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The author is advocating for complete central control of the entire world, in the name of saving the planet. Aside from the problematic idea of giving complete and total control to an intellectual ruling class, the author never even bothers to explain why humankind should not become extinct. What is bad about the planet dying? Why is it a problem that species die off?
The author is advocating for complete central control of the entire world, in the name of saving the planet. Aside from the problematic idea of giving complete and total control to an intellectual ruling class, the author never even bothers to explain why humankind should not become extinct. What is bad about the planet dying? Why is it a problem that species die off?
And why should we survive as a species?
The author is operating according to some unstated moral premise. Extinction may be bad, but it is not self-evidently so. The author would need to explain the moral premise upon which he bases his presentation.
In actual fact, the author doesn't really believe that we will become extinct. Nope, that is a convenient excuse. What he really wants is a dismantling of capitalism. He wants the installation of a world administration. He is a marxist at heart, and marxists love the utopian ideas of a perfect society governed by wise elders, or whatever these despots would call themselves.
A National Geographic video on climate change tells us that if the 4.5 billion year lifespan of the universe is condensed into 24 hours, the tiny amount of time humans have walked this planet since the big bang would be three seconds. The documentary asks: "Will we make it to the fourth second?
Paleontologist Henry Gee writing in Scientific American on November 30, 2021, is convinced that humans are doomed to go extinct: "Habitat degradation, low genetic variation, and declining fertility are setting Homo sapiens up for collapse." He reminds us that "species come and go" and the ones like humans with small genetic variations are likely to go fast, meaning as soon as a million years.
But humans may disappear much faster than he predicts for a different reason: Climate change.
Despite having the highest intelligence among species, humans are emerging as deeply flawed, unable to adequately apply their intelligence for self-preservation, suggesting that extinction may come long before Gee's scenario plays out.
Job One for Humanity documents the scientific evidence for their conclusion: "Because of accelerating global warming and the worsening of our other 11 major global crises". We face an unavoidable die-off of half of humanity and the widespread collapse of many of our critical social, economic, and political systems by mid-century. We also face the high probability of humanity's total extinction and the collapse of civilization by the end of the 21st century." Will plans to reduce carbon emissions change that grim forecast? Job One for Humanity advises: : "Whenever you hear national politicians promise carbon net-zero by 2030, 2040, 2050, etc. know that it equals mass human extinction occurring over the next several decades."
Over the past few decades, powerful wake-up calls should have convinced us that we are not masters of nature--that naturally occurring events and threats evoked by human activities could wreak havoc, destroy all life, even the planet itself. And we might not have effective weapons to stop the carnage.
While science offers the best potential to prevent, minimize or deflect these potential disasters there has been widespread and growing resistance to science as illustrated by vaccine resisters and climate change deniers. (Actually, resistance to politicized science...)
Despite persuasive evidence that vaccinations prevent or lessen the effects of the coronavirus, vaccine resistance persists, endangering the rest of the population. (If the vaccines work, then why is the rest of the population endangered?)
And our failure to provide vaccines to poor countries increases exponentially an invitation for new even deadlier variants to emerge. (Why do we have an obligation to provide vaccines?)
More pertinent to the survival of humans, gruesome disasters including fires, floods, horrific storms attributed to climate change, and warnings of almost certain future catastrophes could make the planet unlivable. Tragically, these ever accelerating threats have elicited stunted responses from nations. Many offer inadequate pledges, renege and cheat on their commitments, and almost all give priority to economic and lifestyle choices.
To rely on activists, as passionate and committed as they may be, who seek to influence politicians and others of an impending apocalypse from climate change, is increasingly looking like a dead-end.
Science may offer the only hope of preventing the extinction of the human species and proving Henry Gee wrong in his forecast. Technologies such as carbon capture (removal) (The author term-switches. First he wrote "science," then he wrote "technologies." The two are not the same.)
More pertinent to the survival of humans, gruesome disasters including fires, floods, horrific storms attributed to climate change, and warnings of almost certain future catastrophes could make the planet unlivable. Tragically, these ever accelerating threats have elicited stunted responses from nations. Many offer inadequate pledges, renege and cheat on their commitments, and almost all give priority to economic and lifestyle choices.
To rely on activists, as passionate and committed as they may be, who seek to influence politicians and others of an impending apocalypse from climate change, is increasingly looking like a dead-end.
Science may offer the only hope of preventing the extinction of the human species and proving Henry Gee wrong in his forecast. Technologies such as carbon capture (removal) (The author term-switches. First he wrote "science," then he wrote "technologies." The two are not the same.)
which holds great promise and yet to be discovered scientific breakthroughs ("technological breakthroughs...")
offer the only realistic solutions for reversing the effects of climate change since international plans to cut emissions fall short of points of no return.
