countries need to be allowed to grow their economies.

      Your comments on the system adapting are too general for me to be meaningful. If you mean the world should instantly go back to traditional farming I believe that would be very problematic for the reasons stated. However we can phase in such changes at a reasonable pace and it would likely happen that way anyway. I'm not suggesting we stall such things or go like a  snail.

      Thank's for the comments on regenerative farming. I'm fully aware of much of that material and the the problems of industrial agiculture. I've said many times on this thread and elsewhere that industrial agriculture is causing environmental problems and has to change, however I don't support pie in the sky delusions that either traditional farming or regenerative agriculture is superior in every way and can achieve miracles that some so called experts have claimed . If it was, everyone would be doing it and industrial farming wouldnt exist.

      I'm very passionate about the need to do better conserving the environment but I also like to maintain some realism and scientific objectivity. The solution is going to contain elements or modern and traditional agriculture. There are no simple, perfect doctrinaire solutions.

4354. One Planet Only Forever at 08:25 AM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      I responded to the folowing in the context of the topic and comments.

      "You appear to be promoting some form of perpetual and sustainable "green growth". I used to believe in this, but theres a growing body of expert opinion that it is neither possible or desirable. In addition cutting consumption of high income people is going to reduce growth by pulling demand out of the system. Adopting traditional farming would actually slow growth because its lower yield than industrial farming.

      These things along with zero economic growth, or low growth, are not bad things - provided they dont happen too quickly. The system needs time to adjust. Human civilisation is getting old and is about to slow down. This may be a hard truth to accept.

      This is all different thing to crazy agendas to rapidly cut resource consumption by massive levels."

      That was twisting, significantly misunderstanding, my comments. So I replied accordingly. And I will maintain the understanding that 50 years ago there was potentially time to let the system adapt. But the evidence indicates that the system is powerfully uninterested in changing, and certainly won't change rapidly enough. That system has now developed the need for a much more rapid and painful correction, as illustrated by Figure 2, or massive damage will be done to future generations as many people today continue to enjoy what they believe to be success.

      Agreed that many traditional agriculture systems are less productive per hectare in the short-term. But they have a longer future. Industrial agriculture is depleting the ability of lands to be productive, all while being more profitable than the longer lasting less harmful alternatives.

      Reviewing the "Land Sinks" set of solutions evaluated and compiled in Project Drawdown is a way to learn about instances where modern industrial agriculture is not as good as pre-modern ways. And it can be appreciated that Project Drawdown is focused on changes and new developments that, in combination, address the required limiting of climate change impacts. There are, of course, many other aspects of developed modern industrial agricultural practices that need to be changed, to be more like the pre-industrial ways, to get Phosphorous and Nitrogen impacts back below safe Planetary Boundaries.

      The summary page of the Land Sink set of solutions in Project Drawdown includes the following statement:

      "Shift Agriculture Practices

      What and how we grow, graze, or harvest can be a means to cultivate biomass and regenerate soil carbon. An array of “regenerative agriculture” methods are being rediscovered and developed worldwide, and show promising results. The integration of trees into farming through agroforestry practices is particularly powerful. All solutions that sustainably raise yields on existing farmland can also reduce the pressure to clear other areas."

      And the most beneficial of the food related "Solutions" presented in Project Drawdown are (along with their overall standing among the 82 solutions evaluated in Drawdown Scenario 2 which is roughly in-line with achieving 1.5˚C temperature rise by 2100 - and Scenario 1 which is roughly in line with 2˚C temperature rise by 2100):

      Reduce food waste (#3 in Scenario 2 - #1 in Scenario 1)
      Plant rich diets (#4 - #3)
      Tropical forest restoration (6 - 5)
      Silvopasture (11 - 11)
      Tree plantations (on degraded land) (13 - 13)
      Perenial staple crops (14 - 19)
      Managed grazing (16 - 17)
      Tree intercropping (17 - 20)
      Regenerative annual cropping (20 - 21)
      Multistrata agroforestry (22 - 25)
      Abandoned farmland restoration (23 - 23)

      And there are more agriculture related items on the list. But always keep in mind that the Planetary Boundaries evaluation has identified that Phosphorous and Nitrogen impacts, largely unrelated to climate change impacts, are already significantly exceeding Safe Planetary Boundary limits due primarily to modern industrial agriculture.

      I suggest multistrata agroforestry and indigenous people's forest tenure and tree intercropping as examples of traditional methods that are superior to industrial methods, from the perspective of being able to be continued long-term. Tree intercropping is described as something that was "Plowed under during the twentieth century to make room for industrialized methods of farming, tree intercropping is one of dozens of techniques that can create an agricultural renaissance—a transformation of food-growing practices that bring people, regeneration, and abundance back to the land."

      But there are many other examples where more labour intensive methods, and ways that are potentially less productive per hectare in the short-term, are superior because they result in a lasting system that ultimately produces a larger total amount of food from the land that the industrial practices that deplete land quality and produce other harmful impacts while they 'appear to be superior - for a little while - because they are more profitable for investors who pursue maximizing their short-term return from every investment they make'.

4355. nigelj at 07:04 AM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF @67

      "I will simply say your simplistic position that modern ways of food production are superior to pre-modern ways is wrong. "

      I didn't say that. I've explained my position at least twice now. I said several times that traditional farming has merit and we need to ultimately go back to some sort of traditional farming. Personally I think we need a combination of modern and pre modern.

      I only that that traditional agriculture has lower yields and productivity than industrial agriculture and this will push down growth. This was in support of the proposition that growth has to stop anyway. I said that over time we will find ways to overcome the yields problem. I said we would have to phase in more traditional forms of farming slowly.

      And if you believe traditional farming or something like organic farming has equal or higher yeilds than conventional industrial farming please provide proper citations form the peer reviewed literature. Not vague references to something like project drawdown.

      "let the system painlessly adjust"

      I didn't say that. I don't care if rich farmers feel some pain. My comments were entirely about the system stability and effects on ordinary people. If traditional farming was introduced universally and abruptly the lower yeilds would be problematic. The system needs time to adjust. Things have to be phased in. This is obvious and basic.

      "The 1980s resurgence of libertarian capitalism was one of the most damaging developments in recent history"

      The problem of libertarian capitalism is well known. I've said much the same on many websites. But the causes of our environmental problems go well beyond this. Its not the one and only thing. If anyone is being "simplistic" you are. I'm using your terminology. Imho you are being too doctrinaire.

      Not going to waste my time further responding to people who consistently put words in my mouth / twist what I say, and who create these strawmen. You have done it numerous times now. It gets frustrating and I have other things to do. 

4356. MA Rodger at 02:52 AM on 11 March 2022
      Climate's changed before
      

      paulbegin @885,
      Increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase global temperatures directly through the greenhouse effect. An increase in temperature can influence CO2 concentrations but less directly. Thus colder oceans are more able to absorb CO2 so CO2 will be drawn from the atmosphere into the oceans during an ice age, this increasing the ice age cooling. But there are other temperature-CO2 correlations, for instance during the ENSO cycle with temperature and CO2 increasing in the aftermath of an El Niño. Yet in the ENSO cycle the fluctuating CO2 levels are not due to temperature but due to changing patterns of rainfall causing changes in vegitation growth in the Amazon basin.

      So it is CO2 that drives temperture while temperature has a small influence on CO2.

      I'm not emtirely sure what you are asking for with your last question. The various drivers of climate change, be they forcings or the resulting feedbacks, are reasonably well understood for the past few million years but there is more difficulty going back into the more distant past as the drivers and the climate are less well understood.
      The big difference between the last few-million-years and the last century-or-so is that the major climate forcing has resulted from human activity and that said, I'm not sure what you expect from comparing the last century-or-so with the last few-million-years.

4357. paulbegin at 02:04 AM on 11 March 2022
      Climate's changed before
      

      When we say that CO2 and Temperature are correlated, which one comes first in that interaction ? I mean, is it the temperature that influences de CO2 or the CO2 that influences temperature ? Which one is the most significant, which one drives the most between the two ? Also, where can we find a comprehensive study, comparing the natural causes for climate changes over the last few millions years (or more if possible) compared to recent data, which would include the human factor, let's say since 1850 ? 

4358. One Planet Only Forever at 01:47 AM on 11 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      I will simply say your simplistic position that modern ways of food production are superior to pre-modern ways is wrong. There is ample evidence proving that. And it is easy to find examples in the Project Drawdown content.

