Changes.

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(aka Imminent immanent isness.)                                   A-and Happy Birthday for Luke the Duke.

I faked the orgasm.                                                                             But the love was sincere. Perceptions are sliding, sometimes so quickly that I notice: one day I need the glasses, then for a while - a few months - I do not; patches of print appear and disappear - shifting my head sometimes works to make a fuzzy part of a paragraph come clear; when the punctuation disappears, especially the periods, it gets tricky to make sense of it and I fall asleep; longer and longer sitting to piss - sitting itself began years ago - soon enough it will stop altogether and have to be dealt with; and now, tonight, listening to Arvo Pärt 'Spiegel Im Spiegel' and PCO/Simon Jeffes 'Nothing Realy Blue' for about the 10,000th time and the VLC player begins to very occasionally insert ... pauses. [Some little ET robot interrupting as he tries to call home and report my sedition d'you think?] Ah ... the end is near. Bring it on!      :-)   Not easy?! This COPA isn't going to be soft for the FIFA mafia. They'll see that it isn't so easy just to pat Brazil's ass. Adidas launches COPA t-shirt with sexual connotation. Brazilian flag.             Brazilian flag to outsiders.   BIPOLAR DEMOCRACYIN THE DARK:     I wish the people would blow up!     I couldn't care less about public opinion!     Fuck ethics! We govern for our exclusive friends!     Fuck the voters! IN THE LIGHT:     The people deserve respect!     Put the voters first!     In the name of ethics let's stick to our mandate!     We owe an explanation to public opinion!   Scurrilous trade deals, China, The New Alliance - "Fuck the People! Let 'em eat cake!": Anima identity is changin' too: The photograph of the girl at the jogos indíginas in Altamira - 2005; about the time all this blogging began. I soon nominated her 'anima' [conflating Jung's two meanings into one], the first in what has become a longish line. And now the images are more-and-more emaciated, starving, pixelated. What's that about I wonder? Caution! Toxic Waste! [Lest you be offended, remember that Canada now IS 'The Harper Government'.] Fossicking about in the OED: imminent: of an (almost always evil or dangerous) event impending threateningly; hanging over one's head; ready to befall or overtake one; close at hand in its incidence; coming on shortly. immanent: indwelling, inherent, actually present or abiding in.   [Not deriving from manus/hand, the 'man' in manufacture as I always imagined; not embodying 'in the hand' after all.] isness: The fact that a thing is; that which a thing is in itself; essence. In this case the citations are also interesting (particularly the last one): 1865 Seyn, in Germany, often in Hegel himself, means the abstraction of sensuous Isness.   1884 The moment of being or is-ness yields identity (A = A); and as this is-ness is given in concreto as a determined somewhat which is, we have the category of Essence as derivative category from Being.   1888 Both the fact of Being or ‘is-ness’ of each thing and the real nature of Cause are guaranteed to us by the free act of percipience.   1893 That which the intellect first perceived is the transcendental essence or ‘isness’ of the thing.   1942 Any one who sets out along the via negativa in this spirit is confessing in the very act that ‘is’ can never be tortured into ‘isness’.   1955 (Aldous Huxley) The girl is who she is. Some of her isness spills over and impregnates the entire universe.   1965 (L. Ron Hubbard) Is-ness, one of the four conditions of existence. It is an apparency of existence brought about by the continuous alteration of an As-is-ness. This is called, when agreed upon, reality. Also: quiddity.   So. Apocalypse. I have to say I have never studied Revelations, just stumbled over the odd verse. It is a secular apocalypse I am thinking of - the end, not of transcendence, but of any possibility of transcendence (there being, you know, no one about to ... transcend). Readings: A.S. Byatt 'Ragnarök'; Pascal Bruckner 'The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse'; Ian McEwan 'End of the World Blues'; Norman Cohn 'The Pursuit of the Millennium'; Daniel Wocjik 'The end of the world as we know it'. TEOTWAWKI ... doesn't quite capture it. Conceptually it's more like "The End of th One bit in McEwan's essay caught me: "Estimating the nature and timing of our collective demise, not a lecture-roomful, but the end of civilization, of the entire human project, is even less certain—it might happen in the next hundred years, or not happen in two thousand, or happen with imperceptible slowness, a whimper, not a bang. But in the face of that unknowability, there has often flourished powerful certainty about the approaching end. Throughout recorded history people have mesmerized themselves with stories which predict the date and manner of our whole-scale destruction, often rendered meaningful by ideas of divine punishment and ultimate redemption; the end of life on earth, the end or last days, end time, the apocalypse." Near the beginning you see, so I read on, eager to see if I can possibly learn to write off most of what I think seriously about - which I would do in a heartbeat, gladly & happily - but no, I fail the entrance exam and wind up back where I started, saying to Mr. McEwan, "Sorry Ian, missed me." And all of them (except maybe Antonia Byatt) miss the isness of isn'tness (in the business). Perfectly complacent minge: Little Miss Muffet Sat on a tuffet Eating her curds & whey. Along came a spider. He sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffet away. [Unfortunately there was nowhere to go.]

