My investigations so far indicate that the central argument is around the relationship humans are seen to have with the rest of nature. You’ll note I said “the rest of nature” not “with nature”. Therein already lies an ideological position.

Our views on this do seem to differ in line with political philosophy, although there are all sorts of variations.

When I said utopias don’t exist except in the political and social imaginary, I was saying they don’t exist except in the mind. I was thinking in part of arcadian dreaming, where some groups undoubtedly did better than others, but the mob who learnt how to get a quick feed by driving mammoths over a cliff were way off the pace. Also from the little I’ve read it seems that life expectancies were typically way below the worst in modern world.

As for Hitler finding his utopia, it illustrates how dangerous utopias are when they become a totalising philosophy that exclude all other possibilities. When you have the truth and are convinced that everyone else is in error in a way that is a threat to your position, you have the makings of mayhem.

Countries that have a special mission in the world can be problematic and when promulgating capitalism and liberal democracy as the ultimate form of political economy.

I’d better stop there, or I’ll risk derailing the thread, but the problem with ecology is that it has come to the point where our long-established mainstream views are a threat. The problem then becomes how you seek to leverage change which involves a paradigm shift. I’d suggest the ecoterrorism isn’t the way to go. That would be repeating mistakes of the past.

It is the habit of the ideologically committed to disregard the views of the Other Side as inherently nefarious.

Tosh. If you can’t take or leave a policy position on it’s merits, you shouldn’t bother pretending you are rational.

Dismissing green policies on practical grounds is fine, dismissing them because, well, they’re those blasted watermelons who want to shut down industries and live in the scrub on lentils, well, that’s just plain stupid.

Dismissing Clive Hamilton because you make incorrect assumptions about his motivitation is just as stupid. Either be rational, take things on their merits, or just admit you’re partisan. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being so on philosophical grounds.

That is a problem with the Right, not the greens. Why blame the greens for the classic short-sightedness of right politics?

Denialism is a problem mainly of the Right true. Altho’ I think you’ll find a few (very) old school lefties also poo-pooing the green movement. Hobsbawn writes it off as eshatological hyteria. He ain’t a Tory. That said I’m not talking of denialism: a refusal to accept the facts as presented to you.
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One should remember that few us endeavour to really research the facts. I have met many concerned about AGW whose sole source of information is An Inconvenient Truth. Now as broadly accurate as this is said to be (haven’t seen it) it isn’t a rundown of the whole story and can’t be. Those who preach its virtues to me dismiss any criticism of it as unethical without listening to them. Not everyone but a significant lot.
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It is the habit of the ideologically committed to disregard the views of the Other Side as inherently nefarious. It is an obligation of such committment. One of my core political principles is that this is barbarian and should be relegated to history.
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Just becauise the Right might boast a healthy range of batshit loons doesn’t mean you’re free to ignore those on your side. And I’m not talking just about batshit loons here. I’m talking of a tendency to couch environmental policy debate in moral terms: ie you’re immoral if you’re skeptical.
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If you’re truly skeptical then you’re doing your duty as a citizen of a democratic polity. A duty few care to attend to sufficently these days in my view. I am skeptical. I know that AGW is an hypothesis not a fact. I also know the smart money ain’t on ignoring this particular hypothesis; like evolution a lot backs it up and not much refutes it.
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But just ’cause someone aims to do something about it doesn’t make ‘em right. Clive Hamilton isn’t batshit. But he’s an evangelcal environmentalist to a significant extent and therefore, in my view, he’s in error.

I’ve also been reading some of Mark’s draft thesis, which has a lot to say about utopias. Suffice it to say at this stage that I don’t think utopias exist anywhere, not in the past, the present or the future.

No you are lying*.
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Utopias do exist. In people’s minds. And for some individuals sometimes. I think Hitler lived in a Utopia from 1933-1943. The reality slwly came crashing back in. Zru ze vallz of ze bonker. It vaz ze Peeble’s fault. Zey did not hef enough boys to bamb ze Rossians.
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*Standard GMB riff not meant to be taken literally.

The result as we have seen is that many on the Right refuse to take environmental problems seriously because of where those who do come from.

That is a problem with the Right, not the greens. Why blame the greens for the classic short-sightedness of right politics?

So when I get to do a post, my views may have changed.

I’ve also been reading some of Mark’s draft thesis, which has a lot to say about utopias. Suffice it to say at this stage that I don’t think utopias exist anywhere, not in the past, the present or the future. Actually he also has a fair bit to say about the issue of time in the flow of history.

It’s hard to find a place to stand where there’s a firm footing, to find a voice and then to pick a path through the thicket. I think Mark’s done it for his purpose. I might just have to make a few assumptions.

But on utopias, many either think that they existed in the past, or are achievable in the future, or as in Fukuyama we live in the best of all political economies and history has in effect ended. I think Mark has found a way of ending endism. I would just say the we are always becoming and that utopias only exist in the political and social imaginary.

That’s all a bit abstract maybe, so I’m not sure how I’ll pitch the post when I get to it.

On the subjects of unexpected feedbacks and methane, this is also worrying.

My working title for the piece was “Losing our way”. Maybe it should have been something like “Consideration of the implications of recent research pursuant…” When writing these things you look for attention grabbers or a ‘hook’ because in the long run we are trying to attract eyeballs. Certainly we don’t want to bore people to sobs.