      What I try to point out is based on the understanding that beliefs that the  system needs time to adjust would have been a little questionable even 50 years ago, when the Stockholm Conference of 1972 occurred.

      But, with the increased awareness and understanding developed since then due to increased focus on identifying harmful developments and how to correct things that 'let the system painlessly adjust' attitude lost most of its potential to be reasonable about 30 years ago.

      There now is increasing undeniable evidence, like the Planetary Boundaries understanding, that things have over-develped so harmfully that painful corrections are required, with the biggest current problems due to industrial food production (which contributes to the climate change problem but has caused massive harm unrelated to climate change impacts). And the pain and loss of required correction needs to be experienced by the people who enjoy the most benefit from the continued incorrect directions of development through the past 30 years. Those people can be hard to identify in the past. So what has to be done is focusing the pain and loss on the ones who more recently, and currently, are committing the most per person harm. However, the nations that benefited the most through the past 100 or more years are able to be identified and should be the groups suffering the loss due to the increasingly urgent correction, especially the nations whose leaders resisted the correction the most. And that makes some among the top 10% angry.

      When you think about what the resistance to acceptance of Kyoto was motivated by, the motivation was largely the reluctance of powerful wealthy people to give up the perceptions of superiority they had developed. And US President Bush declared that 'Americans do not need to change how they live' when he announced that the USA was withdrawing from Kyoto. And a bunch of others chanted versions of Kyoto 'robbing the rich'. And the misleading attempts to excuse other harmful activities and maintain harmful misunderstandings apply to far more than climate science.

      I see that understanding as the best explanation for everything that can be seen to be harmfully happening, including the harmful resistance to correction of harmful misunderstandings. The 1980s resurgence of libertarian capitalism was one of the most damaging developments in recent history. And the populist misunderstanding demands for 'political or nationalist identity protection from learning it is a harmful misunderstanding' and the other harmful freedoms to misunderstand things are aspects of the same systemic problem.

4359. nigelj at 16:16 PM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF @65

      "And saying "The system needs time to adjust." is the same as saying "things will eventually work out"......"

      No it doesn't mean that.  This is what I said: "These things along with zero economic growth, or low growth, are not bad things - provided they dont happen too quickly. The system needs time to adjust. Human civilisation is getting old and is about to slow down. This may be a hard truth to accept."So all I'm saying is economic growth has to slow down gradually, so the economic system has time to adjust without becoming unstablle, and the  introduction of something like regenerative farming or cuts to consumption has be scaled up gradually. 

      All I'm really arguing is economic growth has to pretty much stop, whatever colour it is , but with the exception of poor countries that need to be able to grow enough to meet the basic requirements outlined in the UN sustainable development goals (clean water, adequate incomes, etc,etc). The evidence is becoming fairly compelling, the links I posted broadly support growth stopping and I could post 100 more. Ironically your comments on rich people cutting consumption and going back to traditional farming (which has merit) are likely to reduce levels of growth anyway. It's still not clear to me whether you think growth should stop or not, but it might be worth thinking about the idea if you haven't already.

      I don't want to get into a long  argument about all the numerous other details you outlined, because we are on the same page on most of the big issues anyway. Its not useful to have big explosive arguments over the details. I may discuss things if you keep to just a couple of points.

4360. One Planet Only Forever at 13:06 PM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      Thank your for clarifying the basis for your comment. It establishes that we are very well aligned ... if you fully understand the 3 articles you linked and the larger understanding that they are part of.

      What I present is very comprehensively aligned with what Monbiot presents in the first article you point to. The article content also aligns with the evaluations in Project Drawdown. So that clearly is not the basis for the comments you offered regarding my thoughts.

      The second article highlights the need to decouple perceptions of economic advancement (like GDP measurement) from harmful or unsustainable activity, that would include consumption. Again aligned with my thoughts, and part of the 2020 Human Development Report (though it is far more robustly presented and justified in the 2020 HDR).

      The third article contains a nice fit to my thoughts “green growth probably doesn’t exist — at least not for the next couple of decades”. That exactly aligns with my understanding that sustainable growth will probably only be possible after the harmful unsustainable developed ways of living, including modern industrial agriculture, are substantially corrected or removed from the system.

      You claim that you “...never dismissed the UN development goals. Never even commented on them." You did that, perhaps without realizing it, when responding to my comments. Or "You (were) absolutely twisting what I said in your mind (without realizing it)".

      But, to be fair, I suggest you avoid using the wide-open to interpretation "green growth" term. That term can mean many things. And because you used it as a way to describe thinking aligned with the SDGs (and the 3 articles you referred to) as perpetual and sustainable "green growth", I responded as I interpreted the intent.

      And saying "The system needs time to adjust." is the same as saying "things will eventually work out". The system needs to be corrected. And, as Planetary Boundaries and the 3 articles you referenced point out, the lack of corrective action though the past 50 years has developed a situation where it is foolish to “wait for things to work out”. It is also incorrect to wait in the hope that things actually will work out well for the future generations. As the likes of Greta correctly state they do not want the current generation to claim things like admiration for the future generation’s ability to deal with the troubles the current generation is creating’. And claiming that new technological developments (what Monbiot refers to as "green" technologies) by ‘systems of competition for perceptions of superiority that have a clear history of developing harmful activity and resisting correction’ will solve the problem in a timely manner is also a version of insanity (continuing to do the same thing but expecting a different result). Back to the 3rd article you point to. It contains the simple point “Our generation has to choose: we can be green or we can have growth, but we can’t have both together.” That applies to those who are 60+ years-old. They need to lead the change. The 40 - 60 generation would follow that lead. And the 20 - 40 year-olds may then be able to make green growth a reality when they are the 40-60 group.

      As for the relevant information in Project Drawdown that contradicts the claims you prefer to believe (traditional farming systems are less productive than industrial agriculture), I suggested you investigate it, especially by adding the understanding of the Planetary Boundaries. As I read the book Drawdown I saw many correlations between the SDGs and Planetary Boundaries, and the evaluations and recommendations of Project Drawdown. If you go to the Project Drawdown website you will be able to find a multitude of examples of the benefits of pre-modern food production replacing modern methods. But I will not cherry-pick among them.

      I have tried to consistently present the need for the higher-status and wealthier people to be better examples, being less harmful and more helpful. That would include consuming 'less than they need to', no change of goal posts required (and well aligned with the thoughts presented in the 3 articles you linked).

4361. Philippe Chantreau at 09:14 AM on 10 March 2022
      What the latest science says about Antarctica and sea-level rise
      

      Daniel "The ice sheet formed anyway."

      Indeed. The paper says: " German and British researchers have shown that there is a conspicuously large amount of heat from Earth's interior beneath the ice, which has likely affected the sliding behavior of the ice masses for millions of years."

      Further, it reads: "Based on their data, the geophysicists are unable to put a figure on the extent to which the rising geothermal heat warms the bottom of the glacier: "The temperature on the underside of the glacier is dependent on a number of factors — for example whether the ground consists of compact, solid rock, or of metres of water-saturated sediment. Water conducts the rising heat very efficiently. But it can also transport heat energy away before it can reach the bottom of the glacier," explains co-author and AWI geophysicist Dr Karsten Gohl."

      The heat flow in is in the order of 150 milliwatts/sq.m. CO2 radiative forcing at 379 ppm was 1.66 w/sq.m. 

4362. nigelj at 09:08 AM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF @61

      "I suggest that you learn about the SDGs before dismissing them as unachievable or harmful with a misinterpretation that they are just some form of perpetual and sustainable "green growth".

      I never dismissed the UN development goals. Never even commented on them. You are absolutely twisting what I said. The UN SDGs are mostly desirable things,  but are largely a separate issue from whether green economic growth is possible and sustainable longer term.

      My comments were entirely on green growth in a general global sense.  You haven't been able to demonstrate that it is plausible longer term. Some of the problems with perpetual green economic growth selected at random:

      www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/29/green-growth-economic-activity-environment

      www.vice.com/en/article/qj4z9p/green-economic-growth-is-a-myth

      www.ft.com/content/47b0917c-f523-11e9-a79c-bc9acae3b654

      (I dont neceasarily agree with everything in these links but they give the general idea. And I dont promote massive and rapid cuts to consumption because its just not a viable solution. )

      And  low income countries need to be allowed to grow short to medium term, as I previously stated.

