Will Technology Save Us Or Kill Us?

[paularoid]

This comes from the latest issue of Lockergnome, a tech 'zine I get every day. I'm actually surprised that the head "lockergnome" (Chris Pirillo) hadn't really taken it seriously until now. :confused:

http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/windows/2007/01/03/will-technology-save-us-or-kill-us/

Will Technology Save Us Or Kill Us?

by Chris Pirillo on January 3, 2007 at 6:36 pm

I first saw Al Gore speak on global warming when I was a senior in high school (1991, well over a decade ago). That was the year I had been invited to attend and participate in the National Meteorological Society’s annual conference in New Orleans. Seven other students from across the country were with me, sitting in the second row for this seemingly-important presentation. The only thing I remember from that speech? Falling asleep. Everything sounded important, but I wasn’t able to connect enough dots to have his projections make sense (personally). Even so, what could I do about global warming? Can one person really make a difference?

Fast forward to the cusp of 2006 / 2007. Ponzi and I happened upon “An Inconvenient Truth” on our cruise ship’s video network (remember, I’m still on my honeymoon right now - as I have been for the past few days). What we watched in that film was beyond jaw-dropping. Global warming is really happening, and it far outstretches any kind of political affiliations and agendas at its core. Our planet doesn’t give a rip if you’re Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Communist, etc. You don’t have to look very far in today’s news to see how Mother Nature is starting to fight back against the virus known as humanity. The record snowstorms in Seattle, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico? Sure, weather patterns are cyclical - but we’re messing with Earth’s Registry, if you’ll entertain the Windows correlation for a moment.

CO2 in the atmosphere is off the charts - a logical (not just political) outcome from sloppy and outdated manufacturing processes and the increasing amount of nations reliant on fossil fuels. The more populations we industrialize, the more carbon dioxide we produce - it’s really *THAT* simple. It’s scary simple. “Technology” can save us, but it is likely leading us down the path of our own destruction. What we need to apply now is our knowledge, not just our tools. I don’t care who you are or where you’re from - we’re all in this together. Forget about our petty differences for just a split second and realize that we’re facing something potentially cataclysmic. This isn’t a future generation’s problem - it’s our problem. This isn’t happening in the future - it’s happening today.

And let’s just pretend for a moment that global warming is a “Chicken Little” scenario. On which side of the argument would you rather side? Isn’t it better to be safe than to be sorry? In this case, “sorry” may very well translate in the complete destruction of everything that you’ve known and loved. I’ve gotta trust my own circuitry on this issue, and that tells me to start making dramatic changes at home - immediately. It’s not just a New Year’s Resolution to change my own energy habits - it’s a lifestyle change that will put me square in the middle of the “solution” column. It’s time to do a bit more research; what are you doing to save your home, the Earth?
.

[DaveM]

Perhaps a silly question but: how does one define "technology"? A branch used as a lever, a sharp edge chipped from a flint, and stones laid in an arch are technology on a primitive level. The use even of these benefits the user, while impacting the immediate environment.

What is the "safe threshold" for technology? Should we contemplate setting one at all? Are today's environmental concerns insurmountable, or merely challenges to be overcome as humanity has done for as long as there have been human beings? Do the benefits outweight the "costs"?

Stray thoughts posted as fodder for discussion only.

[Dee]

January 3, 2007

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science
Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has


raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming

ExxonMobil-funded organizations consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups.

Baliunas is best known for a 2003 paper alleging the climate had not changed significantly in the past millennia that was rebutted by 13 scientists who stated she had misrepresented their work in her paper. This renunciation did not stop ExxonMobil-funded groups from continuing to promote the paper. Through methods such as these, ExxonMobil has been able to amplify and prop up work that has been discredited by reputable climate scientists.

"When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an investigative journalist who wrote the UCS report. "The paper trail shows that, to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading disinformation about global warming."

ExxonMobil has used the laudable goal of improving scientific understanding of global warming—under the guise of "sound science"—for the pernicious ends of delaying action to reduce heat-trapping emissions indefinitely. ExxonMobil also exerted unprecedented influence over U.S. policy on global warming, from successfully recommending the appointment of key personnel in the Bush administration to funding climate change deniers in Congress.

"As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and they do eventually," said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on climate change impacts. "It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the coming years."