Drastic action is called for. Instead of investing in desperate efforts to convince those who are immune to facts and logic of the dire emergency, the international community of rational people should take sweeping action. (He writes like a true tyrant.)
A massive commitment to save the planet must be launched now. We need a climate change Manhattan Project, like the successful World War II program that beat Germany and Japan to the development of an atomic bomb. Although the bomb ended WWII it inflicted enormous death and destruction. A Manhattan Project for climate change and other potential catastrophes would in contrast protect lives and hopefully disrupt the threat of extinction,
This project should not only study and expand existing alternative technologies but should also explore new ones. We should enlist the best scientific minds to think outside of the box--what Buddhists call "beginners mind." That means thinking without assumptions or limits. Primarily embracing existing technologies developed by for-profit enterprises, runs the risk of lobbies, cronyism, pork-barrel projects, and aversion to explorations that don't promise immediate returns leading the battle against climate change. And with the profit motive at the forefront of the "leave it to the market" model for innovation and implementation of alternative energy sources, timetables for slowing and reversing the warming of the planet are out of touch with natures deadlines for extinction of life.
That's why the Climate Manhattan Project should be initiated, organized, and administered outside of government--preferably by trustworthy elder leaders with management expertise from the business world or other domains who are at a point in their lives beyond personal financial self-interest.
The urgency for immediate action became abundantly clear to me when I recently revisited an article that I wrote fourteen years ago, two years after Al Gore released his groundbreaking 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, which set out to educate the public about climate change. The media was rife with warnings by Gore and others. The compelling data warranted an all-hands-on-deck alarm to make addressing climate change the number-one priority for the world. But it didn't happen then and it's not happening now.
Most alarming, the warnings cited earlier would be current today, since none of them have been adequately addressed. Punctuating that observation, a UN report released on August 9, 2021 delivered a disturbing "code red." It warned that warming of the planet is happening so fast that catastrophe can only be avoided if drastic action is applied immediately. ("Drastic action." The language of despots, dictators, and all manner of oppressors, great and small.)
My 2008 documentation of warnings are strikingly similar to current headlines:
"The crisis is quickening. Evidence of environmental decay is everywhere: Icebergs melting, sea levels rising, vanishing rain forests, average temperature increases around the planet, the ozone layer widening, the prospects of increased famine from crop reductions, drinkable water supplies shrinking, the proliferation of disease as insects migrate north, intensified hurricane and earthquake activity, just to name some of the clear warning signs. And scientists have sounded the alarm that we may be reaching the point of no return. The Tallberg Foundation, based in Tallberg Sweden warned that 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now considered by scientists the critical danger line and that we are currently at 385 ppm. 350 ppm, they said, should not have been transgressed.
NASA reported that in December 2021 carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured 417 ppm.
These alarm bells and our failure to heed them reminded me of a joke told years ago by famed comedian Henny Youngman: "My doctor gave me six months to live. I couldn't pay his bill, so he gave me another six months."
Have scientists disingenuously given us more time because we have crossed critical points of previous warnings and are facing horrific consequences? Are they protecting us from panic? Have the public, politicians, and business leaders not seen that we are mindlessly rushing toward extinction by the suicide bombing of science? If so, the joke is on us and it's not funny.
If we don't act decisively, (Who is this "we" the continually author refers? He's rejected government action, corporate action, and market action. Is there some "we out there that has all sorts of raw power, and the authority to force the world's inhabitants to do their bidding in the name of "saving the planet?")
Drastic action is called for. Instead of investing in desperate efforts to convince those who are immune to facts and logic of the dire emergency, the international community of rational people should take sweeping action. (He writes like a true tyrant.)
A massive commitment to save the planet must be launched now. We need a climate change Manhattan Project, like the successful World War II program that beat Germany and Japan to the development of an atomic bomb. Although the bomb ended WWII it inflicted enormous death and destruction. A Manhattan Project for climate change and other potential catastrophes would in contrast protect lives and hopefully disrupt the threat of extinction,
This project should not only study and expand existing alternative technologies but should also explore new ones. We should enlist the best scientific minds to think outside of the box--what Buddhists call "beginners mind." That means thinking without assumptions or limits. Primarily embracing existing technologies developed by for-profit enterprises, runs the risk of lobbies, cronyism, pork-barrel projects, and aversion to explorations that don't promise immediate returns leading the battle against climate change. And with the profit motive at the forefront of the "leave it to the market" model for innovation and implementation of alternative energy sources, timetables for slowing and reversing the warming of the planet are out of touch with natures deadlines for extinction of life.