      "And Project Drawdown, and the related book Drawdown, provides many evidence-based corrections of 'expert opinion based' misunderstandings about 'modern' food production."

      I'm sure it does but you don't indicate anything relevant to what I said. So again,  traditional farming systems are less productive than industrial agriculture. This is not controversial or seriously contested. It means a shift to traditional farming  would reduce output and levels of gdp growth, although such a shift is still desirable over time for the sake of the environment, and I'm sure  ways will be found to deal with the yeilds issue as things are phased in.

      "And I say the higher status people need to change their ways of living to be the examples of ways of living that others can aspire to develop towards without the total impacts being unsustainable. And those changed ways do not need to be reduced consumption..."

      You appear to be moving the goalposts from high income people "reducing their consumption" to just "changing their consumption" and substituting low carbon products. Or perhaps your previous comment was just shorthand. But we ALL need to do the same regardless of incomes.

      "Saying 'things will eventually work out' won't achieve an effective limitation and correction of the harm done."

      I never said that. Never even commented on those sorts of issues related to people who over consume or make poor choices. My comments were entirely related to whether green economic growth is viable.  However while I agree wealthy people should be leading by example its very difficult to see elected governmnets forcing them in some way.

4363. Evan at 08:57 AM on 10 March 2022
      SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
      

      OPOF, actually the quilt works fine for the Snowball Earth condition. Consider the following dialogue.

      "How many blankets do you need to stay warm at night?"

      Thinking of sleeping inside their house, the respondant says, "Two".

      "Oh, you mean two blankets will keep you warm outside tonight?"

      Now aware that the respondent did not think of background temperature, they quickly revise their answer to "four".

      "Oh, you mean four blankets will keep you warm outside tonight in the snow?"

      Now aware that the respondent did not think of background temperature and the geography, they quickly revise their answer to "six".

      "Oh, you mean six blankets will keep you warm outside tonight in the snow in the middle of Antartica?"

      You get the idea. To stay warm, the number of blankets, or the amount of filling in the quilt needed depends on the background temperature, which is controlled partly by the sun's temperature and partly by Earth's albedo, which controls IR radiation. It is never just a matter of the number of blankets or the stuffing in the quilt. :-)

4364. One Planet Only Forever at 07:57 AM on 10 March 2022
      SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
      

      Excellent idea to use the engine and fuel analogy.

      I had previously seen the 'quilt' analogy of how the CO2 was like down filling in a quilt, reducing how much heat below the quilt excapes.

      That quilt analogy would be harder to use to explain how incoming solar energy and the ghgs worked for the Snowball Earth condition.

      It may help to add the point about the majority of solar radiation, incoming and reflected, not being infrared and, as a result, not being absorbed by the ghgs.

      Maybe something like:

      Global warming occurs because infrared radiation emitted from the surface of the Earth (warmed by absorbing solar radiation that is mainly in frequencies that are not absorbed by greenhouse gase) is captured by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, increasing the temperature of the atmosphere and making the surface warmer than it would be without the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

4365. One Planet Only Forever at 07:18 AM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      I now see that in some cases the links did not end up with Red text. All the links are there in Bold text. Some of the bold text is not linked.

4366. One Planet Only Forever at 07:15 AM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      There were links that did not come through in my comment @62

      ... The starting point is the very robust evidence-based understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary Boundaries evaluations, and other things like them.

      ... The Age of Sustainable Development MOOC is the comprehensive presentation of the basis for the SDGs. It is also presented in a book of the same name if books are more appealing to you.

      And Project Drawdown, and the related book Drawdown, provides many evidence-based corrections of 'expert opinion based' misunderstandings about 'modern' food production.

      And the 2020 Human Development Report ...

4367. One Planet Only Forever at 07:08 AM on 10 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj,

      You appear to misunderstand my perspective. The staring point is the very robust evidence-based understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary Boundaries evaluations, and other things like them.

      I suggest that you learn about the SDGs before dismissing them as unachievable or harmful with a misinterpretation that they are just some form of perpetual and sustainable "green growth". The SDGs were developed from the learning that occurred via the Millennium Development Goals and further understanding, like climate change science, that developed since the development of the MDGs. The Age of Sustainable Development MOOC is the comprehensive presentation of the basis for the SDGs. It is also presented in a book of the same name if books are more appealing to you.

      The Planetary Boundaries is developed understanding that is related to the SDGs. The current understanding is that there is no longer time to wait for the developed systems to 'naturally', in their own time-frame, decide to change to produce less harmful results.

      And Project Drawdown, and the related book Drawdown, provides many evidence-based corrections of 'expert opinion based' misunderstandings about 'modern' food production.

      And the 2020 Human Development Report fairly comprehensively presents all of this, with a major focus of climate change matters because failing to limit the magnitude of climate change impacts harmfully compromises achieving the development of lasting improvements. Waiting for the people benefiting from harmful pursuits of perceptions of 'improved living and supriority' to realize they need to stop being so harmful is no longer an option.

      I am learning and promoting the diversity of understandings associated with the only viable potentially eternally improving future for humanity on this planet.

      Any expert opinions that appear to claim that that is not achievable, or that the identified corrections are harmful, should be seen as a version of resistance to learning about the harmful lack of sustainablity of what has developed (wasteful consumption of resources producing accumulating harmful waste and a reduction of available resources due to a lack of recycling).

      And I say the higher status people need to change their ways of living to be the examples of ways of living that others can aspire to develop towards without the total impacts being unsustainable. And those changed ways do not need to be reduced consumption, just changes of consumption. However, I also accept that it is helpful for the higher status to participate in the global economy by helping less fortunate people instead of exclusively pursuing 'more of what they want for themselves', like the example Evan linked to in his comment @56. However, Government intervention by taxing the 'reluctant to help' among the wealthy is also a solution. And it is clear that some actions like Carbon Fee and Rebate would not occur through the chosen actions of helpful wealthy people.

      The fundamental understanding is that competitive pursuits of superiority will produce harmful results as the harmful and undeserving among the higher status pull the power levers available to them, especially the misleading marketing ones, to promote and excuse harmful misunderstandings about the ways of living that they benefit from and enjoy. And those harmful examples set by the more harmful people cause the added harm of inspiring lower status people to strive to develop to be more harmful like the examples they see being set by higher status people.

      It is undeniable that the competition for superiority promoting and excusing harmful misunderstandings has created the evidence of its harmful unsustainability and the need for significant rapid corrections. This understanding was globally acknowledged 50 years ago at the 1972 Stockholm Conference. The resistance to many of the identified required corrections through the past 50 years, especially the destructive resurgence of libertarian capitalism (Reagan-Thatcher nonsense like 'Freer Markets and less Governing is Better' and 'trickle-down benefits of the rich getting richer' ) has developed the requirement for a more dramatic correction now. The problems of harmful undeserved perceptions of prosperity, advancement, and superiority are bigger now and continue to get worse.

      Saying 'things will eventually work out' won't achieve an effective limitation and correction of the harm done. That kind of talk is unacceptable from an Engineer's perspective, and a business leader perspective, and a medical professional perspective, and a professional accountant perspective, and a professional housing framer perspective, and a professional bricklayer perspective ...

      The developed systems of competition for perceptions of superiority can be seen to resist limiting harm done, and even be seen to fight to be able to be more harmful. And powerful fights against external governing develop. The competition often produces increasingly harmful results unless there is external helpful thoughtful governing that effectively limits the risks of harm done. The lack of success of that type of external governing through the past 50 years has been a tragedy in many ways. More tragic is the ways that many people fight to defend and ignore the harm done by harmful misunderstanding, selectively highlighting what they see as 'benefits developed'.

      The reality is that the benefits developed based on harmful misunderstandings and actions will make things worse until those misunderstandings about prosperity and advancement become too hard to maintain, which will happen too late on many matters that matter to the future of humanity.

      Poverty perceived to be alleviated by fossil fuel use or other harmful developments, like harmful modern day unsustainable agriculture, are clear examples of that problem. Lasting poverty reduction has not occurred if harmful unsustainable actions are required to maintain the illusion.

      The incessant promotion of harmful misunderstanding is the reason for the now undeniably required dramatic correction of many perceptions of superiority, not just the Coal Barons significantly losing perceptions of superiority.