The burning of oil and other fossil fuels results in additional atmospheric carbon dioxide that blankets the Earth and traps heat. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased greatly over the last century and global temperatures are rising as a result. Though solutions are available now that will cut global warming emissions while creating jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security, ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change.

"ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer. "Consumers, shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear that its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html

[DaveM]

The Bush administration has been a major player in the disinformation campaign as well. Being a climatologist in the U.S. is not exactly a comfortable profession, should you happen to come up with the "wrong" results. Bye-bye funding....

[Dee]

I see no difference between the global warming nay-sayers and any other denialists. It's like watching a horrible accident unfolding before our eyes and being told we aren't seeing what we're seeing. What’s it gonna take? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Guess profits win out over common sense one more time.

Sometimes it shames me to be part of the human race.

Global warming: a few skeptics still ask why it's happening (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1208/p01s03-usgn.html)

December 08, 2006

With alarms bells over global warming ringing ever louder and more insistent, is it possible - or credible - for an active scientist working on climate questions to be skeptical of the cause or future severity?

Amid mounting evidence that temperatures are rising on planet Earth, the "skeptics" and "agnostics" are a smaller band than they used to be. Yet those who do still harbor doubts about a looming global-warming crisis are quietly continuing to test alternative ideas about how climate works and what, if not the burning of fossil fuels, might be causing the temperature creep.

This week some of the doubters testified at a Senate hearing on global warming, perhaps their last chance to take the bully pulpit for at least two years, now that Congress is shifting to Democratic control. At a hearing chaired by Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, who has dismissed warnings of a global-warming crisis as a hoax, they expressed misgivings about the reliability of climate forecasts and questioned whether the current warming even is unusual, among other things.

These objections are not new, and many environmentalists and scientists say research has already passed them by. Moreover, they distract from the urgent need to get on with curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

[aabram]

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4761

"Facts and fictions about climate change
It has become fashionable in some parts of the UK media to portray the scientific evidence that has been collected about climate change and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities as an exaggeration. Some articles have claimed that scientists are ignoring uncertainties in our understanding of the climate and the factors that affect it. Some have questioned the motives of the scientists who have presented the most authoritative assessments of the science of climate change, claiming that they have a vested interest in playing up the potential effects that climate change is likely to have.
This document examines twelve misleading arguments (presented in bold typeface) put forward by the opponents of urgent action on climate change and highlights the scientific evidence that exposes their flaws. It has been prepared by a group led by Sir David Wallace FRS, Treasurer of the Royal Society, and Sir John Houghton FRS, former chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This document has been endorsed by the Council of the Royal Society, and draws primarily on scientific papers published in leading peer-reviewed journals and the work of authoritative scientific organisations, such as the IPCC and the United States National Academy of Sciences."

Here's another website which people may find interesting :)

[paularoid]

Okay,... so it -might- all be hype. I seriously question the theory that "global warming" is all hype but so what if it is? Which would you rather? Ignore things because you think it's all imagined or actually become proactive and do something about it?

Look at it this way:
Ignoring this so-called "hype" -could- result in the complete breakdown of our environment as we know it today.
Taking action against this "hype" would result in a cleaner and healthier planet and environment even if this global warming -is- all "hype".

Taking action -against- global warming won't hurt us one bit.
NOT taking action most certainly could hurt us.

[DaveM]

I suppose the open question remains as to what sort of action we can take.

We know without question that present climactic trends show ongoing warming. We know that this MAY be the result of human influence. We also know that the amount of potential greenhouse gases emitted by industry, etc. can be reduced--and that seems like a damned good idea.

Unfortunately, we also know that the majority of the world's artificial emissions are from countries like China and India, neither of which are likely to do a damned thing about them. Feel free not to buy anything Chinese in protest of course, but that's becoming more difficult every day.

A far more practical suggestion: regard the battle as lost and prepare to adapt as needed. The Chinese will.

[aabram]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2534402_3,00.html
Interview with David Milliband by my best friend's daughter, Isabel Oakeshott on this very subject :)

A chip off the Blair block
Isabel Oakeshott talks to David Miliband

Fish and chip shops are dangerous places for politicians, as Labour spin doctors know. Peter Mandelson’s image never recovered after he mistook the mushy peas for guacamole at his local chippie in Hartlepool; and in these health-conscious times, it wouldn’t do for an ambitious young cabinet minister to be seen tucking in to such fatty fare with too much alacrity.
So it’s a surprise to find David Miliband, the environment secretary, carefree when he arrives for the reopening of Colmans of South Shields, an award-winning fish and chip shop in his constituency.