That's why the Climate Manhattan Project should be initiated, organized, and administered outside of government--preferably by trustworthy elder leaders with management expertise from the business world or other domains who are at a point in their lives beyond personal financial self-interest.
The urgency for immediate action became abundantly clear to me when I recently revisited an article that I wrote fourteen years ago, two years after Al Gore released his groundbreaking 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, which set out to educate the public about climate change. The media was rife with warnings by Gore and others. The compelling data warranted an all-hands-on-deck alarm to make addressing climate change the number-one priority for the world. But it didn't happen then and it's not happening now.
Most alarming, the warnings cited earlier would be current today, since none of them have been adequately addressed. Punctuating that observation, a UN report released on August 9, 2021 delivered a disturbing "code red." It warned that warming of the planet is happening so fast that catastrophe can only be avoided if drastic action is applied immediately. ("Drastic action." The language of despots, dictators, and all manner of oppressors, great and small.)
My 2008 documentation of warnings are strikingly similar to current headlines:
"The crisis is quickening. Evidence of environmental decay is everywhere: Icebergs melting, sea levels rising, vanishing rain forests, average temperature increases around the planet, the ozone layer widening, the prospects of increased famine from crop reductions, drinkable water supplies shrinking, the proliferation of disease as insects migrate north, intensified hurricane and earthquake activity, just to name some of the clear warning signs. And scientists have sounded the alarm that we may be reaching the point of no return. The Tallberg Foundation, based in Tallberg Sweden warned that 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now considered by scientists the critical danger line and that we are currently at 385 ppm. 350 ppm, they said, should not have been transgressed.
NASA reported that in December 2021 carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured 417 ppm.
These alarm bells and our failure to heed them reminded me of a joke told years ago by famed comedian Henny Youngman: "My doctor gave me six months to live. I couldn't pay his bill, so he gave me another six months."
Have scientists disingenuously given us more time because we have crossed critical points of previous warnings and are facing horrific consequences? Are they protecting us from panic? Have the public, politicians, and business leaders not seen that we are mindlessly rushing toward extinction by the suicide bombing of science? If so, the joke is on us and it's not funny.
If we don't act decisively, (Who is this "we" the continually author refers? He's rejected government action, corporate action, and market action. Is there some "we out there that has all sorts of raw power, and the authority to force the world's inhabitants to do their bidding in the name of "saving the planet?")
here's what a glimpse into the future might reveal: Imagine future visitors from a distant galaxy arriving at our barren world devoid of humans. They examine the records of our planet's brief history. Picture the astonishment of these highly evolved, super intelligent space explorers as they discover our willful destruction of Earth, despite warnings and overwhelming cautionary evidence.
They might wonder, "What were those creatures thinking when they allowed known contaminants to poison their delicately thin atmosphere? They must have been missing some essential components of intelligence to allow billions of people to drive individual vehicles that spewed destruction into the atmosphere, eventually leading to extinction."
And what were their religions about? (Now comes a gratuitous attack of religion...)
They might wonder, "What were those creatures thinking when they allowed known contaminants to poison their delicately thin atmosphere? They must have been missing some essential components of intelligence to allow billions of people to drive individual vehicles that spewed destruction into the atmosphere, eventually leading to extinction."
And what were their religions about? (Now comes a gratuitous attack of religion...)
They worshiped and praised their God for miraculous creations and then mindlessly desecrated them while feeling highly devotional. They loved God, the cosmos, and the creation in the abstract but could not muster the intelligence and moral responsibility to honor those miraculous gifts. They stood by as they witnessed the destruction while applying token measures."
Then the space visitors might shrug their shoulders and lament: "Just another evolutionary failure--beings that did not evolve intellectually and morally fast enough to overcome their primitive self-destructive impulses."
In this case, maybe God, or whatever the source of creation of humans, did make junk!
Is that the legacy we want to leave? We have a choice' Do we have the courage to act with total commitment? (Again the author appeals to "we." Who is this "we?" And what good would it be to save the planet and consign billions of people to a life of destitution and hopelessness?)
Then the space visitors might shrug their shoulders and lament: "Just another evolutionary failure--beings that did not evolve intellectually and morally fast enough to overcome their primitive self-destructive impulses."
In this case, maybe God, or whatever the source of creation of humans, did make junk!
Is that the legacy we want to leave? We have a choice' Do we have the courage to act with total commitment? (Again the author appeals to "we." Who is this "we?" And what good would it be to save the planet and consign billions of people to a life of destitution and hopelessness?)
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