4368. nigelj at 15:29 PM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF @59

      You appear to be promoting some form of perpetual and sustainable "green growth". I used to believe in this, but theres a growing body of expert opinion that it is neither possible or desirable. In addition cutting consumption of high income people is going to reduce growth by pulling demand out of the system. Adopting traditional farming would actually slow growth because its lower yield than industrial farming.

      These things along with zero economic growth, or low growth, are not bad things - provided they dont happen too quickly. The system needs time to adjust. Human civilisation is getting old and is about to slow down. This may be a hard truth to accept.

      This is all different thing  to crazy agendas to rapidly cut resource consumption by massive levels.

       

4369. Daniel Bailey at 13:29 PM on 9 March 2022
      What the latest science says about Antarctica and sea-level rise
      

      Geothermal heat flux is measured in milliwatts and comprises about 2 to 3 times higher than the background averages across the planet.  2 to 3 times almost nothing isn't much more than almost nothing.  A standard incandescent light bulb is measured in Watts and is over 500 times hotter.  Plus, the referenced papers give no indication of an increase in that Geothermal heat flux activity.  In reality, the area has had high levels of activity since prior to Antarctica's ice sheet forming 34 million years ago.  The ice sheet formed anyway.

4370. One Planet Only Forever at 12:30 PM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Swampfoxh,

      Flannery's presentation of the current developed problem is aligned with the Planetary Boundaries understanding.

      nigelj and others,

      It is not necessary to stop economic growth or go backwards.

      What is required is correcting the harmful unsustainable aspects of what has been developed. That will allow growth of the economy through the development of even better ways of living than the 'sustainable' starting point humanity ends up at after the correction (not going back to cave living but, based on the evaluations by groups like Project Drawdown, going back to many pre-industrial ways of producing food with possible improvements due to legitimate improved understanding - note the base understanding is that many of the pre-industrial ways are actually superior to the industrial ways).

      And, of course, it is possible, actually essential, to increase sustainable economic activity while undoing (degrowing) the harmful developed activities. Government intervention is required here to help the sustainable alternatives overcome the start-up challenges and, more important, overcome the competitive disadvantage that sustainable alternatives have compared to more harmful options that are already popular and profitable in the marketplaces (economic and public opinion).

      The climate change challenge, like other challenges to keep total impacts within the Safe Planetary Boundaries, is affected by the success of efforts to limit population growth. But the corrective effort does not have to wait for population growth to be stopped.

      And achieving and improving on all of the Sustainable Development Goals is likely the only way to get to a lasting future for humanity that is actually able to be improved (as opposed to the current challenge of fighting to try to stop, and make amends for, the harm done by the harmful things that have already developed popularity and profitability, made more challenging by the power of misleading marketing to create and sustain harmful misunderstanding).

4371. David-acct at 12:22 PM on 9 March 2022
      What the latest science says about Antarctica and sea-level rise
      

      interesting research / commentary on the thwaites glacier - large part of the melting seems to be related to geothermal activity

      www.sciencetimes.com/articles/32977/20210820/thwaites-doomsday-glacier-brink-collapse-due-excessive-melting-cause-geothermal.htm

      www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818083957.htm

      Pine island glacier shows evidence of volcanic heat.

       

      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04421-3

       

       

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] It looks like you re-posted this to activate the last link. I have deleted the first copy.

4372. nigelj at 10:42 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan. I've read Flannerys excellent book.

      
      Indeed we cant persist in persuing perpetual growth for two reasons:

      Firstly I already pointed out @37 "Degrowth is also obviously inevitable to some degree sooner or later, because the planets resources are finite and there is huge population pressure on them. "

      The fact that economic growth ( and also population growth ) has to slow down and stop eventually is obvious. It will be forced to slow down and stop by circumstances of rising costs of mineral resource extraction and demographic changes. Its not going to happen tomorrow but it will probably happen on multi decades to century timescales.

      Secondly our generation is essentially eating all the cheese and not leaving much for future generations. Its an ethical issue. I believe we should stop economic growth in a deliberative way to at least give future generations a better resource base to use.

      But the devil is in the detail. If we stop growth too rapidly we 1) compromise our own lives 2)  lock poor countries into a low quality state of development and deprive them of things we have, 2) risk causing a massive destbilisation of our own economies.

      Economic growth has to be phased down carefully.

      The same might all apply to population growth. A smaller global population would obviously improve all environmental problems ( various studies suggest that from 2 billion - 5 billion people is ideal). But if population shrinks too fast you get a huge bulge of dependent elderly people and not enough young people to support them.

      I believe these are hard realities that cannot be simply ignored.

      And more devils in the detail. Even if we stop economic growth in a few decades, future generations will still run out of some non renewable resources. Remember we are talking about possibly 9 billion people before population size stabilises and starts to fall. So all we are doing by stopping economic growth is delaying the inevitable shortages, and such shortages are unlikely to be catastrophic. It will just force people back to simpler lifestyles.

      Therfore its complicated,  and we have to weigh up carefully the impacts on us and future generations and avoid kneejerk reactions dismissive of the resource problems,  or the other extreme of suggesting we should panic and immeidately run off and join a commune and embrace hair shirt lifestyles.

      I believe much of it comes down to doing things that are commonsense: For example adopting a circular recycling economy, reducing waste, prioritising "family planning",  not being extravagent consumers, etc,etc. But adopting a "hair shirt" very low tech. lifestyle is definitely not going to be on my radar, because it doesn't make a lot of sense, and I've read a lot about it and chewed it over.

      Google Joseph Tainters work. It's well worth a read. He's written extensively on development of societies, growth, collapse theory, sustainability, and  simplification,  and is highly respected.

4373. swampfoxh at 09:08 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nijelj

      Tim Flannery. In his book, The Weathermakers, asserts that mere years ago we were already using two planets of resources. If true, how can we persist in pursuing perpetual growth, even at a low rate, and still overcome Flannery's concerns about our apparent finite planet?

4374. Evan at 08:12 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      This is worth a read, and is what OPOF is pushing for. It can be done!

      Billionaire gives his money away.

4375. nigelj at 07:49 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Just want to clarify that I'm not against a degrowth strategy. I'm largely retired, but I was in the top 10% income / wealth group, but I'm a below average consumer in that group. I'm struggling along with a similar approach to lifestyle and sustainability as Evan but I'm ok with where I'm at. Japan has shown that a society can do well with low rates of economic growth. There are obvious simple changes people can make without incurring personal pain for example just driving a smaller car.

      I'm just pointing out the hard reality that a very rapid and ambitious degrowth strategy / cuts in consumption would almost certainly cause considerable personal pain and cause our entire civilisation to collapse. I've provided plenty of clues why. If anyone doesn't get it I think they are in intellectual denial. Imho there is no point flaggelating ourselves and going back to the stone age levels of consumption.

      Strictly speaking you could argue population is the prime cause of environmental impacts because even a population of just one low consumimg human has environmental impacts and a large population of low consuming humans would have plenty of environmental impacts. Per capita consumption is a multiplier. But for practical purposes Evan is right its a combination of consumption and population.

4376. One Planet Only Forever at 07:32 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan,

      Striving to live less harmfully and more helpfully is admirable, or it should be admired by all.

      I appreciate the point about how hard it would be to get all of the rich people to care to learn to be less harmful and more helpful.

      My way of having hope is recognizing that some of the wealthiest people do strive to learn to set excellent examples of how to be less harmful and more helpful.

      A possible helpful solution is getting 'more of the mice' to notice the difference among the cats, and develop the collective ability to help motivate the harmful cats to change their behaviour ... maybe by declaring as much as they can, like with their votes and purchase choices, that they admire the cats who are being less harmful and more helpful, and detest the other types of cats.

      A lot of helpful and harmful detail can be missed by 'looking at the averages'.

4377. swampfoxh at 07:04 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Moderator (BL)

      I can do that. We ask that you retain the material in confidence as we are not yet ready to publish our work. I will send you, in hard copy, our References which include most of the global literature published as of 2021. This list is 30 pages long, largely peer reviewed and published in credible journals, etc. Please send me your  postal address as we don't wish to transmit the list electronically. My email address is swampfoxh@hotmail.com

      Please add an attachment in your own words agreeing to the matter of confidentiality. 

      Thank you for your interest in this topic.

      Swampfoxh.  

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Email address redacted. I'm sure none of us need more spam, and we have an email address as part of your registration. It is not necessary to display it publicly here.

