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Reminder that the problem isn't just "too much GHG", but crossing most planetary boundaries[1] at the same time. I get why MIT has done the research, but this

Reminder that the problem isn't just "too much GHG", but crossing most planetary boundaries[1] at the same time. I get why MIT has done the research, but this publicity is poised to create yet another distraction and delay necessary actions. We have to stop focusing on the symptoms and have the courage to go after the root causes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

kbenson 4y ago
> this publicity is poised to create yet another distraction and delay necessary actions. More knowledge and options are always better. It's up to the people we've chosen to lead us to actually choose an option and follow through, and I don't think one more option there is really what's preventing that. Preventing more options from being presented is just a way to attempt to control the populace by restricting information. Necessary action won't be taken unless there's strong leadership willing to make it a priority, and there's already enough options on the table that whether none or 100 new ones pop up, it makes no functional difference to getting started seriously, but it does possibly allow for a better option to be chosen when we do.
- ckastner 4y ago
  > More knowledge and options are always better. That's not even true in theory. Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem, if only by brute force. There's a reason why RDBMS sometimes skip indexes. And in practice, GP is right: with humans, too many options eventually only distract from the problem.
  - SapporoChris 4y ago
    Well illustrated by Munroe as always. https://xkcd.com/309/ https://xkcd.com/309/
  - ragle 4y ago
    > Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem, if only by brute force. Hick's Law, more or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law
  - niclo 4y ago
    But you are considering an increase only in options without the increase in knowledge to better evaluate options parent is suggesting, and you are putting the constraint that only single option at time may be adopted while in reality multiple may work in parallel/together just fine.
  - kbenson 4y ago
    > Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem Only if you require that every option must be assessed. You can always choose a random subset, or the first X entries, as use those as the solution space. Additional solutions provide for additional strategies in choosing a solution, but at any time you can ignore additional solutions and treat them as if they don't exist. > And in practice, GP is right: with humans, too many options eventually only distract from the problem. The whole point of government is to provide a structure such that decisions like this can be made be reducing the set of people that needs to reach consensus to a manageable about. Those people can choose to accept or ignore any solution presented, and call on whatever expertise they need to make that decision. The whole idea of there being too many solutions only makes sense when you you apply it towards the general public and people whose job isn't to make such a decision or be domain experts. Since those people aren't the ones actually making the decision, providing too many solutions to the problem to them is a non-issue, and for the actual decision makers and domain experts they have on call, additional solutions are beneficial. Whether you or I are getting overwhelmed with the possible solutions is irrelevant. We aren't ultimately the ones that will decide what action to take (at least directly), and we aren't the domain experts advising those that will decide the plans (or present the ultimately small set of options that are valid). At least I don't think so, unless you're a domain expert, but even then, your role would just be to provide advice (or if you're a politician in charge of making this decision, but that's even less likely).
    - dllthomas 4y ago
      If you're choosing a random subset, then new worse options may crowd out existing better options, so it remains the case that more options isn't always better.
    - roughly 4y ago
      > Only if you require that every option must be assessed. You can always choose a random subset, or the first X entries, as use those as the solution space. Additional solutions provide for additional strategies in choosing a solution, but at any time you can ignore additional solutions and treat them as if they don't exist. This presumes that options are of equal value, or at the least that there are more than N actual viable solutions, where N is sufficient to ensure whatever sample size you’re using includes one of the viable ones. “Ignoring additional solutions” presupposes that you know which solutions you should ignore and still requires some form of assessment of the solution space. As for the rest - while indeed it is the job of government to structure these decisions, recent history suggests that the opinions of the broader public still play a role in those decisions, that decisions are rarely made based purely off their technical merits, and that snake-oil salesmen can still do measurable harm to decision-making in representative governments.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  More options is too simple. I hope you agree there is a difference between "Humans cause climate change, we need to get rid of humans" and "Humans cause climate change, we need to reduce human impact to the planet". Presenting the first one is an option that wastes everyone's time.