Indeed Miliband is practically skipping with enthusiasm as staff prepare the red ribbon, and enthusiastically accepts a giant platter. But then this is a chippie with a difference. As proud notices on each table declare, here they use only wild fish from sustainable fishing grounds; the food is fried in additive-free vegetable oil that’s low in trans fats; and leftover oil from the deep fat fryers is collected and made into biofuel. Beat that.
“The food here’s fantastic, and I’m having full lashings,” says Miliband munching on a chip. “You’ve got to try the fish. It’s so good.”
It must be tiresome having to be a model of environmental virtue even when you go for a fish supper. Few of Miliband’s cabinet colleagues are under as much pressure to practise what they preach every day. But Miliband — tipped as a possible future prime minister — is hounded for every environmental slip-up he makes. He’s even had his bins raided and was castigated for failing to recycle a leaflet about children’s toothcare.
“I’m not a saint — may I make this absolutely clear,” he admits. “I am not running for sainthood. Politicians are human beings. But I’m trying to do better, so we’re trying to recycle more; we’ve switched to a renewable electricity supplier. We take the train when we come up here, but I’m not a saint. Shock.”
It turns out his baby son uses disposable nappies (reviled by the green lobby) and — whisper it — he doesn’t really believe in organic food. “It’s a lifestyle choice,” he says, dismissively. Healthwise, “there isn’t any evidence either way that’s conclusive”.
This won’t please the organic food industry one bit. But it’s a surprise and a relief to find him so frank — for Miliband is believed by many at Westminster to be the ultimate policy wonk, incapable of talking like a normal human being.
He used to head Tony Blair’s Downing Street policy unit, where he was considered so clever that Alastair Campbell nicknamed him “Brains”. I hear that on the football pitch — he plays for a parliamentary football team and is an Arsenal supporter — he calls players guilty of clumsy passes “clots” — an expression I last heard from the prim geography teacher at my all-girls’ school in the early 1980s. But he believes he’s got better at getting his message across simply since being in the cabinet. “It’s something that comes with experience, I think,” he says.
Miliband, 41, divides his time between his home in Primrose Hill, north London, and his constituency home in South Shields. It’s a good job for him that the taxpayer foots the bill for this weekly commute, for while taking the train helps save the planet (creating far fewer carbon emissions than driving or flying) the price of the ticket (£317 first class and £200 for a flexible second-class return) would put it beyond the means of most.
Miliband admits it’s extortionate but, disappointingly for his fellow commuters, it doesn’t sound as if he is about to step in and reduce fares to encourage public transport use.
“If you want French-level fares, you have to put in very much larger subsidies than we are at the moment. You’ve got to make a choice — is the taxpayer going to pay for it? Or is the consumer going to pay for it? I’m not standing here saying my top priority is to increase subsidies for the railway industry. That would be an odd thing to suddenly announce. Does price matter? Of course. But if you book in advance, you can get it cheaper. The government has got to decide the appropriate level of subsidy and since I’m a member of the government I obviously think we’ve got the right level of subsidy.”
It’s the sort of careful response you’d expect from a loyal minister. Not for Miliband the extravagant public attacks of Ian Pearson, his deputy, who last week labelled Ryanair “the irresponsible face of capitalism” and Michael O’Leary, the company’s chief executive, “just completely off the wall” for threatening to boycott the inclusion of aviation in the European Union’s carbon trading scheme. Miliband simply says that airlines should “play their part”.
So how is the environment secretary going to get people to change the way they behave? While cynics and those with vested interests mock the efforts of individuals as small beer, questioning whether recycling the odd baked bean can and composting tea bags is worth the trouble given the dismal bigger picture, Miliband is convinced we must all do our bit.
“Individuals can make a difference,” he says. “If you count energy, transport and food, 44% of total emissions come from households. Individuals will make the difference between cracking and not cracking this global warming phenomenon. But they can’t do it on their own. They need government and business to pull their weight.”
Through the window of the chip shop, I catch a glimpse of Miliband’s wife Louise, a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra, pushing their son Isaac in a buggy. The toddler was controversially adopted from America as a newborn, with Miliband and his wife present at his birth. It’s a subject that’s strictly off limits — though Miliband can’t resist cooing at his golden-haired boy.
“Fatherhood is really fantastic, just the best thing,” he says wistfully, before quickly going back to the environment. Last autumn he wrote to the chancellor suggesting a multi-billion-pound package of taxes on fuel, cars, air travel and consumer goods to combat global warming. His proposals, including “substantial” increases in car tax, a “pay per mile” pollution tax on motorists, and a new mechanism to enable the Treasury rather than the consumer to cash in when oil prices fall, were leaked, creating a furore.