      You are participating here in a publicly-visible forum. Sending me a reference list as an individual, expecting confidentiality, does not advance public discussion. If you want to promote a particular set of results here, simply asserting the numbers without any form of explanation of their source, methodology behind them, etc. does not provide readers with any way to assess the validity of your claims. As such, your assertions would carry no weight in the discussion.

      If you wish to continue the discussion of agriculture, etc. at this time, there are two possible threads here at Skeptical Science that might be suitable. If you are to comment on those threads, make sure to read the original post, any following comments, and make sure that your comments are on topic.

      https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm

      https://skepticalscience.com/veganism.htm

      If you get your own results published, then feel free to find an appropriate thread (use the search tool) where you can make on-topic comments and provide references.

4378. Evan at 05:15 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      OPOF you write, "I applaud your long term efforts regarding the lifestyle example you are trying to set."

      I can't figure out how to live sustainably. Sure, within my family I am considered to have a green conscience, but nothing I do makes my life sustainable. Most of us are not producing "percentages" more GHG emissions than we should, but rather orders of magnitude more GHG emissions than we should. But I keep trying. The best I can come with is that a person should strive to do more good than harm, however they internalize that.

      If we build our house, my goal is to show that we can consume less and live a meaningful, fulfilled life. But it means focusing on fewer activities. We wanted to install solar+geothermal HVAC, but with the high costs now, we can barely afford the house as it is, and so the solar will be delayed. My thought is that it is better to prioritize money on things that reduce energy consumption (such as geothermal HVAC) than things that produce energy.

      I broadly agree with all your wrote OPOF, and would only add that I think we will make inroads if we prioritize items that have a dual purpose of reducing GHG emission while buiding resiliency. EVs are an easy sell today when gas has spiked. Solar panels are an easy sell in terms of energy independence, to some degree. But I am not hopeful messaging to wealthy people to reduce their lifestyle. Wealth is intoxicating, and there is likely a reason these people are wealthy in the first place. I have no desire to pursue wealth. Other people desire wealth, power, status, etc. It will be a hard sell to convince them to change.

      Kind of like teaching a cat to not chase mice. :-)

4379. One Planet Only Forever at 04:16 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan,

      I agree with your statement in your comment @46.

      "So let's agree that the problem is a combination of consumption+population. If wealthy people consumed less and if population stabilized so that global growth stopped, we would likely be much better off."

      I would add that the consumption problem is the impacts of the consumption, including over-consumption and waste. Consumption of beef, or other food, produced in less harmful ways would not require as much reduced consumption. And foods produced in regenerative helpful ways can actually boost the amount of consumption, albeit needing to stay within the practical planet safe limits (the Planetary Boundary concept). 

      I applaud your long term efforts regarding the lifestyle example you are trying to set. And I hope you can maximize your achievement with great input like what wilddouglascounty provided.

      I would add that the book "Rebuilding Earth" by Teresa Coady may contain some additional helpful input regarding your new home and local environment. It appears that you are likely already aware of much, if not all, of what she shares in her book. But some of the considerations may be new to you.

      I also want to reinforce another comment you made @46.

      "What's odd is that when I write that we need to consume less, some argue that we cannot push for degrowth. When I write that it is partly a population problem (each person is a carbon emitter), people argue that it is not a general population problem and that the rich contribute more, and ..."

      Those points and the "and ..." points can be understood to often be variations on the theme of responses from the perspective of people who has developed a preference for harmful misunderstanding and related harmful actions in a socioeconomic-political environment of competition for perceptions of superiority relative to Others.

      Regarding climate science, and the need to reduce harmful climate change impacts, there is an almost endless variety of responses in that broader category of preferred harmful misunderstandings:

      • Consuming less can mean a loss of perceptions of better living status
      • Arguing it is only the rich who need to reduce their consumption is also attempting to defend the harmful unsustainable ways that middle class people live as they aspire to appear to be catching up to the supposedly higher status, the people with the 'newest technological gadgets' or other harmfully promoted desires for "More". I try to be clear that the higher status people need to lead the correction because they can afford to live less harmfully. And if they won't be rich if they have to give up how they benefit from sustained harmful misunderstandings and related harmful actions they obviously did not deserve their perceptions of higher status.

      Responses like that include:

      • resistance to reducing meat consumption, particularly industrial system produced meat, particularly beef produced less sustainably.
      • resistance to reducing powered recreation activity (being harmful just for fun)
      • resistance to reducing flying away for vacation (frequently flying long distances just for fun).
      • resistance to having less powerful, more energy efficient vehicles.
      • resistance to reducing the indoor temperatures during cold weather and increasing indoor temperatures during hot weather.

      All of those arguments resisting those sensible (should be common sense) things have a common root in the 'belief in the Right to the freedom to believe harmful misunderstanding and to act more harmfully excused by the harmful misunderstanding. It can actually be nearly impossible to communicate with someone who has immersed themselves in any version of that Harmful Freedom Belief that they are harmfully incorrect. Their developed perspective can be very far away from potential common sense understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful that they will simplistically argue that the suggestions being made "Harm Them".

      I have had limited, occasional, success interacting with people I know (people I already have an established relationship with) by trying to find a common sense understanding among the many possible issues covered by the Sustainable Development Goals. I thought that if a person genuinely cares about helping in any of the many ways of helping and being less harmful that that shared common sense could be a basis for delving into the ways that climate change impacts make it harder to be helpful (they do). But those attempts to establish a shared starting point among the SDGs has often not worked. I usually end up facing a version of the 'resistance driven by a preference for harmful misunderstanding', often framed as some version of 'evil wealth redistribution'. That harmful misunderstanding can also rear its ugly head when Carbon Fee and Rebate is being discussed or when the requirement for harm causing richer people to pay to help poorer people harmed by already caused climate changes (along with demands for more certain proof that harm has been done by the people being required to provide the assistance).

      It is indeed hard to help people improve their awareness and understanding regarding the required corrections of what has developed in order to limit harmful climate change impacts. It is harder to do that for the compendium of the Sustainable Development Goals.

      Keep up the Good Work. Every person's impacts Add Up.

4380. Evan at 02:24 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      wilddouglascounty, I chuckled when I read your response. Yes, 25 years was needed to push our design ideas through the resistant building market.

      What we bought 25 years ago is an 80-acre wilderness preserve, dominated by wetlands (that's why we could afford it), with prairie knolls and about 15 wooded acres. Our land sits on a divide, so we interact with two watershed districts as well as the state Department of Natural Resources. We had a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to do restoration work on our land.

      We would build our house on a knoll we created, and the water would drain right back into the wetlands. Our land is alredy part of a major green corridor, and we have deer, bear, otter, all manner of birds, etc., in addition to other species. We have Blandings Turtles on our property, and we currently hold the world record for finding the largest Blandings turtle nest (23 eggs).

      So yes, we are trying to do the "right" thing, and we are trying to build a house that blends into the surroundings and compliments it rather than dominates it. If we build, we will use the methods we'll employ as teaching tools to help others understand how to build for the future.

      When most new American homes have 3 or 4 car garages, we designed our house with a 2-car garage, that is a tuckunder design so that the garage is withing the heating envelope of the house. We therefore use geothermal heat to keep the EV warm in the winter, rather than directly heating the car before using it, as we would in an unheated garage, or sitting outside as it does now. The garage also doubles as a workshop/recreational area. The house is not small by international standards (180 m² footprint), but there is no separate garage footprint. I also work from home, so the house serves as a workplace. Because we will occupy it starting in our 60's, we designed for wheelchair accessibility. That also causes things to get larger.

      I can sit and justify building a new house, but in the end, it pains me to be building something. I wish our current house was more readily fixable, but after 25 years, it is still a knock-down house (by the way, it is 48 m² not 24 m² as I incorrectly put in my first comment).

4381. wilddouglascounty at 02:04 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Congratulations!  And by waiting 25 years, you have a clearer picture of what you're going to need now and will be employing people with jobs that are needed to make whatever transition we can muster. If I can suggest some "reconnecting" strategies to your new abode, it would be to follow the slope of your yard to the nearest creek, then introduce yourself to your local watershed basin, creating green corridors whenever possible to link up your land with native habitat, and learn the local cycles and nurture them whenever possible. They are already changing but if you don't know what they are, you won't be able to help nurture them through the inevitable additional changes ahead. And it's a two way street: the life in the land will help those who are listening and helping the land to survive those changes.