Usually I’m wary of imagery, metaphors, analogies etc because they often don’t fit completely and can distort or mislead. In this case I thought there fit was pretty good. And when I put together the stuff that made up the post I was actually personally shocked.

I also wondered about using the ‘haiku’ at the end. I took down the little book of haiku my daughter gave me when she lived in Japan, read a few proper haiku and thought “Gawd that’s awful”. The listener who sent it in was responding to someone who had been complaining about wind farms upsetting the brolgas. Her message was, “If we don’t have wind farms there won’t be any brolgas”.

On the green philosophy thing, I’m not sure my ‘philosophy’ would pass muster with Paul Norton, who lectures on stuff like green politics. But as a result of our interchange I had been thinking about a post setting down a few thoughts. It might happen, might not. So much to do!

And (if) having swallowed the positive, the comment above is actually rude to the vast concerted efforts around the world over many, many years already made towards solving Climate Change. This is the ‘framework’ mentioned above. Apologies are duly given, and the “jump-start” is suggested in this vast, existing positive context.

No doubt those (corporations, governments, groups and individuals) who have applied themselves to success understand the nature of momentum. The context here, then, can be allowed: that we are only just starting.

Give it five years – after the jump-start – and you’ll have not only greater reason to be depressed, but far greater reason to be inspired.

Let the powerful need for humanity to live on, even if through greed and self-interest, and I believe we will succeed.

No time, must go. Cheers.

What this information does is essentially beseech us (humanity) to reduce or eliminate the negative, because it’s about the negatives. This is not a criticism, Brian, by any means, merely to suggest albeit briefly another perspective.

Existing right now in the world is an extensive pool of economic study re the task. This study identifies the problem areas – the negatives. However, running through its phrases and themes is also tremendous opportunity – distilled in small or large parts, these are the positives.

“The market” is largely relied upon to address CC. But how does this process work, in the first instance? The early step requires that opportunity be identified.

Isn’t there a case here for the creation and presentation of reports, papers and films – as with the negative – which identify and detail the opportunities? In all their similar power? Something of such content it jump-starts the market process, rather than waiting for a lapse or stress to occur before “the market” identifies opportunity, by bringing forth awareness.

If the CC problem is neutered successfully, “the market” will end up doing things like establishing university courses, and to serve those, high school curricula, to feed people ultimately into vocations that is achieving this success. That itself is a long process, having resulted from the market in the very first instance identifying opportunity: a process which itself takes stress and lapses, and considerable time, to begin.

Interestingly, the framework (for success) is here already.

So too is the stress and lapse- so the impulse is already here. My suggestion is that we will see, through forces already existing in the market, that is, for reward, papers, reports, films and much more which identify and sell this once-in-a-lifetime (no joke) vast and various opportunity.

If this reasoning holds, it would mean a jump-start towards resolving a problem such as we’ve never seen before. (“Human self-interest and greed” works in mysterious ways…)

No, I don’t invest in airlines.

Thanks for your detailed comments.

I hadn’t been aware that the pattern of growth in the inland to offset melt, slippage etc at the edges had been sufficient to roughly create a balance in the 1990s.

Here is a series of images from NASA.

Here’s a graph from World Climate Report.

1999 was a bad year. I don’t like the trend line, but my experience with trend lines comes from share prices. It seems to show a step up from 1995, possibly a consolidation from 2004 and who knows what comes next, but early 1990 values seem to be well behind us.

The basis of my “green” (we’ll call it that for convenience) philosophy is not well-captured by any of you categories. I think we’ll leave that for another day.

The “not helpful” business was introduced first by you in this comment. I’m thinking that, in the light of what you say, it was the Gwynne Dyer little story that set you going. I thought of about four different ways of starting the post and at least four different titles. I went for something scary because what we are dealing with is scary. Let’s recap what we are dealing with.

On a standard concept of climate sensitivity (short-term Charney feedbacks) we’ll get 3C warming (midpoint) and about a 5% chance that it’ll be 4.8C. That will give us a problematically acidic ocean (not sure how bad, as I haven’t researched it yet, but bad) and even at 3C get us into some very unpleasant and dangerous effects.

Now we know that we are tracking well ahead of that scenario. Macintosh and Woldring say if we work hard we might be able to limit it to 660ppm. Look at the chart. The midpoint is crook, but we’ve got a 1 in 20 chance of hitting 6C. That will give you an ice-free world and sea level rise of 75-80 meters. Have a look at the last image (in yellow and brown) on this post.

By one estimate I’ve read the inhabitable parts of the globe at 6C would be roughly equivalent to what was under ice in the last ice age. St Louis in the US, London in Britain, but it would be under the waves.

Now Sheehan, Jones et al tell us that if we try really hard after 2030 we might limit CO2e to 900ppm. It’s off the chart.

Hansen tells us that long-term feedbacks are now cutting in and the proper value of climate sensitivity for 560ppm is 6C. That’s the midpoint. God knows what he’d say you’d get with 900ppm.

Adrien, I reckon words can’t describe how crook it’s looking, but I reckon words like “apocalyptic” and “perdition” will have to do.

What say you?