  - henearkr 4y ago
    Just for the sake of contradicting you, we (all the Humans) could move outside of the biosphere, e.g. on the Moon or Mars. That would completely remove our influence on the biosphere, the atmosphere, the oceans... However that would request so much Earth resources to launch everybody and everything (and thus would definitively destroy the biosphere in the process), that it is just not feasible.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Exactly: a distraction, so strictly worse than not hearing it.
      - henearkr 4y ago
        Yes, but there may be a benefit to launch a part of the Human world outside of the biosphere, e.g. the most polluting industries. It is worth thinking whether it is a good thing or not that a very risky industry (for which an accident could be really disastrous) can take place on the Moon. We can also launch a bare minimum, and then let automated builder robots unroll the industry from local resources (e.g. lunar silicates, other metals,...). This can be how huge photovoltaic grids could be built on the Moon, for example.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        Maybe do that after global catastrophe had been averted.
        henearkr 4y ago
- runarberg 4y ago
  > It's up to the people we've chosen to lead us to actually choose an option and follow through So far this strategy has consistently lead to complete and resounding inaction. The stronger the leadership the more likely we are in actually going in the opposite direction (see e.g. Businaro in Brazil or Trump in the USA). More options have also shown to be a major distraction at best and actively damaging at worst. Take carbon offsets as an example of an option which actively hinders climate action. What climate justice activists have consistently been calling for since at least COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009 is International agreements, carbon tax, and green infrastructure. There has always been fierce resistance from polluters in any of these three items, and so far the political class has consistently cited with the polluters. Then they use distraction policies with questionable results (like cap-and-trade, carbon offsets or magic bubbles) as an excuse not to enact proven policies.
sokoloff 4y ago
It’s a matter of framing the problem. If the cause of climate change is heat gain from the sun being higher than cooling via radiation to space, then GHG reduction works by changing the second part, and partially blocking insolation works by changing the first.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  ... and brings global catastrophe via ocean ecosystem collapse nearer. No. Just no.
atwood22 4y ago
Whether or not crossing planetary boundaries is a problem is a matter of debate, not a settled fact. If we can treat the side-effects of human disruption on the planet, then why is that not sufficient?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Because disaster comes on at the same rate as before, but now you are not doing anything about it.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago
jahnu 4y ago
Not to mention the effects on our ability to think as CO2 goes up.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Fortunately that is already evidently nil, in aggregate.
conductr 4y ago
What if you think that collective human courage is not even feasible? I’d venture to say it’s naive to even believe we’re able to restrict ourselves to the magnitude required. Even if one country found a solution, they’d have no control to exert it on other countries and it would almost certainly come with massive switching costs or limitations. Humans have too many tribal motives and politics to support a single cause like this.
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  yes restraint against structures is impossible, but if you change the structures to be still beneficial for humans and sustainable, thus not requiring restraint, youre good
  - conductr 4y ago
    That’s not really a strategy or even a tactic. It’s a dream. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
    - philosopher1234 4y ago
      Its necessary
hiidrew 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this wiki article, I found it fascinating to skim.