      It's not too late to continue the fight, it's not too late to help the planet adapt to the changes ahead, and by doing so, we might learn enough to save ourselves. We humans think with a laser-like focus, but when we start paying attention to the rest of the fabric of life that clothes our planet, our task gets easier. It's easier to light a room by opening the drapes rather than trying to make things out with a laser. 

4382. Evan at 01:34 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      wilddouglascounty "where is the evidence that it is not too late"?

      Nobody will ever say, "It is too late." But does Fig. 2 look like a rational scenario? I cannot bring myself to write that it is too late, so what I do instead is to show what we've done and what we need to do, in broad strokes, to stabilize the climate. Fig. 2 and Table 1 are not even as ambitious as the official Net Zero by 2050 goal, and even they seem implausible.

      And here is where I'm stuck. My wife and I live in a knock-down house that we bought 25 years ago in our youth, with the idea of building a new house "some day". Now we are in our 60's, and this is "some day". Rebuilding our knock-down house (24 m² foundation) would be challenging and likely would not survive past our lives, due to building codes that could not be met when we pass it on. So we are looking at building a new house. This means carbon expense. If we build, we are paying the extra money to build a strong house so that it will survive future storms. We will pay the extra money for geothermal HVAC and not use fossil-fuel heating at all. Good things. But I know that as good as we're trying to be, it likely represents an unsustainable carbon footprint.

      What do I do? We are genuinely trying to live lives consistent with my writing, but it is really hard. So your message about promoting sustainable lifestyles rings true to me. In our house we designed we built in a root cellar to store fresh food, and we are designing a large garden. The idea is to buy local in bulk and store fruits and veggies, and to grow what we can. I think that part of reducing consumption is people spending more of their liesure time growing what food they can and getting back to cooking from basic ingredients.

      So I like your idea very much of reconnecting our homes to the planet. :-)

4383. wilddouglascounty at 01:07 AM on 9 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      So we get back to this situation: where is the evidence that it is not too late, and what real alternatives exist to the "spilling people's drinks" as the only criteria we are capable of implementing as individuals, as businesses, as governments, as a species?

      I fail to see anything in this discussion that reaches beyond this, which you probably agree with. The primary dynamic driving reduced population grown seems to be by increasing consumption, unfortunately, and knocking off the rich seems pretty unlikely since they are the drivers of misinformation in our global culture, let alone the beneficiaries of consumption, so not sure how that will work.

      Don't get me wrong: I firmly believe that we should do everything we can to implement a degrowth strategy: increase the cost of carbon emissions, get renewables to replace fossil fuels, not just compete with them, reduce consumption patterns, elect politicians committed to implementing policies that will increase the pace of the shift, and so on, but from what I can tell, we will be fortunate to just get better at spilling drinks, not slamming on the breaks.

      I have spent most of my life promoting sustainable lifestyles, and think that one of the best things folks can do is to look at an even bigger picture: learn as much as they can about the local seasons and cycles of life in the ecosystems they are a part of in order to nurture its health and enable it to survive the bottleneck we are all going through. Aware or not, we are dependent at the capillary level of existence to these parts of our landscape, and if we focused on meeting our needs more by nurturing that relationship, we can actually live more fullfilling lives, reduce our consumption patterns, reduce GGE, and be a significant part of something greater than ourselves in a very visceral, non-abstract way. Reconnecting ourselves and our homes to the planet seems like a silly thing to suggest, but nothing will work in the long run if this isn't part of the equation.

4384. Evan at 22:31 PM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      J4zonian@45 thanks for your comments. If we remove the 10% wealthiest people in the world, we are still left with 50% of the emissions. That, in itself, is still a climate catastrophe. Yes, the rich consume more. But the people below them still live lifestyles that are not sustainable.

      When you say that population growth has been slowing in all groups for 50 years, how do you reconcile that with the numbers that show population growth has been nearly steady at 80,000,000 people/yr for the last 50 years?

      I don't doubt that the IPAT equation can be misleading, and I agree that the problem is more complicated because of the distribution of wealth across different sectors of the economy. But I think it broadly shows the relationships and Fig. 2 in this post suggests that at least for the last 100 years, there is a strong relationship between global population and CO2 accumulation rates. Professionaly I work with distributions, so that I understand the difference between an integrated approach from an approach that analyzes effects group by group. But as an engineer I also respect that there are often overall relationships that hold as long as the characteristics of the underlying distributions remain roughly constant. I don't understand Fig. 2 completely, but I consider it very interesting that for the last 100 years there has been some kind of constancy in modern civilization that has CO2 accumulation rates being proportional to global population. Whatever the details, it is frightening.

      What's odd is that when I write that we need to consume less, some argue that we cannot push for degrowth. When I write that it is partly a population problem (each person is a carbon emitter), people argue that it is not a general population problem and that the rich contribute more, and ...

      So let's agree that the problem is a combination of consumption+population. If wealthy people consumed less and if population stabilized so that global growth stopped, we would likely be much better off.

      For the record, I respect Kevin Anderson's work and follow him closely. I'm familiar with the arguments you make as one's that he champions, and even the title of this post is taken from one of his talks.

4385. J4zonian at 21:58 PM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Climate catastrophe & the larger ecological crisis is overwhelmingly a consumption problem (caused by a psychological problem) not a population problem. The only ones causing harm are the rich. The only ones growing in numbers are the poor. Population growth in all groups has been slowing for 50 years. Rational population solutions that will be effective in the time we have (9 years) don't exist, but decline in population itself is virtually inevitable as births keep leveling off and death rates rise from the worsening eco-psychological crisis. 

      Chancel and Piketty note, just 10% of the global population is responsible for around 50% of global emissions.
      Kevin Anderson http://kevinanderson.info/blog/a-succinct-account-of-my-view-on-individual-and-collective-action/

      I make some of the same points with references in this discussion: https://climatecrocks.com/2020/06/11/ayana-elizabeth-johnson-will-the-ocean-run-out-of-fish/comment-page-1/#comment-115823

       

      The Oxfam Shroom
      
      

      IPAT is misleading because it assumes every human is an average human. To be accurate & helpful a separate IPAT equation would need to be run on every economic and other group.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Links activated.
      
      The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.
      
      

4386. nigelj at 16:15 PM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan @43, yes getting to net zero is hugely challenging whichever way you look at it. Do we have the political will? Doesn't look like it:

      www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/16/down-to-earth-joe-biden-climate

4387. Evan at 13:15 PM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj, I agree that 90% degrowth would cause massive disruption. No question about it. And I'm not saying that is what's needed. I don't know. I am only suggesting that a combination of new technology with lowered consumption is needed. But getting to Net Zero is HUGELY challenging.

      What I show in Fig. 2 is not what is referred to as Net Zero in the media. Fig. 2 shows Net Zero Accumulation. What is broadly referred to in the media is Net Zero Emissions, which is more challenging than Net Zero Accumulation, and would result in atmospheric CO2 concentrations decreasing. What I show in Fig. 2 and in Table 1 only shows atmospheric CO2 concentrtions stabilizing.

      And we don't have 30 years to do that, but 28. Time flies.

      At some point 1.5C will be beyond reach. Then at some point 2C will be beyond reach. If either of these are still within reach today, in 2022, they will only be achieved by revolutionary adjustments to how we live and do business.

      Do we have the political will to do that?

4388. nigelj at 12:09 PM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan @41, I broadly agree with your comments and your articles. I'm just interested in the implications of a degrowth agenda (reductions in gdp growth and consumption) . I'm not a particularly high consumer myself and I have already hugely reduce how much I fly.

      I'm looking more at the big picture, and the very ambitious degrowth agendas some people have proposed (eg: 90% cuts in energy use within a decade or two) and I'm pointing out the implications are hugely problematic and much bigger than what these people seem to realise and could be worse than the actual climate problem. Obviously we could get some cuts in consumption without significant problems, but not 90% done at speed or anything remotely like that. 

      To put things in perspective the great depression of the 1930s involved a big degrowth, an economic contraction, (or cuts in consumption if you prefer,) of 50% at the worst point and this lead to 25% unemployment and dire poverty with no end in sight, ie the trend was accelerating into an unstoppable downwards spiral due to a feedback effect. It took The New Deal together to WW2 to fix the problem. This level of economic contraction is more than spilling a few drinks.

