Are we all fucked?

[Eoin McLove]

I get you.  I think there is merit to his point about wealthier societies developing an environmental conscience.  The ability to even consider the question is somewhat of a luxury of the West,  even if the impacts of global warming will be felt worldwide- probably most sharply by developing countries.  The aim to pull the world out of poverty seems noble to me and he at least makes an interesting case for how that might actually be happening.  Off course it's all relative,  but if the majority of the world has clean running water,  electricity,  enough food, access to medical care etc then their actual monetary wealth is very much a secondary concern.  As you say,  though,  perhaps there are other studies that disprove his own and show that world poverty is unchanged. 

It also seems to me to be a reasonable case to make that wealthier countries are leading the technological charge.  I'm not sure if arguing the correlation or cause/ effect of that is any more than splitting hairs.  Surely the more pertinent and inspiring point is that whomever is leading the way is looking toward an environmentally healthier future.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Pinker focuses on a monetary value and not any kind of quality of life assessment as a measure of poverty, that's exactly the problem. What I'm criticizing is his not-so-tacit defence of a modern politico-economic system which preferentially favours a vanishingly small elite, whose primary concerns are economic rather than social, experiential, ecological, etc., etc.

I don't know who you mean when you talk about those leading the way looking toward an environmentally healthier future. Pinker seems to me to be saying, the system we've got is already going in the right direction, no need to change the fundamentals of the system, just nudge it around a bit as necessary. But neo-liberalism as a system of global resource management is an absolute curse on environmental policy change and the number one reason it is all taking so long and why the measures put forward (like the Irish government's recent show of pathetic vision) are so unradical; within the neo-liberal capitalism we've currently got (the one Pinker says is getting rid of global poverty, etc., etc.), economic concerns are top of the pile. Environmental concerns become pertinent only when they overtake economic concerns... when examined through the distorted lens of those for whom economic concerns are primary! As for concerns about genuine richness in quality of life... ha!

[Eoin McLove]

I think your first statement there is wrong,  actually.  He seems to be saying the exact opposite of what you are accusing him of saying,  or else I am misunderstanding you or I have misread him.  He refers to quality of life as being the real value above quantity of actual money earned. 

Do you have other proposals than what he offers or other decent recommendations on who to read to get some other perspective? His assertion that capitalism creates an overall more unequal,  but overall less impoverished society seems to make sense when compared to other tried and failed systems- notably communism and fascism. And anarchy is a nice wishy washy dream but is unrealistic unless everyone in the West decides they would rather turn the clock back a couple of hundred years,  reduce their standard of living in every conceivable way and massively reduce their life spans while offering no viable route out of the shackles of extreme poverty for developing nations.  What other alternative should we look to?

Which technological advancements were brought about under communist or fascist regimes? I know some medical advancements are said to have been made by the Nazis at the expenses of human rights,  but I can't think of them off hand.  I haven't heard of any that were made under communism.

That at least suggests (but I'm naturally open to correction) that democracy, which he strongly advocates, creates the right conditions for technology and science to flourish.  We can all point to inequalities in western society or scandals and outrages (The global banking crises that saw very few heads roll being a recent and obvious one) but compared to any other tried system the standard of life,  the freedoms it offers from free speech, freedom of movement,  freedom to earn money and freedom to create,  seems like the best option for the world to emulate. 

[Eoin McLove]

What I meant by 'those leading the way' I was referring to those making advancements in science and technology.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

In order to state that poverty is dropping, Pinker uses the World Bank's definition of "extreme poverty" (the source itself should have a critical mind buzzing!), based on a monetary value of "living on $1.90 or less a day". Supposedly there are less people than ever living on this amount per day, therefore poverty is dropping. There are endless critiques of this World Bank measure of poverty (here's just one brief write-up https://www.openpop.org/?p=1383 ), but that measure suits what Pinker wants to say, so that's the one he goes with.

There are plenty of other forms of government to look to, and you should be beyond thinking that modern politics falls into only three categories; democracy, communism, or fascism. For example, social democracy is very different to neo-liberal democracy which is quite different to laissez-faire capitalist democracy, and so on. What we've got is neo-liberalism, and it seems pretty clear that this is what Pinker is holding up as what we have to "thank" for all the "progress" he details, and presumably he thinks it is also the best path towards cleaning up the environment too.

And although it's not related to my point at all, of course there was plenty of technological and scientific innovation from communist states! They may not have made it first to the moon, but jesus, we're talking about nations who went to space!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_innovation#Soviet_Union

Basically, "What we've got now is the best we can have" doesn't strike me as a mentality conducive to creative improvement in our management of the world's resources, and from what I can see, from what I've ever seen, people who debate that side of the argument always end up being a little too creative with the facts.