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How do you dig yourself into a hole this deep?

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This is not a rhetorical question gentle reader but a straight one. I don't have the answer in my pocket. I don't know exactly how I got here, just that I am in a deep hole. And to the begged response: How can I set about getting out again? I have no answer for that either. First worst strategy is to flat-out blame someone or something else. I guess. One of the best I've seen is our Bob: "He's hell-bent for destruction. He's afraid and confused; and his brain has been mismanaged with great skill." Another, from 'West Side Story': "I'm depraved on account'a I'm deprived." "No man is an island, entire of itself," says John Donne in 1623 - an appreciation that cuts both ways. Donne knows this. If you can sort God and 'The Church' out of it (no mean feat!), Meditation #17 merits careful reading. "This bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me." However desireable it may be, it is difficult if not impossible for a single individual (in this case, me) to take either entire responsibility or make entire remedy without denying, f'rinstance, the reality of all languages and all cultures. (Eh?) That anyone digs themselves into or out of such holes through choice alone seems like nonsense. Bromides like "It matters not how straight the gate," &c. and the brutal ideology of positive thinking equally so. Mere correctitude! The essential point that must be conveyed to these positivity zealots is that figguring it out is not necessarily blaming. But they will not hear it. Someone tells me (repeatedly) of their resolution to "... be positive, stop having issues that do not feed my soul ..." and I wonder how much of themselves they will have to excise to accomplish it and how many of those close to them will suffer collateral damage. I also wonder what possible good can come of it? Stopping digging would probably be a better start than either blaming or figguring. And since (as the title of this post correctly implies that one is not clear about exactly what the digging comprises), stop everything but the essential: breathing, eating, shitting. Stop paying taxes for sure. "The truth shall set you free," they say. Waddabout Love & Music? And do they set you free or set you true? I wonder what comforts my father found in his last days? He was alone, I know that. I know he kept a stash of Playboy & Penthouse magazines in his sock drawer. There were whisky bottles in the cupboard, empty and full; and cigarette packs. Some of this we have in common. Frontpiece to A.S. Byatt, 'Sugar': Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur Des Lebens ernstes Fûhren; Von Mûtterchen die Frohnatur Die Lust zu fabulieren. Urahnherr war der Schönsten hold Das spukt so hin und wieder; Urahnfrau liebte Schmuck und Gold Das zuckt wohl durch die Glieder. Sind nun die Elemente nicht Aus dem Complex zu trennen Was ist denn an dem ganzen Wicht    Original zu nennen? Goethe         My father gave my stature tall And rule of life decorous; Mother my nature genial And joy in making stories; Full well my grandsire loved the fair, A tendency that lingers; My grandam gold and gems so rare. An itch still in the fingers. If no part from this complex all Can now be separated, What can you name original That is in me created? (Translation: H. & O. Bosanquet, 1920)   Sometimes I imagine he was alone as I am now; sometimes I cannot guess. He did not complain - in this we are not alike. He is dead now and I cannot ask him, "Why not?" The music I am listening to as I write is (still, several weeks later) Arvo Pärt Spiegel im spiegel. Thanks to a gracious young woman at the music store (Remenyi House of Music Ltd., near Bloor & Yonge in Toronto) I easily found the sheet music and sent it to my grand-daughter who is working on it (says her mother). Along with Simon Jeffes' 'Nothing Really Blue' for four hands which she doesn't sell but remembered seeing free on the Internet - quite remarkable behaviour for Toronto. I found Steven Mithen through Edward Wilson. I read Edward Wilson because I thought he knew something about Paul Gaugin (it was on the cover). Following along I looked at Steven Mithen's book 'The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body', Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005, ISBN: 0-297-64317-7. Mithen's arguments seem sort'a sketchy ... but sure, hard evidence is scanty. And the notions that music coevolved with language or even preceded language are liberating enough to overlook the absence of categorical antecedents. Because? Because music (musick) does indeed "soothe the savage breast" (and concomitantly the