      I'm not sure we can risk that again, even if there was a public desire for such levels of degrowth which seems unlikely. Our civilisation is based on high levels of consumption and all our jobs depend on it and unwinding this is going to be very difficult if its even possible.

      I'm also not persuaded we actually need such high levels of degrowth / reductions in consumption. It seems intuitively obvious we could fix the climate problem largely with a programme to develop renewables etc,etc, with absolute cuts to consumption that are fairly moderate. We still have about 30 years to get to net zero. If we delay any longer then yes we will be needing bigger and bigger cuts in consumption to the point it becomes politically untenable, and creating a high risk of economic system collapse and mass unemployment as demand is sucked out of the economy at huge scale. 

       

4389. Evan at 09:35 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj@40, sorry for not directly dealing with your good question.

      "The point I'm making is rapid and substantial degrowth would likely cause problems as described."

      I don't disagree. But the situation is this. We are racing to a brick wall not just at high speeds, but accelerating towards this brick wall. And we are discussing if we will spill people's drinks in the car if we step on the brakes.

      What I am trying to bring out in these posts is that society is so far out of control, that we need to start putting on the brakes as hard as possible. We will spill many drinks. Nothing short of that will have any chance of achieving Net Zero. What we are essentially saying by what you note (which I don't disagree with) is that because people will only vote for policies that maintain something like the status quo, we must prioritize an orderly slow-down. Which means that we will focus on stabilizing the climate, but not at any particulate level. We will encourage pallatable policies, and just see where it lands us. In other words, we will apply the brakes so as not to spill any drinks, and just see how long the car takes to stop.

      That is really what we're doing and will likely continue to do. But we have to try to do better.

4390. nigelj at 09:06 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan @39, I didnt suggest we just wait for economic growth to slow naturally. I suggested the economy could be deliberately made to contract at moderate rates. The point I'm making is rapid and substantial degrowth would likely cause problems as described. Any disagreement?

      There are three main variables: 1)population trends, 2) growth / consumption trends and 3) type of energy being used. I would say its very difficult changing population and consumption trends dramatically for multiple reasons. Its really mostly about a new energy grid, transport and negative emissions technologies. They are going to be hard work but easier than altering population growth rates and consumption levels. 

4391. Evan at 08:57 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      nigelj@37, I get your point when you write "Degrowth is also obviously inevitable to some degree sooner or later." But the problem is that we will blow past any climate-stabilization limits far before we run into material shortages. Unlike a limited food supply that will limit the population of rabbits, there are no limits that I'm aware of that will prevent us from raising Earth's temperature to dangerous levels. Look at Fig. 1. Not only is the Keeling Curve accelerating upwards, but it appears that the acceleration might be increasing (prooving this likely requires more data than is available). The only thing that will avert a crisis is government assistance/intervention. People may fall in line if responsible leaders take the lead, but no amount of messaging will ever be enough, and natural limits are unlikely to save us.

4392. Evan at 08:51 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      swampfoxh, yes, I support switching to vegan/vegetarian diets, and yes, I agree that we should be talking about it. But IMO the top priority should still be electing leaders who will push through climate legislation, because the low-hanging fruit is still switchng from fossil fuels to renewables. So far, nothing we've done has affected the trajectory of the Keeling Curve. So we need to push for leaders who will lead on climate.

      Of course, individuals are always free to construct their diet as they please, so I certainly agree with the messaging that a vegan/vegetarian diet is another way to decarbonize.

4393. nigelj at 08:22 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      I have some comments on this "degrowth" idea. Degrowth can be defined in two parts. Firstly a reduction in rates of economic growth to zero growth. And secondly negative growth which is essentially a reduction in consumption levels. But lets just call them both degrowth for simplicity sake.

      Degrowth has multiple consequences. It usefully reduces environmental pressures but it can also cause personal hardship, economic recession / depressions and cause poverty and job losses. This is basic economics. Also refer to the writings of the anthropologist Joseph Tainter. Obviously this depends on how much degrowth and how fast and there is probably a rate of degrowth that the economy can adapt to ( and which I think is desirable) but if you go beyond this the entire economy could collapse quite severely.

      Japan has had very low rates of economic growth for decades ( and is doing ok as a society). It looks like we could live with something like zero economic growth, phased in slowly, although I believe poor countries have to be allowed to grow. More rapid and substantial degrowth could be problematic.

      Degrowth is also obviously inevitable to some degree sooner or later, because the planets resources are finite and there is huge population pressure on them. Rates of economic growth have been falling steadily in developed countries over the last 50 years from about 6% to about 2.5%, driven by resource scarcity and demographics and market saturation (according to the experts). But deliberately engineering degrowth is another matter, and would obviously not be an election winning policy. If degrowth happens at a moderate pace as a consequence or side effect of carbon taxes that would be ideal.

4394. One Planet Only Forever at 08:22 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan,

      Here are some thoughts that I believe are fairly closely aligned with the points made by plincoln24, and builds on points presented in my earlier comments.

      It is likely that what is seen in Figure 2 is the result of the limited success of efforts to identify and increase awareness of harmful developments. And that leads to the awareness and understanding that significant correction of what has been developed is required to limit the climate change harm so that sustainable improvements can be developed. It also leads to understanding that harmful popular and profitable developments can be expected to powerfully resist being corrected and limited.

      I prefer to say something like ‘correction of harmful development’. Degrowth is too generic. I understand that undoing harmful developments at the pace required to limit harm done to future generations could result in reductions of measures used to track economic progress like GDP. But that indicates that the measure of economic progress failed to properly account for harm done because they are ‘externalities to the money math that are hard to precisely monetize’. They would be negatives if they were monetized.

      I have been looking for a specific reference, but have not found ‘the one document’. My perspective and understanding is based on many evidence-based presentations of understanding. The 2020 Human Development Report comes to mind as a comprehensive presentation that supports a lot, but maybe not all, of my current understanding.

      I will start with a positive comment.

      When less harmful ways of doing things are perceived to be more beneficial or desirable the Marketplaces, including the marketplace of public opinion (increased awareness and popularity), can be helpful. Collective and collaborative societies are also marketplaces. But the majority of global marketplaces, including dictatorships and non-capitalist societies, are more competitive than collaborative or cooperative marketplaces.

      There have been instances when the competitive marketplaces developed less harmful replacements for more harmful developments without formal Government Intervention. The marketplace can self-govern by collectively and collaboratively identifying and correcting harmful developments. But the fact that Government Intervention has been required to limit harm done by so many developments indicates that there are Harmful Errors in the major developed Systems, especially as pursuits of profit grow beyond regional family businesses.

      Significant helpful Government Intervention in the marketplace competitions for perceptions of superiority have limited the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Those interventions, like imposing requirements for improved fuel efficiency, have kept the harm done by human developments lower than would otherwise have developed. But the harm continues to add up because there is powerful resistance to those helpful interventions.

      Some people harmfully resist, rather than helpfully support, helpful government intervention that would correct or limit harmful developments. The resistance can be more powerful if the intervention would correct harmful popular beliefs (misunderstandings) and/or restrict or stop harmful activities that are beneficial (profitable) for some people to the detriment of the ability to others to live at least a basic decent life. That resistance has kept the CO2 levels increasing rather than levelling off. And part of that resistance has been the fight against actions like Carbon Fee and Rebate (best if rebated only to the middle income and below).

      Misleading marketing develops and sustains harmful lack of awareness and harmful misunderstanding. Limiting (ideally ending) harmful misunderstandings and related actions that harm future generations and harm less fortunate people today is a massive challenge. It requires:

      • identification of what is harmful
      • increased awareness of the harm done
      • understanding of the need for many higher status people, and those who aspire to be like them, to give up the harmful developments, including harmfully obtained percepti0ons of status, in order to develop what is required.

      A particularly challenging requirement is for all leadership competitors to lead the efforts to not be harmfully misleading. Giving up the potential power and competetive advantage that can be obtained by developing and sustaining harmful misunderstandings is a challenge. It requires many higher status people to accept some loss of unjustified perceptions of status. And that is where misleading marketing is really harmful. Marketing science has developed tremendous understanding about how easily people can be tempted to harmfully misunderstand things when they perceive that they are personally going to benefit or lose. The potential harmfulness of their misunderstanding and related actions will easily become less of a concern for them than their ‘gut-reaction - instinctive’ perception of personal benefit or loss.