[Eoin McLove]

Oh yeah,  the whole space race thing.  Kind of forgot about that for a minute there   

You may well be right and he is full of hot air but it's at least refreshing for a non- scientist to read something more optimistic than is generally promoted regarding the environment.  Maybe we are all fucked after all,  so sticking our head in the sand and enjoying ourselves before we burn might be our best option. 

All hail the robots!

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY

[Eoin McLove]

 

[Rodge]

Arctic Ice Refuses To Melt As Ordered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwUhJaQVi-M

[Trev]

Arctic Ice Refuses To Melt As Ordered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwUhJaQVi-M

It might help if he gave a link to the graph his whole argument is based on

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Arctic Ice Refuses To Melt As Ordered

It might help if he gave a link to the graph his whole argument is based on

The graph does contain a source of sorts, in that it tells us that the data it supposedly uses came via MASIE. What's MASIE? https://nsidc.org/data/masie/about_masie

What he doesn't provide information on is just how the graph was generated from the data. An image search for the graph returns only climate change skeptic results. But who runs MASIE? The NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) do, they're the ones who have been collecting and providing all the data this graph is supposedly generated from. So then, a key question becomes; Do the people collecting and providing this data freely to the public believe in accelerated anomalous changes in arctic ice trends? Yes they do:

Earth is currently on track for a three-degree Celsius warming by 2100, according to the WMO. That, however, is if the government commitments pledged during the Paris climate agreement in 2015 are actually fulfilled. Already, this past decade has seen lingering heat-waves and record-breaking storms with just a one-degree warming since the middle of the nineteenth century.

These numbers, however, are just averages. Masked within are extremes. For instance, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, disproportionately affecting its environment and people.

But how do we know this to be true? High quality, accessible data informs our understanding of a changing climate. Scientists require reliable data products to deliver statistical analyses, modeling, and climate predictions and forecasting to policymakers. Without the data, their insight carries no weight. So the WMO created the Catalogue for Climate Data through an internationally agreed evaluation process as a staple of trustworthy and recognized datasets.

Link: https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/nsidc-data-sets-selected-guide-global-climate-change-assessment-0

And here's a graph straight from the NSIDC, using SII rather than MASIE (since the former has been collecting data since 1979) which it would be interesting to hear "Tony Heller"'s views on:


So, who knows how the one graph he relies on was put together. The guy who made the video ain't telling and the people who made it possible for him to make the video in the first place clearly seem to be saying he's got it wrong. Who to believe? Who knows, but personally I wouldn't go with a guy who is making up science as he goes along, even if by chance (because that's all it could be) he turns out to be right.

Edit: If you want to really get into the nitty gritty that the video tries to bamboozle the viewer with, here's some material to take on his points relating to Iceland - https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.1051 (see Figure 5 and related text in particular).
And here's a brief introduction to the complexity of the impact of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation on climate change, which freely admits that this may either accelerate or decelerate (but not be the linear cause of) the climate change trend - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180918110838.htm

And yes, the scientists could have it all wrong. That's part of science. But I would say they are statistically less likely to have it all wrong than this bloke.

[Scáthach]

Yeah Tony Heller aka Steve Goddard is a spoofer and dissembler of the lowest order. Just keep those clicks coming.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Yeah Tony Heller aka Steve Goddard is a spoofer and dissembler of the lowest order. Just keep those clicks coming.

Had never heard of him before, I don't really follow climate science precisely because it's so complex. But since source checking claims supposedly based on science is so easy to do these days, it should really become a spontaneous reflex in everyone. It took about the same amount of time as the length of that video to find data that casts all of its major points in serious doubt.

What a strange thing to be a dissembler about though. I can only imagine he must be even more head-wrecking in person than his way of speaking in that video suggests 

Edit: Ha, peak cynicism! https://tonyhellerakastevengoddard.com/who-is-tony-heller/

[Scáthach]

  that's bleedin hilarious. Though no doubt there's a few people out there that skimmed it and thought "I like his honesty and even some of his ideas".
On a more positive note, anyone see the story about the fungus that essentially eats complex hydrocarbons? I think it was recently discovered in Ecuador. The idea being that if it was introduced to landfill sites it would mop up the pollutants. Forgive the lack of links but I'm useless with this phone. It's called pestalotiopsis microspora.

[SansaSun]

We are all fucked, but it's grand. Earth won't miss us, and neither will we.

Amen