savage beast) and everyone knows it. Matt Mahurin calls this image of his 'Internet Porn' but I am thinking of Roger Scruton's 'Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation' in which he opines that oral sex - presenting (ablating?) one's face into the genitalia of another - includes identity involvement. (The face being a primary proxy for identity.) The difference between a human sexual partner and the Internet or a computer is what then? Absence of shame I wonder? And why would one, should one, be ashamed of offering to trade identity for love? Still thinking about The Hag, Goblins, & dream transformations: The last is based upon some images in Milton's 'Paradise Lost': "... the Night-Hag, when call’d in secret, riding through the air she comes lur’d with the smell of infant blood, to dance with Lapland witches, while the labouring moon eclipses at thir charms." My friend Simon offered me a tansformation mask, and I asked for an eagle instead, foolish boy. Gilmar & Bruno Galvão:   (Gilmar gets it horizontally, but Bruno Galvão takes it vertical.) AI-5 Padrão FIFA standard: All together we put Brazil forward ...   It's just a costume for Carnaval! Calm down Mr. Policeman, I'm not Black Bloc, it's just a costume. Me too, I'm not police, it's just a costume.   One day by the marge of Lake LaBarge: These are the photographs I was going to post last time and didn't. They were likely taken in the 60s sometime so the girls will be grown up and probably gone. A brief bio on her website tells me that the photographer, Mirella Ricciardi (1935-), is still on the go in more-or-less comfortable retirement. Look closely at the girl above - at her knobby knee and foot, the angle of her leg, visible sternum - there's a lot in it. When a woman poses like that - hipshot, with her hands behind her head - it may be to emphasize her breasts, provovative even when she is starving. Consider her regard, her visage ... perhaps provocative and ... defiant, self-possessed. (But I'm guessing, and anyway, it could just be air-brushed, and by an interloper at that.) Something else ... a glance (also mentioned by Roger Scruton as a first cause) ... ... and the realization that digging out may simply not be in the cards.

 
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William Nordhaus, economist.

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William Nordhaus, Economist.
aka: Waiting for the other shoe to drop.   aka: The Fierce Urgency of Now. (Not.)

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear: I apologize for being rude and stupid - a boor. I simply look at the order of points in Chapters 12 & 13, the mis-naming of abatement as 'mitigation', and respond with the Brazilian anti-smoking image. A more gracious and civilized reviewer (Mark Jaccard) says, more gently, "Lately, however, he has begun to disappoint — as demonstrated by The Climate Casino," and goes on to politely & coolly demonstrate the point. Speaking of Nordhaus' earlier work he says, "... his analysis essentially vindicated business as usual for our fossil fuel-addicted economy." For me, Nordhaus' pervasive equivocation in 'The Climate Casino' carries on with the vindication - in spades. Nordhaus is a seriously smart guy though, no doubt about that - like an actuary you meet in the Sun Life cafeteria (since in those days the actuaries sometimes ate with the hoi polloi and it really was a free lunch) - who tells you he can closely determine the event but chokes when he thinks of telling. (Because he knows which side his bread is buttered on? Can't say.) Perhaps he is a deeply conservative surfer caught on a growing (overwhelming?) wave of cognitive dissonance: °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º So ... we've got John Kerry's speech in Jakarta ignored; Jim Hansen wringing his hands and focussing his angst on a nuclear renaissance (see his March 10th OpEd); and William Nordhaus (in thick bifocals) damning action with faint praise - or praising inaction with equivocation as the case may be. Dumb & Dumber enlisting Jim Prentice to shill for Enbridge's Gateway pipeline slides into perspective and becomes exactly what it is - comic relief. We're not in Kansas anymore gentle reader. Readings: 1. A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies, William Nordhaus, Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-300-13748-4. (There is an open electronic copy at BooksZa, for now at least.)     