      The focus of SkS on raising awareness of harmful misunderstandings and misleading marketing regarding climate change impacts is very helpful. But it is hard work because many people are powerfully motivated to misunderstand climate science because of the identified loses of perceptions of personal benefit that are now needed, more than were needed before, to limit the harm done to 1.5C. The push to continue developing in the harmful direction through the past 30 years, especially by the higher status supposed leaders has made it even harder to achieve that fair limit of harm done to the future of humanity.

      Because of the lack of reduction of harm done by the richest through the past 30 years, and the continued resistance to correction by many of them today, an increasingly dramatic loss of status is required, as indicated in Figure 2.

      Human history is tragically full of examples of massive harm done by sub-sets of the population before a large enough collective collaborates to effectively limit the misunderstandings motivating the incessant harmful pursuits of perceptions of superiority.

4395. swampfoxh at 08:04 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      I should point out that we see very little traffic in scientific literature on the subject of Animal Ariculture's impact on the environment.  I would have thought that knocking off 30% to 50%, perhaps more, of the global greehouse gas emissions currently being pumped into the atmosphere would draw considerable attention.  Please offer me your suspicions on why the narrative about livestock seems not to arrive at the surface of the discourse on Scep/Sci? 

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] You have asserted numbers similar to this more than once recently.When I look at the most recent IPCC report, I see discussions of methane, N₂O, CO2 that include agricultural inputs, so I don't know where you get the "little traffic" argument from.

      Perhaps you could start by posting some references/sources for the numbers you are throwing out.

4396. swampfoxh at 07:53 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      Evan, plincoln24

      You have considered reduced consuption as a policy that might positively reduce the GGE problem.  Thus, might you support the elimination of Industrial Animal Agriculture (IAA)?  There is already a suitable, adequate and immediaty available, alternate, food supply that can replace meat.  Plants.  Livestock enterprises contribute only 1.5% to the Global Value of Goods and Services (Gross Global Product). 1.5%  is virtully negligible,  and easily replaced by the growing of plant foods for humans.  IAA emits at least 31% of total global GHG emissions while having an outsized deleterious effect on the environment.  There are only about a million animal farmers in the U.S.  They are, numbers-wise, an unimportant  interest group and are only a small handful of voters.  Current livestock farmers could be persuaded to abandon the livestock business through a buyout program where they agree to abandon this industry in favor of a "Eco-Ranger" (government) subsidy that promotes land re-conversion to non-livestock uses, the regeneration of wild animal species, returning former domestic farm animal acreage into forest and riparian zones, and so forth.   Any interest in this topic being assessed alongside Fossil Fuels? 

4397. plincoln24 at 04:38 AM on 8 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      @ Evan: You wrote "I hope we agree that reduced consumption must be part of the solution if we are to achieve the ambitious goals of stabilizing the climate, whenever that occurs, and at whatever level that occurs." We agree.

      I am interested to see that upcoming post where you write about the non impacts of the renewable energy on the keeling curve.

4398. Evan at 22:43 PM on 7 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      plincoln24, thanks for your detailed responses. I also like the idea of a carbon tax as you described. I could respond to your detailed discussion, but I am basically in agreement with all that you say.

      One of the most natural ways to reduce GHG emissions is to reduce consumption. It is better not to consume than to try to consume using low-carbon methods. There is another angle where this becomes important. In an upcoming post I will show that the rise of renewable energy, to date, has had no effect on the upward acceleration of the Keeling Curve. The reason is simple. Renewable energy on its own does nothing to reduce GHG emissions. Only switching from fossil-fuel energy to renewable energy will reduce emissions. Apparently renewables are growing alongside fossil fuels and not replacing them. Because renewable energy is currently supplementing fossil fuels, and have not replaced them in any significant measure (speaking from a global, total integration perspective), people can hasten the transition from fossil fuels to renewables by consuming less, because presumably any decreased consumption will directly reduce fossil-fuel usage without changing the level of renewables, simply because renewables are currently only supplementing fossil-fuel energy.

      I hope we agree that reduced consumption must be part of the solution if we are to achieve the ambitious goals of stabilizing the climate, whenever that occurs, and at whatever level that occurs.

4399. plincoln24 at 22:09 PM on 7 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      @Evan,

      I don't see that I can edit my post.

      I wrote " I get the since that it is counterproductive for me to try to sell the degrowth concept at the local level, the national level or even at the EU level".

      Since should have been sense. Sorry for the error.

4400. plincoln24 at 22:06 PM on 7 March 2022
      Addressing the Climate Crisis: Evolution or Revolution¹
      

      @Evan

      This is a response to comment number 11 which you posted in response to my comments about En-ROADS.

      You wrote "Without splitting hairs, what I am trying to show is the challenges that lay ahead. I understand the definitions to which you're referring, but people cannot, on their own, monitor our progress to Net-Zero Emissions. They can monitor our approach to Net-Zero Accumulation by following Table 1. I am trying to help people learn how to monitor our progress."

      I think you are right that simply looking at Table 1.1 is better for members of the public.

      I am not familiar with the IEA report. I don't think that pushing for more consumption is the right way to solve our problem. I wish En-ROADS included a lever that has policy that creates degrowth. It doesn't, and I think that the lack of its inclusion is a sign of bias in the producers of the En-ROADS program. I think it would be a lot easier to achieve our climate obligations if we allowed for degrowth in the global economy. I in fact advocate for integrating degrowth into our climate solutions.  

      You write "Yes, I've read about how we can maintain "robust economic growth" in the IEA report. But that is a study, assuming the entire world follows their roadmap, and that everything works out as planned with the technology (NET systems at scale are still a plan, not reality). Reality is that absolutely nothing we've done, to date, has caused the Keeling Curve to deviate from its upward acceleration. If we keep telling people that we can keep increasing our consumption (i.e., growth) while stabilizing the Keeling Curve, we may miss this final opportunity to deal with climate crisis.

      Where I disagree with you is the use of the words, "in principle" and your reference to "pulling policy levers" I don't necessarily disagree with the models, scientifically and conceptually. I disagree that you can implement the models on 8 billion people spread across almost 200 countries."

      To this I say what we should be telling people is what we would say if we were being as honest as possible. I agree with you that we probably wont solve the climate crisis if we fail to implement degrowth. We should do that. But the reason we need to do it is not because it is physically impossible to have economic growth and solve the climate crisis simultaneously. The reason we should implement degrowth is because growth does not equate with well being and including degrowth in the plan increases the probability of success dramatically. 

      I have met a lot of resistance trying to convince politicians that degrowth should be part of their political platform. I have had more success trying to convince them that a high price on carbon should be. I get the since that it is counterproductive for me to try to sell the degrowth concept at the local level, the national level or even at the EU level. It seems like something that needs to be a global agreement, like a global price on carbon would be. I wrote to James Hansen with regards to my concerns about economic growth needing to be addressed and he wrote back that the size of the global economy could be restrained by placing a fee on energy consumption that rises with time as you approach how large you want the global economy to be and the fees could be paid back out to the public in the form of a dividend (much like the carbon fee in dividend). I like this idea, and if we are going to take such an approach, it makes most sense to introduce a fee on the energy consumption which is the worst (emissions) by introducing Carbon Fee and Dividend, and then when the public is ready for it, sell them on protecting nature from economic growth by taking the existing Carbon Fee and Dividend program and rolling out a generalized fee on all energy sources. In my mind we need to have success with selling the public on a global price on carbon on the order of hundreds of dollars per ton CO2 before moving on to economic growth. I am not sure why you think that the policies cannot be implemented on the 8 billion people of the globle. If you mean it is because it is politically impossible (politicians would never agree on it), then you might be right). I don't otherwise understand why you would say that the policies in En-ROADS cannot be implemented on 8 billion people. In some cases it is clear you could. One policy is a global ban on new coal infrastructure from a year of your choice such as 2025. Another policy is a precentage increase in electrication of transportation per year. This latter policy could be implemnted at different rates for different nations (depending on their situation) where the desired global average is maintained. Anyhow, I view James Hansen's suggestion of applying a fee to energy in general to be a powerful tool which would take care of most of kinks associated with getting a global agreement on limiting economic growth. There would be other details naturally. But that method doesn't make sense without placing a fees on the forms of energy which are worse for the environment first. You are free to respond. 

       

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