kbenson 4y ago

> this publicity is poised to create yet another distraction and delay necessary actions. More knowledge and options are always better. It's up to the people we've chosen to lead us to actually choose an option and follow through, and I don't think one more option there is really what's preventing that. Preventing more options from being presented is just a way to attempt to control the populace by restricting information. Necessary action won't be taken unless there's strong leadership willing to make it a priority, and there's already enough options on the table that whether none or 100 new ones pop up, it makes no functional difference to getting started seriously, but it does possibly allow for a better option to be chosen when we do.

ckastner 4y ago
> More knowledge and options are always better. That's not even true in theory. Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem, if only by brute force. There's a reason why RDBMS sometimes skip indexes. And in practice, GP is right: with humans, too many options eventually only distract from the problem.
- SapporoChris 4y ago
  Well illustrated by Munroe as always. https://xkcd.com/309/ https://xkcd.com/309/
- ragle 4y ago
  > Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem, if only by brute force. Hick's Law, more or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law
- niclo 4y ago
  But you are considering an increase only in options without the increase in knowledge to better evaluate options parent is suggesting, and you are putting the constraint that only single option at time may be adopted while in reality multiple may work in parallel/together just fine.
- kbenson 4y ago
  > Given a simple problem A, when adding more options, at some point, choosing among the options requires more effort than solving the simple problem Only if you require that every option must be assessed. You can always choose a random subset, or the first X entries, as use those as the solution space. Additional solutions provide for additional strategies in choosing a solution, but at any time you can ignore additional solutions and treat them as if they don't exist. > And in practice, GP is right: with humans, too many options eventually only distract from the problem. The whole point of government is to provide a structure such that decisions like this can be made be reducing the set of people that needs to reach consensus to a manageable about. Those people can choose to accept or ignore any solution presented, and call on whatever expertise they need to make that decision. The whole idea of there being too many solutions only makes sense when you you apply it towards the general public and people whose job isn't to make such a decision or be domain experts. Since those people aren't the ones actually making the decision, providing too many solutions to the problem to them is a non-issue, and for the actual decision makers and domain experts they have on call, additional solutions are beneficial. Whether you or I are getting overwhelmed with the possible solutions is irrelevant. We aren't ultimately the ones that will decide what action to take (at least directly), and we aren't the domain experts advising those that will decide the plans (or present the ultimately small set of options that are valid). At least I don't think so, unless you're a domain expert, but even then, your role would just be to provide advice (or if you're a politician in charge of making this decision, but that's even less likely).
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    If you're choosing a random subset, then new worse options may crowd out existing better options, so it remains the case that more options isn't always better.
  - roughly 4y ago
    > Only if you require that every option must be assessed. You can always choose a random subset, or the first X entries, as use those as the solution space. Additional solutions provide for additional strategies in choosing a solution, but at any time you can ignore additional solutions and treat them as if they don't exist. This presumes that options are of equal value, or at the least that there are more than N actual viable solutions, where N is sufficient to ensure whatever sample size you’re using includes one of the viable ones. “Ignoring additional solutions” presupposes that you know which solutions you should ignore and still requires some form of assessment of the solution space. As for the rest - while indeed it is the job of government to structure these decisions, recent history suggests that the opinions of the broader public still play a role in those decisions, that decisions are rarely made based purely off their technical merits, and that snake-oil salesmen can still do measurable harm to decision-making in representative governments.
guhidalg 4y ago
More options is too simple. I hope you agree there is a difference between "Humans cause climate change, we need to get rid of humans" and "Humans cause climate change, we need to reduce human impact to the planet". Presenting the first one is an option that wastes everyone's time.
- henearkr 4y ago
  Just for the sake of contradicting you, we (all the Humans) could move outside of the biosphere, e.g. on the Moon or Mars. That would completely remove our influence on the biosphere, the atmosphere, the oceans... However that would request so much Earth resources to launch everybody and everything (and thus would definitively destroy the biosphere in the process), that it is just not feasible.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Exactly: a distraction, so strictly worse than not hearing it.
    - henearkr 4y ago
      Yes, but there may be a benefit to launch a part of the Human world outside of the biosphere, e.g. the most polluting industries. It is worth thinking whether it is a good thing or not that a very risky industry (for which an accident could be really disastrous) can take place on the Moon. We can also launch a bare minimum, and then let automated builder robots unroll the industry from local resources (e.g. lunar silicates, other metals,...). This can be how huge photovoltaic grids could be built on the Moon, for example.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Maybe do that after global catastrophe had been averted.
        henearkr 4y ago
runarberg 4y ago
> It's up to the people we've chosen to lead us to actually choose an option and follow through So far this strategy has consistently lead to complete and resounding inaction. The stronger the leadership the more likely we are in actually going in the opposite direction (see e.g. Businaro in Brazil or Trump in the USA). More options have also shown to be a major distraction at best and actively damaging at worst. Take carbon offsets as an example of an option which actively hinders climate action. What climate justice activists have consistently been calling for since at least COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009 is International agreements, carbon tax, and green infrastructure. There has always been fierce resistance from polluters in any of these three items, and so far the political class has consistently cited with the polluters. Then they use distraction policies with questionable results (like cap-and-trade, carbon offsets or magic bubbles) as an excuse not to enact proven policies.

sokoloff 4y ago

It’s a matter of framing the problem. If the cause of climate change is heat gain from the sun being higher than cooling via radiation to space, then GHG reduction works by changing the second part, and partially blocking insolation works by changing the first.

ncmncm 4y ago
... and brings global catastrophe via ocean ecosystem collapse nearer. No. Just no.

atwood22 4y ago

Whether or not crossing planetary boundaries is a problem is a matter of debate, not a settled fact. If we can treat the side-effects of human disruption on the planet, then why is that not sufficient?

ncmncm 4y ago
Because disaster comes on at the same rate as before, but now you are not doing anything about it.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago

jahnu 4y ago

Not to mention the effects on our ability to think as CO2 goes up.

ncmncm 4y ago
Fortunately that is already evidently nil, in aggregate.

conductr 4y ago

What if you think that collective human courage is not even feasible? I’d venture to say it’s naive to even believe we’re able to restrict ourselves to the magnitude required. Even if one country found a solution, they’d have no control to exert it on other countries and it would almost certainly come with massive switching costs or limitations. Humans have too many tribal motives and politics to support a single cause like this.

philosopher1234 4y ago
yes restraint against structures is impossible, but if you change the structures to be still beneficial for humans and sustainable, thus not requiring restraint, youre good
- conductr 4y ago
  That’s not really a strategy or even a tactic. It’s a dream. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
  - philosopher1234 4y ago
    Its necessary

hiidrew 4y ago

Thanks for sharing this wiki article, I found it fascinating to skim.