Contents & Acknowledgments     Introduction     ONE   Summary for the Concerned Citizen         Overview of the Issue of Global Warming         The Economic Approach to Climate-Change Policy         The DICE Model of the Economics of Climate Change         The Discount Rate         The Prices of Carbon Emissions and Carbon Taxes         Major Results         The Importance of Efficient Policies         The Advantage of Carbon Taxes and Price-Type Approaches         Tax Bads Rather than Goods         Two Cautionary Notes     TWO   Background and Description of the DICE Model     THREE   Derivation of the Equations of the DICE-2007 Model     FOUR   Alternative Policies for Global Warming     FIVE   Results of the DICE-2007 Model Runs     SIX   The Economics of Participation     SEVEN   Dealing with Uncertainty in Climate-Change Policy     EIGHT   The Many Advantages of Carbon Taxes     NINE   An Alternative Perspective: The Stern Review     TEN   Summary and Conclusions         Reservations         Major Results and Conclusions             1. optimal policy would be relatively inexpensive for a 2.6°C world in 2100             2. optimal carbon (not CO2) price: $42 per ton going to $202 by 2100             3. for cost-effective & efficient policies everyone must play             4. DICE cf. IPCC             5. low-cost environmentally benign backstop technology             6. analysis of the Kyoto Protocol             7. not economically advantageous to undertake sharp emissions reductions             8. uncertainty/risk analysis             9. achieving (even the) optimal policy is likely to prove politically arduous            10. cap-and-trade cf. tax cf. cap-and-tax     Appendix: Equations of the DICE-2007 Model     Notes & References & Index 2. The Question of Global Warming (review of 'A Question of Balance' by William Nordhaus, & 'Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto' edited by Ernesto Zedillo), Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books, June 12, 2008 - Source (paywall), Open Copy. 3. The Question of Global Warming: An Exchange, William D. Nordhaus, Dimitri Zenghelis, and Leigh Sullivan, with a reply by Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books, September 25, 2008 - Source. 4. Claude Allegre et al., No Need to Panic About Global Warming, The Wall Street Journal, January 27 2012 - Source. 5. Claude Allegre et al., Concerned Scientists Reply on Global Warming, The Wall Street Journal, February 21 2012 - Source. 6. Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong, William Nordhaus, The New York Review of Books, March 22 2012 - Source. 7. In the Climate Casino: An Exchange (response to 'Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong'), Roger W. Cohen, William Happer, and Richard Lindzen, with a reply by William Nordhaus, The New York Review of Books, April 26 2012 - Source. 8. The Climate Contrarians (response to 'In the Climate Casino: An Exchange'), Fred Singer, with a reply by William Nordhaus, The New York Review of Books, August 16 2012 - Source). 9. The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World, William Nordhaus, Yale University Press, October 2013, ISBN: 978-0-300-18977-3. (No open electronic copy anywhere that I can find.)     CONTENTS     Acknowledgments & Note to Readers     PART I THE GENESIS OF CLIMATE CHANGE         1   First Encounters in the Climate Casino             A ROAD MAP OF THE TERRAIN AHEAD             THREE STEPS FOR TODAY                 1. understand and accept the gravity of the impacts of global warming                 2. establish policies that raise the price of CO2 emissions                 3. intensively pursue low-carbon, zero-carbon, and negative-carbon technologies             THE CIRCULAR FLOW OF CLIMATE CHANGE, IMPACTS, AND POLICY         2   A Tale of Two Lakes         3   The Economic Origins of Climate Change         4   Future Climate Change         5   Tipping Points in the Climate Casino     PART II IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HUMAN AND OTHER LIVING SYSTEMS         6   From Climate Change to Impacts         7   The Fate of Farming         8   The Impact on Human Health         9   Perils for the Oceans         10   Intensification of Hurricanes         11   Wildlife and Species Loss         12   Adding Up the Damages from Climate Change             VULNERABILITY BY ECONOMIC SECTOR             ESTIMATES OF AGGREGATE DAMAGES             A RISK PREMIUM FOR THE HAZARDS IN THE CLIMATE CASINO             CAUTIONARY RESERVATIONS ABOUT THE ESTIMATES             [CONCLUSIONS]     PART III SLOWING CLIMATE CHANGE: STRATEGIES AND COSTS         13   Dealing with Climate Change: Adaptation and Geoengineering             ADAPTATION: LEARNING TO LIVE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE             GEOENGINEERING: COUNTERACTING GLOBAL WARMING WITH                     ARTIFICIAL VOLCANOES         14   Slowing Climate Change by Reducing Emissions: Mitigation             WHERE DO CO2 EMISSIONS COME FROM?             