Starting with car tax, I try to pin him down on some of this but Miliband is far too canny to wander into such an obvious trap. After all, the man who has been described by admirers as the “true heir to Blair” is looking to life after the prime minister departs, and his career prospects would hardly benefit from annoying Gordon Brown, Blair’s likely successor, by pronouncing on fiscal policy.
“Car taxation is something the government looks at every year in the budgetary process. I didn’t suggest this interview because I wanted to announce a new Defra tax policy. You’re very welcome to carry on asking me tax questions but I’ll give you a straight bat. You can try them and see if I make a slip, but . . .” he tails off.
Thanks in part perhaps to this sort of caution, Miliband’s political rise has been meteoric. It’s hard to think of a single gaffe he’s made in the five years since he joined the government. His father Ralph, the son of a Red Army soldier, was a socialist intellectual who passed his formidable brains on to both David and his younger brother Ed, also a minister.
The boys grew up in Primrose Hill and went to Haverstock comprehensive school. Miliband got a first at Oxford and joined Labour’s favourite think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, before being hired to head Blair’s policy unit in 1997. He was parachuted into a safe seat in 2001, promoted to minister for school standards the following year and joined the cabinet in 2005.
Such is the impression Miliband has made that last year there was speculation that he might challenge Brown for the premiership. Ultra Blairites in the “anyone but Brown” camp privately argued that it would be best for the Labour party to “skip a generation”, with the youthful urbanite MP better suited than a gloomy Scot approaching his sixties to taking on the fresh-faced David Cameron.
Miliband put paid to such talk, ruling himself out as a contender. “The sort of Michael Heseltine thing where you write on a piece of paper where you’re going to be when you’re 60, that’s not the way I work. If you want to get into that league of politics, you’ve got to go through a real pain barrier, and I haven’t been through that. I think we’ve got a better qualified candidate in Gordon Brown.”
He may be quick to take the opportunity to endorse the man likely to be his boss in a few months’ time. But it would be wrong to suggest that Miliband has such an eye on his future that he’s not prepared to take any risks now. He believes 2007 will be a “pivotal, critical” year for the environment, and is drawing up radical plans to tackle the landfill crisis that could for the first time see householders who produce a lot of non-recyclable waste charged for its disposal.
It follows intense pressure from local authorities, which want powers to offer community tax discounts to residents who recycle. “We’re discussing that in government at the moment,” he says. “We’ve got a waste strategy coming out in March, and I’ve said that I’m personally interested in the idea that there should be discounts if you recycle more, so effectively incentives for recycling.”
He says people are “waking up” to recycling, and that it is “right to look at every way” of boosting rates.
“I don’t think you can have sticks without carrots, would be the way I would put it,” he adds. He brushes aside an alarmist report from the pest control industry last week that blamed recycling for a surge in the rat population.
“If you bag it up properly, and put it in the plastic bins, there’s actually no evidence that it increases vermin.”
Miliband’s other big idea is individual carbon allowances or “credit cards”, a scheme under which everyone would be given an emissions allowance for food, energy and travel. Surpluses could be bought and sold.
He believes bold thinking like this will be crucial to Labour’s survival in what will surely be a tumultuous year as Blair steps down. Is he confident that Brown is the right man? “Yes. I think he is someone who studies the challenges that we face in a way that is really exciting for the country,” he says.

[DaveM]

From Stephen Vincent Benet's "Nightmare, With Angels" (c. 1930s):

"...another angel approached me.
This one was quietly but appropriately dressed in cellophane,
synthetic rubber and stainless steel.
But his mask was the blind mask of Ares, snouted for gas-masks.
He was neither soldier, sailor, farmer, dictator nor munitions-
manufacturer.
Nor did he have much conversation, except to say,
"You will not be saved by General Motors or the pre-fabricated
house.
You will not be saved by dialectic materialism or the Lambeth
Conference
You will not be saved by Vitamin D or the expanding universe.
In fact, you will not be saved."