CO2 EMISSIONS FROM THE HOUSEHOLD PERSPECTIVE             TECHNOLOGIES FOR REDUCING CO2             SOME FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGIES         15   The Costs of Slowing Climate Change             (just the first few paragraphs are excerpted)         16   Discounting and the Value of Time             OUR FIRST MORTGAGE             REAL VERSUS NOMINAL INTEREST RATES             A DISCOUNTING EXAMPLE             DETERMINANTS OF INTEREST             CONSUMPTION TODAY VERSUS CONSUMPTION TOMORROW             PRESCRIPTIVE AND OPPORTUNITY-COST VIEWS OF DISCOUNTING             ESTIMATES OF DISCOUNT RATES             DISCOUNTING AND GROWTH             APPLICATION TO CLIMATE-CHANGE INVESTMENTS             ETHICS AND DISCOUNTING             THE HEAVY BURDEN OF VERY LOW DISCOUNTING             SUMMARY ON APPROACHES TO SLOWING CLIMATE CHANGE     PART IV POLICIES AND INSTITUTIONS FOR SLOWING CLIMATE CHANGE         17   Historical Perspectives on Climate Policy         18   Climate Policy by Balancing Costs and Benefits         19   The Central Role of Carbon Prices         20   Climate-Change Policies at the National Level         21   From National to Harmonized International Policies         22   Second Best and Beyond         23   New Technologies for a Low-Carbon Economy     PART V CLIMATE POLITICS         24   Climate Science and Its Critics             THE MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS             CONTRARIAN VIEWS ON GLOBAL WARMING             POLICIES IN THE CLIMATE CASINO             UNATTAINABLE CERTAINTY         25   Public Opinion on Climate Change             PUBLIC VIEWS ON SCIENCE AND GLOBAL WARMING             UNDERSTANDING MISUNDERSTANDING             CLOSING THE PARTISAN DIVIDE ON CLIMATE POLICY: A CONSERVATIVE PERSPECTIVE         26   Obstacles to Climate-Change Policies             PRISONERS OF NATIONALISM             PRISONERS OF THE PRESENT             PRISONERS OF PARTISANSHIP             PRISONERS OF ECONOMIC SELF-INTEREST             OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES             A FINAL VERDICT     Notes & Index 10. Gambling with Civilization (review of 'The Climate Casino'), Paul Krugman, The New York Review of Books, November 7 2013 - Source. 11. ‘The Climate Casino’ (review), Coral Davenport, NYT, January 10 2014 - Source. 12. An Economist’s Journey (review of 'The Climate Casino'), Mark Jaccard, Science, January 24 2014 - Source (paywall), Open copy.   Apologies to Mark Jaccard - he kindly emailed me a copy of the review but was concerned that I might distribute it (and I presume, upset some kind of copyright arrangement). For the record, someone may have gone down to a library, found a Science Magazine there, and taken a copy from that. It is incredible to me that on this issue which is so important to us all (or should be), opinions are restricted by commerce. Bollocks! Some of the leading lights, James Hansen in particular, make sure that their thoughts are distributed openly. Even more incredible that such a smart guy as William Nordhaus puts himself on the status quo (and personally comfortable I guess) side of the discussion. It is reassuring to find gentle criticism in Mark Jaccard's review - otherwise I might think I am really crazy. In Nordhaus' article for NYR 'Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong' (linked to above) he is so clear - why then is 'The Climate Casino' so wishy washy? These particular two pages hit me like Groundhog Day (the Bill Murray film) ... I just kept reading them again and again, going round & round and ... choking: (my emphasis) 12 ADDING UP THE DAMAGES FROM CLIMATE CHANGE ... CAUTIONARY RESERVATIONS ABOUT THE ESTIMATES ... [144] The major qualification centers on the difficulty of assessing the impacts of tipping points—the potentially discontinuous, abrupt, and catastrophic climate changes and consequences. The economic impacts of the potential singularities are difficult to estimate for the same reasons as those of species and ecosystem losses. They are hard to forecast; the physical impacts are unknown; and the consequences generally lie far outside the marketplace. The challenges are compounded here because the effects may threaten the biological and physical foundations of human and natural societies. In this respect, they are similar to existential debates about national security, where it is difficult to measure the costs and benefits of different strategies. At this stage, the physical sciences still have far to go in understanding the threats from these large-scale tipping points. Once those are better known, we can attempt to understand the dangers they pose to social and natural systems as well as the steps required to