Okay, suits me. Meanwhile I'm going to put some music on, have a cup of coffee, and eat something full of ingredients that are bad for me.

[Wildflower Fever]

Until the same technology that creates so much waste and pollution can find a way to recycle it's by-products, I believe that the planet will ultimately (when and how is uncertain) expire. Overpopulation and the ever consistent sharing of technology will expedite this.

[paularoid]

Until the same technology that creates so much waste and pollution can find a way to recycle it's by-products, I believe that the planet will ultimately (when and how is uncertain) expire. Overpopulation and the ever consistent sharing of technology will expedite this.
AT LAST! Somebody else "gets it!"

I've been spouting for YEARS that the leading cause of most (if not all) of the ills of the world is due to overpopulation! We're too many rats in a cage so to speak.

[aabram]

http://www.lcrn.org.uk/about_us/the_team/

My nephew (Matthew Thomson) is into this in a big way. Seems as though he and Isabel should get together. Between them and us, we WILL sort this out :D

[DaveM]

Buckminster Fuller wrote, at least 50 years ago, that "Pollution is just resources we aren't using". So true, so true....

[marjan]

Paul and Wildflower I agree with you both. Overpopulation is a problem.
But what to do about it?

China tried the one child per couple law and we all know that did't work.

We are doing our best not giving aids medication to most every one living in Africa (combining that with the Katholic Church rules to not use condomes) that will help to get the numbers down.

Wait there are quit a number of people trying to get a better live in one of our countries .. they sell everything they have to some of us for the promiss of a better live and they die on the journey (maybe by crossing the Mexican boarder to the US, or getting in a boat from Africa to try to reach Europe, or maybe get in to the back of a truck from whatever pour place to try get a better future and die for lack of air, food, water)

Guess what I just found another solution ... we can give everyone wapons if they aks for it. Doesn't matter if it is your neighbour, your alied nation or your enemy :rolleyes:

Thinking about all of this, I think the problem lies most and for all in the we/us part

[Wildflower Fever]

Paul and Wildflower I agree with you both. Overpopulation is a problem.
But what to do about it?

China tried the one child per couple law and we all know that did't work.

We are doing our best not giving aids medication to most every one living in Africa (combining that with the Katholic Church rules to not use condomes) that will help to get the numbers down.

Wait there are quit a number of people trying to get a better live in one of our countries .. they sell everything they have to some of us for the promiss of a better live and they die on the journey (maybe by crossing the Mexican boarder to the US, or getting in a boat from Africa to try to reach Europe, or maybe get in to the back of a truck from whatever pour place to try get a better future and die for lack of air, food, water)

Guess what I just found another solution ... we can give everyone wapons if they aks for it. Doesn't matter if it is your neighbour, your alied nation or your enemy :rolleyes:

Thinking about all of this, I think the problem lies most and for all in the we/us part

I'd like to say that we should just enjoy the ride.:D
Having said that, and in response to your query for a solution, I believe there is nothing we can morally do about it. We'll never control population by enforcing limits, or much more unmentionable things. Knowing this, all we can really do is watch, and see how this sit-com ends up.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, Live for today!:)

[DaveM]

I do not have any children. Under our present system, the only inevitable result of that is that Social Security will go bankrupt a few seconds sooner. But I guess I can reassure myself that I have produced no offspring who will go around belching and farting greenhouse gases.

Recently I learned of a trailer park in Florida which is located on both the Atlantic Coast and the Intercoastal Waterway. A developer who wants the property for condominiums is offering each of the residents an average of $1 million for their trailers and lots. And a fair number are turning him down!

Within the foreseeable future, that "prime real estate" will be underwater. With any luck, some of the yuppies in the condos will go with it. I do hope the trailer park residents are wise enough to take that million dollars, buy some acreage somewhere in the heart of the Upper Midwest, and invest the rest. They'll never have to work again, and global warming or no, this part of the country will neither flood nor turn to desert.

I have several friends in Florida, and genuinely feel for them. With an average altitude above sea level of 17 feet, how long will they have solid ground to stand on?

Come North, friends....we need you far more than you need that house in Hurricane Central.