prevent these geophysical bank runs. [CONCLUSIONS] What should we conclude at the end of this review of the impacts of future climate change? The first point to emphasize is the difficulty of estimating impacts. They combine the uncertainties of emissions projections and climate models. Even if we overlook the uncertainties about future climate change, the reactions of human and other living systems to these changes are very poorly understood. In part, reactions of social systems are hard to forecast because they are so complex. In addition, humans increasingly manage their own environment, so that a small investment in adaptation may offset the impact of climate change on human societies. Moreover, climate changes are almost certain to occur in the context of technologies and economic structures that will differ vastly from those of today. However, we must look through the fuzzy telescope as best we can. A second conclusion involves the estimated economic impacts of climate change from sectors that we can reliably measure, particularly for high-income countries of today or the future. The estimates here are that the economic impacts from climate change will be small relative to the likely overall changes in economic activity over the next half [145] century to century. Our estimated impacts are in the range of 1-5 percent of output for a 3°C warming. This compares to projected improvements in per capita GDP in the range of 500 to 1,000 percent over the same period for poor and middle-income countries. The loss in income would represent approximately one year's growth for most countries spread over several decades. This projection will surprise many people. However, it is based on the finding that managed systems are surprisingly resilient to climate changes if they have the time and resources to adapt. This finding applies especially to high-income market economies with small agricultural sectors. While some might worry that this dooms poor countries to be laid low by climatic shocks, this concern overlooks the economic growth that underlies the projections of major climate change. China and India, with more than 2.5 billion people, have seen their per capita incomes rise by a factor of almost ten over the past half century.6 Another half century of similar growth will raise the per capita incomes in India and China to around $50,000, with most people working in services and few left in rural farming. The vulnerability of today's poor countries to climate-change impacts is likely to decline significantly by the end of the twenty-first century. A third major conclusion is that the most damaging impacts of climate change—in unmanaged and unmanageable human and natural systems—lie well outside the conventional marketplace. I identified four specific areas of special concern: sea-level rise, hurricane intensification, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity. For each of these, the scale of the changes is at present beyond the capability of human efforts to stop. To this list we must add concerns about earth system singularities and tipping points, such as those involved in unstable ice sheets and reversing ocean currents. These impacts are not only hard to measure and quantify in economic terms; they are also hard to manage from an economic and engineering perspective. But to say that they are hard to quantify and control does not mean they should be ignored. Quite the contrary, these unmanaged or unmanageable systems are the ones that should be studied most carefully because they are likely to be the most dangerous over the longer run. To put this in perspective, the total volume of ice in the endangered ice caps is equivalent to approximately 1,600,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water. This is far beyond what humans can easily pack up to store in some convenient location. The implications of sea-level rise and more intense hurricanes are easily comprehended, and in reality human societies can adapt to them without catastrophic losses. But the implications of ocean acidification and the potential loss of large numbers of species are difficult to comprehend and value reliably. We cannot rule out the possibility that future technologies—the analogs of Bill Gates's patent on hurricane modification—will change the outlook for these worrisome areas. But the hurdles here are much higher than for managed systems such as health and agriculture—and the prudent course is to assume these will not be manageable over the next century or so. Finally, given what is known about impacts, is there a natural limit for which we can say, "Go up to this point but no further"? It would simplify policy if we could find some focal point, some precise numerical target for climate policy. Scientists and policymakers at Copenhagen in 2009 determined that a temperature increase of 2°C compared to preindustrial levels was the maximum that was within the safety margin for earth systems. What does our study of impacts suggest about the Copenhagen target? A balanced approach suggests that the 2°C target is both too low and too high. It is too low given the identified damages analyzed above and the high costs of attaining such an objective discussed in Part III. But it is too high a target if we believe, along with many earth scientists, that the earth has already crossed the thresholds of some of the dangerous tipping points. How can we resolve this dilemma of whether policies are aiming too high or too low? The answer lies in the realm of costs. Faced with the dilemma of deciding between too high and too low, we need to consider the costs of slowing climate change and of attaining different targets, to which I turn next. When that is completed, we can compare costs and benefits and propose a solution going forward—one that balances the twin objectives of preserving our environment for the future while economizing on losses in living standards along the way.   "GOD DAMN THEM ALL! I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold, we'd fire no guns, shed no tears. But I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett's Privateers." °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º Hardly 'the last' by any means but that's what it feels like tonight. And the music I am actually listening to as I write is Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im spiegel not Stan Rogers. Jim Hansen (it seems to me) knows time is running out and so does what he can to promote a desperate & extreme long shot - Thorium nuclear reactors - not to mention just as dirty as CO2 if not moreso. He's not the only one: Gwynne Dyer, the guy at The Guardian? ... George Monbiot, Clive Hamilton; to mention just a few. Or the likes of Marina Silva and Elizabeth May who do what they can (read 'waste their time and energy') in the moribund political realm. Ai ai ai! °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º I collected some photographs of young Turkana girls taken a long time ago when the lake was larger - viz. before Ethiopia decided they need the water in it more than Kenya does. I was going to post them, maybe later. °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º It may be that all you can see here is negativity, boorish and puerile criticism, silly ranting, perverse photomontages and such like.   See what you will see gentle reader, and be well.

 
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GCC HARMONIC CONVERGENCE. IMPORTANT!

(Jumping the queue for an important announcement.)

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The Global Climate Convergence - Earth Day to May Day, 2014: Website: Global Climate Convergence;   also see: Popular Resistance for news. There were 40,000 on the Washington Mall February 17th of last year.   Let's make it a million, and ten twenty thirty times world wide!   (Maybe more than 35 will even show up in k-k-Canada this time.)   Provenance: I go looking to see what's up with Tim DeChristopher and find this interview with Acronym TV: Observations:   Tim's intellectual trajectory is evident & straightforward. He is one of those who thinks we are already in for it and so emphasises mitigation & adaptation over abatement. But the word 'paradigm' is so misused that I shudder when I hear it, and he uses it several times. Maybe that divinity school also has a course named Equivocation 101. Is that it? Michael Mann's analysis of the temperature rise hiatus - described in a recent issue of Scientific American - leads him to say (and me to agree) that perhaps the 2015-2020 deadline has been pushed out a few years. Mann says to 2036, but that is to a mathematically inevitable +2°C world. So I am adjusting to 2025 (for round numbers' sake) as the very last chance to flatten the Keeling Curve and dodge the bullet. Getting to the 'many mansions' stage of the proceedings perhaps eh? Let's hear it for economic collapse before 2025. There's a lot more to this which I will get to eventually; in particular just where 'apocalypse' properly fits in. I'll be gone by 2025 (which influences apocalyptic credibility :-). Harmonic Convergence: Mankind's second chance. It is writ large, somewhere: "In the cusp of converging ages, one blinding, holy moment of transcendence ... shall transform the Zeitgeist with perfect synchronicity, into the pure, ineffable expression of indivisible ... oneness." (Don't follow leaders. Watch yer parkin' meters.)

 
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